by Lane Robins
Maledicte’s voice was all Gilly heard. He refused to look at him, not wanting to be distracted by the dark eyes, by the lush mouth, by his own desire. “You killed the solicitor. Who else would think to talk to a rat? Why not pay him to go away? Or send him to the sea as aristocrats have done as long as there have been sailing vessels and inconvenient people—” Gilly’s voice broke.
The lamp flared and popped as impurities in the oil burned, and in the silence after those small explosions, Maledicte said, “There was more to it, Gilly. I was scared, and Janus was so sure. But he never liked Roach. Not ever.” Maledicte let his breath out in a shivering gust, as if he had caught Gilly’s quaking.
“Don’t ever send me out again to lure someone to their death,” Gilly said. “I cannot do that. I will aid you in any other capacity I can. But please, Mal—don’t make me kill for you.”
“Hush.” Maledicte drew Gilly’s head into his lap, stroked back the fair hair, streaked damp with night fogs. “I promise. Never again. Not ever. I’m so sorry, Gilly. So sorry.”
He smoothed the pale hair, spreading it over his lap like a gilt mesh, until Gilly’s trembling ceased, and the lamp was beginning to gutter, unaware of Janus standing at the top of the staircase.
· 23 ·
A RIS PAUSED IN THE FOYER of the Westfall city estate and watched Westfall’s face, never as restrained as the other nobility, reveal his surprise as Aris nodded and moved on, dog and guards in tow. Aris smiled; he was surprised himself. Westfall’s periodic afternoon parties were really no such thing. If the attendees found amusements, it was through avoiding Westfall, who used the occasions to argue his interest in the equality of the classes, his remarkable engines, and the future world to come.
“Sire,” Lord Echo said, stepping alongside him. “I didn’t think to see you here.”
“I’m sure that will be a sentiment I hear frequently this afternoon. And I’m equally sure that Westfall’s cause will draw new interest. I do like to keep my counselors content,” Aris said, and while true, it was far from the entirety of the truth: He had attended for one reason only.
“Thus you attend an affair you have little interest in,” Echo said, with the ease of long acquaintance.
“It’s the industrial aspect that flummoxes me, Dominick,” Aris said. “How Adam thinks that machines that increase the rate of production will aid us when the problem remains the same—that our profits are not our own. I see little reason to benefit Itarus.”
“Eventually the terms of surrender will end, our concessions fulfilled,” Echo said.
“And in the meantime, Westfall’s engines will replace the working poor.” Aris shook his head. “What both you and Westfall forget is that a country is not built on machines, but its people. All of them.”
“The poor are—”
Aris put a hand up, halting Echo. “If you’ll excuse me, I came here to appease Adam, not listen to his ideas. And I think you spend too much time among the sordid types of our city. It makes you bitter, unable to see that good exists on all levels. My offer still stands. Join my Kingsguard and I’ll see you at its head.”
“Your Kingsguard, sire, is not a thinking thing, but an army. I prefer to solve problems.”
“As you will, then,” Aris said. When Echo would have followed, Aris shook his head, and Echo dropped back. Aris moved on, unimpeded, as the small crowd bowed before him. So many familiar faces turned toward him, and yet the one he wished to see eluded him. He frowned at the sight of Mirabile whispering into Brierly’s ear, wondering what poison the woman cared to spread now, and if her presence meant Maledicte’s absence. Aris tapped his fingers impatiently against his thigh, and Bane trotted forward to pant heavily by his side.
Aris slipped into the cool hallways, still seeking. He had expected to see more of Maledicte, now that the young man held the ledgers over his head. Until Janus had left Murne with Amarantha Lovesy, Aris had expected Maledicte to use the ledgers to derail Aris’s requirement that Janus wed. Perhaps Maledicte had been in earnest after all, when he claimed he had no intentions of using the ledgers against Aris. Aris wanted badly to believe that, and not simply for the safety of Antyre.
He finally found Maledicte studying a portrait of a fair-haired woman in Westfall’s family gallery. Maledicte frowned and spoke quietly to his servant.
“Lady Rosamunde, Celia Rosamunde’s mother, and Janus’s grandmother. I believe she was a distant cousin of the Westfalls.” The servant’s words came clear as Aris approached.
Maledicte seemed uncharacteristically at a loss for words, lips parting. He touched the painting. “Celia looks much like her.”
“The whole point of aristocratic breeding,” the servant said. “Put a stamp of heredity on the children’s faces, even if it requires inbreeding and creates idiots.”
The guard coughed, and the servant turned, paling. He dropped to his knee. Maledicte’s smile faded, his eyes growing wary. He put a hand on his servant’s shoulder.
“You may rise,” Aris said. “Your sentiments are not new, I assure you. If I spent all my time punishing them, I’d have no time left to rule.”
The servant nodded and stood, uncertain.
“You may leave us,” Aris said. The servant glanced at Maledicte for permission, caught himself, and bowed again before leaving.
Maledicte shook his head. “He’ll be fretted for weeks about that. It’s my fault entirely. I’ve allowed him to be as free with his thoughts as he likes.”
“It’s not his thoughts that will see him in trouble,” Aris said, “but his tongue.”
“Still—it’s pleasant to have an honest opinion,” Maledicte said. “Rare and pleasant.” He turned back to the wall of portraits.
“Yes,” Aris said, nearly a whisper, startled again at the warmth he felt near this lad. He cleared his throat. “I have to admit to some surprise at finding you here. Adam’s afternoon entertainments are known to be deadly bores.”
“Then why do you attend?” Maledicte asked, frowning at another painting of a corpulent gentleman in furs.
“I asked for the attendee list,” Aris said. “Once I saw that you meant to attend—” Pleased, he watched a fragile blush touch Maledicte’s cheek.
“Oh, and what have I to say that lures you to brave such dullness as egalitarianism and economics?” Maledicte asked, his tone a little stiff.
Aris caught Maledicte’s quick glance at the guard and changed the subject. “I thought you might tell me how goes Janus’s courting? Michel knows nothing. And Amarantha—”
“You ask me that?” Maledicte said, his voice dropping to an offended hush. “Do you think Janus pauses in his wooing to send me accounts of it?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Aris said, his own temper sparking. “Janus has sent no word. To be honest, I had not expected such a political choice of wife from him. I thought him unconcerned with court ways and yet…Amarantha is a difficult woman at best.”
“But very beautiful,” Maledicte said, his tone still distant. “And perhaps he thought the choice would be pleasing to you. A counselor’s daughter.”
“You hold his wooing her against me,” Aris said. The weight of his distress startled him. But what had he expected?
“We all do what we must,” Maledicte said, and to Aris, the quiet weariness in his voice sounded like forgiveness.
“Still, I hate to think I played a part in making you unhappy. Were it in my power—I’d grant your wishes.” Daring, he stroked the soft curls clustered at Maledicte’s nape.
“I don’t believe you would,” Maledicte said, lips curling into a slow smile.
“No?” Aris said. “Won’t you tell me what drives you? What brought you to my court?”
Maledicte looked up through dark lashes, his eyes merciless. “Janus.”
“Just that,” Aris sighed. He took a step back. “Is it true what the gossips say? That you knew him before? That you were—”
“A Relict rat?” Maledicte finished. “I
fear my secrets are no secrets at all. But I’d rather not discuss that, if you’ll indulge this wish. The past is past, Aris.”
“No,” Aris said. “It’s never past. Not when everything reminds you of what you’ve done or lost.” He cupped Maledicte’s chin, brushed his thumb over the soft lips, and watched the dark eyes shade yet darker. “Was I wrong?” he whispered. “To surrender Xipos to Itarus, to barter our future away for our present?”
Maledicte laughed. “You ask me? The war was before my time, sire.”
That young? Aris thought, finding it a strange relief that here was one person who could not force him to relive the pains of his past. He drew closer.
Maledicte’s eyes flickered over Aris’s shoulder.
“He’s only my guard,” Aris said. “He doesn’t matter.”
Maledicte slipped from his grasp. “Aris—how can you say that here? In Westfall’s home, where all men are equal?” The mockery seemed evenly apportioned between Westfall’s follies and Aris’s own.
A sudden shout tore the quiet, and the mutter of voices in the next rooms rose.
The guard swore; the mastiff lunged to attention, pushing between Aris and Maledicte, growling. His hackles bristled.
“Find out,” Aris said, resting a hand on Bane’s withers. “I’m safe enough.”
Another mocking smile bloomed in response. “Do you think your counselors, your brother would agree to that? Alone with me—and safe?”
“Why must it matter so much what they think?” Aris said, answering the tone and not the words. He felt suffocated.
“Because, sire,” Maledicte said, “you belong to them, not they to you.”
Aris knew the truth of that by the weight it left on his heart.
“Do you still think my company safe?” Maledicte asked, reaching out. He laid his hand over the king’s. Bane’s growling ceased.
Aris couldn’t tell if it were his hand trembling or the hound beneath it. “Safe enough,” Aris whispered. He leaned forward to taste Maledicte’s lips, to see if they were as sweet as they looked, or as bitter as the words he spoke.
“Nothing of importance, sire,” the guard said, returning. Maledicte stepped away. “Lady Mirabile’s hem was torn by a servant. Done deliberately, she swore. Your brother is taking the whip to him now.”
“That temper of his,” Aris said, shaking his head. “Find out whose servant I will need to replace.”
“It’s yours, Maledicte.” The guard acknowledged Maledicte’s presence for the first time.
Rage washed Maledicte’s face, transforming it so utterly that Aris froze and Bane keened uncertainly. Courtier or not, Maledicte ran from the room like an arrow in flight. “Go!” Aris said to the guard, but to protect Maledicte from Michel or the reverse, he didn’t know. Hand wrapped around Bane’s collar, he followed more discreetly.
The green lines of the garden maze were marred with the violence. Westfall dithered, plucking at Last’s sleeve, while Last worked the whip back into his palm. Beside him, Mirabile watched, a tiny smile on her lips.
The servant knelt, half-fallen, pressed back against the hedge, his shirt torn and the skin beneath bloody. He put his hand to the wound, heedless of the whip being drawn back again, and the look of such utter shock on his face told Aris that whatever flaws Maledicte had, beating his servants was not one of them.
Maledicte interposed his slender shape between Aris’s sight and the servant. A faint growl of pleasure rose from Last’s throat as he set the whip flying again. The whistle of it sang in the air. “No, Michel, I forbid it,” Aris shouted, but the stroke had been sent.
Turning as if possessed of a snake’s quickness, Maledicte moved to meet the lash head-on. Aris flinched, but when the snap-crack of contact sounded, the scene had changed. Maledicte held the lash’s tip in his hand, firm against Last’s tugging. The air darkened and drew close.
Last put his weight into the effort to free the whip, his face purpling with rage and embarrassment. Maledicte stood unbudging, his face remote. His other hand dropped to the hilt of his sword and drew a fist length of steel.
Bane growled, low and uncertain, crowding against Aris’s hip, nudging Aris’s numb fingers.
Maledicte’s gaze, as black as city smoke, fell on him and Aris looked away, unable to meet the empty rage in it. Then Maledicte’s dark lashes fell and rose and he was simply another courtier in a temper. He released his grip on the hilt; the sheath swallowed the blade.
“If this is a taste of your vaunted equality, Westfall,” Maledicte said, “and the people you choose to build futures with, I don’t fancy your chances.”
Westfall flushed.
“You insult the king,” Last said.
“Do I?” Maledicte asked, tugging his servant to his feet and supporting him. “I thought I insulted you.”
Last snarled, his hand clenched on the whip handle again. “I will insure that Janus never sees you again.”
“Janus cannot leave me alone. He’s mad for the touch of my hands, my mouth; he begs for me at night. When you are dead, I will lie in your bed while you lie in the ground, one more unmourned ancestor, and I will be free to do as I see fit,” he said, his voice so laced with venom that Aris half expected to see Last finally subject to apoplexy.
“May I take my leave, sire?” Maledicte asked but turned away without waiting for an answer.
“Mal,” Aris said, his voice rough. “Are you—hurt? Your hand is bloody.”
“It’s not mine,” Maledicte said, closing his fingers over the clotting gore. He turned his head and said something softly to the servant, and then they made their way out of the garden. Mirabile dropped a curtsy as Maledicte neared her, and he widened his path to give her a wide berth. Aris watched and worried. Maledicte had faced Last without hesitation or the merest sign of fear, yet skirted Mirabile. Her expression was no longer that pleased half smile, content that a man was whipped for her whim, but something darker, and far more calculating. She swept back into the house, her skirts trailing behind her, undamaged despite her claims otherwise. Aris frowned.
“It’s witchcraft,” Last spat, drawing his attention. “Did you not hear anything he said?”
“I heard a young man in a temper, showing remarkable loyalty to a servant,” Aris said. He turned his unease on his brother, and his tone was cold and unwelcoming.
“You are witched. Do you think I failed to notice you seeking him out? Ask yourself what draws you so?” Last said again, and as if he meant it more than angry words. “Ask yourself what kind of man can take the lash’s touch unscathed?”
“A proud one who refuses to acknowledge hurt,” Aris said. “What man brings a whip to beat a clumsy servant and turns it on a peer of the realm? I think you’ve been too much in the city, Michel. Some rest might suit you. Go home to Lastrest.”
Last grated out, “As you command, sire.” He turned toward the stables, and said, more temperately, “He is dangerous, Aris. I hope you never have cause to regret the license you grant him.”
“Michel,” Aris said, his temper fading, but Last walked away. Aris sighed, and sat on a garden bench, taking care to choose one that did not overlook the hedge where blood still spattered the leaves and lawn.
MICHEL IXION, EARL OF LAST, lay in wait. He had arrived at Lastrest to find that Janus and Lady Amarantha were riding the grounds, but his temper demanded instant expression. So instead of busying himself with his correspondence, his bills, his petitioners, he sat in his reading room, the double doors wide to the hall and the front door, the leaded windows opened over rosebushes and the smoothly clipped lawn, waiting for the first sound of their return.
A day and a half ’s hard travel and distance from Maledicte’s insolent mouth had not eased his temper; firecracker spurts of rage still flared beneath his outward composure.
He heard the hoofbeats first, drumming toward the stable, hooves spattering the fine gravel of the drive, and he frowned. They should have more care for the tender hooves of his livestoc
k. Even as he thought that, he heard a woman’s voice raised and the horses slowed.
Some minutes later, the front doors opened and two sets of footsteps rang against the marble floor of the foyer. He rose and went into the hall. Janus and Amarantha dallied there, shedding gloves. Amarantha’s cheeks were flushed, and Last thought the heat under her skin due to temper and not exertion, judging so from the rigidity of Janus’s smiling countenance, from the slap of her leather gloves striking the hall table.
“Janus, I must speak with you at once,” he said, in lieu of greeting.
“If you must,” Janus said.
“At once,” Last repeated, irritated anew at Janus’s laconic acknowledgment.
Amarantha said, in a remote tone, “Courtesy is owed to one’s elders.”
Janus’s face went brittle; then he recovered his smile. “Father, have you met Lady Amarantha?” Janus said, drawing her forward. “I believe you well acquainted with her parents.”
“It’s been some time since I’ve last had the pleasure,” the earl said, frustrated in his desire to speak his mind at once. He bowed with careful formality.
Lady Amarantha shrugged out of her riding coat, ignored Janus’s waiting hand, and dropped it over her gloves. She curtsied and held her hand toward Last. “I remember you, of course. Father speaks highly of you. I am most grateful for your hospitality, my lord. This is a lovely and well-ordered estate.”
Last took her hand in his and raised her curled fingers to his mouth, thinking that Lovesy’s daughter had grown into an uncommonly pretty woman. “I hope Janus has been making you welcome.”
“He has done his best,” Amarantha said. “If you will excuse me, I will change.” She nodded again in the earl’s direction before ascending the broad stairs.
“She seems a bit short with you,” Last said, bemusement doing what time had not, cooling his temper. “What have you done?”
“Nothing pleasing, according to her,” Janus said, looking after the retreating tail of her riding habit. “However, I have vowed reform.”
“Yes,” Last said, his brows folding downward again. “Come with me.” He led the way into the study, closing the doors behind them.