As the others moved slowly to his suggestion, Lacey turned to Vandien. 'Come, man, sit down. Over here.' He gestured toward the rickety table and old chair. Vandien followed him slowly, carefully aware of the way the folk parted to let him pass. Lacey indicated he should sit, while he himself leaned up against the wall. Vandien sat, and as he did so he became aware of what an effort it had been to stand. He pressed his feet against the floor to still the shaking of his legs. Damn poor time to be feeling this weak.
Lacey appeared to be studying him. Vandien stared back. Dark eyes, jutting nose ... Lacey suddenly became the man from his dream, and the dream suddenly became an earlier awakening. The realization further disoriented him. He sat, staring silently at the man. Someone clomped a tureen of soup down before him; the greyish gravy slopped over the lip and puddled on the table. A slab of bread and a wooden spoon were tossed down beside it. Vandien made no sign of noticing it or the server.
'Go ahead and eat,' Lacey said gently. 'It's been a day and a half. You must be hungry.'
The displacement in time made him feel suddenly shaky, or perhaps it was the greasy aroma of the soup. His hunger suddenly superceded all things, and he tore a piece off the slab of bread, sopped it in the soup and filled his mouth. It was not the flavor of the soup, which was greasy and strongly spiced, which swamped his senses, but rather the physical act of eating. The jarring headache that had become a part of him lessened in intensity, and he suddenly felt more inclined to be rational. He glanced up at Lacey, found him watching him closely. For that matter, every eye in the place seemed to be fixed on him as he ate. He swallowed. 'So?' he asked Lacey.
'You killed Kellich.' A statement, not an accusation.
Vandien nodded silently. He wouldn't tell them he hadn't intended to; to Kellich's friends it could only sound like an excuse. For an instant their eyes met. Vandien turned his attention back to the food, uncertain of what he'd read in Lacey's eyes.
'Kellich was our best. Our hopes were pinned on him. You know that Festival starts two days from now, here in Tekum?' He paused to harvest a brief nod from Vandien.
'And that the Duke will be here, to collect the high-summer shares from the farmers.'
A shrug from Vandien. He continued eating, trying not to betray his intense curiosity. What was the man leading up to? It was obviously not vengeance for Kellich's death; he could have killed Vandien at any time in the past day or so, or just left him to the Brurjans to execute. So what was it?
'The Duke enjoys many sports, most of them of the bloodier varieties. But his especial favorite is swordplay. He always watches the matches during Festival, and awards a medallion bearing his image to the man he judges the best. We had planned on Kellich winning that medal. We had even taken steps to insure that there would be no competitor even close to his skill level.'
Vandien scraped the last spoonful of soup from the bowl. The noise seemed loud in the silence of the room. What the hell could be so important to them about winning a medallion for swordplay? He doubted that town pride could be so important in a place where even the merchants looked badgered. He glanced briefly at the assembled folk, saw how they watched him as Lacey spoke. Waiting for his reaction, dangling after a word from him. He cheated them of it, simply staring at Lacey and waiting. Lacey sighed. 'After Kellich had won the medallion, the Duke would be likely to invite him to dine with him, in his private rooms, probably the ones over the Byroad Inn. And after a meal and a few glasses of wine, the Duke would invite him to a friendly match of the blades.'
Vandien allowed himself to speak. 'What makes you think so? Every nobleman I've ever had to do with was unusually cautious about exposing himself to an enemy's blade. Or do you think he'd have believed Kellich was his loyal subject?'
Lacey's eyes fell to the scarred tabletop. A spasm of pain crossed his face, then vanished. 'We think he would do so, because he has done so every Festival for the last four years. Always he dines with the winner of the medallion, always he offers to pit his blade against the winner's.' Lacey's voice grew suddenly hoarse. 'He is a very fine swordsman, our Duke. And knows it. Always he kills the winner of the medallion ...'
Vandien was wiping his bowl out with the rind of the bread. 'And fools keep on trying to win it?' he asked scathingly.
Lacey stared at him. Another man spoke, a hooded man seated on one of the sacks stacked against the wall. 'It is not like a tournament where there is one final winner. The Duke watches all the matches, but there is no one final match. There is simply a time when he says, Enough! Or he may ask two chosen men to fence against one another. Then, to those who have pleased him, he gives gold, a heavy pouchful, enough to take a man and his family through the year. And to the one who has fought the best, in his own private judgement, he gives the medallion.'
Vandien nodded sourly to himself. Sadistic bastard. He'd wager that times had been bad enough in Loveran that many men were willing to bet their lives against a sack of gold. The challenge probably seemed easy to most of them: fight well enough to win often, but not well enough to be the best. He sighed. 'Kellich thought he was good enough to win the medallion. And then what? Good enough to fight the Duke and kill him?'
'No,' Lacey said softly. 'No one thought Kellich was good enough to win against the Duke. But Kellich's blade was to carry a slow poison. Kellich was willing to make a sacrificial reach to get past the Duke's guard and bloody him.'
'No!' Willow cried suddenly, wildly. 'That wasn't what he planned. Not to die! Never to die! He told me he was good enough, that he was sure he could wound the Duke and still win the match. That he would come away from it alive and we would be married, that we would live together many long years ...' Her face had gone very pale beneath the shadowing hood, her eyes two bright coals of witchfire.
Lacey shook his head slowly. 'No, Willow. So he told you, to give you courage. But he knew he would have to die, would have to stop caring about his own guard to get in past the Duke's. We all knew Kellich would have to die to win.'
'No!' Willow staggered forward from where she had been leaning against the wall. She pushed her hood back, revealing how she had shorn her coppery hair for grief. It stood up in wild licks from her skull, making her look pathetically vulnerable.
'Believe me, child,' Lacey whispered. 'None of us wanted it that way. But we knew ... and you must have seen that even if Kellich could outfight the Duke, even if he could wound him and somehow win the match, that the Duke would never let him leave those chambers alive. Even if he had been sure of a killingthrust, the Brurjan guards would have killed Kellich within moments. That was the reason for the poison, and finding a Brurjan who could be bribed not to find Kellich's blade tainted.' Lacey sighed. 'But now it has all gone to ruin. Goat stole from you the names of the guards who could be bribed. And Vandien killed Kellich.'
'No.' Willow spoke the word in a sullen child's voice, as if she had been instructed to fetch water or go to bed early. 'No. Kellich wouldn't have gone along with that. He loved me.'
'Willow.' Lacey's voice stopped hers. 'It was Kellich's plan. He brought it to us, and we refused it. Until he made us see it was our only chance.'
'No! You're making that up, you're lying to me!'
No one was contradicting her. No one had to. Eyes gazed at the floor, at the ceiling, at Vandien's chair, at anything but Willow. No one moved to comfort her. Vandien suddenly had the perception of her being alone in the room, set apart from all the others. She had been a tool for their politics, her love for Kellich turned to the good of the rebellion. And now she was a tool that had failed, had lost its edge and usefulness. She had not needed to know the true plan, had been more useful in her ignorance. Their letting her perceive the whole thing now could have only one meaning: that she was no longer of any use to them at all. Vandien felt a chill in his belly as he wondered how thorough they were about tidying up loose ends. Willow stood where she was, hugging herself. She was not weeping; it sounded as if all her strength was consumed by breathing. Her shoulders rose and fell with every rasping breath she took.