The Hedgewitch Queen

of my mistakes.

I could have screamed, the cheated howl of a wolf when the lamb is snatched from its teeth. Yet I did not, for the howl would have turned into her name, and that I could not allow.

I would not sully her name by speaking it here.

But I thought it. One word, encapsulating the bait for this trap, the lure I had taken unknowing, like any stupid caged falcon at the mercy of its instinct.

Vianne.

I fell into darkness, holding her name behind my lips. The beating they meted out to me was only kisses, after the tearing pain of knowing I had failed, the prize snatched from my grasp at the very last moment.

I was doomed.

* * *

Thief, liar, assassin, and whore. Tale-bearer, spy, extortionist, confidante, scandal-smoother. A knife in the dark, poison in a cup, a shield and a defense on the battlefield as well as in the glittering whirl of Court. Puppetmaster, spymaster, whoremaster, brutal thug, protocol handler, catspaw, pawn, troublemaker, cutthroat, fiend, pickpocket, swindler, brigand, pirate, kidnapper, alter ego, usurer, false witness…

This, then, is the Left Hand.

The Left Hand does what must be done to cement the hold of the monarch on the realm, to protect the king or queen we swear fealty to — even at the cost of our own lives. Even at the cost of our honor. There is only one word never applied to the Left Hand, only one thing a Left Hand has never been.

Traitor.

To be the Left Hand is to be the most trusted of a monarch’s subjects, a position of high honor though none will know your face or name. Most of a Hand’s work is done in shadow, and well it should be. The Hand does those things which are necessary, by blood or by leverage, the things a monarch cannot do. According to the secret archives in the Palais d’Arquitaine, the first of us was Anton di Halier, who created the office in the time of Jeliane de Courcy-Trimestin, the Widow Queen of Arquitaine who depended on Halier for her very life during the great wars, both internecine and domestic, of the Blood Years.

I find it amusing the first Left Hand spent his service under a Queen. Sometimes.