"Would I be insulted, you mean?" Quite without any hint of silk.
Strake nodded, once.
"So you are willing to suggest I might have reason to consider Darest mine. But anyone would tell you that. The true question is whether I am willing to kill you for it."
Bald indeed. Lord Aristide direct was rather worse than honey-coated calculation. But Strake simply said: "Can you answer it?"
"Not yet."
Not yet? Could he actually contemplate admitting a desire to kill Strake – to Strake's face? It was a move that spoke of extreme confidence, and of a sudden Soren was reminded that she did not know how to use the palace defences. They were not in the Garden of the Rose, instead were in the part of the palace where Lord Aristide had his apartments. She had no idea of the loyalties of the guards who had escorted them here, but among those who watched from the windows were the Diamond's personal servants. Not to mention Fisk and Halcean, both looking anxious, and Aspen, hurrying to catch this much-anticipated meeting. Word had spread like lightning through the palace, and they would soon be standing shoulder-to-shoulder at the windows. There came one of the Barons, the Captain of the Guard, an ambassador. Strake had made this spectacularly public.
Lord Aristide did not betray his awareness of the audience by so much as an eye-flicker. "As to insults: do I understand that you would expect me to interest myself in infractions against the laws governing mages? And have duties similar to the Tzel Aviar?"
"That is the primary role of the Councillor of Mages. I am not fool enough to limit you to it." Strake's tone was desert dry. "Why waste a resource? The Councillor is also an adviser. Advise."
"While you make the decisions?" The smile, the courtier's manner, revived into sudden, dagger-sharp vividness, and Soren held her breath. Challenge and challenge.
"Bar one. Tell me when you've made it."
Strake did not get up and stalk away. He was not after all throwing down a gauntlet to an enemy. An impatient man, he wanted to get down to business, which meant having Aristide Couerveur decide whether or not he was going to kill him. Now.
It was the antithesis of courtier's games, the dance of debt and consequence and double-spent loyalties which had been Tor Darest for years. Lord Aristide shook his head, eyeing his King's set face as if he could not quite believe him to be real. Then, seeing Strake was truly waiting, he fell to introspection with effortless self-composure.
Impossible to negotiate what he truly wanted. Strake could not, would not give Lord Aristide Darest's rule and he'd made it absolutely clear how firmly he planned to grasp the reins. At best the Diamond could hope to be allowed a position of influence, perhaps eventually trusted, possibly forever held in suspicion. He could never have the free hand he'd long worked towards, which his mother's twisted hate had denied him. Although Strake's energy would be a breath of fresh air after Lady Arista's interminable blocks, to Lord Aristide the Whirlwind King must bring with him the taste of ash, of bitter, permanent defeat.
Unless he chose to murder for the throne.
There was only one answer right now, of course. Strake had given Lord Aristide no warning. Even if the Regent's son had managed to suborn Strake's bodyguard, he had no way of knowing Soren couldn't use the palace defences. Let alone what measure of mage his King might be. So he would say yes, take on the role of Councillor of Mages, and be free to choose his time.
Strake was playing the role of the man too practical not to use a good blade, for all he could be positioning a knife at his throat. What had changed his mind? He waited, mouth flat, as Lord Aristide stopped gazing into the middle distance and shifted those brilliant blue and crystal eyes to Strake's face. Then with easy grace Aristide stood, looking down at the man who had taken the throne he considered his own. Strake did not move. Somewhere above Soren's throat, the Rose coiled, shifted, and slid into nothing.
"My family has long known that Darest prefers a Rathen," Lord Aristide said, murmur-soft.
He added a word in a language she did not know, but would always recognise. A word of power. Then another, a distinct object in itself, before raising one hand. Streamers of brilliant light trailed into existence, and he continued to speak: low-voiced, sibilant.
All around them faces echoed the reaction Soren's would surely have been if she had not the advantage of seeing Strake's. Dozens of mouths gaped to black circles – shock, anger, and in more than one case anticipation – but her Rathen, though he looked faintly surprised, showed no unease. If this was an attack, Strake was meeting it with the sanguinity of a god.
The two bodyguards had not been suborned. They made it halfway across the stretch of green before Soren signalled them to keep their distance. Swords shimmering in the light from Aristide's casting, the two women stuttered to a halt and gaped at the coiled lace of power forming between the two men. Soren had no more idea what was going on than they did, could only take her cue from her Rathen and keep her composure.
Mages of the Diamond's calibre rarely resorted to verbal crafting, which meant this spell had a level of complexity or permanence requiring more than will and gesture. Like yarn wound into a ball, the light was contracting into a solid sphere, a moon where shadows which could be fern leaves or sea monsters roiled beneath the surface. Lord Aristide stopped speaking, but a susurrus of fugitive syllables whispered on, faded to the edge of hearing, and were gone. What remained was a perfect orb, twice the size of a man's head, trapping the world in silence. Even the wind had died away.
"I would not have asked so much of you." Strake's words were tenuous and distant, as if they could barely escape the pull of the orb.
The glitter came back, this time leavened with a self-mocking edge. "Having found myself without the stomach to pull Darest apart for the pleasure of calling it mine alone, I have no mind to waste my energy continually proving that decision."
Strake simply nodded, matter-of-fact to the end, and rose to press a hand firmly against the white surface. Twining dragon shadows fled before ripples. "I'll leave the wording to you."
More ripples, as Lord Aristide matched Strake's position, touching his right hand to the opposite side of the orb. Soren held her breath. This was obviously to be some sort of oath, a very binding one, but it would take mental gymnastics of a high order to start viewing the Regent's son as a trusted ally. Would he really go through with it? Or was it a trick?
"On my name, then," said Lord Aristide, voice suddenly clarion clear. "I will not seek to harm you or your heirs. I will not attempt to gain the throne of Darest at your expense. I...will protect and support you."
"On your life," Strake responded, with calm finality.
A tidal-wave of ripples swept the orb and it began to contract. Lord Aristide's arm jerked, and his eyes went wide with pain. Soren looked hastily from his face to Strake's, but her Rathen remained quietly intent. Both men kept their hand to the swirling surface, or perhaps could not draw away, but Lord Aristide was the only one in obvious difficulty. He stood it well, setting his teeth and not flinching again as it shrank. Soren became convinced she could smell burning flesh.
When they were both standing arms outstretched, with barely an apple's worth of orb separating their palms, the light suddenly flared from white to gold to a deep bruised red, and funnelled into Lord Aristide's palm. Their fingers brushed.
Strake dropped his hand away. There was a hint of admiration in his eyes when he said: "More than I would have done."
"Perhaps." Lord Aristide's focus was on his palm, touching the result of the spell like paint not yet dry.
Keeping to her seat with arduous restraint, Soren could only make out the details with palace-sight. A complex pattern of light lurked beneath the skin: almost filling a palm which showed no sign of burns, it was not a rose as she'd first thought, but a knot of lines woven into attractive symmetry. White shot through with threads of colour: silver, blue, gold. And it moved. The sliding hints of fin or claw or vine had transferred from the orb.
Half-remem
bered bedtime tales finally gave her an explanation. The thing had to be a saecstra, an enchantment of the Fair which featured in many of their great tragedies. More than an oath, it was judgment wound in promise. Lord Aristide would wear the mark for the rest of his life. And if he broke the vow just made, it would kill him.
Soren had to remind herself to breathe around her disbelief as Lord Aristide arranged himself neatly back onto his bench. He had just bound himself almost as thoroughly as she was herself. Why? She did not doubt for one moment that he considered Darest his, that he wanted its rule. How could she possibly be expected to believe that he would bind himself away from any chance of gaining his fondest wish?
Then she remembered – it had only been a few hours ago. Lord Aristide knew the meaning of the black rose. He'd just put himself in a perfect position to take control of Darest when the Rose's mysterious doom caught up with this inconvenient Rathen King and left behind a politically incompetent Champion ripe with child. All he had to do was wait.
-oOo-
"What would you like me to advise you on first?"
The glitter-smile was back, along with that air of private enjoyment. Whatever the truth of this profound, flamboyant gesture, he was still all sweet acid and darts.
Strake was again looking particularly saturnine as he returned to his own seat, but like Lord Aristide he moved beyond spectacular life-oaths as if they were everyday happenstance. "What should I expect from your parent?"
The now-dozens who watched were far from as calm, mouths flapping in excited speculation. The King had aligned with the Diamond. Without palace-sight Soren would only see the three of them, alone in the courtyard, with the two guardswomen retreating to the shelter of the nearest entrance. The Court were just shadows behind sky reflected in fine glass while King and Councillor conducted their day's business and the ripple of Lord Aristide's gesture, of this new-formed alliance, spread through the palace. The sheer unreality of it all made her head ache.
The delicate bow of Lord Aristide's lips had curled into pure delight. "That would depend on what circumstances offer her," he replied. "She will see little value in a direct move. Darest declined too greatly under Couerveur rule, and your appearance has provoked widespread anticipation of a return to heady days of wine and roses. You need not fear open insurrection. Not enough Dariens would support it."
"Outside interests might."
"True." For a moment star sapphire eyes again found the middle distance. "Quite possible that someone might make her an offer, despite long coldness to our neighbours. But – no. That would mean ruling under the auspices of another. An intolerable thing. No, from my lady mother you will receive surface support. By appointing me, you lose any slim chance you may have had of more."
"And beneath the surface?"
"A mule in the traces." He seemed to find the image particularly agreeable. "Whatever your endeavour, she will attempt to lead it into disaster, for she is well-versed in presiding over plans come to naught. That has been Darest for too long." Absently, Lord Aristide massaged his newly marked hand.
"If she should try and kill you, it would most certainly be an incident which would either finish me as well, or have me up for the deed. She could not risk my gaining ascendancy in the aftermath."
"I'll keep that in mind," Strake said: blunt acceptance of future treachery. "Do you have a recommendation for Court Shaper?"
"Do you need one?" Lord Aristide dismissed his own question with a unhurried turn of the hand. "There are two major Shaper steadings. Goldenrod is in the north-west, close to the Cerian border. A word-mage and true-mage at the heart of it. Married, powerful, competent, their focus entirely flora. A trifle obsessed, as Shapers tend to be. I've had little to do with them, but they report hopes of a strain of coloured flax. If that's true, I'd suggest leaving them to it. Fletcher's Marsh Farm, the other steading, works with both flora and fauna but recently fell into crisis. The classic story – someone, the stead holder in this case, produced creatures too smart for their own good. Many adventures were had."
Lord Aristide curled his lips in apparent disgust. A Shaper operated on a deeper level than an enchanter and the results were far more enduring. It was one thing to shape-change a man so he could live beneath the water, another to make it possible for him to father children with the same ability. And you could not return those children to 'normal' like you could disenchant a cat spelled to understand speech. Even the Fair rarely Shaped intelligent creatures, simply because too many things went wrong working magic 'beyond the blood'. Blame it on trial and error, or the Moon being jealous of her realm of birth and death. The result of Shaping sentients was too often something you could not control.
Could Strake want a Shaper to help him with the Rose?
If this was the case, Strake was not admitting it to Lord Aristide. "The Court Shaper advises as an expert, and inspects steading projects," he said, terse as ever. "Subordinate to the Councillor. Appoint whoever you think most appropriate. It's not of immediate concern, but I prefer not to have Shaping unsupervised. Which leaves what is of immediate concern."
"Being?"
"Tell me."
Another drawn out moment of assessment. On these rare occasions when he forewent sugar crystal venom, Lord Aristide would go very still, and his mouth would relax from its habitual slight curl. It was, Soren realised, exactly how he looked when he lay in bed in the morning staring at the ceiling. She wondered what he thought about, between waking and rising.
"We aren't producing enough," he began now. "Lack of goods and high impost make us an unattractive port, which means the trade between the far east and the western kingdoms travels straight past the Bay of Diamonds. Few take the land route. Without funds or manpower, we cannot maintain sufficient garrisons, and anyone outside a large town believes themselves exposed. People flock to the cities and live hand-to-mouth rather than risk the supposedly blighted countryside, leaving large tracts undermanned or deserted. Which leads to even lower production, and we take another turn down the spiral."
He paused, gauging Strake's reaction, then sat back before continuing. "There are other factors. What we do produce is mainly raw resources, which we export at a poor profit. Some of our most valuable, like the silver mines, are failing. Taxation is badly distributed, and we spend our revenues unwisely. The Tongue grows ever wider. It's not a desperate case. We can feed ourselves and are not beyond luxuries. But it is a long time since Darest flourished."
"The mines are depleted?"
Dissatisfaction glinted in Lord Aristide's eyes, at the question or lack of silver. "They've near emptied out the vein, but there should be others. I sent a diviner, but she did not return and I have yet to establish whether it was accident, murder or something else."
"Its lack at least makes the border less attractive."
"The iron is draw enough. There are two major factors holding back invasion from the West. The first is the belief that an attempt to take Darest would only lead to The Deeping resuming the kingdom – if it is not already doing so. But perhaps the more powerful is the West itself. Sax would not see Cya in Darest, Cya would certainly not see Sax more than double its size. They block each other. Korm and Ceria might even assist us, should they see the region's balance begin to shift."
Strake nodded, and went back to an earlier point. "Increasing production is a slow business. A Rathen presence might boost confidence, but it will not arrest this cycle."
"No. In the near future I want to focus on trade."
A shadow of a frown touched Strake's eyes, then cleared. "Establish ourselves as the market-place, let others supply the goods?"
"Exactly." A school-master with a quick pupil, Lord Aristide leaned forward, sketching his thoughts with one hand. "The Westerners sail all the way to the east to trade with places like Kaldeban, and eastern merchants pass Darest to sail up the Horns to Cya. At the moment the Bay of Diamonds represents a detour for them, and too often they do not make us a port of call, but cross f
rom Sumaric Heads directly to Sapphire Point."
Strake wasn't looking precisely encouraging. "In the past the Cyans would arrive in Tor Darest with half a hold to trade and half to take east. They would stock the best Darest had to offer and travel on. Long journeys with high profits and higher risks. I imagine it should be possible to convince more than a few of the advantages of shorter trips, but again this is a slow business, with many whose interests are invested in the older patterns. What kind of inducements, other than dropping the port duties, do you propose offering?"
"Hold races," Soren said, and they both stopped, straightened, and turned to her. Not so much affronted as remembering she was there. "Or a tourney," she went on, refusing to feel rankled. "Or duelling illusionists, which are always popular. Whatever takes your fancy, so long as there's a large purse and plenty of things for people to bet on. Coordinate whatever it is we usually import from the east and the west, and order supplies timed to arrive in the week leading up to your races. Best to use several rival cartels, and let slip who will be there. They'll be fighting each other off to get here first."
They were still staring at her, disconcertingly blank, and she had to fight a tide of heat in her cheeks. As well a fish might sing, apparently. "It's what my heart-mother does, though of course on a smaller scale. Carn Keep lives off the proceeds of the Midsummer Festival for the rest of the year."
"I will have to appoint your mother another of my advisers," Strake said, but although his tone was dry, they took the suggestion very seriously. Deeming it too late for a harvest festival, they began tossing around the viability of Spring races.
Relocation to somewhere with paper to make notes became necessary as the discussion carried on into lunch, then the afternoon. They could well go for days without break, Soren thought, and were very likely to, given the amount of resources they intended to invest.
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