Kings and Assassins

by Lane Robins

  Bull shifted uneasily, the sailors at the bar slid away like water before a troubling wind. Janus raised a hand, silencing any protest from Bull.

  If the guard thought himself brave enough to throw Janus's upbringing in his face, he would hear it all before he acted. The man did have the sense to wait until the tavern emptied before continuing. “I've been a Particular for near fifteen years. I remember chasing the boy they called the rat king over Relict stone falls until he and his rabble darted into holes too small for a man like me. I remember there were times I chose to stop chasing. When you raided the markets for food instead of coin. It was a hard time. It's only gotten worse.”

  “What would you have me do?” Janus said. “Until we cast off Itarus's shackles, all our profits disappear into their coffers. Or would you employ the poor as unpaid soldiers, send them off to fight a war?”

  “The solution's your problem, not mine, but I'd think twice about letting the nobles skive out of their debts when other families are ruined by theirs. Fathers, mothers locked away while their children starve.”

  “Peter,” Bull said, “remember your audience.”

  “Is it the families torn apart that worry you? Or the inequality of debt between nobles and commoners?” Janus asked. “Would it please the public if I declared amnesty for those in Stones whose debts are less than fifty sols? Would it please you?”

  Peter hesitated, all his bravado washed away by Janus's response, as if he had braced himself for anything but actual interest in what a Particular thought. The man looked to Bull and Bull shrugged, clearly communicating that if Peter was fool enough to question Janus, he would have to be fool enough to answer questions in return.

  Bull said, “Last, that's nearly all of them.”

  “You and Rue constantly remind me how full Stones is. Wouldn't it help if the only prisoners were those who deserved to be there? The ones who actively caused injury to the country?”

  “We cannot afford to forgive the debts,” Bull argued, dropping his voice and pulling Janus aside. He waved Peter outside. Peter went with the alacrity of a condemned man escaping the gallows. “Explain yourself. Do you mean to do it? You weren't simply playing with my man to relive old times?”

  Janus drew up a seat before a mostly clean table, and waved at the bartender. “Luncheon please, and whatever you have to drink that's … imported.”

  Bull dithered a moment and Janus gestured to the seat opposite. “Man must eat,” he said.

  “Here?”

  “I think my meals are better out of the palace than in it,” he said. “The public may be outraged, but they're too poor to willfully poison food.”

  “And you would send more mouths into the streets. In Stones, they are fed.”

  “On the kingdom's coin,” Janus said.

  The bartender brought over a plate, laden high with fried bread and a few gamy cuts of sailor's fare, some animal flesh spiced so heavily it couldn't rot.

  Two goblets landed on the table, along with a bottle. Bull touched it; his eyes widened. “This is—”

  “Imported is the polite term,” Janus said. “Tarrant's been using the Seadog as a drop point for some of his sundries.”

  He took a warming sip of the Itarusine brandy, found it suited the dark, chewy meat well enough and took another.

  “Listen Bull,” he said. “We can't afford to have the public in utter rebellion. If we release the debtors …”

  Bull said, “Do you think it will matter? To have freedom when the chains of poverty still weigh them down?”

  “It will delay the inevitable,” Janus said. “Ivor's fleet won't arrive to find our city softened by internal rebellion.”

  “Prince Ivor's agitators are quite capable of creating a revolt on his command.”

  “Given what we learned from Harm—from Prince Casmir—I think we have enough to confine him to his wing under suspicion of acting against the treaty. It'll be up to you and Rue to find evidence enough to prove Harm's words more than hearsay.”

  Bull sat back in his seat. “You're confident in this path.”

  Janus hid his smile with the heavy goblet. Of course he was. He'd always intended the release of the prisoners as a part of his plan to thwart Ivor, but he hadn't anticipated such a perfect chance to do so. “For the country, Bull,” he said. “Send the Particulars out to Stones and have them release those listed as debtors. Oh, and have them release Poole also. With his nephew gone, he's like to find it harder to sell his drawings. Perhaps we'll find out who's been guiding his pen.”

  ON HIS RETURN TO THE palace, Janus left Bull to tell Rue the events of the morning and to oversee the display of Harm's body. It was necessary, but he recalled another body that was meant to have been displayed and quailed from watching it done. The rooks would feast.

  Instead, he sought out Ivor, taking along a full complement of guards, and found the prince seated in one of the garden bowers, in the midst of a cozy tête-à-tête with Admiral DeGuerre. DeGuerre's face was a picture, distrust warring with pleasure, as Ivor turned his agile tongue to mixing flattery with lies.

  “DeGuerre, if you fall for his platitudes, you must be a great favorite with the playhouses, always applauding an actor's turn of phrase,” Janus said, unaccountably annoyed. Hadn't he had Gost removed for worsening DeGuerre's opinion? Now Ivor did the same?

  “My pet,” Ivor said. “When you and I are dining, I don't allow interruptions. Will you not allow the good admiral and myself the same?”

  “Perhaps he'll visit you in the old wing,” Janus said. “We captured Harm today.”

  “Did you, then?” Ivor said.

  “He said the most damning things about you. Named your assassin—”

  “That I doubt,” Ivor murmured.

  “And claimed you are responsible for Aris's death.”

  “This again. You've no proof he's Itarusine. Harm's an antimachinist and an egalitarian,” DeGuerre said, and seemed puzzled that he had moved to defend Ivor. Janus thought it was only that the admiral was so accustomed to quarreling with him. Perhaps this would teach him better.

  “A prince descendant an egalitarian? Hardly likely.” Janus turned his attention to Ivor, watched the man's hands. Ivor was armed and Janus was hampered by his wound, by the weakness in his hand. “Ivor, I'm afraid I've killed your brother Casmir.”

  DeGuerre rose, and without another glance, walked away.

  Ivor reached out and stripped a branch of leaves, letting their torn edges fill the evening air with their green scent. “Do you want this?” he asked. “To make me your enemy?”

  “You were always that,” Janus said.

  “And the guards?” Ivor said. “I presume, despite the lack of evidence, you'll see me confined to the old wing? With or without my personal staff?”

  “With,” Janus said. “Less the one that we're hunting.”

  “Very well,” Ivor said. He rose, walked toward the waiting guards with a composure entirely unruffled. He paused in their midst and said, “One request?”

  “Perhaps,” Janus said.

  “As I'm about to be confined to boredom and indolence, perhaps a single bout of sparring?”

  “I might be young, but I haven't been a fool for a very long time,” Janus said.

  “Ah, don't fret so. We're at a deadlock, you and I, like two school fellows. That is your intention, is it not? To claim to Grigor that I disrupted the peace treaty first, with my alleged assassination of your king? That your arms display was only in reaction … Should either of us die unexpectedly, the treaty will be shattered beyond repair.”

  “All that might be true,” Janus said. “It changes nothing.”

  He turned to go, heard the rush of movement behind him and a guard calling, “Last!”

  Janus got his own blade up in time to meet Ivor's descending one, parried the blow though the force of it ran the length of his arm. It shouldn't have been unexpected; Ivor had been remarkably well behaved, only setting others to commit his murders, when
Janus knew how much the man enjoyed the work himself. Even his sanguine temper could be chafed by inaction.

  The guards raised pistols and Ivor said, “If you fire, our countries will war.”

  They hesitated, then began spreading out like a net, swords in hand, coming to separate the two men.

  It was likely to be a futile attempt, Janus thought, shifting to block another thrust with one of his own. The blades slipped past each other with a hiss of steel. Ivor took two dancing steps back. A guard, more impulsive than most, darted forward in an attempt to disarm Ivor. He received a slap of the blade for his effort, slicing his cheek to the bone.

  Janus lunged forward again, and Ivor evaded it. “Always overstepping yourself,” Ivor said. Janus had to drop to a knee, roll away from a thrust that nearly took an eye. His heart raced; his mouth tasted of metal—sour and sudden excitement.

  “You try for too much,” Ivor said. “It blurs your focus. You want to be king. You want Maledicte back. You want Antyre to prosper. You want respect and admiration, though I believe you would settle for respect and fear. I even think you want your sweet wife. How can you accomplish any of these when your focus wavers so—”

  Janus lunged upward; the edge of his blade caught Ivor's cravat, ripping it, before the man's blade forced Janus away.

  Their blades clashed again, not with the metallic rasp of the Antyrrian rapiers, but a heavy, grinding screel. Janus shifted his weight, dug his heel into the soft loam and broken shell beneath him, pushed Ivor off his blade, then danced three steps back, seeking a chance to catch his breath. His wounded arm ached and bled, and he hadn't needed it yet for anything but balance.

  Ivor grinned at him, vulpine and openly content.

  Janus let his blade hang loosely before him, tempting Ivor to an unconsidered strike. But Ivor had had the training of him and knew how easily that careless seeming stance could be turned against an opponent. Ivor simply waited, and frustration bit into Janus's belly. Ivor was always just that much ahead, leaving Janus to scramble to catch up.

  Janus's breath came faster, fed by the desire to defeat Ivor in even this littlest of fashions. “Do you think man is such a poor creature as to hold but one thought at a time? Do you think I am so simple?” Janus drove forward, blade angling in from the side, and had the brief satisfaction of watching Ivor's blade slowed for a moment. Then Ivor batted his blade away with the irritated languor of a great cat.

  “You don't listen. Let me explain it again,” Ivor said. “A man's wants are often contrary and force compromise. And a compromised dream is bitter.”

  “And your dream is simpler?” Janus growled. “Tell me what you want.”

  “I want my throne,” Ivor said, slamming his blade forward, his considerable body weight behind it. Janus raised his blade in time to take the force on his shoulder, though he slid backward under the power of it. “And I want it now.”

  They traded fast slashes at and about each other, stirring the air, and creating a current of steel scent and sweat laced with blood. The stitches in Janus's arm gave, the seam of his flesh going slack beneath the bandages.

  Another round of thrust and slash and Janus's blood made a tiny, first foray to slick the grass with crimson. The guards tensed. Their pistols came out again.

  Time ran away from them. Soon, a guard would shoot, and that single guard's control over a notoriously awkward weapon would send them to war. Janus knew it. By the wildness in his eyes, Ivor knew it, too, and craved time enough to put Janus in his place, reestablish his superiority. He moved closer to Janus, taking the fight quick and dirty, a matter of brawling as much as swordplay.

  “Better hope the one that shoots isn't one who wants you dead,” Ivor gasped, “or I'll have your throne with no effort at all.”

  His hand wrapped over the hilt of Janus's sword, attempting to wrench the blade away by force. Janus, prepared for such a move, forced Ivor back with a sudden jut of his elbow against Ivor's jaw. “Then go back to Itarus,” Janus breathed. “Grigor's throne waits.”

  Ivor fell back, shook his head, and said, “Father's as hard to remove as a barnacle and as malevolent as a stoat. I could remove every one of my fellow princes, and he'd manage to sire another litter of princelings before he died. Fratricide does grow dull. So, I compromise.”

  “Meaning you'll take my throne until yours comes available,” Janus said.

  “Not an ideal solution, I own. I am, after all, as loyal a son of Itarus as can be found,” Ivor said. His quick bow was a dare, and Janus took him up on it, charging forward, all his weight committed, and slammed his blade against Ivor's.

  “Loyal, right enough. Loyal enough to continue Grigor's plan. You want a war between our countries.”

  Their blades caught at the hilt; their eyes met for a long moment; and Ivor's face, even behind the grimace of effort, relayed only sincerity as he replied. “I think you would want the same. Nothing clears out the deadwood so well as a war, and I feel both our countries are overburdened with such.”

  Janus disentangled their hilts with a quick jerk, catching Ivor off guard and disarming him. Janus seized Ivor's hilt, though it trembled in his hand, the weight nearly too much for his injured arm. He crossed both blades before Ivor's chest, high enough to be a threat, to make it clear this duel was done. “But, Ivor,” Janus said, “wars are expensive, for both victors and the defeated. Plague, on the other hand, is cheap.”

  Ivor flinched. For the first time in their edged friendship, Janus had the advantage, and it had little to do with the steel he wielded. Janus backed Ivor toward the thick hedge of boxwood and thorny roses, and when Ivor ceded the ground, Janus dropped the blades.

  The guards surged forward, and Janus waved them off. “There's no need, gentlemen. He'll come quietly, now that I've won. Won't you?”

  “Have you won?” Ivor murmured.

  He fell silent when Janus reached out, touched the sweaty divot of skin exposed where Ivor's cravat had been ruined by that one quick thrust of Janus's blade.

  Ivor swallowed, but turned his head, allowing Janus's fingers to find what he sought: the tiniest run of scars, the only stain on that otherwise well-kept hide. Janus leaned closer, the better to admire it. It wasn't so much; but for Ivor, it represented the one battle he had nearly lost. The one thing he had been powerless against.

  Janus touched that tiny scar, and murmured up into Ivor's ear. “All a plague costs are lives and, as you say, Murne is overfull of useless life.”

  “What have you done?” Ivor breathed. He shoved Janus off him.

  “Thrust,” Janus said, allowing himself a smile. “Parry. Counterthrust. The second useful thing you taught me. And, better still, you said, if parry and counterthrust could be one movement. Your ships might approach our borders, but they will never be on our shores.”

  “What have you done?”

  “Slipped the plague from its chains,” Janus said, still in that confiding whisper. “I think it will prove a better barrier to your plans than months of diplomatic maneuvers. I doubt even your loyal Itarusine ships will brave such.”

  “Plague once survived, can be survived again.”

  “True,” Janus said. “But will you trust your life to that?”

  Ivor licked his lips; his eyes, wider than usual with shock, narrowed suddenly A smile took shape, a ghost of his usual self-satisfaction leaking back. “An elegant bluff, my pet, well aimed, but ultimately unsustainable. Plague, despite your metaphor, is no dog, waiting to be summoned on demand.”

  “No,” Janus agreed, and allowed Ivor's face to brighten for a single heartbeat, before he continued, “but it can be stored. Aris made a mistake when he turned on Maledicte and sent her to Stones. Ani hated it so much she tried to erase it and all its denizens. She set loose plague, and it's been biding there, fed and nurtured, growing more potent, waiting to be set free.”

  Ivor sucked in a breath. “The prisoners' pardon …”

  “The prisoners' pardon,” Janus agreed. He nodded to t
he guards, and they came forward, circling Ivor with wary respect. Janus handed the saber to a guard and said, “He carries a dagger as well. Be watchful.”

  They led Ivor away, and Janus settled down on the grass where he stood, blade across his lap, the aftermath of a successful duel weakening his knees. He wondered how Maledicte had stood it, how he had been more fiercely alive after a battle than before. Confronting Ivor left him feeling as if someone had seized him by the throat and shaken him. Wrung out and oddly guilty. Ivor, for his own purposes, had aided him over the years.

  Rue's voice drifted across the lawn, coinciding with the sudden fall of petals from a rose above Janus's head. “I came, hotfoot, to see if Ivor had managed to kill you. I'm relieved he's failed.”

  “He allowed me to win,” Janus said. “He's a more accomplished duelist than I am.” He brushed snowy petals from his hair, plucked them from his sleeve where they clung to the slow-welling blood. “We must be more cautious now,” Janus said. “Until now—”

  “Until now, we could claim we still honored the treaty,” Rue said. “Imprisoning Ivor and killing Harm sends a different message.” He held out a hand. “Come, there's something I want to show you. Your man Delight's been industrious.”

  After a pause to have one of Sir Robert's assistants rewrap Janus's wound—Sir Robert refused to do so, called it rewarding foolishness—Rue led Janus onto the tower roof overlooking the city and the sea.

  There were rooks lazing about, and Rue picked up a loose piece of coping and threw it into their midst, sending them shrieking off the roof and into the laden trees below.

  Janus bent his head to the spyglass, fixed in the direction of the sea. The ocean waters gleamed red in the setting sun, sending sparks of painful color into his eyes. He stepped back, sun dazzled and too close to the edge.

  “It's the Itarusine fleet,” Rue said, “waiting a mile outside of our harbor. But what we're interested in is …” He swung the spyglass in its cradle and focused again. “There.”

  A single ship in his vision this time. A heavy prow, a series of spiked figureheads. An Itarusine icebreaker making slow headway against the waves. “Grigor's messenger ship, the Icebear. Delight said the Bear will reach the fleet in two days.”