of smithery and dry oil. Woodsmoke, horses, the scent of tinkerfolk.
They are dark, and fierce, and their hedgewitchery is not like ours. Furthermore, the R’mini do not settle in one place—they travel, in their brightly-painted wagons, oxen and horses pulling them step by slow step through the world. They are fine menders and blacksmiths, carriers of tales and sometimes disease, though the plague ravaging other parts of Arquitaine had not touched any province declaring for Vianne as Queen.
They do not take to outsiders, the R’mini. But they had brought Vianne safely through the Alpeis forest and to Arcenne, and when she spoke of them her face softened. It was the only time I saw her… well, at peace.
Or, perhaps, happy.
Divris di Tatancourt was d’Arquitaine, a foreigner, and a nobleman to boot. But he was welcomed at the R’mini fire. Their women, shy and sloe-eyed, hung back, clicking their tongues. The men crowded him, and one heavyset older fellow with a red sash, a gold earring, and a dagger at his ample waist clapped di Tatancourt on the shoulder and offered him a tankard of something. Twas probably
I cast about for a better place to observe them from. Though the Gieron was filling as the army arrived, plenty of the buildings were unfit for habitation—so the unoccupied cottage I made my way into was a perfect vantage point. I watched through the slats nailed over a rotting, cavernous window, exhaling softly to remind myself to keep calm. It could mean nothing.
Considering that the killspell had been intended for me, there was a certain symmetry to events. I spared a grim smile at the thought.
Di Tatancourt was taken into a red and blue-painted wagon, the headman followed. The rest of the R’mini, chattering and laughing in their strange spiked language, were a whirl of color and firelight. They favor dark reds and bright blues, greens and splashes of charm-cleaned white, gold at neck and throat and ears, and the women sometimes sport thin golden rings at the nose. The gold flashed against dark skin and dark hair—their coloring has an undertone of red instead of the d’Arquitaine blue. An old word for them was
I waited, and watched.
When di Tatancourt reappeared, he was pale and shaken. He stepped heavily down from the wagon, and the headman—for such, I had deduced, he absolutely was, the leader of their little company—leaned out, cupped his hand near his mouth, and continued speaking in a low, fierce tone.
The Messenger shook his head. He had a leather satchel. He was even paler, too, and almost staggered.
Vianne had spent hours closeted with him, questioning him of Court. Some of her questions I could see the logic behind; others, not so much. And after I had been dragged off a-donjon, no doubt she had spent much time with him as well, laying her plans.
My hands shook.
I wanted to burst forth from my lair and catch him, beat every living shred of information out of his quivering body, and finish by sliding a knife between his ribs. My savagery did not shock me.
The fact that my self-control was so thin did. So I breathed, soft and slow. Would I turn into
The songs never said what the
I winced inwardly. Watched the headman of the R’mini land on solid earth, clapping di Tatancourt on the shoulder again. As he might brace up one of his compatriots who had suffered a misfortune. He said something else, and the Messenger made a wry face, hitching the leather dispatch bag higher on his other shoulder. He answered in Arquitaine, and I caught the words
The headman laughed, kissed his fingertips, and Divris di Tatancourt swept him a bow. Then, his shoulders no less hunched and his step no less hurried and nervous, the Messenger left the circle of R’mini firelight, plunging back into the dark.
And I followed.
I chose the place with care—dark alley mouths, a ramshackle narrow street at the edge of the Gieron, very few avenues of escape. My doublet looped over my arm and my dagger ready, I waited for him—this was the best approach to the Keep if he wished to pass unremarked. Of course, he could be an idiot, and take another route.
I did not think him quite an idiot. Merely unpracticed. It takes a certain skill to move about a city at night without drawing attention. The trick is not to act with confidence, but with the correct amount of furtiveness for the street or alley in which you find yourself.
His step echoed against the brick paving. A crowd would have meant I had to kill him—I would have had to work close, slip the knife into a kidney, and take the bag while he fell. It was the tenebrous time just on the edge of full night, where dusk fills every corner with far more shadow than midnight. It is a golden time for secret meetings, assassinations, thievery, rifling a corpse’s pockets.
The doublet was intended as a baffle against knifeplay, but di Tatancourt, with a nobleman’s instinct, reached for his rapier instead of the far-more-practical dagger. So it was over his head with the doublet, the rapier singing as it was struck from his hand and hit brick paving, a ringing blow to maze his wits, and the dispatch bag’s strap cut. It was in my possession in a trice, and I kicked him twice while he was on the ground, simply to disorient him and keep him down. Snatching the doublet up, avoiding his thrashing, I was tempted to say summat but quelled the urge.
I stepped back, and it was only the long habit of watching one’s enemy even while he is aground and helpless that saved me. For I saw him lift the diabolical thing, and dove aside before it spoke with a
Whatever was in the bag would tell me much. But however he explained his bruises would tell me even more.
Chapter Twenty
I burst into my father’s study, and Irion di Markui half-rose, his hand to his rapier-hilt. My father outright bolted to his feet, his hair ruffled, and di Dienjuste, by the window-casement, whirled and actually half-drew. A curious expression crossed his flushed features, but I was in too much a hurry to grant it much thought.
“War is upon us.” I tossed the dispatch bag onto a table choked with other paper. “The Damarsene have invaded; the next few dispatches will be full of their thundering.
“How did you—” di Dienjuste began, and for a moment his knees actually loosened. I did not blame him; the news was dire.