The Bandit King

by Lilith Saintcrow

  He did.

  So she was determined to stay. I caught Jierre’s glance again, and found with some relief that he and I were in accord on one question, at least. She should not be allowed to persist in this folly.

  The trouble would lie in convincing her so.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “There is nothing more to do at the moment.” Jierre took the quill from her fingers. “Should there be an emergency, I will send for you.”

  Her mouth turned down, doleful and weary at once. “Tis all an emergency. The walls are—”

  “They have held so far, they shall continue to do so for a short while. Di Chatillon and di Vidancourt are working wonders in your name, d’mselle. Go and rest, so you may be ready for the dawn serenade.”

  Another face, her nose wrinkling. She swayed, and I was up from the chair in a heartbeat, my hand around her arm. Jierre had caught her too, from the other side.

  “I am well enough.” She sought to free herself of Jierre’s clasp first, and that sent a flush through me. The reclaiming of her arm from my hand was just as decided. “Cap—ah, d’Arcenne.” She did not flush, nor did she glance directly at me. “My thanks for your company. I shall send for you anon.”

  “Vianne.” I could not help myself. “I shall go with you.” Twas difficult to strike the right tone—firm but not commanding, asking but not pleading. I wondered too late if outright begging, perhaps on my knees, would be more likely to secure me a measure of forgiveness.

  “I require you for the Aryx, sieur. That is all.” Coolly, as she might address an overbearing swain at Court. Jierre had averted his gaze, studying the mess of paper on the table. The room was not quite quiet—Adersahl was at the door, and beyond that barrier there was much shuffling and murmuring. I could not tell what hour it was. Late, I suspected, and the Damarsene gathering their strength for tomorrow. Should they send scaling-parties, twould be knifework and grapple-sorcery on the walls. Dark work, requiring much nerve and wit.

  My temper all but broke. “Do you plan to reduce me to begging? I wish to be at your side; do you not understand?”

  “I suppose if I sent you away I would merely wake to find you looming over me again.” More trembled on her lips, but she pulled the words back with a visible effort. “I do not have the strength for this, d’Arcenne.”

  “Then use mine.” Memory threatened to choke me. I had told her this before.

  “Yours carries too high a price, chivalier.” She slid past Jierre, her skirts brushing his knees. He did not move. “Do as you please. You will in any event; I cannot gainsay you. Jierre, my thanks.”

  “D’mselle.” His cheeks were red, too. But he offered nothing more as I made it to my feet and followed her. The pain in my chest was not merely the wound.

  Still, I followed as she brushed past Adersahl. He fell into step behind her, and the swelling whispers through the crowd outside her door mocked me. She looked neither right nor left, her hands at her skirts to keep them free of her feet, and such was her air of royalty that even those desperate for audience gave way.

  * * *

  The Keep was drafty and ramshackle; Merún’s liege was di Roubelon, and he had spent most of his time at Court. He was perhaps in the Citté, either writhing at the thought of the damage to his rents and tithes, or glad he was not enduring the discomforts of war. Either was equally likely. He would no doubt present a bill to the Crown if the miraculous occurred and Arquitaine freed herself of the Damarsene. Otherwise, he would turn himself to being agreeable to the conquerors.

  The quarters given to Vianne’s use were… adequate. This had perhaps once been a queen of the Caprete’s line’s bedroom, its window-casement looking onto a sadly bedraggled garden of roses gone to rot and wither. It must have hurt her to see it so neglected; any hedgewitch would feel a pang to see such disrepair.

  The bed was wide but its curtains were stiff-dusty, its linens threadbare, and dust also lay on heavy graceful antiques last fashionable in King Archimvault’s time. The watercloset worked, however, and fresh clothing arrived for me. At least, I think twas intended for my use, and I took the stack from a young wide-eyed pageboy who attempted to peer past me into the room. Vianne was safely in the watercloset, the sound of splashing and an occasional rushing spatter as the ancient fallwater inside choked on fluid spilling through uncertain pipes. Twas lucky water was not rationed; the Marrenne had not fallen very far this summer.

  Merely far enough.

  When she emerged, re-laced into her dress and her hair merely damp, her eyes were red-rimmed. She gave precious little evidence of weeping, merely crossed to the bed and dropped down with a sigh. I was left, still filthy with blood and ditch-muck, holding a stack of linen and doublet that might have been intended for another man, pointedly ignored by the woman who turned her back to the room and pretended immediate slumber.

  My throat had gone dry. Again. I was hungry, but that was of little account. The scar on my chest burrowed deeper, green traceries of hedgewitch charming almost visible to Sight as my strength waned.

  “Vianne.” Hoarsely. “Please.” Forgive me. If you will. If you can.

  She did not respond.

  It strikes at a man, that brand of a woman’s silence. Not quite as a mailed fist to the gut, but close enough—and a little lower, as well.

  “I could not stay away.” As an explanation, it left much to be desired. “I still cannot.”

  Did she move? No, twas merely a flicker from the dim glowglobes in their wall sconces. She retired still-gowned, so she could be dressed when fresh crisis arose. Ever practical, my Vianne. But she should not have to be, not in this manner.

  “Merún will fall,” I continued, quietly. “They cannot hold. You must be a-ship and away before that happens. Must I drag you?” Would her temper rise?

  It did not. The silence stretched. Her breathing evened itself. She could perhaps be truly asleep. Exhaustion is a wondrous aid when one seeks to ignore a man, I suppose.

  Finally, I stamped into the watercloset. Most of the filth had fallen from my boots; twas a joy to have a real fallwater again, even if it did choke with alarming regularity. The clothes could have been meant for me—the breeches a trifle loose, the shirt and doublet a trifle too large, both plain and dark.

  And there, folded into the middle of the shirt, a red sash. Which did not solve the riddle of quite whose clothes these were.

  I cannot gainsay you.

  How right she was. I could stride into the bedroom, shake her awake. Strike her. Make her respond. She was only a woman, despite the Aryx.

  And what was I?

  The slice of looking-glass over the sink was ancient and cracked. I touched it, fingertips scratching and still faintly stained with grime. Hard riding does not wash out so easily. I turned away, not wishing to see the dusty ghost of my reflection. Stopped in the watercloset door, gazing at the bed’s stiff brocaded draperies.

  Only a woman. I could do what I liked. Truly, who was there to halt me or say me nay? She needed me, by all appearances far too much to do more than leave me behind with nursemaids. I had won her once; I could win her again. Patience and time—but my patience was sorely lacking, and there was no time.

  Was it not just this morn I had resolved to make myself into a man she could be proud of? And now, simply look at what I contemplated. There was a word for it, and it was not noble.

  I stood in the ashes of my dreams, in the midst of a city that would suffer the sword in a short while. I had betrayed my King and my family, brought unimaginable suffering to my land, and drove the woman I loved into a Damarsene hell.

  I had done this, and none other. I had even died for it. Were I more religious, I could consider everything before that moment a stain washed away.

  But I was not, and there was no water for the stain on me. There was not enough even in the wide salt seas to cleanse the first layer of dirt smirching my self, and I had applied every inch of it myself.

  Did I even truly love he
r, if I would use her thus? And yet she had not let me die, and had believed in my innocence until I had riven that belief with the truth.

  I am not fine enough for you, Vianne. I have not ever been.

  The gnawing suspicion that I would not ever be was familiar. That emptiness had always been within me, and it had led me to do the unthinkable and unspeakable, thinking it would earn me what I coveted.

  The room was dim and quiet. You could almost imagine no battle outside, a d’mselle from a courtsong sleeping as her chivalier stood, loath to wake her. I had sworn her my service not once but twice, she had touched my rapier-hilt and accepted both times. I prided myself on being her Left Hand—and yet, look at the pass I had brought Arquitaine to.

  If I had left Henri alive, what would have happened?

  Such a question is useless. Think on what must be done now.

  Well, what was to be done? I could hope not to make aught worse. And most likely fail in that, too.

  There was one chair in the room—a rickety ironwood thing, carved with ancient spikefruit and possessing a mouse-eaten cushion. It looked decidedly uncomfortable, and I cast another longing glance at the dusty bed. The tapestries hung rotting on the walls, hanging in a stasis that would continue until their threads frayed and they folded to the floor in puffs of dust. By that year, would there be songs of how I betrayed my King? Would I be a footnote in the secret archives, my name blackened?

  She would be buried in the chapel of royalty, and I… in a nameless hole, perhaps, my bones crying out for hers as they moldered.

  What would the man she could love do at this moment, Tristan d’Arcenne?

  When I opened the door, a familiar face met mine. Jierre paused, crouching, caught in the act of unrolling a sleeping-pad on the opposite side of the hall. He gazed at me dully, exhaustion plainly written on his gaunt face. “Robierre di Atyaint-Sierre and Adersahl have the reins.” He turned back to the pad, smoothing it down. “They shall send for us, if there is need.”

  Us. Does he mean “Vianne and me”? Or does he mean all three of us? Or, even, “Captain, you and me”? There was no way of knowing save to ask, and I did not feel like asking.

  I closed her door softly. Leaned the chair against the wall, dropped into it, my sword to the side. The ache in my chest would not cease. Was the charm holding? It had held through a short vicious fight, but that was no indication.

  “You have done well, chivalier.” I leaned back, propped my head against the wall. “I owe you my thanks.”

  Sound of cloth moving as he settled himself. The witchlight torches hissed slightly—no glowglobes here in the hall, too expensive for merely a passageway. “Merún will not fall tonight.” Flat, monotone. “She should take ship for the Citté. She has some plan; she keeps its particulars close. Tinan di Rocham was sent, to do I know not what. She says we shall not leave Merún, that relief is nigh. I fear she may have gone mad.”

  “Not mad.”At least, not yet. “Now you see the steel in her.”

  “I could wish she had less steel and more sense.” He sighed, and perhaps twas exhaustion that made him so unwary. “Tristan?”

  Are you about to tell me I should hang myself to spare her pain? I might. I settled myself, seeking any comfort I could in the chair. There was none to be found. I had slept in worse, though, and though I had done nothing but sit and watch through that long afternoon, I was fair worn through. “Aye?”

  “I do not think you a traitor. I never did.” His tone was harsh, but the lie—if twas such—was kind.

  My eyes squeezed shut. Do not break her confidence. I sighed. “It matters little now.” And I cannot tell if you are misleading me.

  “It matters.” He paused. “If we die here, I wish for you to know.”

  “We will not die here.” I sounded as certain as she did. Had I not just been standing in her bedroom, thinking of the lies I had told to bring us to this place? And yet, if Jierre’s faith were shaken, he would not be half as effective in her defense. “I promise you that, di Yspres. We are simply too marvelous to die.”

  His weary laugh rewarded me. “What was his name? Arkaeon dev Kadat. A petty chivalier of Badeau.”

  “Only outnumbered eight to one, we were.” The memory brought me a grimace too pained to be a smile but too cheerful to be a frown. When one has survived such a thing as the Battle of Lithielle, tis the only possible expression to wear.

  “You sent back the herald to say you would wait, and he should bring back another four hundred of his kin to make the battle even.” Jierre moved again. “Adersahl was near to killing you himself.”

  “He enjoyed it. And the reception from the town afterward left little to be desired.” In fact, that had been the only time I had allowed every member of the Guard to become blind-sotted at once. They had deserved it, after all. Arkaeon dev Kadat had never troubled the north-and-west of Arquitaine again. And Badeau had taken quite a more reasonable tone with Henri afterward, parrying Damar’s requests for trade concessions that would sting Arquitaine’s merchants.

  Jierre’s weary laugh was balm and a fresh scoring all at once. “Di Montfort and the m’dama of the pleasure-house on Rieu di Chier. I am a hero, woman! And her reply.”

  “You are a sot and a base rogue, and a boylover beside.” I could still remember the woman’s very tone and the stained kerchief knotted about her head, her broad fist raised.

  His tone dropped, an imitation of di Montfort’s broad north-coast accent. “I care little what I bugger at this moment, m’dama, and you look fine enough.”

  A laugh startled me. Thin and inexpressibly weary, my chest gripping and aching as the pale shadow of merriment took voice, answered by his. “And the sourhead afterward. Twas lucky Badeau did not think to field an attack while you were all recovering.”

  “Aye to that.” The old comfortable silence fell between us. Jierre’s breathing took on the rhythm of sleep, and I rested my left hand on my rapier-hilt. I longed for slumber, but Kimyan’s gift was long in coming.

  Honest men were faithful, and Jierre even more so. I never did. He had played his part well, for Vianne’s sake.

  I was not honest. Perhaps twas too late to become so, as well.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  I woke to shouting, and my rapier cleared the sheath before I blinked and found myself spilling out of an uncomfortable chair, while Jierre pounded on Vianne’s door. “Wake!” he yelled, and twisted the knob, striding through. His hair stood up in spikes and his eyes blazed, and fair blond Luc di Chatillon had just skidded to a stop, out of breath and pale as a woodchopper faced with demieri di sorce.

  “The Gate!” he choked. “All that could be spared! Damarsene—”

  I needed to hear no more, spun on my heel and followed Jierre.

  Vianne was already upright, her hair a tangled glory. “The dawn serenade,” she said, and laughed bitterly. “At least it interrupts my dreaming. Quickly, now!” She brushed past me in a breath of skirts and the smell of her, hedgewitch-green and spicy, filled my head. “Come along!” And, wonder of wonders, her hand closed about my wrist.

  I remember little of the stumbling behind her, still mazed with sleep, the tearing in my chest familiar and so, pushed aside. I remember even less of the wild ride a-horseback through Merún’s burning streets. A predawn attack, and it blurs together in my dreams with Arcenne and the Graecan fire. At least I had resheathed my sword, and someone had saddled Arran for me.

  Hooves sparking on paving-stones, flames and the stink, Vianne’s tangled head bobbing as the white palfrey bestirred herself to a gallop she had rarely been called on for in Arcenne. The slope of the ramparts behind the gate, switching back and doubling on itself to provide the horses with enough footing. Silvery witchfire crackling around the Hedgewitch Queen as she rode, a globe of protection forming even as she pulled her horse to a halt atop Merún’s eastron gate and flung out both hands, the Aryx’s singing reverberating through my body like the tramp of boots on a stone bridge, a harmony t
hat could crumble granite.

  A shattering rumble, hedgewitchery burning like a green flame and the witchfire surrounding her brightening. Arcs of Graecan fire halting, spinning, smashed aside, Merún’s walls shuddering as sorcery plucked at them.

  Behind us, the cup of the city smoked and fumed, alive with screams. Massive orbs of Graecan fire, smears of deadly orange-yellow on the hush of the darkest portion of night—the long dark shoal of fourth watch, when the old die and the living feel their blood slow if they are unlucky enough to be waking—poured up in high arcs from the siege engines massed below the walls. The white horse standing frozen as a statue, and the high whistling sound is coming. I cannot stop it; I know what comes next, as dream and reality twist together in a fevered braid.

  For I was fevered. The weakness in me was infection, always a risk with hurts newly mended. The charm holding my chest together had not frayed much, but perhaps the ditchwater had done the work d’Orlaans could not finish. I fell from Arran’s back, the tearing in my lungs becoming a river of hot acid in my throat. I spat blood, stumbled as the whistling became a scream—

  —and the crossbow bolt pierced the still-building shell of witchfire, shrieking like a mountain-spirit, burying itself in Vianne’s shoulder.

  The Aryx, bell-like, tolled, almost throwing me to my knees. I skidded, caught her as she spilled from the horse in a gray blur. Her cry was lost under the noise of the Seal screaming its distress and the howls of Graecan fire, now rising unchecked and falling in long slow liquid streams into the city.

  Knees hit the stone flooring of the walkway, jarring through me. She was paper-white, her mouth moving slightly, perhaps praying. My hand closed around the shaft of the bolt. Get it free, then staunch the blood. And hope tis not poisoned.

  Twas a fine time to wish I were a hedgewitch. The bolt was an ugly thing; she would be lucky to escape a shoulder-halt. My lips moved as another bubble of warmth broke on my lips, Court sorcery flaming against my fingers, the bolt shivering. It had not gone all through, the barbed tip grated on bone, and I twisted, wood suddenly flexible in my hands and the metal of its head giving out a low note of distress unheard in the cacophony.