by Lane Robins
“Now you’re to wed; you’ll be off on your wedding tour, and tell me, my love, who will feed me? I am utterly dependent on your goodwill. Will you trust a man with your secret—and such a dangerous, treasonous secret I am—or will I creep like a rat through your home, stealing a loaf of bread here, a sausage there, and hearing the servants quarrel and split blame for their loss?”
“Mal, enough.” Janus kissed his mouth, sealed the complaints with his lips.
Maledicte kissed back with teeth and protest, and tore his mouth away when he could, wishing he could stand and storm out.
“Haven’t I made that room more a haven than a prison? The finest linens, the finest furniture, the newest books and treats. It won’t be forever. Only until they forget.”
Maledicte drew himself up, long hair spilling over white flesh, livid scars on cheek and chest, acid in his voice. “Am I so easily forgotten?”
Janus stroked the dark hair back from Maledicte’s face, and Maledicte shook his head away, refusing Janus’s touch.
“No glib answer for me?” Maledicte said. “I believe your son, should you have one, will still hear my name in whispers. I will be dead in truth long before they forget me. You’ve seen to that. I am the monster of ballads.”
“There will be no wedding tour. Even could I stand to be gone from your side, Aris wants me under his eye. I will bring her here.”
“Bring her here…” Maledicte echoed. He stood and headed back toward the hidden chamber. “Won’t that be pleasant for you, dividing your time between your wife and your dead lover.”
He worked the catch just as Janus approached, eyes wary, and had the satisfaction of closing the door in his face. Were Maledicte feeling stronger, he would push the table before the door and let Janus explain the noise away as best he could. As it was, he lay down on the mattress, and stared up at the bare ceiling. His hand shifted against the sheets, questing for a nearly forgotten comfort, and he sat in one quick movement, pain dismissed. Where was it?
Within him, Ani stirred for the first time since the night at the palace, hungry.
He lay back, closed his eyes, and remembered the way the hilt fit his hand, the roughness of the metal feathers caging his fingers, the easy weight of it balanced in his palm, along his arm. Maledicte closed his hand on the cold touch and opened his eyes, rolling to look at the sword. Dark with dirt and blotched with damp, it was as much a revenant as he. Maledicte wiped it off on the linens, leaving rusty trails of old blood and earth, and blew along its length. Where his breath touched, the mottled damp faded to matte black. The raven’s eyes gleamed, and he curled himself around it, remembering how it had been. Miranda, under the altar, curled around her pain, and Ani’s voice cresting in her mind.
MALEDICTE HEARD UNEASY LAUGHTER in the air, distant but startling in the silent house, and drew himself away from his meal. The elaborate food and spun-sugar decorations had told him what day it was, even without Janus’s unusual absence. Now he rose and went to the door, levered the catch open, just enough to release him from his cage. Sword in hand, he stalked through Janus’s empty room, and braved the hall.
The door immediately opposite drew him. He had heard the servants moving furniture and gossiping, knew whose room it would be. Maledicte opened the door a bare fraction, giving him a narrow view of the chamber beyond. Janus teased Psyke, soothing her, leading her toward the bed. Psyke’s cheeks flushed with wine and nervousness, and Janus paused to kiss the palms of her hands, making her laugh.
Maledicte clenched the hilt of the sword as he watched Janus bed Psyke, enjoying himself, enjoying debauching her, teaching her things she hadn’t imagined, until Psyke gasped and laughed and cried out. She kissed Janus’s neck, and his eyes, bored, roamed the room, widening as he saw Maledicte. He pressed Psyke’s face closer to his shoulder, blocking her view.
Maledicte smiled and reached out with the sword. Not to touch bare flesh, but to push the gilded frame of the marriage portrait from the wall. It crashed to the floor; Maledicte had sealed himself back in the room before Psyke’s first shrieks rang out, hiding his own laughter.
WITHIN DAYS, Maledicte found himself glad of the marriage, glad to have something to occupy his time and attention. While it palled, the idea that the terror of the court was reduced to “haunting” a timid girl, it was more satisfying than watching her coo over Janus. Satisfying to wake her in the night by dropping a pillow over her face, touching her with a chilled hand, making her hate Lastrest, making her hate the husband who would not take her back to the city.
“You’re driving her mad, Mal.” Janus slammed the door back, burst in heedless of noise.
“Careful,” Maledicte said. “Do you really want your wife to hear you yelling at a ghost?”
“Why are you doing this? I’m supposed to keep her content. Instead, she’s jumping at shadows. Worse, Mal, she’s beginning to ask questions. Clever ones. Little Psyke is not as foolish as she appears.”
“Why don’t you just kill her?” Maledicte said, daring Janus to obey. The flame in Janus’s eyes sparked one in his own chest, making his breathing rapid, making the wound sting and pull.
“She is a favorite of the court. She is Aris’s pet. I cannot do such a thing.”
“Will not. A harmless babe gave you no trouble. Or is it just that you fear you will have no one to blame for her death?” Maledicte grinned.
“Mal! Stop.”
Maledicte raised the sword, tested his endurance by taking three quick fencer’s steps. The pain tugged his lips back from his teeth; he let the sword tip drop.
“Where did you get that?” Janus said, stepping away.
“It’s mine,” Maledicte said. “You left it in the dirt.”
“It’s dangerous, Mal.”
“Of course it is. It’s a sword. You kill people with it; enemies, babies…wives.” Maledicte set it down with a sigh. “Unfortunately, I’m not up to strength yet. You’ll have to do it yourself.”
Janus flinched, and Maledicte said, “Too late to be squeamish, now. Is it fear that binds you? Or is the obstacle something else—do you care for her?”
“You’re jealous….”
“No,” Maledicte denied, quick and hot, then, “Yes. Of her position, her freedom. And she wastes it, blindly listening to you. She’s a dog, not a woman. Obedient but mindless. Should I whisper in her ear at night, tell her what trusting you can lead to?”
“I’ve given you everything. We have money and power, now. The safety and luxury we’ve always craved. What more can I do?” Janus’s temper sank, left him looking strained and miserable.
Maledicte’s breath caught, remembering the boy companion of the Relicts, his lover, his beloved. They had come so far, with nothing but each other…. But sentiment was not enough. He steeled himself and said, “I have neither money nor power. I am relegated to being your prisoner. And you say you love me. If you love me—” Maledicte paused, rawness slipping into his throat, making his words more obvious than he meant. “Find Gilly for me. Let him serve me. Be my eyes and ears while you are gone….” Maledicte felt the tears start behind his eyes, blinked them back furiously; Gilly’s absence worried at him like the wound, catching him at unexpected moments with pain.
“Gilly’s dead,” Janus said. The simple words seemed louder in the room than his previous shouting. Maledicte sucked in his breath.
“Think sense, Mal, do you really think Aris would have let him live? Your confidant, your eyes and ears…. His skull’s up there next to yours.”
Maledicte shuttered his face, unwilling to let Janus see how much that hurt, how much he hated him in that moment, for telling him, for taking that last dream. He closed his eyes against tears. “Go away.”
“Mal, it’s just you and me again. Only each other at the last, remember?” Janus said, reaching out and pulling Maledicte into his arms.
Weak with shock, Maledicte leaned up against Janus, rested his head on his shoulder, let him wrap his arms more securely about him. �
��But it’s not just us,” he said in a whisper. “It’s you and the court and your wife and your king. I’m nothing now.”
“You’re everything,” Janus said. “Mal, this melancholy is only lingering effects of the Laudable. You’ve been ill, you’ve been hurt—I confess, right now I see few paths to your freedom, but I found a way to dispose of Auron; I’ll find a way to restore you to court. I depend on you. You’ll stand at my side—”
“In your shadow—”
“—ruling Antyre yet, my dark cavalier.”
Miranda let Janus press her back against the sheets, touching her gently. He peeled up her gown, kissed the slow-healing scar over her chest. “We’ll have you back on your feet, a force in the world again, your blade at my command…even if we have to kill everyone who ever laid eyes on you as Maledicte.” He kissed her mouth, and she closed her eyes, listening to his promises, his body moving against hers. She ran her fingers through his silken hair, trying to convince herself that Janus’s love, Janus’s schemes would be enough. Only each other at the last, she thought, biting her lips. It was everything she had fought for.
· 45 ·
G ILLY PASSED BY THE PALACE, his collar turned up high around his face. Despite himself he looked up, stared at the sad remnants tattered by wind and rain. He had been there when they were hung; Ma Desire hadn’t been able to dose him with Laudable enough to keep him away.
Swaying on his feet, heart numb, Gilly had still found a faint surprise in him as the body was exposed. So ordinary. Just an assembly of ruined flesh and bones, the personality gone with the breath. And yet—some suspicion so small he couldn’t name it had surfaced and sunk without ever coming to light. All he knew was that the body displayed was the body of his master, fed on by the rooks and ravens that had once followed him. Outrage had welled in him at that, the anger that Ani allowed Her feathered disciples to feast on one of Her own.
He had picked up stones, intending to knock them away, but Ma Desire had tugged him back to the brothel, kept him there for days, drunk and despairing. Kept him there through the outcry of Mirabile’s body being found, kept him there through the state funeral for the infant earl. Gilly couldn’t imagine attending anyway, couldn’t stomach the idea of seeing Janus standing at the king’s side.
“He was a wrong one,” Ma Desire said. “You’re better off without him.”
Gilly had nodded in polite obedience, but inside, he rebelled. The infant—he couldn’t imagine Maledicte killing the infant, no matter how hard Ani had ridden him. Especially after his triumph over the shadow boy, his baser self. That quiet belief, bitter in the face of the charges laid to Maledicte’s account, slowly woke Gilly from his stupor. Antyre held nothing for him now, and the Virga shipped out soon. He meant to be on it.
It had taken some time, collecting money from the banks, careful in case the Kingsguard sought him. Wasted care, Gilly realized after the first few transactions. He was only a servant, after all, in a city full of servants, invisible.
The wind shifted, bumping the ragged body against the tower with a faint rattling as of wind chimes. Some children shrieked and laughed beside him, jumped to their feet, letting their ropes reach hand to hand.
“Maledicte lived and Maledicte died
Only at his birth did anybody cry
How many people did he kill?”
The young girl tripped on the third skip and they all switched places, started again.
“Maledicte snooped and Maledicte pried
Not a soul escaped the notice of his spies
How many secrets did he buy?”
The boy kept the rope moving so long that Gilly, after the first flinch, tuned them out.
“Maledicte fought with a blade so black
Can’t be beat with Ani at his back
How many duels did he win?”
Another girl took over the chanting, her voice as sweet as Mirabile’s, as sweet as poison. Gilly watched her skip, her curls flying.
“Maledicte fled and sought the sky,
Ended bent and broken, hung on high
How many times can Maledicte die?
One!”
She stopped immediately and burst out laughing.
Gilly felt the tears start in his eyes, realized that a guard was looking at the playing children, at his distressed face, and he tugged his coat closer and turned away.
One. Even with Ani’s aid, he was only mortal. Gilly made his way down the main street, past Vornatti’s town house, still closed and dark, waiting the pleasure of its Itarusine owners. He let himself in, forcing the lock on the kitchen door, and drifted through the empty house, thinking, Here I told him stories, and made him supper, and here I played the spinet and watched them dance. Here he made me try on all of Vornatti’s clothes, for fit. And here, I killed a man for him.
But the house stayed cold and shadowed, refused to be peopled with his ghosts of memories. He left the door open, walked down to the docks, sat on the quay where he and Maledicte had sat once watching the Virga come in. Then he rose, and went to the shipyards to buy his ticket to the Explorations.
He left the harbormaster with his ticket and a tight throat, fighting the urge to return and request a second, pretending just a little longer that Maledicte might be coming with him.
A blue-lacquered carriage passed him by, and he turned to watch it go even as he stepped into a shadowed alcove. Janus, in town? Since the murder, Janus spent all his time at Lastrest, so much so that rumor whispered he’d been banished there. Gilly followed the carriage at a distance, watched Janus hand Psyke down and follow her into the DeGuerres’ estate house, smiling.
“Is he visiting?” Gilly asked the driver, stopping to pet the horse’s nose.
“He and his wife. Stopping for a fortnight. Though he’ll hare off home soon enough. Doesn’t like to leave Lastrest, he don’t. But she’s like all wives, wants the city life, the shops, the culture.”
“I see,” Gilly said, handing the man a luna. A fortnight. The Virga didn’t leave for three days. Time enough to go to Lastrest. One final pilgrimage. The place where Maledicte had found rest, even briefly.
WHEN HE REINED THE HORSE to a halt, he saw children skipping in the courtyard, as they had outside the palace. The children of farmers and house servants took the opportunity of Janus’s departure to play over the grounds unhindered.
Gilly caught only a fragment of their skipping song, enough to know it was the same one making the rounds of the city. A housemaid in a starched apron came out and slapped the eldest boy. “You know how Lord Last feels about that one,” she said.
“He’s not here, is he?” the boy said.
“You’ll forget and sing it when he’s back and then we’ll be out of a job. Mind your tongue.” She marched back to the house.
Gilly swung down from the horse; the boy rushed up to hold it. “The master’s not here.”
“That’s all right,” Gilly said. “I haven’t come to see him.”
“You’re one of the Kingsguard, aren’t you?” the boy asked. “They come every time he leaves, and snoop around. Don’t know what you’re looking for, do you?”
“No,” Gilly said. “Not really.” He walked up to the front door, lifted the latch.
“Hey, mister,” the boy said. Gilly looked back.
“Watch out for that ghost. It’s a mean one. Ripped up the master’s room something awful….”
“Just watch my horse,” Gilly said. He went inside; with Janus and Psyke gone, the main hall was dark and silent, all the liveliness of the house behind the scenes in the servants’ quarters. Gilly drifted up the stairs; the long portrait hall had a new picture now. Janus and his wife, the frame chipped at one edge. Gilly turned his face away, wandered into the study where Maledicte had first shown his talents for petty burglary.
For spite, Gilly palmed a letter opener, and then, reconsidering, put it back. If the servants decided he wasn’t a kingsguard, he didn’t want to be found a thief, either. He went upstairs alon
g the central hall, and opened a door, one of two master rooms. This was a lady’s chamber, Psyke’s: fussy, ornate, and boring. He closed the door, opened the opposite door.
“Ripped it up something awful.” The relish in the boy’s voice came back. Gilly stared. The window glass was cracked, the drapes sagging down in long tatters. The decanters on the dresser had been unstoppered and tipped over, allowed to spill into opened drawers, over clothes and furbelows. A chair, its tufted back sliced open, oozed stuffing. Gilly turned at a whisper of sound, almost expecting to see Maledicte, sitting shamefaced in the midst of his wreckage, tidying after his tantrum.
But it was only the shuff of pale feathers blowing across the floor, tangling in the bed curtains like fish in nets. Gilly pulled back the bed curtains and nearly choked.
The sword. Ani’s sword. Gilly found his hands shaking. The sword was driven through the mattress, feathers bleeding out of the ticking, snowing the room.
Janus kept the sword, Gilly thought, aghast. He touched the hilt, and twitched as if a spark had touched his skin. The sword was warm to the touch, and fluttered against his palm. Whispering.
Gilly could almost hear the words. Something of pain, something of loss, of love torn away—if he listened harder, maybe he would hear what had driven Maledicte. If he listened long enough, maybe Ani would hear his pain as well. The cage of the hilt warmed, shifted, making room for his fingers and palm.
Gilly smiled, imagining taking the blade to Janus, destroying the smug, golden monster with a single stroke and erasing the raw burn in his chest that cried protest that Janus survived when Maledicte did not. Slow images trickled behind his closed eyelids, a visual parade of encouragement—Janus, on his knees before him, that gas-flame blue of his eyes dulling, as Gilly pulled the sword back. In a sudden flash, the image forced itself wider, not Ani’s doing, but Gilly’s own, showing him more—the carcasses strewn behind him, casualties of his quest.