by Lane Robins
“’Tis a pity I had no way of knowing I would be at your table,” Janus said. “Your cousin Dantalion asked if I could relay a message, but having heard that you were rarely in Murne, I denied him. I do apologize.”
“Dantalion has nothing to say of interest to me,” Vornatti snapped. “His only interest lies in knowing how near I am to dying, and how close he is to his presumed inheritance.” Vornatti grinned malevolently at Maledicte. “But that is my business, and none of his.”
Maledicte smiled vaguely in response, all the while feeling the sharp bite of anxiety in his belly as he twisted his long-held scheme into new configurations. To kill Last, to do so in a way that enabled Janus to inherit, to do so from a position of power—it all rested on Vornatti’s whim. One wrong word, and Vornatti might change his mind on the importance of kin, might recognize the truth Maledicte felt naked in his eyes: He would never relinquish Janus. Time was short. With Janus’s kiss so recent on his skin, his warmth still lingering between his thighs, Maledicte could not imagine accepting a caress from Vornatti, never mind feigning welcome.
Janus mopped his roll over his plate in the Itarusine fashion, chasing savory juices from the smoked fish. “I suppose I should have expected that. After all, my father and Dantalion are rather cronies. And I’ve heard of the enmity between my father and yourself. He swears you a craven, running from a duel.”
Vornatti slapped the table beside his plate, making his glass jerk and teeter. “He dares—”
“But then,” Janus added hastily, “the nobles of two courts can attest to Last’s easily offended nature. I am quite prepared to find you unobjectionable.”
“How very kind of you,” Vornatti said. “Mal, isn’t it wonderful—such condescension from Last’s bastard?” Maledicte felt the blood rush to his face, his tongue leap to defend Janus; instead he fisted his hands beneath the sheltering cloth. Vornatti had to believe that Maledicte was his. The scheme aborning in Maledicte’s mind demanded such.
“Don’t,” Vornatti said abruptly, turning his gaze from Maledicte to Janus, “labor under the impression that you’re fooling me with your agreeable manners, Ixion. I, too, was taught in the Itarusine court. I, too, know how to smile and spit poison. But having lived so long, I’ve found I much prefer bluntness. So I tell you—you are not as clever as you think, and this is the last time an Ixion will run tame beneath my roof.”
Janus dabbed at his mouth and rose. “So manners yield to candor and temper; I’m vanquished, sir. I will quit your house and never bother you more. Mal? I’ll see you on the promenade.” Without waiting for a response, he kissed Maledicte leisurely and left.
Maledicte licked his lips, savoring the taste left behind like a promise, like absolution. He opened his eyes to find Vornatti glaring. “That smacked of later, not farewell. Did you dismiss him or no?”
“A day only,” Maledicte said, facing Vornatti and turning to his meal with more appetite. “You were correct, after all. Janus is not as I remember him.” That was even true, Maledicte thought complacently, at least in the details. The Janus he had known was an impulsive, temperamental boy; this Janus—Maledicte’s lips curved against his will—this Janus was subtle, and infinitely more dangerous. “I will see him out,” Maledicte said. “Given your obvious disdain, you’ll want me to make sure he hasn’t lifted any of the silver….” He escaped before Vornatti could laugh or protest.
Janus caught him up as Maledicte reached the hall, leaned him against the wall and kissed him. Maledicte twined his arms around Janus’s neck, keeping a wary eye on the closed door of the dining room.
“You must kill him,” Janus whispered. “It’s intolerable.” He took Maledicte’s wrists in his hand and caged them against the wall above Maledicte’s head. Closing his eyes, Maledicte shivered, gave himself over to Janus’s confident touch. Let Vornatti come out; if he complained, Maledicte would spit him on the sword without another thought. Janus nipped at his throat, and murmured against his pulse, “Do it soon.”
LINGERING IN THE KITCHEN, Gilly heard the front door open and close, and wondered who had left, and who had won. Whether Janus had gone with Maledicte by his side, or whether Maledicte was closeted with Vornatti, spitting useless anger. Gilly bit his lip; Vornatti was willfully blind if he thought Maledicte would tolerate his ownership much longer. No matter Vornatti’s influence and strength of will, Maledicte was every inch the savage creature Vornatti liked to call him. And Vornatti was old now.
Gilly remembered the first time he’d met Vornatti—the tall, elegant man complimenting Gilly’s parents on their fine crop. Even then Gilly had been aware of undercurrents. While his father preened at Vornatti’s praise for his fields, Gilly had seen the dark eyes assessing them all, and knew the crop Vornatti meant was himself and his brothers.
The bell rang fiercely in the kitchen, jangling on the board, barely stilling before it rang again.
Maledicte the victor, Gilly thought, and Vornatti left alone and angry. He shuddered. While Janus and Maledicte had been here, Vornatti’s attention and outrage had centered on them. Now the man’s violent whims would turn to him.
“Best go to him before he has the bell from the board,” Cook said, turning from her assessment of the pantry, looking at him with pity. “He’ll only get worse.”
“I know,” Gilly said, knowing he’d be kneeling before him, choking in the close scent of age and Elysia, all in the name of soothing the man’s outraged pride. For a moment, he envied Maledicte and his bloody approach to life, the certainty that Vornatti was only a temporary affliction.
“Why do you put up with his ways? My boys wouldn’t stand for it. You should find a new place, though I’d miss you sorely, Gilly lad.”
“No one will have me, knowing the uses I’ve been put to. At least, no one who won’t expect the same,” Gilly said.
Cook turned back to her inventory, her silence only confirmation of his fear. She made a note or two, and finally said, “Kettle’s on. Take some tea afore you go.”
The bell rang again, and Gilly shook a handful of tea leaves into a mug of steaming water before leaving.
But knowing Vornatti, knowing his moods, Gilly detoured first to the library, searching for something to distract him. He gulped the tea while skimming the shelves for something Vornatti hadn’t read recently, or for new purchases not read at all. Grimacing at the acrid cling of tea leaves on his tongue, Gilly dribbled them back into the cup.
Like the nobles he dined with, Gilly rarely had his tea unstrained, and the damp leaves woke lingering superstitions. He swirled the dregs around once, twice, then once again. Mindful of the varnish on the shelves, he found a sheet of blotting paper, and with an almost forgotten motion, upended the mug. Raising it, he stared at the blurred heaps of leaves, trying to read the pattern. But there was no symbol he recognized in the L-shaped spread, no chair, no hourglass, no raised hand.
Superstitious foolery, he chastised himself. What had he expected? He picked up the book he had laid aside; when he looked back, his breath caught—not a symbol, but the thing itself. The leaves made a perfect gallows tree.
WHITSPUR STREET WAS A FRANTIC cluster of millinery shops and tailors, divertissements, and gossip. Janus studied the broadsheets pinned above the boy hawking them, the images of courtiers at play, and incendiary articles urging Aris to shun the most recent trade delegates from Dainand. “Don’t buy that,” Maledicte said. “It’s only gossip, and days-old gossip at that.”
Janus tossed the boy a copper anyway, and folded the sheet under his arm. “I’m more interested in the news. Westfall mentioned a potential treaty with Kyrda, one that might offset some of the damage done by Aris’s Xipos surrender. The broadsheets run several pages—surely there must be some substance to it.”
Maledicte laughed. “You’ll be disappointed.” He took Janus’s elbow in his hand, and they strolled the raised walkway along the shop entries, while carriages clattered by on the cobbles below. From the distant green paths of Jackal P
ark, faint shouting came across the still air, the chanting of angry citizens protesting Aris’s new ban on Itarusine imports. Janus listened to them for a minute and sighed. “Shortsighted.” Whether he meant Aris or the protesting men, Maledicte didn’t know or care, simply pleased to have Janus at his side.
Janus’s clothes, still the fine wear of the evening before, spoke quiet scandal and drew several glances from passing nobles. Maledicte teased, “A good thing you didn’t go in costume.”
Janus leaned close as if to leave a kiss, but whispered instead, “I did. I went as Last’s dutiful, obedient son.” His words warmed more than Maledicte’s nape, set Black-Winged Ani to heated delight.
Lord Edgebrooke and his wife stepped from the walkway and threaded the crowded street rather than be forced to acknowledge them. For the open scandal of it, or for something less tangible? Maledicte shrugged. Let Gilly worry about that; he would filter the rumors and feed back all Maledicte needed to know.
Maledicte paused in Rosany’s doorway, at the display in the windows, looking at books. “I should select something for poor Gilly, left to Vornatti’s mercies.”
“He’s a servant. You needn’t reward him for doing his duty,” Janus said.
Maledicte laid a hand on his arm. “Gilly’s my friend.”
Janus sighed, the temper fading from his eyes. “I apologize. It’s only that he’s had your companionship while I’ve been deprived of it. I find myself envious of all the moments I’ve missed, of all the moments he had with you.”
Maledicte’s lips curved. “Pretty words. You’ve been trained well in courtly ways.” His smile faltered. “I suppose you had occasion to practice such things with the Itarusine ladies.”
“As if I could ever care for vapid noblewomen who think of nothing but gossip.”
As they dallied, a shadow fell across them, an approaching nobleman who chose not to step from the path. Maledicte looked up and his face stiffened to feral stillness. “Last.”
Janus smiled, lips curling to malicious amusement. “This should prove entertaining,” he said, voice low in Maledicte’s ear. “But do restrain yourself, hmm?”
Any response Maledicte would have made was stymied by Last’s nearness. “Father,” Janus said, tipping his head. “Have you met Maledicte?”
“To my chagrin,” Last said, his face darkening above his high collar. “Is this the kind of companion you seek? A scandalous courtier?”
“I am not the only scandalous one, surely,” Maledicte said. “Or is my presence so overwhelming that the court can think of nothing but me?” Maledicte felt a vicious triumph when Last’s color intensified. Janus might force him to postpone the kill, but he would not give up baiting the man for anything. Janus’s hand closed on his nape in warning, and Maledicte realized that Aris approached.
“Surely, Michel, you will not add to scandal by enacting a scene on Whitspur Street. After all, what happens in the court can only be reported secondhand in the scandal sheets, implausible hearsay. But lose your temper here, and there are a dozen witnesses who work for the broadsheets. Do try to leash your temper. For once.” Aris joined them, two of the Kingsguard idling at his back and the brindled hound pacing beside him.
Last turned. “Aris?”
“Am I unrecognizable without my crown, brother?”
“You will acknowledge this creature on the streets? In front of the same audience you warn me of?”
“I will,” Aris said, turning his faded eyes on Maledicte. “Though, my impetuous courtier, I remind you that I urged discretion; instead you create the season’s greatest scandal,” Aris said. “How come you to know my nephew?”
“Last’s spurning of Celia Rosamunde sent Janus to me,” Maledicte said, with a little bow in the earl’s direction. “I thank him for it. As for scandal, sire—though I am loath to say it, your court thrives on scandal and spite. Mirabile, and others like her, sell tales to the scandal sheets purely so they can see their gossip in print and picture.”
Last spluttered, and Janus laid a warning hand on Maledicte’s sleeve. Maledicte shook him off, aware of Aris’s gaze on them both.
“Scandal and spite, perhaps. But it also thrives on decorum and rules. My rules, Maledicte. Do you realize they wait to see me banish you? You have put me in a difficult position. To flout my own rules or to displease your guardian when I need his goodwill—”
“Banish me?” Maledicte echoed, his heart skipping for the first time since their conversation began. Banished. Away from Janus? He clutched Janus’s sleeve.
At Aris’s side, Last smiled, savoring the moment. It sparked such bloodlust in Maledicte that he felt his eyes must be reddened with it. The sword could have Last before anyone could pull him back. The world narrowed to red simplicity.
“Did you not swear me an oath that you would never draw your blade in court again? After I stayed your punishment once before?” Aris’s words came from a distance.
Maledicte looked away from Last, his thoughts calming, turning. He rested his hand on the hilt. “I swore…I would never draw it in your presence, sire.”
“You would sidestep my strictures so carefully? Laws are more than the words composing them, Maledicte.”
“I did not think at all, acted the impetuous youth you called me,” Maledicte said, trying to shape words fast enough to soothe Aris. At his back, Janus’s steady breathing brushed his nape, and the sound, the sensation staved off his growing alarm.
“That is no excuse, nor even an acknowledgment of wrongdoing,” Last said.
“Father,” Janus said, his respectful courtesy never faltering. “It is King Aris’s offense, his decision. But should you be allowed a say, so should I.”
Last purpled again at the unexpected insolence.
Aris’s face relaxed at his brother’s discomposure; the tightness left his voice. “What would you say in Maledicte’s defense?”
“Only that deeds are misunderstood all too often. Only that if I took no offense, saw no wrong, and had the blade at my throat, perhaps there was no wrong meant.”
Maledicte would have smiled were he not afraid it would be misinterpreted. But he was pleased and surprised; not at Janus’s defense—he expected nothing less—but at the sweep and subtlety of the words. Janus had changed, had learned the discretion Maledicte forgot when his temper was raised.
“You are presumptuous, Janus. You set your wrongs above the king’s,” Last said. “Perhaps you are not as ready for the court as I assumed, and require another year’s training.” Maledicte went cold. He could not allow Last to take Janus from him again.
“Leave him be, Michel,” Aris said. “I, for one, am pleased to find someone so loyal to a companion. Tell me, Janus, would you be resentful if I removed Maledicte from the court?”
“Saddened, say instead. You are my king, my uncle, my kin, and as such, incapable of wrongdoing.”
Maledicte wanted badly to applaud. Janus had mastered what he could not—the art of cynical humor without the edge that offended.
“Have his words won me a reprieve?” Maledicte asked, unable to keep silent longer.
Last started to speak, but Aris overrode him: “If you swear, without reservation, without duplicitous intent, that your blade stays sheathed within my court. And the gods alone know what the papers will have to say.” Aris lowered his voice, stepped closer. “But Mal, remember discretion.”
“I swear,” Maledicte said, bending his head. He felt the king’s hand hover above it, barely touching his dark curls. He heard Last’s chuff of disgust, watched him stalk off without further word, and raised his eyes to Aris’s. The pale eyes flickered from his to Janus, standing so close, and a quick frown crossed his mouth. He reached out and pulled Maledicte a pace away.
“I accept your oath for a second time, and yet I await an apology,” Aris said.
Maledicte felt his temper stirring and stifled it. Too much was at risk and yet…he could not be other than he was, and his words came out edged. “Shall I kneel b
efore you, here and now, begging you to show mercy, sire? Speak the word and I will prostrate myself before you. My future is in your hands.”
Aris tilted Maledicte’s face up to his own. “Michel would have your tongue removed for speaking so—” He released Maledicte’s chin. “But I am not my brother; I do not seek insult in every speech. I will forgive you, but as penalty, I will steal your companion from you. Janus and I have had little chance yet to speak.”
Aris gestured ahead of him. “Nephew.”
Using the king’s body to shield them from most of the watchers, Janus pressed his lips to Maledicte’s palm before following his uncle. Maledicte shivered, chilled by Janus’s absence, his mood plummeting. He wanted to run after them, refuse to let Janus from his sight. “Restraint,” Janus had whispered, his breath warm in the shell of his ear. “Discretion,” Aris had demanded. Maledicte watched Janus board the king’s carriage and did nothing. When the carriage was gone, he thought of home, the delight gone from the day with Janus. But at the thought of Dove Street, of Vornatti, his plan shifted. He had other tasks to complete before he could return home.
· 17 ·
W ILL YOU TAKE WINE?” ARIS asked, waving away the young page who brought a sheaf of papers toward him, and closing Janus and himself into his sitting room. “Please,” Janus said, accepting the crystal goblet with graceful hands. Aris studied the lad, liking what he saw—the unmistakable stamp of family blood, the confident manner. He found it hard to believe that the young man had spent most of his life in the worst slum Antyre had.
“Did Celia teach you the ways of the court?” Aris asked, sitting down in a dark, velvet-upholstered chair. The mastiff settled on his boots with a groan, and Aris groaned back. “Off my feet, dammit, Bane.”
“Celia?” Janus said, lowering his goblet and swirling the claret; a ruby whirlpool formed and faded. “She taught me to speak properly, when she remembered my existence,” Janus said. “Her world is bounded by her supply of the old Laudable.”