Kings and Assassins

by Lane Robins

  “Whatever is it that pains you?”

  “Maledicte dwelled at Lastrest and I didn't notice. I could have stopped it all. If only I'd been less blind, Aris might live.” She rolled her head, fought tears.

  “Don't dramatize yourself, girl,” the duchess said. “Maledicte is dead.”

  “Maledicte killed Aris.”

  The carriage halted at the Lovesy mansion, and the coachman came to open the door. The duchess said, “We need to refine your strategy. Maledicte's name is good for waking fright in those too dull to be roused any other way—”

  “It's true,” Psyke said, though the passion was already gone from the retort.

  Celeste merely sighed. “What does it matter whose hand it was; Janus is to blame. That we can agree on. Your husband is all things malignant, and worse, he has been very industrious. Petitioning Parliament for funds for his disgraceful privateers, his silly experiments, food for the rabble. I never thought to find myself grateful for an Itarusine presence here, but without Prince Ivor, Last would be further ahead in his plans.”

  “Ivor's no gift,” Psyke said.

  “Don't be argumentative,” the duchess said, finally allowing the coachman to hand her down. “It's unbecoming.”

  Left with only Celeste's retreating back, Psyke hesitated in the carriage, irritated and contemplating commanding the coachman to drive her back to the palace. The coachman coughed, an arm outstretched to take her weight. “Your hand, milady. The horses wait on you.”

  She scrambled out of the coach, feeling like a debutante who had just fallen headlong over her hem before an audience. Stone chips stung her feet. The duchess had whisked her away from the palace so swiftly, that Psyke had forgotten she had spurned her slippers.

  As Psyke trotted to catch up with the duchess's longer strides, the woman turned a brittle smile on her. “Without Ivor to goad him, to distract him, Janus might pay more attention to Bull and DeGuerre. As it is, he has merely dismissed them as weak, apparent from the manner in which he deals with them. But should he gain some sense—both men are easily wooed. Admiral DeGuerre, for one, is watching Janus most carefully—always jealous that the title went to his brother's family. Janus could own him simply by declaring the Marquis DeGuerre's exile permanent and the title passed to the admiral's side of the family.”

  “Aris is dead—murdered,” Psyke said. She walked past overgrown climbing roses that snagged her skirts. She paused to free herself from the thorns. The roses were white, mostly withered, and scentless; the thorns pricked her fingers. “The admiral would not collude with a regicide simply for a title.”

  Celeste swept through the doors opened by two curtsying housemaids. “Don't be naïve, girl; you are too old for schoolgirl dreams and in too important a position. Men have always bartered with their enemies when it suited them. Aris's court has been static and small natured, ambitious men locked into petty struggles. His death opens the door for change. Fortunes rise or fall in times such as these.”

  Psyke was silent, thinking about it. She turned automatically toward the open parlor door, caught in years of tradition. An afternoon call, no matter the circumstance, meant the parlor and tea, perhaps a stroll in the gardens after if the weather was particularly fine. Celeste reached out and took her arm, cozed it against her side. “The dining hall upstairs, please. I have something to show you.

  “I think our time to stop Janus is limited. Did you mark Gost and Janus at the graveyard together?” At Psyke's nod, Celeste continued. “Gost can increase Janus's power immensely.”

  “He's been out of the court for years,” Psyke said, but the flash of angry disappointment in Celeste's eyes made her stop, pull her arm free, and think. She traced the carvings on the banister, imagining the elaborate curlicues as Janus's plans, twisting behind the scenes. “Gost might support Janus simply because he… doesn't know Janus,” she said, “only the rumors, which are easy to discount for a man who is notoriously fond of fact.”

  “Exactly,” Celeste said. “After ten years among the ascetics in Kyrda, turning their frivolous child prince into a man of well-restrained power, Gost has been vocal about disliking what he's seen on his return. A court in twilight, fading away. We must show Gost that Janus's schemes are flawed, dangerous, and that Janus is the spit of every wolf that threatens our kingdom.”

  “How?” Psyke said. “Gost tends to impatience with females.”

  They entered the dining room, and Psyke's question fled her mind. Suddenly she was no longer sure she wasn't lost in another vivid nightmare. The Duchess of Love bestowed a benign smile on her, and moved to the table and the thing on it.

  Her gloved hands, jet crystals dangling from the fingertips, made tiny, melodic chimes as she stroked the tabletop, over the skeleton that was laid out as tidily as if it were nothing more than a place setting. The linen tablecloth browned where the sodden bones pressed and the marrow leaked.

  Psyke pressed her shivering back against the doorframe for support. Her shoulders throbbed, and there came an instant of silence that engulfed her body, leaving her stranded in a space as soundless as the grave. She thought she heard a tiny, pained whisper rising from the bones before Celeste's voice broke through, as calm as if the table were set for dinner. “Now that the gods have returned, if one can so judge by Ani's presence in Mirabile and in Maledicte, we shall have divine aid in ridding our kingdom of the blight—”

  Psyke found her voice, or what was left of it. She said, “You can't mean to call upon Ani! It was Her doing that Maledicte became a threat at all.”

  “Calling on Her would be inappropriate and, as it stands now, unnecessary. We have other means at our disposal.”

  Psyke held back, wanting to leave, afraid of the fervor in Celeste's eyes. A breath of air, a draft in the pleasant room, made Psyke feel as if someone had come to stand beside her. She wished someone had so that she could turn, shelter her face in a strong shoulder. Avoiding the bones decaying on the table, her gaze sought refuge elsewhere but found no relief: the sideboard held knives and age-spotted tracts with lurid covers of men dying in agony.

  “Come, come,” the duchess said. “Come see, here is your fear undone—Maledicte gone to mortal clay—and we will use it against his own lover.”

  Closer to the body, a smudgy shimmer seemed to rise from the bones, like a ripple of air on an overhot day. In contrast, the cool draft moved more silkily about Psyke, resting against her skirts and ringleted hair without disturbing them. That whisper came again, borne in her bones and blood.

  “It's not Maledicte,” she said, her voice a distant surprise even to herself “It's witchcraft you've planned, bones that have been touched by the gods to power your spells, but this—this was just a boy.”

  The history of flesh coated the bones even as she spoke—a young man, peak faced, with dark hair, a gaping wound in his chest and surprise in his expression. Having dressed his bones in flesh, she undressed his past piece by piece. A city lad, prone to consumption, like his mother, like his father, and sold to the country—

  For his health, a shadow breathed in her ear, a cold, furious whisper. Or so they told him.

  —and farming was hard, so hard, too hard, and there were riches back in Murne, so he packed his best shirt, stole a pair of good breeches from the farmer, and sought the city again. The ships caught his eye—

  No intelligent captain takes a boy like that on, the voice continued, too sickly, too pretty. It's nothing but trouble.

  —and no one wanted him except the brothels, so he learned to shrug the pain and shame off; with enough cheap Absente to drink, he learned to like it—

  A familiar story and save the ending, too dull to be borne, the voice whispered, insinuating. His looks attracted the wrong man, and he found a blade in his heart. He found a lord asking for him, a shining man with blond hair, eyes bright blue. Psyke disliked the arch amusement of this ghost, a voice familiar but unrecognized, tried to shy away. Her face felt hot, her skin cold. Her mouth was as dry as
if she had been eating clay.

  Pain burst against her arm, the sharp edge of crystals pressing into her soft skin. The images, the whispering ghosts, blew away like smoke, taking all that knowledge with them. She blinked at the duchess standing beside her and repeated the only thing she knew. “It's not Maledicte.”

  The duchess's hands tightened again, and Psyke thought the crystals must be causing Celeste pain as well as they gouged her fingertips. The woman's lips compressed as tightly as her grip. “These are the very bones that hung above the palace. I paid the guards a fortune to divert them from the grinders and the sea tides. They are Maledicte's—”

  “They are the bones of a prostitute, likely murdered so that his hair, his bones could be sold to decadent noblemen and women as gruesome conversation pieces. Here, my dear, you must see… the very bones of Maledicte, the murderer….” Psyke said, acid mockery scouring her throat. She yanked her arm out of the duchess's grasp, heard the fabric rasp free. “They have no power over him at all.”

  The duchess stared at her in such a way that Psyke thought if she were the woman's daughter, she would have had her ears boxed. “You have always been a fanciful girl,” she said, though their worlds had never mixed. Still, it was clear that the duchess had a marked preference for her own assumptions. “There is a time and place for stories, but you have long outgrown it.”

  The duchess swept over to the bellpull, and gave it a firm yank. When the maid appeared, she kept to the doorway as if she couldn't wait to be dismissed from the room; skeletons, Psyke thought, were no doubt an inexplicable change in their routine.

  “Bring us fresh water,” the duchess said. The maid bobbed her head and disappeared without a word. She tapped her hand against her skirts, a rustle rasp three times, and a scrabble of nails on wood responded, as her little lapdog leaped off a chair and came to her.

  The duchess placed the little dog on the table; it squirmed and wagged its stubby tail, climbing over the bones until she urged it to lie down.

  The maid returned with a crystal decanter on a tray, two goblets, and a tiny bowl. At the duchess's imperious nod, she put it down on the table, though the tray rattled as she reached the bones.

  The duchess reached into the rib cage of the skeleton, removed a small piece of chalk. “It's been resting in the place of his black heart,” she said, “and should be quite steeped in poison by now.”

  “It's harmless,” Psyke said, but she watched as the duchess tipped the chalk into the decanter, removing her glove and tossing it away as if it had been contaminated. She swirled the water, raised it to cloudy sediment, seemed bewildered that there was no quantifiable change—rank superstition, Psyke's father would have said, and the chill of disapproval in his voice marked the return of the cool weight at her back.

  That other voice, the one Psyke knew she would recognize if she only allowed herself to, sneered and said, Wrong materials. She might as well spit in it and expect her own hatred to do the job.

  The duchess poured the water into the crystal bowl and set it before her dog. Psyke drew back in surprise and distaste. The pained satisfaction on the duchess's face said the lady expected the poison to work; she would prove Psyke wrong though it would cost her a beloved pet.

  The dog lapped, splashing water over its fuzzy muzzle and across the linen cloth. When it was done, it leaped down and frisked about the duchess's feet, worrying at the beadwork on her skirts.

  After several minutes, the duchess reached down with a hand that shook, and collected her dog to her breast. She smoothed its cotton-fluff fur with her bare hand; it chewed on the crystal-tips of her glove and growled.

  Psyke found herself talking again, channeling that sneering, unwelcome voice. “Witchcraft was your only plan? Hardly what I would expect of a lady of your stature. Are your wits all geared to the lesser battles of bad manners and scandalous dress? No stomach for striking one's enemies head-on?” The voice faded away as rapidly as it had overtaken her, leaving her dizzy and faint. She leaned her weight on the back of a carved chair, her fingers stroking the soothing scrolls of painted wood until her heart slowed.

  “Mind your tone,” the duchess said, though it was pro forma and had no real heat behind it. She rang the bell again, and when the maid reappeared, she said, “Dispose of that.” The sweep of her hand encompassed the mess of water, the crystal decanter, the bowls, and the skeleton itself.

  The maid looked dismayed and no wonder, Psyke thought, faced with such a chore, but the duchess began speaking again. “If guile will not serve us, we will have to act directly, and that is a more chancy prospect. Your husband is not foolish enough to leave us an easy avenue of attack.”

  “Need we attack him at all?” Psyke asked. “Captain Rue will find proof against him, and the court will judge him. We only need keep him from killing Adiran—”

  The duchess's face froze into a mask of perplexity and disapproval.“Vacillation is a sign of a weak mind, Psyke. I am perfectly capable of judging him, proof or no proof, and I would think you able to do the same. Judge your husband by the caliber of his enemies—right-thinking men like Hector DeGuerre, like Aris—and by those he deems friends, killers like Maledicte.”

  Psyke frowned, let her gaze fall to her skirts. Was the duchess right to act so swiftly? Psyke thought of Adiran in the nursery, of Janus discovering the boy's unaccountable improvement, and imagined the bloodshed that would result.

  “You have a plan?” Psyke asked. She felt oddly disloyal, and chastised herself for it. Janus might have been kind to her in the past, gentle with her, but it had been a sham, a pretence to distract her from the truth that Maledicte lived. Janus had killed her king, had lied to her, had…

  Killed her, a shadow whispered. Psyke shuddered but remembered those strange, cold dreams, and the effort it had taken to wake.

  “… will continue my research,” the duchess said, her skirts flaring as she turned away from Psyke, leaving her with the nagging sense that she had missed her cue. “If these bones played me false, well, there is another to be unearthed. In the interim, I suggest you gentle your husband, so that, like my pup, he will take poison from your hand.” She collected one of the philosophical tracts and left the room.

  Psyke followed, but diverged from the duchess's path to tell the duchess's coachman to return her to the palace. Once safely enclosed and hidden by the black drapes covering the windows, Psyke let her posture slump, her tears rise. Janus was a threat to Adiran, to the kingdom—his ambition trumped any ideals he spoke. He had to be stopped. But, oh, she hated the duchess's eager grasping for the gods and their cast-offs. Psyke had seen the gods at work, seen Mirabile, aided by Black-Winged Ani, murder her friends, her family.

  Psyke believed the problems of men should be solved by men.

  She leaned forward and put her face in her hands. She had wanted the Duchess of Love to agree with her, to aid her against Janus; she had that now, but the taste of triumph was bitter.

  ♦ 11 ♦

  RINCE IVOR SOFIA GRIGORIAN HAD intended to make another attempt on the nursery but found himself turned back by a guard at the base of the stairs. Rather than cause a scene, Ivor merely shifted his goal, heading for the open pavilions where the nobles gathered and gossiped. Mid-afternoon and the scandal was being passed as freely as the tea and cake. Rumors blew on the breeze, brushing against eager ears and dispersing as quickly as they had come.

  Ivor sat down in a low chaise near a wide window overlooking the gardens, smiled at Lady Secret, sitting nearby like an overblown peony. Fifteen minutes later, Ivor was coaxing out the rumors he wanted to hear most, the ones centering on Prince Adiran.

  The stories overlapped, contradicted, built on one another: The boy was witless and always had been. The boy had been shamming for years, dilatory by nature. The boy had been hidden, Aris's secret weapon, or victim of Aris's paranoia. The boy was recovering, through Sir Robert's medicine, through Aris's tender care, through intervention by the gods….

  The rumo
rs spun endless variations on a single tune: The prince might be fit to rule.

  Ivor found it hard to accept; he had seen the boy. The prince had been brought down to dinner often enough, as if he were a son to be proud of, instead of weak and soft and simple as an infant.

  Grigor would have made quick work of any son born so flawed. The icy waters that surrounded Itarus were a boon to families who wished such burdens gone discreetly.

  But the Antyrrian softness benefited him. Without Adiran, Aris's death would have put Janus squarely on the throne. With Adiran … well, Janus was forced to play Ivor's game, a tangle of politics, politesse, and power.

  Ivor hid his smile—the lord on his right was bemoaning a lost wager—by studying the glossy tiles at his feet, a mosaic of a sea serpent speared by Antyrrian sailors.

  Janus Ixion thought himself clever, thought himself worldly and competent. Perhaps by the standards of the Antyrrian court he was. But Ivor had been playing this game far longer and his stakes were equally high: if he rid Antyre of Janus, there was a throne to be won.

  Quick footsteps pattered over the tiles, the soft pad of smooth-soled shoes, and Ivor turned in time to see a palace page bowing before him. “Prince Ivor, I've a message….”

  The quick tumble of dark hair; slim, pale neck; and a single piercing eye, black as a raven's—Ivor's breath caught, for once startled out of his poise. Though his throat felt dry, his hands were steady as he sipped his tea. “I'm sure it can wait,” he said. The page nodded, and faded away. The nobles about him, gossip hounds all, had never bothered to raise their heads.

  Had Janus been here … Ivor's teacup chattered quietly as he set it down.

  He forced himself to participate in another round of gossip—this centered on the Countess of Last and her erratic behavior—though he wanted nothing more than to leave, to chase the page. But nothing drew attention so much as a man attempting to avoid it.