The Bandit King

He all but flinched. “If he is, Captain, twould be the first time. We shall leave at the nooning.” A nobleman’s salute, and he ducked through the flap.

Well. That is interesting. I blew out a long, frustrated breath. When the body will not obey, despite all a man’s cursing and will, tis almost as maddening as following a foolhardy woman across a war-torn country as she flings herself into every danger she can find.

Almost.

Fridrich van Harkke was suddenly at my side. He even smelled foreign, some odd combination of oil and tanned Pruzian leather, a bitter undertone as of young dandille greens. He braced me, and murmured something in his harsh tongue. Sorcery tingled along my fingers and toes. Twas merely a simple warming-charm, but its oily harshness scraped my skin.

“You will kill yourself.” His Arquitaine had improved immeasurably. Even his accent was better.

“I cannot die.” I have too much to accomplish. “The gods will not let me. Not as long as they wish Vianne to be Queen.”

And should they change their Blessed minds about that, they shall see what a descendant of the Angouleme can do to gainsay even them.

“All men can die.” Fridrich was pessimistic. “Here, I help you shave.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Following an army’s tracks is normally an education in misery. From the Field d’Or to Amielles, though, the Road was empty. Twas eerie—the fields were stripped, the Orlaanstrienne quiet and its game blinking in surprise at our passage. Smallholdings and tiny villages met us with blank doors and not a sign of life. Amielles itself was very quiet, and twas there we learned what was afoot.

Arquitaine had risen.

The peasants had stayed long enough to bring in the crops. Then they swelled the ranks of the Hedgewitch Queen’s army, with whatever weapons were to hand. Scythes, flails, bows, a ferment of peasant unrest. D’Orlaans’s tax-farmers and his invitation to the hounds of Damar were viewed as the reason for the plague, the scars of which could be seen in every village. The carrion had feasted well this year—crows sleek and glossy, young hawks circling hopefully, stray dogs and feral porcines avoiding the tramp of boots and shod hooves. Communal graves lurked on the outskirts of every ville, some marked with small shrines that would someday perhaps be expanded into Temples.

The Blessed ride with her, a few scarecrow-thin old women left in Amielles told us. The children who had survived the plague were big-eyed and fearful, peering at us around corners. The plague flees as she approaches. May it strike Damar down instead.

Indeed.

I clung to the saddle, my scarred chest fragile-sore. Coele cursed me steadily and roundly at each stop. We could not essay much more than a jogtrot, as if we were on promenade, and near it killed me with frustration. At least we were not far behind the Hedgewitch Queen’s motley army, its ponderousness still moving at a clip that kept it just out of reach.

The Pruzian rode sometimes at the rear of our column, sometimes in the middle. Every night as we camped, he vanished; every morning I woke to find him standing guard at my sleeping-roll. I did not ever find him resting, and I wondered that I had grown so easy at the idea of such a man near me with a knife while I lay unconscious. Of course, he had been within reach of my shaving-razor and had not done me any ill. It was not as if I could gainsay him, weak as I was. I was mending, yes, charmed at every halt and filled to the back teeth with tisanes. Yet rage simmered in me. Helpless, just when I needed speed and strength most.

I had much time to think, and much time to curse myself for not expecting di Garonne’s thrust. He had the habit of attacking entierce, true—but ensiconde was a child’s ploy, and I had fallen foul of it. Wherever his shade was resting now, it was probably still having a hearty laugh at my expense.

At least he was among the shades, and I among the living. For now.

And while I was, there was much grist for the mill in my head. She suspects, the Pruzian had said, but I could not induce him to sally further. My father had a potential traitor in his sight as well, but I could not spare any worry for him. If Jierre could act the jilted soul so successfully with me, what could he not convince Vianne of? I knew enough of Timrothe d’Orlaans to suspect he had a plan, as well. What might it consist of—and how could I guard Vianne against its tentacles?

Early on the fourth day we passed through Nemourth. From there to Bleu-di-Font was a short day’s ride, and my command to press on was almost gainsaid by a mutinous di Siguerre. You will kill yourself, he snarled.

I have already been dead once, I snarled in return, but until tis a permanent state you are not free to treat me as your lackey.

Nor are you free to treat me as such, was his sharp reply, but we left the matter there and continued riding. Evening rose in swathes of blue and orange, the sun dying over the westron horizon, and the shapes on the Road ahead resolved into creaking, brightly-painted wagons threading along single-file.

Twas a traveling band of R’mini. The wagons were drawn by horses instead of oxen, and a small flock of goats wandered on the hedge-side, tapped along by a slim youth with a slouching cloth cap. He touched the back of one goat with his crookstick, singing a wandering melody in a high piping voice.

“Tinkers.” Di Siguerre glanced at me. “Come to strip corpses, no doubt. Shall we move them from the Road?”

A fresh pang went through me. “Merely pass by.”

Some of the Guard made avert signs as we passed them. The R’mini did not call out a greeting, simply watched the band of crimson-sashed noblemen trot past. Their horses did not even seek to whicker at ours. The women were mostly inside the lumbering coaches; the men drove, some of the younger ones atop the wagons’ carved roofs.

The head wagon’s driving-seat held a R’mini headman and his lean dark wife, both of them gazing straight ahead. The headman’s proud nose jutted; his dark curly hair lay in sleek-oiled profusion. A red sash tied about his ample waist, a red kerchief about her luxurious fall of redblack hair, gold at her wrist and throat and ears swaying as the wheels turned.

My fingers tightened on Arran’s reins. He merely flicked an ear, and we continued on into the twilight, the pinprick-lights of the Bleu in the distance a welcome beacon.

I remained passing thoughtful, and more than a little unsettled.

When last I had seen that R’mini headman, we had both been in Arcenne.

* * *

Some days later we found the war.

Merun is a day’s ride from Citte Arquitaine. I had planned that we would swing north and east, taking the Road that strikes for Spire di Tierrcei; from there the Road was a river to Reimelles, and our chances were good of catching my Queen’s army.

Or so I thought. We breasted a short broken rise; twas the last of the rolling ridges before the vast basin the Citte lay cupped like a pearl in—called Paumelle d’Arquitaine, after the hollow of a woman’s hand—and halted, staring down.

Merun, the town of lacemakers, the royal seat of the White Kings before the Caprete line had failed and Tirecian-Trimestin became the next branch of the Angouleme’s line to wear the Aryx, Merun of the narrow streets and the Merunaisse, as its inhabitants are called for their lace ruffs, Merun one of the seven gateways to the Citte, was burning.

The hounds of Damar had not been held at Reimelles after all. Later I heard of the frantic retreat to Merun, of the shattered remnants of the defenders of Reimelles meeting the Hedgewitch Queen’s ragtag force and causing panic as they fled. I was told of Vianne’s rallying them, riding forth on her white horse, the Aryx fiery on her chest