by Jim Butcher
Fidelias blew on the letters, then folded the paper in half, and offered it to Aquitaine. Without looking away from the man, he said, “Your Grace, I advise you to accelerate your plans. Contact your forces and move at once.”
Calix stepped forward at once, to Aquitaine’s side. “Your Grace, I must disagree in the strongest terms. Now is the time for caution. If we are discovered now, all will fall into ruin.”
Aquitaine stared down at the letter, then lifted his eyes to Calix. “And you believe that by doing so you will protect my interests.”
“And those of my Lord,” Calix said. He lifted his chin, but the gesture meant little when the High Lord towered over him. “Think of who is advising you, Your Grace.”
“Ad hominem,” noted Aquitaine, “is a notoriously weak logical argument. And is usually used to distract the focus of a discussion—to move it from an indefensible point and to attack the opponent.”
“Your Grace,” Calix said, ducking his head. “Please, listen to reason. To act now would leave you at somewhat less than half your possible strength. Only a fool throws away an advantage like that.”
Aquitaine lifted his eyebrows. “Only a fool. My.”
Calix swallowed, “Your Grace, I only meant —”
“What you meant is of little concern to me, Count Calix. What you said, however, is another matter entirely.”
“Your Grace, please. Do not be rash. Your plans have been well laid for so long. Do not let them fall apart now.”
Aquitaine glanced down at the paper and asked, “And what do you propose, Your Excellency?”
Calix squared his shoulders. “Put simply, Your Grace— stick to the original plan. Send the Windwolves to winter in Rhodes. Gather your legions when the weather breaks in the spring and use them then. Bide. Wait. In patience there is wisdom.”
“Who dares wins,” murmured Aquitaine back. “I cannot help but wonder at how generous Rhodes seems to be, Calix. How he is willing to host the mercenaries, to have his name connected with them, when the matter is settled. How thoroughly he has instructed you to protect my interests.”
“The High Lord is always most interested in supporting his allies, Your Grace.”
Aquitaine snorted. “Of course he is. We are all so generous with one another. And forgiving. No, Calix. The Cursor—”
“Former Cursor, Your Grace,” Fidelias put in.
“Former Cursor. Of course. The former Cursor here has done a very good job of predicting what you would tell me.” Aquitaine consulted the paper he held. “I wonder why that is.” He moved his eyes to Fidelias and arched his eyebrows.
Fidelias watched Calix and said, “Your Grace. I believe that Rhodes sent Calix here to you as a spy and eventually as an assassin —”
“Why you —” Calix snarled.
Fidelias overrode the other man, his voice iron. “Calix wishes you to wait so that there is time to remove you over the winter, Your Grace. The mercenaries will have several months to be tempted by bribes, meanwhile robbing you of their strength. Then, when the campaign begins, he will have key positions filled with people beholden to Rhodes. He can kill you in the confusion of battle, and therefore remove the threat you represent to him. Calix, here, was likely intended to be the assassin.”
“I will not stand for this insult, Your Grace.”
Aquitaine looked at Calix and said, “Yes. You will.” To Fidelias, he said, “And your advice? What would you have me do?”
Fidelias shrugged. “South winds rose tonight where there should have been none. Only the First Lord could call them at this time of year. At a guess, he called the furies of the southern air to assist Amara or one of the other Cursors north — either to the capital or to the Valley itself.”
“It could be coincidence,” Aquitaine pointed out.
“I don’t believe in coincidence, Your Grace,” Fidelias said. “The First Lord is far from blind, and he has powers of furycrafting I can hardly begin to accurately assess. He has called the south winds. He is hastening someone north. Toward the Calderon Valley.”
“Impossible,” Aquitaine said. He rubbed at his jaw with the back of one hand. “But then, Gaius was always an impossible man.”
“Your Grace,” Calix said. “Surely you aren’t seriously considering —”
Aquitaine lifted a hand. “I am, Your Excellency.”
“Your Grace,” Calix hissed. “This common born dog has called me a murderer to my face.”
Aquitaine surveyed the scene for a moment. Then, quite deliberately, took three or four steps away from them and turned his back, as though to study a tapestry hanging on one wall.
“Your Grace,” Calix said. “I demand your justice in this matter.”
“I rather tend to believe Fidelias, Your Excellency.” He sighed. “Work it out among yourselves. I will deal appropriately with whoever is left.”
Fidelias smiled. “Your Excellency, please allow me to add that you stink like a sheep, that your mouth froths with idiocy and poison, and that your guts are as yellow as a springtime daffodil.” He steepled his fingers, regarding Calix, and said, very soft and distinctly, “You . . . are . . . a . . . coward.”
Calix’s face flushed red, his eyes wild, and he moved, a sudden liquid blurring of his arms and hips. The sword at his side leapt free of its scabbard and toward Fidelias’s throat.
As fast as Calix was, Aldrick moved faster. His arm alone whipped into motion, drawing the blade from his hip, across the limp form of the woman on his lap. Steel met steel in a ringing chime only inches from Fidelias’s face. Aldrick slid to his feet, Odiana curling her legs beneath her as she lowered herself to the floor. The swordsman’s face remained upon Calix’s.
Calix eyed Aldrick and let out a sneer. “Mercenary. Do you think you can best an Aleran lord in battle?”
Aldrick kept his blade lightly pressed to Calix’s and shrugged. “The only man who has ever matched me in battle was Araris Valerian himself.” Teeth shone white in Aldrick’s smile. “And you aren’t Araris.”
There was a rasp, and then steel glittered and blurred in the dim light of the hall. Fidelias watched, hardly able to keep up with the speed of the attacks and counters. In the space of a slow breath, their swords met a dozen times, chiming out, casting sparks from one another’s blades. The swordsmen parted briefly, then clashed together again.
And the duel was over. Calix blinked, his eyes widening, and then lifted a hand to his throat as scarlet blood rushed from it. He tried to say something else, but was unable to make any sound.
Then the Rhodesian Count fell to the ground and lay unmoving, but for a few, faint tremors as his faltering heartbeat pumped the blood from his body.
Odiana looked up at Aquitaine with a small, dreamy smile, and asked, “Ought I save him, Your Grace?”
Aquitaine glanced back at Calix and shrugged. “There seems to be little point in it, dear.”
“Yes, lord.” Odiana turned adoring eyes to Aldrick and watched as the swordsman knelt down to wipe his blade clean of blood on Calix’s cloak. The man clenched his fingers and let out a bubbling gasp. Aldrick ignored him.
Fidelias rose and went to Aquitaine’s side. “Was that to your satisfaction, Your Grace?”
“Calix was useful,” Aquitaine said. Then he glanced at Fidelias and asked, “How did you know?”
Fidelias tilted his head. “That he was planning to kill you? Were you able to sense it in him?”
Aquitaine nodded. “Once I knew to look for it. He fell apart as you described the role Rhodes had assigned him. We’ll probably find a furybound dagger in his coat with my likeness and name etched into the steel.”
Aldrick grunted, rolled the not-quite-dead Calix onto his back, and rummaged through his jacket. The telltale bulge Fidelias had seen earlier proved to be made by a small daggerwith a compact hilt. Aldrick let out a hiss as he touched the knife and set it down hurriedly.
Fidelias asked, “Furybound?”
Aldrick nodded. “Nasty one. Stro
ng. I think the knife should be destroyed.”
“Do it,” Aquitaine said. “Now, tonight. Odiana, go with him. I wish to speak to Fidelias alone.”
The pair rested fist over their hearts and bowed their heads. Then Odiana slipped up to the swordsman’s side and pressed to him until he circled her shoulders with one arm. The two left, without looking back.
On the floor, Calix let out his death rattle, and his eyes glazed over, mouth hanging slightly open.
“How did you know?” Aldrick repeated.
Fidelias glanced back at the dead Rhodesian Count and shrugged. “To be honest, Your Grace. I didn’t know. I guessed.”
Aquitaine half smiled. “Based upon what?”
“Too many years in this line of work. And I’ve met Rhodes. He wouldn’t step an inch from his way to help someone else, and he’d cut off his own nose just to spite his face. Calix was being—”
“—too pleasant,” Aquitaine murmured. “Indeed. Perhaps I should have seen it sooner.”
“The important thing is that you acted promptly when you did see it, Your Grace.”
“Fidelias,” Aquitaine said. “I do not like you.”
“You have no reason to.”
“But I think I can respect you, after a fashion. And if it’s to be a choice of who will put the knife in my back, I would rather it be you than Rhodes or one of his lackeys, I think.”
Fidelias felt his mouth tug up at the corners. “Thank you.”
“Make no mistake, man.” Aquitaine turned to face him. “I prefer to work with someone to forcing them to my will. But I can do it. And I can kill you if you become a problem. You know this, yes?”
Fidelias nodded.
“Good,” Aquitaine said. The High Lord covered his mouth with his hand and yawned. “It is late. And you are right about moving quickly, before the Crown has a chance to act. Get a few hours sleep. At dawn, you leave for the Calderon Valley.”
Fidelias bowed his head again. “Your Grace — I don’t have any chambers here, as yet.”
Aquitaine waved a hand toward the slave. “You. Take him to your chambers for the night. Give him whatever he wants and see to it that he is awake by dawn.”
The slave bowed her head, without speaking or looking up.
“Have you studied much history, Fidelias?”
“Only a bit, Your Grace.”
“Fascinating. The course of a century of history can be set in a few short hours. A few precious days. Focal events, Fidelias — and those people who are a part of them become the ones to create tomorrow. I have sensed a distant stirring of forces from the direction of the Valley. Gaius is already arousing the furies of the Calderon, perhaps. History is stirring. Waiting to be nudged in one direction or the other.”
“I don’t know about history, Your Grace. I just want to do my job.”
Aquitaine nodded, once. “Then do it. I will expect word from you.” And without another word, the High Lord strode from the hall.
Fidelias watched him go and waited until the doors had closed behind him to turn to the slave girl. He offered her a hand, and she took it, her fingers warm and soft, her expression uncertain.
Fidelias straightened his posture, bent, and placed a formally polite kiss to the back of the slave’s fingers. “Your Grace,” he said. “High Lady Invidia. May I convey to you my heartfelt admiration.”
The slave’s expression flickered with shocked surprise. Then she threw back her head and laughed. Her features changed, subtle and significant, until the woman standing before him appeared to be several years older, her eyes holding a great deal more wisdom. Her eyes were grey, like ashes, and her hair had delicate feathers of frost all through it, though her features looked no older than a woman nearingher thirtieth year — all of the great Houses had that kind of skill at watercrafting (or nearly any other form of furycrafting one could name).
“How did you guess?” she asked. “Not even my lord husband saw through the disguise.”
“Your hands,” Fidelias replied. “When you washed my feet, your fingers were warm. No slave in her right mind would have been anything less than anxious in that room. She would have had chilly fingers. And no one but you, I judged, would have had the temerity or skill to attempt such a thing with His Grace.”
High Lady Aquitaine’s eyes shone. “A most astute assessment,” she said. “Yes, I had been using Calix to find out more about what Rhodes was up to. And tonight was the night I thought I might get rid of him. I made sure that my husband was in a mood he would not enjoy being taken from and waited for the Rhodesian fool to shove his foot down his own throat. Though I must say, you seemed to pick up on what was happening and ensure that it carried through without any hints from me. And not the least bit of furycrafting to assist you.”
“Logic is a fury all its own.”
She smiled, but then her expression grew serious, intent. “The operation in the Valley. Will it succeed?”
“It might,” Fidelias said. “If it does, it might accomplish what no amount of fighting or plotting could. He could win Alera without ever spilling Aleran blood.”
“Not directly, in any case,” said Lady Aquitaine. She sniffed. “Attis has few compunctions about blood. He is as subtle as a roaring volcano, but if his strength can be properly focused . . .”
Fidelias inclined his head. “Just so.”
The woman studied him for a moment then took his hand. Her features shimmered and slid back into the mask of the slave girl she had worn before, the grey smoothing out of her hair, her eyes shading toward a dark, muddy brown, rather than grey. “In any case. I have my orders regarding you this night.”
Fidelias hesitated, “Your Grace —”
Lady Aquitaine smiled. She touched her fingertips to his mouth and said, “Don’t make me press the point. Come with me. I will see to it that you rest deeply in what time you have.” She turned and started walking again. “You have far to go, come the dawn.”
CHAPTER 8
When twilight fell, Tavi knew that he was still in danger. He had not seen or heard either of his pursuers since he had slithered down an almost sheer rock cliff, using several frail saplings to slow what would have been a deadly plummet to a careening slide. It had been a perilous gamble, and Tavi had counted on the saplings’ frailty to betray the heavy Marat warrior, killing or at least slowing him.
The plan had been only a partial success. The Marat looked once at the cliff and set off at a run to find a safe place to descend. It bought Tavi enough of a lead to attempt to lose his pursuer, and he thought that he had begun to widen his lead. The Marat were not like the Alerans — they had no ability at furycrafting, though they were reported to possess an uncanny understanding of all the beasts of the field. It meant that the Marat had no vast advantage—like Tavi, he had only his wits and skill to guide him.
The storm settled over the valley in a glowering veil as the light began to fade. Thunder growled forth, but there was no rise of wind, no fall of rain or sleet. The storm waited for night to fall in full, while Tavi kept a nervous eye on both the sky and the barrens around him. His legs ached and his chest burned, but he had avoided the Marat, and just before sundown he emerged from the barrens onto the causeway several miles west of the lane to Bernardholt. He found a deep patch of shade beside a windfall and crouched there, panting, allowing his tired muscles a brief rest.
Lightning flashed. He hadn’t meant to move so far to the west. Instead of being nearly home again, Tavi would have an hour-long run just to reach the lane down to the steadholt. Thunder rumbled, this time so loud that it shook needles from the fallen pine beside him. There was a low, dull roar from the direction of Garados, and in a moment Tavi heard it growing nearer. The rain had finally begun. It came in a wave of half-frozen sleet, and Tavi barely had time to pull up his hood before a furious, frozen wind howled down from the north, driving rain and ice alike before it.
The storm devoured whatever meager scraps of daylight remained and drowned the valle
y in cold, miserable darkness, barring frequent flares of lightning skittering among the storm clouds. Though his cloak had been made to shed water, no fabric in Alera would have kept the rain and sleet of the furystorm out for long. His cloak grew cold and wet, clinging to him, and the bitter wind drove the chill straight through his garments and into his bones.
Tavi shivered hard. If he remained where he was, he would die from exposure to the storm in only hours—unless a bloodthirsty windmane beat the cold to the punch. And though Brutus had surely reached the steadholt with Bernard by now, he could not rely upon any of the holdfolk to rescue him. They knew better than to expose themselves to a furystorm.
Tavi peered at the windfall in the next lightning flash. There was a hollowed out space underneath, thick with pine needles — and it looked dry.
Tavi started crawling inside, and the next lightning flash showed him an image from a nightmare. The windfall already had occupants — half a dozen slives. The supple, dark-scaled lizards were nearly as long as Tavi was tall, and the nearest lay within arm’s reach. The lizard thrashed restlessly, stirring from its torpor. It opened its jaws and let out a syrupy hiss, showing rows of needle-pointed teeth.
A thick yellow liquid coated the slive’s front fangs. Tavi had seen slive venom at work before. If the slive struck him, he would grow warm and sluggish, until he sank slowly down to the ground. And then the slives would drag him still alive into their lair. And eat him.
Tavi’s first reaction was a terrified desire to spring away—but fast motion could trigger the surprised slive. Even if the slive missed, the filthy little scavengers would regard his flight as a sign that he was prey to be pursued and eaten. He could outrun them on open ground, but slives had a nasty tendency to remain on the trail of their prey, sometimes following for days, waiting for their target to sleep before moving in for the kill.