The Blood Knight

by Greg Keyes

  “Do you?” she asked coldly.

  “I want you to sing it,” he answered.

  “I can start again,” Mery said.

  Areana sighed. “Very well. Start it again.”

  Mery grew tired a bell or so later and went to take a nap. Leoff feared that Areana would leave, as well, but instead she walked over to the window. After a moment’s hesitation, Leoff joined her.

  “There’s something going on at the great wall, I think,” Leoff said. “At Thornrath. There’s been smoke for days.”

  She nodded but didn’t seem to be looking at the wall or at anything else, for that matter.

  “I thought you were very good singing Taleath’s part,” he attempted again, “although it’s not the part I wrote for you.”

  “There will be no part for me in this travesty,” she snapped. “I won’t do it.”

  He lowered his voice. “I’m only working on it to keep Robert from hurting you or Mery,” he said. “I’ve no intention of performing it.”

  “Really?” Her gaze met his and softened a little.

  He nodded. “Really. I’m working on something quite different.”

  “Good,” she said, looking back outside. He struggled to find some way to keep the conversation going, but no acceptable words offered themselves to his tongue.

  “You’ve made me quite foolish, you know,” she said, her voice sounding thick. “Quite foolish.”

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  “That makes it worse. Why didn’t you tell me about you and Lady Gramme? I should have guessed, I suppose. She was your patron, and she is beautiful, and skilled, and you get along famously with Mery.”

  “No,” Leoff said. “I…there was nothing to tell until the other night. She came—I was unprepared…”

  She laughed resentfully. “Oh, yes, and so was I. And there’s no hiding I had the same idea. I thought I might ease your pain and I—” She began crying and gulped.

  “Areana?”

  “I was a virgin, you know. Not so fashionable in Eslen, but out in the poellands it’s still something to be…” She waved her hands helplessly. “Anyway, that’s gone. But I thought if I was with someone kind and gentle, someone who wouldn’t try to hurt me, I might wash it away, what…”

  She leaned her arm on the windowsill and buried her face in it. He watched her helplessly, then reached out and stroked her hair.

  “I wish it hadn’t happened,” he said. “I never meant to hurt you.”

  “I know,” she sobbed. “And I expect too much. Who would touch me now?”

  “I’m touching you,” he said. “Here, look at me.”

  She raised her tear-streaked face.

  “I think you were right,” he admitted, “about how I feel about you. But there’s something you need to understand. What they did to me in the dungeons—it changed me. I don’t just mean my body or my hands; it altered me inside. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. For so long, for so very long, I’ve been able to see no better end for all of this than revenge. It’s all I’ve really thought about. It’s all I’ve been planning. In the dungeon, I met a man; well, I heard his voice, anyway. We spoke. He told me that in Safnia, where he’s from, vengeance is considered an art, something to be done well and savored. It made sense to me, I have to say, to make Robert pay for the things he’s done. The other music I’ve been working on—that’s my revenge.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He closed his eyes, knowing he ought not to tell her but plunging on anyway.

  “There are more than eight modes,” he said softly. “There are a few others so forbidden that they are spoken of only in whispers, even in the academies. You saw—you felt—the effect of music when it’s properly composed. We not only were able to create and control emotion, we made it literally impossible for anyone to stop us until we were done.

  “That was using mostly the modes we know, but what made that piece so very powerful was my rediscovery—Mery’s rediscovery, really, come to that—of a very ancient forbidden mode. And now I’ve found another, one not used since the days of the Black Jester.”

  “What does it do?”

  “It can do many things. But a properly structured piece, when performed, might kill anyone who heard it.”

  She frowned and searched his face with such a gaze that he knew she was looking for signs of madness.

  “This is true?” she said finally.

  “I haven’t tested it, of course, but yes, I believe it is.”

  “If I hadn’t been there, if I hadn’t been part of the music in the Candlegrove, I don’t imagine I would believe you,” she said. “But as it is, I think you could do almost anything if you put your mind to it. So that’s what you’ve been working on?”

  “Yes. To kill Prince Robert.”

  “But that’s—” Her eyes narrowed. “But you can’t play.”

  “I know. That’s been a problem all along. Robert can play, however. I had thought if I kept the mechanics of it simple enough, he might actually do it himself.”

  “But more likely Mery would play it.”

  “In which case I had thought to stuff her ears with wax,” Leoff said. “You understand, I agree with you—I always did. I think he plans to kill all three of us. I hoped to give the two of you a chance, but if I couldn’t…”

  “You thought you’d take him with us.”

  “Yes.”

  “But what’s changed?”

  “I’ve stopped working on it,” he said. “I shan’t finish it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I have hope now,” he said. “And even if that fails…”

  “Hope?”

  “For something better than revenge.”

  “What? Escape?”

  “There is a possibility,” he said. “A chance we might survive this and live out our lives in better circumstances. But if we can’t—” He placed his ruined hand on her shoulder. “To make this music, this music of death, I have to surrender to the darkest parts of me. I can’t afford to feel joy, hope, or love, or I can’t write it.

  “Yet today I realized I would prefer to die still capable of love than have my revenge. I would rather be able to tell Mery that I love her than slay all the evil princes in the world. And I would rather touch you as tenderly as I’m able, with these things that used to be hands, than bring such dread music into the world. Does that mean anything to you? Does it make sense?”

  They were both crying now, quietly.

  “It makes sense,” she said. “It makes more sense than anything I’ve heard or thought lately. It makes you the man I fell in love with.”

  She took his hand and kissed it gently, once, twice, thrice.

  “We’re both injured,” she said. “And I’m afraid. Very afraid. You say we might escape…”

  “Yes,” he began, but she put a finger to his lips.

  “No,” she said. “If it happens, it happens. I don’t want to know any more. If I’m tortured, I will confess. I know that about myself now. I’m no brave lady from a romance.”

  “And I’m no knight,” Leoff said. “But there are many ways to be brave.”

  She nodded, coming closer. “However much time we have,” she said, “I would like to help you heal. And I’d like you to help me.”

  Leoff leaned down and touched his lips to hers, and they stood for a long moment, locked in that very simple kiss.

  She reached for the stays on her bodice. He stopped her.

  “Healing is done slowly,” he said gently. “A bit at a time.”

  “We may not have very much time,” she pointed out.

  “What’s been done to you shouldn’t happen to anyone,” he said. “And it may be harder to get over it than you believe. I would like to make love to you, Areana, but only if it were the first of many times, and of many more things that a man and a woman might do together, be together. If we try this now and fail, I fear the consequences. So for the moment, believe we will live and give thi
s time.”

  She pressed her head into his shoulder and put her arms around him, and together they watched the sunset.

  “You have to go back to your room,” Leoff told her a few bells later. They were quietly lying on his bed, her head nestled on his chest.

  “I’d like to stay here,” she said. “Couldn’t we just sleep, actually sleep? I want to wake up with you.”

  He shook his head reluctantly. “Tonight is the night,” he said. “Someone will come to your room. I’m not sure what will happen if you aren’t there. Best we stick to the plan.”

  “Are you serious? You really think we might escape tonight?”

  “I didn’t want to believe it at first, either, but yes, I think the possibility is real.”

  “Very well,” she said, untangling from him, standing, and smoothing her gown. Then she bent and gave him a long, lingering kiss. “Until I see you again,” she said.

  “Yes,” he managed.

  After she was gone, he didn’t sleep but lay awake until he reckoned the midnight bell was about to toll. Then he dressed in a dark doublet and hose and a warm robe. He bundled up his music and, just as the bell began to peal, padded out of his room and down the stairs.

  Despite his caution, there were no guards to slip past. The halls were empty, silent, and dark save for the candle he carried.

  When he entered the long corridor that led to the entrance hall, he saw a light ahead, as diminutive as his own. As he drew nearer, he made out a dark red gown and quickened his steps, his heart racing double time, like an ensemble that had quite escaped the measure of its leader.

  At the doorway he paused, puzzled. Ambria sat in a chair, waiting for him. She wasn’t holding the candle; it flickered in a small sconce on a table near the chair. Her chin was on her chest, and he thought it odd that she had fallen asleep at such an anxious time.

  But she wasn’t asleep, of course. Every angle of her body was somehow wrong, and when he came close enough to see her face, it looked bruised and swollen, and her eyes seemed far too large.

  “Ambria!” he gasped, and went down on his knee. He took her hand and found it cold.

  “Leovigild Ackenzal, I presume,” someone very near said.

  Leoff was proud of himself; he didn’t scream. He straightened, lifting his chin, determined to be brave.

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  A man stepped from the shadows. He was massive, with a grizzled half-shaved face and hands the size of hams.

  “Who are you?” Leoff asked.

  The fellow grinned a horrible little grin that sent a profound shiver through the composer.

  “You might call me Saint Dun,” he said. “You might call me Death. Right now, you just consider yourself warned.”

  “You didn’t have to kill her.”

  “Don’t have to do nothin’ in this life but die,” he replied. “But I work for His Majesty, and this is what he asked me to do.”

  “He knew all along.”

  “His Majesty, he’s busy. I haven’t spoken to him lately. But I know him, and this is what he would have wanted. Lady Gramme didn’t know about me, you see. I didn’t figure in her plans.” He stepped closer.

  “But you know about me,” he added softly. “And I reckon you need to know I can’t be bribed or otherwise bought, like some here. Now His Majesty knows who his friends are, or he will when he returns to find ’em still alive. And as for you, I’ll ask you to make a choice.”

  “No,” Leoff said.

  “Oh, yeah,” the man replied. He gestured at Ambria’s corpse. “That’s the price she pays for this little attempt. Your price is to choose who dies next: Gramme’s little brat or the landwaerden girl.” He smiled and tousled Leoff’s hair. “Don’t worry. I’m not asking you to make a snap decision. I give you until noon tomorrow. I’ll come up to your room.”

  “Don’t do this,” Leoff said softly. “This isn’t decent.”

  “The world aens’t decent,” the killer replied. “Sure you ought to know that by now.” He pointed with his chin. “Go on.”

  “Please.”

  “Go on.”

  Leoff returned to his room. He glanced at the bed where Ambria had lain, remembering her touch. He went to the window and gazed out at the moonless night, taking long, deep breaths.

  Then he lit his candles, took out the unfinished music, pen, and ink, and began to write.

  THIS WAS no joust, and there was no clever turning at the last moment to glance the blow. Not with horses galloping flank to flank, not when any deflection of spear by shield risked having it plunge into a battle-brother to the left or right. One might try to skip the blow upward with a last-instant tilt of the shield, but then one would lose sight of the target.

  No, this was more like war galleys meeting at full oar, prow to prow. What was left was flinching and not flinching.

  Neil didn’t flinch; he met the shock of the killing point in the center of his shield, blowing out his breath as it happened to prevent it being knocked out of him.

  His opponent, in contrast, panicked and shifted his shield so Neil’s spear struck the curving edge. As the stun of contact went through him, Neil watched his weapon deflect and drive to the right, striking his foe’s shield mate in the throat, shattering his neck into a bloody ruin and sending him hurtling back into the next rank.

  The broken shaft of the first man’s lance struck Neil’s helm, turning his head half-around, and then the real jolt came as the full weight of horses, barding, armor, shields, and men slammed together. Horses went down, screaming and kicking. His own mount, a gelding named Winlauf, staggered but didn’t fall, largely due to the press that surrounded them.

  Neil clutched for the blade Artwair had given him, a good solid weapon he’d named Quichet, or Battlehound, for his father’s sword. But before he could do that the head from a lance in the second rank of Thornrath’s defenders slipped its slaughter-eager point through his shield and into the shoulder joint of his armor before the shaft shivered.

  He felt as if he’d fallen naked through the icy surface of a midwinter mere; Battlehound came up in his hand, seeming to lift of its own accord. The horse of the man who had hit him was just tripping over the mount of the first man he’d met, which had gone down in the shock. The knight, still holding the broken spear shaft, was coming out of his stirrups, hurtling like a javelin toward Neil. Battlehound straightened Neil’s arm and locked it, so that the flying man found the weapon’s mortal-making point in his gorget.

  The impact knocked Neil backward out of his stirrups, so he flipped over his mount’s haunches and down into the hooves of his next line.

  Then there was blood and noise, and his body was seizing from the pain. Getting up was dark agony, and he wasn’t sure how long it took him to do it.

  When he did, he found the causeway mounded with men and horses, but his men still were surging forward. Overhead, flame and stone and feathered death were wracking the battle ground, but their charge was pushing through it.

  Winlauf was dying, and only a few men on either side retained their steeds. This was the moment; if they were pushed back now, most of them would perish in the killing zones of the siege engines. Here they were inside all but arrow range, and the presence of the defenders’ own men deterred that.

  “One charge!” he howled, unable, really, to hear himself. Half his body felt like it was gone, but it wasn’t the half that was carrying Battlehound.

  As the very sky seemed to catch fire, Neil put everything that was in him to killing.

  “What is that?” Stephen asked Zemlé.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. Ghosts? Witches?”

  “Do you know the language of the song?”

  “No. It sounds a little like the Old Tongue. A few words sound familiar.”

  Stephen caught a shimmer, then, eyes reflecting fireglow. The dogs were barking and howling as if they had gone insane.

  Whatever they were, they weren’t slinders, as he first had fear
ed. They were coming far too cautiously. He couldn’t be certain, but judging by the behavior of the dogs, the intruders were actually circling the camp.

  “Whoever you are,” he cried, “we mean you no harm.”

  “I’m sure that’s of great comfort to them,” Zemlé said, “considering there are at least ten of them and we’re basically unarmed.”

  “I can be pretty intimidating,” Stephen said.

  “Yes, well, at least you’re not a blithering coward,” she observed.

  “I am, actually,” he confided, though her assessment made him feel suddenly very warm. “But after a point you just get stunned and stay stunned. I don’t have the sense to be scared anymore.” He frowned. The song had ceased, but words were being exchanged, and then the sounds clicked into place.

  “Qey thu menndhzi?” he shouted.

  The wood fell suddenly silent.

  “What was that?” Zemlé asked.

  “What they’re speaking, I think. A Vadhiian dialect. Kauron’s language.”

  “Stephen!” Zemlé gasped. The dogs dropped to the ground, still snarling, but oddly cowed.

  Someone had stepped into the clearing.

  In the firelight, Stephen couldn’t tell what color his eyes were, but they were large. His hair was as milk-white as his skin, and he was dressed in soft brown leathers.

  “Sefry,” he whispered.

  “Your Hadivar,” Zemlé said.

  “You speak with old words,” the Sefry said. “We are thinking you are the one.”

  “Who are you?”

  The stranger studied the two of them for another moment or two, then tilted his head.

  “My name is Adhrekh,” he said.

  “You speak the king’s tongue,” Stephen said.

  “Some,” Adhrekh said. “It has been a long time since I have used it.”

  More Sefry appeared at the edge of the firelight. All were armed with swords nearly as slim as the one Cazio carried. Most had bows, as well, and most of the arrows in those bows seemed to be pointed at him.

  “My, ah, my name is Stephen Darige,” he returned. “This is Sister Pale.” He wasn’t sure why he shied from the more familiar name he’d been using.