by Wendy Palmer
Lithia glanced up as if she was surprised to be called on. ‘Let your men go home to their families and fields, Lord Crethen,’ she said. ‘But bring yourself and your family to the capital for your reward.'
Clever Lithia, Filipe's student. Crethen bowed to her in his seat, appeased. ‘Thank you, Your Majesty,’ he said. ‘My daughter is already in the capital but I shall send word to my wife to meet us there.'
Trick had forgotten Mikcul held the lords’ heirs in Lsuana. That was another reason the heirless Dalton had been prepared to risk supporting the Empress. And Crethen had not mentioned a son. So he had no hope for the throne through that avenue but might still push for Dalton's lands, and might get them too, no matter how much unbalance that would cause.
Trick watched Filipe smile and sit back in his seat and was glad to see him not unhappy to begin to lose his power in Livania.
They turned to more mundane topics, supply trains and equipment inventory, and Trick turned back to his lobster. ‘All worried about the southern lords and not a word about the Moon-Cult,’ he said.
'What can priests do?’ asked Faustus.
So Faustus was talking to him again, and being stupid about the influence the Cult had in Livania. But Filipe wouldn't be stupid about such a thing, so surely he had half a mind to reining in the First Priestess and simply did not voice such blasphemy.
'Oh, you're sulking?’ He hadn't answered Faustus, and his cousin got annoyed again.
Trick shot a look at Mouse and had it returned in collaboration. It seemed he was corrupting the boy over to his side without trying. He could not be displeased about that, though it gave him no particular advantage.
'Cousin,’ he said. ‘There's no point talking to you since you're just a mouthpiece for Mizzle. Do you think if you agree with everything she says, she'll like you more?'
Faustus went dramatically red—as if Mizzle could possibly be ignorant of his obsession.
Trick took a swig of his brandy in cheery triumph.
Mizzle looked from him to Faustus and went back to ignoring the pair of them.
He had shut Faustus up and that lasted the rest of the meal. Desert was light pastries and cream, a quintessential Livanian dish, served with hot chocolate.
Trick was privately disappointed—he had been hoping for the solid chocolate that was Ardmore's one export. Livanian confectioners were working hard to duplicate it and all Ardmorans would do was look satisfied and claim the pure LightElf-blessed waters of the Wyvern Forest were responsible, never mind the river had not yet entered Wyvern at the point where the humans drew their water.
He sat quietly eating the cream pastries and trying to eavesdrop on Filipe's conversation with Lithia and Crethen.
Mizzle pulled apart her pastry and licked out the cream.
Down the table, Jarrett did the same.
'Are we leaving tomorrow, Mizzle?’ he asked, as the tables were being cleared.
'Yes,’ she said.
'I'll meet you downstairs at dawn.’ He walked off without looking back.
Chapter Eight
Port Told has settled. The Livanian soldiers have gone home to Lsuana and the king no longer comes to the tavern. Instead it is full of raucous celebration even before the sun sets and the working day ends. Jacoby paces the confines of her room. Kintore opens her door.
'The noise,’ she says without surprise. ‘It drives me to distraction.'
'I imagine,’ says the LightElf. ‘But the event is momentous.’ He has grimness about him, a sombre cast.
Jacoby does not seem to notice. ‘What is it?’ she asks, fretting at the curtains. Light pierces through the gaps and she turns away from it and walks back to Kintore.
He hovers in the doorway. ‘Their Goddess mated with a Dragon and has sprung forth three full-grown triplet sons.'
Jacoby stops moving, standing poised and tense. ‘Who were the other two fathers?'
'It does not work that way with humans.'
'No? Nevertheless, strange coupling.'
'There have been stranger,’ Kintore says mildly.
Jacoby smiles like a cat. ‘Does it change the LightElves’ plans?
Kintore is not fooled. ‘What plans?'
Jacoby jumps into motion again, making Kintore flinch. But she paces past him, measuring the length of the room. ‘The sun must go down,’ she says. ‘I must go out. The noise!'
'Can I take your mind off it, I wonder?'
Kintore's face is innocent when Jacoby looks at him over her shoulder. ‘A fine excuse.’ She pointedly struts to him. ‘Why do you seek me out, hiruko?'
'Why do you let me seek you out, wife of the Dark?'
Jacoby smiles again. ‘You find it unsettling.'
Kintore stares over her head. Eventually he meets her challenging gaze. ‘I trust you even less than I did.'
'How is that possible?’ she says, mocking him.
Kintore just looks at her, that grim fatalism all about him. Jacoby takes a tiny step and all of sudden they stand intimately close. Kintore does not shy away, not even when she reaches out with one hand, pulls him in and shuts the door behind him.
'It seems you have reached a decision.'
'I could not in good conscience describe it as a decision,’ says Kintore. For the first time, he touches her, running fingers through her glossy black hair.
Jacoby brushes her lips along his jawline and he shudders as if icy fingers played along his spine. ‘We are at truce,’ she says in his ear. ‘I will not entice information, I will not bespell you and I will not assassinate you, for the next little while.'
'Why?’ His voice is as soft as hers.
A sudden odd smile lights her whole face. ‘I like you, ‘Tore. You are different from the DarkElf males.'
'Light help me, you are different from the LightElf females.'
Jacoby kisses him. He sinks into her embrace but recoils back after a long moment. ‘I cannot.'
'Hiruko,’ she says. ‘I will not wait forever. I pledge no harm will come to you.'
Kintore presses back against the door. ‘You are my mortal enemy.'
'I am your distant cousin. I am just like you.’ She picks up his hand, and slips it inside her tunic, presses it against her heart. ‘My heart beats just like yours, ‘Tore.'
His hand cups her breast. ‘What does this gain you?'
'Ask me tomorrow.’ Her eyes are intent. She lays the whole length of her body against him.
His breath gasps out. He touches her face with his other hand.
She catches his hand and pulls him step by step to the bed. She meets him in a tentative kiss, unlike her previous confident seduction while laying them both down on the bed.
Kintore draws back a little, poised over her and shaking. ‘What should I do?'
'Undress me,’ she says. ‘Or leave. Choose.'
He chooses.
* * * *
Trick woke sharply the next morning, sitting up with a choking outcry behind his teeth. Fortune, but could his dreams of Linnet be pleasant for two nights together? He put his head in his hands for one weak moment, but jerked himself up again as the door opened.
'Knock, yes?’ he said and only then saw it was Mizzle.
'We are waiting for you,’ she said.
'Right,’ he said. He had slept late.
'Are you well, Trick?’ she asked then, unexpectedly.
He looked at her, standing in the doorway with her hair braided but showing her unlooked-for streak of kindness. She had no expression on her face but her words hung in the air.
'Yes,’ he said, not knowing what else to say to her. He had not known pain was writ so large upon his face.
She nodded. ‘I have arranged for extra supplies,’ she said. You may eat breakfast on the road, she meant.
Trick dressed hurriedly and went down, still buttoning the cloak Lithia had supplied, choosing to take the clothes as a gift not a loan. Mizzle got wiser and wiser—if she had said a word to him about being late he would be tarry
ing still. Servants were on the stairs and in the hallways. He had hoped to come through the halls unnoticed by any but them but Lithia met him coming down the stairs.
She said, ‘You're coming with us?'
She was dressed for riding and her white hair was plaited back, DarkElf style. So he had slept so late he entangled them with the departure of the Empress for Lsuana. He could not believe Mizzle had had no unkind words for him.
'No,’ he said.
'No?’ she repeated. ‘Do you not want to?’ She had no coquetry in her tone. She asked because she could not afford another enemy.
'Mizzle doesn't,’ he said, and went past her down the stairs.
She linked her hands together and blinked at him. ‘I could order you,’ she said. It was no threat, just an out-loud musing as she considered her options. ‘I could make you come.'
Trick had had a bad night. He turned and looked up at her. ‘You already feast while your people starve,’ he said. ‘Don't add another abuse of power just yet.’ He saw Crethen coming down the stairs behind Lithia, another man with him, and almost regretted his words.
She flinched, but when she spoke her voice was even. ‘This is why I need you with me,’ she said. ‘Filipe forgets such things.'
He finally got it, that she was asking for him, and not Mizzle, and not on Filipe's behalf.
He had nothing to say to that, and walked on down to the grand double doors to the yard. He heard Crethen speak behind him and Lithia's lilting answer.
The yard outside was crowded with soldiers, carts and packages as Filipe wasted no time getting Lithia into her capital and onto her throne.
The man who had been with Crethen, heavy-jowled and narrow-eyed, came out behind Trick and shouldered him aside. He collected a horse from a groom and rode away through the confusion.
That was the messenger to Crethen's home, sending for his wife. Trick wondered if she had been instructed to meet them at Lsuana or on the road.
'Patrick, get a move on,’ Faustus said.
They were at the bottom of the stairs and off to one side. Mizzle and Faustus were already mounted but Mouse waited beside Bet. Trick went down the stairs two at a time, pushing off the second last one into a leap up onto Bet. He got Mouse up behind one-handed, not without a twinge in his shoulder for his effort.
He wheeled Bet round with a hand to the rein and then saw that the supply carts had started out the gates and blocked their way.
'Fortune spits,’ he said.
'Should have left earlier.’ That was Filipe, standing on the bottom step at his elbow, speaking Bourchian.
Trick looked down at him and wondered at the second blocking of gates in as many days. He felt Mizzle's eyes boring into his back. He had made them late, and left them in the path of the exodus to Lsuana, where he had requested to go.
He said instead, in Livanian, ‘You shouldn't get me in trouble if you want me to have influence with her.'
Filipe switched to Livanian as well. ‘You're not coming with us?'
'Mizzle doesn't want to,’ said Trick, more truth than he was comfortable with.
'When did you become so passive?'
That was pure provocation. ‘You don't know me,’ said Trick, stung, though he knew it wasn't true. He had met Filipe formally only once, but he was said to watch all the Company closely, that was the rumour.
'I keep an eye on all my talented ones,’ said Filipe then. ‘You and Sparrow.'
Filipe confirmed the rumour with an out-and-out lie. Trick was no more than a competent thief, and Sparrow, Linnet's brother, never did have his heart in it.
Trick looked away. Filipe hurt him, to make him think of Sparrow, who perhaps did not yet know his sister was dead.
Then Filipe added, almost casually, ‘He's in Lsuana, you know.'
Convenient, that Sparrow was where Filipe wanted him to go. Trick called him on it. ‘He's not.'
Filipe nodded, without shame. ‘He's in Kiara Valley with his family.'
Trick thought to suspect that too, but Filipe did not know where they were going and had no advantage in diverting them to the Ardmore capital even if he did. ‘Thank you.'
The carts finally cleared the gate. Mizzle took Skye forward with a gentle nudge of her boot. Trick started Bet after her.
'Fortune above,’ said Filipe. ‘You're not under, are you?'
He turned back with sharp words on his tongue in time to see Filipe's expression change and the man actually take a step back. He suspected Mizzle's intervention and a glance over his shoulder confirmed it. Her steady silver gaze warned Filipe off.
He felt a glow then, to be under her protection.
Jarrett called down from inside the doors, standing at the threshold of the light. ‘Clever trick,’ he said in DarkElvish. ‘It ensures his loyalty. You are learning, little one.'
That sent Trick's temper up more than Filipe had, but he remembered in time not to show it. Mizzle looked straight at him and he had the strongest feeling she knew he understood.
He gave her a carefully blank expression back so as not to confirm it for her, and sent Bet out the gate.
* * * *
Trick ate on the road, fresh warm bread and cold meats from the feast last night. For the first time, he wished his flask held water instead of brandy, but Mizzle handed him across a skin filled with fresh milk. He shared sips with Mouse and handed it back.
They passed the carts in good order and rode on steadily, every mile putting distance between themselves and the rumble and mud that was the Imperial army. He could feel relief at that, and still a pang of regret that he had not helped Filipe.
He did not know where that regret came from—whether it was an allegiance to the leader of the Company in abstract or whether Filipe had manipulated him enough to make him feel obliged to help. In either case it overrode his anger at the man without Trick wanting it to.
It had been easy to blame Mikcul for setting the Cult against the Company, and much harder to keep blaming Filipe for making them a target. It hardly occurred to him to blame Lithia.
Faustus must have read his mind. ‘The Empress seems to have taken a shine to you.'
Faustus could actually be perceptive sometimes, to base that observation on a few glances at the banquet and a request in his ear. Trick himself had assumed the request to come to Lsuana was aimed at Mizzle until Lithia set him straight. Faustus had guessed right without prompting and perhaps without even hearing her words.
Now he glanced past Skye's rump to Faustus and saw his cousin was trying to rile him. ‘Why wouldn't she?’ he said, bland arrogance. ‘Look at me. Handsome, charming...’ He ran out of adjectives.
Faustus snorted and Mizzle cast a slanted look Trick's way. A smile might have ghosted around her lips.
'You tell him, Mizzle.’ He held his breath.
'Indubitably,’ Mizzle said. She had come through Kitira without using the stone then, to show him kindness in the morning and a flash of humour now. He could be pleased for her, and still tell himself he wasn't succumbing.
Good humour faded from Faustus and he hunched into his saddle. Trick both regretted it then, and didn't—not if it made Faustus give up his obsession. But he got a burning hot look from his cousin that said the obsession grew.
He decided to turn the subject and only one thing occurred to him. It could only make Faustus feel worse. ‘Forgiven Jarrett yet, Mizzle?'
Ice from Mizzle, all he had expected. He shrugged. ‘I truly think he did not mean to aid Mikcul.'
It might be naivety, but Jarrett had once been the only friend a child had had. In the same way he could regret not helping Filipe more, he could regret not mending the rift between Mizzle and Jarrett.
They were mild regrets, next to Linnet, and he did not expect them to last long.
Mizzle stirred and turned to him to say something. Then her mouth shut and her head whipped around. He heard it too, an echoing war cry from the copse ahead.
Riders poured out towards them. His fir
st thought was bandits, and he expected them to rein up and make a show of force and a demand for money. But they kept on coming, riding hard for them. Mizzle swung off Skye and her swords flashed out as she sang that sharp DarkElvish word. She would face mounted fighters on the ground, but that had to make sense to her, who never would have learnt to fight from horseback.
On the other side of Skye, Faustus drew his sword. Trick himself sat hampered by Mouse. He caught Skye's reins up one-handed and hoisted himself across to her empty saddle, leaving Mouse to defend himself with Illusion or with flight as best he could.
He drew San's sword as their attackers swept down upon them. He crossed swords with one man, riding too fast to stop. So he had him at his back as he struck the next man across the arm and knocked him from his horse. Skye skittered away and rammed into another opponent who cut clumsily at him. He deflected the blow and then had to parry another stroke from his other side. He slashed at the horse of that one, making it rear and kick. The rider went off backwards and he sent the other one the same way with a ringing blow of the sword that shocked him all the way to the shoulder.
The clang of metal on metal told him that Mizzle at least was still alive and but he didn't spare a glance for Faustus or Mouse. The man who had got past him had to be coming back by now, unless he had gone for Mouse.
He could hope for that to buy him time. He could feel guilty about that, and still hope it.
One of the men he had sent to the ground got up and slashed at his leg. That one nearly got through while he was thinking of Mouse; only Skye's pivot away saved him. Trick brought his sword down on the man's head, an explosion of blood and brain.
Breathing hard, he rode Skye at another raider, trampling bodies underfoot and not looking too closely in case it was Mizzle or Faustus. Before he reached his target, the man went out of the saddle. Mizzle had dispatched that raider with one sword while holding off another.
Faustus took care of that one for her. Trick hoped he did not fight only to protect Mizzle, or he would end up dead. Trick headed that way himself when an attacker knocked him out of his saddle with a cudgel.
He got up, barely, weaponless. His back was in agony where the cudgel had landed, and his shoulder where he had landed. The man with the cudgel rode down at him, and he threw himself out the way, looking for his sword, for Skye, or for Mizzle.