Kings and Assassins

by Lane Robins

  Janus said, “Mal trusted me to do what needed to be done.”

  “Done to death. Did he trust you when you drove your blade into his heart?”

  Even Chryses paled as the words left his mouth, suddenly conscious of having gone too far. Janus moved like a lick of flame, hands tight around Chryses's neck. Both men were panting with rage, though Chryses added pain and effort to his breathing.

  Idiots, the both of them, Delight thought, and coughed as he rose. He found an empty teacup and spoon, and picked them up, stirring the spoon as he moved forward. The simple, peaceful sound made them both jerk, release each other. Chryses inhaled greedily and rubbed his throat resentfully.

  Delight came closer, hoping Janus couldn't see his fingers were tight around the cup, the nervous tremor of his lips stilled between anxious teeth. Delight tried a wavering smile. “I do apologize for my brother. As you say, he lacks good sense.”

  Janus merely nodded, but the redness on his cheeks seemed less about rage now and more about embarrassment.

  Chryses coughed a little and spit red-tinged phlegm at Janus's feet. Delight scowled. “Please, Chryses. The house is ruin enough.”

  Delight passed the empty teacup to Chryses, who stared at it in sore-throated betrayal, and said, “You never did know when to leave well enough alone. You think on a machine for Gost, and let me talk with our lord and master here.”

  Delight reached up and tucked a lock of his brother's hair behind his ear; coarse with dye and rough handling, it clung to his fingers, and turned the moment into a caress of a kind they hadn't shared since that one ruinous night. He jerked away.

  Delight wrapped his hand around Janus's elbow, succeeding despite Janus's instinctive flinch, still trembling with nerves and temper.

  “Forgive me,” Janus said. His voice was husky; his head drooped. Delight, after a panicky moment of indecision, put his arms around Janus's shoulders and drew him close.

  “Of course,” he said. “But your temper will bring you to regret one day, when you kill someone that you need.”

  Janus shuddered in his arms, hesitantly leaned close, whispered. “Too late for that advice, I'm afraid.” Delight touched his hair, stroked it once, and then Janus was pushing away. A chink of glass hitting metal drew both their attention. Chryses let the bottle down from his mouth, and without a word, passed it toward Janus.

  Delight nodded when Janus, seemingly unaware of it, glanced at him for … what? permission? encouragement? Janus tilted the bottle and took several long pulls of Chryses's homemade brew without more than a grimace.

  “Peace between us,” Chryses said, though his voice was sullen yet.

  Janus nodded, and Delight felt the long-held tension in his body subside. His skirt quivered along the torn section; his muddied stockings drew his gaze, and he bent to rub at them. “Ten lunas gone,” he said.

  Janus laughed, coughed, and laughed some more. Chryses's face darkened, taking personal offense at Janus's laughter. No sense, Delight thought again as Chryses stormed out.

  “Laugh too hard and I'll send you shopping for me, and wouldn't that set the cat among the canaries. The Earl of Last buying stockings.”

  “Don't be ridiculous,” Janus said. “I'd send Savne.”

  Delight had to laugh himself. Janus had described Savne so often and so unlovingly that Delight could imagine it well enough.

  He ushered Janus back to the study, pushed aside a stack of papers in front of a cabinet, and unearthed a bottle of Antyrrian whiskey. “Here,” he said. “It'll soothe you better than that rotgut Chryses brews.”

  Janus took the dusty bottle, but made no gesture to drink from it, merely turning it in his hands.

  “You should be careful of Chryses,” Delight said. “He holds grudges, and I believe you need us more than we need you.”

  Janus raised his head, infuriated anew. “Your country needs a king. It has no need of a fop who prefers women's clothing.”

  “So moody,” Delight said. “I suppose it's a function of your youth.”

  “Or perhaps it's a result of my plans being constantly overset or challenged,” Janus said. “I swear this kingdom wants nothing more than to be annexed by Itarus.”

  Delight paused in putting the whiskey away to pour himself a glass. “Are things so disordered as that?” He sipped; he didn't allow himself much in the way of spirits at all. Drunkards made dangerous engineers.

  “Could it be anything else?” Janus said. “I needed Aris alive. Failing that, I needed my wife not to accuse me of his murder. My chances dwindle and yet, I must spend time I cannot afford attempting to prove myself innocent of regicide. I'm not at all certain such proof is attainable, unless Ivor's pet assassin can be found and be persuaded to speak out against his master. I have doubts either one will be an easy task.”

  Delight set down his glass with a decisive clink. “Let Rue worry about Aris's murder. It's his duty and Rue is a man who loves his duty. You can trust him—”

  “When Bull owns him and the kingsguards? Bull is no friend of mine.”

  “Are you certain?” Delight asked. “I rather thought he was. Though perhaps he's been put off by your temper since Aris's death. When you first came to us, you wore a pleasant mask of civility. What happened to that?”

  “It was a mask,” Janus said. “They wear, they crack, they fall to ruin.”

  “That's when you tie the straps tighter and soldier on,” Delight said. He swished his skirt over Janus's boots briefly, making his point. “Until your task is done. This is a court of artifice—”

  “I know,” Janus said.

  “You forget,” Delight said. “Play your games as bloodily as you need but keep a civil tongue and smile. At the very least, the ladies will nag their husbands to support your pretty face.”

  Janus's neck tightened. “Not with Psyke and Celeste Lovesy spreading slander.”

  Delight sat behind the great desk, traded his glass for a pen, and sketched tiny gears and chains thoughtfully, a ship, a fallen crown, a woman's long hair. His hands stilled. “You say Psyke blames you?”

  Janus sighed. “She witnessed the crime. Aris died in her arms.”

  Delight's lips felt tight, numb. “Poor girl.”

  “I might have felt pity if she hadn't accused me with all the fervor of a broadsheet sensationalist.” Janus dropped into a chair on the other side of the desk; it creaked beneath him.

  “Psyke is not imaginative,” Delight said, feeling his way gently into this conversation. He had no desire to provoke Janus into another tantrum. It was healthy for neither of them. Still, he couldn't reconcile Psyke with Janus's description. “Or used not to be. I always found her a most rational being.”

  Janus twitched; his eyes widened and then hooded again. Oh, Delight thought. Janus didn't know they were acquainted. Sometimes Delight forgot how recent an arrival to the court Janus truly was.

  “I saw nothing rational about her,” Janus said, “only hatred and rage.”

  Delight shook his head. “No,” he said. “People do not change so much as that. Her feelings may be dark and furious, but her mind is a reasonable place.”

  “People change in deeper ways than you might think,” Janus said. Something in his voice echoed with exhaustion. “Maledicte was not always as he was. It was Ani who shaped him.”

  “Do you really believe in that archaic nonsense?” Delight asked. “They're wonderful tales, morality plays of a most dubious sort, but nothing more.”

  Janus shook his head. “Now who's naïve?” he muttered. “I am a logical man, Delight. You know as much. My interests are in the sciences, in the mysteries that can be solved. If I tell you that Psyke's behavior has altered in a profound fashion, you may trust it is so.”

  “The king died in her company. Reason enough for moodiness,” Delight said. His tone or expression must have been forbidding; Janus merely shrugged and let it go. With, Delight noticed, a particularly false smile.

  “Will you do one thing for me?”
Janus said. “You're better placed than I for research.” He shrugged. “I can't even take a meal in peace.”

  Delight fought a smile; sometimes Janus was more boy than man. “If I can.”

  “Research the gods for me. Turn your mind to Them. I have questions regarding—”

  “Of course, my lord,” Delight said, letting aggravation and acid etch his tone. “Because I have so many hours free where I'm not attempting to create machines that may save our country's future—”

  “Chryses has time to infiltrate the antimachinists and to aid your engineering—”

  “Less and less,” Delight said. “This is the first night he's back before the false dawn—”

  “Do as I say,” Janus snapped. “Any god but Ani. I want their signs and portents.”

  Delight bit back his retort; that fixed tension in Janus's jaw was beginning to return. He gentled his voice, “I wouldn't know where to begin, Janus.”

  “Rosany's Booksellers,” Janus said, surprisingly prosaic. “I understand they have a back room for such things. I have an account with them. You can send one of your assistants if you're too shamed to be seen buying religious tracts.” That pale blue gaze dropped, traced the line of torn skirt and ruined stocking, and Delight sighed.

  “If you insist. Will you tell me why?”

  Janus shifted uncomfortably in the leather chair, poked at the gap where Delight had taken wadding from it in a sudden need for such to apply oil to a recalcitrant set of gears. Janus sighed, leaned his head into his hands and peered up with one, tired blue eye. “Something stirs in the palace. I would be ready for it.”

  “If you're hunting gods,” Delight said, “you'll be wasting your time and mine.”

  Janus sighed again. “Let's not discuss it further.” Though it was couched as a request, there was no doubt Janus meant it as a command.

  Delight nodded; Janus was tired, Aris was dead, and the Itarusine prince made himself at home in the palace. Likely Janus wasn't thinking clearly. Delight decided he'd send Georgie or Whitsonby whichever one of their aides came earliest, to collect a handful of tracts to give Janus on his next visit. Likely by then, Janus's common sense would have returned and he'd chuck them straight into the fire. “To business, then. I think the steam-powered boat might be prepared.”

  At Janus's skeptical look, Delight said, “It hasn't exploded for a week now.”

  “The last time you tested it?” Janus said.

  “A week ago,” Delight admitted. “But I've a new idea that should solve the difficulty. It would be something new, and something that can't be seen as a violation of the treaty.”

  Janus nodded. “I'll leave it to you and Chryses. Find me something special to show Gost. I won't be able to help much. I cannot be away from the palace too long, not while Ivor dwells within the walls.”

  Delight leaned forward, hopeless curiosity rising in his breast. “Is the prince ascendant truly as terrible as they say?”

  “Ivor? He's everything charming,” Janus said. “Right up until the moment he steps away from your corpse.”

  ♦ 10 ♦

  SYKE IXION, COUNTESS OF LAST, was perched on a nursery stool, too low even for her comfort, watching Prince Adiran play with lettered blocks, when the Duchess of Love ran her to ground.

  At first, Psyke failed to recognize her as anything but another of the shadowy figures that trailed her and breathed cold words into her ears. But the nursery attendant dropped a hasty curtsy at this black-clad visitor, and when Psyke raised her bare feet from the stone floor, Celeste Lovesy stayed, while the other shadows vanished.

  Whatever madness plagued her, Psyke thought, it was remarkably consistent. Let her skin touch anything of earth—stone, soil, wood—and ghosts lingered in her sight. Yet to divorce herself entirely from the earth caused her inexplicable pain. She rocked on the stool, its legs wobbling beneath an adult's weight, and she set her feet down again.

  Aris's shade returned, though the others—faceless entities nebulous enough to actually be shadows were it not for the lack of light to cast them—had faded away. Nearby, Adiran pushed blocks together with a careful determination that was new, sorting them instead of simply piling them one atop another.

  “Psyke,” the duchess said, but all Psyke's attention was on Adiran, on the blocks that were slowly spelling out papa. Sir Robert had been in the nursery earlier, testing the boy's reflexes, his responsiveness, and pronounced the boy's condition improving. Psyke saw evidence of it herself. What neither the doctor nor her own observation had gathered was any reason why.

  The duchess pinched her arm, the crystal-tipped gloves sharp and painful even through Psyke's thin, wool sleeve. She jerked her arm away, rubbing the tiny injury and noting that Adiran had paused to watch them warily.

  “Do come along,” the duchess said. “I wish to speak to you in more congenial surroundings.”

  “Adiran should not be left alone—”

  “There are guards aplenty,” the duchess said. “The boy will bide.”

  Psyke cast a last glance about the room, at the boy huddled into his tight, defensive knot, arranging blocks as if the words formed could protect him—papa, papa, and some blocks newly lettered in a childish hand when the illustrated blocks had lacked the proper letters—and at the dancing shadows through the window, birds darting and swooping, their nest disturbed.

  The duchess snatched at Psyke again, and Adiran tensed, his soft mouth tightening into an unhappy frown. Psyke rose to her feet, brushing her skirts, and followed the duchess out of the nursery, rather than upset Adiran.

  Expecting Celeste to guide her into one of the many empty rooms along the hallway, Psyke found herself stumbling instead down the main stairs, past the throne room and antechamber and outside into the pillared arcade. She blinked in the daylight, the crisp spring air with a few lingering hints of smoke from the cool night previous.

  Psyke leaned back, breathed deep, but the sun and the sky failed to lift the weight on her skin. Her shoulders ached dully, as if the black bombazine she wore were heavy enough to bruise her flesh. The duchess's carriage waited; the duchess, handed up into the coach, tapped her foot once. Psyke straightened her shoulders, and took the coachman's hand.

  The coach moved slowly through the crowded streets, giving Psyke a view of the public's mood. The wealthy merchants waiting to see the regent or regents—or whoever they could voice their worries to—had faces writ with confidence or concern. The general rabble of pickpockets, gamesmen, and harlots preying on the crowds were all focus and determination: Who knew when such ripe pickings would walk the streets again, and so distracted? But there were a disturbing number who left the carriage's path wearing masks of quiet fury. Men who looked like displaced farmers. Beyond them, jostling and picking fights, were the young men of several classes who had nowhere to direct their ambition in the overcrowded city.

  Aris had tried to quiet this aimless hunger in recent months by allotting each ship that sailed for the Explorations a handful of open berths, a spur to those seeking life and profit elsewhere. It had been one of the few points she and Aris had quarreled on: What kingdom could benefit by its people fleeing it? But Aris had only accused her of listening overmuch to Janus, and dismissed her concerns.

  The jolt and clatter of the coach wheels smoothed to a hum as the coachman guided the horses into Garden Square, where the pavement was smooth as tile to provide a gentler ride for those of the most genteel blood. Psyke, looking curiously about her, saw mossy stone walls behind the homes, hiding the elaborate private gardens that gave the square its name and the cachet of the most sought after residences.

  How often had Psyke heard her mother say that if only they lived in Garden Square all her daughters would be wed and wed well, that there was nothing for eliciting proposals like a young girl in a bower of roses. Gwena, Psyke's youngest sister—brittle tempered, always quick to defend herself from slights, imagined or otherwise—had retorted that the young ladies of Garden Square had more tha
n a backdrop of flowers to their advantage—they had extraordinary dowries, and if their mother would be so kind as to oblige—

  The Lovesys had held ownership of their Garden Square manor for six generations. Amarantha Lovesy, Celeste's daughter, married so briefly to Michel Ixion, the former Earl of Last, had brought nearly thirty thousand sols with her to the marriage, as well as several priceless pieces of personal jewelry. Psyke knew the amount of the dowry exactly; Janus had told it to her once, giving her an explanation for Celeste Lovesys hatred that had little to do with Maledicte or Amarantha's murder.

  Greed, Janus declared, was the duchess's driving force, not grief. After all, at Amarantha's death, and the former earl's death, Janus had inherited it all.

  Psyke's fingers clenched on her skirts, remembering with a cold shock that in her jewel box, she had Amarantha's best parure. Janus had brought the set to her, its necklace composed of elaborate links of alternating sapphires and pearls.

  He'd left it for her, awkwardly, in the first days of their marriage, with a comment that they suited Psyke far more than they had ever suited Amarantha, whose beauty, he claimed, was too hard for bright stones. Psyke had been appalled at the tactlessness that gifted her with a dead woman's most recognizable jewels and at the furtive pleasure she felt that Janus admired her at all. The pleasure had lasted until she realized the other set famously worn by Amarantha—gold pieces with onyx and ruby—Janus had gifted elsewhere.

  Now Psyke gritted her teeth, feeling the fool. The onyx and ruby parure, or what was left of it, had resurfaced the day they moved from Lastrest, the country estate, to the palace. The stones had been pried out, the gold twisted and broken by a too-hasty hand and discarded in a linen room. With Aris's death fresh in her memory, Psyke redrew the past. Janus had given the parure to Maledicte—a bizarre gift for a young man, but Ani was crow enough to be fond of glitter. Psyke groaned, and Celeste condescended to acknowledge her presence for the first time in many minutes.