The Bandit King

aurlaine.

The night wore on. That thin thread of green wedded to the wooden door mocked me. I longed to touch the knob, to steal on cat-feet into the d’mselle’s chamber and whisper the truth in her ear. Would she take it for a god’s voice, and would I be struck down for blasphemy?

What further blasphemy could I commit? Lying to tell the truth, lying to hide a truth, lying to cover my crimes, lying because I had lost the habit of truth itself—

You? Tristan d’Arcenne, worrying like an old provincial m’dama about blasphemy? What next? Spending all your time on your knees in black skirts, counting your prayers on your fingers?

I almost laughed at the vision. On a nightwatch, the mind does strange things.

Far away, reverberating through stone, the temple bells tolled. I counted the strokes. A carillon, then twelve. Midnight. After now would come the time of deepest darkness, the time when I most often lay awake, listening to Vianne’s soft breathing next to me and cherishing each moment of her warmth. How long had we been married?

Not nearly long enough to cool the fever in a man’s blood, when the only woman he wants is beside him and the world has spread itself at his feet. Or, at least, all of the world that matters.

The bells quieted, stone vibrating slightly against my back. I closed my eyes and touched the edge of her door, running my fingertips over the knob as if it were the sweet curve of her hip. So soft, and so—

I snapped into full alertness.

Boots. The jingle of spurs, metal clashing.

I hesitated. If twere merely news, there might be no need to disturb her. If twas something other…

They rounded the corner, torches spilling witchfire, almost the full half-dozen of the Queen’s Guard. Jespre di Vidancourt, named for a stone; dark Jai di Montfort; Tinan di Rocham pale as death, swept along with them. At their head, Jierre, my lieutenant, with his countenance graven. He seemed to have aged ten years since I had commissioned him to my father’s Keep.

I stepped forward, hand to hilt, and Jierre drew, steel singing from the sheath and his left hand lighting with venomous yellow witchfire, Court sorcery capable of blinding a man.

Treachery? Here?

“Hold!” Jai di Montfort yelled. His dark hair was disarranged, and he clasped Jierre’s shoulder, his other hand occupied with a torch dripping orange witchfire. “You have your orders, di Yspres! Stay your hand!”

We faced each other, the Guard and I, and I shifted my balance a few crucial fractions. Did they come for my d’mselle’s door, we would find whose steel rang truest. My fingers tightened, tendon- knots, on my hilt.

Six against one. I have taken worse odds, and Jierre will attack inquarto. He always does.

Did he come for Vianne, I would kill him, lieutenant or no.

Tinan di Rocham gasped for breath. “The order. Captain, the order—”

“Silence!” Jierre’s tone cut harsh as a clothier’s knife through silk. “Tristan d’Arcenne, you are under arrest.”

What? “What madness are you about?” My forearm tensed. The first thing to do would be to douse the torches, a flashy bit of Court sorcery but one I had practiced well. Darkness is where a Hand does his best work. “I stand guard over the Queen of Arquitaine!”

Di Montfort’s fingers dug into Jierre’s shoulder, white-knuckled, holding my second-in-command back. “Tis our d’mselle herself who commands it, Captain.” Jai was ever the voice of reason, one of the most levelheaded of the Guard. Tinan held up a scroll, its heavy waxen seal visibly imprinted with the symbol of royalty—the three serpents of the Aryx, twisting about one another.

My left hand leapt, not for a charm or killspell, but for the doorknob. It yielded, unlocked, the thin thread of hedgewitch-illusion that had darkened it breaking, and the door swept open as Jierre and the others surged forward. I saw the penitent’s cell, lit by a globe of glowrock and the low-burning lamps, guttering untended. The cot was smooth, unruffled, and I remembered the priestess swaying her way down the hall as I relieved Tinan of his guard duty. A priestess with a familiar gait, but I had seen the green-and-white robes and dismissed it.

Outplayed, Tristan, and by your very own d’mselle. I halted, and the killing rage sharpened under my breastbone, cracked against the chain of duty like a cur snapping at its leash.

“Captain.” Tinan di Rocham, his young voice breaking. “Please. We know not what the Queen is thinking —”

“I know what she thinks, boy. Hold your tongue.” Jierre shook free of di Montfort’s restraint. “We have orders to bring you whole and hale, d’Arcenne, but do you resist and it shall go ill for all concerned.”

The best of friends, the worst of enemies. I gathered myself, and tension sprang through them, as the springs and ropes of a siege engine will tauten when the engineers apply the levers.

I had subtly encouraged them to swear their fealty to her, had fostered their loyalty to her, had tied their fates to hers. A hedge of safety around my Vianne, and she had used it against me. Fair blond Luc di Chatillon had the chains, their rattle strangely subdued.

“I am to be arrested?” I made a show of slowly unbuckling my swordbelt, moving carefully. The angles of Jierre’s face contorted, whether with agony or murder I could not tell. “On what charge?”

“Treason.” Pillipe di Garfour said it like a curse, as a man would spit out sour wine. “Written in your own hand, Captain. You are to be tried.”

Oh, Vianne. You were so careful with Adersahl. “Tried by whom?”

“Take his sword, Tinan.” Jierre’s stare was pitiless, and empty. Of all of them, he would feel the most betrayed. How had she reached him, to turn him thus?

I offered it with both hands. Should I play the innocent? “I insist on seeing the order, di Yspres. It is my right.”

“You dare—” My lieutenant took a single step forward, and a shining inch of steel showed between hilt and scabbard. He was perilously close to murdering me where I stood—that is, if the knife in my boot did not find his heart when I killed the lights.

Jai di Montfort sank his callused fingers into Jierre’s shoulder again, drawing the man back. “Tis true. But I think it would not be wise of you to insist, d’Arcenne. Let us be calm, as befits the Queen’s Guard.”

“In the Queen’s name.” The words fair sounded to choke Jierre. His face shifted again, terribly, and shame suffused me.

I thought I had plumbed the depths of any shame I could feel the first time I killed an unarmed man in service of Henri di Tirecian-Trimestin.

I was wrong.

“For the Queen’s honor.” The words were ash on my tongue. My swordbelt was handed over. Luc di Chatillon did not clasp the irons overly tight, but he did make certain of them, and handed the key not to Jierre but to di Montfort. Jierre stood to one side, watching, hand on his rapier-hilt, and fury fair boiled the air around him.

When I was braceleted with iron and standing quiescent enough, Jai di Montfort let loose of my lieutenant’s shoulder. “Come. We are due at the Keep.”

Jierre appeared not to hear him. His gaze sought mine, and we weighed each other for a long, endless moment.

“I would have followed you even to the gates of the underworld, Captain,” Jierre said quietly. “I would have wagered my life on your word. I did wager my life on it.”

What could I say? He spoke truth. “You are still alive,” I pointed out. “I trust Vianne to your care, if she is to be robbed of mine.”

Even Jai di Montfort was not quick enough to stop him. He struck me across the face, a good blow with muscle hardened from campaigning and daily drill behind it, and I made no move to avoid it. It took Luc di Chatillon and di Montfort both to restrain him, and Pillipe di Garfour and Tinan brought me to my feet, near dragging me down the hall. My jaw had not broken, though I could feel the swelling in my cheek already. Twas not a love-tap, and yet my heart ached worse.

It is ever so, with men who are too loyal and too honest. Not even the thought of eventual revenge can