Knight's Shadow

by Sebastien de Castell

  I’d been asking myself the same question ever since we’d left Garniol. Rijou was the very last place on earth I wanted to go – if ever there was a Duke who deserved to be overthrown, it was Jillard. But it wasn’t just about him, not any more. Someone out there was killing off entire Ducal families; someone was arming peasants with steel weapons, and someone was sending groups of rogue Knights in black tabards to massacre them. I could appreciate that there was a certain brilliance to the plan, weakening both the power of the nobility and the will of the common people all at the same time, but the upshot was that Tristia was being torn apart at the seams.

  ‘Falcio?’ Valiana asked, and I realised I hadn’t answered her question.

  ‘We have to save Jillard,’ I replied, ‘not because he deserves it, but because someone wants him dead for the wrong reasons.’

  ‘But who?’ Kest asked. ‘To make all of this work, to plan it out so perfectly—?’

  I heard Dariana snort from behind us. ‘Look at all you fancy Greatcoats with your big talk and your conspiracies. It’s fucking Trin, obviously.’

  I really wanted it to be Trin. I knew she had the mind for it, and not a stitch of decency in her heart to stay her from creating chaos, but it wasn’t. Trin was entirely selfish, and all of this madness would make the throne she desired so badly all but worthless for a generation or longer. That wouldn’t suit her at all.

  ‘It’s not Trin,’ I said, then added, ‘or at least, it’s not all her.’

  ‘Well, if it’s not, then isn’t the most likely candidate the man you’re sending us to help?’ Dariana asked.

  ‘If it is Jillard—’ I stopped. Duke Jillard of Rijou had a history of trying to expand his own territory and I could easily see him looking for ways to annex Luth or even Aramor. But any Duke who tried such a thing would be gambling with his life if the other duchies found out and banded together to take him down. No, this wasn’t Jillard, either – and anyway, I was positive he was next on the list. Rijou sat at the very centre of Tristia, and it was the one duchy with enough money and power to hold the country together in a crisis. If someone really wanted to set Tristia afire and send it spiralling down into chaos and civil war, that’s where they’d be lighting the spark. Rijou was the next target.

  I noticed that Kest and Valiana were staring at me. ‘What is it?’

  ‘You were speaking, and then you just sort of drifted off,’ Valiana said.

  ‘Maybe he’s losing his mind along with his body,’ Dari suggested from behind me.

  ‘Are you feeling all right?’ Valiana asked.

  ‘Would you all stop asking me that question?’

  ‘I never asked in the first place,’ Dari said. ‘But I do have a different question.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘If you’re so bound and determined we should go to Rijou, I assume you’ve worked out how we’re going to get in?’ she asked.

  Fair question: Rijou has the most carefully guarded gates and walls of any city in the country – and I should know.

  She pointed at me. ‘If there’s any truth at all in the stories the troubadours are telling, you publicly humiliated Duke Jillard – and I believe that even before you did so, he badly wanted you dead.’

  ‘What’s your point?’ I asked.

  ‘So if that’s the case, how in all the hells are we supposed to get through the city gates? And when we do, how do we get into the palace without being arrested and hanged before we’ve had a chance to explain why we’re there?’

  I’d been pondering that very question ever since we’d left Garniol, and in fact I did have a way to get us into Rijou.

  Saints forgive me. I’m going to break her heart.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Homecoming

  We were approaching Merisaw. It was an hour or so before sunset. The hilltop town was a few miles from the capital city of Rijou itself, the dark rot at the centre of Tristia – and the place where I would make one of the last acts of my life a desperate attempt to save the man who had imprisoned and tortured me, had tried to murder Aline and who was, even now, quite likely planning to betray us.

  Saint Zaghev-who-sings-for-tears, there has to be a better way to throw my life away than this . . .

  ‘There’s someone up ahead,’ Kest said, pointing to the town gates about three hundred yards away. Then he added, ‘It’s the town gates, so probably just the city guardsman.’

  ‘Merisaw is a peaceful town,’ Valiana pointed out. ‘The gates aren’t guarded until after sunset.’

  As we moved nearer I held up a hand to shade my eyes from the late afternoon sun. ‘Is that a mace he’s holding? It looks odd from here.’

  ‘It’s a woman,’ Kest said, ‘and she is holding flowers.’

  For a moment I had visions of Saint Birgid, waiting with white and yellow daisies, ready to chastise me once again, but as we got closer I saw dark, dark hair, smooth white skin and blue eyes that held mine, even from this distance. The first time I’d seen her she’d been wearing a long white gown made from some gauzy fabric that shimmered in the moonlight. Today she wore a simple red dress, and had a single yellow flower in her hair to match the ones in her arms.

  The night Ethalia had saved me in Rijou, her smile had been wise and mysterious. Now it was the simpler smile of a woman filled with joy at the sight of her man.

  I stopped my horse when she was still a hundred yards away from me and dismounted. Birgid-who-weeps-rivers, if you truly are the Saint of Mercy, make her turn back. Make her run into the town and lock her door against me. Have her neighbours lie and tell me she left days ago – or better yet, send a man, a big, strong and handsome man, to run out of the gate right now with a picnic basket and a jug of wine. Have her turn when she hears him coming and laugh and throw the flowers up into the air as she flings her arms around his neck and showers him with kisses. Let it all have been in my mind: just one night of kindness from a woman who saw a stranger in desperate need.

  Ethalia began running towards me, and I swore. Damn you, Saint Birgid, damn you and all the other Saints, and damn the Gods. Damn you, King Paelis, with your childish dreams. You want me to break her heart, to betray the hope in her eyes? Well, two can play at betrayal. I swear: if she asks me to set this aside and come with her – if she asks me even once, I’ll go, and I’ll let this world you’ve given us fall into the despair and decay it so richly deserves.

  As Ethalia approached, I felt a momentary sense of relief as I watched her smile widen even further. Now I knew what would happen. She’ll come to me and say my name and tell me she’s been waiting for me every day. I’ll do my duty: I’ll tell her why I’m here – that I’ve traded away what hours and minutes might have been ours in service to a wasted effort to save a man who doesn’t deserve to be saved. She’ll get angry – of course she will; what kind of fool would do such a thing? She’ll give me one last chance, just one. ‘Come with me,’ she’ll say. ‘Come and be happy, however briefly.’

  And I’ll go.

  The hells for your dream, Paelis.

  But as Ethalia approached, she saw the expression on my face, and she saw Kest and the others behind me. Her pace slowed and her smile faded as her eyes changed, first looking anxious, then fearful and finally sad. It was as if she had discerned the entire journey of my life since we’d last been together in a glance.

  She stood before me, barely a foot away, and yet we had never been further apart. ‘Ethalia, I—’

  She shook her head to stop me from speaking and we stayed like that for a few moments until finally she took a deep breath, then said, ‘Very well. But this much for me. This much I have a right to ask.’ She took the final step towards me and reached up to put her hand behind my neck. She pulled my face down to hers and she kissed me, and I put my arms around her and felt as if all the loneliness and sorrow of my life had suddenly been lifted away. I didn’t care about the pain I’d suffered or the death I’d seen, or the neatha eating away inside me, or the violenc
e eating away at the country. All I cared about was her, and that moment, and that kiss.

  This much for me.

  We stayed like that for a minute or a year, and then she pulled away and spoke. ‘I am the friend in the dark hour. I am the breeze against the burning sun. I am the water, freely given, and the wine, lovingly shared. I am the rest after the battle, and the healing after the wound. I am the friend in the dark hour,’ she repeated, ‘and I am here for you, Falcio val Mond.’

  It was the formal greeting of her order, not the words spoken to a lover. She held my gaze for a moment more, and then turned to greet the others, who had stayed a little way behind me. ‘Welcome to Merisaw,’ she said. ‘I am Ethalia, a Sister of the Merciful Light.’

  Dariana snorted. ‘A whore? Your grand plan to get us into Rijou is some—’

  ‘Shut your mouth,’ Kest said fiercely.

  ‘Peace, swordsman,’ Ethalia said. ‘Your anger does me more harm than her words.’

  ‘Forgive me,’ he said, stepping back.

  Ethalia went to him and looked into his eyes, searching. ‘I would help you if I could, Saint of Swords, both for the love you bear Falcio and for your own sake too, but I cannot. You should leave this place and make your way to the sanctuary in Aramor. You are nothing but tinder and spark now.’

  ‘I will abide.’

  ‘Anyone with eyes can see your strength of will. It isn’t enough.’

  ‘Nevertheless, lady, I will abide.’

  Ethalia smiled, and reached out to touch Kest’s cheek. She winced as if she were being burned, and finally pulled away.

  ‘Thank you for trying,’ Kest said.

  Ethalia turned to Valiana and curtsied. ‘My Lady. We have met before, though I doubt you remember me.’

  ‘Forgive me,’ Valiana said. ‘I . . . There were many people then, and I was not the woman I am now.’

  ‘All to the good, wouldn’t you say? A Greatcoat: the first named since the King died.’

  ‘Your information is incorrect, whore.’ Dariana looked at Kest as she emphasised the word. ‘There are a hundred others.’

  Ethalia’s expression was neither threatening nor afraid, and she looked at Dariana as she might an angry child. ‘And yet not quite the same, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘You’ve got that right.’

  ‘My—’ I stopped myself. I’d been about to call her ‘my Lady’, as if she were a stranger. No, I thought. No. Even if our lives must be lived apart, I still get to know that she was here, that she was real, and that in another life she could have – would have – been mine. ‘Ethalia, we need to get into Rijou.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘but I must warn you that Rijou is an even more dangerous place since last you were there. I have left it behind, as have many from my order.’

  ‘But can you get us in?’

  ‘I can,’ she said, and sighed. ‘Some still remain, and there are men who guard the gates who feel a . . . a gratitude for the Sisters of the Merciful Light. How soon must you go? You could stay the night in Merisaw and in the morning—’

  ‘Tonight,’ I said. ‘It has to be tonight.’

  Her expression was inscrutable. ‘As you say, then. Come. I will make the necessary arrangements.’ She led us into Merisaw, and as we walked she slipped her hand into mine.

  This much for me.

  *

  That night an absurdly handsome young man dressed in the fine red brocades of a Rijou nobleman escorted us through the first and second gates and into the city. He gave his name as Erastian, which was an alias, unless he really was the Saint of Romantic Love – but he picked his nose quite often and stopped every once in a while to sniff blue-and-white powder before sneezing into a silk handkerchief, so I assumed it was the former.

  Whatever Erastian’s connection to Ethalia or the Sisters of the Merciful Light, he didn’t speak of it. I worried what the consequences might be for the Sisters if their involvement was discovered. I’d done my best to convince Ethalia to leave, to go south to the little island off the coast of Baern she had talked about, but she had refused.

  ‘You’ll need to pass the third gate by yourselves,’ Erastian said, interrupting my train of thought. ‘I’ve sent word ahead, and the men there will let you through without question. But I cannot be seen there, not by all of them.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, extending my hand, but instead he smiled politely, as if he hadn’t seen the gesture, and turned and walked back through the gates behind us.

  ‘Who do you suppose he is?’ Valiana asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘and I don’t think he wanted us to know.’

  ‘Then let’s hope he hasn’t betrayed us,’ Kest said dryly.

  As we continued slowly through the last gate into the city I found myself absurdly gratified that no one poured acid on us from the pipes running through the stone of the archway, or fired crossbow bolts at us through the small holes on the sides.

  ‘What now?’ Dariana asked, unable to hide her surprise that we’d made it this far. ‘We still have to get inside the palace, don’t we?’

  ‘I have a plan,’ I said.

  She looked at me as if she were convinced I was lying, but I did actually have a plan: after all, there are always two ways to get inside any Ducal Palace. One is to be invited. The other is to be arrested.

  *

  It didn’t take long to find one of Shiballe’s many informants – the city of Rijou is as riddled with them as a decaying apple is with rotworms. Despite their venal nature, they considered Greatcoats beneath them. Fortunately, we had Valiana.

  For the cost of an overpriced gown, a brocade coat, improbably high shoes and a copper tiara covered in the thinnest layer of white gold imaginable, she had quickly transformed from travel-stained Trattari to the daughter of a Margrave just arrived from the Duchy of Baern. If I’d had any concerns that she could still play the part of the haughty noblewoman, they were soon dismissed by the speed and ease with which she terrified one of Shiballe’s informants.

  ‘My apologies, my Lady – I swear, I meant no offence.’

  ‘Get up off the floor,’ Valiana said, ‘and if you try to put your filthy lips to my feet again you’ll find yourself without teeth.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ he said, pushing himself back up to his feet and brushing himself down. ‘But I must be frank with you, my Lady. What you’re asking for is expensive and difficult to arrange, even for a man like Thesian.’

  A man like Thesian was, as it turned out, fat, balding and smelled of far too many scented oils, all a bit on the rancid side. Though I know nothing of the perfumer’s art, I was convinced this particular assortment was an unwise combination.

  ‘I’m afraid we have very little money to spare at this time,’ Valiana said, and tossed five of the gold pieces the Tailor had given me onto Thesian’s table. This was, in fact, a princely sum by anyone’s measure.

  Thesian looked at us as if he was trying to decide just whom we must have robbed on the way to his little shop. ‘I . . . am sensitive to your plight, gracious lady.’ He paused for a moment and I could see the little gears of greed grinding his fear to dust. ‘And yet . . . even with this,’ he said, lifting and rubbing each of the coins between a thick forefinger and thumb, ‘I cannot guarantee the safety of your person. Not when it comes to a meeting with the Duke’s advisor. Shiballe is . . . ah . . . not always cooperative.’

  ‘But you’ll do everything in your considerable power to persuade him to treat with us fairly, will you not?’ she asked, and she placed another two coins on the table.

  ‘Of course – of course, my Lady – surely that goes without saying. Thesian has been a great friend to Shiballe, my Lady, a very great friend. We are as family – closer than family, in fact.’

  That last part I could believe.

  Thesian made the coins vanish into a small red bag that hung from his belt. ‘If I might be so bold to enquire, how exactly did you manage to find me? Men like me – ah,
we are difficult to track down, no?’

  ‘This is indeed the case,’ Valiana said. In fact, we’d had to walk the full length of a city block before we found a drug seller. ‘But we persevered, and trusted in the Saints.’

  Thesian smiled. ‘And the Saints have answered your call.’ He finished the last touches and blew on the document he’d put together to dry the ink. ‘Now, are you certain you have chosen the right location for your meeting? If – and I’m not saying this would be possible, even though Thesian is, as everyone knows, a great friend to Shiballe – but if something were to be . . . well, let us say, misunderstood, it would be very easy for a hundred Knights to appear, and in that case I fear even so gracious a lady as you, my Lady, would have great difficulty in escaping.’

  There is a protocol to clandestine meetings in Rijou. Negotiations are performed, terms are set, and eventually the two parties meet at a mutually agreed location. In this case, I had chosen the Teyar Rijou, the Rock of Rijou. When last there, I had made a rather negative impression on Duke Jillard’s men in general and on Shiballe in particular. It was a wide-open space that would enable him to make quite the demonstration of power if he wanted to, though of course, such an act would be in clear violation of the hastily agreed terms for our meeting.

  ‘It would be unfortunate if any such misunderstanding were to occur,’ Valiana said firmly. ‘I presume your influence will . . . reduce any chances of such unfortunate confusion.’

  ‘Of course,’ Thesian said, ‘and I myself will run to the church and pray the Saints speak in careful, quiet voices on your behalf.’

  He extended his hand towards Valiana to seal the deal and without missing a beat she turned to me and said haughtily, ‘Trattari, you will shake hands with this man on my behalf. I would hate to disturb the careful work of my manicurist.’

  At first I thought she was playing some foolish prank on me – then realised that if Thesian had shaken her hand, he would immediately have felt the rough calluses on her skin, hardly the mark of a noblewoman. Smart. Had she always been this clever?