by Lee Ramsay
Tristan lay his palms flat against the table’s surface. “If you believe I am a distraction or a deception of some sort, then you should speak with him.”
Ankara’s eyebrow twitched upward. “My dear boy, he is sacrificing a pawn – you – in a game you are unaware is being played. Invoking my House watchword entitles him to certain protections which cannot be violated. I can no more interrogate him about your identity than I could kill him.”
“Then he is alive.”
“He is. Though I am quite capable of lying when the need arises, you are not worth the effort – and doing so would be counterproductive to learning who and what you are.” The grand duchess’ eyes narrowed as she traced her lips with the tip of her forefinger, the nail gleaming white and sharp in the candlelight.
The silence between them grew taut as she scrutinized him for several long moments. He had the queer impression she was peeling back the layers of his flesh to see what lay beneath and fought the urge to squirm. A cold rush of panic swept him as he found his muscles inexplicably paralyzed.
A slow, throaty laugh reverberated from the mirrors and marble walls as Ankara noted his fear. “I wondered how long it would be before the drug took hold. Do say something, so I may be certain you did not consume too much.”
“What have you done to me?” Panic thrilled through his body as his lips and tongue tingled with numbness. A shudder coursed through him at the toneless, lifeless quality of his voice.
The grand duchess sipped from her wine glass. “Nothing permanent. Do you recall the greenhouse in which we dined? It is a unique garden, and one I have labored to bring to fruition for a long, long time. When I was a young woman – truly young – I spent years traveling the continent, collecting rare and deadly plants. I even have a few from lands beyond the continent of Celerus itself.”
She placed the wine glass on the table. “The drug laced into your food is a concoction of herbs I developed for use on my nobles, as they so often seek to deceive me with lies and petty schemes. The quantity I give them is so small that they never notice their inclination to answer truthfully, provided I word the questions with subtlety. Were I to give them too great a dose, they would become suspicious of any food or drink they consumed in my presence.”
“Did you use this on Gwistain?” Tristan forced past his lips. His eyes remained unaffected by whatever she had given him, and he could turn his head with great effort. His fingers curled inward with the speed of flowers furling their petals in the evening.
“Do try to listen. I loathe repeating myself. Gwistain is inviolate through the use of the watchword. You, however, are not.”
“I will tell you nothing.”
“Your loyalty to your prince is admirable, but you have little choice.”
He laughed despite the situation, though the sound emerged choked. A line of drool formed at the corner of his mouth. “Gwistain told me nothing.”
“I am quite aware of that.” Ankara dropped her napkin over her plate as she rose and rounded the table to stand beside Tristan. “Though you are no nobleman’s son, Sathra did say you were well-educated. I mislike mysteries and secrets not my own. I wish to know why he felt it necessary to obfuscate your identity. From which of the five kingdoms do you come?”
“Shreth,” Tristan said, though he struggled to keep his teeth closed. Fear thrilled through him as he realized he had no choice but to answer.
Ankara perched her backside on the creamy tablecloth and laid her cold palm against his flushed cheek. “I do hope you enjoyed your meal. Consider it a reward for your loyalty to your lord, which I do find splendid. Yet you shall tell me all I wish to hear. Lies have been spoken and truths withheld, and the accounts must balance.”
Chapter 26
“Open it.”
The guard bowed at the command and removed a ring of keys from his belt. Ankara stared at the emerald surcoat he wore over a black gambeson as he fumbled with the heavy iron keys. Guardsmen bore lighter arms and armor than the soldiers patrolling the inner and outer courtyards; it was easier on the eyes and quieter than fully-armored men rattling through the halls.
The key turned in the ornate plating surrounding the handle. Resting his hand on the hilt of his rapier, the guard preceded her through the doorway.
Ankara was a trifle disappointed that the occupant was not bothering to ambush her. Her heavy green robe whispered across the floor, the gold and silver brocade glittering in the light from dozens of candles. A fire burning in the ornate hearth drove back the evening chill pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows that opened to a balcony.
She drew her robe around her slender form and swept her eyes around the sumptuously appointed room. A canopy bed was visible through one doorway, the thick coverlet unturned and the down pillows with their silk cases undisturbed. Another set of closed doors led to a bathing chamber. Firelight brightened the sitting room’s marble walls, but dark curtains and tapestries countered the light.
Gwistain lounged in one of two overstuffed chairs beside the chamber’s hearth, his stockinged feet crossed at the ankle and a book from the stack on a nearby table open on his lap. The collar of his white silk shirt lay open, the gold-embroidered doublet he wore for dinner the first night lying in a corner with his discarded boots. He did not look up as she entered, his gaze shifting from the pages of his book long enough for his hand to close around the neck of an open wine bottle and refresh his empty glass.
Ankara’s eyebrows rose. “Is it not customary to rise when a lady enters a room, much less a sovereign?”
Gwistain set the bottle on the table and lifted the crystal flute in mocking salute. “Forgive the rudeness. Concessions must be made when you’re holding someone prisoner.”
Not wanting the guardsman to see the prince’s insolence, she gestured for him to leave her and waited until the door closed before speaking. “You are my guest, not a prisoner. You have comfortable accommodations and the finest food and drink. There are no bars on your window.”
“A room with a lovely view over the castle walls and a long fall to the courtyards below, a locked door, and guards on watch day and night.” He slipped his finger between the pages to mark his place and flipped the book shut. “Let’s be honest with each other. Were I not a prisoner, I could walk from this room and leave Anahar behind.”
“Yes, let us be honest with each other,” Ankara drawled as she settled into the chair opposite his own. “It would be a refreshing change from the lies you came with.”
“You haven’t bothered to see me in the week since I was shown to this room. I suppose that, as I am not a prisoner, there is no demand for ransom on its way to my father?” He set his wine glass on the table beside him without drinking from it, his eyes hard in an unsmiling face. “Surely you realize he will send an envoy when I fail to send word or return.”
“Unlikely. I dispatched a message stating you have taken ill and will be maintained until you are well enough to travel. Likely until well after the winter snows have melted.”
“An indeterminate illness, I presume. The guards are here to ensure I do not wander off in a fever-induced delirium?”
“It would be unfortunate were you to stumble on the stairs in the depths of the night and break your neck,” she said with feigned solicitousness. “In your condition, braving the cold of autumn and winter would surely be the death of you.”
The book’s cover snapped shut as Gwistain withdrew his finger. He tossed it on the table, wine sloshing from his glass to run across the polished wood and dribble to the floor. “Shall we skip the posturing? I’m here at my lord father’s behest and have spoken the watchword of your House.”
“The fact that you are not in a dungeon cell is testament to my honoring of both.” The emerald on her breast gleamed in the firelight as she lifted her hand and made a beckoning motion, which brought the untouched flute of wine gliding to her hand. “You must become a far better liar if you are going to dance the dance of politics. You came seeki
ng information and received it.”
“How much of it was the truth?”
Ankara sipped her wine as she settled back in her seat with a chuckle. “You have the answers you sought, if you are wise enough to solve the riddle of them. Though I am honor-bound to answer through the debt I owe your House, the complexity of the riddle grew with each lie I uncovered.”
“I told you no lies.”
“Directly? No. You obfuscated the truth. I shall have it, however long it takes.”
“Do you mean to interrogate me?”
“Would you have me violate the oath I swore to your grandfather’s father? I will not so easily be foresworn over such a paltry matter.”
“Then we are at an impasse. I will volunteer nothing.”
“You may not, but your companions may.” Ankara laughed as the prince’s hands tightened on his chair’s arms. Her tongue flicked across the beads of wine on her lip as she examined him from beneath heavy-lidded eyes.
“I spoke your House’s watchword,” Gwistain repeated when he recovered from his shock.
“Which protects you and the members of your House. It does nothing for them.” She set the wine flute on the small table between their chairs. “That animal you brought with you will tell me nothing, of course, but I did not suspect he would. Hillffolk are notoriously stubborn, as I am all too familiar with – a trait most useful in the breeding program Seban Terador and I instituted, but not without drawbacks. It will be interesting to see if nature has made any improvements to the base creature over the centuries.” Ankara leaned back into the thick cushions, her sharp fingernails drumming arrhythmically on the arm of her chair. “Tristan, though—"
“Leave the boy out of this. He knows nothing.”
“I am certain he knows nothing of your purpose here, though he did confirm you meant him to be a distraction – which was obvious from the moment I laid eyes on him. As I said, you must learn more subtlety with your feints, or you never will survive in politics.” The grand duchess arched an eyebrow and steepled her fingers. “Your defense of him is the first genuine reaction you have given since entering my audience chamber. He was not originally part of your plan.”
“You can’t be certain of that.”
“Oh, but I can. Had he been, he would know something of your reasons for coming to Anahar.” Her hand drifted over to the wine flute, toying with it as she thought for a moment. “I must say, I am impressed with the loyalty the boy has shown you thus far. Even with the rishka fed to him in large doses, there are answers to questions that he will not speak.”
“Rishka?”
“A useful desert herb, when refined and mixed with a few other ingredients,” Ankara said, running her finger around the lip of the glass. “In small quantities, it makes a person, shall we say, susceptible to suggestion. With a large enough dose, the drug induces a near-paralytic state that robs the victim of volition but leaves them capable of following basic motor commands. It has the added benefit of making it almost impossible to lie.”
Gwistain scowled. “Have you considered that there may be nothing for him to tell?”
“There is something. He has proven resilient and willful, and remained silent despite vigorous interrogation. I must assume it is loyalty to you, as well as anger, that has made him so obstinate.” Ankara lifted the wineglass and took a sip. “Perhaps you will return his loyalty and spare him a measure of his suffering. Who is he, Gwistain?”
Gwistain said nothing for long moments, his expression dark. “You verge on violating the debt, Ankara.”
“Goodness me, however did you come to that conclusion?”
“You are threatening torture to Groush and Tristan to prompt me to tell you what you wish to know.”
She clicked her tongue against her teeth. “The torture of your pet Hillffolk is to satisfy my scientific curiosity, nothing more. As for the boy, torturing him for information about your purpose does no good. Whether you tell me the truth of why you came to Anahar is immaterial to my reasons for interrogating him. He hides a secret he hides, and I shall have it.”
“Stop this, Ankara.”
“I have already established that he is an orphan.” She sipped her wine, amused at the anger on his face. “As I told him several days ago, I am familiar with every major House in every kingdom of Western Celerus. He shares no known characteristics with any of them. I thought him a mutt peasant, but under the rishka’s influence, he revealed he knows not who his people are. I am sure you know how I view orphans, Gwistain. Had he looked like any other Ravvosi, I may have believed your claim that he was a squire taken in from a provincial House, but...”
“He is just a boy.”
“He is an orphan,” Ankara said with distaste. “His bloodline is impure and weak, or else his family would have survived. I would be doing him and everyone else a favor by removing the burden of his failed ancestry and the mediocrity of his future existence from the world. Unless you care to tell me otherwise?”
Silence fell between them, Gwistain’s lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line.
The grand duchess clicked her tongue against her teeth in disapproval. “Nothing to say? I wonder, is this loyalty to the boy because of his loyalty to you, or something else?”
“Why do you suppose he is anything other than what he appears?”
“The world has a structure, and the boy does not fit in it,” Ankara said, setting her wine glass aside. “He has no characteristics of any nation of this region, which means he comes from somewhere else. He has no family, and those with no family cannot survive long without support. He is neither noble nor gentry – his atrocious table manners, awkwardness, and ignorance of protocol made that obvious. He is not peasantry, either; he is too well educated, albeit in an uncouth manner.”
She rose from her seat and stared down her nose at him. “I will know the truth of him, even if I must tear him apart to learn it.”
Chapter 27
Rough, smothering fabric clinging to his face brought him awake with a start. Spasmodic jerks of his arms and legs rattled the chains binding his wrists and ankles to the chair. Cramps seized his shoulders, sending jabbing pains running down to his elbows as his muscles pulled against their restraints. For a moment, he could not remember who he was, much less where he was or how he came to be bound to a chair. His vision swam with pinpricks of light; as sense returned, he realized he saw candlelight filtered through rough burlap. The rasping in his ears was his ragged breathing and the stubble of his beard against the coarse cloth.
Tristan licked his lips as his galloping heartbeat slowed, sweat running down the inside of his bicep. His bare toes flexed against the cool, rough stone. The wooden seat’s edge bit into the backs of his knees. Thick metal cuffs bound his calves to the chair legs and forced his bare thighs apart. Similar bands restrained his forearms and biceps.
He had no idea how long he had been here, wherever here was. A thick fog wrapped his wits and clouded his memory. Ankara’s face swam in his mind, but her words came as though from a distance. He remembered little of what she had said.
Clearer in his mind was Sathra’s face, the scent of the expensive oils she wore, and the prodding whisper of her ceaseless questioning.
The recollection brought the pain his mind had been shielding him from with a rush that made him suck in a gagging breath. His left hand throbbed, reminding him in fragmented images of the wooden mallet smashing the back of his hand; the blows were meant to hurt and shock but not break the bones, which would have caused it to go numb. The little and ring fingers on his right hand had been dislocated and left to swell before being shoved back into place. His right eye was swollen almost shut – an improvement, if his moth-eaten memory was accurate. The split in his lower lip had lost some of its swelling.
The hair on Tristan’s arms rose as his memory cleared, providing perfect recollection of his first sight of the Dushken who had beaten him at Sathra’s direction.
Any similarity to Groush was super
ficial. The Dushken was larger than most men, broad-shouldered and deep-chested with heavily muscled limbs. Where there was primal humanity to Groush, this man verged on bestial; the jaw was long and the nose tapered down over the lips, creating a face reminiscent of a short-snouted dog. Black irises hid much of the white of the eye beneath an imposing brow, adding to the face's animalistic savagery. The huntsman’s ears possessed a slight elongation, rising to rounded points and capable of slight independent movement, which reflected his focus and mood.
That the Dushken was old was evident, his long hair and thick beard iron gray. An elaborate patchwork of designs branded the leathery brown skin across his forehead, temples, and cheeks; the oldest of the markings were faded, silvery scars between bushy eyebrows. He assumed the quality of the huntsman’s clothing denoted some degree of station; the long brown coat fell to mid-calf, and the matching knee-high boots were sturdy and well-tailored leather. A loose shirt of gray cambric tied loosely at the throat and tucked into loose britches of tightly woven brown wool.
Visceral fear churned as his memory gathered itself, and he understood at last Groush’s reaction to the mere mention of the Dushken.
Drugged muzziness fading as adrenaline coursed through his veins, Tristan struggled to keep his breathing steady and soft as though still semiconscious. He resisted the urge to shift his shoulders; much of his discomfort came from a cylinder of wood pressing against his spine between his shoulder blades.
“I know you’re awake, boy,” the Dushken said from somewhere nearby, his voice the gravel softness of a growling mountain cat. “There is no use in pretending. I smell your fear. I hear the anxiousness in your breath and the stutter of your racing heart.”
Tristan struggled to keep his voice firm. “What do you want from me?”
“I want nothing from you,” the huntsman said as he circled behind the youth. “It is the girl who wants something, and through her the mistress. I suggest you give it to them.”