The Bandit King

  Adersahl and Mauris held me up, the boy openly weeping, Adersahl’s cheeks wet as well. The walls were full of cheering men, the crossbows hummed, bolts laden with death-sorcery crackling into the mass pinned close to the walls. When the Damarsene broke into full flight, harried away from their trenches and the walls, abandoning their siege engines and supplies, another massive cheer went up. Even a fool could have seen the battle was over. The Temple bells of Merún rang wildly, peal after peal, and I was told later that the scenes of joy at the quays were almost as dangerous as the melee outside the walls.

  Vianne did not weep. For some while she stood on the battlements, motionless, watching, her face colorless and her hands fists in her skirts. She sent for Jierre, left orders that I was to be taken to the infirmary, and retreated to the Keep to begin preparations to welcome the relieving army.

  Thus it was that I did not see the scene at the battered Gates of Merún, where the old Conte di Siguerre, in armor that was older than his grandson Tieris, swept the Queen a bow and greeted her with fine flowing oratory. I also did not see when Adrien di Cinfiliet rode to the Gates, dismounted, and my Vianne ran to his arms. Their embrace caused a round of fresh cheering, and the bandit and the old Conte were the heroes of the day.

  No, I was in the infirmary. It was there that Bryony, sunburnt and dusty, found me. The hedgewitch, my childhood friend, sent the Merúnaisse boy from the room with its walls of wool-bale, and examined the charm on my chest.

  “You are a right welcome sight!” I had actually been laid atop a couch made of wool-bales, and I must say, twas more comfortable than any bed I had been possessed of lately. “How does Arcenne fare? How did you come to be here?”

  “Arcenne still stands.” He looked grave, but I thought twas because he was peering at the scar on my chest. “You have been seeking to kill yourself, as usual. Dear gods.”

  “How did you—”

  “I bring word. One message from your mother—she says to take care and sends her regard. One from… your father. Divris di Tatancourt was found on Rieu di Heifors. He had been set upon and stabbed several times. Your father thought it best to ride with what army we had gathered.”

  “I last saw di Tatancourt in the Quartier Gieron.” I thought on this. “Stabbed?”

  “Aye. Your father… Tristan.” He ceased poking at my chest and looked up at me. “I bring news.”

  Outside the wool warehouse, the entire city was still pealing and cheering with joy. Even the wounded and burned packed among the bales sought to cheer instead of moan with pain. “Well, out with it, Bry!”

  He stepped back, spread his feet, and clasped his hands together. “There is no easy way to say this…”

  “Bry, for the love of the Blessed, simply spit it forth. I must be fit to ride in short order, and have little time to waste.”

  “You will not be riding soon, sieur, with that charming on you. I bethought myself to find you first. You will be seeing Siguerre soon.”

  For a moment I thought he spoke of Tieris, and I made an impatient movement. “Of course, but what…”

  I suppose twas then that I knew. The words halted. I lay, near to witless with shock, and stared at him.

  “Conte di Siguerre has your father’s signet.” Bryony took a deep breath, visibly bracing himself. “He… Sieur, your father has fallen. He fell at Bleu-di-Font. D’Orlaans was there, with some Damarsene from the Dispuriee. The false king was riding for the Citté; we gainsaid him. Your father…” The hedgewitch swallowed hard, his dark eyes suddenly full. “Your pardon, Tris. I was not able to… there was no… He fell against d’Orlaans.”

  I stared, unable to quite credit what my ears heard. Surely there was a mistake. This was a dream brought on by fever and foul tisane. It could not be true.

  “D’Orlaans.” My mouth shaped the word.

  “In a tumbril, kept under guard. Siguerre wished to kill him outright, but the Conte di Dienjuste said twas the Queen’s pleasure he was remanded to. Di Dienjuste was left to guard him; he follows our army within a day or so. I am… I am sorry, Tris.”

  “Tis not your fault,” I said, woodenly. “I thank you for your pains, Bry.”

  “We sought to save him. Twas… there was nothing—”

  A nobleman does not strike an underling for bringing ill news. My father had oft quoted the proverb, usually with a grim smile and his hand to his rapier. “I understand. Ease your mind, my friend. If he could have been saved, I know you would have done so. Please, withdraw a little.” I would not unman myself with an audience.

  He nodded. Unwilling pity and relief warred on his countenance. “You are Baron now. We have not sent word to your mother. Siguerre did not think it wise.”

  “He was right,” I said through the numbness descending on me. “She has enough to bear. My thanks, Bry. Leave me.”

  He did.

  My father. I tried the words inside my head. They refused to form. Is dead. Someone is dead. It cannot be him.

  He had told me to take care as I left him in Arcenne. Had even granted me his blessing, and now…

  Now what?

  I did not know.

  My eyes were dry, and burned fiercely. I could not even weep. I lay on the bales, looking at the ceiling beams, smelling wool and foulness and my own unwashed illness, as around me a city celebrated deliverance.

  * * *

  Twas a day and a night before Conte di Siguerre appeared. At least I had lee to stand, and could wash myself. I was moved from the infirmary to a drafty but more comfortable room in Merún’s Keep, and attended by Tieris and a new hedgewitch physicker, a wide-hipped dame with the sharp face and blue eyes of Arcenne, a newly arrived and most welcome addition to the physickers. Beadris was her name, and rarely have I had a more grueling commander. I would mend, she announced, and she would see to it, for she had been commanded to do so by the Queen herself.

  Tieris found this highly amusing.

  The Conte tapped lightly at the door, on one of the rare occasions m’dama Beadris was off mixing ever-fouler concoctions to pour down my throat. Tieris opened the door and stepped back quickly as if discovering a coiled serpent. “Enter, an it please you.”

  His left thigh was bandaged, but his gaze was still keen, and Conte di Siguerre did not hobble overmuch. He merely moved stiffly, showing his age. His hair had whitened considerably, and the Sun had touched him with bronze. His doublet was blazoned with Siguerre’s device—the crag-ram, with its curling horns and stubborn hooves, rearing in defiance.

  He nodded shortly at Tieris. “P’tifils.”

  Tieris bowed. He had gone pale. “Granpère.”

  “D’Arcenne.” The Conte’s gaze turned to me. At least I was clean, and shaven, and had the benefit of fresh cloth. Including a new red sash. I was still of the Queen’s Guard, perhaps only until she could find enough time and attention to formally deny me the honor.

  Or perhaps she did not mean to. Hope is a drug, and I could not give up the habit of its use. If I had proven myself unfit to be called noble or honest, at least I had also proven a protection against Graecan fire. How many times would I shield her with my own body, or my own lies?

  And yet, I had failed to shield her where it mattered. And now, here was my father’s friend, and my father… dead.

  I still could not fathom it. “Conte,” I greeted him. “Pray forgive me that I do not rise. Your arrival is most welcome.”

  He waved the pleasantry aside. “Wait until you hear my news.”

  “I have been told of my father’s demise.” I had practiced the sentence. There was no betraying hitch in the rope of words, no indication of the rock in my throat. If a man can stand, he can weep in the privacy of a fallwater, or in the dark. I must have been hardened beyond measure by my sins, for I could not weep even in that safety. The tears refused to come.

  I had no acquavit to render me insensible, and my physicker could not be induced to bring any. Tieris di Siguerre could not be so induced, either.

 
I gather he thought I might harm myself.

  “It does not surprise me.” The old turtle hunched his shoulders. “I know twas not my grandson, for I did not inform him.”

  “Your grandson is a fine Guard.” I shifted a little, seeking to ease an ache in my hip. Bed rest wears on the body almost as much as battle.

  He waved the question of Tieris’s fineness aside, irritably. A glitter in his hand resolved itself into a fine silver chain, threaded through a heavy ring. Twas a siang-stone signet, the mountain-pard of Arcenne clawing, its jaws wide in a silent roar. My carnelian signet was the Heir’s, and grime had settled into its fine carving. Many times over the years I had been possessed of mad thoughts of returning it to my father with a curse.

  Now I would never have the chance. Nor would I have a chance to… what?

  What would I have said to my father, had I known? Was he watching as his son continued in a manner to blacken his proud name? Did he curse me from the golden halls of the gods?

  Oh, tis very likely. No more than I curse myself, though.

  Old Siguerre was not to be deterred from giving his tidings, fully and completely. “Twas d’Orlaans. Di Dienjuste denied me the killing of that parasite. Yet do you cry for vengeance, I do not think any will gainsay you.” Flung like a challenge. One I deserved, no doubt.

  “How did it happen?” I sounded strange even to myself. Throatsore, and oddly breathless.

  “They were both unhorsed. Twas a confusion. There was sorcery…” The Conte made a restless movement, staring at the signet. Was there still blood on its shining, or had he washed it? “Perseval was never a fine Court sorcerer. He preferred steel. I…”

  Incredibly, the stone-hard face cracked a trifle. The Conte’s mouth turned down, bitterly. Was that water against his lashes?

  Truly the age of the Angoulême’s miracles had returned.

  The old man coughed, and I caught Tieris’s gaze. Young Siguerre read my silent dispatch and murmured a courtesy, slipping out into the hall. The door closed with a quiet click.

  “I thank you for bringing the news.” Twas a mannerly thing to say, but it seemed… bloodless. I sought for more. “My father prized your friendship, Conte. He oft remarked that you were one of the few honest men in Arquitaine.”

  “Did he, now.”

  I meant to ease di Siguerre’s sorrow, and suspected I had not. For his face crumpled and smoothed itself silently, and I found myself facing not the terrifying gravel-voiced Siguerre of my childhood, but an old man, almost frail despite his breadth of shoulder and small, hard gut. His hair was thinner, and the map of veins on the back of his knotted hands was of a country I might reach one day.

  If I did not die before my time, of knife or poison or sheer mischance. What did it matter? I was already dead. And so was my father now.

  Dead. I could not… There was no way I could think on it that would convince me of the truth of it. He could not be. My father and his disapproval were eternal. A world without either was…

  Terrifying. That is the only word that applies. “He did.” The man using my voice was not Tristan d’Arcenne. For d’Arcenne, Captain and Left Hand, would not have to swallow a hot weight of unspilled grief. Even if he was now beginning to realize the truth of the words he mouthed. “He thought very highly of you.”

  “And I of him.” The Conte’s chin rose, and he gazed at me with disconcerting directness, ignoring—or perhaps daring me to mention—the tear-track glistening on his weathered cheek. “His thoughts were much on you, Tristan. He was very proud. You were a joy to him.”

  I doubt that very much, sieur. But it was a kind lie, one I suspected di Siguerre half believed himself now. The dead do not misbehave; they become a mirror we may safely gaze into and see what we will.

  What would I see, now that I was gazing? “My thanks.” Whose was that quiet, steely tone? Who was using my voice as his own?

  Whoever he was, he sounded so like Perseval d’Arcenne that my father could not be gone to the West, the realm of the Blessed. Surely he was still here.

  Di Siguerre approached my bedside. The signet was heavy, dropped into my reluctant hand with a rattle like chains. “A man reaches a certain age, and he loses the habit of showing anything but harshness. What he feels and what he may express are not… they are seldom one and the same. He was proud of his son, sieur. Every day I spent in Perseval d’Arcenne’s company, he spoke of his Tristan. His boy. The only person higher in his regard was m’dama the Baroness. I tell you this because sons do not understand their fathers.”

  I understand enough. “Nor their grandfathers.” It escaped me before I could think on the likely consequences of such an observation.

  “Hm. Even so.” He nodded slowly. “Even so.”

  “Di Dienjuste has d’Orlaans? In a tumbril?” I turned the signet up, the mountain-pard’s roar forever caught and held. Arcenne was an old province, and held by our family since the Angoulême’s time. Our device has ever been the cat—a fierce, stealthy hunter, an animal who does not flee from man.

  And now I was an animal who could not even flee from himself.

  “Aye.” Now Siguerre’s tone held no softness. “Cyriot di Dienjuste cried me nay when I would have taken that saufe-tet’s head off. They follow from Font-di-Bleu. The Queen is to have the judging of d’Orlaans.” He seemed very absorbed in studying the wall over my head. “Will she do what is necessary?”

  She will not need to. I folded my fingers over the signet. Closed in my palm, it clicked against the Heir’s ring. “She is the Queen. She will do as she must.”

  “Very good.” Gruff and uncomfortable now. “Indeed.”

  “My thanks, Conte di Siguerre. It is an honor to know you.” Very formally. “I hope our Houses remain friends.”

  “Until the Angoulême returns, sieur.” Equally formal, and much more comfortable now. “I take my leave, an it please you. I am sorry to bear you such news.”

  “And I am sorry to receive it.” Formulaic, the security of etiquette easing the sharp edges. “Blessed guard you, sieur.”

  “And you.” Old Siguerre made his way to the door. He halted. “Tristan?”

  “Halis.” Twas the first time I had used his given name.

  “His last words were of you and your mother. He regretted not seeing your face again. My son, he said. Tell him he has my blessing, and that I have always been proud of him.”

  Was it a mercy, that I found no trace of falsehood in his voice? Or a fresh knife to my heart? I could not decide.

  The Conte stepped forth into the hall. He spoke, low and passing gentle, to Tieris. I could not hear what passed between them, for old Siguerre pulled the door closed. I was left to my thoughts for a short while.

  I was glad of it. I do not like being seen to, finally and completely, weep like a child.

  * * *

  Beadris shook her head. “You are fit for gentle riding,” she said, hands to her wide hips and dark strands threaded with gray falling into her sharp face. “None of this Arcenne-to-d’Or-in-a-week nonsense. And no duels.”

  I checked my dagger—still easy in its sheath. “I shall seek to avoid dueling if at all possible, m’dama Physicker. I do not wish your wrath.”

  “Ha!” She turned away to the small table littered with herbs and a syph-æther lamp, glass tubes and other implements for making the terrible brews she forced down my throat. I was not sad to see the last of those. “Tis not my wrath. Tis the Queen’s, and she is most concerned. Every day it’s a visit to Her Majesty, and her asking, How does your patient fare? I’ll be locked in the Bastillion do you take an ailing and die, young sieur, and where will that leave my Consort and family?”

  “Left in the cold and the rain, and winter coming on,” I chanted. “I shall save you from such a fate, m’dama, by taking excessive care of my person. Tell me, the Queen asks every day?”

  “Oh, aye!” She grinned, blue eyes twinkling. In the old days, those with light eyes were not precisely feared, but not welcomed
overmuch, either. An Arquitaine eye is a dark eye, as the proverb runs—and a dark eye knows its place. “She did ask me not to tell you, thinking you’d worry if you heard her inquiring so closely. I told her, Your Majesty, said I, tis no shame to inquire after one’s Consort! But she sought to ease your recovery, sieur.”

  Did she? Or are you giving me a gentle lie? Would I even recognize a truth, were it spoken plainly to me?

  There was a tap at the door. Tieris di Siguerre appeared. Fatigue and dirt had both been sluiced from him, and he was carrying himself more lightly these past two weeks. Which irritated me to no end—but being trammeled in this windowless room would have made a curmudgeon out of the sweetest temper. Add to that the fact that I received no visitors, that Tieris imparted precious little in the way of gossip or information, and Beadris’s clucking and fussing, and my temper was none too sweet.

  “Ah, my jailer!” I greeted him. “Am I on furlough?”

  “You must be recovered. You are ill-spoken as Granpère.” He hissed and jabbed an obscene gesture at me. “Avert, demieri di sorce!”

  I found a laugh in that, though his tone was sharper than I liked. Of course, the prospect at being set at liberty was enough to make me merry as a maying. “You lie abed for two weeks under the care of m’dama Henpeck there, then we shall see who is ill-spoken.”

  “Sieur!” Beadris was shocked.

  “Forgive me, dearest physicker.” I half-turned, caught her work-roughened hands, and lifted as if I would kiss them. She shrieked and pulled away, and Tieris’s laughter joined mine. The Arcenne hedgewitch scolded, blushing and delivering a tongue-lashing I would have quavered at as a stripling, but she offered her cheek for a peck afterward, and the fire in her cheeks was not merely embarrassment but secret pleasure. She had labored long over my care, and my chest did not pain me now. The scar was pink instead of angry crimson, and the cut down my cheek near to white. Twas interesting to shave around, and the sliver of glass in the watercloset showed me new lines on my face. The gray streak in my hair had widened as well.

  Merún, like me, had not recovered fully. The Damarsene were routed, harried for the border by Irion di Markui and an army of disparate parts—angry peasants, the troops of the mountain province, and those of d’Orlaans’s host who took advantage of the amnesty granted to them did they serve the Hedgewitch Queen. So much I had been told, and some little I could guess—the Conte di Siguerre tarried with the Queen, as did Adrien di Cinfiliet, to begin the work of rebuilding. Why she stayed in Merún was a small mystery, until I hit upon the thought that a victorious entry into the Citté took some little time to prepare. Such an entry would be necessary, both for the theater of the gesture and to put paid to d’Orlaans’s claims.