The Queen gave a derisive snort. "Do not insult my intelligence, Chiana. You know full well that does not warrant such zeal on my part to find him."
The chief advisor inclined her head. "Your reasons are your own, My Queen."
"Still, I would not have you think that I favour Blade unduly without good reason." She turned and walked to the windows. "I shall need him in the times to come. There are those who will plot against me once they know of my plans. Sending Prince Kerrion back to the desert does not solve all of my problems. I am facing a difficult time, and I shall need Blade's particular skills to defeat those who will turn against me."
"You need him to kill your enemies," Chiana murmured.
"Precisely, and do not preach to me about how inadvisable that is, I have not asked for your advice. Nothing and no one must stand in the way of my plans. I have not the time to go through the courts, nor the certainty that I shall find justice there. The judges are not as impartial as they claim to be, and there are those who will stop at nothing to prevent peace with the Cotti. I must be as ruthless as they, if I am to achieve it."
"But the Prince is gone…"
"I do not need Kerrion here, my plans have no call for that."
"Might I ask what your plans are, My Queen?"
"No." Minna softened her answer with a stiff smile that did not reach her eyes. "Not yet. All in good time."
"But Blade knows."
Minna cast the assassin a rueful glance. "He guessed." Her expression became haughty and her tone brisk. "I want the men who did this. They must be made to confess the names of their employers, who will be rounded up and put to death."
"My Queen," Chiana murmured, "if you use Blade to kill your enemies, you will put him in extreme danger."
"I know that." She sighed. "He has lived all his life with danger, and I shall do my utmost to protect him. I do not need you to point out the obvious." She swung away and headed for the door. "Tell me the moment he wakes, I wish to speak to him."
"Yes, My Queen."
Chapter Fourteen
Blade was not allowed to wake properly for three days. The doctor's draught kept him in a deep sleep, and when he roused, his manservant, Arken, administered more of the drug. Chiana visited him several times, concerned for his health, which seemed fragile. He looked oddly vulnerable when asleep, she thought, and did not resemble a killer by any stretch of the imagination.
When he was allowed to become fully alert, Arken plied him with nourishing broth and mulled wine. For some time-glasses, he lay in a befuddled stupor, listlessly eating the food Arken fed him and gazing at the ceiling with dull eyes. The healer's arrival to change his dressings dragged him from his lethargy, and the pain soured his mood, which did not improve when Chiana went to visit him upon learning that he was finally fully aware.
"What do you want?" he growled, scowling at her.
"How are you feeling?"
He looked away, presenting the less bruised side of his face to her. "Imagine being trampled by a herd of horses, then having your head beaten on the floor, and finally knives stuck into you. That may give you some idea."
Chiana averted her gaze. His skin was stretched too tightly over his fine bones, and lines of suffering bracketed his mouth and furrowed his brow.
"The Queen wishes to see you."
He sighed. "Not now. I am in no mood to be good company, and I fear my manners will fail me."
"They never were that good," she retorted, the words skipping off her tongue before she could bite them back.
Blade turned to glare at her. "You have a sharp tongue for a woman of doves, but yes, you are right. It is hard to learn courtly manners in the gutter."
"Surely assassins do not live in the gutter? I thought it quite a lucrative profession."
"I was not always an assassin."
"I find it hard to imagine you as anything else."
He looked away again. "Do not bother to try."
Chiana bit her lip, stepping closer to the bed. "A message has arrived for you."
"From whom?"
"I do not know. Do you wish me to read it to you?"
Blade scowled at her. "I can read." He tried to sit up, but grimaced and sank back with a groan. "God, does that damned healer have nothing to stop the pain?"
"The draught for pain makes you sleep, and now you must start to eat again and regain your strength."
Blade held out his hand, and Chiana placed a black-edged missive in it. The assassin's eyes narrowed as he studied it, and he shot her a hard glance. "When did this arrive?"
"This morning."
"Good. You may go."
Chiana opened her mouth to rebuke him, then recalled his rank and shut it. Spinning away, she marched out, banging the door behind her.
Blade contemplated the square of coarse yellow paper, its edges dipped in ink. He did not need to open it to know who it was from, only the assassin's guild used such a distinctive trademark, and he pondered its probable contents. He had received missives from the guild in the past, usually invitations to attend one of their gatherings, or to defend his title as Master of the Dance. Aside from defending his title, he had not gone, or replied. He had found no use for the guild since receiving his tattoo, and was not pleased to receive a summons now. With a flick of his fingers, he broke the wax seal and opened the letter, reading the few lines written in blood.
The letter bore only a drawing of a dagger at its end, and he frowned. It was another invitation of sorts, but there was more to it than that. The letter held a warning, which, though not spelt out, was sufficiently obvious to cause him slight alarm. That the guild should seek to warn him was unusual, assassins were not prone to protecting their own. The date of the meeting was two days away, and the place was a sacred site of ancient stones outside the city, where the guild always met.
A knock at the door startled him, and two liveried flunkies opened it to admit the Queen. Minna-Satu wore a floating, pale green silk morning gown over a deep blue, form-hugging dress. The colours enhanced her eyes and paled her skin, accentuating the contrast of her hair. Her eyes sparkled, and he wondered if it was with happiness or anger. Her first words solved the mystery.
"How dare you refuse to see me?" She came to his bedside and glared down at him.
Blade glanced past her at Chiana, who hovered by the door, looking smug. "I fear that my message was ill conveyed, My Queen. I merely said that I was not yet well enough to receive you properly, since I cannot arise from my bed to give you a proper greeting."
Minna's brow smoothed, and her eyes narrowed as she too glanced at the advisor, who now appeared ill at ease. "I see." She turned back to him. "Obviously I do not expect you to leap up and bow, you are ill." She hesitated, then sat on the edge of the bed. "I am most pleased to see you awake. How do you feel? Have you much pain?"
"I am alive."
She inclined her head. "Those who injured you will be brought to justice just as soon as you name them, or describe them accurately to Captain Redgard."
"I do not know their names, and describing them would do little good, they look like common street thugs. They were hired men. I never saw their masters."
"But they would know who hired them. They can be made to talk."
Blade shook his head. "As I have said, I cannot describe them."
"Surely you must have fought when they captured you? Did you not injure any of them?"
"Yes, all of them. One has a shallow cut across his chest, another I stabbed in the stomach, one has a broken hand, and the fourth…" He looked away. "I cannot remember what I did to him."
"That is enough. You will describe all this to Captain Redgard, and he will find them."
Blade shrugged, wincing. "They may not know who hired them either, My Queen. If the traitors were clever, they will not have revealed their identity to these thugs, or their faces."