As I suspected, he had an immediate objection. “Court sorcery runs too much risk, especially with di Narborre in Tierrce d’Estrienne.”
Court sorcery is not the only magic in the world. “Then we shall try hedgewitchery. I will be fit to ride, Tristan. I promise.”
“Soon enough.” He approached me cautiously, as he would a wary animal. Lowered himself down on the bed again, sitting on the edge. He looked away, across the room, his back to me. His head dropped again. “I will not betray you, Vianne.”
“Of course not.” What a curious choice of words. Yet we were faced with so much black betrayal, I did not wonder he felt the need to swear it aloud. And, truth be told, I was more than a little unsettled, as if I had prepared myself for battle and met instead with a fête.
I had thought the Consort offer would be refused with some pretty words about duty; I had anticipated the conversation to take a completely different cast. This was…unexpected.
To say the least.
We sat in silence, listening to the crackling of the fire and voices outside.
I waited until I could stand it no longer. I touched his shoulder for the second time, cupping my hand over the curve under his shirt. Muscle stood out under the cloth; tension vibrated through him, infecting my own flesh.
He caught my wrist with a swift movement, and pulled my hand to his mouth. Pressed a rough kiss into my palm, his teeth pressing through soft lips. I did not flinch. “Vianne,” he murmured against my skin.
Then he kissed the inside of my wrist where the pulse beat. The Aryx rang, a thrill sharp as fire.
I had to swallow twice before I could speak with anything approaching a normal tone. “The King said you favoured me.”
“Of course.” His lips moved against my wrist. “Are you blind, m’chri?”
“I thought you hated me, after…” After you ordered the peasants to be killed. And I do not understand your anger, Tristan. I do not understand your moods at all, for all I think I am making headway.
“Of course not. I have never hated you. That was my downfall.” He held my wrist to his mouth, his eyes closed, inhaling as if smelling my skin. For a few moments we stayed like that. It was as far from a courtsong as I had ever seen, but I felt light and happy, and for that moment it was enough.
Chapter Nineteen
Two days later I was allowed — with Risaine at my elbow, to bolster me — to see the bandit village.
I knew then why Tristan had argued so hard against it. For what I found in that village scored me deeply.
“See that?” Risaine said, ruffling a child’s hair. The girl played solemnly with a threadbare doll, her hollow-cheeked face devoured by her eyes. “Just barely escaped the plague, arrived a week ago with four other children led by a boy not past his twelfth year. Their village was ransacked by armed thugs looking to eke more of the harvest from the peasantry. Oh, and that man? His family, killed by d’Orlaans’s bullies half a year ago. That woman? Cannot stand to have a man touch her.” Risaine clicked her tongue sharply. “Not after the Guard at Rouenne finished with her six months ago. A wonder she’s alive.”
I absorbed this as I leaned on the older woman’s arm. Most of the “bandits” were thin, desperate-looking men with fierce faces and peasants’ weapons. The women seemed hard, but their gazes were nervous as hungry birds. In the lee of a rude hut one woman — wide-hipped and red-faced, with cornsilk hair braided about her head as the peasants of Sainte-Ecy did — sobbed as another held her, murmuring soothing nonsense words.
“What of her?” I asked quietly.
“Her daughter was killed by tax farmers last week, and she still cannot believe it. The tax men are the law.” Risaine drew me away. “Do you see this, Vianne? This is what the King brought us to.”
The King bears the blame for this? “How so?” I found myself gazing upon a collection of ragged children taking a lesson from a rail-thin woman dressed in a dark priestess’s cloak, her hair cropped close to mark her as one of Kimyan’s elect. She was training them in arithmetic, counting on her fingers, a teaching-rhyme I remembered from my own nursery-school days. One bloat-bellied boy had a bandage wrapped about his left hand; he cradled it as his dark eyes followed the priestess’s chanting. “Gods.” My stomach churned. “Tell me.”
“You did not know, of course.” Risaine stopped at a fire in front of a low-thatched shelter. I gratefully lowered myself to the rude bench she indicated. Broken sunlight came through the branches far above, dappling the entire village. At the very periphery, a thin blur swirled through the air — protections and camouflage, laid with skill and care. “I did not know either, when I came here. We live noble lives indeed, secure in our knowledge of Court sorcery, secure in our right to take what we see fit, whenever the mood strikes us. The very gods gifted us with Arquitaine, and tis only right we do as we see fit.”
I almost drew breath to protest, thought better of it when I saw her expression shift. Her mouth turned down, her sharp face softening. The breeze fingered white curls, lovingly. “Then I was blown here by an ill wind.” She lowered herself next to me with a sigh. “These people fed us, clothed and sheltered us. And we learned. The King’s payments for the wonders of his Citté and his Palais; his payments to foreign powers — where did you think they came from? And what do you think happens to those who cannot pay for his pleasures? A choice between starving to death or being beaten to death by a tax farmer; all the peasantry living in dire fear of d’Orlaans’s Guard.”
And the Aryx slept through this. I watched the village. A mongrel dog trotted past, head held high but its tail crooked as if broken. The huts huddled close to ancient trees, bandits fading in and out between light and dappled shade, dressed in their green and brown.
I gathered my thoughts, arranged them logically. “D’Orlaans was responsible for collecting taxes,” I summed up, “and the King was not overcaring of how he did it.”
Risaine nodded. “So it was.”
“It seems nothing is true now,” I said. “I saw…” What had I seen? The Duc had committed bloody fratricide, to be sure. But had the King been any better? For this place to hold such misery could not have merely taken a month.
“You saw a bloody coup.” Risaine’s back was straight as a priest’s staff. She rubbed her fingers against her blue overdress as if there were something foul on them. “Tis a wonder it did not happen sooner. There were stories, of course, of the Court and the fêtes and festivals, merrily singing while the rest of Arquitaine groaned. Tis whispered the King was more a boylover than interested in his Damarsene wife, and the empty-headed daughter counted proof of it.”
Protest rose in me. Lisele had not been empty-headed. But she had been spoiled, I could admit as much. And, much as I loved her, Lisele had not been overgifted with wits. Twas why I so often set myself to flushing out little intrigues meant to take advantage of her.
What if Lisele had lived, and not I? Another woman of gentle birth confined to her rank might not have survived the successive shocks I had already endured. To think of my Princesse forced to face such things pained me.
Would she have been strong enough to bear them?