The Bandit King

“I believe Vianne di Rocancheil et Vintmorecy is capable of caring for herself in some small ways, m’fils. She is doing what she must for the good of Arquitaine.” My mother’s chin lifted. “Now come and sit, and have some chai.”

I had thought Vianne would not have disappeared without taking leave of my mother, and I further thought my mother would be easily blandished into telling me more of my darling’s plans.

My father was of the opinion that questioning servants would give us a direction, so we would at least know whither she was bound. I hoped he was having better luck.

It was odd—he and I did not speak of anything other than the task to be done, and we seemed easier with each other now than we ever had. At least he understood that to find her was paramount.

If he cursed me for whatever had caused her to take this course, it did not matter. I was already busy cursing myself. The fact that Vianne must have been planning this before I proved myself such a beast—perhaps even before Adrien di Cinfiliet whispered his poison in her ear—did not alter my self-loathing.

She is afraid. And she was the lady for catching intrigues at Court. She is playing for her life now; that sharpens her wits still further. And it makes her likely to act instead of waiting.

“Pere told me she requires my presence to use the Aryx.” I dropped down in the chair opposite my mother and examined her face. Do not force me to use a Left Hand’s methods, mother mine. Not against my own blood.

She nodded, slowly. “Vianne… did mention summat of that.”

I took the cup she had poured for me. Enough. I risked a raid against her borders. “My presence, or a man’s presence, or…?”

I watched my mother struggle, her calm cracking slightly. You wish to help Vianne, you want to help me. You know how much I love her; you are a gentle creature. Another hot bolt of self-loathing speared me.

A Left Hand knows how to let silence work upon the holders of secrets. In the absence of rougher methods, it is surprisingly effective. Those who do not bend under the weight of a conscience must be approached with other methods.

But my mother was not a difficult castle to siege.

“Your presence,” she said finally, picking up the chai-pot again. A cool afternoon breeze from the garden drifted through the filmy curtains, and I thought of Vianne in this chair, as the Baroness sallied to ease her. I had watched my mother draw a shy smile from my darling, again and again. “Tris…”

I dropped my gaze to my cup.

She poured her own chai, silently arranged a plate of dainties—of course, my father would see to it that my mother had those little things she loved. The things that made her so gentle, and so unlike him.

She set the plate between us, with her usual well-bred precision. Finally, she spoke again. “She did not say much.”

I kept staring as if the spiced liquid in my cup held the solution to the Unanswerable Riddle. My face was frozen into a mask of quiet suffering, and I hoped its expression was even now wringing her heart.

“Only that the Aryx must be used to protect, and that she could not fully make it do as she wished without you. Since you are her Consort. She said it was the Blessed’s idea of a jest, perhaps.”

She must have trusted you, to speak so freely. And I wonder how bitterly she laughed, thinking of a gods’ jest. I still held my tongue. If there was aught more, she was approaching the edge of telling it.

“M’fils… you are not angry, are you? At your father?”

Of all the questions I expected, that was the last. A sigh took me by surprise, tension unstringing. My shoulders dropped. “Would it do any good? I am a disappointment, Mere. I always have been.”

“No. Never.” She moved the plate slightly, her slim fingers so soft.

Like Vianne’s. Not for them the rasp of swordhilt, or the cold and hunger of uncertainty, or the screaming chaos of battle. They were not fit for it, and without their small rooms and bright chai-pots, their gloves and curls and soft brushing skirts, what was all the rest of the unpleasantness for? Useless and worthless, unless it set a hedge around this, my mother’s sunlit room smelling of fresh air, sunshine, and a faint ghost of perfume and pastries.

My father would have preferred a different son. One more like Jierre, perhaps. One who would have never been a Left Hand. Would you, too?

His disappointment was at least expected. Hers would be more difficult to endure.

“You are so like him!” my mother finally burst out, with a toss of her head. Her peridot ear-drops swung. “I wish I’d warned her. Stubborn, both of you. It takes a light touch to manage a d’Arcenne; at least I told her that much before she went haring off—” She clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, hellfire,” she muttered through her fingers. “Hellfire and damnation.”

My eyebrows raised to hear such language from her. It took all my control to keep my face down and my tone soft. “A light touch? She does not even need that, m’Mere. She only needs to wish for it, to set me at it, and I will—”

“Do whatever it is you think she wants, or what you have convinced yourself she needs.” My mother sighed. “You are so young. And so is she. Tristan, she has taken on a burden. It is one you cannot share, no matter what you would wish. The gods chose her for this.”

Now that was surprising. “I had no idea you were religious.”

“I am not overly religious, no. But it would take a fool not to see the hands of the Blessed in this.”

Oh, the gods. They make trained farrats and apes of us all. Or perhaps life merely does so for them. Yet I could not discount the Blessed. I had seen them at work in the Temple. On my wedding day, the face of Jiserah the Gentle blazing no less than my Queen’s—now there was a memory not likely to ease my mood.

Jiserah was the Blessed responsible for marital harmony. I wondered if her grace on my wedding day would do me much good now, did I make an offering a-Temple. “Gods or no gods, Mere, she needs me.”

“I do not think she trusts the Council.”

I went utterly still. The chair under me was far too finely carved for my comfort; it could tip me at any moment. “What?”

“Before she left, she told me in confidence…” My mother glanced at the open window. She leaned forward, the struggle she waged with herself clearly visible. “Tristan, she told me she suspects one or more of the Council are d’Orlaans’s creatures. That was why she had to leave. There was… an attempt. To kidnap her, to take her outside the walls.”

The cold was all through me. This was the missing piece of the puzzle. “When?”

“Just before the Damarsene arrived. She… the Pruzian, he fought them off. They were d’Arquitaine. Lowlanders, not mountainfolk. One said a name, but she would not tell me.” My mother’s soft cheeks were now damp, and another tear turned crystalline on her lashes, touching the fine lines at the corners of her eyes made by smiling. “The Pruzian was wounded, and Vianne… she sought to use the Aryx. It worked, but not well, and she was hard-pressed. Twas when she suspected she needed you to wield it properly.”

Dear gods. Why did she not tell me? It had to have been after she left me in the donjon. “Why did—”

“She swore me to secrecy.” My mother bit her lip. “Even your father does not know of this. She thought to protect you, m’fils, that her seeming disregard for you would ensure those who sought to harm her would attack more directly, instead of using you.”

My mother needs reassurance, to retain her as an asset for later. She will hear things I do not, and now that she has broken a confidence once, she will do so more easily again. “You have done right, m’Mere.” Slowly, to drive home that we were in unwilling league now. “A name on the Council. Did she say aught else? Anything?”

For now I would be doubly watchful of those old men. An attempt to take her person from Arcenne, and her