And she'd ruined his theory about Magisters being too hard to manipulate, Aspen groused silently. Unless...unless their hidden Foe was getting better at this game.
"Was that pure conjuring?" Rydan asked. "Or was that actually the one behind all this? Projecting himself outside his prison?"
"Who can tell? If nothing else, an apt demonstration that this is no ally in our attempts to escape." Chenar dusted the knees of his borrowed Fae clothing. "Unless anyone cares to suggest that mutual need led it to try to cut us to little pieces?"
"No." Djol, marching up with the cloth now tied about the deepest cut on his forearm, called the sheathe of his sword in one of the few displays of magic Aspen had seen from him. "My blows didn't injure him," he added, and Aspen was delighted to see those black eyes still full of fire and assurance. "He could have ignored them, had me at any time. Whatever else, that was no attempt to kill us."
"No doubt the whole thing was arranged to cut the tedium with a short athletic display," Seylon Heresar remarked.
For a moment, pure cynical disdain glinted in Djol's eyes, but then his face dropped into the business-first impassivity of the Guard Dog. "It's possible. But it appeared to be on the lines of a taunt. No point in the action itself, other than to demonstrate it can be done."
"For the Lady Suldar's benefit, rather than our own?" Heresar considered the idea. "But yesterday was surely ample demonstration that we can be used. If that was to show we can be killed, it suggests Suldar would have some reason to wish that not happen."
"More guesses." Chenar offered Djol a neatly folded kerchief, eyeing his Phoenix's injuries unhappily. "We aren't progressing, only reacting."
"We are at least eliminating false paths," Aurak Bes said, as he rose from tending his arms man. "We may not yet be able to prevent this commandeering of our strengths, but we have learned a way to combat the results."
"And if the victim next time is yourself, Ambassador?" Chenar asked, quite reasonably. "Or Magister Couerveur? All of us? We'd hardly be playing with blocks then."
"True. But the step, however faltering, still takes us forward."
Chenar nodded, then turned the motion into a more respectful inclination of his head. "I trust that we will make more, and soon." He cast a sideways glance at the Diamond. "And share them."
That only revived the Diamond's famous smile. "Full disclosure, Highness?" he murmured. "I look forward to it."
Chenar's long lashes swept down, and Aspen saw Jurasel glance at Seylon Heresar. He was suddenly more certain than ever that Darest had been the prime topic of conversation on that barge. And that the discussion involved something they were keen to keep entirely from the Diamond's shell-like ear.
"Captain, will you still be able to assist our hosts for this evening's gathering?" the Saxan prince said, side-stepping carefully. "Perhaps you should rest instead."
"No need," Djol replied.
"This one's injuries are no longer serious," Aurak Bes said, looking down at Dest. "But they will keep him to bed a day or so. I would prefer not to postpone the sel-deseva again, if you and Magister Calder are willing to assist in his place? Success would certainly give us something with which to open discussions."
"We'll leave you to it then," Chenar said, when the Diamond nodded his agreement. "Until tonight." Collecting his brother by an elbow he took himself tidily off, sparking a general dispersal. Rua produced a casting to give Dest a useful thistledown quality, and she and the Aurak supported him away. The Cyans withdrew into a brief cluster, then departed. Aloren hadn't even bothered to show up.
Djol, transferred at least briefly to Camp Couerveur, reattached sheathe to sword-belt and turned to the Diamond. "Your orders, Lord Magister?"
The words were quite without irony, the blank stolidity of the Guard Dog well back to the fore with no sign of the man who'd so recently dazzled. The Diamond's fine-cut lips smoothed till they held no suggestion of a smile. And he waited.
It was a demand, wordless and implacable. Djol, after a pause very close to too long, responded with the subtlest of shifts. The way he held his head, a certain change of posture, a more focused and direct gaze, eyes narrowing into an expression as much assessment as capitulation. "Your orders?" he repeated, and this time it was no obedient cipher asking the question, but a creature as fully cognizant of his strengths as the Diamond himself.
That Aristide Couerveur did not smile, did not offer more than the tiniest of nods, marked his measure of the man. "Choraide will assist you in tending your wounds," he said, at his mildest. "If, in return, you should succeed in investing him with some understanding of the function of a kitchen, I would be very much obliged."
Typical of Aristide Couerveur to effortlessly give this man his due. Aspen, unable to contain a look of shining gratitude, could have kissed the Diamond for his inclusion in this arrangement. Not that he wouldn't kiss the Diamond purely for existing.
Djol's response was far less effusive. His gaze – black, cynical – flicked to Aspen and away. "Very well." It was an acceptance of terms from a free agent, and he produced that curt, clipped bow again. But before the man could turn away Gentian decided to stop staring in bemusement and go back to being peculiar.
"Captain Djol. Would your sword take offence if you allowed me to look at it?"
Even the Diamond blinked at that one. Djol showed an instant's confusion, then a glimmer of wary curiosity.
"There's no enchantment on the weapon."
"I know." Gentian produced one of those deceptive, wide-eyed expressions. "But, well, it was enjoying itself so very much. I hardly ever encounter objects like it."
The Easterner went very still, staring at her as if he wanted to strip away flesh and discover her thoughts. Then, in one motion, he pulled sword from sheathe and offered it to her, hilt first.
"Thank you." The grave, punctilious courtesy of a well-trained child, falling away to open fascination as she grasped and lifted it from his hold. Truly more interested in the sword than the man, which finally proved to Aspen that she wasn't right in the head.
A quick glance showed the Diamond watching this scene attentively, content to let it play out. Djol was not so sanguine, waiting tight-lipped as she turned the weapon in the afternoon light. Aspen wished just once to know more about what was going on than everyone else.
Turning the sword again, Gentian paused. She looked past it at Djol, not quite hiding her surprise, and now it was her turn to hold the man's gaze in a wordless question. But those black eyes were shuttered.
"It's a family piece, isn't it?" she said eventually. "Very old."
A hint of care, then: "How can you tell?"
"Well–" She looked down at the hilt, a plain, leather-wrapped affair, then held it out to him. "It knows I don't belong to it. Doesn't want me touching it, because I'm not...right."
That earned her another wary look before Djol took the sword and sheathed it. Aspen couldn't keep quiet a moment longer.
"For pity's sake stop being mysterious just for the sake of it. Are you saying the sword's alive?"
"Oh yes. Things don't usually waken, especially when there's no enchantment involved. Most objects don't last long enough, have enough emotion invested in them, don't have enough...weight. I first met one, a stone, a piece of a shattered fountain, actually, in Surratlar. In uncertain light it looks like a head resting on an arm, and it's local custom, myth, that it was once one of the old god-mages. They say that if you whisper your heart's fondest hope to it at midnight, and wait in absolute silence, it will tell you what to do to gain your desire." She grimaced. "It's the most horrid gloating thing. So many people have come there, alone in the dark, and given it their longing and their fears and then waited with their hearts in their throats, clutching at every murmur of the wind, willing the answer to come. It glories in their need."
"Does it answer?" Djol was finding Gentian a little too interesting, staring at her face as if he thought to find some sore-needed remedy of his own.
&nb
sp; "I don't know. People say it does. I was less than eager to tell it anything at all, let alone sit up with it at midnight." She gestured at the sword. "This – this is very different. Pride and craft and...joy. It was singing, a kind of wordless battle paeon. Exulting whenever you did something it thought particularly good."
"Singing?" Djol's face was a picture.
"Cheering you on, I guess. You don't hear that?"
"No. Feel something of the emotion." He flicked a glance at the Diamond and his face closed back up. "It is, as you say, a family piece. Thank you, Magister Calder. This has been...educational."
She shrugged, then added hesitantly: "Captain – I gather you've not repeated Suldar's conversation with me. Do you intend to?"
"Should the safety of my charges require it, Magister." This time the clipped bow had a very dry edge indeed. They watched him walk away.
"They have that man doing their laundry," Gentian said, with wondering delight.
"No doubt he manages it competently enough." The Diamond's tone was thoughtful, his eyes on Gentian.
"And what was the family name?" Aspen asked, delaying following Djol only because he was tolerably certain Djol wasn't what they should be calling him. "That chunk of metal told you, didn't it?"
"Delmar."
This meant little to Aspen, but the Diamond lifted fine brows in recognition. "Arleton Delmar?"
"It must be."
"I've heard that name somewhere." Aspen pummelled his memory. "Something about a war?"
"Sorania, about five years ago." Gentian stared after Djol – Delmar – who had revealed the faintest limp as he headed toward the Saxan's mansion. "I'd left the East by then, but the tale was everywhere. Their King's only daughter died a few decades ago – fell down some stairs when she was heavy with twins. They saved the children and, though I find it a little hard to believe, apparently lifted them from her at the same time. So they had a prince and princess, but no clear heir. The King held off on setting one above the other until he'd judged which was more fit to rule. Logical in some respects–"
"Ludicrous idiocy," the Diamond murmured.
She gave him a quick, amused smile. "Probably, but I understand the temptation. The main fault was leaving it too late, 'til they'd grown to adulthood and accrued their supporters. He died only a month after naming the princess heir."
"And left behind a civil war?" Aspen guessed, wanting to hurry her along so he could catch his Phoenix up. "Where does Arleton Delmar come into it?"
"A famous family, the Delmars. Sword-masters and generals mainly. This one seemed to be on his way to both, quite the blazing comet, and was either a long-time friend or a prized lover of the prince. But he swore his oath to his King's chosen heir, and he stuck to it when the prince raised an army rather than see his sister crowned. The prince won in the end: the better soldier, if not the fitter ruler. He's King there now."
Aspen shifted impatiently, and she gave him that sideways look. "Delmar had been sent out-country to try to raise support, which is probably a sensible thing to do with a man whose loyalties are suspect. He returned in time to join the remnant of the heir's defenders, hunted to some shattered ruin to be slaughtered. Exhausted, starving, hopelessly outnumbered, and no mercy on offer. There was nothing Delmar could do to turn that tide. So he challenged the entire attacking army to a duel."
"Ah." That had struck a chord. "There's a song about it, isn't there? Delmar's Stand?"
"I don't know how many of them he killed. Some of the figures seem scarcely possible, though having seen him fight I begin to almost accept. There was even precedent for the kind of challenge. One opponent at a time, with the shortest of pauses between each bout. Easterners take their duels very seriously. They're much more common than in Darest."
"And it was a delaying tactic, wasn't it? She got away?"
"Yes. He was still going when they discovered the escape. The prince ordered him struck down, and I believe there were several days of torture after that." Her voice dropped with disapproval. "An execution was scheduled, but there was either an escape or a daring rescue, and all that's been heard of him since is the increasingly huge price on his head. No doubt there's quite a tale to how he came to be playing bodyguard to the Saxan King's sons."
A bubble of anticipation was filling Aspen's chest. "A tale and a half," he said, unsteadily. "Do excuse me. I have to go learn to cook."
ooOoo
How was it possible to explore a city with someone without really looking at him? It wasn't even true that Dj-Delmar had been so perfectly hiding his light under the Guard Dog's bushel. On reflection, Aspen could name more than a few times where they'd glimpsed a flash of a fiery tail, which vanished before they realised they should be impressed. Well, the Phoenix had been flushed into the open now, and marked for the most intensive study.
Aspen, catching the man up before he'd quite reached the Saxan's mansion, decided first-off to think of him as Leton, which was a nice compromise between the two identities. Leton was just short of six foot tall, lean muscle rather than brawn, though the leather cuirass made him look bulkier. His skin was darkish tan with a coppery note, his black hair fingertip length, with the slightest suggestion of a curl. His hands looked strong. A nice jaw line and a narrow face, neither overly handsome nor unsightly. Creases were carved down from an aquiline nose, and a couple more speared up between his brows to give him a faintly wicked look. Mouth held thin and flat. With a full measure of contempt in black eyes as he noticed Aspen's survey.
This was going to be a challenge.
"And you've been nothing but disapproving from day one," Aspen remarked, more than ready to leap to the point. "I'd love to know what I've done to deserve such scorn."
"Would you?" Leton, pushing open a gate into a kitchen garden, didn't disguise his doubt. "Very well. Nothing. You've done nothing."
"You don't mean that in a good way, do you?"
The look said it all, but then that dispassionate shrug, passing the matter off into indifference. "You're what, twenty-five?" Leton asked, more weary than annoyed as he worked on the strapping of his armour. "Powerful, with a master like that, and not at first glance stupid. Yet you're still 'prentice, more interested in enjoying yourself than actually contributing anything. A waste of talent, a waste of your Master's time. A waste of air."
Aspen laughed, not the least bit miffed by this assessment. "Surely I have some decorative value? Though, to be strictly accurate, I'm not the Diamond's 'prentice. I was 'prenticed to the Regent's Court Mage, but lost that when King Aluster demoted him. The Diamond said he'll 'prentice me if I reach a certain standard, gave me a list of a few thousand things I should read, and is going to test me on it at midsummer."
"What chance of passing?"
"Minimal if all the learning texts are in Essan. Mind you, the Diamond's standards for 'prentice would probably get me passed up to Maja in all but the loftiest schools." Aspen shrugged. "Do you actually need any help, or do I just get to watch?"
Leton, who had been methodically stripping off his uniform, looked over absently and met Aspen's very appreciative gaze. He snorted. "Dare I ask how you are at staunch spells?"
"Well, I've got them in theory. The Diamond's list started me out with a very pragmatic set of basic spells to memorise, before moving on to theory. I suspect he shares your views on people being useful."
"Fine. There's a stillroom off the kitchen in there. Bring back bandages, scissors, a towel. And some honey and a mortar and pestle from the kitchen."
Aspen did as he was told, though who knew how the Poet or Pup would react if they found him wandering about. He came back quietly because his Phoenix, dressed only in thin draws, was tipping buckets of water over his head. That was indeed a thing worth seeing: muscles sliding sweet and clean beneath bare wet skin of paler bronze, the recent wounds bright stripes over a spattering of white lines on arms and legs. Aspen had once bedded a mercenary so seamed she made jokes about having been cobbled together from spare
parts. That Leton had so few, and only one knot on his ribs, was no doubt a sign of his skill. There was no obvious record of torture, but then it was so much more efficient to hurt someone with magic. Magic could shred nerves, spirit, without damaging flesh, so you could do it again and again...
Veering his mind away from the image of his Phoenix bound, broken, Aspen surveyed the current injuries. Several shallow cuts on the upper arms, and deeper wounds on one thigh and the left forearm. None of them seemed really bad: Leton had certainly been meandering about in true guardly fashion, acting as if they meant nothing.
And in what cause had he gained them? Had he been right about the prisoner merely taunting them? Playing with them like toys.
A shiver ran the length of Aspen's spine. The conjuring could easily have killed them, cut Leton down in seconds if it had chosen. Even the Diamond's magery mightn't have been enough, if it had really been out for their blood, instead of making some obscure point. How were they supposed to fight back?
"And why would Suldar care one way or the next if we got ourselves slaughtered?" he wondered aloud.
"If the assumption's right, we've a quick way to find out." Leton's eyes flicked to his sword. "You want to volunteer?"
Delighted fascination rushed through Aspen's veins. How had he ever thought he was dealing with a mere Guard Dog? He was going to get this man into bed if it killed him.
"Maybe I'll work my way up to it," he said, offering the towel. "I take it you don't want me to do more than seal the cuts?"
Leton looked irritably down at the slash on his thigh, which was trickling water-diluted strawberry toward his knee. "I can't cook and sleep. Just do the leg, and this." He touched the knotted cloth about his arm.
"Right." Aspen lined his collection of objects along a convenient windowsill. "Maybe you'd better sit down."
"Wait." A brief excursion into the garden, and back with a handful of leaves. "Do the leg first." He snagged the honey, sat down with the mortar and pestle, and began making green paste.
Not entirely sure whether this was for dinner or an excursion into herbal healing, Aspen took a deep breath and brought back a day last autumn, just after the Diamond had said possibly-maybe and his enthusiasm had still been high. A Staunch spell, a common but difficult casting because it meant dealing with a body's living magic, which wasn't quite the same thing as arcane magic, and resented any interference.
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