The smile disappeared and her silence let me know that no response would be forthcoming.
I laid out a hand on the table and decided on a different approach. “You’ve played with the queen too, right?”
Tasia picked up her cards and examined them, shielding them from me. “Often—when she was younger and visiting the countess.”
“Would you say the queen’s a good card player?”
“You’ve played her, haven’t you?” she asked.
“Yes, but the question of who beat who is a bit uncertain.”
Tasia’s smile returned. “Isn’t that what they say though? When you can’t tell who the fool is at the table, it’s probably you.” She tilted her head as she gazed at me. “Why did you choose to become a card player by profession, Kellen?”
“I didn’t really. I just found myself…”
“Found yourself what?”
There’s something about knowing a person’s going to die that makes lying to them feel wrong somehow. “For a while now I’ve been telling myself that gambling was as good a way to make a living as any. Better than most actually, since it meant taking money off people who I don’t like and who don’t like me. The truth is—” I flipped my cards between my fingers, making them dance, listening to them rustle against each other—“when I shuffle the deck, I hear her voice.” I fanned the cards open and closed. “When I look at my hand, I see her grinning back at me.”
Tasia’s voice was very quiet. “You must have loved her very much.”
“It’s not like that,” I said. “It’s… She made me believe I could be someone worth knowing.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t know who I am any more. I just know I don’t like the person staring back at me from the mirror.”
I put down my first card face down and she did the same. Thieves’ Sleeves is played by setting up two columns of cards. Only one suit, in this case chariots, add to your score, but with a trebuchet you can steal the other player’s chariot. If they put down an arrow when you put down a trebuchet card, your trebuchet gets taken. Lose ten points worth of trebuchets and the game’s over. If you’re wondering what the blades are for, each one you’re forced to play removes a chariot from your own stack. In Thieves’ Sleeves, as in life, throwing a blade just gets you into more trouble.
“So you’ve made yourself as much a prisoner as I am,” Tasia said.
“The difference is,” I said, “when the game’s done, I get to leave.”
We flipped the cards over. Both of us had played trebuchets.
“Maybe,” Tasia said. “But if you think either of us is truly a player in this game, Kellen, then you really are the fool at the table.”
She put down her second card face down and I did the same.
“Fine,” I said. “Then what are we? The audience?”
She shook her head. “No, we’re just cards in someone else’s hand.”
“And which card are you?”
Tasia flipped over her card. It was a two of chariots. “Nothing important, Mister Kellen. Just a girl trying to do her best not to be someone’s blade.”
I reached to flip over my card, but she put her hand on mine. There were calluses on her fingers but all I could feel was the electricity from her skin. Was this what Leonidas had felt? I looked into her eyes. “Who are you trying to protect, Tasia?”
“Right now? Maybe I’m trying to protect a fool who doesn’t know who he is.”
I pulled my hand away. “And who am I?”
“Are we playing cards or playing games? Flip over your card. The marshals said I only get an hour with you, and I’m bored of solitaire.”
I may not be the best card player in the world, but I know people and I’d known that she would play another chariot, so I’d put down the seven of trebuchets. But when I turned it over, my card was the seven of blades. She’d pulled a trick on me while I was focusing on her face. “Be careful what you do with your blades, Kellen of the Jan’Tep. They cut both ways.”
It was a good trick, but I was tired of tricks. I was trying to help this woman and all she’d done was spin me around in circles. I tossed my cards down on the table. “Fold,” I said.
“Already?”
“Seems to be working for you.”
Tasia picked them up and flipped them over back on the deck. She shuffled and laid out seven cards face down.
“I think I’m done with card games for now, Tasia.”
“It’s not a card game,” she said, placing the rest of the deck back down on the table.
Reichis opened one of his eyes from where he sat curled up on her lap. “Never seen a seven-down game before,” he muttered.
“What is it?” I asked Tasia.
“Did you know that hundreds of years ago Daroman wise women used cards to pierce the veil of the stars?”
“What, you’re going to tell my future?” My people have all sorts of magic, but even we know divination is a con game.
“Maybe,” she said, turning over the first card. It was the ace of trebuchets. “Sometimes it tells the past too, or the present.”
“How is that helpful?” I asked.
“You want to know why people are doing what they’re doing, but you don’t even know who the players are.”
I picked up the card and held it out towards her. “So what does this mean?”
“Aces represent emotions. The forces behind our actions. The suit of chariots represent the drive for change, sometimes anger too. Arrows are love, blades violence. Trebuchets determination, but also self-interest.”
“So I’m feeling self-interested, is that it?”
She smiled. “I tell you two meanings and you choose to believe the worst.”
“Occupational hazard,” I said.
“Well then, you see—the cards are already revealing the truth of your life.”
She flipped the second card. It was the two of arrows. “The numbered cards can represent people or actions.”
“So if it’s a person?” I asked.
“Then it’s a loving person of low means. The higher the number, the more powerful the person.”
I wondered where I would sit on that scale.
Tasia went on. “But the numbers can also represent actions. Two for conflict, three for peace, four for advance, five for withdrawal, six for conspiracy, seven for revelation, eight for imprisonment, nine for release.”
“And ten?”
“Ten for the end of things,” she said.
“So does the two represent a person or an action in this case?”
Tasia frowned as she looked at the card. “I’m not sure. But my intuition tells me it means a conflict of two loves.”
“Now I know you’re making this up.”
She shrugged. “The cards always tell the truth. It’s up to us how we understand it.”
She flipped over the third card.
“Ah. The queen of arrows. This, I believe, would be the queen herself.”
“I thought it was the numbered cards that represented people.”
“They can, but as I said, they just as often symbolise actions. But the face cards always represent the people in our lives.”
She turned over the remaining cards one by one. The six of trebuchets, the knight of blades, the king of chariots, the eight of blades.
“Oh my,” she said.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Reichis opened his eyes and looked down at the cards. “From her tone, I’m guessing it means you’re screwed.”
“A man of violence intends you harm, Kellen, and it’s because of the queen. He has another man, a man of secrets, with him. They seek to imprison you.”
I leaned back in the chair and shook my head. “Sister, you didn’t need cards to figure that out. I’ve had people chasing me every day of the past two years, and half the nobles at court probably want me dead, just on principle.”
Tasia reached out to take my hand. “You should take this se
riously, Kellen. A knight and a king of different suits close together are never a good thing. These men are dangerous. Promise me you’ll be careful.”
I heard the sound of footsteps and realised our hour was up. Reichis hopped off her lap and sniffed the air. “It’s the skinny one who nearly pisses himself every time he sees me.”
That would be Fen.
“You know what I think, Tasia?” I said. She folded her hands and kept her eyes down. “I think you know exactly who the knight and the king are—the man of violence and the man of secrets. I think that if those men knew what you know, then they’d get exactly what they wanted. So you’re going to sit inside this cell and wait to die, just to protect the queen who sanctioned your execution or the countess who got you into this mess in the first place or whoever the hell else you’re covering for, because you think that somehow that’s going to lead to your salvation.”
“We all die, Kellen. Is it so wrong that I want my death to make the world a better place, rather than a worse one?”
“If you believe your death is going to make any difference to this world, Tasia, then you might be good at card tricks, but you’re a lousy fortune teller.”
I stood up but she grabbed my arm. “Believe what you want. But promise me you’ll be careful. Promise me you’ll watch out for these men.”
“I—”
“Promise me, Kellen.”
She looked so upset that I promised her. It seemed to give her some small comfort, and it didn’t really matter. In a few days she’d be dead, and besides, I hardly ever keep my promises anyway.
29
Patronage
“What now?” Reichis asked as we left the jail.
It was only a couple of hours into daylight and already the sun was irritating the black marks around my left eye. “I don’t know,” I said, pulling my hat down. “This is all way beyond us.”
Mariadne was sitting at a bench some thirty yards down the street, waiting for us. What in all the hells was I supposed to tell her?
“So we run?” Reichis asked.
I hesitated. I knew it was the right thing to do. This was law and politics and intrigue. Everybody seemed to have a stake in everything. Me? I was just a card player with a talking squirrel cat and a guilty conscience.
Reichis sensed my discomfort. “You want to try to bust her out?”
I shook my head. “Those locks are too heavy for my castradazi coin to pick. Even if we could, she’s got no money and nowhere to go. She’d need help, maybe even royal help, to get out of this.”
“So we go see the queen?”
“And do what? Ask her for a favour? No, she’s deep into this. We go making trouble with her without a plan, and I’m liable to wind up back in my own Daroman cell.”
We walked past a potted tree on the street and Reichis paused to pee on it. I guess he’d missed that one earlier. “Well, there’s one obvious thing we could do,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Let her die.”
I looked down at him. I was going to ask if he was serious, but I really didn’t need to. Reichis is a survivor. He’ll take on just about anything for me—that’s just a part of our business arrangement. But with Reichis you’re either part of the deal or you aren’t, and if you aren’t, well, then you’re on your own.
“I can’t do it,” I said. “Whatever’s going on, Tasia’s not to blame for it. Somebody’s using her, and now she’s going to die for no damned good reason.”
“All right,” he said, shaking the dust from his fur. “Then saddle up a horse, pull some powder and let’s kill us a few marshals.”
“And then what? We spend the rest of our short lives running from the long arm of Daroman law?”
Reichis snorted. “See, this is what you always do, Kellen. You talk yourself in circles until you run out of options and somebody’s pointing a sword at your belly.”
“So what do you think we should do?” I asked.
“Well, the way I see it, if we can’t break her out, then we need help—political help. So who do we know who’s got political clout and doesn’t hate us yet?”
Damn. I hated to admit it, but the little bugger was right. “Martius,” I said. “Count Adrius Martius.” Back at court he’d told me he’d be staying in Juven, not ten miles from here. “Let’s borrow one of Mariadne’s horses and go get us a patron.”
30
The Bravery of Fools
Ten miles isn’t a long way unless it leads you nowhere.
Count Adrius Martius shook his head regretfully, his somewhat jowly face wiggling along in an expression that was rather like sympathy. “I said I’d help you, Kellen, but only if I could do so without getting into trouble myself.”
I leaned back heavily in the plush chair. Martius’s villa was a lot like the man himself: somewhat stately and rather old-fashioned. “But you’re a count, and one of the queen’s cousins.”
“Yes, and I aim to keep it that way. Getting involved in these kinds of machinations isn’t practical for a man like me. The queen has many cousins and many supporters.”
It occurred to me that if the queen was removed, noblemen like Martius would have to choose sides. Maybe keeping on good terms with everyone was a way of keeping the path open.
“Hah!” he said. “I do believe we must play cards soon, Mister Kellen. To answer the question written on your face, just take a look at me. Can you imagine anyone cares what I think or whom I side with?”
“So you just don’t believe in taking a stand?” I said.
“Kellen, my boy, I take a stand every day. I stand up to go to the kitchen, I stand up to go to the bathroom. Some days I even stand up to look at the night sky. What I don’t do is stand up on the gallows so the hangman can put a noose around my neck. You shouldn’t either.”
“Where’s all that nostalgia for the good old days when Daroman nobles were all warriors striding across the continent?”
He laughed and patted his belly. “Do I look like I’m up for a lot of striding? No, son, that’s for men like Leonidas now.”
“Any striding he does seems to involve forty men gathered closely around him. You’d think the queen would have a problem with a commander using soldiers as his personal valets.”
“Ah, those. Those aren’t regular soldiers.”
“They dress like solders. They carry swords.”
“They want to kill us the way soldiers usually do,” Reichis added. “We run away from them the same way we always run away from soldiers.”
Martius looked a bit surprised. “Is your friend all right? He’s making very odd noises.”
“Probably just has gas,” I said.
“Ah. In any event, these particular soldiers are technically mercenaries.”
That threw me. “Why would a Daroman military commander need mercenaries? Don’t you have the largest conscripted army in the world?”
“We do,” the count said. “Though it’s not nearly as large as it used to be. But the mercenaries are more of what you might call the major’s personal guard.”
“Isn’t that expensive on a military man’s salary?”
Martius pulled some coins out of his pocket. “You see this bronze piece? That’s what a regular soldier makes in a week. You see the silver one? That’s what one of Leonidas’s personal guards earns in the same week. They’re better trained, completely loyal to their commander, and willing to do things regular soldiers might find disagreeable. You should probably stay away from them. And from Leonidas.”
“So how does he afford it?”
Martius closed his hand on the coins and made a show of making them appear in the other palm. Maybe it’s because I play cards for a living, but people always seem to want to do tricks for me. “Friends, dear boy. Wealthy friends.” He put the coins back in his pocket. “The kinds of friends you should be cultivating. Leonidas is good at making friends.”
“He’s good at making enemies too.”
“Now, Kellen, don�
��t go underestimating the man. He’s an extremely capable soldier, and a lot smarter than he looks.”
“That isn’t hard,” Reichis commented.
“I think your squirrel cat is hungry,” Martius said. He motioned to a servant and a few moments later food arrived, plenty for us all.
After a while Martius gave a contented sigh that turned into something else. “Look, Kellen, I can’t take a direct hand in your business with the queen. But maybe I can give you some advice that will help.”
“What would you suggest?”
“Well, my first piece of advice is to get out of Darome as fast as you can.” He held up a hand before I could speak. “I know, I know, you’re not going to listen to that kind of advice. Fine. My second suggestion then is that you make your case to the queen. She’s encamped about fifteen miles from here, near the border. Leonidas is giving her, and much of the court, a tour, walking them through the business that’s been going on with the Zhuban.”
“But she’s the one who signed the execution order.”
“And why did she do that?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I came to you to find out.”
“Take a guess.”
“Political expedience?”
“Well, that’s a bit cynical, my boy, but you’re on the right track. She did it because a monarch’s job is to keep any troubles from bubbling up to the surface. What she wants is to avoid any political complications. So what do you need to do?”
“I… need to make it so that carrying out the execution makes more trouble than it’s worth.”
Martius tapped a finger against his nose. “Now you’ve got it.”
“Making trouble for a queen doesn’t sound like a healthy habit to get into.”
“Then you should walk away. But if you won’t, look at it this way: you don’t have to actually make trouble for her. You just have to make her see that you could make trouble.”
“So what makes more trouble for the queen than a maid who might reveal a conspiracy?”
“Wrong question. A better one would be, what troubles does an eleven-year-old monarch have?”
I thought about that for a minute. From my brief spell at court it appeared she had people well in hand. I thought about Leonidas and all the nobles who regarded him like a god walking the earth. Then I remembered something Martius had said. “Didn’t you tell me that her father signed an unpopular peace treaty with the Zhuban?”
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