Maledicte

by Lane Robins

  Vornatti, Gilly thought, had never succumbed to the worst affliction of old age, that of a faulty memory. The book opened in Gilly’s hands to an illustrated page black with ink and a raven’s eyes, to a man battling, though knives pierced his flesh. The shadow moved over him again, and he twitched, closing the book reflexively.

  The boy stood behind him, eyes calculating. “You don’t guard your back very well.”

  “I’m only a servant,” Gilly said. “I don’t need to.”

  “I suppose that’s true. And you don’t have to fight for your food, your clothes, or your hair as Relicts children do.”

  “Is that—”

  “Where I come from? Of course. You’ve known that all along,” Maledicte said. “Or did you think Ani birthed me from an egg?” His lips curled in amusement.

  Gilly sighed in embarrassment. “Vornatti told you.”

  “Vornatti found it funny; you, fearing me.” Maledicte’s face darkened. “I could take you, though.”

  Gilly said, “I shook you once, and I can do it again.” He kept his tone matter-of-fact, and the boy slid away from the confrontation.

  “Your hair’s all over cobwebs,” he said. “No one would buy it in that state, not even for pillow stuffing.” The boy set the sword down, reached out, and tugged the ribbon from Gilly’s hair with agile fingers. “Turn around.”

  Hesitantly, Gilly did. Maledicte moved behind him, unfastened his hair, and stroked cool fingers through to Gilly’s nape. Gilly tensed; the boy’s gentler moods all too often presaged a sting so delicate that only later did it smart and bleed. “What do you want?”

  Maledicte backed away, spread his arms wide, and said, “Tell me what you see.”

  Gingerly, uncertain of Maledicte’s mood, Gilly said, “A boy pretty enough to attract attention, disconcerting enough to repel, and very young.”

  Maledicte’s brows snapped down. “Not dangerous? And why so young? I am near a man’s age.”

  “You are not wearing the sword,” Gilly said. “And your slightness, coupled with your light voice, will always strike men as youthful.”

  Maledicte sank onto the library stool, ran his hands through his hair, first pushing the curls back, then raking them forward to leave only his dark eyes visible. “I would not want Last to laugh at me,” Maledicte whispered. “Tell me how to be feared, Gilly. You who know so much.”

  Gilly sat beside Maledicte, flattered that the boy sought his advice, a sign that perhaps he might think Gilly something more than just Vornatti’s pet. “You have time.”

  “The trees are budding, the songbirds sing, and daylight grows. It is almost spring. Last will return, though not Janus….” Maledicte’s breath flowed out and with it, seemingly his strength. He slumped against the bookshelf, restless hands knotting Gilly’s ribbon, shaping the cloth as he could not shape the future. “If I kill Last, what will it avail me with Janus still caged in Itarus? Last sent him there, and only Last will bring him back.”

  “Kritos would kill him if he could,” Gilly agreed, “rather than spend one copper on him. But perhaps Vornatti could be relied upon.”

  “Vornatti, least of all.” Maledicte rose to pace the room. “Vornatti has his own agenda for me, his own desires. I am but a reflection of what he wants me to be. He shelters me, indulges me, and whispers sweet vengeful fancies in my ears, but they are his fancies, his vengeance. Not mine.

  “My schemes are…far from complete. And I know of no way to make them more so. I will not have Last mock me, a boy with a blade. I cannot face him at all; my skills are too uneven, and there is no satisfaction in being cut down by Last’s men.

  “So you see my dilemma, Gilly?” The boy held his hands out in calculated supplication. “You have all the answers for Vornatti; have you none for me?”

  Gilly’s eyes fell before Maledicte’s steady ones, startled at the boy’s candor and need. The boy waited silently for Gilly’s advice, seemingly patient, though Gilly could see the boy’s hands twisting into fists.

  Gilly hastened into speech. “Wait. Learn to use the sword. Last is a swordsman of some skill. And you—”

  “Vornatti has tried to instruct me, but he is too old, his directions meaningless.”

  “Vornatti will hire a master if you ask,” Gilly said, fighting a sudden sense of disloyalty. It was more than advice Maledicte needed; he needed an ally. “In the right way.” He grabbed Maledicte’s hands, pulled him near. “Listen, and let me tell you how to manage him.”

  He bent his blond head to Maledicte’s dark one and began to speak, voicing things he had never consciously plotted, small details of pleasure and drugs and wine, and when to ask, and how. The lecture made him cringe, made him realize he worked Vornatti like any paid companion. If Maledicte said anything scathing now, he’d never be able to speak so again, but the boy stayed attentive and blessedly silent. When Maledicte left, Gilly turned, scalded in his own skin, to distract himself with The Book of Vengeances. But it was gone in the boy’s light-fingered wake.

  VORNATTI SAT IN HIS CHAIR in the library. The fire burned low, and a sure sign of encroaching spring was that Vornatti did not demand that it be built up at once. Gilly dusted the books; their butler had quit after entering Maledicte’s room without knocking and finding his cravat ruined by a black blade and his own blood.

  Maledicte sat on the floor beside Vornatti’s chair, reading aloud from the pages spread over his lap, pausing every other page to sip from the goblet beside him.

  Vornatti’s right hand rested in the boy’s dark hair, fingers lost in the tumbled curls, moving in lazy increments.

  Gilly looked back to his dusting and smiled a little sourly. So tranquil, so falsely domestic—Maledicte had been heeding his advice.

  Maledicte paused in his reading. It was an account of a young girl’s first visit to the court, supposedly true, but from the detailed and violent debaucheries awaiting her on the successive pages, hopefully false. Vornatti chose it this evening, saying, “This is why one always wants a protector in the court, Maledicte. Of course, you have the sword, and you’re no girl, so you’ll find this tale more amusing than cautionary.”

  “Is the court really so decadent?” Maledicte asked.

  “Quite so. It’s a hard time, this, though the nobles refuse to acknowledge it. And with the gods gone, there is little men fear. But for all of that, the court is beautiful: there is no time so lovely as twilight, after all.

  “The courtiers meet in gilded ballrooms; they compete with each other to be the most beautiful, the most noticed.” Vornatti smiled down at the boy and continued.

  “Everything is gilt or silver; you’d want to thieve it all. The rooms, the furniture, the clothing—their clothing is something to see. Every shade under the sun and moon, every stone under the earth and sea is there, burnished and made perfect.

  “The courtiers’ tongues seem gilded as well, their manners stiffened by the same embroidery that clings to their gowns and jackets. The men carry swords they may not draw in the ballrooms, to show fierceness many of them lack. And they whisper, like dry leaves in autumn, all the things they dare not say aloud.”

  Vornatti looked down and said, “A savage, unrestrained tongue like yours, my boy, would scandalize them, raise their whispering into sounds of the surf rushing at your back.”

  Maledicte smiled. “They do love a good scandal. You’ve told me so yourself.” He brushed his fingers over Vornatti’s mouth, allowed the old man to press a kiss to his palm.

  “Good night,” Maledicte said, withdrawing his hand, his smiles. He left the room; Vornatti stared hungrily after his slim, retreating back.

  Gilly joined Vornatti, levered himself down to the floor, and picked up Maledicte’s near-empty goblet. He swirled the wine within, ruby against crystal, heart’s blood on ice.

  “He means you to take him to court. To wait for Janus’s return there,” Gilly said.

  “I believe he does.”

  “Is he mad? It is one thing to aid
him in his quest, to loose him like a falcon in the field, another altogether to set him in the king’s court.” Gilly chose his goad as carefully as Maledicte had chosen his.

  “Why shouldn’t I provide entree? It’ll give me something new to draw his affections. And why not? It’s been too long since I was there in the midst of it all.”

  “He’s not even an aristocrat. He’s…common.” The word choked Gilly even as he forced it over his tongue.

  Vornatti chuckled. “There’s nothing common about our boy, and well you know it, Gilly.” He contemplated aloud, “Still, he will need training in swordplay, dance, dress, and manners, of course, though you have rubbed off the worst excesses already, and some new clothes. His accent is already acceptable.” He was as pleased with this idea as if he had thought of it himself.

  “Best of all,” Vornatti said, touching his lips as if he could still feel Maledicte’s caress. “Best of all, none of this can be accomplished overnight. Even should he prove an excellent student, it’ll be next spring at the earliest. For some small outlay of lessons and wardrobe, I’ll have him twice as long. And you doubted he could be tamed so easily.”

  Gilly swallowed the lees from Maledicte’s cup, tasting their bitterness. Vornatti grinned, malevolent glee touching his eyes, livening his old face. “Can’t you see it? Their faces as he enters the court—elegant, wicked, and entirely too beautiful.”

  “Perhaps,” Gilly said. Beyond the opened door, Maledicte lingered in the hall, listening. Maledicte touched two fingers to his mouth, and inclined them toward Gilly.

  “He’ll have to have some rank, some right to be there among them,” Gilly said. “And his antecedents do not bear scrutiny, no matter his appearance.” Another soft guide.

  “He’ll be my ward, of course. Last thought Aurora base-born when she was not, thought me foisting an impostor on the court when I was not. I wonder what he’ll make of Maledicte.”

  · 5 ·

  Of all the myriad choices open to a clever poisoner, perhaps none is more versatile than the commonly scorned stonethroat. An aspyhxiant and paralytic, it is most often employed to rid one’s home of rats, and oneself of enemies.

  However, there are more subtle uses….

  —A Lady’s Treatise, attributed to Sofia Grigorian

  M ALEDICTE STOOD, MUTE AND REBELLIOUS, while Vornatti raged at him. “You are impossible,” Vornatti shouted. “Bad enough you went through four dance instructors in two years, wounding two of them seriously, and scarring another, so that I ended up paying Gilly to teach you. Now, you attempt the same on your newest swordmaster, which shows both disrespect and a serious lack of judgment. You may have learned more than your last master could teach, but Thorn has much still to show you. Do you know what it cost me to keep him here?”

  “He called me little girl, mocking me,” Maledicte said, voice shrill with outrage.

  “And why shouldn’t he?” Vornatti snapped. “I was a fool to think this could work. You’ve not learned anything, not dared anything. I think your vaunted vengeance is nothing more than an excuse to allow yourself to linger here, fed and pampered, indulged and petted.”

  “I will kill Last,” Maledicte said.

  “Master Thorn sent you sprawling. Last would skewer you without a moment’s thought.”

  Maledicte paced the floor, breath coming fast, regretting the sword left in his room, and hating the fact that he feared Vornatti would be rid of him.

  “You’ve not learned anything so far as I can tell—though I’ve paid dearly for the lessons.”

  “You’ve taken it out on my hide,” Maledicte spat. “Your hands on me—”

  “You rate your charms too highly,” Vornatti said. “I could find the same in any brothel, and sweeter-tempered.”

  Maledicte fisted his hands, strangled by emotion again, fear and rage warring in him.

  “Show me you’ve mastered one lesson,” Vornatti said. “Make me believe your disguise can hold. A dance, a duel, or even the delicate uses of poison that I’ve taught you. Show me you’ve learned anything at all, or I’ll send you back to the Relicts.”

  Maledicte slammed the door behind himself and fled to the gardens, rage scorching his belly; he couldn’t turn his ire on Vornatti, not without retribution he was unwilling to court, but the swordmaster—little girl— Rage reddened his gaze and he sought out the poison chest Vornatti had given him.

  Now he sat, coolheaded and cold-palmed in the grotto at the far edge of Vornatti’s estate, watching the tenth cat lick up fish paste, oblivious of its nine dead predecessors. His temper had chilled, leaving the path clear. Master Thorn was no fool; he would not take food or drink from Maledicte’s hand. Vornatti’s proof would have to be found elsewhere. Little girl. Corsets and clothing could only take him so far.

  Maledicte watched the cat, hands chilled, white-knuckled around the crystal vial; he would sate the snake-eye glitter in Vornatti’s face, would prove his worth. Hadn’t risked anything? Maledicte would risk everything….

  The cat staggered, mouth working in silent, pained outrage, and finally slunk, spitting, beneath the bench.

  Maledicte raised the vial, crystal warmed by his death grip on it, and tapped the last dose onto his tongue. The clay taste of cold graves filled his mouth, and he nearly gagged before swallowing. His breath fled; his throat seized; tears scalded his eyes as he choked. The sound, the pain reminded him of the Relicts battle, gasping for air, and Janus gone….

  He clutched the pain tight, fought for breath. Miranda had lived through that battle, that pain: Maledicte would live through this one. Spots danced before his eyes, his need for breath frenzied now. “Janus,” he moaned, a bare thread of sound. “Janus.”

  GILLY TAPPED the door once more, listening to the sound of an empty room. Wherever Maledicte had hidden himself away, it wasn’t in the painted room, that combination prison and shelter. Gilly turned the knob, the brass cold under his nervous fingers, and went in.

  This was the first time in two years that he had been inside, the first time since the room had become Maledicte’s, and he half expected it to be filled with remnants of the boy’s bloody dreams of vengeance. Too many nights, woken from his own recurring nightmares, Gilly had walked the hall and heard the boy muttering behind the closed door. He always moved on quickly, imagining Maledicte within, wild-eyed and raving, a madman with a feathered sword. Some mornings it was a shock to see that the boy was not the savage of his imagination, but a youngster quick to tease, and equally quick to help Gilly defy Vornatti’s more objectionable whims.

  Still, Gilly found himself thinking more of Maledicte as the would-be killer, as he encroached into his room. All the drapes had been drawn, baring contradictory murals of snowfall and spring, of velvet night and golden days. Gilly found the effect oddly unsettling, flinched at the unveiled image of a lurking wolf, eyes gleaming through a snowscape. Not for the first time, Gilly thought that Vornatti had uncomfortable tastes. No matter the luxury, the predator lurked beneath.

  Looking away from the walls, Gilly tallied furniture, thinking, Oh, so that’s what’s become of the divan, the chinoiserie table, the best candlesticks. A magpie heart. Gilly smiled, but lost his amusement as he looked closer at the low table near the high, four-postered bed. The sword lay there, mute testimony that Maledicte had returned after his lesson’s abrupt cessation. Beside it, a lady’s embroidery box rested, an elaborate thing of interlocking wood and small, carved flowers. Old, Gilly thought, and odd; he doubted Maledicte soothed his nerves sewing primroses onto linen.

  Closer, Gilly saw that it was a puzzle box. There had been a rage for the elaborate toys some years back. Gilly had always liked them, the reward of a sealed box blossoming beneath his fingers. He sat down on the edge of the bed, picked the box up; the lid gaped, left open, as if Maledicte, having agreed to wait, having bided not one but three winters, had no patience left to spare for small things.

  Inside, where there should have been skeins of silk on ivory bobbins
, there was a dazzling gloss of crystal vials, miniature works of glass-blowing art, each sealed. One space yawned, empty. Gilly pulled a vial free, turned it up to the light, peering into the smoky glass. Something that looked like coarse salt, grayed with ash. It sparked memories of rat poison and traps his father had set on the farm. Arsenixa.

  Gilly’s fingers shook and he set the vial back. Vornatti had taught Gilly to read and to write, but Maledicte already knew both. And Vornatti liked to give lessons. Looking at the demure little chest again, Gilly’s stomach roiled.

  Slumping onto the bed in distress, Gilly found something thicker than linens pressed against his palm. He pulled the coverlet back, then the ticking itself. The leather-bound book had lost some of its faded gilding: of Vengeances, Gilly read. The long-missing book, squirreled away. Gilly collected the book and fled the room.

  “THERE YOU ARE,” GILLY SAID. The early-evening light blued the air, and made of Maledicte a hunched darkness crouched in the stony outcropping. Around his feet lay rigid shadows with stiffened tails and legs, opened mouths, and black tongues. The smell of must and murdered cats lingered in the enclosure.

  Maledicte rose unhurriedly, cradling a cat in his arms. In the pale, filtered sunlight, its color seemed the dusty gray of old cobwebs; its soulless amber eyes winked and gleamed.

  Its mouth gaped and its tongue curled back, its ears flattened, but no sullen complaint reached Gilly’s ears. Maledicte touched his lips to its head, set it down on the stone and earthen floor. His hands slid into a sunbeam, showed forearms red with bloody gouges. For all that, Maledicte looked smug as the cat slunk from sight.

  Gilly stepped closer to Maledicte; his boot struck glass and sent it scattering over the floor to splinter against a wall.

  “So clumsy,” Maledicte said. His eyes burned with wicked amusement when Gilly’s head whipped back to him. The boy’s light voice was changed, made furred, raspy, as if he had traded with the cat. Remembering the cat’s silence, Gilly amended himself. Stolen.