The Sacred Band

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

You know,” Delivegu said, once his gasping breaths had calmed enough to allow it, “I’m not so sure anybody noticed how terribly bold it was of me to bring Kelis and Shen to the palace. I’ve yet to be thanked properly for it.”

Rhrenna lifted her sweat-slicked forehead from his chest. She tossed her head, snapping her hair from her face so that it draped from one naked shoulder. “Why,” she asked, “would you think to say that right now?”

“No one has acknowledged it, is all I mean.”

“I’m here with you,” Rhrenna said. “That should count for something.”

From straddling him, she flopped to one side and lay on her back, eyes closed. Delivegu missed the warmth of her immediately. He rolled onto his side and studied her in profile. The almost-too-fine point to her nose, the bones across her shoulders a little too pronounced, her breasts small enough that they all but disappeared when she stretched her arms above her head. In all these ways she was not the type of woman he would usually have fancied. But fancy her he did. Perhaps more than he should.

“Oh, come now, you don’t mean to say this bed wrestling is a thank-you? Am I paid as cheaply as that? In a manner that pleases you so much more than me?”

Rhrenna lifted the arm nearest him and dropped the weight of it over him. “Shut up,” she said.

For a time, he did. He liked that she could be so direct. She had been so when she arrived unannounced at his chamber door. Though she had come for seduction, she had not followed any of the routines he was used to. Her light blue eyes had not smoldered. Her lips had not puckered. She had not batted her eyelashes or anything like that. Still, when she said, “I think I’ll try you now, if you are prepared for it,” he had found that he was-with stunning rapidity-prepared for it.

Lying beside her now, staring at the ceiling, he was so satiated that he did not even mind when Rhrenna began to snore softly. It seemed a little strange to him that she came to him now, when events in the world had taken such a dire turn, when her own mistress was cursed and off somewhere, hunting sorcerers who had already proven themselves more powerful than she. Perhaps Rhrenna was not as devoted to the queen as she had seemed. In a way, the possibility that her loyalty was a carefully calculated deception impressed him as much as if it were real. More so, perhaps.

“Either way, you’re besotted, Delivegu,” he whispered. “You’re growing silly with age.”

That got him thinking, with a small measure of concern, about his recent choices. The thing with Kelis and Shen, for example. Stroll into the queen’s presence with an illegitimate heir to the throne, one that might very well usurp her own illegitimate heir? Bring along the Talayan who had escorted the Santoth right into the heart of the empire, with catastrophic results? If he had done something like that before the events at the coronation, the queen would have found a way to kill him. Unpleasantly. No doubt employing a man like himself for the task. Nor did he arrange to meet the queen on the stone staircase, as he once had, to present them both bound and gagged for her secret consideration, interrogation, and disposal. That, based on all the services he had rendered the queen in the past, would have been a reasonable way to proceed.

Why did he choose the first way and not the latter? Because the events at the coronation changed everything. For all he knew, the queen might not have escaped the Carmelia with her powers intact. Surely she had suffered from some curse the Santoth had tossed at her. She might not even be long for this world. If she wasn’t, what better than to enter Aliver’s service with a golden ticket? Also-dare he even think it?-it felt like the right thing to do. Delivegu had not yet given up on the hope that his role in the world might be measured by things other than hunting down verbose rabble-rousers, poisoning pregnant women, and bedding maidservants and secretaries.

“There’s more to me than that,” he murmured.

Rhrenna broke from her rhythmic snore for a moment. He watched her until she resumed it, smiling when she did.

Regardless of his reasons, if he judged by what transpired in the library, he had chosen wisely. What was going on with that scarflike thing wrapped around the queen’s face he could not have said. Nor could he fathom her silence. Barad the stone-eyed acting as Corinn’s mouth, Kelis blubbering like a sleepwalking child, Aliver speaking with an animation Delivegu had never seen in him before: it had been strange stuff all around.

Perhaps he should consider the new mission Aliver had proposed before leaving a sort of thanks. At least it indicated that he trusted him, and thought him capable of a task of importance. It was not nearly as interesting as the type of job Corinn had him get up to. And he did not entirely understand what the purpose of it was, but why not go along with it? He had to work for somebody.

I wonder, he thought, if Aliver might be inclined to make me an Agnate? After I’ve rendered sufficient service, of course. Could he triangulate his former relationship with the queen, his new one with the prince, and his much-improved one with Rhrenna into such an increase in his fortunes? Of course he could. That was what Delivegu Lemardine had always done. He mused on his prospects for a time.

At some point, he realized that Rhrenna’s breathing was no longer audible. He turned his head. She still lay in profile, but her eyes were open. Her lips trembled slightly, and a tear escaped the eye nearest him and rushed down toward her ear.

“I dreamed,” she said. “I dreamed.”

Delivegu waited to hear what she had dreamed, but apparently those two words were full sentences, not the beginning of longer ones.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she continued. “Nothing is right anymore. I read what she wrote to Aaden. It’s-” She choked on whatever it was. “I don’t want to be without her. I don’t want to be alone. She loved me like nobody else did. She gave me life when…” That was as far as she got.

Delivegu curled into her. He pulled her into his chest and kissed her eyes closed and smeared her tears away with his lips. He told her she would never be alone. He told her he was with her always. Everything would be all right. He would make sure of it. She would always be loved. He would love her, he said. He already did.

He told her all these things as she sobbed against him, wrapped in the sheets of his bed. And he meant it. By the Giver, he actually meant it all.

H e sailed for Aushenia the next morning. He took no joy in leaving Rhrenna. If she had showed any of the emotion that had racked her with sobs during the night, he might well have said something regrettable. Sentimental. Further promises of the type he had thought only lesser men ever made to women. Fortunately, she parted with a businesslike efficiency, wishing him speed on his mission in no more time than it took to roll out of bed, snatch her garments from the floor, and depart while still climbing into them. He lay in bed a moment after the door slammed shut, uneasy with what seemed like a reversal in the role he normally occupied in amorous matters.

“You can’t pretend I didn’t see into you,” he said to his empty chamber. “We both know I did.”

What he did not say, but thought, was that perhaps she had seen rather a bit too much into him as well. What he also did not say-and could not quite believe he even found himself thinking-was that he wanted nothing more urgently than to return to her, to have her again, to be with her many more times. To make love, yes, but also to talk; to jest; to see the fit of clothes on her under the play of many different types of light; to be there should she wake crying; perhaps, even, to reveal even more of his intimate thoughts to her.

You’re getting soft, Delivegu, he thought.

Ruminating on this as he sailed, Delivegu failed to remember to stop in at Alecia, Manil, or Aos. He could have found diversion in any of these places-social gatherings and flirtation early, more serious drink and fornication later. His friend Yanzen had even left an open invitation for him to stop in at Sigh Saden’s rustic estate outside Aos. The senator, having fled the isle of Acacia, divided his staff between Alecia, where he had to conduct senatorial business, and Aos, where he planned to flee if the empire collapsed. Yanzen had promised Delivegu that if he visited, he could deduct from the debt Yanzen owed him by dipping himself into the concubines Saden hid among the household staff. “They’d welcome that stiff rod of yours,” he had said.

Yanzen always knew the right things to say to encourage Delivegu.

Inexplicable then, that he sailed right past each port with barely a sideways glance. He landed in Killintich a full two days before schedule, and he found himself riding with King Grae, doing his best to offer the monarch a deference he did not feel. Outside the city, the country was beautiful-woodland and small villages, occasional solitary farms. They rode winding dirt roads through the forest with just a few guards trailing them. Delivegu would have been happiest with silence, but the king was in a more talkative mood.

“We did not expect you so soon,” Grae said. He sat easy in his saddle, like one born to horses, which he was. He was just as stone-chiseled handsome as Delivegu remembered. His rustic attire nonetheless wafted a scent of royal luxury, as if the supple leather had been sewn with gold thread and the pockets filled with lavender flowers. He wore his blue eyes as much like jewelry as his turquoise necklace or the subtle diadem that rested on his reddish blond hair.

Delivegu avoided those eyes as much as he could. “I’m on the king’s business,” he responded. “Best to be prompt.”

“ ‘Prompt’? Prompt is not a word I would have associated with the name Delivegu Lemardine,” Grae said. He showed a mouthful of straight, white teeth and leaned toward him. “At least, that’s not what certain ladies of my acquaintance have said about you. They all attest that there are two things you are gifted at. One is deceitful treachery; the other is… Oh, I shouldn’t mention it. It’s a somewhat more admirable skill, though, even if it’s a gift mostly to the whores and maidservants of the world.”

He’s baiting me, Delivegu thought. It surprised him to hear that the king of Aushenia had been asking anybody about him. For some reason he did not like the idea. It was he who was supposed to know things about others, not the other way around. It was Grae who had been sent packing from Acacia, spurned by the queen for his treachery. The fact that she discovered that treachery had been Delivegu’s doing, of course. Apparently the king knew it.

Telling himself to keep his calm, Delivegu shifted the subject. “So, have they been safe in your care? No more unfortunate accidents?”

“Yes, we haven’t lost a one of them since the queen sent them here. The ones who were killed were not slaughtered in Aushenia. That happened in Aos. Here they’ve been taken good care of. All of them.”

“How many are there?”

“Seven.”

“Seven?”

“I know. Not many to be an entire generation of a race,” Grae said. “The queen makes for a… challenging adversary. How is she? I’ve heard all manner of dire things.”

“She is the queen,” Delivegu said.

“Yes,” Grae guffawed, “I’m sure she’s that. Off to sort out the Santoth while the rest of us do the same with the Auldek. I suspect we’ve got the bloodier end of that bargain.”

You weren’t there. You didn’t see them. But he did not want to give Grae anything, so he said, “Is this it?”

On a rise of land coming into view before them stood a squat stone-block building. It was large enough to be a castle, but it was, in truth, a prison.

“Yes, that’s our keep,” Grae said, straightening to take in the view. “I’m sure you understand the various reasons we did not want to house them in the city. It wasn’t one of the queen’s stipulations. She asked this of me, and I obliged. They’ve been perfectly safe here. Safer than they deserve.”

“Do they speak Acacian?”

“I suppose. I’ve not been stopping in to chat with them.”

Delivegu noted the edge in the monarch’s voice. He rather liked finding it. Beneath his regal demeanor, Grae did chafe at being told to care for these creatures. Feeling a bit like a wet nurse, are you, Your Majesty? “No, I wouldn’t imagine you’d have much to say to them. Or they to you.”

Once they had both dismounted and had their horses taken from them, Grae led them into the keep on foot. “What are you to do with them?”

“Take them to King Aliver, as instructed.”

The Aushenian pondered that for a moment. “I meant what is he going to do with them, but I don’t suppose it’s your place to know that. King Aliver back from the dead… By the Giver, the world seems to have turned upside down overnight. You’ll have to dine with me this evening. I have many questions for you.”

“That’s not possible,” Delivegu said. “I carry on tonight. I have to see to the details of transporting them.”

“Surely, you have an evening to-”

“No, I don’t.” Delivegu turned toward him, meeting those blue eyes. “As I said, I’m on the king’s business. I choose to be prompt.”

Grae studied him for a long moment. “You don’t seem like the same man I met in Acacia just months ago. You’re… tamed. Obedient. Fine, don’t dine with me. I have no interest in your people anymore. I would say I wish you all the best with your war, but the words would stick on my tongue.”

“It may prove to be your war as well,” Delivegu pointed out.

“I know more about the Numrek and their kind than you, errand boy. Aushenia took the brunt of the first invasion, or have your people forgotten that? Have they written Aushenguk Fell out of the histories? No matter. We remember. We remember that we fought the Numrek first, with no aid from Acacia. We remember that the Numrek overran our lands while Acacians looked after their own interests. This time, Aushenia will defend its own borders fiercely if need be, but we won’t fight your war for you.”

They had walked through the keep’s main gate, beneath the fortifications, through a second wall and a gate that was cranked up only once they had reached it. As they stepped through, it immediately began to descend again.

“There,” Grae said, “they’re out at play. We let them spar with wooden swords. What’s the harm in it?”

Delivegu saw them then. On the far side of the large enclosure, sparring, just as the king said. Just seven of them. Seven Numrek children of various ages. The only ones still alive after Corinn’s massacre of their parents at the Thumb.

“They’re yours now,” Grae said. “Take them.”