by Lane Robins
“Be wary,” Gilly whispered to himself. “Be careful.”
He found the nursery door by the simple expedient of the two guards flanking it. These guards wore mail as well as leathers, pistols as well as swords. Gilly shuddered. Aris knew the babe was still threatened. For a brief moment Gilly found himself heart-glad of Maledicte’s imprisonment, the murderous plan stymied. But he had come to release Maledicte….
“Janus Ixion.” Despite himself, he couldn’t help the growl that came out. He had expected them to allow him to pass farther down the hallway, toward Janus’s quarters, but the guards opened the nursery door with little more than a glance.
Gilly’s unruly emotions, fear, loathing, and worry, gave way to a far simpler one. Wonder. So this was how royal children lived. The long room was appointed as richly as any room he had ever seen, adorned with tapestries and carpets, ornate furniture and shelves full of books tooled in gold.
The carpets piled thickly enough across the floor in a careless riot of scarlet, lapis, and gold that even the most clumsy child could find no injury in falling. At one end of the room, opened windows overlooked the gardens below, their panes barred with iron. But even the iron had been wrapped with batting to protect the children from hurt. A firescreen locked to the stone fireplace attested to more precautionary measures. At the opposite end of the room, wide doors, paned with mirrors, stood closed.
Near them, reflected in bits and pieces, the heart of all these small worries, Adiran played with painted blocks, stacking them with an air of weary boredom. The mastiff beside him whuffed at Gilly, halting his approach.
Gilly had heard about Adiran, of course, had shared that knowledge with Maledicte long ago. Gossip about the king’s son could fill every ear in the kingdom were all the rumors spoken at once, but he had never seen him so close. Disbelief shaded his thoughts. Adiran seemed hale and entire; then the boy looked up at him with such exquisite vacuity that Gilly’s breath lodged in his throat.
Adiran stood, and approached like an uncertain pup, cautiously pleased. Behind him, the mirrored doors flashed, scattering reflections as they opened.
“He thinks you’re the servant who brings him his morning sweet,” Janus said, standing framed within the mirrored doors.
“Oh,” Gilly said, as Adiran reached out and tugged at his pockets, then held up an empty hand. Gilly obediently searched his pockets, finding coin, but no candy. His fingers closed on something smooth and cool, and he brought it out to look at it. The porcelain puppeteer, least damaged by Maledicte’s temper, barely chipped by Her fall from the attic. He handed Black-Winged Ani to Adiran, who cupped Her wings in his hands and laughed. He returned to his building, placing the puppet atop the blocks.
Gilly watched the boy, horribly aware of Janus’s eyes on him, of his own simmering anger in this peaceful place.
“So you came to give little Adi a toy Aris will surely dislike—or is there another reason?”
“Maledicte’s been arrested. He was taken to Stones last night. Echo has seen to it that money alone will not free him; the guards turned my offering away without a moment’s thought. It wants an influence that seems to have gone missing.” Gilly turned to see the result of his blunt words.
“I’ll see Echo gutted and spread on the docks for the gulls,” Janus said, a whisper of rage. “And you—where were you that you allowed this to happen?”
Gilly, unused to lying, found a lie on his lips now, a lie to serve two purposes, to shield him from Janus’s wrath and a small, barbed retaliation for Janus’s actions. “With Lizette. Seeing what could be done to ease her passing.”
“You should never have left him,” Janus said.
“It’s you he wants. Not me. And you’re here.” His voice cracked, bitter with the taste of it, and Janus curled his mouth into a smile. Gilly drove it away with his next words. “Tell me, Janus, did you buy this position with the ledgers? Trade Maledicte’s security for your own power?”
“I had little choice. Maledicte’s impatience has seen him ruined. What good would it do us to have me fall alongside?”
“Ani rides him too fiercely for patience or reason. Your doing also, I believe.” Goading Janus wasn’t wise, Gilly thought, but he seemed unable to stop, and worse, unable to provoke the reaction he wanted: guilt.
“Maledicte and Ani are not the same creature. What he lacks in patience he should make up in trust. But he doesn’t understand….” Janus turned, looked back in at Auron’s small, huddled form. “Guardian to the earl is not so different from being the earl. By the time Auron is grown enough to take the title, well, boys of that age are notoriously careless. Carriage racing, dueling, drinking in the bad parts of town…It’ll be as much a wonder if he survives his first year as a young man as it was that he survived the carriage wreck.”
Gilly’s breath knotted at the pale serenity in Janus’s eyes, at the pleasant tone to his words. Surely there should be some outward taint, some hint of the viciousness beneath, but even knowing Janus as he did, knowing what lay beneath the mask, Gilly’s first impression of Janus still lingered, a bored, amiable young aristocrat.
Though aghast at Auron’s coolly planned fate, Gilly refused to let it distract him from his current purpose. “What about Maledicte? Will you free him or is he simply a casualty of your schemes?”
“Don’t be insulting.” Janus said, frowning.
“Then you’d best go soon,” Gilly said. “Best sweep down on them like an avenging godling and remove Mal before they stop to think that king’s nephew or no—your influence is fragile, your breeding suspect, and your pockets to let.”
Janus’s hands clenched, but his voice remained pleasant. “You’re aping your betters, Gilly. Trying to sound like him. You haven’t the tongue for it.”
Any rejoinder Gilly would have made was stifled by the guards opening the door, not the crack they opened it for Gilly, but flinging it wide, stepping back.
Aris came into the room, dressed casually, breeches and linens under a dressing gown. Adiran cried, “Papa,” and flung himself on the king.
Gilly dropped to his knees, shivering, and when he looked up, Aris was watching him, startlement in his eyes, as if Gilly’s master had been much on his mind.
The weariness and drawn lines of the king’s face made Gilly’s guilty heart turn over. How many of those lines had Gilly helped put there?
“You’ve brought the news, then,” Aris said.
“Sire,” Gilly said in agreement.
“Then you’ve done your duty and we need not keep you,” Aris said.
Gilly bowed out and headed for the servants’ stairs, shaken, and desperately worried.
In the darkness of the servants’ stairwell, Gilly hesitated, seeing again the other doors. They would open into other rooms. Once, Gilly earned his pocket money by gathering secrets, by being unobtrusive and silent, by sneaking and prying himself, instead of paying others to do so. He should never have stopped his snooping, he thought bitterly now. He should have had word of the warrant signed for Maledicte’s arrest—but either his spies had failed or the message had been intercepted, his fault either way.
Gilly tried to judge which door would allow him to eavesdrop without being caught. He eased open the next door, the one that should be Janus’s and therefore empty. The room was cool and dim; he listened for movement and heard nothing. He leaned up against the interior wall, near the hearth, and the white-clad maid he had taken for a curtain in the dull light made a quick squeak of surprise. Gilly put his hand over her mouth. “Shh, I’m just here to listen. Like you.”
“It’s the only way,” she said, keeping her voice low. “That one has a temper on him, if you don’t watch out—best to know his moods well ahead.”
“The king?” Gilly said, though he knew the answer.
“He never notices us at all—it’s the bastard you’ve got to watch.”
Gilly leaned closer to the wall, drowning her words in the rumble of voices filtered through plaster an
d brick.
“—in charge, and his holdings seized,” Aris said.
“With your approval? Echo is sure of himself, but not so confident as all that,” Janus said.
“With my approval,” Aris said, and Janus hissed out his breath. “Maledicte cannot escape punishment, Janus.”
“I’ll secure his release.”
“It will be impossible to do so without my permission.”
Behind the wall, Gilly gritted his teeth, trying to think of who he could bribe or blackmail and failing that, how to free Maledicte without permission at all.
“…prison,” Janus said, in quiet tones. “Is there no alternative?”
“Want to watch?” the maidservant said.
Gilly nodded again. She tugged at a brick, gingerly sliding it out.
“They’ll see the hole,” Gilly said, his hand on hers, halting her progress.
She put her hand to his lips, rough with brick dust, and shook her head. She pulled the brick out completely, cradled it in her apron pocket.
Gilly, picturing the infant’s room from the narrow slice he’d seen over Janus’s shoulder, recalled the extensive firescreen that spread beyond the confines of the hearth, encompassing much of the wall.
He peered through, saw the two men standing beside the cradle, their words clearer now.
“Janus, don’t take on so,” Aris said. “I never meant his imprisonment to last. A few days locked alone in a cell, and Maledicte will be more amenable to his fate.”
Seen through the woven mesh of the firescreen, Janus’s face was as still as marble, his eyes as blank as Adiran’s blue-sky ones. The expression stirred familiar notes in Gilly’s head.
“Enlighten me as to your plans?” Janus asked.
“He will live,” Aris said. “Though for all practical purposes, he is dead to you.
“There’s a village called Ennisere on the north coast. It’s a cold place, and desolate, but I have comfortable holdings there. I will send Maledicte there with a competence to live on, servants to care for his whims and to watch over him. It will be a prison, Janus, but one far more pleasant than Stones. And you will never see him again.” He raised a hand as if Janus had started to interrupt, but Gilly could see that Janus’s face was as frozen as lakewater in winter. “He should have been hanged, Janus.”
Janus let his breath out. “May I at least take him from the cells, tell him what you’ve done for him?”
“I would prefer…”
“We fought, Uncle, the last time we were together. Will you deny me the chance to apologize to him? To leave us both with a sweeter memory?” Janus’s tendons were white in his neck, white in his hands as he dared to interrupt the king.
Aris turned Janus’s face up to his, searched the open eyes for signs of rebellion, and then nodded. “A brief meeting only. And my guards will go with you, should his temper hold sway.”
“Thank you, Uncle,” Janus said, and Gilly was horrified by the clear blueness in Janus’s eyes. He had placed the memory, placed that empty exaltation in Maledicte’s eyes in the moments when he turned to murder.
“Do not thank me,” Aris said. “I should have taken Michel’s advice in this instance. Maledicte is not fit for civilized society. Take a wife, Janus, and if you crave your male flesh, take a lover, but one less disposed to mayhem and more disposed to discretion.” His mouth firmed, then relaxed. “Janus, it is for the best. Such a companion is not fit for a counselor.”
“As you say,” Janus said. His eyes reminded Gilly of heat lightning, and he wondered that the king couldn’t see or feel the danger. All that rage, ruthlessly tamped down, until Janus found something, someone to release it on.
Gilly slotted the brick back into place, keeping his hands from trembling by the greater fear that if his hands shook, made the brick chatter, Janus would see him.
“Stay out of his way,” Gilly urged the maid.
“No fear,” she said. “I’ve seen that look before. Do you know your way back to the street?”
“I came by carriage,” Gilly said.
“Aren’t you the one?” she said. “Your master treats you well then. It’s a pity he’s not likely to need another maid.”
Gilly kissed her cheek and she giggled at him before ushering him down the stairs. Each step down, Gilly thought giddily, was one step closer to Maledicte’s side. Aris meant to send servants of his own, but surely Gilly would be allowed to attend Maledicte’s needs in Ennisere. Still, his happiness was bittersweet; Gilly knew Maledicte would rail at the prison, no matter how fine the cage, and Ani would drive him mad, and as for himself—his distant dream of the Explorations died in his chest.
He rested against the dark walls, trying to sort the mixture of relief and glee, of pain and dismay, of fear and doubt into some more palatable sensation, and failed. Long minutes later, he let himself out of the servants’ stairwell and headed for the stables.
At the carriage, the door was open. Gilly hesitated at the unexpected sight, and while he did so, Janus stepped out. “You took your sweet time,” he said. “Get in.”
“I’ll walk,” Gilly said, mistrustful of Janus’s smile.
“Don’t you want to help Maledicte?” Janus said. Again the storm flickers washed his eyes.
“I don’t see the guards Aris spoke of, your escort to the prison,” Gilly said.
“Eavesdropper,” Janus said, without heat. “But you dally. I thought you’d be chafing at the bit, ready to seek banishment with him all to yourself.”
Gilly stifled all reply, mistrusting that hot light still luminous in Janus’s gaze.
“Do come on. I have errands aplenty. Before we release Mal, lock him into the Kingsguard’s care, I want to go to the town house to take what we can salvage. The king’s competency is likely to be adequate, but Maledicte is most particular.”
“He’ll want the sword,” Gilly said, thinking of it left waiting for Maledicte’s return.
“Didn’t Echo take it from him?” Janus said.
“Maledicte gave it to me for safekeeping,” Gilly said.
Janus fingered his own sword thoughtfully. “Well, I’m not one to take his toys from him. We’ll collect it, and load the carriage with his possessions while we’re at it. Or do you want to explain to him how he comes to be a hundred miles from the nearest tailor and without his favorite vest?” Janus climbed back into the carriage, leaned against the seat, and said. “Go up and drive, Gilly.”
Gilly, relieved not to be closed in the carriage with Janus, did as he was told. The town house stable, when they arrived, was emptied of horses. The door to the house was marked with Echo’s seal, but Gilly ignored it. In the entry hall, Maledicte’s sword rested on the marble table where calling cards usually littered the surface, as if it too waited a response.
Janus picked up the sheathed sword, swearing as the feathered hilt bit through his thin gloves. His voice echoed in the house, striking no response from the shadows. When Gilly looked into the kitchen below, Cook’s belongings had gone. He wondered who the little maids would work for now, wondered if Livia had smelled this coming, as cunning as a rat, and had found herself a new place.
Janus came into the kitchen after him, his boots ringing on the stone floor. “Tell me something, Gilly. How could Maledicte give you the blade if you weren’t here?” The sudden storm feel of the room caught Gilly by surprise. Janus thrust Ani’s sheathed sword at him hard enough to break ribs; Gilly flung himself backward, tripping over the raised brick hearth.
“You allowed his capture and blame me for it,” Janus said. “He’d be free now, fought through them all, but for you—how did you manage it? Did you drug him again?”
Gilly said, “They would have killed him, Janus. This way he lives.”
“Killed him, when he heals, when poison flees his blood? I have my own plans set in motion, and you had to interfere. You and he go north, banished together? Mal said you were intelligent—did you plan this? Itarusines make long plans, and Vornatti had the
training of you—” Janus dropped the sword, unsheathed his own. Gilly grabbed the abandoned rolling pin, and took the strike on its marble surface. The sword skidded, shrieking, and Gilly pushed back, throwing the pin at Janus.
Watching the blade, he missed the bare-handed blow that hit his neck and shoulder, stiffening them into instant pain, and hurling him off balance. In desperation, Gilly threw himself forward, landing a blow of his own that split his knuckles and Janus’s lip. Rage swept him and he forgot he was facing a man with a sword, bent on extracting at least a small measure of Lizette’s pain from Janus.
Janus’s head rocked with the blow; he spat blood at him, and said, “Fool. You’ll break your hand before you hurt me that way.”
Gilly punched out again, and Janus used his momentum against him, letting the rush take them both to the ground among a smashing of the cook’s old chair. Rolling to land atop, Janus put his knees in Gilly’s belly, bearing down, his hands sliding around Gilly’s neck, the sword dropped and forgotten.
Already breathless from the exigencies of the fight, Gilly began to gasp in earnest. He pried Janus’s hands away, doing his best to break the thumbs, and Janus let go. Gilly sucked in air, tried to push Janus’s weight off of him, and barely avoided the elbow aimed at his face.
Janus’s hands wound through Gilly’s hair, and pounded his head into the floor, then the edge of the hearth. The room reeled, spinning into a moment’s dull blackness; his vision cleared to Janus risen above him. Janus kicked him in the jaw, setting off another bout of spinning dizziness. Gilly knew he had to rise—another blow caught his shoulder as he tried to roll to hands and knees, tried to reach either sword.
The next kick cracked ribs and dropped him to his belly. There was blood in his mouth and dripping into his eyes; Gilly crawled up again, the kitchen spinning and dipping as if it were a galley in a shipwreck and not one safely at shore.
The explosion of pain in his side staggered him. He kept his balance, but barely, trying to pull himself up the table legs, wondering when Janus was going to remember the swords. The next blow, to the side of his knee, sent him writhing to the floor. Vision tunneling and clearing, pain a tide washing over him, he could barely make out Janus standing above him, incandescent as flame, grinning.