'It was a stupid plan from the start,' he observed, breaking the silence. 'Full of holes. Any plan where you don't expect to survive is inherently bad. To think that because a Brurjan took your bribe he would actually do what you paid him for is ignorance. Rather he'd turn around and betray you for the extra his master would pay him for it. And slow poison ... where's the sense in that? So the Duke would have plenty of time to torment Kellich and make him betray the rest of you?'
'Kellich wouldn't betray anyone!' Lacey declared firmly. 'Our cause was sacred to him, his highest purpose in life. And the slow poison did have a reason; it was to give us time to negotiate with the Duke. Once he sickened, we'd let him believe we had a cure for it. A cure he could buy only by a gradual surrender of power. Our first demand would be that he disband his Brurjans. Next we would ask that the Duchess assume control while he recovered. Then we would ...'
'Idiocy.' Vandien spoke softly, then glanced around the room, shaking his head. Farmers and tradesmen, artisans and tavernkeepers. It was all wrong. Where was the authority behind the rebellion, the shrewd political players guiding it? Lacey couldn't even assume he had authority here. It was wrong, all wrong. 'Look,' he said gently. 'Everything I've seen about your Duke and his reign makes your plan laughable. If he thinks he's dying, he's not going to negotiate. He's going to start a bloodbath in hopes of taking you with him. What would he have to lose? He'd figure he could capture one of you and wring the antidote out of him. And the Brurjans? They have a saying: Only a vulture is friends with the dying. There'd be no restraints on what they'd do, disbanded or not. You'd plunge all of Loveran into a nightmare. It would gain you nothing. The Duke might die, but the Brurjans would pick your bones clean.'
His eyes darted from face to face, hoping for some sign of understanding, one gleam of enlightenment. There were none. The rebels stared back at him, their eyes flat and disbelieving.
'It's too late for us to back out now,' Lacey said softly.
Vandien leaned back, crossed his arms on his chest. 'That's too bad,' he said in an equally soft voice.'Because I believe it's never too late to avoid stupidity. Even if I believed in your cause, even if I could go along with something as low as a poisoned blade, I couldn't go along with the sheer foolishness of this plan. Find yourself another sword.'
'We're prepared to offer you ...'
'Offer me the moon, I still won't go along with this. By your own admission, win or lose, I die.'
'You won against Kellich. There's always the chance you could defeat the Duke and
'Face his Brurjans. No thanks.'
'But if some of our men were willing to break in afterwards, help you with the Brurjans so you ...' Lacey broke off suddenly, making a motion for silence. It wasn't necessary. Everyone had already frozen. From outside came the sound of hoofbeats. All heard the horse reined in outside the door. 'Be still,' Lacey breathed. He'd gone pale. Strain showed on every face. Except Willow's. There was something akin to a smile on her mouth as she rose, defying Lacey's command, and walked to the door. She eased it open a crack, then glanced back over her shoulder at them.
'It's all right,' she said, and then slipped out the door.
'What the hell is that girl up to now?' demanded a rebel of Lacey. The man could only roll his eyes and shrug. But in a few moments Willow came slipping back into the room, bearing an angular object wrapped in a piece of coarse sacking. Her eyes met only Vandien's as she crossed the room. She stopped in front of him. 'Are you absolutely certain you won't fight for us?' she asked, poisoned honey in her voice.
'I already told you, Willow.' Vandien kept his voice level. 'Find yourself another sword.'
She swept the remains of his dinner to the floor. Even before the bowl had stopped rolling on the floor, she shook the sacking over the table.
The rapier fell with a clang and rolled toward him. He caught it up more by reflex than by thought, exclaiming with anger over her rough treatment of it. Then he stared at his hand gripping the hawk's hilt, ran his eyes up the blade that still bore traces of Kellich's blood.
'That's the only sword we'll need, Vandien.' Willow was coldly sure of herself. 'You'll kill the Duke for us. Not because you believe in our cause or for a handful of greasy coins. You'll do it for a chance to see Ki alive again.'
He lunged his full measure, and the tip of his rapier found the precise center of the small x he had scratched on the plank wall. The metal of the blade bowed with the impact. A solid thrust that would have emerged from a man's back. Satisfactory sword work. Don't think about anything else, he instructed himself. The sword is all. Don't be distracted. Just practice. Don't wonder how you got from wherever you were before to wherever you are now.
After he had demanded proof that Ki was still alive, they had left him alone in the storage barn or whatever it was. Discordance had been his major impression of the group as they left. Lacey had not liked Willow's little surprise. She had taken control from his hands, but he could not publicly argue with someone who had given him the handle he needed on Vandien. And Vandien had lain down on the cot to ponder his situation. He must have dozed off. And awakened here. Some kind of a loft, with a peaked ceiling and plank floor. No windows, but light leaking in between the boards. Terrible light for practicing. Tip to x again, blade bowed. Draw back. So they had moved him while he slept. That was all. Yes. Come in, picked him up, dragged him about, and left him here. He, who usually slept light as a cat, had slumbered through it all. Certainly. He lunged again, scored his mark perfectly. He would not be distracted.
He drew back, eyed the distance, tried a balestra. A quick spring from the balls of both feet carried him forward a short distance before he immediately launched into his lunge. It was a distance closing maneuver. The tip of his rapier took the mark squarely as he extended his body to its full reach. But as the small jolt of impact reached his hand, his hilt jumped free of his fingers. A numbing cold seemed to streak up his arm, and he watched, incredulous, as his weapon clattered to the floor. He cradled his chilled arm against his belly, rubbing his fingers up and down the raised red welt that marked the passage of Kellich's blade. He bit his lower lip slightly, anticipating pain as he prodded the length of the injury.
Nothing. No feeling at all. He explored his hand, wondering if the hilt had somehow jarred against bone. He found no bruise. There was little sensation at all. He rubbed his arm gently, and with a sudden tingling like ants running over his flesh, it came back to life. Almost. There was still a cold along the bone, a terrible old ache. He was stooping to pickup his rapier when the trap door in the floor of the loft opened behind him. He spun to face it, his blade already challenging the intruder.
The tray emerged first, landed, and was pushed scrapingly along the floor. Willow followed it up, clambering awkwardly over the lip of the door. She glanced at Vandien, then stood and dropped the door into place behind her. Then she turned back to him and stared at him, waiting challengingly. He neither moved nor spoke. 'That's your food,' she said at last, pointing to the tray.