Fortune's Fool (Eterean Empire Book 1)

by Angela Boord

  “Only that she’s draped all over Arsenault like a cheap cloak?”

  “He can do anything he likes!”

  Lobardin snorted. “I’ll tell you a secret. I had to give him my stash of kacin.”

  I stopped. “What?”

  He tugged me closer by the hand, then wrapped an arm around me and brought me up so near that I could smell all those days he’d spent on the road. The bruise on his face took the shape of a man’s knuckles, squeezing one eye almost shut. A cut slashed the hand that held mine.

  “I’ve been feeding him my kacin for the past three days.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, as often as I’ve said I’d like to see the son of a bitch writhing in pain on the floor, his mind was our ticket out of there, wasn’t it? His mind and his magic.”

  “His magic?”

  He grew suddenly serious. “Look. I don’t know why you were in that house on the Talos with him, but I think you probably know a little more than most. This plan of his, it sounds good when I say it on the table, but—”

  “He was hired to guard me,” I said.

  Lobardin’s eyebrows came down in a V. “What are you talking about?”

  I don’t know why I told him. Maybe it was the wine, or maybe I wanted to be off the subject of magic. My phantom arm thrummed, and I looked down, suddenly aware of how close Lobardin was holding me against him.

  “Margarithe said he was just hired to make sure I was safe. So, you see I don’t know as much as you think I do.”

  Now one of Lobardin’s brows climbed upward. He had the most expressive eyebrows of anyone I had ever met. “Isn’t that a violation of your sentence? Your father hiring a bodyguard to protect you?”

  “Yes, I know. But…it makes sense. I don’t know why else Arsenault would treat me the way he does.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Kyrra. You can’t be this naive. You.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You can’t believe he’s only doing what he does because he’s been hired by your father or because he’s being kind. You just can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  He snorted again and looked up at the ceiling. “Perhaps things are somewhat clearer to me now.” Then he looked down at me and opened his mouth as if to speak but stopped. It was clear on his face that he realized how close we were standing, too. His hand tightened on my waist, his fingers spreading down over my hip. The room spun around me, making me dizzy, and he felt so warm.

  A large hand on his shoulder yanked him backward. Both of us looked up in surprise to see Arsenault standing there, swaying and glowering.

  “I told you to leave her alone,” he said. “Didn’t I?”

  “And I told you to stay off that fucking leg, too. Do you think I want to have to sew it up again?”

  “Doesn’t hurt. Leave her alone.”

  “With all the kacin and imya you’ve just had, you wouldn’t feel it if I cut it off.”

  Arsenault’s scowl deepened, if that was possible, and Lobardin winced, his gaze flickering over to my stump and then away just as quickly.

  “Sorry, Kyrra. That was an unfortunate thing to say.”

  I ignored him. “Arsenault, he’s right. If the wound on your leg is as bad as it seems, you need to sit back down. I’m sure Margarithe…”

  “What about Margarithe. She told me you were working here all week. But where have you been? I wanted to talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  “About…” He cleared his throat. The thoughts skittered in his eyes and across his face in alarming fashion, and he swayed so much, I grabbed onto his shirt. “That Garonze,” he said finally.

  Lobardin inhaled sharply. “Here, Arsenault?”

  “No, not here. I’d rather elsewhere, but she left me for Margarithe and that other girl, and here you are, Lobardin—wasn’t it enough for me to hold my sword to your neck?”

  “I promised not to threaten her, Arsenault.”

  Arsenault made a strangled sound in his throat and grabbed Lobardin by the collar.

  “I’m fine, Arsenault!” I said. “And you can tell my father so!”

  He stopped and looked at me in confusion. “Your father?”

  “Margarithe told me about your commission.”

  “My…commission?”

  “Why my father hired you.”

  He continued to stare at me. “I have had too much to drink. I think.”

  Lobardin laughed a high-pitched, nervous laugh that seemed a cousin to the one I’d heard during the raid. “You think? Dear gods, Arsenault. No amount of drink is going to drown those memories.”

  Arsenault rubbed his scar. “The Householder wanted them taken care of. They were only going to raid again and again. Why not take care of it for good?”

  “For good. Was that for good, what we did?”

  Arsenault swung his head toward me. “That Garonze—not a Garonze. Forza.”

  “Forza!” I said it too loud, and some gavaros standing near us looked my way. I took a deep breath and pitched my voice lower. “Why would the Forza be raiding us, unless it’s banished kin?”

  “Not banished. All Forza.”

  “What?”

  “He’s trying to say that the whole force was Forza,” Lobardin said. “They weren’t bandits. They were Forza gavaros.”

  “Even the man who picked me up during the raid?”

  Lobardin turned his dark eyes on me, those brows showing concerned surprise. As the evening wore on, it seemed that everyone had somehow become stripped of their masks.

  “I don’t know,” Arsenault said. “But it was even more important to send a message. Since they were all Forza.”

  “And what message did you send?”

  “He drugged the wine before we left,” Lobardin said. “And we knifed them all in their sleep.”

  Lobardin dragged him off to his room and I followed, feeling numb and wondering if I knew a single thing about Arsenault.

  Lobardin kicked the door open and staggered into the dark room with Arsenault draped over his shoulders. Grunting with the effort, he wrestled Arsenault onto his bed. Arsenault hissed as he lifted his leg onto the mattress, and I fumbled around in the dark for his flint and a candle. When the wick flared into light, the first thing I saw was the sheath with the dagger in it. The mirror in the corner reflected both light and shadows, and Lobardin took it firmly in his hand and turned it to the wall.

  I looked at him in surprise.

  “I don’t like it, that’s all,” he said. “They say mirrors are like windows.”

  “Eyes,” said Arsenault, and we both startled. He was lying back on his bed with his own eyes closed, and in the flickering shadows, his words seemed to take on shape, like something hiding in the dark. “They say mirrors are like eyes.”

  Lobardin turned on him, his face gone pale. “Who’s watching, then?” he said.

  “Or ice. Maybe… I get the language mixed up.”

  Lobardin stepped away from the mirror as far as he could.

  I put my hand on my hip and considered the situation. “Arsenault, stop speaking nonsense. What do you need me to do?”

  Margarithe and Ilena had both offered to help, but Arsenault had said, No, I need Kyrra.

  If Margarithe hadn’t been jealous of me before, she was now, and Ilena didn’t need any more arrows to fill her quiver of antagonism toward me. Perhaps Arsenault ought to live alone in one of the hill caves, as he seemed to create hopeless snarls by virtue of entering a room and opening his mouth. I became aware that I was waiting too long for Arsenault to speak, and Lobardin was leaning against the table with his head nodding.

  “Lobardin. Go get some sleep. I’ll take care of him.”

  “Eh?” Lobardin brought his head up, then rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Right. I suppose I should leave him to you. I did the best I could with needle and thread. The bastard used up my supply of kacin.”

  “You shouldn’t have kacin with you
, anyway. My father doesn’t allow it.”

  “And will you tell him, Kyrra? I’m going to use what’s left tonight or I’ll never sleep.”

  I frowned. “Doesn’t it give you dreams?”

  “Anything will be better than what I’ve been seeing.”

  “But Lobardin—I heard you laughing in the midst of battle. And you killed that Qalfan. For nothing.”

  He ran a hand through his hair and laughed, nervously. “I’m afraid there’s a touch of battle madness in my line,” he said. “And I was on kacin when I killed the Qalfan—who belonged to the Prinze and fought back, by the way. Why else do you think he bled so much? But these men…” He sighed. “I was sober, and they were asleep, Kyrra. Only Arsenault and I knew they were Forza, the rest thought they were really bandits, but…what manner of man devises such a plan? He can’t have told your father.”

  I let my breath out and frowned. “No,” I said. “My father would never have allowed that kind of deceit. But my father would have been dealing with raids all spring. By the Forza. Why?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask Arsenault? Maybe he knows.”

  “If he’ll tell me.”

  “Well, he’s drunk on imya and kacin now, so here’s your chance.” Lobardin kicked himself away from the table and headed to the door. “I’d ask you to come see me later, but then I’m a little drunk, too, and he’d probably find out.”

  “Get out, Lobardin. I’ve no desire to come see you later.”

  He sighed, theatrically. Then he disappeared out the door and closed it behind him, leaving me alone with Arsenault.

  “You shouldn’t speak unless you know a man is really asleep,” Arsenault said.

  “You really are a rotten bastard,” I told him. “What do you need my help for? Why couldn’t Margarithe come sit with you? You know she wanted to shower you with sympathy and compassion. Now all you’ve got is an angry woman and me.”

  “You’re not angry with me?”

  “Arsenault, what do you want me to do?”

  “Pull the stitches first. The wound needs to drain, and then I can burn it with silver.”

  All the wine I’d drunk made me feel seasick at the thought of pulling his stitches. “But silver doesn’t burn,” I said.

  “Just— Kyrra, come here and help me.”

  He tried to push himself upright, but it seemed to take a lot of effort—whether from the pain or the drugs or the liquor, I didn’t know. I propped a pillow against the wall and shoved him up against it, using my left arm and my right shoulder.

  That put me very close to him. His chest was warm and hard against my arm, and I felt him turn his head so that his nose and the side of his face brushed my hair.

  “Mmmm,” he said, sinking back into the pillow. “You smell of rose. And lemon.”

  “I traded some sewing for soap,” I said. “I got tired of using yours.”

  “Probably tired of smelling like me.”

  “Occasionally I enjoy something more feminine,” I agreed. I put my nose down close to his leg, sniffing for the telltale scent of infection. The sick-sweet odor was subtle, not overpowering, so maybe the wound had only just begun to turn. “You could use a bath, Arsenault,” I told him, patting his other leg.

  “Are you going to haul the water for me?” he said.

  “I think you’d look strange wearing my guarnello while I burned your clothes.”

  He chuckled, but then I began unwrapping the bandages, and he stiffened.

  “I think Lobardin was exaggerating,” I said. “You’d feel it if I cut off this limb.”

  He let his breath out in what might have been a weak laugh. “Don’t let them cut off my leg, Kyrra.”

  I tossed the filthy bandages on the floor and reached for the candle. The rip in his trousers had been cut wider to keep the fabric off the wound, from high on his thigh down to the top of his knee. The gash in his leg was almost that long. It was red and puffy, but it didn’t ooze. It didn’t look anything like my arm had when it was fevered.

  “You’re not in danger of having your leg cut off. I swear you might as well be a little girl.”

  “Sympathy begins to sound better.”

  “You missed your chance. Margarithe would probably enjoy pulling your stitches now.”

  “You think so?” I pushed at the side of his leg and he grimaced. “There’s a bottle of brandy in the chest. Soak the wound in it. Do the scissors and needle, too.”

  I flipped the latches on the chest and peered into it, my heart drumming in ridiculous anticipation of catching a glimpse of what might lie inside. There was the brandy as he’d promised, and the little pot of ointment he’d rubbed on my hand, and the leather roll of his sewing kit. The book he wrote in, wrapped up with a metal stylus. The carved wooden woman, still unfinished, a few delicate golden daisies, and a long, thin rod that shone in the light. Garnet-colored silk lay folded on the bottom of the chest—a shirt, I thought.

  “Did you find it? And my gloves?”

  “Yes.” I had to take time pulling things out one at a time, but finally I managed all of them and hurriedly shut the chest. When I turned around to collect some rags from the bag hanging on the wall, Arsenault was watching me. The way the candlelight fell on his face, half in shadow, half in light, it hid his scar and made his eyes seem as silver as his metal.

  I stuck the brandy bottle securely under my stump so I could pull the cork. “If you’re to burn the evil out of that cut, why don’t you just flame the blade of your knife?”

  “You’ve had all this done before, haven’t you?” he said, moving his leg a little to allow me to get closer to it.

  I laid out a rag on the table and soaked a few more with brandy, then ran one of them over and around the scissor blades and the needle. “I don’t remember much. Just the iron in the fire. And the pain.” When I put the scissors and needle down on the neatly folded white rag, I wanted suddenly to throw up. “The chirurgeon used something that put me to sleep.”

  If Arsenault was going to require me to burn him, I didn’t know if I could do it. I remembered the smell more than anything, the lingering odor of burning hair and flesh.

  “I thought your father wasn’t allowed to hire a chirurgeon.”

  “I suppose there must have been a way around it. My parents couldn’t visit me. The chirurgeon kept me in a small room at the back of his house, and his boy cared for me. Sometimes.” I soaked another rag in brandy and turned around.

  “Sometimes,” Arsenault repeated in a dark voice.

  “Sometimes,” I agreed, kneeling beside him. “The Qalfan was kind, but he didn’t have a lot of time to spare on a murderer.”

  I laid the dripping, brandy-soaked rag on his leg and he pulled backward. “A wonder you survived at all,” he said, letting out his breath.

  “Probably,” I replied, folding up the rag and leaving it on his upper thigh. I bent my head to concentrate on tearing out the stitches. It was not like ripping out the seam in a shirt, and yet it was. The thread Lobardin had used was hanging out the end of the cut. I snipped it with the scissors and began tugging at it, as gently as I could.

  He shifted. I tried to think of something more to say. Whenever the chirurgeon had to do anything painful that required me to be still, he had tried to distract me by talking, or he would bring in his boy or girl to do it.

  “The Forza,” I said. “Why would they want to raid our silk? We share profits with them.”

  Arsenault cleared his throat and tried to sit up, but I pushed him back. He gave way much too easily.

  “Changing allegiances, maybe,” he said, sinking into the pillows again. “Or bribed by the Prinze.” He took a big breath. “Hoped you might know more.”

  “Have you spoken to my father?”

  “He was busy. In the nursery. He said he would hear tomorrow. When— By all the gods, Kyrra, do you have to—”

  “Yes,” I said. “If you wanted sympathy and compassion, you should have asked for Margarithe.�
��

  He was quiet a moment. I had gotten about halfway down the cut, opening it back up, but it had scabbed around the thread, and tearing out the stitches opened the edges wide enough to bleed. The sword had gone in deep; layers of muscle were visible inside it. There was no way to get the stitches out without it hurting.

  He shifted again. Then he said, “Margarithe was a mistake.”

  I sighed. “Affairs largely are.”

  “I knew it was a mistake. But those nights were so cold. I saw the rose silk in the market and I thought how it would look with her eyes.”

  I was almost to the end, but this was a bad section, where the sword must have pulled free. The gash widened, as if the blade had snagged on his flesh. “I’m not sure you should be faulted for it,” I told him.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” He sounded bitter. “Nobody deserves to be entangled with me. And yet I break down. Over and over again.”

  I tried not to stare at him. “Well, perhaps she just wanted a bit of comfort in the dark too. Maybe she doesn’t want as much out of you as you think she does. Maybe…she’d just like the promise that if she needs some comfort, it will be found.”

  He brought his head up. “And was that how it was with you?”

  I yanked the thread and made him wince. “No. Not exactly. It was only two years ago, but I was so young then. And chasing desire. But I did hope that it would last. I thought it would last. I thought we would be married.”

  “It’s hard not to get tangled up with hope.”

  “But not for you? Have you given up on marriage, too?”

  He was quiet for the space of a heartbeat. Then he said, “My marriage ended long ago.”

  I stopped with my hand at the very end of the cut and looked up at him, stunned into silence. I suppose I knew he’d had a life somewhere; all the gavaros had their own stories, which they might tell you all at once or in dropped comments here and there, like objects spilling unintended from a load, but I couldn’t imagine Arsenault without his weapons, striding through the barracks.

  “Your marriage?”

  “It was so long ago, Kyrra. Are you done?”

  I looked down, flustered. “The stitches are gone. Do you want your silver?”