Kings and Assassins

by Lane Robins

  Psyke shivered, her hands on the glass sweating, her breath thin and hard to draw; her eyes fluttered shut, rather than see what courted her so.

  Give me your—

  The door opened behind her, and a fierce hiss of shock dissipated the cold caress, the dry whisper as if they had never been, as if she were as mad as she feared. Psyke turned, found the dark-veiled woman standing within the doorway, a velvet pouch in her hand.

  “Lady Last?” she said. “Are you well?”

  Psyke nodded, but her voice came out as small as a child's. “I'm cold.”

  The woman nodded as if it were only to be expected. She set down the pouch, tugged the bellpull, setting off a distant jangling.

  When the maid appeared, the veiled woman said, “Tea, please. With honey. A dollop of brandy would not be amiss.”

  The maid bobbed an uncertain curtsy, openly torn between bridling at another servant ordering her about and understanding that the veiled woman was Celeste's compatriot.

  “Thank you,” Psyke said, and stepped away. She wrapped her arms about herself and rested her hands over the marks on her shoulders. “I'm sorry. What was your name?”

  “Currently, I have none,” the woman said. “To avoid attention, you understand.”

  Psyke didn't, but the woman's voice was so expectant, she found herself nodding as she had as a debutante, being agreeable instead of informed.

  “Though I deny you an answer, may I ask a question of you?” the woman said. She waited, the black silk veil swaying gently in and out on the tides of her breath, for Psyke's second nod.

  “Did you summon Him, or did He come to you of His own accord? It's only I have never heard a whisper of how the first might be accomplished. Haith is unlike the others, quite shy of attention.”

  “Haith,” Psyke echoed and felt the echo move beyond her, a quiet scent of cold dirt, tinged with stone in the air.

  “Yes,” the woman said, her tone sidling toward offended. “I am a scholar of sorts, you understand. My interest is hardly prurient. I survived a god's wrath once, and seek to prevent Her attention from falling on me again.”

  “I—” Psyke committed the sin of a careless debutante, beginning to speak with her thoughts muddled and unclear, leaving her grasping for any words at all.

  “Girl,” Celeste said, passing by the room and detouring in it. “Haven't you given Psyke the poison yet? Time moves on, and we need to move with it, ahead of it, if we are to catch the bastard unawares.” The maid came in behind her, laden tea tray in her hands, and Celeste's attention veered. “What is that? We have no time for niceties. Take that back to the kitchen. Psyke, the carriage awaits.”

  Psyke dropped into a curtsy; the veiled girl did likewise.

  Celeste nodded once, well satisfied. She collected the velvet pouch and handed it to Psyke. “The poison has been ground fine for you. All you need do is add it to his wine. As his wife, that should be within your meager talents.”

  Numbed by the girl's assumption of the god's attention, and by her own frightened conviction that the girl was correct, Psyke let the duchess fold her fingers around the pouch. If the god of Death walked behind her, what was a single drop of poison? If Death walked with her, then her very presence was poison.

  “Your concern is unnecessary,” the veiled girl said. The shadows shifted over her hidden face in such a way that Psyke became convinced the girl smiled. “Lady Last is a fearsome creature in her own right.”

  ♦ 15 ♦

  ANUS ROSE FROM HIS SHEETS, heart hammering, skin slicked with sweat. Despite the heat of his room, the coals in the hearth left to smolder, he stirred up the fire, fed in another log with shaking hands. Another nightmare, he thought, surprised. So this was what people feared, this heart spasm and breathlessness, the sense that he had been fleeing his enemies through the night.

  A nightmare, he thought, was a hideously unpleasant experience, even as he gave up the idea of returning to bed. Instead, he collected his dressing gown, drew it tight around his waist, letting the heavy brocade absorb the sweat.

  He hadn't thought nightmares could be anything much. After all, when Miranda woke from hers, all she could murmur by way of explanation were tales of violence or fear, and wasn't that the meat that filled their days? But this had been insidious, mixing old troubles with new, so that he hunted Maledicte while Ivor fired the new cannons, engulfing Murne in smoke, flame, and destruction.

  Firelight washed the papers on his escritoire; he contemplated another pass through the High Antyrrian grammar book he'd acquired, or even another look at the tracts Delight had had Evan deliver, though likely those were the source of his disjointed dreams.

  The tracts had arrived on the heels of the canon debacle, Delight's wordless apology. Janus hadn't had time to read them in depth: each moment he stole for his own interests came at the expense of progress with Bull and DeGuerre. Each hour he spent away, he spent two hours finding what the other two counselors had agreed on in his absence.

  For all the palace's grandeur and space, Janus was beginning to feel it an elaborate menagerie. Even when the cages were opened, there were leashes of ritual and requirement. Hard to imagine he might have been more free when he and Miranda roamed the streets, masters of their world, controlled only by their impending starvation.

  A sound roused him from his contemplations to full awareness in the space of a jolted heartbeat. He drew his lips back.

  In this menagerie, some of the denizens fancied themselves predators. He stepped out of the firelight's reach, into the shadows of the curtained windows.

  The furious whisper outside the bedroom door stopped, and the doorknob twisted as one of the guards bypassed the lock. Janus slipped out of his dressing gown, unwilling to have the heavy cloth hampering his legs, then headed for the sheathed sword he kept beside the bed.

  The kingsguard Marchand entered first, not an unwise precaution; they assumed Janus, if woken, would be eased by the presence of a familiar face. They were wrong. His sword, still out of reach by his bed, Janus seized the poker and brought it round, crushing Marchand's hand and knocking the pistol free.

  The pistol hit the wall and discharged, the report and Marchand's mingled cry sounding as one. Janus pivoted, struck again with the hot poker, hitting the man's upper arm, spinning and burning him at once. Marchand crashed into the fireplace hearth and out again, his uniform smoldering; he moaned, curling around his burned flesh. The room grew darker as the brief flare faded.

  Janus heard the second man approach, a hasty footfall between Marchand's moan, and traded the poker for his blade, dropping the empty sheath onto his bed. The man, a stranger to the palace, showed shock when Janus parried, and at that moment Janus knew it hadn't been Ivor who hired them. Ivor knew that Janus was more than passingly familiar with a blade, having trained him himself. The Duchess of Love, then, or perhaps Harm, the antimachinist. As Evan noted, the antimachinists had grown bold.

  Janus shifted his feet, giving himself space; his attacker, eyes still adjusting to the dimness, thrust again. Janus heard the blade catch on the drape surrounding his bed, and grinned. His blood ran hot, and he imagined Maledicte cheering him on, though he would have made mocking comment about the swordsman's abilities, which Janus had to admit, were lacking.

  What had his enemies done? Handed the first man they saw a blade? Janus ducked another inept slash, took the man's overextended arm in his free hand and pulled. The man fell forward, dropping his blade in a vain attempt to catch himself, and Janus swept his saber through the back of the man's neck, the wide blade nearly severing the head from the body.

  A faint gasp turned him; he moved silently and quickly, blade extended. He swept back the heavy blue drape, then halted, his blade a bare inch from Psyke's white throat. She shivered; his blade traced the movement. She swallowed but made no outcry, no protest, and he lowered the blade, noting as he did so, that she clutched a man's dueling pistol in her hand. It fed his fury. Had she thought to aid his assassins?


  Her gaze fell from his, and, as if it had been the bridle to his temper, he lunged forward, pinned her against the wall. She felt cold to his heat, her bones as fragile as a bird's. Deceptive, he knew now. She had strength aplenty.

  “Did you bring the pistol to complete their task? If so, best screw up your courage, and aim it someplace other than the floor.” He ran his hand down her arm, reaching for the pistol.

  She squirmed forward, using an agility he hadn't expected to escape his grip, darting forward into the center of the room as instinctively as a wild creature who craved room to bolt. Janus caught her arm before she got three steps away, letting his blade drop, the better to seize her. He tucked her tight against him, her back against his chest, and raised her hand in his, the pistol shaking in her grip. This close, he recognized the weapon. It had been a recent gift to Aris; a pistol so decorated with gilt scrollwork and colored enamels, it looked more a toy than a tool. Janus had thought it a subtle insult, mocking Aris's inaction, but the king had accepted it with courtesy. And apparently gifted it to his wife. Protection, of some sort—perhaps for Psyke's wanderings through the tunnels, or perhaps … as protection from her husband.

  “Do you even know how to fire it? It's a very simple device,” he whispered. “A child could kill with it….” She shuddered in his arms; the fine, pale hairs on her nape rose, prickled against his lips. He nipped the top bone of her spine, fought the urge to bite down hard and deep, to see if her blood was as chill as her flesh.

  “You aim it—” He turned her body to face the traitorous guard, Marchand, still moaning, struggling to regain consciousness. Janus stroked his fingers over hers, pressing down, pointing the weapon at Marchand. “And hope it doesn't explode in your face.”

  The pistol went off with a roar and a flash, almost stifling the cry she made, sweet to his ear. If she thought to deal death, this might cure her of the desire. Her arm, pressed against his, jumped and trembled. The pistol fell from her grip, dropping to the floor. Janus felt poisonous amusement as he released her, and she sank to her knees. “There, you've saved the gallowsman his trouble. Or had you another target in mind?”

  Psyke panted, gone wordless. When he bent to kiss the top of her head, the acrid scent of black powder rose from her hair. He stepped away and reached for his dressing gown.

  She rolled up to her hands and knees, retching.

  “Oh, don't do that,” Janus snapped. The room was miasmic already, the scent of gunpowder and blood, the stench of funeral pyres. Janus, irritably, kicked the guard's singeing hand away from the hearth. The thin line of lace on his sleeve smoldered still, raising thin wisps of smoke chalking the shadows of the room.

  Janus flung open the windows and let the night air in. The coals, guttering red, flickered and brightened, casting golden light over the corpses on the floor. Janus leaned against the window frame and sighed. The successful rebuff of his enemies, the first touch of the air cooled his skin and his temper. He found a smile on his lips and felt a brief, nearly physical shock when he turned and didn't find Mal grinning back in shared triumph. This one was his alone.

  Psyke had curled inward, her face pressed into her hands. When he crouched beside her, reached past her to reclaim his sword where it had fallen, she raised her gaze and recoiled at finding herself so close to the blood-clotted blade.

  “They attacked you in your sleep,” Psyke said. She wiped at her mouth. The hectic spots of color in her cheeks began to fade; she fumbled to her feet, toward her rooms. Janus's words halted her.

  “Did you expect otherwise? You are naïve,” he said. “As for myself, I have been expecting something of this nature once it became clear that, rumors or not, I am not destined for the gallows. I simply hadn't expected the attempt to be this clumsy. Disappointing, as I'm sure you'll agree.”

  “No,” Psyke said. “No, I'm not disappointed. Assassination and murder are distasteful ways to remove one's enemy. A coward's way.”

  “I didn't kill Aris,” he said.

  “He's dead, by saber and by pistol, and here I see you familiar with both. A northern saber carved out his heart, an uncommon tool in Antyre.”

  “Not uncommon for a man to cling to the weapon he learned with,” Janus said. “Not uncommon at all to think an Itarusine might choose such a blade to strike with. Why blame me, sweet Psyke, when Ivor makes a far more likely foe?”

  “Ivor has an alibi,” Psyke began.

  “As do I…” Janus grated.

  It made him wild; did no one see? Did they all prefer the known villain, the small villain? Was it some bizarre Antyrrian pride or the well-vaunted ability of the public to deny what was real?

  Look outward first for danger. The Relict rats had muttered that instead of their prayers. Known dangers—squabbles over food, over allies, over coppers—were less threatening. After all, the rats might all fight for the same prize, but they at least shared belief in its value. An outsider—the Particulars, a robbed merchant—might not, might destroy the prize in their attempt to get at the rats. Ivor was no different. He didn't value Antyre beyond the power the throne offered.

  Janus drew her toward him, her cold hand in his, determined to win her this time. “Ivor Grigorian killed Aris. His father lives on and on, his brothers circling like wolves, and Ivor hungers for his own throne, one not torn apart in the struggle for it. It was Ivor's man that struck, not mine.”

  “Even if you are innocent of Aris's death—”

  “I am,” he said.

  “Do you think that absolves you? To be blameless of this one death when so many others can be laid to your name?” Her lashes, tangled gold, shielded her gaze, but Janus, watching closely, knew her attention was for Marchand and the splintered hole in his vest.

  Janus growled. “They entered with intent to kill me. Self-defense is no crime.”

  “The others?” she said. “How many enemies you must have if you would cry self-defense for all of them.”

  “Kritos. Vornatti. Last. Maledicte would have killed them regardless. You cannot lay them at my feet.”

  “And Amarantha? Her coachman? The child? Would Maledicte have killed them without your command?”

  “Ani drove him more than I ever did,” Janus said.

  “Ani feeds on jealousy and anger. Amarantha married your father, not you. Her murder was political, not a matter for either Mal or Ani, of benefit only to you. And the babe, the infant earl who supplanted you for the title you hold now—”

  Janus looked at his own hands, recalling how the simple weight of his blade had done the work for him, sinking through Auron's tender skin.

  Psyke's trailed-off words belatedly caught his attention, and he looked up to find her backing away, her mouth working, a new and terrible knowledge in an expression already burdened with too much truth.

  She drew in a steady breath and froze like prey before the hunt, hoping to be unseen.

  A pale tongue wetted her lips; her voice was thin edged but unafraid when she spoke again. “I own Auron's death struck me as peculiar at the time. If Maledicte had killed the babe, why leave Adiran alive and witness to it?”

  “Why dwell on it?” Janus said, surprised that he managed to sound so uninterested when his heart beat so fast. What the assassination attempt hadn't accomplished, his wife had. “The past is past. You might make yourself useful and ring for Rue. I'd like to have the bodies cleaned away before they start to—”

  “The past informs the present and the future,” Psyke said. “How can I believe your protestations of innocence, when you killed Auron yourself?”

  His breath snagged, made him cough, taking in great gasps of tainted air. He dropped his dressing gown, reached blindly out for the breeches in the airing cupboard. “Risky accusations,” he said, “if I am the murderer you claim me to be.” He dressed hastily, keeping her in sight.

  She flinched when Janus stalked past her and reclaimed his blade. Her hands flew up, as if they could shield her heart.

  “Are you
afraid,” he asked, “or do you merely simulate it? You didn't die of poison. Will a saber do it?”

  “Try it and see,” Psyke said, and it wasn't her voice at all, but something else, a whisper that raised thunder and shadows in the room, drowned the fire glow, and put them both into darkness.

  Into that charged darkness, their doubled, panting breath, came a single prosaic hammering on the door. “My lord? My lady?”

  Rue opened the door when they made no response, spilling torchlight into the room; Janus lowered the blade, still wary but unwilling to be caught holding his diminutive wife off as if she were more a threat than the assassins who had tried for his life.

  ♦ 16 ♦

  AWN CREPT IN TOO SLOWLY for Janus's nerves. After Rue had turned Janus's chambers into a hive of kingsguards and servants, Janus had been sent off to bed in Psyke's quarters like an overtired child. Psyke, gone pliant and sweet in the company of the guards, came after him, her eyes glazed and nearly as vacant as Adirans, exhausted or in shock.

  She curled up on her mattress, finding the spot she had left less than an hour ago, sighing into it as if it were still warm, going boneless into sleep or death. It raised all the hairs on his nape and kept him wakeful through the rest of the night, listening to her alternate between deathly silence, even her breathing gone, to fitful mutterings spanning several languages.

  Had his childhood instincts held sway, he would have fled the palace and disarmed the snare he felt closing about him by taking himself from it. But those days were past, and he could not afford the luxury of leaving the field. If he left this battle, he lost; Antyre lost. He knew that, saw that, more clearly than perhaps any other, save Gost.

  Janus had seen Antyre from gutters to gilt, and spent years in the Itarusine court, learning the measure of Antyre's beloved enemies. For all that confidence though, he felt more and more as if he were a boy shouting at the adult world to pay attention to him.