“I saved Mariadne’s life,” I said.
Sha’maat picked up her wine glass again and took a sip. “Hmm?”
“Mariadne. You told me Father wanted me to kill her, but I saved her life instead. Are you going to tell me that’s all according to plan?”
“Mariadne? You’re on first-name terms with her now, are you? Have you bedded her yet, brother?”
“No, of course not. She—”
Sha’maat stood even closer to me, practically whispering in my ear. “Come now, brother. She’s certainly beautiful. And you’d probably be doing her and everyone else a favour if you got her out of that dour red mourning dress at long last.” She turned away and drank the rest of her wine before spinning back to me. “Yes, I do believe I approve of this. You will bed the countess. In fact, make her fall in love with you if you can. That will make it all the sweeter when you put an end to her.”
It was my turn to laugh. “You know, I think I’ve finally figured out the grand strategy by which you and Father plan to take over the continent: just keep pretending, no matter how many times you fail, that everything is going according to plan. Then maybe everyone else will become so confused they’ll accidentally make you emperors of the entire world.”
“It’s you who blithely ignores the obvious, brother. Darome is in the twilight of her power. These people aren’t mages like we are. They aren’t explorers or inventors like the Gitabrians or even hunters and farmers like the borderlanders. Militarism and brutality are in the very blood of Darome. Without war, this empire of theirs will sink into a sleep from which it will never wake.”
“Maybe the queen has something else in mind.”
“Indeed she does, and that is why she will never be allowed to rule. Her father had promised his nobles a war—a chance to expand and fill their coffers. But he became soft, as old men do. And when Ginevra was born he used her as an excuse to make peace. Look around at the nobles out there, bowing and scraping as they utter curses under their breath. The Daroman nobility are jackals, brother, and the jackals are hungry.”
“So you’re waiting until the jackals pounce to see what scraps they leave for the Jan’Tep? Does the mighty Ke’heops mean to make buzzards of our people, picking at the remains left by braver scavengers?”
She ignored the insult to our father. In fact she seemed to ignore everything I’d just said. “Now, brother, timing is all important here.” She held up a finger. “You must not kill the countess too soon. There are other players in this game who we require you to eliminate first.”
With every shred of arta precis I’d learned from Ferius, I tried to see through Sha’maat’s pretension. How much of her confidence was real, and how much was posturing? My family seemed convinced that I was still the runt of our litter, ready to beg and perform tricks for them in exchange for whatever scraps they’d give me.
I turned and opened the flap to the tent. “You know something, sister? I know our people don’t believe in hell… but go to hell anyway.”
As I started walking out she said, “Oh, don’t go away angry, sweet brother. I have some information for you.”
“No, thanks.”
“Really, you’ll want to hear this.”
“Fine,” I said, still looking out at the mountains in the distance. “What is it?”
“These Daroman, these barbarians,” she said, “their lives are governed not by power, but by the perception of power. The queen, Leonidas, the army, the nobles. All of them.”
“And?”
“Major Leonidas has been shamed in this matter with the maid. He cannot allow that to stand. When he makes his move, you must stand aside for your own good.”
Now I turned back to face her. “You think he’s going to find a way to kill Tasia? Even while she’s inside a marshals’ jail?”
For just a moment Sha’maat’s expression softened. “Brother, everyone but you knows that the maid died days ago. The breath simply hasn’t had time to leave her body.”
34
Return to Sarrix
Reichis and I returned to Sarrix alone, on a horse borrowed from one of Martius’s retainers. I spent most of that time considering my predicament, and, in my own defence, almost a full minute remembering that I wasn’t the one stuck in jail.
“Quit yer moanin’,” Reichis grumbled, his eyes still closed. How he can balance while lying on his back in the saddle of a horse I’ll never comprehend.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Didn’t have to. When you get like this you reek of angst and self-hatred.”
“What do I smell like the rest of the time?”
“I’ll let you know if it ever happens.”
We rode on a little way further in silence, but eventually I realised the squirrel cat was right, if not in the way he seemed to think. Reichis doesn’t suffer from self-doubt. He instinctively knows what he wants, who he wants to protect, and who he wants to kill. Me? Somewhere on the long roads this past year away from Ferius, I’d lost my moral compass. It was getting harder and harder to think about anything other than how to save my own skin. “What do you think we should do?” I asked Reichis. “Even with the queen changing the writ, you think Tasia deserves an entire year stuck in that jail with no one to look out for her? You think Leonidas is going to leave her alone?”
“No, she does not deserve it, and, no, that skinbag will definitely not leave her alone.”
“So?”
“I reckon she needs to find herself one of them… what do you call them things? Somebody who does brave deeds and fights for good causes?”
“A hero?”
Reichis lifted a paw and briefly opened one eye. “That’s it, a hero.”
I let that hang in the air for a while, but finally I had to say something. “You don’t think I could be a hero?”
The squirrel cat snorted. “You? Kellen, I love you like a, well, like a business partner. But you ain’t been on a hero’s path for years now.”
“You realise I’m only eighteen and you met me when I’d just turned sixteen?”
“I was talkin’ squirrel cat years.” He wriggled around until he was sitting on his haunches, facing me on the horse’s neck. “Look, I get it. You’re a human, Kellen, and that means you ain’t built for bein’ heroic even when most everyone we meet wants to kill you.”
“Ferius does it. She’s been at it a lot longer than me.”
“Pretty sure she’s got some squirrel cat blood in her. Anyhow, you ain’t gonna be much good as a hero so long as you got this.” He tapped a paw at the black markings that wound around his left eye, an echo of my own.
“The shadowblack?”
He shook his furry head. It’s not a normal way for squirrel cats to communicate, so he always does it in a comically exaggerated fashion. “No, the fact that you use the shadowblack as an excuse for being a coward.”
Other than crocodiles and langziers, I hadn’t seen much that scared Reichis, so I found it irritating the way he so glibly called me a coward, even if I was one. “Maybe you’d feel differently if you’d spent the last two years of your life being hunted by your own people.”
He gave a snort—another means of non-verbal communication that he should probably avoid when making a serious point. “Idjit. How many other squirrel cats do we ever run into? My kind have been hunted almost to extinction. I don’t have to worry about my ‘own people’ hunting me, because everybody else’s ‘people’ are already doing it.”
I thought about that for a second. Reichis never talked much about his own kind, or what the Jan’Tep had done to them. Whenever I brought it up, I got bitten, and I was tired of tooth marks in my shirts. We were almost at the city limits of Sarrix, and the glimpse of tall, expensive-looking homes beyond the walls gave me an idea. “Well, since I’m such a coward, instead of picking a fight with half the Daroman empire, how about you and me put together some money and get Tasia help that way?”
“You ain’t suggestin’ bribin’ the
marshals service, are you? Cos even I know that’s a bad idea.”
“No, I’m thinking the magistrate—what was his name? Gerran? We see what he’s willing to do for a little cash. Maybe we go on a couple of heists of the more prominent Daroman noble families around Sarrix and then we—”
Reichis cut me off with his version of a sigh. “That’s the problem with you, Kellen. You always try for the easy play. You never go all in.”
“I go all in every time I’m in a fight, Reichis.”
“You go all in when there’s absolutely no other choice left. That’s why we’re always on the run. You fight when you have to, not when you should.”
“Well,” I said, “that’s what you call a distinction without a diff—”
“Shut up,” Reichis growled. “Someone’s comin’ for us.”
Marshal Fen, the skinny one who’d by now probably gambled away the rest of the silver coins I’d given him, was riding up the slope of the road towards us. I imagine he’d figured out we’d stolen the writ from under his nose. “You’re comin’ with me, Mister Card Player,” he said, pulling his horse up in front of us.
“Listen, if this is about the writ, the queen’s already—”
“It ain’t about that. Lirius just got word to us. Leonidas and his men have rolled into town. They went straight for the Countess Mariadne’s home. They’ve got her compound surrounded.”
“What? Can they do that? Why didn’t you stop them?”
Fen looked at me as if I was an idiot. I guess I was. “There’s just Bracius and me here,” he said. “Most of the Northern Detachment are with the queen. Besides, we don’t go around arresting the military.”
“Where’s Bracius?” I asked.
“Already at the countess’s home.”
Good, I thought. Maybe she can talk some sense into that idiot major.
“She’s been asked to oversee a duel,” Fen said.
“What?!”
Fen nodded. “Major Leonidas just challenged Mariadne’s house on grounds of insult to his reputation. She’s got to field a champion against him or forfeit her… well, I’m not rightly sure what she has to forfeit, but I doubt it’s gonna be something she wants to give up.”
Truer words had probably never been spoken. Reichis’s fur changed colour, shifting from the soft, sleepy brown to an angry red, the hackles rising. “Well, Kellen,” he said in a low growl, “guess it’s time to decide if you plan on being a hero.”
35
The Hero’s Duel
By the time I reached Countess Mariadne’s home, all hells had broken loose. Leonidas and his soldiers stood inside the gate in the broad courtyard. Mariadne was screaming at him, with the old retainer, Erras, doing his best to hold her back.
“I’ll never marry you, you pig. Never!”
“Then send your champion, countess, for I do take offence at the false accusations you have made of me in court, and I demand redress.”
Reichis and I snuck around the courtyard and entered by the servants’ gate so we wouldn’t have to go through Leonidas’s soldiers. “Thank goodness you’re here,” Erras said the moment he saw me.
“What’s going on?”
He gestured helplessly. “The major claims the accusations the countess made at court cast a slur upon his honour and that he cannot rightfully lead his troops on behalf of the crown until that stain has been removed.”
“He’s out of his mind then,” I said. “The queen’ll have him hanged for this.”
Erras shook his head. “No, she won’t. Oh, she’ll quite likely reprimand him, ensure he never rises further in the military or in Daroman society. But I suspect she’s already done too much to embarrass him publicly, and Leonidas has no further reason to seek her support. I believe he’ll have made the calculation that he’s better off appealing to older and less refined Daroman traditions, seeking support from those who believe we have strayed too far from our more aggressive roots.”
“So what now? Can he seriously force the countess to duel him? She’s not a trained warrior, is she?”
Erras shook his head. “No, but just because she cannot fight him herself does not mean she can say anything she wants with impunity. When she speaks, she does so on behalf of her house. If Leonidas insists on a duel, the house champion must accept.”
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“There isn’t one. When Arafas was alive it would have been his role to defend his home and family. Since he died, the countess hasn’t wanted to hire one for fear they might seek to use their position to pressure her into marriage.”
“Then she just has to back down and apologise.”
He shook his head. “It isn’t so simple as that, not in Darome. If she admits fault she will be weakened politically and owe Leonidas a debt. She may as well marry him right here and now as apologise.”
I looked over at them. Mariadne was hurling insult after insult at Leonidas. For his part, he was becoming more and more confident in his position.
“So what do we do?” I asked Erras.
He looked at me. “You have to challenge him.”
“What?”
The old man gripped my arms. “You can take the role of house champion on Mariadne’s behalf. If she accepts, you will fight Leonidas.”
“What good will that do?”
“If the house champion fights, then even if he dies, honour is satisfied without the countess having to make any admission of fault. Leonidas will have improved his standing, politically, but the countess will remain free of obligation to him.”
“Old man, you’ve lost your mind. I’m not going to get myself killed because her ladyship can’t keep a polite tongue.”
“Are you afraid then?” Erras said, visibly disgusted with me.
“Terrified,” I admitted.
The old man chewed his lip a while. “Fine. Then just wait here and keep her from doing anything rash.” He spun on his heels and stepped back into the house.
I walked towards Leonidas and Mariadne to see if I could calm things down.
“Ah, perfect. The tutor. I see you consider a Daroman military leader beneath you, countess, but a filthy card-playing shadowblack is worthy of your bed.”
“You’ve got it all wrong, Leonidas,” I said.
He backhanded me so hard I fell to the ground. Reichis leaped in front of me, growling. “Shut your damned mouth, boy. And get your animal out of my way before I break its neck.”
“Reichis, back off,” I said, rising to my feet. “Your ladyship, go inside. I’ll talk to the major here and work something out.”
That did not produce the grateful reaction I’d been expecting. “You? You? How dare you presume to speak for my house?”
Leonidas was delighted at my upbraiding. “And what will you say to me, weasel boy?”
I rubbed at the already swelling left side of my jaw. “I’ll tell you that you just struck one of the royal tutors, and the queen is probably going to want to have words with you.”
“The queen? You’d hide behind the skirts of a child? The Zhuban have a word for men like you. It’s shozia. It means ‘eyes-down’. It’s what they call cowards. Besides, as I hear it, you just publicly humiliated the queen to save a whore maid. I doubt she’ll much mind that I gave you a light tap.”
His words were confident, but his tone was more tentative. He wasn’t sure how much he could get away with. As long as I wasn’t stupid enough to challenge him, I might be able to get this situation under control. That’s when Leonidas suddenly let out a barrel laugh so loud I thought the walls of Mariadne’s compound would start tumbling. “What have we here? A mighty hero from the old legends?”
I turned to see Erras emerging from the main house. The old man was attired in battered, rusted armour that looked three sizes too big. His right hand trembled from the effort of holding a broadsword far too long and heavy for him. “You come to challenge the House of Mariadne, Countess of Urbana Sarrix. Your challenge is met, major.”
&nb
sp; Leonidas’s men were laughing their heads off. Erras ignored them and continued advancing.
“Go back to your sewing needles and cooking, old man. There’s nothing for you here but a sound beating.”
Erras didn’t flinch. “I stand ready,” he said.
Reichis reared up on his hind feet and gave a series of oddly deferential growls towards Erras.
“What are you doing?” I asked quietly.
“I’m acknowledging him as a warrior. He has the heart of a squirrel cat.”
Maybe, I thought. But the body of a man too old and too fragile to be fighting Leonidas.
“Do you accept me as your opponent, major?” Erras asked. “Or do you need time to gather your courage?”
Leonidas’s hand shot out and grabbed Erras by the neck, very nearly lifting him off the ground. Erras’s sword clattered to the ground and he gasped for air.
“Stop!” Mariadne said.
Leonidas ignored her. He kept his grip tight—not enough to kill Erras, but enough to make breathing difficult. His eyes burrowed into the old man’s. “You pathetic old fool. What did you hope to accomplish here?”
“I beg you, release him,” Mariadne pleaded.
“Let him go, Leonidas. You don’t need to do this,” I said.
“Quiet, weasel boy. I’ll get to you soon enough.”
Erras looked as if the life was draining out of him. I flipped open my holsters, but two of the soldiers grabbed me and held my arms behind my back.
“Did you truly think you might defeat me?” Leonidas asked Erras. “But no, that wasn’t your plan, was it? You thought to simply die during the duel and absolve your mistress from her obligations.”
He pulled Erras closer. “You made a mistake though, old man. We haven’t started the duel. The marshals aren’t here to oversee it yet. All you did was attack a military commander on duty. I can kill you and it won’t make a bit of difference to your lady’s situation.”
“I’ll marry you!” Mariadne screamed. “Don’t kill him. Let Erras live and I’ll accept your proposal. You’ve won, damn you. You’ve won!”
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