The Gardens of Almhain

by Laura Mallory

Devlin hesitated, said, “I’m sorry I did not say goodbye.”

  “Lenora told us where you had gone, but it did not make it easier for me.”

  He exhaled slowly. “What, exactly, did she say?” he asked, and though he did not know it, his voice was that of the Master of Knives, soft and slicing.

  Astin paused a moment, registering the strangeness of that voice, then shrugged. “She never said much, only that she saw you on your way back from the eyrie, and you told her to pass along your farewells.”

  For a long moment Devlin stared into his friend’s eyes, searching for a hint that he lied. There was nothing of subterfuge in Astin’s being, and so he relaxed, sitting back. “It was the hardest thing I have ever done,” he said, thinking of the cove, and leaving Lenora there. “I’m sorry.”

  Astin shook his head. “Don’t be,” he said. “Such is the nature of Avosileans, and those who are called to the eyrie to travel the Long Roads. We did not say goodbyes, either.”

  “You left together?” he asked, and Astin nodded. “In the year before I visited the eyrie, I wondered often about the enchantress’ words to you. You never spoke of it.”

  “I was to wait the two years until Lenora’s coming of age, and upon the receiving of her destiny I was to follow where she led.”

  “To protect her,” Devlin stated.

  Astin shook his head, smiling ruefully. “Lenora does not need protection. I was, and continue to be, an anchor for her in the swift tides of life.”

  After a moment laden with silent gratitude, Devlin asked, “And so she brought you to Vianalon?”

  “No,” Astin answered, eyes closing briefly. When they opened, there was pain there, not quite healed. “She wanted to go to Dunak.”

  “What?” Devlin whispered.

  Astin nodded shortly, refusing to meet his gaze. “We never made it. We crossed the border into Borgetza and planned to go north with a caravan, to cross the desert.” He stopped abruptly, swallowing. “Lenora was seventeen, still with a sweetness she could not hide. We were in Siezo, exploring the capital like the country-bred tourists we were. We came to the docks, and there Lenora was seen by a captain in Borgetza’s fleet. He specialized in acquiring… goods for the King’s pleasure.”

  “I do not understand,” Devlin murmured, though he did, and did not know what else to say, to make Astin not reveal any more.

  It was not that he did not know the story that was to unfold; indeed, he knew, for upon his initiation as Master of Knives he had gathered and pieced together enough rumors and facts about his childhood friends to know much of their trial in Borgetza.

  There was power in words, though, in the sharing and receiving of them, and both were equally important. Even so, despite knowing the horrible tale, Devlin had not expected the sudden pain of hearing the details from Astin’s lips.

  “She was seventeen,” repeated his friend. “There was something in her eyes that day that I could not challenge. She was fearless, bold, and negotiated her price with that despicable man like she’d been doing it for years. Such was the captain’s reputation that King Terrin, without ever seeing her face, set us up in a villa near the palace. Our every need was seen to. Tutors were hired at Lenora’s demand, to teach us history and language, mathematics and art. There were other lessons as well, that I was not allowed.”

  He fell silent; Devlin waited, staring at his empty wine glass.

  At length, Astin sighed heavily. “Her reputation grew to astounding proportions. Men died in bidding wars for her company. Just her company, for she was property of King Terrin. Once, a man snuck past the royal guards, climbed the balcony outside her room, and fell with a crossbow in his back. Lenora, when I told her, smiled for the first time in a way I did not recognize.”

  Having been on the receiving end of that smile this evening, Devlin nodded. “What did she do?” he asked.

  Astin gaze was directed inward, and he spoke as though he hadn’t heard the question. “I argued, told her that we could escape the city. I had made friends by then. We could have stolen aboard a ship and sailed to Greiza, across the sea, or back home, to Tanalon. I was the older sibling, but that night Lenora held me as I wept, out of sheer desperation and hopelessness. She did not shed a tear that I know of, not then, not when King Terrin summoned her the following day.”

  “She was his mistress?” Devlin murmured.

  He nodded. “For one year.” He met Devlin’s gaze. “It is not a year I care to remember, though the memories are always waiting. I came upon her in her room one morning. She was asleep, and on her neck there were bruises, and on her back was the mark of the lash.”

  Devlin nodded, feeling sick to his stomach. “In my years as Master of Knives, I learned much of Terrin of Borgetza. I am not surprised, given the perversions of his court.“

  Astin gave a little, soundless laugh. “Master of Knives, eh? How many did you kill for it?”

  “Too many,” he said, thinking of others he’d like to feel his knives. The captain of the Borgetzan fleet, King Terrin, all those who had ever crossed paths with Lenora di Salvatoré and done her harm. “But that is neither here nor there,” he continued softly. “How did you come to leave Borgetza?”

  “One evening Lenora returned earlier than usual. Her gown was torn nearly to shreds and she had wildness in her eyes. She said she had done something unspeakable, that guards were coming to arrest us. We fled to the docks and stole aboard a merchant vessel, bound for Tanalon and the River Viana.

  “We came to Vianalon then, three years after leaving Avosilea by the Sea. All of the coin we had stolen from the villa was spent in bribes to the ship’s captain and crew. We were stranded, destitute on the streets of our own country’s capital. Lenora spoke once of selling her body, and I swear, I almost brought my fist to her. I told her I would rather starve to death.”

  Astin lifted the bottle of wine. Not bothering with the glass, he brought the lip to his mouth and swallowed deeply. He wiped his face with the back of his hand and smiled without humor. “We would have died had not a passerby taken us under his wing and brought us to Thieves Alley. He was near to us in age, tall and thin as a whip and clever, so clever. The Gods only know why he sheltered us.” Then Astin laughed, a true sound of mirth. “Bellamont taught us how earn a living by cheating at cards and swindling the rich. We were young and free again, masters of our destinies and a thriving crime organization. We made a fortune, and years later we used that money to buy every last block of Thieves Alley.”

  Devlin had stopped listening at the name Astin had spoken. He felt queasy, lightheaded. This fact of the story had been unknown to him. He looked down at his shaking hands as if they belonged to another man.

  Astin was looking curiously at him. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Bellamont, you said. Did you know his first name?”

  “Arturo.”

  The candlelight in the room flared brightly at the edges of his vision. Fate wove its threads in such strange, unforeseen ways, though part of its design was suddenly clear to Devlin. “This was before his service to Armando of Tanalon?”

  “About a year before, yes,” Astin said, slowly as comprehension dawned. “You knew him, in Dunak.”

  Devlin nodded. “He came to the veiled-ones as I did, a foreigner with very little skill or experience. Though, to be sure, he knew more of the world than I did when I first set foot upon the sands. He stayed four months, passing the series of age-old trials faster than anyone before. For that reason alone, I think, he earned respect, if not fear. When he left, I realized that he had been my friend, and have missed him.”

  Astin exhaled loudly, brows raised. He stretched back in his chair. “Sometimes,” he said, “the world is chaos and I feel as though there are no Gods, and we are being tossed without reason on the sea of life. Then there are moments such as this, when I glimpse a strange grace at work, the borders of
a Long Road holding us straight.” He reached a hand across the table. “I am glad you are here.”

  Devlin clasped his friend’s hand. “As am I.”

  For the rest of the night’s small hours they spoke lightly of their youth in Avosilea, each moment of shared laughter a link to rebuilding the bridge of friendship.

  Later, Astin led him upstairs to an empty guest chamber. The room was sparely furnished, but well kept and clean. Devlin stood for a time at the window, looking at the moonless sky. Then he turned and left the room silently, walking down the hall to stop at the threshold of the master suite. There was soft light coming from beneath the double doors. He stayed that way for a while, imagining Lenora within, breathing softly, alive.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lenora gazed coolly at the merchant sitting before her. He squirmed against the ropes that tied him to the chair, eyes darting wildly around the windowless, bare stone walls of the basement beneath the Pirate’s Den. Astin stood near the door, a menacing figure with his thick arms crossed over his chest, their chorded muscles promising pain.

  Beside him stood Devlin, only his eyes visible from within the smooth folds of his veil.

  The merchant had grown white when Astin had entered the room, but still would not answer Lenora’s questions. Finally, Astin opened the door once more, and the veiled-one stepped inside. Watching the abject fear which overcame the man at the sight of the assassin, Lenora privately rescinded her earlier objection to Devlin’s presence.

  If the man had been squirming before, now he thrashed. “I don’t know anything!” he screeched. “Let me go, please. Please, I’ll give you anything you want.” He began to cry, and a moment later the scent of urine filled the air.

  Lenora wrinkled her nose. “It is well that you are finally willing to talk, Mario,” she said, lifting a handkerchief to her face and breathing through the scented linen. “I would hate for you to regret your dealings with us.”

  “I have had no dealings with you,” he spat, angry eyes glaring up at her through tears.

  Lenora clicked her tongue chidingly. “Now that is a lie,” she said, and nodded to Devlin.

  He shrugged, and his cloak fell back from one arm, showing the wicked, curved blade in his hand. The merchant screamed and convulsed so hard the chair would have fallen if it were not nailed to the floor.

  Eight young boys, sworn to her and under her protection, had suffered, likely strapped down as this man was. They had not faced the mere threat of violence, though, for from the beginning their ends had been sealed, enacted with vicious precision and sadistic glee. They had screamed, wept, and begged for mercy, as surely she had with King Terrin of Borgetza.

  But as she had escaped, they would never see daylight again.

  The injustice of it, the helpless fury she felt, made her mindless.

  It was Astin who hauled her away from the merchant. She struggled in his arms, kicking and screaming, until blue eyes moved into her vision, so full of sympathy that the strength flowed out of her. She sagged against her brother and looked past Devlin, toward the chair, where the bloodied merchant sat slumped forward, unconscious.

  “Take me from here, brother,” she whispered, and felt the men exchange a glance over her head. Astin nodded, and Devlin’s eyes dropped to hers. They were cold and empty and full of death.

  “Is he to live?” he murmured.

  “Yes,” she said, and hated herself for saying so.

  Devlin nodded and lifted a hand uncertainly, as if to touch her arm and reassure her that everything was alright. He seemed to see in her eyes that it was not—could not be—and his arm fell, gaze shifting smoothly to Astin. “Upstairs. A half-hour. You’ll have your information.”

  He reached to open the door. The moment they stood in the dim hallway outside, he closed it sharply and they heard the sound of a lock sliding home. They were almost to the stairs leading up when the merchant awoke, and began to scream.

  *

  Lenora was silent as Astin guided her to her room and ordered a bath. It took enormous willpower to stand without shaking as her brother directed the three sturdy young men into the room, large basins braced on their backs. When they were gone, the tub filled with steaming water and fragrant herbs, Astin lifted a privacy screen from the wall and unfolded it.

  “You don’t have to stay,” she said.

  He knew she was lying, so said nothing as he left her by the bath. She heard the scrap of a chair across the floorboards and the sound of his weight settling, and was relieved. Discarding her clothes in a heap, she stepped into the tub, lowering herself into the cocoon of heat. Slowly the urge to shake receded. A familiar numbness encased her as she stared through a window at the darkening sky.

  In the tavern beneath came a growing murmur of voices, unrelated to the nearing of Vianalon’s curfew. The denizens of Thieves Alley were gathering at Lenora’s order, for at midnight she would walk among them, and speak of the future.

  Through the soft haze of sound beneath, and the liquid murmur of the water as she shifted in the bath, Astin said, “You could have had him killed, Lenora.”

  She breathed deeply, feeling the slide of water over her skin, and was reminded of the cove in Avosilea by the Sea. “Devlin is not like them,” she said, knowing Astin would understand of whom she spoke.

  Rinaldo. Viccole. Terrin.

  Astin sighed, spoke gently, “Lenora, Devlin was the Master of Knives for seven years.”

  She waited for him to continue, realized belatedly nothing else needed to be said. Though the society of veiled-ones was largely mysterious, it was common knowledge that to become their leader, you killed until there were no rivals left.

  As Master, his word would have echoed throughout Calabria, through a deeply imbedded, virtually unseen network of spies. Whenever the verdict of death was reached in council, the subsequent command came from his lips.

  “Bellamont made a life of killing for his king, but he did not enjoy it,” she said mutedly. “I have spent the last six years plotting that king’s death. It was my poison, brother, that killed Armando, and I enjoy that fact. Moreover, the night we fled Borgetza, I killed the king’s Chancellor in cold blood.”

  There was a pregnant silence. “Will you tell me why, at last?” Astin asked, and his voice was full of a need to hear what she had never spoken of before.

  “Ah, brother.” She sighed, sinking into the cooling water. She wanted to close her eyes, to rest, but memory was strongest in that place. “Every night of that horrible year, Terrin did his best to break me,” she said finally, voice toneless. “He would strap me down and torture me, and when he was through, he would bathe the blood from my body, wrap me in the softest furs, and feed me from his hand. He spun lies like spider’s silk around my mind, and there were times…”

  Her blood was pounding, in shame for the lust she had felt for Terrin’s dark eyes, the beautiful hands that could bring both unspeakable pain and incredible pleasure.

  “It was a near thing,” she continued mutedly. “For a time I thought I loved him. Then, on that final night, as he fastened the chords around my wrists and ankles, he told me that he had other plans that evening, that the Chancellor would be keeping me company. He told me I was fruit brought to ripeness at his hand, and it was time for others to taste.”

  “Gods, Lenora—”

  The dam was cracked, the mortar of her will finally failing so that she did not hear him, and memory flowed unstoppable from her throat. “With his words the restraints on my heart and mind were snapped. By the time the Chancellor came to me, I had worked the bindings enough so that when I wished, my hands would be free.

  “I took pleasure it in, Astin,” she said wearily. “I stabbed him through the heart and watched him die, and laughed as I did so.”

  From the other side of the screen came a harsh noise of pain. “No,” he choked.

&
nbsp; Lenora closed her eyes at last, in the sweet mind-silence of confession. “Arturo and Devlin I know are not like Rinaldo, like Terrin, but I… I gave the merchant his life because while I cannot help the way I am, I still fight to be unlike them.”

  “You are not like them,” her brother said sharply. “What you brought upon that man in Siezo was vengeance. I wish that you had killed Terrin as well.”

  “Two kings,” she whispered, and laughed weakly.

  Astin stood and moved near to the screen. “Lenora, let me tell Devlin.”

  She sat up violently, water sloshing to the floor. “No,” she snapped. “You will not tell Devlin for the same reason that I never told you, or Bellamont. Terrin holds Borgetza in a tight fist and trusts no one. What he does with enemies—Gods, Astin, you cannot even imagine the fate that awaits.”

  “Devlin was the Master of Knives, Lenora!”

  “Indeed I was,” spoke a cool voice.

  The door neither Lenora nor Astin had heard opening was closed purposefully behind the veiled-one. Lenora stepped quickly from the bath and pulled a thick robe around her shoulders. Tying the sash about her waist, she stepped around the screen.

  He was unwinding the veil from his face. When he looked up, she saw a tiny spot of blood beneath his eye. He met her gaze with one of such calm, still blueness, she blurted, “How do you do it?”

  Devlin blinked, glancing at Astin and back to her. He shrugged one shoulder. “It is the life of a veiled-one,” he said. “Those who taught me say it is for the Gods to judge souls upon death, and it is for me to judge them in life.”

  “That’s quite an arrogant presumption,” she said harshly. “Who are you are you, Devlin al’Ven, to judge anyone?”

  Suddenly it felt as if he were not in the room at all, not standing just ten feet away. If he breathed, if his heart still beat within his chest, still there was no sense of him. Lenora fought a chill and forced herself to hold his icy gaze.

  “You do not know the trials I undertook in Dunak,” he replied stonily, “so I will not fault you. But know one thing for certain, Lenora: do not underestimate my journey, for it is the Long Road I walk.”