Assassin's Gambit: The Hearts and Thrones Series

by Amy Raby

  “I’m not sure that’s a great idea.”

  “If we have to,” he repeated. “We could melt them down. They’re solid gold.”

  By the time he’d finished the task, his injured leg was bothering him, and he went to the back bedroom to lie down. Vitala stayed by the window, watching flies knock against the glass and clouds drift past. In the afternoon she heard activity in the distance—the shouts of soldiers, some kind of announcement made by a voice too far away for her to make out, and then, a little later, agonized screams. Her flesh quivered—it sounded like somebody was being staked. Multiple somebodies. Who were the victims?

  Some hours later, Hanna and Glenys returned with flushed faces.

  “Gordian is dead!” cried Glenys.

  “And his lieutenants along with him,” added Hanna. “Good riddance!”

  Lucien emerged from the back bedroom, bleary-eyed, his hair mussed from sleep.

  “The soldiers staked them?” asked Vitala.

  “Yes, on Barley Street.”

  Barley Street was Tasox’s main thoroughfare; Vitala had traveled on it on her way into town.

  “Good,” said Lucien. “Let’s hope it’s all over now.”

  But it wasn’t. The battalion did not leave, and as the days passed, Hanna and Glenys returned from each birth pale and breathless, listing the new staking victims they’d seen. “The baker in Westmoon Square,” Hanna said. “And that boy—the brother of the baby we delivered two sagespans ago.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Glenys. “How could he have been involved?”

  “He must have been,” said Lucien. “The mind mages would know.”

  “With respect, sire,” said Hanna, “word on the street is that the mind mages are not being used.”

  A wrinkle appeared in Lucien’s forehead. “Then the commander is a fool. Have you learned his name yet?”

  “Tribune Milonius.”

  “Milonius? Tribune Donatus was in command when we left Riat.” Lucien’s eyes went to Vitala. “I thought you said the battalion commander was one of the traitors. If that’s so, why would Cassian replace him?”

  Vitala swallowed uncomfortably. “Perhaps he promoted Donatus to a higher position.”

  Lucien frowned. “Perhaps.”

  Vitala was impressed at how well Lucien was getting along with Hanna. She’d expected him to be a brat, snobby and domineering, but the man had manners. He praised the humble food Hanna brought him and thanked her for her attentions when she changed his bandages and treated his burns. Only one incident had been embarrassing, when Hanna had brewed some lemon balm tea and Lucien had shut himself in the back bedroom and refused to come out until the smell went away. Emperors had their quirks, but he wasn’t as bad as she’d expected.

  “Where did you get your dog?” Lucien asked Hanna one night at dinner, in between sneaking Flavia bites from his plate. “I have a suspicion about her.”

  “From one of our clients,” said Hanna. “We delivered a baby for a young family, and they didn’t want her after the baby was born. We didn’t need a dog, but we didn’t want to see her drowned, so we took her.”

  “Did they say anything about her background?”

  Hanna shrugged. “Nothing.”

  “I believe she’s a hunting dog. Not a hound, but a spaniel or a retriever. Watch this.” He pulled the dirty, rolled-up bandage from her mouth and tossed it across the room. Flavia eagerly bounded after it, snatched it up, and brought it back. “Retriever.”

  “Lots of dogs play fetch,” said Hanna. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “She looks like a retriever. She’s got the size and build for it. I grew up with dogs at the palace, and she strikes me as the hunting type. But her coloration is unusual. This white stripe across her body—I’ve never seen anything like it. She might be crossbred.”

  “Perhaps she is. We’re not hunters, but we find she’s good with our patients. She likes to stay with them, keep them company.”

  “Tell me about your business,” said Lucien. “I know there’s no Healer in town now, but there used to be. Why use these primitive supplies and antiquated methods when a Healer would be preferable?”

  “Healers are expensive,” said Hanna. “And most of them will not attend a common woman’s birth unless there are complications. Herb women like me serve the townsfolk who are too poor to afford a Healer’s services.”

  “How many cannot afford a Healer?” asked Lucien. “What about an infantryman’s wife? If he’s sending most of his pay home, can she afford a Healer?”

  He questioned her all evening about money and medicine, his eyes intense and calculating. There was no doubt he’d returned to his old self.

  • • •

  The next morning, Glenys and Hanna were gone when Vitala woke. When they had not returned by nightfall, Lucien, now reasonably agile on his crutch and peg leg, paced to the window and pushed the curtains aside. “Difficult birth, do you suppose?”

  “I hope that’s all it is,” said Vitala.

  But they weren’t back the morning after. A complicated birth could last more than a day, but with the soldiers in town, the long absence was suspicious. And Hanna ought to have sent Glenys home at least once to send word or fetch supplies. Vitala tucked a pistol in the folds of her syrtos. “I’m going to look for them.”

  “How can you?” asked Lucien. “They didn’t tell us where they were would be.”

  “I’ll ask around. Someone must know where they went.”

  Lucien shook his head. “You shouldn’t be out there on your own. I’ll go.”

  “What?” Vitala laughed. “You’re too recognizable! Especially with that.” She pointed to the peg leg.

  “My face isn’t well-known,” he said. “I could take off the leg and use just a crutch. The gold bands are gone.”

  “I appreciate your trying to protect me, but you’d be crazy to show yourself on the streets with the battalion there. Remember my orders to bring you safely to my superiors?”

  He frowned. “Better to fail at those orders than wind up dead.”

  That’s what you think. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

  With a sigh, he resumed pacing. “Be careful.”

  Vitala stepped outside the cottage for the first time in days. The scene wasn’t what she remembered from the day they had arrived, that of a well-to-do but subdued mercantile town. Instead, Tasox had become a dead, dry husk. The streets were empty of life, and the stench of rotting meat clogged the air. At the end of the street, two impaled corpses swayed on stakes. Vitala ran to them, looked up, and gagged at the sight. Ravens had eaten away parts of their faces, but they were not Hanna and Glenys. Placards were mounted at the base of each stake with crude lettering. The first read, PROVIDED SUSTENANCE TO THE REBELS. The second said, HOUSED THE REBELS.

  Vitala backed away from the sight, feeling light-headed. She stumbled to the door of the nearest cottage and knocked. Someone had to know where Hanna and Glenys had gone. But no one answered.

  On a cross street, she looked for signs of anyone or anything living. Something moved in her peripheral vision. She turned to see a tiny figure dash behind a rain barrel. The city could not be entirely dead—smoke curled from a few chimneys. She knocked on more doors, but still no one answered. Up ahead was Barley Street, the main thoroughfare. She saw movement there—soldiers, probably. She could talk to Kjallan soldiers, couldn’t she? They weren’t Legaciatti. They wouldn’t recognize her or suspect her of anything.

  The stench of death increased as she approached the main thoroughfare. A flock of overfed ravens crowded the cobblestone road; they flapped lethargically out of her way as she passed among them. She kicked a slow one aside.

  “Hold,” called one of the soldiers.

  The soldier approached with two of his fellows. Vitala stood still, obedient and demure. The street was like nothing she’d ever seen before. Stakes with their rotting victims lined both sides of the road. She felt her t
hroat seizing up and lifted a fold of her syrtos to cover her nose and mouth.

  “Go home, miss,” ordered the soldier.

  “Yes, sir,” she said meekly. “But I was wondering—have you seen two women about? One was about fifty years old with graying black hair. The other was a young Riorcan slave.”

  “I’ve seen many groups that fit that description,” said the soldier.

  “They went out to attend a birth, and they never came back—”

  “Miss,” said the soldier sternly. “Go home. There will be time for inquiries later.”

  There was a shout from down the street, and she turned. A group of uniformed men were restraining someone, while two others held a sharpened stake. A third man was fastening on the stop that prevented a victim from sliding down to the ground once the stake was pulled upright.

  Someone grabbed her arm and shoved her. Vitala suppressed a scream, and her hand contracted into a claw, poised to pull a Shard from the Rift. But it was only the soldier turning her away from the scene.

  “Do not watch.” His voice was firm. “This is not for a maiden’s eyes. Go home.”

  11

  The next afternoon, the battalion formed for departure and marched by the cottage in a grim procession, the soldiers’ footsteps thudding in unison against the dusty street. After their passage, the city was eerily quiet.

  Vitala didn’t like the idea of leaving without knowing what had become of her hosts, but she knew that if Hanna and Glenys could speak to her now, they would order her to go. The mission came first. She and Lucien packed bags of food and supplies from the apartment’s stores, not stating the obvious: that it was unlikely Hanna and Glenys would need them anymore.

  “Can you ride a horse?” she asked Lucien.

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll steal a pair of them. We can move faster that way.”

  “Where are we going?” asked Lucien.

  Vitala sighed. “Let’s not have this argument right now.”

  “Fine,” he said. “We’ll have it later.”

  “It’s bad out there,” she warned as she slung a pack over her shoulder and checked her pistol. She opened the door and stepped outside. The smell hit her like a coach-and-four; it had permeated the house, and to some extent they’d become accustomed to it, but outdoors it was far stronger. The sun was setting on the western hills, where it burned like a bloodred beacon, tinting the streets.

  Lucien limped outside, his expression grave.

  “I hate to say it,” said Vitala, “but I think Barley Street is our best bet for finding horses.” She followed the path she’d taken earlier, up the road and past the two staked men, who were now in an advanced state of decay.

  “Gods,” said Lucien, staring at the placards. “These men weren’t bandits.”

  “No. The battalion staked anyone who assisted the bandits.”

  “Sapskulls. Don’t they realize most of them were probably forced?”

  “Don’t ask me to explain their logic,” said Vitala, heading onto the cross street. As far as she was concerned, it required no explanation. This was standard-issue Kjallan savagery. How strange that Lucien, the former leader of the Kjallans, did not understand that.

  She covered her mouth as they stepped onto Barley Street, with its double rows of staking victims. They looked like grisly trees lining the roadside. Her stomach roiled, threatening to empty itself. She scanned the shops and buildings that lined the road. She and Lucien weren’t alone. Other townsfolk flitted about the street like wraiths, darting into shops and emerging with stolen goods. A few were loading up wagons with possessions, preparing to leave town.

  She pointed at a building. “There’s a stable,” she whispered to Lucien. She didn’t know why she was whispering. The surroundings seemed to demand it.

  She headed for it. Lucien followed, his breathing shallow and rapid. “Shouldn’t we look for Hanna and Glenys?”

  Vitala shook her head. She couldn’t stomach the thought of seeing the two women up on stakes. “I think it’s obvious what must have happened to them. Let’s get the horses.”

  “You get them. I’ll look for Hanna and Glenys.”

  “Lucien, I could use some help—”

  “You get them,” he said firmly, and turned away, ending the conversation.

  Excited whickers greeted Vitala as she entered the stable. The four animals were restless, almost frantic. Perhaps they hadn’t been fed in a while? She looked around and saw an upper story loaded with bales of hay, with gaps in the floor above each stall.

  She ascended to the upper story, grabbed a pitchfork, and pitched some hay through each of the gaps. The horses fell upon it greedily.

  Which ones to take? Lucien should have come with her; he would be a better judge of horseflesh. After giving the animals a little time to eat, she saddled and bridled a sorrel gelding and a bay, and led them outside.

  Lucien wasn’t where she’d left him. She spotted him across the street, standing at the base of one of the stakes. She jogged toward him, muttering epithets under her breath and tugging the horses at a trot behind her.

  “Look.” He pointed at the placard. It read, GAVE MEDICINES TO THE BANDITS. At the base of the stake, half buried in the dirt, was a silver bracelet.

  Vitala glanced up at the impaled corpse just long enough to verify that it was Hanna. Not as long dead as some of the others, she was still recognizable, though one of her eyes had been eaten away, and gobbets of flesh dangled from her cheek. Bile rose in Vitala’s throat. On the adjacent stake, she found Glenys, with an identical placard. She felt her face flushing, and her eyes filled with furious tears. Kjallan bastards.

  “Let’s go,” she said harshly.

  “This shouldn’t have happened!” spat Lucien. “Milonius didn’t need to kill all these people. Certainly not Hanna and Glenys. They didn’t do anything!”

  “I know. It’s awful.” His reaction softened her anger. Didn’t he know it always happened this way?

  “It’s idiotic,” said Lucien. “Cassian has destroyed this city. And for no useful purpose.”

  “I know.” She held out her arm and helped him up.

  Lucien grabbed the nearest horse, the sorrel, and mounted by placing his wooden leg in the stirrup and pulling himself into the saddle. He sat there for a moment, blinking and rubbing his eyes, then seemed to make an effort to pull himself together. “Can you get me a riding crop?”

  “You think you’ll need one?” The horses looked lively enough.

  “Not to hit the horse with,” he said. “It’s to serve as my other foot, in case the peg leg doesn’t do the job. You’ll see.”

  She handed him the reins to the bay, ran back to the stable, and fetched him a crop. He did not wave it about, but slid it down his left side and let the end of it dangle where his foot would be.

  She struggled into the bay’s saddle, feeling clumsy after Lucien’s surprisingly graceful example. Her riding experience was limited. “You sure you can ride?”

  “Of course. It’s all in the knees.”

  Vitala leaned down to adjust her stirrups.

  “Oh, gods. Look.”

  She sat up in alarm and looked where Lucien was pointing. A gold-and-white dog was sniffing around the base of the stakes. She watched in horror as Flavia whimpered a little, then lay down below the bodies of her owners. “Did you leave the door open?” she whispered.

  “I thought I closed it,” said Lucien.

  Gritting her teeth, she steered her horse away from the scene. Lucien followed. After a moment, so did Flavia.

  “I believe we’ve been adopted,” said Lucien.

  Vitala stared at the dark-eyed dog panting up at her. She had a high-stakes mission to accomplish; she didn’t need a dog slowing her down. And yet she owed a debt to Hanna and Glenys.

  Besides that, she had her suspicions about Flavia. Hanna’s story about the dog’s being abandoned by a local family did not ring true. If Flavia had been a cur off the streets, perhaps
she might have been tossed aside like so much dirty straw, but Lucien had immediately identified her as a hunting dog. Hunting dogs had value. And Glenys had dropped hints about a lost Riorcan bloodline, now hidden away somewhere. Who else would hide and protect that bloodline but the Obsidian Circle?

  Whether Flavia was a Riorcan hunting dog in hiding or not, the mission had to come first. “Can she keep up with us?”

  “I’ll wager she can,” said Lucien. “A day or two from now, you may be asking, Can we keep up with her?”

  Vitala looked back at Hanna and Glenys. They were Obsidian Circle spies. They had been prepared to die for their country. They probably expected to someday be exposed, arrested, and executed. Instead, they’d been the victims of pointless Kjallan savagery. It didn’t feel right. If they were going to die, it should have been for a reason. Vitala’s fingers itched to form the Riorcan blessing for them, but she could not do that in front of Lucien. Instead, she said a silent prayer for them, the Sage’s Peace, and laid heels to her horse.

  She and Lucien galloped north with a dog at their heels, out of the graveyard that was Tasox.

  • • •

  Traffic on the road was light, and all of it northbound. Vitala sympathized with the departing Tasox residents. Who would want to stay? The corpses made the place unbearable, and as more people ventured out of their houses, the looting would get worse, possibly turning to violence.

  A scraggly lot shared the road with them. Laden donkeys trudged beside wagons piled high with possessions: linens and chairs and bed frames, chests cinched closed with leather straps. Most wagons had extra horses tied to the back—fine horses of a quality not commensurate with the goods in their wagons. Stolen, perhaps, like her own mount. The families looked bedraggled and demoralized. Many seemed to be missing members. Here was a determined-looking father with two ragamuffins; there was a grandmother traveling with a woman close to Vitala’s age, brushing tears from her dust-streaked face.

  They camped that night by the side of the road, and were off again at first light. Unburdened by wagonloads of possessions, they quickly outpaced the other refugees, and by afternoon they had the road nearly to themselves. Flavia, as Lucien had predicted, kept up effortlessly, panting a little as she trotted alongside the horses. She’d lost her rolled-up bandage but often picked up a stick from the side of the road and carried that instead.