The Bandit King

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Coele did his level best to keep me down and drugged, but the second day after the duel I grimly hauled myself from the cot, barked at di Siguerre to fetch my shaving-kit, and cursed the hedgewitch roundly when he sought to dose me with a sedative draught again. The Pruzian found this amusing indeed, to judge by his sardonic grin.

  At least he had not knifed me while I lay abed.

  “No more sleep-herbs, by the Blessed,” I snapped. “Dose me with aught else you will, hedgewitch, but do not blunt my wits. They are blunt enough.”

  “Aye to that, sieur,” he snapped in return, flushed and irritated, clutching the rejected cup in both hands. “The charm is fragile; it may tear and you will bleed out in a heartbeat. Or drown in your own claret. M’dama said you were to rest—”

  “She is my Queen, not my nursemaid. I serve her better thus.” I forced my legs to straighten, pushing myself up. To stand made my chest ache in a wholly different way, but twas bearable.

  Just, but bearable.

  “She said—”

  “She is not here,” I pointed out. “And I am determined, sieur physicker. Turn your attention to mixtures that will not send me to Kimyan’s realm, and I shall take charge of aught else. And eat something,” I called after him as he stamped away. “I shall need you hale!”

  “Idiot,” the Pruzian commented, pleasantly.

  “He keeps muttering in that foreign tongue of his.” Siguerre, his thumbs in his belt, stood slim and dark and maddeningly young at the other doorflap. “What does he say?”

  “Oh, he oft insults me. Mayhap he thinks I do not notice. Son of a monkeyfaced dogsucking fishmonger’s collop-rod.” The little filth in Pruzian managed to vent some of my spleen.

  The Knife actually laughed, a surprisingly merry sound. “I begin to think you a worthy brother, m’Hier.”

  “Which does not explain why you are here, and she without your services.”

  He shrugged. “She is remarkably persuasive.”

  “What does he say?” Young Siguerre looked uneasy. I had noted he did not turn his back to the Pruzian, which said well of him.

  I did not give it much thought, being too occupied with keeping my unruly body from toppling. “He remarks that the Queen is marvelous persuasive when she makes requests of her subjects. So I have found, indeed.” Has she found it easy to outplay me? She was wasted as a lady-in-waiting. “Did you bring my shaving-kit? Ah, good man. Tell the men to cache whatever we cannot carry; we leave for Reimelles at the nooning.”

  “Not another ride,” he groaned, with feeling, and I was surprised into a grim laugh.

  “We have a slow-moving army two days afoot of us. I think we are capable of catching such a beast without injuring your tender backside further.”

  “Dear Blessed”—he addressed the tent’s indigo-dyed roof—“did our Captain unbend enough to jest with me? Surely the Riving of the Maelstrom is nigh.”

  He was young, after all—and he had earned some small right to jest at my expense. Jierre would have had harsher words for me—and he still might, did he survive Vianne’s next adventure.

  So I chose judicious severity, leavened with praise. “If the hounds of Damar break Reimelles, it may very well be. But with us in the field, Tieris, Arquitaine is safer. Your grandfather would be proud.”

  He all but flinched. “If he is, Captain, twould be the first time. We shall leave at the nooning.” A nobleman’s salute, and he ducked through the flap.

  Well. That is interesting. I blew out a long, frustrated breath. When the body will not obey, despite all a man’s cursing and will, tis almost as maddening as following a foolhardy woman across a war-torn country as she flings herself into every danger she can find.

  Almost.

  Fridrich van Harkke was suddenly at my side. He even smelled foreign, some odd combination of oil and tanned Pruzian leather, a bitter undertone as of young dandille greens. He braced me, and murmured something in his harsh tongue. Sorcery tingled along my fingers and toes. Twas merely a simple warming-charm, but its oily harshness scraped my skin.

  “You will kill yourself.” His Arquitaine had improved immeasurably. Even his accent was better.

  “I cannot die.” I have too much to accomplish. “The gods will not let me. Not as long as they wish Vianne to be Queen.”

  And should they change their Blessed minds about that, they shall see what a descendant of the Angoulême can do to gainsay even them.

  “All men can die.” Fridrich was pessimistic. “Here, I help you shave.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Following an army’s tracks is normally an education in misery. From the Field d’Or to Amielles, though, the Road was empty. Twas eerie—the fields were stripped, the Orlaanstrienne quiet and its game blinking in surprise at our passage. Smallholdings and tiny villages met us with blank doors and not a sign of life. Amielles itself was very quiet, and twas there we learned what was afoot.

  Arquitaine had risen.

  The peasants had stayed long enough to bring in the crops. Then they swelled the ranks of the Hedgewitch Queen’s army, with whatever weapons were to hand. Scythes, flails, bows, a ferment of peasant unrest. D’Orlaans’s tax-farmers and his invitation to the hounds of Damar were viewed as the reason for the plague, the scars of which could be seen in every village. The carrion had feasted well this year—crows sleek and glossy, young hawks circling hopefully, stray dogs and feral porcines avoiding the tramp of boots and shod hooves. Communal graves lurked on the outskirts of every ville, some marked with small shrines that would someday perhaps be expanded into Temples.

  The Blessed ride with her, a few scarecrow-thin old women left in Amielles told us. The children who had survived the plague were big-eyed and fearful, peering at us around corners. The plague flees as she approaches. May it strike Damar down instead.

  Indeed.

  I clung to the saddle, my scarred chest fragile-sore. Coele cursed me steadily and roundly at each stop. We could not essay much more than a jogtrot, as if we were on promenade, and near it killed me with frustration. At least we were not far behind the Hedgewitch Queen’s motley army, its ponderousness still moving at a clip that kept it just out of reach.

  The Pruzian rode sometimes at the rear of our column, sometimes in the middle. Every night as we camped, he vanished; every morning I woke to find him standing guard at my sleeping-roll. I did not ever find him resting, and I wondered that I had grown so easy at the idea of such a man near me with a knife while I lay unconscious. Of course, he had been within reach of my shaving-razor and had not done me any ill. It was not as if I could gainsay him, weak as I was. I was mending, yes, charmed at every halt and filled to the back teeth with tisanes. Yet rage simmered in me. Helpless, just when I needed speed and strength most.

  I had much time to think, and much time to curse myself for not expecting di Garonne’s thrust. He had the habit of attacking entierce, true—but ensiconde was a child’s ploy, and I had fallen foul of it. Wherever his shade was resting now, it was probably still having a hearty laugh at my expense.

  At least he was among the shades, and I among the living. For now.

  And while I was, there was much grist for the mill in my head. She suspects, the Pruzian had said, but I could not induce him to sally further. My father had a potential traitor in his sight as well, but I could not spare any worry for him. If Jierre could act the jilted soul so successfully with me, what could he not convince Vianne of? I knew enough of Timrothe d’Orlaans to suspect he had a plan, as well. What might it consist of—and how could I guard Vianne against its tentacles?

  Early on the fourth day we passed through Nemourth. From there to Bleu-di-Font was a short day’s ride, and my command to press on was almost gainsaid by a mutinous di Siguerre. You will kill yourself, he snarled.

  I have already been dead once, I snarled in return, but until tis a permanent state you are not free to treat me as your lackey.

  Nor are you free to treat me as such, was his sharp reply
, but we left the matter there and continued riding. Evening rose in swathes of blue and orange, the sun dying over the westron horizon, and the shapes on the Road ahead resolved into creaking, brightly-painted wagons threading along single-file.

  Twas a traveling band of R’mini. The wagons were drawn by horses instead of oxen, and a small flock of goats wandered on the hedge-side, tapped along by a slim youth with a slouching cloth cap. He touched the back of one goat with his crookstick, singing a wandering melody in a high piping voice.

  “Tinkers.” Di Siguerre glanced at me. “Come to strip corpses, no doubt. Shall we move them from the Road?”

  A fresh pang went through me. “Merely pass by.”

  Some of the Guard made avert signs as we passed them. The R’mini did not call out a greeting, simply watched the band of crimson-sashed noblemen trot past. Their horses did not even seek to whicker at ours. The women were mostly inside the lumbering coaches; the men drove, some of the younger ones atop the wagons’ carved roofs.

  The head wagon’s driving-seat held a R’mini headman and his lean dark wife, both of them gazing straight ahead. The headman’s proud nose jutted; his dark curly hair lay in sleek-oiled profusion. A red sash tied about his ample waist, a red kerchief about her luxurious fall of redblack hair, gold at her wrist and throat and ears swaying as the wheels turned.

  My fingers tightened on Arran’s reins. He merely flicked an ear, and we continued on into the twilight, the pinprick-lights of the Bleu in the distance a welcome beacon.

  I remained passing thoughtful, and more than a little unsettled.

  When last I had seen that R’mini headman, we had both been in Arcenne.

  * * *

  Some days later we found the war.

  Merún is a day’s ride from Citté Arquitaine. I had planned that we would swing north and east, taking the Road that strikes for Spire di Tierrcei; from there the Road was a river to Reimelles, and our chances were good of catching my Queen’s army.

  Or so I thought. We breasted a short broken rise; twas the last of the rolling ridges before the vast basin the Citté lay cupped like a pearl in—called Paumelle d’Arquitaine, after the hollow of a woman’s hand—and halted, staring down.

  Merún, the town of lacemakers, the royal seat of the White Kings before the Caprete line had failed and Tirecian-Trimestin became the next branch of the Angoulême’s line to wear the Aryx, Merún of the narrow streets and the Merúnaisse, as its inhabitants are called for their lace ruffs, Merún one of the seven gateways to the Citté, was burning.

  The hounds of Damar had not been held at Reimelles after all. Later I heard of the frantic retreat to Merún, of the shattered remnants of the defenders of Reimelles meeting the Hedgewitch Queen’s ragtag force and causing panic as they fled. I was told of Vianne’s rallying them, riding forth on her white horse, the Aryx fiery on her chest—what had that fire cost her?—and the Guard, both old and new, behind her seeking to stem the tide of panicked retreat. Her Captain, di Yspres, commanded a rearguard action that gave enough lee for Merún to be hastily fortified and held.

  I was grateful for that, though hearing him called her Captain sent a bolt of hot rage through me to match di Narborre’s thrust.

  If she was within Merún, I had finally caught pace with my Vianne. There was merely a Damarsene army, fortifications, and a few leagues of war-torn land between us. And if she required me for the Aryx to fully perform its function, how could I help her from here? Was she even in the city?

  I could not know. The moment is one that still brings me to cold sweat. Uncertainty is almost worse against the nerves than disaster.

  Arran stamped as we hastily backed down from the ridgeline. The Damarsene did not look to be setting patrols here; they were occupied with the town. A pillar of crimsonlit smoke hung over their efforts; their siege engines were busy. If the wind shifted, we would perhaps hear the rumble of battle.

  “How did they break Remeilles? Or did they simply invest the town? Is that possible?” Tieris di Siguerre swore, his fist clenched, looking very much as if he wished to strike empty air in the absence of a better enemy.

  “We cannot know at this juncture,” I answered absently. “Peace, lieutenant. Hold a moment.”

  Sharp-faced Jaicler di Tierrce-Alpeis fidgeted. “If Merún falls, the Citté will too.”

  “Peace.” I held up a hand. They were all so young. “Give me a moment to think, chivalieri. This is merely a riddle, and one we shall solve.”

  “The Damar.” Thierre di Sanvreult shuddered. “Their god drinks blood.”

  They were at Arcenne’s walls not so long ago, and handily dispatched. Of course, it had only been some few thousands, not this mass. Arran stamped again, catching the scent of nervousness among the men. “The time for faintheartedness was before we left Arcenne.” My tone was harsher than I liked. “I asked for a moment, chivalieri.”

  There was no murmur of discontent, but I could sense their courage waning as evening filled the sky, Jiserah loosening her robe and Kimyan tightening hers. But tonight would be a night for Danshar the Warrior, sword flashing and shield lifted, or his bow drawn back to his ear.

  No. Not Danshar. He is not subtle enough.

  Cayrian, then. God of thieves, god of traders and the silvertongued minstrels, of tightfisted merchantwives and those who live by the knife. He had married the Old Blessed goddess of justice, and oft made a mockery of her. Still, Elisara his wife—the blind boonsister of Alisaar, Elisara the goddess of honest measurement and swift retribution—always won out in the god-tales and teaching-rhymes. For Cayrian so loves her he cannot bear to truly cheat her. Besides, Alisaar’s curse would descend upon him should he dare to do more than mock, and she is not merely the goddess of love, but of attendant pleasures most are loath to risk. Her wrath is to be feared.

  Of such gods the d’Arquitaine are fond. Their weaknesses bring us easier sleep at night.

  Had I been a more religious man, I would have offered to Cayrian once I was Henri’s Left Hand. Of course, had I been more religious, I might have sought to win Vianne by another method. Who could tell what I would have done? I was faced with what to do now.

  On his dun horse, under a spreading willum tree, the Pruzian’s gaze met mine. He nodded slightly, and I cursed myself for being so slow and so transparent.

  “Sieur van Harkke.” I spoke as if I had my riddle ready, more decisive than I actually was. “Tell me you may enter yon city undetected.”

  A single shrug. All things should be so easy, that shrug said. “I am a Knife.” The guttural Pruzian was far too harsh for a cool-turning-chill harvestwinter eve. Twas a night for cider and a bonfire, peasants dancing and nobles at a fête—possibly the Fête of Moonrising; twas the season for it.

  Oh, there will be bonfire aplenty. Merún already burns.

  “That you are,” I murmured in Arquitaine. “Now, my Guards, I shall tell you what we will do.”

  They trusted me, those younger sons. Their faces, turning to shadow under hatbrim and dusk, turned to me as if I were their father. Perhaps I was; if the drillyard makes a soldier, the man who shouts and curses—who trains the muscle and sinew upon it—is a father of sorts.

  Which made them all my sons. May the Blessed, old and new, forgive me for how harshly I led them.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Dawn was merely a gray intimation on the horizon when Coele shook me awake. At least I had slept; some of the Guard were perhaps not so lucky. A cold night, for we could not risk a campfire’s breath being remarked, did no wonders for anyone’s mood.

  I ignored the grumbling. And I did not ask where di Siguerre had procured the farglass he handed to me as I approached him behind a screen of hollisa bushes. Their berries were soft and fermenting now, a heady, sharp scent in the morning chill. In the lowlands they use such late berries to flavor their mead, if they can manage to collect them before the birds do.

  I lifted the farglass, peered through. Merún lay dark, the fires extingui
shed and its walls featureless at this distance. The city’s Keep was a pile of antique stone, defensible perhaps in the White Kings’ time, but sadly ramshackle now. Outside the walls—at least they were strong, those sheer sorcery-carved graystone curves—the Damarsene swarmed. Blocks of their dark tents strung behind the inward-facing circles of their trenches and earthworks, marring the fields and network of holdings and hamlets lapping against Merún’s walls. No few of those holdings had been torched and sent up their own thin threads of smoke to add to the haze.

  Their owners must have resisted the quartering of Damarsene officers. The standard practice in such cases is to burn and level, even if it robs said officers of shelter for the night. Damar prefers obedience to comfort.

  Perhaps that is why they ever seek to invade Arquitaine’s fields and orchards, to steal what they do not think to make for themselves. Or perhaps they are drunk on war, craving it as the birds crave fermented berries or those with alesickness crave nothing but the next draught of oblivion.

  Sourness filled my throat. Even the shacks of the city’s poor had been cleared from their wall-hugging, the slum burning just as fiercely as the estates of petty nobles farther out. There must have been much butchery among those who could not gain the safety of the walls soon enough.

  The Keep slumped dispirited under a pall of smoke. Was Vianne awake? Had the Knife managed to slip into her presence? Was I right in sending him?

  Tieris could not contain himself. “Any sign?”

  If there were a sign, I would have said so by now. “Not yet.” I kept my tone light. “Break fast lightly, and acquaint them with their routes one more time. Every man to check his weapons. We are not armored enough for a full cavalry charge; speed and lightness must be our priority. Leave behind anything that will weigh us down.”

  “Aye.” He paused. “Captain…”

  I thought him merely nervous. “Ease yourself, di Siguerre. We have come this far.”