The Bandit King

  I swallowed my pride and my temper, tried again. “She is in danger,” I repeated, through gritted teeth. “Where has she gone? She would not leave without some word to you. Why will you not tell me?”

  “She left with some very fine Court sorcerers and handy blades. It is no less dangerous for her than it was here, between assassins and armies and what-have-you. She has her reasons.”

  “Which would be?”

  “My dear, I am not privy to the Queen of Arquitaine’s—”

  I swore. Vilely.

  My decorous dam set the silver chai-pot down and glared at me. The basket of bandages she had been sewing stood carefully aside, and the entire room made me nervous. It was so… soft.

  “Tristan.” As if I were a boy again. She had not mentioned the wound to my face, but then again, twould be impolite. Especially if she gathered the provenance of the cut.

  “Your pardon, Mère.” Grudgingly. “I must know. It is dangerous for her without me. Who will she look to for aid?”

  “I believe Vianne di Rocancheil et Vintmorecy is capable of caring for herself in some small ways, m’fils. She is doing what she must for the good of Arquitaine.” My mother’s chin lifted. “Now come and sit, and have some chai.”

  I had thought Vianne would not have disappeared without taking leave of my mother, and I further thought my mother would be easily blandished into telling me more of my darling’s plans.

  My father was of the opinion that questioning servants would give us a direction, so we would at least know whither she was bound. I hoped he was having better luck.

  It was odd—he and I did not speak of anything other than the task to be done, and we seemed easier with each other now than we ever had. At least he understood that to find her was paramount.

  If he cursed me for whatever had caused her to take this course, it did not matter. I was already busy cursing myself. The fact that Vianne must have been planning this before I proved myself such a beast—perhaps even before Adrien di Cinfiliet whispered his poison in her ear—did not alter my self-loathing.

  She is afraid. And she was the lady for catching intrigues at Court. She is playing for her life now; that sharpens her wits still further. And it makes her likely to act instead of waiting.

  “Père told me she requires my presence to use the Aryx.” I dropped down in the chair opposite my mother and examined her face. Do not force me to use a Left Hand’s methods, mother mine. Not against my own blood.

  She nodded, slowly. “Vianne… did mention summat of that.”

  I took the cup she had poured for me. Enough. I risked a raid against her borders. “My presence, or a man’s presence, or…?”

  I watched my mother struggle, her calm cracking slightly. You wish to help Vianne, you want to help me. You know how much I love her; you are a gentle creature. Another hot bolt of self-loathing speared me.

  A Left Hand knows how to let silence work upon the holders of secrets. In the absence of rougher methods, it is surprisingly effective. Those who do not bend under the weight of a conscience must be approached with other methods.

  But my mother was not a difficult castle to siege.

  “Your presence,” she said finally, picking up the chai-pot again. A cool afternoon breeze from the garden drifted through the filmy curtains, and I thought of Vianne in this chair, as the Baroness sallied to ease her. I had watched my mother draw a shy smile from my darling, again and again. “Tris…”

  I dropped my gaze to my cup.

  She poured her own chai, silently arranged a plate of dainties—of course, my father would see to it that my mother had those little things she loved. The things that made her so gentle, and so unlike him.

  She set the plate between us, with her usual well-bred precision. Finally, she spoke again. “She did not say much.”

  I kept staring as if the spiced liquid in my cup held the solution to the Unanswerable Riddle. My face was frozen into a mask of quiet suffering, and I hoped its expression was even now wringing her heart.

  “Only that the Aryx must be used to protect, and that she could not fully make it do as she wished without you. Since you are her Consort. She said it was the Blessed’s idea of a jest, perhaps.”

  She must have trusted you, to speak so freely. And I wonder how bitterly she laughed, thinking of a gods’ jest. I still held my tongue. If there was aught more, she was approaching the edge of telling it.

  “M’fils… you are not angry, are you? At your father?”

  Of all the questions I expected, that was the last. A sigh took me by surprise, tension unstringing. My shoulders dropped. “Would it do any good? I am a disappointment, Mère. I always have been.”

  “No. Never.” She moved the plate slightly, her slim fingers so soft.

  Like Vianne’s. Not for them the rasp of swordhilt, or the cold and hunger of uncertainty, or the screaming chaos of battle. They were not fit for it, and without their small rooms and bright chai-pots, their gloves and curls and soft brushing skirts, what was all the rest of the unpleasantness for? Useless and worthless, unless it set a hedge around this, my mother’s sunlit room smelling of fresh air, sunshine, and a faint ghost of perfume and pastries.

  My father would have preferred a different son. One more like Jierre, perhaps. One who would have never been a Left Hand. Would you, too?

  His disappointment was at least expected. Hers would be more difficult to endure.

  “You are so like him!” my mother finally burst out, with a toss of her head. Her peridot ear-drops swung. “I wish I’d warned her. Stubborn, both of you. It takes a light touch to manage a d’Arcenne; at least I told her that much before she went haring off—” She clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, hellfire,” she muttered through her fingers. “Hellfire and damnation.”

  My eyebrows raised to hear such language from her. It took all my control to keep my face down and my tone soft. “A light touch? She does not even need that, m’Mère. She only needs to wish for it, to set me at it, and I will—”

  “Do whatever it is you think she wants, or what you have convinced yourself she needs.” My mother sighed. “You are so young. And so is she. Tristan, she has taken on a burden. It is one you cannot share, no matter what you would wish. The gods chose her for this.”

  Now that was surprising. “I had no idea you were religious.”

  “I am not overly religious, no. But it would take a fool not to see the hands of the Blessed in this.”

  Oh, the gods. They make trained farrats and apes of us all. Or perhaps life merely does so for them. Yet I could not discount the Blessed. I had seen them at work in the Temple. On my wedding day, the face of Jiserah the Gentle blazing no less than my Queen’s—now there was a memory not likely to ease my mood.

  Jiserah was the Blessed responsible for marital harmony. I wondered if her grace on my wedding day would do me much good now, did I make an offering a-Temple. “Gods or no gods, Mère, she needs me.”

  “I do not think she trusts the Council.”

  I went utterly still. The chair under me was far too finely carved for my comfort; it could tip me at any moment. “What?”

  “Before she left, she told me in confidence…” My mother glanced at the open window. She leaned forward, the struggle she waged with herself clearly visible. “Tristan, she told me she suspects one or more of the Council are d’Orlaans’s creatures. That was why she had to leave. There was… an attempt. To kidnap her, to take her outside the walls.”

  The cold was all through me. This was the missing piece of the puzzle. “When?”

  “Just before the Damarsene arrived. She… the Pruzian, he fought them off. They were d’Arquitaine. Lowlanders, not mountainfolk. One said a name, but she would not tell me.” My mother’s soft cheeks were now damp, and another tear turned crystalline on her lashes, touching the fine lines at the corners of her eyes made by smiling. “The Pruzian was wounded, and Vianne… she sought to use the Aryx. It worked, but not well, and she was hard-pressed.
Twas when she suspected she needed you to wield it properly.”

  Dear gods. Why did she not tell me? It had to have been after she left me in the donjon. “Why did—”

  “She swore me to secrecy.” My mother bit her lip. “Even your father does not know of this. She thought to protect you, m’fils, that her seeming disregard for you would ensure those who sought to harm her would attack more directly, instead of using you.”

  My mother needs reassurance, to retain her as an asset for later. She will hear things I do not, and now that she has broken a confidence once, she will do so more easily again. “You have done right, m’Mère.” Slowly, to drive home that we were in unwilling league now. “A name on the Council. Did she say aught else? Anything?”

  For now I would be doubly watchful of those old men. An attempt to take her person from Arcenne, and her only defense the Pruzian Knife. Perhaps he was trustworthy after all—or perhaps he saw someone else seeking to collect his eventual reward, and so interrupted the event.

  “No.” My mother shook her head. “Afterward, there was the battle. She was at the walls, struggling with the Aryx.”

  And now she is in the wilderness, with only a few men to protect her, and the Aryx unreliable. I forced myself to sip at my chai. It might as well have been mud, for all I tasted. Think. What concerns me most, now?

  The most pressing problem was, of course, finding her. She did not wish to be found, and I was better placed to find the direction she had taken flight while here in Arcenne rather than haring about the countryside. And here, I could perhaps bait a trap for whatever treachery lurked on her Council. It would fill the time, no matter how I longed to saddle my horse, take up my sword, and go a-questing like a chivalier in the aftermath of the Blood Years.

  Another thought struck me, almost violently.

  She had used the Seal during our flight from the Citté, but I had not been her Consort then. A Consort, once taken, was necessary for the Aryx? Well, that was a problem easily solved, was it not?

  There was no shortage of Temples within a few days’ riding. Our marriage vows were the old ones, archaic and bloodthirsty in their phrasing, from the Angoulême’s time. She could repudiate me in a Temple, but I could not divorce myself of her. I had wished it thus, so she could trust me.

  You cannot be trusted, Tristan. You know as much.

  And once she was at a Temple, another Consort would be easy to contract as well.

  Who would she choose? And would the Blessed grant their blessing to another man, one more fit than a filthy traitor who had proven himself a beast?

  Perhaps Jierre? He respected her wit and bravery. Adersahl? An older man, but steady and resourceful. Tinan di Rocham? He outright worshipped her. Jai di Montfort? He was whip-thin and handsome, and had an easy smile. Or Jespre di Vidancourt, or perhaps di Chatillon? She could have her pick. They were half in love with her already.

  Who would not be?

  I rocked to my feet. The chai-cup fell, splashing its contents onto a thick blue-patterned rug. My face burned, and the wound upon it twitched. My mother let out a small hurt sound, but I strode from the room.

  If I stayed there longer, I would smash something.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The weeks that followed were stark with rage and fear. There was no word of her. The searchers failed to find any trace. Now I knew some little of what d’Orlaans must have felt when he found her missing. Except she was merely a foundation-stone for his plans, while to me, she was simply, merely, everything.

  A small distinction, perhaps.

  There was work to be done. The proclamations to raise an army had gone forth, and the effects began to be felt. Arcenne swelled near to bursting in the month that followed. To my father fell the task of turning the disgruntled peasants, fire-tempered noblemen, and mercenary adventure-seekers, not to mention the criminals and opportunists, into an army. The rest of the Council sought to keep themselves from boredom, and the swelling crowd soon gave them plenty of opportunity.

  The only peace I found was during drill. I had been a Captain; I could have trained men to warfare in my sleep.

  It takes time to make a man into a reasonable soldier, especially a peasant—time, attention, and a measure of careful brutality. You must break and rebuild a man before he will obey during the chaos of a battle, and you must train him if you expect him to wield his weapon with anything approaching minimum facility. The end of summer ripened into harvest-season, and every commander’s eye was turned nervously to the mountains. The clouds held on their peaks dropped a little farther each day. The storms of winter’s approach would mean feeding the men and their followers until spring, and even with trade through Navarre that was a daunting proposition.

  No word from our Queen. Precious little news from the rest of Arquitaine. My father’s nerves stretched almost to the breaking point, and my mother grew restless and worried, organizing the stockpiling of stores in case we were attacked again—and to prepare for winter’s white siege.

  I? I prowled the halls of the Keep, unable to sleep, and loosed my temper on those noblemen unfortunate enough to come seeking adventure and finding themselves under my heel as a cadre eventually meant for the protection of the Queen of Arquitaine.

  Yes, I was training a new Guard. They did not measure to the task.

  Then again, I had failed ignobly, too. If I pushed them ruthlessly, I pushed myself harder.

  So it was after a long drill session, wet with sweat and with my fury a dim ember, that I dismissed them one long late-summer evening. The nights were growing chill, and the first etching of frost had appeared in the early mornings. It was already late, and the provinces that had declared for Vianne were busy bringing in the crops. The flood of recruits had slowed, but it would become a torrent once harvest was done.

  Or so my father hoped.

  I was in the dusty, stone-floored drillyard, giving one of the horse troughs a longing look, when a flicker of motion caught my attention. I flattened myself in a convenient shadow, saltwater growing chill on my skin. I wore darker cloth than a nobleman’s linen, and my doublet was merely functional—what use in destroying something fine, when all I did was sweat and curse? Every inch of fineness had left me.

  He caught my attention with a furtive movement, hugging the wall on the other side of the yard’s stone-floored expanse. I went still, instinct nailing me in place.

  The idiot was not paying heed, and had perhaps not even seen me in the gathering dusk. Instead, he hurried, casting a quick glance over his shoulder at the door the new Guard had disappeared through. I was normally at their heels, chivvying them along, but had turned that duty over to the quickest-witted among them—Siguerre’s grandson Tieris, a muscle-shouldered oaf who might, with years of practice, eventually be able to swing a rapier without hurting himself. I did not know quite why I had lingered in the yard, unless I had caught a breath of wrongness without being consciously attuned to it.

  Once a man has trained himself to look for the wrong note in a courtsong, he can hear little else. And a Left Hand is always on the alert for that single wrong note.

  So I stayed, and watched, my hand loose at my dagger’s hilt. The scar on my face twitched, an odd feeling indeed.

  Interesting.

  Divris di Tatancourt, former King’s Messenger, skirted the edge of the drillyard with long strides. He was cloaked, and as he melded with the long shadows on the opposite end he pulled his hood up. Swathed in anonymous fabric, he was almost out of sight by the time I decided to drift after him.

  One cannot follow a man too closely, especially if he is nervous. Sometimes nerves can make him blind to pursuit, but the chance of it heightening his senses and his caution is too large. Besides, I knew the city far better than he did.

  Shadows gathered deeper as he hurried down twisting cobbled lanes, his cloak disappearing into failing light. My pulse beat thinly in my throat. I followed, every nerve suddenly strained and awake as it had not been for a long while.


  The last time I had felt this alive, Vianne had been in my arms.

  I winced internally at the thought, chose a small street that would cut farther to the west. He was bound for the Quartier Gieron, the siege-burned district that had been abandoned before refugees and soldiers swarmed into Arcenne. I did not know what I expected—this was a long way to walk for a man intent on whoring, which left skullduggery or intrigue as his possible reasons. Or, who knew? But I was curious, and so I followed.

  And when he reached his goal, I was rewarded.

  Laughter and cries, and crackling fires. I halted, amid the reek of their odd spices and meat stews, their odor of smithery and dry oil. Woodsmoke, horses, the scent of tinkerfolk.

  R’mini.

  They are dark, and fierce, and their hedgewitchery is not like ours. Furthermore, the R’mini do not settle in one place—they travel, in their brightly-painted wagons, oxen and horses pulling them step by slow step through the world. They are fine menders and blacksmiths, carriers of tales and sometimes disease, though the plague ravaging other parts of Arquitaine had not touched any province declaring for Vianne as Queen.

  And you still do not believe in gods, Tristan?

  They do not take to outsiders, the R’mini. But they had brought Vianne safely through the Alpeis forest and to Arcenne, and when she spoke of them her face softened. It was the only time I saw her… well, at peace.

  Or, perhaps, happy.

  Divris di Tatancourt was d’Arquitaine, a foreigner, and a nobleman to boot. But he was welcomed at the R’mini fire. Their women, shy and sloe-eyed, hung back, clicking their tongues. The men crowded him, and one heavyset older fellow with a red sash, a gold earring, and a dagger at his ample waist clapped di Tatancourt on the shoulder and offered him a tankard of something. Twas probably rhuma, their fiery liquor, and the Messenger took a draught with good grace. They engaged in close conversation while the rest of the company went about the evening business of dinner and tending to the camp and livestock.