“Auy,” Artwair agreed. “The only thing that will have real meaning is if she doesn’t put out the light at all.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Neil snapped. “Dead at the hand of Robert’s men, Anne might be more useful to you than alive—at least now that you know her mind.”
Artwair was silent for a moment, then took a pull on the green glass bottle he’d put beside them on the boards. The two men sat on the upper story of a half-burned malend, watching for Anne’s signal.
He offered the bottle to Neil.
“I won’t pretend she left me happy this morning,” the duke said. “She reached right inside me. I could feel ’er there. What happened to her, Sir Neil? What has that girl become?”
Neil shrugged and reached for the bottle. “Her mother sent her to the Coven Saint Cer. Does that mean anything to you?”
Artwair stared skeptically as Neil took a drink from the bottle, tasting fire, peat, and seaweed. He looked at the bottle in surprise.
“This is from Skern,” he said.
“Auy. Oiche de Fié. The Coven Saint Cer, eh? A coven-trained princess. Muriele is an interesting one.”
He took the bottle and swallowed more of the stuff as Neil let the aroma filter up his nose. He’d never drunk much; it dulled the senses. Right now he didn’t much care, because his senses had proved pretty useless and every piece of him hurt.
“But you’ve got me wrong, Sir Neil,” Artwair said. “Just because I think a girl of seventeen winters doesn’t have the skills to lay siege to the greatest fortress city in the world, that doesn’t mean my aim is the throne. I’m unhappy enough with my duller duties as duke without being saddled and ridden by the Comven. Believe me or not, I do think she’s the one ought be on the throne, and I’m trying to put her there.” He drank again. “Well, she got her way, and see what’s happened.”
“Because of me,” Neil said, taking the bottle back and swallowing hard. He thought he would gag for a moment, but then it went down, feeling smoother this time. “Because of my rage.”
“Robert provoked your rage,” Artwair said. “He wanted to die.”
“He wanted me to fight him,” Neil said, ignoring Artwair’s outstretched hand long enough to take another drink. Then he relinquished the bottle. “That part is true, and I fell for it like the fallow-brained fool I am. I let the anger take me away from common sense. But he isn’t dead; that’s the thing.”
“I didn’t see it, but they say you fair skewered him, and it’s for sure he didn’t come up,” Artwair pointed out.
“Well, these days that’s nothing certain at all,” Neil said. “In Vitellio and in Dunmrogh both I fought a man who couldn’t die. The first time he nearly killed me. The second time I cut off his head, yet he kept moving. In the end we chopped him into a hundred pieces and burned them. A friend of mine told me he was a thing called a nauschalk, that he could exist because the law of death had been broken. Now, I’m far from an expert on this, but I have fought one nauschalk, and I’m pretty sure Prince Robert is another.”
Artwair swore in a language Neil didn’t know, then said nothing for the time it took each of them to have three drinks. It was the customary silence after one had spoken of something unnatural—at least while in cups.
“There are rumors,” he said finally, “rumors that suggest such a thing, but I discounted them. Robert always had unhealthy appetites, and people exaggerate.”
Neil took another drink. By now the oiche felt like an old friend drawing a blanket up from his toes to warm him.
“That was what we were missing,” he said. “He probably told his man to have Anne killed or taken captive the moment they passed through the gates. Then all he had to do was make sure we didn’t lock him up or slice him into pieces. All he had to do was provoke me into attacking him, which he did right well.”
“Yes, but whatever you might have done, the result to Anne would have been the same, you see.”
“Unless she’s safe until he returns,” Neil said. “That would have been the wiser plan. When he’s back, safe in the city, then the trap is sprung.”
“Auy,” Artwair replied. “That would make more sense, I’m supposing. But Anne isn’t helpless, either. I’ll bet Robert doesn’t know what she can do. And she has fifty good men with her.”
Across the water they heard the first, melodious chime of the Vespers bell.
The window of the Pelican Tower remained dark.
“She might make a fight of it, for a while, if she found the right place to defend. If she isn’t lulled into taking poison or has an arrow sunk into her eye.”
“I doubt she’s lulled,” Artwair said. “The tower isn’t lit. That means she’s dead, captured, or for some other reason not in the castle. Whichever it is, our duty is clear.”
“What’s that?”
“We have to strike, and now. The rumor has gone out by now of what happened with Robert. Even if he lives, everyone believes him dead. If we give him time to reappear, it will prove confusing. So we strike immediately, while we can.”
“Strike what?” Neil asked.
“Thornrath. After what she did to me this morning, I’m tempted to believe Anne’s prophecy concerning Baron Fail and the Lierish fleet. We have two days to take control of Thornrath. If we manage that—and if Fail arrives as foretold—then we have a chance to take Eslen and save her.”
“Unless she is already dead.”
“In which case we will avenge her. In no case would I see Robert on the throne, nor, I’m sure, would you.”
“You have that right,” Neil said, lifting the bottle. The liquor was now a tide, lifting his anger even as the night darkened and the water deepened. “Can we capture Thornrath?”
“Possibly,” Artwair said. “It will be costly, though.”
“May I lead the charge?”
Artwair swirled the bottle, then sipped at it. “I’d meant to have you do that,” he said, “on account of that feysword of yours. It’s a narrow approach, and that sword might have made a difference. Now…”
“I’d still prefer to lead it,” Neil said. “I’m a warrior. I can kill. About strategy I know little. Without Anne here, that would be the best use for me.”
“You’ll probably die,” Artwair said. “Anne would think I’d sent you to your doom to avenge myself on her. I can’t have her thinking that.”
“I’m not too attached to this life,” Neil confessed. “And I don’t much care anymore what Her Highness thinks, if she’s still able to think anything. She’s the one put me in this situation. I’m tired of being set up to fail, only to live and lament it. Let me lead that charge, and I’ll write a note in my own hand for you to give to whoever might care. I suspect that’d be no one.”
“You’ve a better reputation than you think,” Artwair said.
“Then let me better it yet and live on in song,” Neil replied. “I don’t need a feysword. Just get me a few spears and a broadsword that won’t break at the first swing. Then find me some men who love death, and I’ll give you Thornrath.”
Artwair handed him the bottle. “As you wish, Sir Neil,” he said. “I’d never deny a good man his destiny.”
8
A Well-Mannered Viper
Hespero smiled and rose from his chair.
“Praifec?” Ehan gasped.
“You seem chagrined,” Hespero said, raising an eyebrow at the little man.
“Surprised, perhaps,” Stephen quickly replied. “Sir Elden led us to expect a humble sacritor.”
“But I am a sacritor,” Hespero said, stroking his goatee. “And a fratir, a patir, a peslih, an agreon.”
“Of course, your grace,” Stephen said. “It’s only that one usually is known by one’s most exalted title.”
“Generally true, depending on one’s purpose.” His brows knitted. “Brother Stephen, are you unhappy to see me?”