Ash and Ambition

by Ari Marmell

  “Very well,” she agreed slowly, turning her attention to the dais. “If it please Your Majesty and the Crown Marshal to accept Sir Nycolos’s counsel, I’m quite willing to take this on.”

  “We shall talk it over with our advisors,” Hasyan replied, “but it seems sound thinking to us. Your efforts will not go unappreciated, Dame Zirresca—nor your suggestion and willingness to step aside, Sir Nycolos.”

  Both knights bowed. Zirresca wore a moue of faint suspicion, but Nycos fully expected that. No, it was the face of Magrave Andarjin that Nycos was interested in—and though the man kept his expression largely neutral, it was the growing chagrin he couldn’t quite hide in which Nycos exulted.

  For now, in addition to his bewilderment over the knight’s apparent lack of severe injury, and his fretting over how much Nycos might know of his involvement, the margrave found himself maneuvered into a political trap. He couldn’t possibly permit Zirresca to discover that he was behind the ambush. For all her flaws, Nycos was quite certain that his rival would never have gone along with such a plan. Andarjin would have to work against her, hide evidence, lead her astray—and in so doing ensure that she failed in her task, thus weakening her own campaign for the office of Crown Marshal.

  It was, Nycos proudly decided, a political maneuver worthy of Andarjin himself.

  He only wished, and grew irritated at himself for wishing it, he could discuss all that just occurred with Mariscal.

  ___

  “Hello, Smim.”

  Despite himself, the goblin jumped, though he swiftly regained control and carefully shut the door. Nycos, stripped to the waist and reclining on the sofa with a glass of cherry wine, couldn’t help but snicker.

  “Greetings, Master. I thought you would be longer at court.”

  “What I had planned for the Ythani didn’t require very long. Where have you been?”

  “Oh, just running various errands and—”

  “Smim?”

  “Master?”

  “I know you very much better than most people you lie to.”

  Smim offered a rough, phlegmy sigh and planted himself in a chair by the table. “Yes, Master. I was visiting Margrave Andarjin’s chambers.”

  Had either of the two beings involved in the conversation been human, that might have led to a wide variety of questions and clarifications. What had Smim hoped to accomplish? Didn’t he know Andarjin, too, would be at court, leaving nobody to spy on? Had he hoped to search the chambers for evidence of the margrave’s misdeeds? If so, how had he planned to conduct any thorough examination without leaving any sign of intrusion?

  But Nycos asked none of these, for he knew the goblin would already have considered all of that, and decided on an alternate course of action. And he knew, too, how Smim’s devious and sometimes vicious mind worked.

  “I told you I didn’t want you taking any steps against Andarjin!” It wasn’t a roar, for that might have been overheard by someone in the hall beyond, but Nycos easily made up in vehemence what he lacked in volume.

  “I know, Master, but… That is…”

  “But you thought you knew better. You thought my decision was too soft, too human. You thought you were protecting me from myself.”

  Smim hung his head. “Yes, Master.”

  “Listen to me, Smim.” Nycos carefully placed his glass down on the floor, so that hands trembling in repressed anger would not shatter it. “I don’t want Andarjin killed because I don’t know what the political repercussions would be. For the court in general, and for me in particular. Our dislike for one another, and his support for my chief rival, are well known. An investigation, even without proof, could be more damaging than Andarjin is. That’s why I told you not to act!”

  “I understand. Forgive me, Master.”

  “We’ll see.” Nycos’s scowl grew even deeper as he glanced down at his beverage. “Poison?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “You know that others often share his wine, don’t you?”

  “Mostly Zirresca, and if she died, too, it would hardly…” Whatever Smim saw in Nycos’s expression, he clearly realized he’d best not finish that thought.

  “Do I need to take steps, Smim?”

  “No, Master. This was meant to be a gradual thing, to look natural. Even if Andarjin drinks the entire decanter himself, a single exposure to the poison shouldn’t be fatal, though he’d grow quite ill for a time.”

  Nycos growled something. “Stop disobeying me ‘for my own good,’ Smim. I don’t appreciate it. If it happens again, I might have to make that lack of appreciation more explicit.”

  “I understand. I’m sorry, Master.”

  It was Nycos’s turn to sigh. “If you feel you must do something, why don’t you try to find out more about the gardener who attacked me? See if he can lead us to… What, exactly, does that expression mean, Smim?”

  “The man doesn’t know anything of use, Master.”

  “You’ve already done that, too.”

  “I… Yes, Master.”

  “I don’t want to know.”

  “No, Master.”

  ___

  “I cannot believe you spoke to her like that!” Kortlaus—finally returned from the east and his own patrol—spun his szandzsya in a wide arc, then retreated several paces across the open field.

  “Yes,” Nycos growled, taking a quick and largely useless swipe with his sabre and then moving to follow, “so you’ve told me. Time and time and time again. Have you any plans to stop saying it any time soon?”

  The baron’s answering grin, a mix of genuine good humor and simmering anger at his friend’s foolishness, was visible through the chain ventail of his helm. “As soon as I can force myself to believe that even you could be that stupid.”

  Nycos snarled and lunged, feinting with his sword one way, arresting the blow and thrusting from another—and then doubled over, gasping, as Kortlaus’s sabre-spear slammed, hard and bruising, into his hauberk-protected ribs.

  “And that,” Kortlaus said, extending a helping hand, “is why I insisted on full armor and blunted practice weapons. You’re clearly not at your best right now, Nycos. Distracted.”

  “I wonder what with,” the other answered through pain-clenched teeth. He accepted Kortlaus’s assist, then ripped his own helm from his head, gasping for air and sweating in the baking summer sun.

  Around them, the field was a small sea full of currents and whirlpools and islands of other training combatants. Individual duels such as his and Kortlaus’s took place between clashing rows of soldiers in massed formation, which in turn took care not to cross over into the archery range. At the far end of the field, several chain-clad mounted knights with lances longer and straighter than szandzsya tilted at one another, less for practice than for sport and to show off for the less experienced squires. All was a deafening cacophony of voices and steel and pounding boots and more heavily pounding hooves, so that Nycos and Kortlaus could speak freely without risk of eavesdroppers.

  “Seriously, Nycos,” the baron said, voice raised only just high enough to be heard over the clamor, “what were you thinking?!”

  “I’ve told you, I wasn’t! I was still recovering from the attack, in pain, my thoughts on trying to figure out what had happened and who was behind it. I was preoccupied, and just sort of—blurted it out.”

  When Kortlaus had returned from patrolling the borders with the nation of Wenslir and the purportedly haunted ford of Gronch, he had gone straight to the throne room to make his report. There, too, the baron heard of all that had transpired in his absence, so by the time this morning came around and he finally had the chance to speak with his friend, he already knew of current events.

  Which left their conversation free to focus on more personal—and, for Nycos, far more humiliating—topics. At this stage, he’d rather have been discussing the actual assault and the beating he’d suffered. It might prove less painful.

  Kortlaus planted the haft of his weapon in the grass a
nd leaned against it, catching his breath. “You’ve attempted to make things right, I assume?”

  “At every opportunity!” And so, indeed, he had. Distraught as he’d been, it still hadn’t taken Nycos long to understand the damage he’d done to a valuable alliance—and, though he was less inclined to admit it, to realize that he missed the margravine’s companionship. “I’ve gone to her door multiple times,” he continued, “but she won’t speak to me. Her servants tell me she ‘wants time to think.’ I’ve sent messages, gifts. I even made another public apology at dinner once. I swear I’m becoming more known for those than anything else I’ve done. ‘Sir Nycolos Anvarri, Knight of the Apology.’”

  Irritated as he was, he couldn’t quite repress a grin at his friend’s chuckle. Kortlaus’s laugh was infectious. He grew morose again swiftly enough, though.

  “It’s been weeks, and she still turns the other way if she so much as sees me in the halls. I’ve no idea how to fix this.”

  “Nycos, are you certain you want to fix it?”

  He could answer that only with an eloquent blink. The baron sighed, then gestured with his helm, suggesting they resume their practice. Nycos crammed his own back on his head and raised his sabre.

  “What I mean,” Kortlaus said, launching a few probing thrusts with the sabre-spear, “is that your behavior toward Mariscal hasn’t been the same ever since you returned from the Outermark. You’ve been friendly enough, but… little more.”

  Nycos sidestepped, dodged again, then slapped the szandzsya’s tip aside with his own blade and lunged. Kortlaus pivoted so the sabre scraped by, barely nicking his hauberk, and the pair began to circle. “Go on,” was all Nycos said, since he didn’t believe I barely know how to recognize human romantic overtures! would be a well-received reply.

  “No matter how determined Mariscal may be to keep things prim and proper until you’ve acquired a station more her equal, few in Oztyerva are ignorant of how the two of you feel for one another.” Kortlaus feinted, then launched a brutal kick to catch his opponent as he dodged, but Nycos didn’t fall for it. “Or at least how she feels for you, and you did for her. But the relationship, what little the two of you show of it, has been decidedly—”

  He scarcely managed to bring the haft up to parry a sudden slash from Nycos’s sabre, and received for his trouble a closed fist to the helm that Nycos knew must have made his head ring. “Decidedly one-sided,” he finished a bit woozily.

  Nycos took advantage of the opening and stepped in, trapping the szandzsya between his arm and his ribs. Even as he struck at Kortlaus’s chest, however, the baron twisted, hurling Nycos aside with his own weight and the leverage provided by the spear. The knight struck the grass, rolled, and came back to his feet just in time to parry a thrust to the belly. “What are you suggesting?” he demanded.

  “Oh, for the love of…” Kortlaus retreated, planted his weapon in the ground in a signal to end the match, and once more took off his helm. “Nycos, you know how much appearances and propriety mean to her, how much she’s bent her own rules fraternizing with you even as openly as she has! You know that she’s thrown her entire support behind your campaign to become Crown Marshal in part so you can be together openly, as equals! And you know you were lucky not to have permanently alienated her during your, um, period of adjustment when you first returned. Your lack of warmth since, and then your asinine behavior that night? Knowing all that, you have to have known, on some level, how she’d react!”

  “You’re suggesting,” Nycos said, tossing his own helmet to the grass, “that I don’t want to be—involved—with Mariscal any longer.” Somehow, that notion was more disturbing coming from someone else than it had been when confined to his own thoughts.

  “Had you asked me months ago, I’d have sworn on something holy that you would never feel that way, but it’s certainly a viable interpretation of your behavior.”

  “What do you think I ought to do?” Nycos asked carefully.

  The baron burst out laughing. “I think you ought to remember who you’re talking to, and ask someone whose interest in the opposite sex hasn’t been dead and buried for over a decade. Men are just as crazy-making, but at least I understand where they’re coming from.” His laugh trailed away into a subtler grin. “Sir Jancsiv and Sir Tivador are supposed to be popular with the young noblewomen, you might ask them. And rumor has it Prelate Domatir was quite the ladies’ man before age and ecclesiastic duties slowed him down.”

  His grin, too, slowly faded. “Nycos, you can ask all the advice you want—from me, from anyone else, from the gods themselves if they somehow deigned to listen.” He bent down to lift up his friend’s helm and hand it back to him. “None of it means a damn if you don’t know what you want to accomplish.”

  What did he wish to accomplish? His day-to-day life might well be easier, certainly simpler, if he needn’t worry over the romantic pitfalls and personal implications of a relationship with the margravine. Further, on an intellectual level, such entanglements held no interest or appeal. If they crossed his mind at all, they struck him as a silly waste of effort, a time-sink without any value to offset the cost.

  Then again, the pull wasn’t intellectual, was it? However much he tried to ignore it, Nycos’s human body, blood, and heart had their own concerns regarding which they refused to consult his nominally draconic mind. He felt no deep love, no burning passion for the woman—he might be ignorant of these creatures’ urges, but he knew enough to recognize that much. He was drawn to her, though, by an affection, an attraction that, while mild, remained unmistakable. The notions of cutting her from his life or of deeply hurting her were bearable, but unpleasant. He’d prefer to avoid either, if feasible.

  And of greater importance were the benefits to his plans. He needed all the allies and influence he could acquire if he were truly to advance his station, to become Crown Marshal—or any other high office—and Mariscal was both the highest ranking and, at least until lately, the most determined and invested, of those potential supporters.

  If he retained even a small chance of salvaging that relationship, then, wasn’t it the wisest course of action, regardless of what emotions were or were not intertwined with it?

  “What I want,” he said slowly, after obvious thought, “is to win her back.”

  Kortlaus studied him carefully, then nodded. “We’ve a couple of hours before I’m to make my full report to his Majesty’s council. I’ll go speak to her.”

  “Um. I mean. You can certainly try, but I told you she’s been unwilling to see me. I don’t know that she’ll be inclined to speak to you about me, either.”

  “Yes, I know. But you can’t do it. You’ll damage your cause if you ignore her request for time to think. I can use the excuse that I just got back to try to find out what’s going on, and make it clear in the process that you want to make things right while respecting her wishes. Later on, we’ll discuss other possible avenues of approach.” Kortlaus leaned his szandzsya over his shoulder and headed for the racks on which the practice weapons were stored. “We’re going to have to find a way for you to make your sincerity clear, Nycos. Without you being able to speak to her.”

  “And how would I do that, exactly?”

  “I have no idea. But we’re both reasonably clever fellows. We’ll come up with something.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The council chamber stood within one of Oztyerva’s central towers, rounded on two sides to follow the contours of the outer wall. The light from several arrow slits and a large oil-burning chandelier shone down upon a circular table on which was laid out a detailed and brightly inked map of southern Galadras. The king’s usual group of advisors were gathered about that table, along with his two children and nearly a dozen knights and military officers. Also present were Ambassadors Kidil and Guldoell, and a tall, middle-aged man whom Nycos had never met before. He wore stiff, formal tunic and trousers of a style long out of fashion in Kirresc, and had been introduced as Kholdoun Razmos
, ambassador from Althlalen.

  The emissary of Wenslir would have attended, had she been in Talocsa at the moment, while the Mahdreshan ambassador was currently away due to the tensions that recent raids had caused between that nation and Kirresc.

  Although far smaller an assembly than that normally found in open court, it was almost too large for the room to comfortably manage. “Quite a few kaftans, tabards, and other outer garments had been shed in a futile attempt to escape the heat of so many bodies crammed together. Nycos, as one of the lower-ranking attendees, was stuck at the back of the group, where he could see mostly shoulders and hair, with only an occasional glimpse at the map.

  But at least Zirresca is stuck back here, too, equally frustrated and looking for any excuse to snarl at me. So that’s good.

  “…did not encounter unexplained or hostile activity ourselves,” Kortlaus was saying, repeating and expanding upon the report he’d offered his Majesty the previous day. “We did, however, come across a large timber camp that had been utterly slaughtered and razed by something.”

  “Bandits?” one of the other knights asked.

  “I suppose it’s possible, if you can tell me what in the gods’ names they might have been after. Raw lumber?” Before the other could respond, the baron continued. “We did meet with a Wenslirran border patrol one evening. We stopped, took our supper, and made camp together. They assured me that they had seen overt signs of activity within the shadows of Gronch, not two weeks past.”

  Princess Firillia frowned. “The people of Wenslir are good neighbors, but they’ve always been superstitious zealots. Ah, no offense, Domatir.”

  Prelate Matyas offered a stiff, shallow smile. “Probably none taken, your Highness. I’ll let you know for certain when you finish that thought.”

  Several of the attendees chuckled, if a touch nervously. Wenslir was the second oldest of what were now considered the continent’s civilized nations, behind only Suunim, and its many temples were widely considered the birthplace of faith in the Empyrean Choir on Galadras.