The Bandit King

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Arcenne was a long way from Court. And hither she wished me to take myself.

  I wish you to live.

  But for today, they watched her approach the Great Altar, her head high and her hair pulled back into a simple half-braid, the remainder of its curling mass alive with golden highlights. The white she wore, subtly brocaded, glowed as the Aryx rippled with light. Witchlights spun and wove overhead, hissing and crackling in the charged hush. Her fingers rested on Adrien di Cinfiliet’s arm, and his shoulders were tense.

  He was armed. So was I, though no other in the Ladytemple was to carry a weapon. The Guard were outside, waiting in the crisp harvest sun. The morning had been etched with frost.

  Winter was coming.

  The Great Altar is an empty block of bluestone, the same stuff as the Pavilion of the Field d’Or. It is roughly squared, and it is dedicated to Jiserah the Gentle first and the rest of the Blessed afterward. Offerings laid upon it vanish, taken straight to the Blessed.

  Or so tis said. It is one thing the Left Hand does not know the truth of.

  There are others. Too many for my comfort. And chief among them was exactly what my d’mselle thought as she paced that processional way.

  Step, by step, by step. Once she reached the altar and the Aryx spoke, she would be crowned. Irion di Markui was in place, holding the iron casket. Inside it, the confection of spun lightmetal—platiere, more precious and rare than gold—and sapphires would rest on gray velvet. She would take it from the casket, settle it on her brow, and be crowned Queen of Arquitaine.

  Would she renounce me at that moment, or afterward? Would she take a new Consort? They were cousins, but closer marriages have been made in the name of power. And as the hero who had brought the Navarrin and his bandits to the relief of Merún, and Henri’s son, no matter how bastard, he was a fine choice.

  And he was not a murderer. At least, not as her Consort was. He would not be able to keep her from the knives of intrigue half so well.

  But perhaps he would also not wound her. Perhaps he would not bring her world down in flames about her with his unthinking desire. Perhaps he would not shame her, or make her weep.

  Perhaps, just perhaps, Adrien di Cinfiliet was a better choice. If I were to be honest—and aye, starting now was too late, as always—I could admit as much.

  And yet.

  She reached the Three Stairs, and she halted. She glanced up at di Cinfiliet, and they shared a moment of silent accord. My heart writhed inside my chest. My place was next to di Markui, hands loose though they longed to clutch a rapier-hilt, my face set and composed.

  The years of not even daring to glance at her at Court were nothing compared to this.

  She stepped forward. So did di Markui. A long pause. She took the next step. Di Markui approached the bottom of the Stairs. Di Cinfiliet glanced at di Markui, whose craggy face was unreadable. Do your part, that glance seemed to say, and my pulse raced. Treachery? Here?

  No. I was merely too practiced in the art to credit truth when I saw it.

  She took the last step, and turned. The Aryx glowed. She beckoned, and a gasp went through the assembled.

  Di Cinfiliet took the first Stair. A pause, and the second. Would she declare him Heir? What was this?

  He took the third, and Vianne’s hand came up to her chest. She cupped the Aryx in her fingers, lovingly, and her lips moved. None could hear, but with the ease of training and habit I deciphered the words she spoke.

  I have done what you asked. Let me free. Let me go.

  And the Great Seal… sang.

  The Ladytemple shook, the Rosaille echoing and blazing, and a fierce silver light burst free. Twas not witchlight or any other earthly radiance. The only time I had witnessed its like was in Arcenne’s Temple, on my wedding day, when the statue of Jiserah kindled and my Queen had stared unblinking into that light.

  The blaze did not dim, but it became easier to pierce. Blinking furiously, tears rising to every eye, Arquitaine witnessed the Aryx pass from the Hedgewitch Queen’s hands. She folded Adrien di Cinfiliet’s fingers about the Seal’s glow, and the picture they made…

  I cannot describe it. The courtsongs will tell you. They will not be able to express a quarter of its fineness.

  The cry that rose was Vianne’s, and it carried a deep authority. Had I not known every shade and tone of her, I might have mistaken it, as every other present did, for the voice of Jiserah herself.

  “Arquitaine!” she cried. “Behold your King!”

  And the Hedgewitch Queen, before the Great Altar, knelt to Adrien di Cinfiliet. A rippling wind went through the Ladytemple, its walls groaning, and the assembled nobility fell to their knees. Heralds posted on the steps cried out the news.

  The silvery radiance intensified, flushed with gold as if the Sun and Moon had come together atop the Great Altar. A roaring cheer rose, every bell the Ladytemple owned tolling at once, and wild jubilation roared over the Citté.

  When the light faded, Adrien di Cinfiliet was crowned. The Hedgewitch Queen had brought the Bandit King to power. She had never wished the burden of rule; she had only appeared, twas said, to turn back the tide of invasion and civil war. She was blessed of Jiserah, or Jiserah’s hand on earth, but the important thing, the critical thing, was this:

  Vianne di Rocancheil et Vintmorecy had vanished.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  I took advantage of the ensuing confusion to vanish of my own account. For one who had been Left Hand, twas child’s play. The Citté enfolded me as Arcenne’s Keep would; I took further advantage of confusion and celebration outside to steal a cloak and shed my fine hat. I stole a not-so-fine drover’s headgear, and made my way to the Palais’s shimmer.

  My apartments in the Guard barracks had been ransacked and sealed. Dust lay thick over every surface, and the brazier I had burned the incriminating papers in still had ash in its depths. My clothing had been shredded, my narrow bed torn apart, my cabinets hacked open. For all that, they had not found everything, and only a fool has merely one hiding place.

  Life returned to the Palais that evening. Twas midnight before a certain quiet descended. An hour passed, and another.

  I waited.

  The traditional resting place of a new monarch after crowning is the Angoulême’s Cell in the west wing of the Palais. Tis a narrow room, with a narrow bed and only one tapestry—a fleurs-di-lisse, white thread upon deep blue. The narrow window casement looks only upon bricks, for the Cell has been enclosed by other parts of the Palais, accreting around the most ancient bits in layers, as a pearl. Or a gallstone.

  The blank window is shrouded with deep blue velvet curtains, stiff with age and dust even when hastily beaten clean. Twas there I waited, and I knew my prey was close when a servant bustled in to light the fire in the tiny fireplace with a coal from a Ladytemple brazier and the flick of a hedgewitch charm. The servant—no doubt he had performed the same office for d’Orlaans—shuffled away. I relaxed into dimness, breathing softly.

  They approached. Several, the tramp of booted feet. I rested a hand on my rapier, my boots glove-supple from hard use and not creaking as I shifted my weight to keep muscles ready for action. Did he suspect? If he did, he might well order the Cell searched, though I had waited until they had already performed such a search before secreting myself here.

  Some low conversation. But only two men entered the Cell, and I closed my eyes. Reopened them in the stiff, dusty darkness behind the curtain.

  “At the end of the hall,” Adrien di Cinfiliet said. “Tis enough.”

  Jierre di Yspres sighed. “A foolish risk. You know he will at least wish to pass words with you.”

  “He is more likely to seek your company, Captain. What am I, to him? Nothing.”

  “I hope he will pause to hear your argument before seeking to run you through.” Jierre, ever pessimistic, heaved another sigh. “Should I search the room, Your Majesty?”

  “For the love of the Blessed, address me as Adrien. If he
is here… then perhaps he will listen to my argument. Perhaps he will listen when I say I do not know where she has vanished to, and that I wish I could have gainsaid her. And that, does he wish any aid at all, he has merely to ask it of me.”

  I blinked, but not in surprise. No, it was merely to keep myself in readiness. Or so I told myself.

  Jierre’s sardonic tone, well-known to me. “I hope you are correct. Arquitaine cannot stand to lose more royalty.”

  “And there is this.” A touch of loathing in the bandit’s tone, now. “Cursed thing. What would you say to him, were he here?”

  Jierre was silent for a long moment. I shut my eyes.

  Yes, what would you say, Lieutenant? You played your part to perfection, and I can credit it was at her bidding. Would to the gods I had seen enough to know.

  But a guilty conscience makes a man blinder than a clear one ever shall.

  When Jierre spoke, it was softly, and for my ears alone, for all that the new King was the only man he could see. “I would tell him,” he said softly, “that I regret playing my part so well. And, should he ever wish to have a blade at his bidding, that we are too marvelous to die.”

  My jaw set, hard enough to crack my teeth. Loyal to the end, Jierre. In his own fashion.

  Adrien di Cinfiliet’s laugh was a bitter bark. “You are passing strange, sieur. Off with you. I am certain that Pruzian will be about as well; he is a tick upon a deer’s leg. Why she left him to nursemaid me, I have no—”

  “She is thorough, our d’mselle. Safe dreaming, Adrien.”

  A low bitter laugh. “Gods be praised, you have finally unbent. Safe dreaming yourself, Jierre. Tomorrow we begin our thankless task.”

  “We? My only task is to keep your skin whole. To you lies the rest.” Jierre’s step, light and familiar, and the door swept creaking shut behind him.

  I waited. The bed groaned as he settled upon it. The fire crackled.

  “You may as well come out,” Adrien di Cinfiliet said quietly.

  So I did, cautiously pushing the curtain aside, my poniard ready. My boots touched the floor, and I braced myself—but the newly-crowned King merely sat on the edge of the bed, still in his white finery, and regarded me with his storm-gray gaze.

  I faced the bastard son of the man I had killed. Lifted the poniard slightly, firelight playing along its freshly honed blade. “I should kill you.” The truth was ash against my tongue. “Were I the man you think I am, I would.”

  I was that man, but I wish not to be.

  He nodded slowly, his dark hair falling over his forehead. “No doubt. But a certain dark-eyed d’mselle would not look kindly upon such a deed.”

  The knife was too tempting. I sheathed it. “Are you satisfied?” I merely sounded curious. Perhaps twas the tightness in my chest that robbed my words of the weight I wished them to carry.

  The Bandit King gave another sharp, bitter bark of a laugh. “You think I wished for this? I knew she was up to mischief, d’Arcenne. I did not expect to be snapped into traces and neatly put to plow. She laid her plans well, and outwitted us both.”

  I could almost believe you. “Where has she gone?”

  “Were you not listening? I do not know. Amid the feasting and every man who can lay claim to being a soldier drunk and celebrating, who could find her?” He sagged, and I saw his exhaustion. “She said that had I need, I should send her this. But where to send it, she did not tell me. A riddle from m’cousine Riddlesharp, and one I cannot solve.” A green gleam in his hand, carefully lifted. Twas an ear-drop, and I finally recognized it as hers. She had been wearing them the day the conspiracy was loosed.

  Much became clear to me at once. I shall send the other half as proof.

  If this was a message from my d’mselle, how could it be deciphered?

  We regarded each other for a long while, the fire crackling and shifting. Sweat gathered on my back, dewed my brow.

  Finally, some of the tension left me. I stalked across the Cell. He did not move, and when I took the ear-drop from his fingers I was surprised to find I did not wish to murder him.

  At least, not at this moment. Perhaps not ever. Leaving him with a crown to wear and the Pruzian to nursemaid him was a far better revenge.

  I backed up with a shuffle, a swordsman’s move. The scar on my chest ached. I had not put it to much of a test. Perhaps twas the heart underneath that pained me so. My face twitched, its scar plucking at itself. “Someday, you may think she is a threat to you.” Each word carefully enunciated, slow and quiet. “If that day should come to pass, remember only that I will be watching. As long as you do not seek to harm her, you are safe from me.”

  “I would not harm her.” He cocked his head, and the mocking expression was Henri’s, down to the last line and quirk. “There is one thing, d’Arcenne. She left me a letter.”

  I waited.

  “Tis burned now. But in it, she warned me that I would need a Left Hand.”

  Where in the Shirlstrienne could he have learned that delicate insinuation? The right note of velvet threat and dangling bait. A lure, perhaps, to make a hawk rise—and even in the forest, perhaps he had known something of hawking.

  I swallowed dryly. “My thanks, Your Majesty. But I already serve.” I paused on my way out the door. “The Pruzian isn’t fit for it, and neither is Jierre. Try di Siguerre. His grandfather has already prepared him nicely.”

  And with that, I slid into the corridor, turned away from the guard posted at the end of the hall—they were inattentive, conversing with each other in hushed whispers—and slipped into darkness. I passed Fridrich van Harkke, hidden in a pool of deep shadow behind a moldering cupboard that had perhaps once held rapiers for the dueling-hall just past the next archway. He did not breathe as I ghosted by, and I did not turn or speed my step, though my back roughened with gooseflesh.

  The Knife did not strike. I left the Palais an hour later, and by dawn I was outside the Citté.

  Twas time to find my Queen.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  They gathered at their fires, bright-eyed and dark-haired, and the throbbing beat of their music rose as they finished their dinner. Bubbling, fragrant meat stew, different spices than an Arquitaine cook would use, woodsmoke, and the odor of difference and green hedgewitchery.

  It had taken me weeks to track them.

  After the feasting, the dishes were cleaned. Laughter rose among them, bright ribbons of their odd liquid language. Gold twinkled at ear and throat and wrist, thin golden rings and some of the dark women sporting thread-thin noserings. Splashing and jests, merriment and the cries of joyful younglings, then the central fire was carefully tended and the children soothed.

  The instruments came forth. Gittern and tambour, pipes like wailing demieri di sorce, the rhythm driving and odd, burrowing into breath and bones and blood. Two lines of dancers, male and female like some of the maying dances, and the women’s voices lifted.

  Their dancing is strange, too. Flicker of hips, stamping sandals working into the dusty earth, arms held stiffly and eyes mostly lowered. There is no word for the grace, but the sway of their hips and the hitched-up skirts showing their ankles, their bare brown arms gleaming with gold and effort… it makes a man think of other dances.

  The men, straight and tall, took up the challenge and danced forward. Pairs were formed, older married women calling from the sidelines. The older women are held to be experts, and their judgments accepted without question. Pairs retired, breathing quickly and taking swigs of their fiery clear rhuma, joining the onlookers and adding their voices to the song. I touched the lump of my father’s signet under my doublet and watched.

  When one pair is left the music intensifies, and they are called upon to perform. They must provide a spectacle, and should they be judged insipid or unworthy of the honor, the mockery, while good-natured, is intense.

  She stood at the edges, a shawl wrapped about her shoulders. The headman’s wife, dark and lean, stood next to her, calling out advic
e and clapping her narrow brown hands. They conferred together like myrmyra birds, the way a Princesse and her lady-in-waiting might.

  My chest ached, ached.

  When next I peered out the tiny window, she was walking, head down and barefoot, her sandals swinging from one hand. She climbed the steps, lightly, and opened the wagon’s cunningly designed door. Painted in red and gold, the small house-on-wheels was neat, and trim, and pulled by a pair of good-natured roans who were at the pickets, munching contentedly.

  She hummed, a wandering melody threading through the thumping beat outside. Opened a tiny cabinet, standing on tiptoe, feeling for something in the darkness. She cursed under her breath, not finding what she sought, and swung the cabinet closed.

  Court sorcery flashed. A candle guttered into life, and she swallowed her scream, clapping a hand over her mouth and staring at me.

  I was, perhaps, not a comforting sight.

  We regarded each other, Vianne and I. My back was to the hedgewitch-armoire built into one whole wall of the wagon, the bed at the far end, the scarves and skirts hung on pegs on the other wall. She had traded the Palais for these cramped quarters, and there was a book tangled in her bedclothes. A treatise by a Tiberian philosopher, a man who had given up the rule of his city and retreated to a farm, only to be slain when the king following him grew suspicious.

  Was she reading for her future, then?

  Finally, she dropped her hand. Her sandals dropped as well. Her hair, braided in loops over her ears as the R’mini women do, had pulled free and framed her face with curling tendrils. She had gained some little weight, and there were no shadows under her eyes.