by Victor Milán
“They’re children, brother,” Bogardus said gently. “Let them speak.”
“Earlier this morning,” Little Pigeon said, “I was in the square by the Maris fountain. I spotted a tall man talking to another in an alley. Both wore cloaks. The shorter, wider man had short hair, brown or blond. Rain had soaked it so I couldn’t. Chloé—”
Little Pigeon indicated the girl, a freckled redhead. “—saw he wore armor. Olivier saw his cloak was blue and green.”
That raised a sharp noise from the crowd: the Crève Coeur colors.
“And the other?” Rob said.
“He wore a hood. But we saw his face.”
“Can you identify him?”
“I’d know that long nose anywhere. It’s him, the one who looks like he’s sucking on a green persimmon!”
As one all three children pointed to Longeau.
“Bogardus, this is intolerable,” Violette all but shrieked. “How can you allow this farce—”
“Farce, Sister?” Rob said loudly. “Or tragedy?”
He turned again to the rear of the hall and roared, “Bring in the captive.”
A man marched in, barrel-bodied beneath a sodden green and blue tabard with a mail hauberk clinking beneath. Rain had darkened and spiked his cap of hair. Broad and coarsely handsome, his face was given a devilish cast by a long sword-cut that ran from left eyebrow to bristle-covered right jaw. Full lips wore an insouciant half smile and murk-green eyes were calm, despite the fact that his hands were bound behind him.
And, more impressively, despite the point of a spear pricking the back of his thick neck.
Whereas the appearance of a captive Crève Coeur knight startled the crowd, the spectacle of his captor made them reel on their benches. The woods-runner Stéphanie carried the spear. She had her short brown hair bound up in a brown kerchief band. A feather panache in drab woodlands greens and browns was pinned at her left. A long narrow braid, feather-tipped, swung by each shoulder. A thin green braid that signified allegiance to Telar encircled her waist. She wore a leather bracer around her left forearm, a dagger strapped to her right, and low boots. And that was all.
Ceremonial nudity was a recognized way of accentuating the gravity of an occasion. It had more impact here in Providence, where people normally went clothed, than in the hotter, wetter lowlands.
Not that she didn’t make sufficient impression on her own. Rob hadn’t fully appreciated before what a remarkable figure she made, long-limbed, with the lithe muscles and assured lethality of a matador. The brutal knife scarring on her face, and incidental gouges and slices on her tawny hide, now only reinforced the splendid barbarism of her appearance. Her breasts were large if somewhat flat, with wide brown nipples. Rob couldn’t help noting with interest her pubic hair was an almost dainty patch, soft and brown, not the exuberant bush he’d expect from such a wild woman.
For some reason the men in the audience seemed more appreciative than the women, but no eye looked anywhere but at Stéphanie as she marched the captive to the Council table.
Bogardus seemed to have trouble restraining a grin. “Your name, Montador?” he asked the knight.
“Laurent of Bois-de-Chanson, knight in service to my lord Baron Salvateur, and to his liege Guillaume, Count of Crève Coeur.”
“And to what do we owe the presence of such a distinguished guest, Mor Laurent?”
The man snorted as if at a joke. “The woods-rats and their mounted farmer friends caught me as I rode away from town this morning.”
At the phrase woods-rats Stéphanie went pale and drew back her arm as if to drive her hunting-spear through the knight’s neck. Rob quickly laid a restraining hand on her arm. It felt like wrapped wire under velvet.
“And did you meet someone in an alley near the square?” Bogardus asked.
“Yes.” He jutted his square chin at Longeau. “That one.”
“Don’t listen to this nonsense,” Longeau said. “This—this is a feeble attempt to defame a man whose only crime is zealously serving the Garden of Beauty and Truth and the people of Providence!”
Mor Laurent barked laughter. “Is that what you call it here? Back home across the Lisette we call it treason.”
Violette shot to her feet as if she had a spring up her butt. “You lie!”
The broad face darkened. “Release me, and I’ll challenge you or any champion you care to name for that slander.”
“Will you want to fight me if I ask why we should believe you, an enemy, Mor Laurent?” Bogardus asked.
Laurent glared at him a moment. Then he shrugged. “Believe what you want; all your opinions matter to me as much as those of as many fatties. If you want to kill me, get to it. I’m easily bored.”
A large portion of the crowd enthusiastically seconded the suggestion. But Bogardus said, “If you satisfy us you’re telling the truth, we’ll set you free. The only conditions are that you ride straightaway across the border, and never bear arms against Providence again.”
He looked at Karyl. Rob did likewise. Karyl nodded crisply. Stéphanie glared at Rob.
“They’ll be plenty more for you to skewer, my dear,” Rob muttered to her. “We need this one unpunctured, please.”
He knew that if Mor Laurent had been among her rapists and tormentors she’d have killed him already no matter what anybody told her. The woods-runners had no more stomach for obedience than Rob did himself.
Laurent shrugged again. “Very well. It’s cheaper than a ransom, and the pickings have been thin of late. I agree to your terms, on my honor as a belted knight. The man’s treason served us well enough, but I’ve no more bloody use for a traitor to your side as to my own, as Torrey’s my witness. He said he’d smooth our road to take over the town if we spared him. And the whole bloody Council, why I don’t know.”
“And had you spoken to him before?”
“Oh, yes. He said he’d help us see off this rag-tag rabble army of yours, and discredit your mercenary captains. Or better make an end to them. Said he thought them a greater threat than we were. A damned fool thing to say. But a traitor will say anything to justify his treachery.”
“You bastard!” Longeau hissed. “How can you tell such lies? What did the foreigners pay you?”
“A spear at my neck, as any fool can see, handroach. Brave man, to spit on the honor of a trussed-up captive. But I’ll serve you back the same.”
He looked around, bold as Bogardus. “Who saw this soft-fleshed sack of wind in the fighting? Anyone? Then how’d he get the wound? It can’t have been shaving: a kitten could lick his whiskers off for him.”
Rob stepped up on the dais, snatched Longeau’s arm from its sling with a big square hand, and ripped off the bandage. Longeau struggled but couldn’t free himself. Rob held his arm up for all to see.
The skin of his arm was white and intact.
“A miraculous healing!” Rob declared. “That, or bouncer’s blood sprinkled on bandages to cover a fraud.”
The crowd jumped to its feet, shouting fury. Longeau cringed. Rob let him go.
“Release the captive, please, Brother Rob,” Bogardus said beneath the tumult.
Rob turned to Stéphanie. “Lend me your dagger.”
Her green-hazel eyes blazed like stirred bonfires. “Please,” he said, acutely aware of how close he was to feeling his own guts wrapped around that spear. “We’ll give you all the vengeance you can stomach, Karyl and I. Promise.”
Lips twisting in a snarl, she whipped her dagger from its arm sheath and threw it clattering to the tiles. Then she turned and stalked out. Rob watched the play of her muscle-rounded buttocks beneath the smooth brown skin until they vanished out the door.
Shaking himself, he bent to pick up her knife. He raised a brow at Karyl as he straightened. Rob stepped up behind the knight’s back and cut the ropes. Despite temptation—self-denial is good for the soul, lad—he made himself work carefully so as not to cut the captive.
“Go now,” he said, as Laurent shook hi
s hands free, “and sin no more.”
For a moment the knight stood frowning thoughtfully and rubbing his red wrists. Then he looked Karyl in the eye.
“You’ve won them for now,” he said. “But they’ll turn on you for sure.”
“I know,” Karyl said calmly.
Mor Laurent blinked at him. Then he laughed. With his laughter echoing from the painted rafters, he walked down the aisle toward the door and out.
The crowd watched him go. While they were distracted Longeau lunged with startling speed. He yanked Sister Violette up from her chair behind the table and against his chest. A short broad dagger appeared from somewhere, dimpling the white skin beneath her jaw.
* * *
They found a little ancient cinder cone with its crater fallen-in in the middle. Some hole must have still led underground because there was no more than a boggy patch at the bottom of the depression. Its walls rose comfortably higher even than the horses’ heads.
Which were kept low to the ground anyway. The cone was well overgrown, sides brushy, top crowned with saplings. The interior was upholstered with green grass and fragrant, soft-leaved scrub.
Happily a stream ran not fifty meters from the cone. Pilar stood watch while Melodía stripped, bathed, and washed her clothes. Then Melodía guarded while her servant did the same. Naked and refreshed, the two long women led their mounts, the wet laundry draped over their backs, up the short slope and back down to their chosen campsite.
Pilar got fresh silk loincloths from their luggage. As Melodía put hers on, Pilar carefully arranged their garments on a thorn-free bush to dry. Then as the rough circle of sky above them shaded from indigo to near-black, and stars began to peek with increasing boldness through tears in the clouds, she laid a small fire.
“There,” Pilar said, standing up. “The crater’ll hide the fire from passersby. And on the off-chance anyone sees the smoke they’re likely to think the cone’s waking up again, and run away as fast as their legs can carry them.”
Melodía had draped her saddle-pad over a conveniently sized lava rock near the fire and sat gratefully on it. She laughed. “You think of everything, don’t you?”
Pilar reacted as if Melodía had showered her with curses. The easy, brisk, competent assurance with which Pilar had managed everything suddenly fled. Her face sagged, aging what seemed like fifty years in the orange underlighting. Her shoulders sagged. She drew the dagger from her belt. Kneeling before Melodía, she held the knife toward her mistress hilt-first.
“What on Paradise are you doing?” Melodía demanded in genuine consternation.
“I dishonored you, mistress,” Pilar said. “I abused you and struck you. I’m willing to pay the price for my unforgivable acts.”
“Oh, don’t be an idiot, Pilar. Stand up and put that silly knife away.”
Pilar looked up at her. Despite her look of despair, for the first time in what seemed like years Melodía had realized just how beautiful her servant was.
It probably has been years, Melodía thought. She sighed. Taking the other woman by her outstretched arms she gently but decisively pulled her to her feet.
“Listen,” she said. “I know I was acting like an idiot back there. I was being weak and self-indulgent. I’d say childish, but that makes me think of my baby sister, Montse, and that hardly seems just. Beneath those dreadlocks and those round cheeks she seems about as soft as a mace-tail’s backside. I can’t see her breaking down like that.”
Just to help her feel worse a wave of homesickness washed over her and made the last few words stumble on their way to the door.
“Don’t sell yourself too short, Highness. You’ve been through a terrible ordeal.”
“Nothing justifies my breaking down like that. Certainly not in the middle of the damned road, where, just as you warned me, we were promptly snapped up by the next patrol along.”
“But—what about—”
“Don’t even say it! You don’t need to remind me. I’ll feel that little lesson in my arms and back for days. And my poor head! I’m surprised you didn’t split my scalp with that first lick.”
She shook her head. “Not even Doña Carlota’s dared lay a hand on me since I was twelve. Not that she needed to do, once it penetrated her thick skull that telling me I’d disappointed my daddy hurt worse than any strap.”
Pilar still wouldn’t meet her eyes. To Melodía’s astonishment she saw tear-tracks shimmering on her cheeks.
“I’m so sorry, Princess.”
“You saved our lives, Pilar. You saved me. Your quick thinking back there was all that prevented disaster. You do a scary-good job of portraying a snotty noblewoman.”
Pilar sniffed but showed a slight, shy smile. “I’ve spent a lot of time observing, your Highness.”
“I hope I heard a comma, there, Pilar. I’d hate to think I inspired a single iota of that hateful Baroness Greencastle.”
As she spoke her cheeks burned. Helpfully her mind was replaying instances where she had treated people in a fashion little if any kinder. And most of those “people” happened to be Pilar.
Melodía licked lips that felt cracked like dried mud. “You had no choice about—what you did back there. Nothing could put down their suspicions I might be the fugitive princess faster than giving me a thrashing like that. Thanks for sparing my face, anyway.”
Pilar’s smile was a little stronger. “A whip-weal on your cheek would raise questions we didn’t want to answer at our next encounter,” she said. “Anyway, I’d hate to spoil your loveliness. I’ve put enough effort into maintaining it, after all.”
Melodía laughed. “So you have.”
Suddenly the women were hugging each other and weeping. After a lengthy cry they broke apart.
“Here,” Pilar said, lifting a lock of tear-sodden hair away from Melodía’s face and smoothing it back away. “Let’s get you looking a proper princess again. I’m afraid that cheap dye will leave streaks on your cheek. The way things are going, the stain would probably still be stubbornly in place weeks after your hair’s gone back to its normal shade.”
Melodía laughed. “Just one question, Pilar, querida.”
“¿Sí, Alteza?”
“Did you have to be so damned enthusiastic?”
Chapter 5
Marchador, Ambler, Palfrey—A horse trained to a gait called “ambling”: a smooth yet rapid and tireless-seeming walk. The favored traveling mount of those who can afford them, for their price can rival a war-trained courser’s.
—A PRIMER TO PARADISE FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF YOUNG MINDS
“Back away,” Longeau shouted, dragging Violette around the table. The other Council members fled, leaving Bogardus alone on the dais, his handsome oblong face a blank. “Stand back or I’ll paint the room red with her blood!”
She went along in an uncharacteristically passive way. Rob had often seen that reaction among folk the first time they had sudden personal violence directed against them. Of course, most people Rob knew had that experience at an age much less than Violette’s, no matter what that actually might be.
Longeau might have hauled his hostage out the nearby door that led to the kitchen. But instead he pulled Violette toward the center of the dais, causing the front rank of onlookers to scramble frantically over each other to get away from him. Clearly he wanted, not escape, but an audience. Seasoned performer that he was, Rob had frequently found himself compelled to choose between those exact same things.
Bloody amateur, was his assessment of Longeau’s pick.
Rob and Karyl stood their ground. Rob wondered at Karyl’s reaction. After all, she’s the most persistent thorn in his ass, he thought. In both of ours. Himself, Rob would only regret to see her cut out for the fact it was done by the handroach traitor.
“Please, Bogardus,” Longeau moaned, looking up at the other man. To Rob’s amazement tears streamed down his face. “You know why I had to do this.”
To the hall at large he said, “You can’t know, y
ou mustn’t know—pray the Creators, you never know … oh, terrible beauty. The secret rituals of power. And the cost; ah, the cost; I feel it in my belly even now. You know, Eldest Brother.”
“Enough, my friend,” Bogardus said softly into the terrible silence. “Give me the knife and we’ll end this.”
“End this?” He uttered a wild laugh. “That was what I hoped. Our only hope. I thought I’d save us from ourselves. I couldn’t see any other way. The power, the terrible majesty … that inhuman beauty, too great to quit or to endure. Lady Violette, you know. Don’t you? Don’t you? Everything I’ve done I did for you. For us. For our souls. Souls. For everybody’s soul!
“I didn’t do it for the silver, but for deliverance. For all of us, I swear by the Creators! Crève Coeur’s ravagers are kinder than what is to come.”
“Shut up, you fool,” hissed Violette.
Longeau sighed. His shoulders slumped. He pressed a fervent kiss on his hostage’s lips, which went visibly slack from shock.
“At least I can save you from yourself,” he murmured. The knife blade withdrew ever so slightly from Sister Violette’s pale neck as he cocked his arm to thrust.
At his eye’s edge Rob saw a flash. In quick succession he heard a swoosh, a sort of wet crunch, and a thud.
Then blood was spraying in an amazing fan from the stump of Longeau’s knife-arm, just below the elbow. It drenched Violette instantly in red. Screaming, onlookers whom curiosity had sucked back up toward the dais jumped away, upsetting a table into jingling silver and shattering crockery to escape the blood-fountain.
Near him stood Karyl, holding his staff-sword’s wooden hilt in both hands. The rest of the staff, which served as concealing scabbard, lay on the tiles a couple of meters away. Howling in terror Violette tore herself free of Longeau’s suddenly slack grip. Placidly Karyl flicked his meter-long single-edged blade to clear it of blood, and wiped both sides with quick strokes against Longeau’s smock.
Rob reeled as Sister Violette ran straight into his arms, of all places. Lean as she was she proved surprisingly substantial, and wirier than she looked. Unable to think of anything better to do he patted her tentatively on the back.