The Shattered Vigil

by Patrick W. Carr

  We came around to the main entrance on the south side. I didn’t see the point in trying to hide from the church soldiers just yet, and by the time word got back to the Chief of Servants that I’d returned I would already be in the queen’s presence.

  I hoped.

  I tried not to tally up all the times in the past few months I’d started with a perfectly good plan and then had to improvise my way.

  “Lord Dura,” the guard at the left of the entrance called in a voice that could probably be heard in the poor quarter. “You’re alive.”

  “Indeed I am, Sevin—though you seem surprised. Did you doubt?”

  He shook his head. “Not for a moment, but the odds were tempting when they shifted after the first few days you were gone.”

  I gaped. “You wagered on whether I was still alive? You bet against me?”

  Sevin held up his hands. “Not me, Lord Dura. I’ve seen you survive too many times to put stock in rumors of your death, but some of the newer lads are going to be disappointed to see you in a vertical posture.”

  He shrugged, pulling his shoulders all the way up to his ears before letting them fall. “And as for wagering, well, it gets a mite boring playing bones all the time.” A huge gap-toothed smile split his face. “Putting money down on people is a lot more fun.”

  I shook my head, but I envied him and his cohorts their simple existence and pleasures. “I need to see the queen, Sevin. Can you send word ahead and take us up?”

  “You don’t need my permission, Lord Dura. They’ll be seating for the evening meal and you’ve still got your title.”

  “I intend to go. I just don’t want to surprise her. I imagine she’ll want to speak with me alone, after I present myself, and sending word will give her a chance to set any other appointments aside.”

  “You’re really going into court?” Sevin asked.

  Nodding got me a laugh, and Sevin shifted to speak with one of the other guards. “I’ll be taking Lord Dura up to the throne room—send word to the queen.” He pointed at Wag and turned to me. “But I’ll wager you’ll want to leave the dog behind.”

  Wag gave a low growl that pushed Sevin back a half step.

  “Queen Cailin will want to see him,” I said.

  He shook his head. “I doubt it, but that’s a decision for her and her personal guards. You know how Carrick and the rest are. They see threats in thin air.”

  We began the ascent, and by the time we arrived at the entrance to the throne room, strains of music floated on the air, mixing with the smells of food. Wag’s tongue came out and flopped over the top of his snout before running down each side of his mouth. We shifted away from the door where Sevin waited to escort us in.

  “We can’t take him in there,” I said. “We’ll have to split up.”

  Bolt looked at me for a moment before he shook his head. “Not a good idea. If you go without Rory, he can’t protect you from any dwimor that might be in the tor.”

  Rory smiled, but I couldn’t help noting the sardonic tilt to his head and cynical squint around his eyes.

  Bolt was right. I needed Rory there with me. “As long as he doesn’t let his mouth get ahead of his brain, he’ll be fine. And he’s dressed better than he used to be.”

  “Ha,” Rory barked. “You should take your own advice about thinking before you speak, yah?”

  Bolt looked from Rory to me. “He has a point. And I need to be in there in case Duke Orlan decides to take offense to you again, or do you believe a man like that is going to take his time replacing a killer like Lord Baine?”

  “I wish I could have seen you fight him,” Rory said. “I heard your swords had barely crossed before you put him down in front of the court, the king, and Aer.”

  I shook my head. “We’re going to have to do something about that bloodthirsty streak of yours.”

  Bolt looked at Wag and let out a long exhale. “Bribe the guards at the door and once we’re inside tell Wag to wait for us in a dark corner.” He paused to chew his lower lip. “It wouldn’t hurt to have one of the servers bring enough food to keep him distracted for a while.”

  I could feel the muscles in my neck starting to tense. I hated going into court. “Well enough. I’m thinking I should have just emptied my purse into Fynn’s hand and begged her to take the money instead.”

  “You’re just now thinking that?” Bolt asked.

  I walked over to Sevin. “We’re going in. Can you get Wag through the guards at the door?”

  He looked at us in our travel-stained clothes, armed from our temples to our toes, and smiled. If there was anything Sevin enjoyed more than watching chaos erupt around me in the throne room, I didn’t know what it was. Idiot.

  “I’ll, ah, need something to motivate them, Lord Dura.” Sevin held out his hand.

  I nodded to Bolt, who pulled his shrunken purse of silver out of his cloak and counted a pair of coins, before he grudgingly put the whole thing in Sevin’s meaty palm. “Give the guards whatever they need. The rest is for you to stay with Wag and keep him fed and quiet until we’re done.”

  Sevin’s eyes goggled before he nodded and walked up to the guards at the door. Bolt had just paid him a month’s wages.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s see if we can persuade Duke Orlan to recognize his daughter.”

  We passed by the guards, who all conveniently orchestrated coughing fits that kept them from seeing over fifty pounds of fur and teeth pass by. I knelt and put my bare hands on Wag’s ruff. “Stay with Sevin,” I said aloud, but in my mind I pictured the guard and a dark corner filled with meat and bones.

  Wag led Sevin over to a corner to the left, where he could keep an eye on the hall without being seen, and I led Bolt and Rory into the chaos of light and sound that typified court in Bunard.

  For once I didn’t have to endure the barrage of insults from other nobles as I made my way toward the front of the throne room. I didn’t know whether that was due to rumors of the events surrounding Bas-solas or the fact that Bolt stood at my shoulder. I didn’t really care.

  Even so, most of them managed to convey an almost palpable distaste for my presence among them by the way they studiously avoided even incidental contact. For some odd reason, that pleased me.

  “There he is.” I nodded toward a large cluster of people milling about just to the right and in front of the throne where Cailin held regency.

  “You sure you want to do this?” Bolt asked. “He’s surrounded by at least thirty people. I’ve found having an audience makes a man a lot less willing to compromise.” He shot me a look out of the corner of his eye. “Are you going to tell me your plan before we get there?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  He stopped and threw out an arm that felt like I’d walked into an oak branch. “You do have a plan, don’t you?”

  I nodded. “You won’t like it.”

  He barked a laugh. “I never expected to like it. I just want to know what it is before I have to draw steel.”

  Rory laughed. “I’ve never been to court before. Is it always this exciting?”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Bolt and I said in unison.

  I gave Bolt a meaningful look as I held up my bare hands and flexed my fingers.

  “What makes you think you’re going to get close enough to touch him?” he grumbled. Two nobles near us turned our way. “The man despises you.”

  “Do you not know how to whisper?” I asked. “I’m going to be subtle.” I tried to ignore Rory’s laughter.

  The gaggle of sycophants around Orlan saw us coming from ten paces and parted to grant us access. It seemed everyone, even the duke’s allies, appreciated theater. Orlan’s gaze registered my presence and then Bolt’s—and the fact that I wasn’t going out of my way to avoid him. I stopped and bowed, offering the precise obeisance his rank required of me, certainly no more, but not a dagger’s width less either.

  “May I approach, Your Grace?” I asked.

  Murmurs erupted around
us, and even nobles who had no part or stake in the house of Orlan were beginning to take notice.

  “Subtle,” Bolt grunted.

  Orlan’s wife, attired as always in a red dress, with her jet-black hair flowing across her shoulders, leaned in to whisper in his ear, darting glances at me I couldn’t decipher. I couldn’t hear a word and thought about sending Bolt to her for lessons.

  He straightened and nodded, his expression a mixture of curiosity and distrust. “Approach,” he said, my title obvious in its absence.

  I stopped again, two paces away, a distance that seemed respectful but would allow me to speak without being overheard by everyone. “Your Grace,” I bowed again. “I have recently been to Gylden.” I stopped to give Orlan a chance to search his memories and conscience. The duke was, like most of the nobles, a schemer to one degree or another, and I hoped to work his fear of discovery to my advantage.

  I wasn’t disappointed. Orlan and his wife stilled until they might have been nothing more than sculptures placed to adorn the court. Bolt looked bored, and Rory appeared to busy himself searching the crowd for dwimor.

  “I am uninterested in your travels, Dura.”

  I gestured to the throng of Orlan’s hangers-on. “Perhaps I can interest you in an agreement, Duke Orlan. I desire to repay a debt, and to that end I seek a boon that only you can provide in exchange for my discretion.”

  Now I had his attention. “Might we go apart a little way and discuss this as nobles?” I asked.

  He gave me a slow look that drifted down to my feet and back up again, his gaze catching each spot and smudge on my travel-stained clothing. “It seems we’re at least one short.”

  I smiled. “At least one,” I agreed and waited for the insult to strike home. I spoke as soon as I saw his eyes widen. “If we cannot discuss the matter as nobles, perhaps we can discuss it as men.”

  His mouth opened to toss some rejoinder before he thought better of it. The problem with Orlan was he surrounded himself with sycophants who would never allow themselves to respond to his barbs. As a result, the duke thought himself to be more clever than he actually was. As a member of the Vigil, I shouldered the weighty responsibility of disabusing him of that notion.

  At the last, I thought he might refuse, but I stepped past him, gesturing toward an empty spot some fifteen paces away. He muttered something I couldn’t make out to the duchess and swept past me.

  The moment I’d been waiting for.

  I turned and let my right hand swing out from my body just enough for my fingers to brush the back of Orlan’s hand.

  The throne room disappeared as I raced down a long tunnel into the stream of the duke’s memories. I had to hurry. Orlan would never accept a gesture of familiarity from anyone outside his family, but fortunately our conversation had brought his guiltiest memories to the forefront of his mind. They were the first I touched, bright gossamer threads that represented his most joyful moments.

  The delve ended and I blinked to see Orlan two paces past me. It might have been a shift of the light or shadows, but he appeared different.

  He stopped and faced me, wringing every fraction of height from his posture and boots in order to look down on me. “I find your presence distasteful, Dura. I pray you, be brief.”

  “Very well,” I said. “In truth, Your Grace, I never intended to go to Gylden. My business was to the east, on the border of the Everwood, but one of my companions was in need of medical attention.”

  “And Gylden is the closest city with a healer,” Orlan said.

  “Just so.”

  “But what you didn’t say is that you required a healer of significant skill, perhaps even gifted. Otherwise you could have simply stopped at the nearest village to see a midwife or herbalist.” He shrugged to show his disdain. “And you managed to avoid mentioning the nature of your friend’s need. Why do I doubt it was illness, Dura?”

  I nodded my admission. “You are correct, Your Grace. My companion was wounded and we needed a surgeon. Yet when we journeyed to Gylden, we faced another problem.”

  Orlan smirked at me. “You were afraid of being recognized. Your fears are well-founded, of course. Let me guess, your companion died and your peasant sense of honor demands recompense from me, the man you blame for their death.”

  “No,” I shook my head. “We found a healer. She’s quite good, though not gifted, and while she’s a member of your family, oddly enough she bears me no ill will.”

  “Fynn.” He ground it out as a curse, but I’d delved him and knew his reaction to be a lie.

  “She favors you, Your Grace,” I said with a little bow. “Unfortunately, when she recognized me she elected to change her fee.”

  His eyelids dipped. “The girl seems intent on my embarrassment. Let me guess, she asked you to force me to acknowledge her.”

  When I nodded, he laughed, but I knew this dismissal to be a lie as well. “It occurs to me, Your Grace, that there’s a mystery here.”

  “Yes.” He sighed. “And we all know how you love those.”

  “Why would you let her live?” I asked and inched closer. “You’re the most powerful duke in the kingdom, and I know firsthand that you’ve got no problem with killing or having someone killed. If she’s such an assault to your dignity, why not have her eliminated? She’s in your home city, where you own everything and everyone.” I shrugged. “A quick accident, a carriage in the street, and your problem goes away.”

  The duke glanced over my shoulder to the other nobles in the throne room. “I don’t spill Orlan blood, Dura.” He pulled a deep, shuddering breath. “I would have spared my brother if I could have, but you removed that option.”

  “I know you love your daughter, Your Grace. She just wants to study medicine.”

  He shook his head. “My wife will never allow me to acknowledge her, for obvious reasons.”

  I let my gaze sweep the throne room as I searched for a solution. At the far end of the hall I saw Sevin looking my way, his expression faintly disappointed. That was it. I turned back to the duke. “What if Queen Cailin forced you to acknowledge her, but did so privately?”

  Orlan shook his head. “Pointless. Fynn’s presence in Gylden would still be a thorn my wife would try to remove. She’d have her killed.”

  “Your Grace, Fynn doesn’t want to remain in Gylden. She desires to study with Crato in Elania, but he won’t apprentice commons.”

  He shook his head, but more slowly this time. “Why would the queen force me to acknowledge her?”

  I kept myself from smiling, just. If Orlan agreed to my plan I was going to have to make a show of losing my temper. “Someone slaughtered all of the sentinels. Your daughter saved the last one in Collum.”

  The barest touch of a smile ghosted across his expression. “Fynn?” Then he nodded as understanding lit his eyes. “That’s why the queen is pulling the garrisons east.”

  I nodded. “Your daughter has given us some hope that the sentinels can be restored. A great service to the crown, wouldn’t you say, Your Grace?”

  “But the duchess . . . ”

  “Can you be angry with me, Your Grace?” I asked.

  “Easily enough.”

  I took a step back just in case he considered trying to strike me, and I saw his eyes blaze. Then he delivered an insult so vile it made my skin crawl and he said it in a voice they might have heard in the poor quarter. But when he put his hand on his sword, Bolt and Rory materialized at my side. Bolt hadn’t drawn, but Rory was rolling a dagger across the back of each hand so that the steel caught the light.

  “Then we will let the crown decide,” I yelled back.

  Orlan pushed his way past me and preceded me to the dais, where Queen Cailin sat regarding us with an expression that signaled she’d been half a drummer’s beat from intervening anyway. The duke played his part enthusiastically, using the opportunity to speak to me and about me with a deft combination of condescension, bile, and revulsion. I suspected the duke possessed a measure of
talent for language.

  Or maybe he’d just been saving up for the occasion.

  We were commanded to the north part of the tor, which held the queen’s private audience chamber. I whispered a command to Bolt to bring Wag as well, but when we arrived, Ronit, one of the guards who’d watched over Laidir before Cailin, barred our way. He gave Bolt an inscrutable look that probably had something to do with the knowledge my guard could tie him up like a bow despite his age and smaller stature. “She’s on her way and asks that you wait for a moment so that she can receive you.”

  “She’s already in there,” I said.

  “Peasant,” Orlan muttered. “Do you still not understand the ways of the nobility? A short wait serves to gently remind visitors of the authority of the crown. Otherwise, peasants and nobles alike would begin to think of the queen as a peer.”

  Ronit looked more serious than usual, which was like saying that a piece of ice had somehow managed to look colder than before. “I’ve been away from the city, Ronit. What news?”

  I didn’t really expect an answer, so it surprised me more than a little when I got one.

  “War.”

  The sound of footsteps beyond the door, the heavy tread of boots, cut off my next question. Ronit turned on one heel and motioned. “Follow me. You’ll have to surrender your weapons, and the dog will have to remain without.”

  “She’ll want to see him,” I said. “And he’s not a dog.”

  Ronit turned back, met the clear gray stare of Wag’s stare and gaped, his mouth working to speak without his throat’s cooperation. “Are you crazy, Lord Dura?”

  “Probably,” I quipped. “At least that’s what most people keep telling me.”

  As usual, humor had no effect on the queen’s guard. They surrendered it when they accepted the job. “He goes where we go,” I said. “No exceptions.”

  “The queen will decide,” Ronit said. “It’s smaller than I expected.”

  “He’s just a pup,” Bolt said. “By the time he’s full grown, he will weigh as much as you and I together.”

  Ronit exchanged places with two guards from inside the chamber as we made a pile of weapons to the side, Rory drawing more than a couple of stares as he produced half a dozen throwing knives in addition to the sword Bolt made him wear. The guards shook their heads in disbelief and ran their hands over his clothing from head to heel before Adair disappeared inside to speak to the queen.