The Assassin King

25

Ashe’s head was buzzing the next morning as if from the aftereffects of potent libation. After the first few hours of the headache, he began to rue refraining from imbibing the night before, knowing that even a hangover could not have caused his skull to throb more than the arrival of the dukes of Roland did. He stood on the balcony, in his hand a cup of strong plantain tea with medicinal properties that his wife had often used to bring him out of the hard repose of dragon slumber, trying to focus his eyes on each carriage as it made its way up the well-traveled road that ran east-west in front of the Hague-fort’s gates. Archers stood in the recently rebuilt guard towers, providing cover for the carriages, while the Lord Cymrian mused whether or not to give the signal to open fire on some of the occupants as they emerged from the bowels of the coaches.

The first of the dukes to arrive would never have drawn his fire, he noted, as Cedric Canderre stepped, with the assistance of his footman, out of his coach. In his own state of loss, Ashe felt tremendous empathy for the elderly duke, a gentleman and friend who had always lived hospitably and with grace, and while not the most admirable of husbands, had always been a loving and devoted fattier. To have witnessed the death of his only son and heir presumptive, Andrew, on these very grounds at the winter carnival that had taken the lives of so many could only be a soul-ripping reminder of that loss. Ashe took a sip of the bad-tasting tea and winced. Had he been less distracted, he would have arranged for the meeting to take place at Highmeadow, whose halls and defenses were all but complete, and into which they would be moving any day. While the creature comforts had not yet been established in the new fortress, it was certainly furnished enough to have spared Cedric Canderre the pain he was undoubtedly undergoing as he slowly made his way up Haguefort’s cobbled entranceway. Alas, he thought, such diplomatic considerations are a thing of the past; it’s all I can do to keep my mind clear enough of rage to focus on the meeting at all. At the opening of the gate Gwydion Navarne was standing, his hands behind his back. Ashe watched, gratified, as the newly invested young duke greeted Cedric Canderre warmly and took his arm, leading him into the keep. How like his father he looks, Ashe thought as Gwydion held the door. Perhaps there will still be hospitality within these walls, even in Rhapsody’s absence, after all. The thought and the sight cheered him a little; in the contentious discussions they were about to undertake, he was glad to have his namesake beside him, even if the new duke’s opinions were often discounted by the others because of his youth and inexperience. Behind the carriage of the Duke of Canderre hovered two more, one directly on the road, the other jockeying to hold the position of last arrival behind it. The first carriage bore the livery of Yarim, the dry red land to the east of Cedric Canderre’s lush and fertile province. The second was emblazoned with the colors of Bethany, Roland’s capital and central province. Ashe took another deep draught of tea and willed his head to stop pounding. Ihrman Karsrick, the Duke of Yarim, waited for a long moment before opening his door and descending the stairs of his coach. He glanced in obvious annoyance at the carriage behind him, which had arrived more than a quarter hour ahead of him, then strode angrily up the walkway, his displeasure evident by the set of his shoulders and jaw. The Lord Cymrian sighed. The carriage from Bethany continued to linger at the road’s edge for almost an hour more while the coaches of Quentin Baldassarre and Martin Ivenstrand, the dukes of Bethe Corbair and Avonderre, arrived. Ivenstrand’s carriage, unlike the others, had come from the east, where Avonderre bordered Navarne on one side and the sea on the other. The Duke of Avonderre alighted, looked about, then made his way quickly inside, pausing as the carriage from Bethe Corbair pulled up to the gate. He walked back to wait for Quentin Baldasarre to emerge, then accompanied him up the walkway, conferring as they came.

Finally, when the horse and livery of the four other dukes that had come from a distance had discharged their contents and had made their ways to the stable, the carriage bearing the Lord Regent, Tristan Steward, Duke of Bethany, pulled slowly and deliberately up to Haguefort’s gate.

Ashe choked back the bile that had risen in his throat. As much as he had struggled against his deep dislike of Tristan Steward in general since they had been young men, there was an arrogance to the Lord Regent’s gait that made the irritable dragon within his blood rise, enflamed. We are about to be fighting for the very survival of the continent, and this pusillanimous ass is jockeying for position so that he can make an entrance, he thought bitterly. Clearly, the Alliance has as much of a threat within it as against it. He swallowed the last of the herbal tea, feeling no fortification from it whatsoever, then turned away from the fresh air of the balcony and made his way to the meeting rooms where he knew the bright morning would give way to an endless day of dire plans, petty infighting, and, with any luck, a united army to defend the Middle Continent from the blood that was about to be spilled across it.

Gerald Owen’s kitchen was an orderly place, where cooks and wait staff of longtime employ moved efficiently through the day, preparing meals for as few as Haguefort’s regular occupants or as many as an entire province with very little disruption. It had long been so; Stephen Navarne, in his lifetime, had made it his business as duke to host many festivals and parties, Naming ceremonies and diplomatic gatherings, as had his father before him, culminating each year in the winter carnival, a combination of religious summit, cultural ritual, and folk celebration that accommodated the western third of Roland and many foreign visitors. Very little could disturb the smoothly running machine that comprised the chamberlain’s kitchen and buttery staff.

Tristan Steward, the Lord Regent of Roland, was one of the rare exceptions. The elderly chamberlain’s face had darkened to an unhealthy shade of dusky red after the third ring of the serving bell. He slapped a tea towel down on the wide stone kneading surface before the bread ovens, causing three of the cooks to scatter to different sides of the hot room as the bells jingled more insistently. Then Gerald Owen turned to the slim young chambermaid whom the Lord Regent had brought to Hague-fort some months back, along with a donated wet nurse and nanny, and gestured impatiently at her. He could not recall her name, and tried to suppress his irritation, reminding himself that she and the others probably had suffered more than enough during their employ in Bethany. “You—girl—take the tea tray to his lordship, and make certain there is a modicum of rum to be had with it, or he’ll send you back for it. You used to be in his employ, so you know to stay out of his way, lest he strike you. But if that should happen, if he should even attempt it, report it to me immediately; the Lord Cymrian will address it. I’ve had too many house servants abused, and Lord Gwydion refuses to tolerate it.”

“Yes, sir.” The young woman picked up the silver tray and headed for the stairs, the vacant look of affected timidity replaced a moment later with a smile. For the third time that night, a servant knocked on Tristan Steward’s door bearing libations in response to his summons.

This was the first time, however, that the Lord Roland’s response was not fully surly, but only annoyed, his irritation eased, perhaps, by the after-supper cordial followed by the half-decanter of brandy he had received on the two previous occasions. “About time you got here,” he murmured grumpily as the slim, dark-haired chambermaid glided into the room with a silver tray, which she set down on the table near the fireplace. “What code do I have to use with your idiot chamberlain to assure that I get you when I call, and not some blithering idiot or bewhiskered sot?”

The young woman smiled as she turned back to the Lord Roland. “Perhaps you should order the tea first next time,” she said, no hint of deference in her voice. “If you insist on calling for spirits, the wine steward and the sommelier are going to be the ones sent from the buttery to attend to your needs. Lowly chambermaids deliver tea, not brandy.”

“But I like brandy,” said Tristan playfully, setting down his empty glass and making his way across the room to her. “And I have needs other than those that can be met with a beverage. As you well know, Portia.”

The young woman’s black eyes sparkled with amusement as her former master slid his hands into her hair, gripping the long, glossy strands with an intensity belied by his lazy tone. “Ah, so you missed me, did you?” she said, not flinching as Tristan pulled her closer, interlacing his fingers behind the base of her skull, allowing himself to become entwined in the dark waves of thick, rough silk. “I wondered if you would, given how quick you were to part with me, foisting me off on Lord Gwydion like an unwanted set of tea towels.”

Tristan Steward blinked at the accusatory tone in her smoky voice. “I did no such thing,” he said reproachfully, twisting his hands in her mane. “It was agony to part with you, Portia; my loins have been aching since the day I left you in this place four months ago. Your mission here is of unsurpassed importance to me, to us—and had it not been, I never would have allowed you away from me for a moment.” The chambermaid reached up behind her neck and roughly pulled his hands from her. “Alas for you, and your aching loins, in the course of doing what you asked, I have come to understand how much you have misled me,” she said curtly, turning away from Tristan Steward and beginning to unload the items from the tea tray.

The Lord Roland blanched, the shock interrupting the desire that had been building within him since he heard her light knock on the door, leaving him tingling and nauseated. “What— what do you mean?” he stammered. “I have never been anything but truthful with you, Portia, foolishly candid, in fact. I have shared with you more secrets than I care to count for fear it would make me realize even more than I already do what a foolhardy idiot I have been.” The chambermaid turned back to him, tucking the tray beneath her arms like a shield over her belly, and regarded him coldly. “What secrets would those be?” she asked, her throaty voice taking on a hint of acid. “Your profound distaste for your wife? That’s no secret— everyone in Roland knows it, just as they know your weakness for trollops and bedwenches, and are well aware of the parade of them that appears each time Lady Madeleine leaves Bethany to visit her family in Canderre. It’s an open joke, Tristan; it would be a truly miraculous happenchance if Madeleine herself doesn’t know it. And I certainly don’t blame you—she is a beast of legendary proportion. But it’s not exactly flattering to be just the latest in a string of nameless whores whom you use to satisfy your lust and vent your frustration. If you’re expecting me to feel grateful, I don’t.”

“You are hardly a nameless whore to me, Portia,” Tristan said smoothly. “You have heard me intone your name repeatedly, in many different places, all the time with a combination of respect and pleasure. And you have never seemed belittled or degraded by our carnal romps. I respect, in fact, admire, your lack of shame, your imagination, your insolence, your vigor, your fire, your contempt for polite sensibilities. You are not my toy; you are very important to me, and I have entrusted you with some of the most crucial of my secrets. You should be honored, not offended.”

The chambermaid’s stare intensified. “Honored? Oh. Perhaps you refer to sharing me with your brother, the saintly benison of Canderre-Yarim—is that what you mean? Should I feel honored to have been entrusted with the secret of our trysts, both with and without your participation? Do you think Blesser’s lack of the celibacy required by bis office might have something to do with the problems you have had in Bethany? Perhaps the All-God is not amused by watching one of his holiest servants using my naked body as a table for his supper, or playing lascivious games of fox and hounds, or knobbing me as you—”

Tristan clapped bis hand over her mouth and glanced over his shoulder, then locked his gaze on to hers. The flames of the fire were dancing in her black eyes, causing their expression to alternate between amusement and cruelty in turns.

“Lower your voice,” he commanded quietly. “Walls of keeps have ears—you should know that.”

“The only ears this keep’s walls have are my own,” Portia retorted. “I have done exactly as you asked, have pressed my ear to every wall, have stood on the eave of every doorway, in the hope of collecting the unspecified information you sought to bring down the man you profess to hate—”

“I do not hate Gwydion,” Tristan interrupted hastily. “I never said that—I only resent his elevation to Lord Cymrian over me.” Anger began to build in his blue eyes, now also reflecting the flames of the fireplace. “I served in that position, without any of the power or the acknowledgment, for twenty years while he was in hiding, pretending to be dead. I’m the one who held Roland together, who kept the Middle Continent from falling into chaos and war. It was I who defended this very keep during the assault of the Sorbolds during the winter carnival four years ago. You are too young to remember—you did not even live in Roland then, I believe. But I gave everything to this land when it was fragmented, protected it when it was vulnerable. And for all the stewardship I put forth, for all my efforts, I was constantly refused the throne, then eventually cast aside in Gwydion’s wake, given a pity regency, stripped of that which is rightfully mine. I trusted you to help me gain it back—and to in turn share it with me. How is it that this offends you?”

Portia’s eyes narrowed to gleaming slits, but her mouth crooked into a smile at the corners. “You’re a liar,” she said, but there was fire in her voice that caused the knots in Tristan’s abdomen to loosen. “Your command that I seduce the Lord Cymrian while his wife was bloated with pregnancy had nothing to do with your desire for the lordship. And you well know it.”

“Of—of course it did,” Tristan stammered.

“Liar,” Portia said again; time her voice was filled with sexual teasing. “I do not doubt you crave the lordship; everyone knows that as well. It’s another of your pathetically obvious secrets. When I first came to Roland, I heard it within a few hours of being here. But that’s not why you commanded me to seduce him. You wanted to disrupt his marriage because you are obsessed with his wife—and you want her for your own.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tristan said, but the heat in Portia’s voice and smile were causing his defenses to give way; he had experienced the sensation before, and it was one of risky relief, something he rarely felt in his tortured existence. He took the tray from Portia’s hands and dropped it to the carpeted floor. “I am not the one who is being ridiculous here,” Portia said, stepping closer. “Nor am I blind to your deception of me. You said that I might be able to use my seductive skills on Lord Gwydion, and in turn have him confide secrets to me that would be useful to you in your bid to replace him on the Cymrian throne. But you knew that would never happen; his wife owns every comer of his soul, and he hers. She has only been in this keep for a few moments in all the time I have been here, and that is apparent even in those few moments. Additionally, he cares little, or nothing, for the power of the lordship; he views it, somewhat distastefully, as an unavoidable duty, and longs for the day when someone else—someone qualified—will take it over.” She reached out a hand and caressed Tristan’s face to soften the sting of her words. “I don’t know why you didn’t just confide the truth to me from the beginning—it would have been so much easier to help you if I had known.”

“H—how?” Tristan asked. The heat of his blood was rising, flushing him with warmth, making him painfully tumescent.

The chambermaid’s smile widened. She turned away from the roaring fire and walked over to the tall windows that led out to the small balcony, stopping to admire her reflection in the glass. “Unlike the situation between you and the Beast, neither the lord nor the lady has the desire to stray—and so that betrayal can only be accomplished through deception,” she said lazily, chuckling at the distortion of her face in the wavy panes. “And deception of either or both of them will be a challenge. One cannot easily deceive two people who have special connections to the truth. The Lord Cymrian has dragon’s blood in his veins, and so his awareness is heightened far beyond the bounds of normal perception. And the word about the keep is that the Lady Cymrian is a Skysinger, a Namer, in fact, and so she has a racial and professional devotion to the truth, which makes her perception of falsehood even keener.” She idly stroked the heavy velvet curtain that dressed the window. “So, then, how will you accomplish this deception?” Tristan asked, his head growing light from lack of blood. Portia turned to face him again, her eyes dancing with wicked light. “I won’t,” she said briskly. “They will accomplish it for me in the only way it can be accomplished—they will deceive themselves. It will be easier, now that she’s gone from this place again. The stupid intensity of their love for each other will be their undoing, and when that happens, it will be shattered forever. How melodramatic. But it’s true. And when it happens, the world will grow brighter for all of us.” She slid her hands into the opening of Tristan’s shirt at the neck, then followed with her mouth.

“Tell—tell me how,” Tristan said, his voice faltering as the heat of her breath warmed his skin, followed by the delicious press of teeth against his clavicle. Portia’s hot mouth made its way slowly up his neck to the earlobe. “You are just going to have to trust me, m’lord,” she said teasingly. “You must be able to tell that I’ve been at this sort of thing for a long time. You’ve been the beneficiary of enough of my talents to be aware of it.”

“Yes, yes I have,” Tristan murmured weakly. “Did you lock the door?”

With a screeching rip, Portia tore apart his shirt, her eyes gleaming with excitement. “Of course not,” she said, her voice growing husky. “The risk of being caught is what drives the excitement higher— isn’t that what you’ve always told me when pushing me into alcoves and behind sofas in your own keep?” With impatient fingers, she began to roughly unlace the stays of his trousers. “Now, I can assure you the kitchen staff is entirely sick of you, and will do everything they can to avoid coming within your beck and call. And the other members of the Council of Dukes have had as much of you as they can stand already today, I have no doubt. So there is little chance of being disturbed.” Her grin grew brighter as her task was accomplished; she took the Lord Roland firmly in hand, then ran her teeth over his chin just below his lips. “But,” she continued, feeling the breath go utterly out of him, “if you like I can stop now, and go to the door, check the corridor, and see if anyone’s coming—”

“No,” Tristan gasped hoarsely. “No.”

Portia chuckled. “Suit yourself,” she said, lowering his trousers to the floor and following their descent with her mouth.

To keep from passing out, Tristan counted the breaths before the succor he was painfully anticipating was at last upon him. When Portia finally indulged him, after a teasing delay, he felt his muscles go slack, and his body crumpled to the floor beneath her. Unlike their last coupling, which had occurred on this very floor the night he had left her here four months before, this time it was he who was naked and utterly vulnerable, while Portia remained almost fully garbed, is complete control of the situation. He was helpless to stop it, totally unable to reverse positions, to regain his standing as the master of a submissive servant.

And even if he had been able, he knew he would never have any desire to do so. Instead, he surrendered himself to her ministrations, breathlessly allowing her to put him through his paces like an obedient mount. Even as she climbed atop him, gripping him, riding him savagely, he felt the sweet consolation of abandon, the helpless freedom that comes when a tormented soul abdicates any remaining control over its own destiny. And one more sensation, a seeping entanglement making its way through his heart like the trickling of a stream or the tendrils of a vine, a soul-deep need for the release that her hot flesh drew from him the way a poultice draws forth the toxin of infection, healing him, burning away the prison of his unhappy life, tying him gleefully to this young servant-mistress in a way that he knew would be impossible to disentangle without pain. The feeling left him weak with gratitude. And when, after many false attempts to summit the jagged mountain peak that was Portia, brought again and again to the brink of ecstasy, only to be held in torturous delay, she finally released him, letting all the poison and disappointment that had taken root in his soul pour forth from him in a heated rush of physical and spiritual delight, Tristan managed to focus his clouded vision for a moment on her face, staring down intently at him with the leaping fire behind it. It was not the rigid mask of pleasure, open-lipped and gasping, that his own aspect had assumed, but rather a studied expression of interest. In that instant, before the surge and the wild remnants of bucking and thrusting transported him back to hedonistic oblivion, Tristan Steward had the impression that she was looking for something deeper in him than he possessed. The thought did not linger past that moment. Later, as they lay, disengaged, side by side before the crackling heat of the fire, the Lord Roland took the hand of the chambermaid and kissed it gratefully, happy to feel connected still, even after the moments of passion had passed, to a spirit so unlike that of his despised wife, so unlike his own indolent nature.

“When I am with you, at last I feel brave, Portia,” he said quietly. “I feel as if perhaps the world is not passing by without me.”

The young woman stretched lazily before the fire, her glowing skin dewy with sweat. “Glad to be of service, m’lord,” she answered, running her fingers idly through his damp auburn curls. “Your satisfaction is the greatest joy to one of my lowly station.”

“I’m so sorry that I made you feel less than you are,” Tristan continued, his strength waning as exhaustion began to set in. “I apologize for making you feel like a nameless whore— you are so much more to me than that.”

Portia lifted herself up onto her elbow and chuckled. “There is where you are wrong, m’lord. I had no objection to you thinking of me as a whore—I am a whore, indeed, one of the most shameless variety. But I am not nameless. I treasure my name; as a lowly chambermaid, I’ve had to hide it for a long time, keep it demurely unspoken; even that smarmy chamberlain barely addresses me by anything but ‘you, girl.’ But by the time my work is done, the powerful will speak my name, and tremble.” Her eyes sparkled. “Beginning with you, m’lord.”

Drowsily Tristan Steward rolled closer and kissed her ear. “Portia,” he whispered softly. “I am trembling, Portia.” The woman only smiled, backlit by the roaring fire. She waited until the Lord Roland was all but asleep, then rose up on her palms and placed her lips next to his ear and whispered her name into it as he fell into slumber. Had he been more awake, he would only have heard the sound of the crackling flames.