Maledicte (13 page)

T
HE CROWD PARTED FOR THEM QUICKLY,
and Gilly, unable to push his way through for fear of damaging noble flesh and feelings, watched Maledicte slip away.

“Going home to your master like a faithful dog?” Mirabile said, appearing next to him. Gilly said nothing. On the balcony, unseen, he had been able to speak his mind. Here, a wrong word could see him whipped.

She circled him, radiating anger and danger, like a predatory beast. She stroked the length of his spine, and whispered, “Do you wag your tail for anyone? Or just Vornatti?”

Gilly bit his lip and tasted blood.

“He listens to me. I could spin him such tales—he’d have you cast out….”

“Mirabile,” Maledicte said, returning, his face white, his eyes hot. “Watch yourself. Gossip is a knife, and it’s at your throat. Would you like me to push it closer still?”

Gilly shuddered at the quiet rage in Maledicte’s voice, at the surprise in Mirabile’s eyes, the reassessment of Gilly’s status in the Vornatti household.

“Come, Gilly,” Maledicte said, seizing Gilly’s hand and tugging him along, heedless of the nobles in their path.

“The main door’s back that way,” Gilly said when he could speak. “Mal, you shouldn’t have defended me.”

“We’ll go through the gardens and avoid any more display of noble manners. My temper is as sharp as my blade and eager to be loosed.” He dropped from the rail of the curving balcony to the earth four feet below. Gilly followed, landing soundlessly in the soft moss.

Near the entrance to the garden maze that lay between them and the road, Maledicte put his hand out to halt Gilly. Gilly stepped back until they were both in the deep shadow of statuary and hedge, looking up at a dark balcony on the king’s side of the ballroom. Two men stood in the shadows, and at their feet a great dog raised its head, sniffing the night air.

“…eager to meet this boy of yours, Michel, no matter the irregularities of his birth. Bring him at once when he arrives. We need more young men in the court, men not spoiled as we are, with old secrets and schemes, soured by battles fought decades ago.”

Last said, “Youth is no great thing, Aris. It masks threat and schemes as well as any old face.”

The king said, “You mean Vornatti’s ward. Maledicte.”

“I do.”

“He’s but a young man with his own pleasures to seek, his own wants.”

“He carries hate and hunger with him. His eyes burn with it.” Last swung his cane, clipped roses from the hedge before him.

“Mmm,” the king murmured. “I see no such thing in his eyes. Yours though—”

“You’re a fool, Aris. Shall I tell you what I hear, whispered in the air of the court? One word, blown like leaves: ‘witch.’ They know him for what he is, an accursed creature.”

“You sound like a country intercessor, seeing the old gods in every shadow. But you forget, as the gods are dead, so are your witches. Without the gods’ power to scavenge, a witch is nothing but caged spite. Maledicte seems a pleasant boy, albeit one with an unfortunate mentor.”

Last snarled. “Fool, twice over. To have loved that Vornatti woman who brought neither healthy child nor power, and to defend his creature, now. Black-Winged Ani has touched him, made him Her lover—”

Beneath them, Gilly shuddered and Maledicte moved closer, a gesture of support, or perhaps for shelter.

“Michel, superstition is the mark of a fool,” the king said; Last drew his lips closed over set teeth and jaw. He stalked back through the doorway, setting the hound to growling after him. Aris brushed back his hair, displacing his circlet, and resettled it. “Eavesdropping is a standard of the court. I see you’re practicing noble manners.” He looked into the shadows, pinning Maledicte and Gilly with his amused gaze. His eyes flickered downward. “But remember discretion.”

Maledicte’s hand, resting on Gilly’s hip, recoiled. Gilly dropped into a hasty bow.

The king grinned like a young man and sauntered into the darkness, the hound rumbling to its feet with a sigh.

“Come on,” Maledicte said, and they plunged into the green moonstruck darkness of ivy-covered stone and thick hedges. Tiny white flowers coiled around animal statues like a spattering of stars.

Gilly pointed to a small carving within a mortared niche. “As long as we follow the mouse we should come to the center and then the exit.”

“Do you know every secret, Gilly?” Maledicte asked, taking that first turning, disappearing into shadows, leaving only his voice behind. The breeze painted each shaking leaf with moonlight and dappled the pathway so that it seemed silvered with frost.

Gilly trailed after him, on smooth grassy paths designed to be strolled in the night. Moonflowers spotlighted a lover’s bench; a stone mouse leaped on its side and directed their next turn.

The trail opened into a garden, ringed with pathways like the spokes of a wheel, its shape an echo of the city itself. Night-blooming jasmine laced the air with heady fumes. Maledicte spun in the center of it, staring at the starry sky. “Can you see Her, Gilly?”

Gilly saw nothing, but heard the rasp and rush of feathers. Hoarse calls and rattles came from all around them, and the leafy walls of the maze gave birth to dozens of rooks. The air filled with the drumbeat sound of their wings, and the stars above flickered. When he could speak, his heartbeat slowing back to a normal pace, Gilly said, “We must have disturbed their nesting.”

“You don’t think She’s watching me?” Maledicte said.

“They’re just rooks, startled to find intruders in the maze.” The maze, which had seemed peaceful and secluded, now closed about him like a net. Was this how it would be? His eyes opened now? Not for the first time since the pier, Gilly wished for blindness, for his question to have died unspoken.

“This way, Gilly.” Maledicte moved on, and Gilly followed. But somewhere in the maze of trails and turns, shaken by the soaring rooks and led astray by moonlight, they lost the correct path and found themselves in a cul-de-sac of whispering leaves. Frowning, Gilly headed back for the last turn, but Maledicte’s stillness halted him.

Paused, his feet no longer stirring the grass, Gilly heard it: the clipped, echoing sounds of hooves drawing closer on cobbled streets. He parted the ivy, revealing the training wires beneath, and peered through. “It’s a carriage,” he said. “A rented hack.” Around them, the rooks settled like blight on the trees that lined the drive.

Maledicte’s face was bleached of color in the night. He drew his sword, slashed the ivy. It parted like paper, and Maledicte stepped out of the maze, though he kept to the shadows. A man stepped down from the hack, dark and well dressed, far too well dressed to require the services of a rental driver. A large man with glossy dark hair, and an elaborate malacca cane. Maledicte tensed like a dog on point. Faint chords of familiarity woke in Gilly, but it wasn’t until the noble turned his head, exposing an eye filmed and scarred, that Gilly knew him.

K
RITOS MET THEIR GAZES
and his face grew disquieted, as if there were some danger to seeing a tall blond and a slight brunette coming out of the shadows. He was slow to put his back to them, slow to climb the steps toward the court, though perhaps some of his deliberate pace was due to the heavy aroma of spirits that lingered around him like a cloud.

Maledicte stood like marble, only his rocketing heart betraying him, sending a bloody flush to his cheek. The rooks’ wings, shifting, whispered partite beats: Kritos. Hissing the name. Tolling the name. Maledicte had not thought he would feel anything but hate for this man, but a wild wash of joy made his mouth quiver. And why not? Kritos’s return heralded Janus’s. Janus was within reach at long last—Maledicte clenched his hands, took steady breaths, and watched Kritos belabor the great doors. This drunkard had been a threat to him once?

The doors slammed back, the footmen scrambling to shield the delicate inlays from contact with the stone. Kritos stepped forward as if the doors had flung themselves wide for him, and was immediately distracted. “Last, there you are,” Kritos said. “What do you mean, denying me your house? I am your blood.”

“Where is Janus?” the earl asked.

“At Lastrest. Recuperating from the sea voyage. Answer me. Why was I denied entrance to your house?” Kritos’s voice rasped with desperation.

“I am weary of your debts. I warned you that I would stand for no more of it. Yet, not returned a full day, and I hear you’ve lost your coach and its team to the tables. I will not have you as an anchor on my purse any longer. I have let the moneylenders know this.” Last brushed past Kritos and was stopped by Kritos’s grip on his arm.

“Aris won’t stand for it. I’m blood kin,” Kritos said.

“Oddly enough,” Last said, “this is the only action Aris and I have agreed on in years. But he thinks responsibility will make a better man of you, while I…doubt it.

“So were I you, nephew, I would not waste my limited time arguing. You had best find yourself an heiress to take on your debts.” The earl shook off Kritos’s clutching fingers, cast an inimical glance at Gilly and Maledicte, and lowered his voice.

Maledicte closed his eyes, the better to hear words that were balm to his senses.
Let Kritos suffer,
he thought.
Let him face the streets, the rats, the poverty.

Last’s voice, clipped with anger, slid into his ears, jolting him with one name. “…Janus is more clever at card playing than you are at card sharping. I do have some family feeling. Consider those debts cleared.” Ignoring Kritos’s choleric flush, the earl proceeded down the stairs, signaling for his own coachman to pull up behind Kritos’s waiting hack.

Behind him, Kritos lashed out with his cane, the heavy wood meant to crush Last’s fair head. Maledicte froze, imagining his chance at vengeance gone, but Last pivoted as smoothly as a serpent; the cane cracked into his gloved palm and he yanked it from Kritos’s hands. Overbalanced and overwrought, Kritos tumbled down the wide stairs, landing in the oyster-shell gravel to the detriment of his skin and clothes. He moaned as he staggered to his feet.

“Take my nephew someplace to sober up,” Last said, speaking to the coachman. The man shook his head, mute, unwilling, until Last tossed him a luna.

Last looked on Kritos’s limping form dispassionately. “As always, you make poor gambles, Kritos. Attack the man who can and will disinherit you without further qualm? And to do so before Vornatti’s catamite and his spy. How fast the word will spread of your straits, and you with no one to blame but yourself.”

Maledicte sketched the briefest of bows when Kritos turned a furious face toward them and said, “Such delicious gossip it is, too. The family loyalty of the House of Last.” He shivered in small spurts along his spine, the only outlet he afforded his rage. So close, and yet, Janus still eluded his grasp. Killing Last now when he could be caught before he reached Janus was—unthinkable. He could not move; the urge to kill and the need to wait warred in him, keeping him frozen as Last paced forward.

“What is your game, boy?” Last looked down his narrow nose; he was close enough that Maledicte had to look up to see those pale, icy eyes.

“Is this a game? I never thought it one. As for my conduct, I do as I see fit.” His voice, raspy, covered the shiver in it.

“Were you not Vornatti’s ward, you’d find out how little that arrogance would avail you,” Last said. “But tell me, boy, what do you want with my brother?”

Maledicte forced a smile, despite the ache in his guts that pointed out how close Last was, how sharp the black blade was, how quickly the deed could be done. A pastel froth of dresses spilled down the stairs as the youngest debutantes and their chaperones came outside, looking for their coaches. They stopped; one lady giggled uncertainly, sensing the charged atmosphere, the muttering rooks flanking the drive.

“I want nothing from Aris that he has not already given me, but what I want from you—” Maledicte said.

“I have done nothing to you, and yet I could swear to your enmity.”

“Have you something on your conscience? Some wrong done? Shall I remind you? You gave me a gift once before you learned its value and took it back,” Maledicte said, breath catching in anger. Careless, he thought. If Last understood, raised his mind from petty offenses to himself, from the confusion over Aris’s support, would he not whisk Janus away once again?

He tempered the ragged edge from his voice and said, “Your coach is waiting, your grace, and I have nothing more to say to you tonight.” The cool dismissal whitened the skin around Last’s nose even as it flushed his thick neck.

Last reached out as if he would shake or strangle Maledicte, but his hands dropped to his side at a gasp from the throng of women. “I will see you gone from the court,” he said, as he stepped up into his coach. “Revealed for what you are.”

“What am I?” Maledicte whispered as Last closed the coach’s door. “I wish you would tell me.”

Last gave the coachman a signal and the horses drew him away. Maledicte stood trembling, until Gilly took his hand and led him home.

· 11 ·

S
ORNATTI’S
D
OVE
S
TREET RESIDENCE
was lit against the silky fogs creeping inward from the sea, making itself a welcoming beacon in the twilight. Inside, that echo of hospitality continued as maids laid silver out, as the cook prepared her courses, as Vornatti waited for his dinner guests.

In his bedchamber, Maledicte paced, irritated that Vornatti staged this party now, when he wanted to flee the city and hunt Janus down at Lastrest. But Vornatti had insisted on the party; more, he had disabled the coach and disallowed Maledicte any coin. Once, Maledicte thought, such obstacles would have only slowed him, not stopped him. But now, he had grown soft—or practical—and knew there was no point attempting the forty-mile journey afoot. Not when Janus was destined to attend the solstice ball; not when morning might see Vornatti more agreeable.

Still, his temper was bad, and at the sight of a carriage come unfashionably early, he slammed his window shut, cracking the glass.

Since his bloodless confrontation of Last, Ani had gnawed at him, muttering and seething, until his entire body ached with fluttering wings and razor beaks. His mind, like feathers in an eddy, kept coming round and round, always returning to blood-drenched dreams. His hand cramped on the sword hilt, seized yet again to no purpose. Ani, restless, threatened to withdraw Her support, the compact annulled by his dilatoriness.
Coward,
Ani jeered, Her message in his clenching fist on the hilt:
Last must die.

“He will,” Maledicte muttered. “I swore it. I swore.”

Behind him, the door, left ajar for Gilly, whispered open. Maledicte tensed his shoulders, pulled the drapes across the blank-eyed glass. “Not yet,” he said.

“Are you practicing your lines?” The voice wasn’t Gilly’s low voice, husked with the indelible country accent, but a woman’s, delicately arch. “I thought your wit more ready than that.”

Rage muted Maledicte’s response. He turned. Mirabile lingered in the doorway, and as he met her eyes, she took a step inward, her hands trailing across the jambs, emphasizing her invasion of his room. Like the night sky, she swept inward, all in dark satin and fog-gray trim.

“Apparently, I was mistaken,” she said. “A flaw in your nature. You should correct it. Those who practice their thoughts are often caught flat-footed.”

“Get out—” Maledicte whispered, then with effort removed his hand from the sword hilt again, and assayed a reasonable façade of courtly speech. “I have a care for my reputation, even if you do not. A man’s bedchamber is no place for a lady.”

“What
has
the baron been teaching you?” Mirabile said, her lips curving. “Shall I show you otherwise? Prove that a lady indeed has a place in a man’s bedchamber?” She glided toward him, her dark skirts creeping ahead of her.

Maledicte stepped back, bumped the wall. She laughed and settled herself on his bed, rested her cheek against the canopy post, stroked its length. “As nervous as a virgin. How unflattering,” she said. “And feared for your reputation? Let me teach you this, Maledicte, that scandalous creatures such as myself, such as you”—she nodded toward him with a regal incline of her head—“need not fear the strictures of propriety. The peerage expects misbehavior from us. We are free in ways they will never be, granted license by their hunger for scandalous gossip.”

“They don’t need our actions to feed their gossip. I believe they make it out of whole cloth.”

“Strong words from a man who owes much of his place to the collection and manipulation of rumor,” Mirabile said, laughing. “If you claim such disinterest, I will stifle a whisper I meant to share—a gift of sorts, to mend this awkward dislike you bear for me.” She rose, crossed the room, her presence as warm beside him as an animal’s.

Maledicte leaned against the window, wishing he were back in the ballroom with a low balcony and velvet grass behind him instead of a steep drop to a thorny garden. “Dislike?” he said. “Is that what you term my feelings to be?”

“Hush,” she said, putting her hand to his mouth. Perfume rose from her skin, the dizzying, cloying attar of imported jasmine. She tipped her mouth toward his. He turned his head, and she, determined, followed, brought her lips to his. Again, he reached for the sword, but Mirabile caught his hand and brought it to her bodice, the scented intersection of flesh and satin.

Snarling, Maledicte shoved her away, drew the sword in a long hiss. Evading its blade, Mirabile fell over her long skirts. Her eyes darkened; her face stiffened in insult. But her voice stayed sweet. “So very gauche. If you were not so lovely, I wonder if I’d bother with you. Still, you might at least pretend to civility. Were I to report your behavior to Vornatti—”

“If you report this, Vornatti would see me cast out, which would gain you neither husband nor the wealth you crave.” Maledicte sheathed the sword again, fighting the urge to see blood wet its blade. Any blood.

Mirabile rose, brushing at a creased panel on her skirt. “But would gain me the satisfaction of seeing you so discommoded. Still, you’re quite correct, that’s not the result I wish.” She shook out her skirts, then settled herself at his dressing table, sorting the discarded jumble of stickpins and fobs, leafing through
The Book of Vengeances,
and smiling at the illustrations. “So I’ll return to my first purpose. Shall I tell you the gossip?”

“I’ll hear it from a dozen mouths by morning,” Maledicte said, watching her hands, thinking of Westfall’s stolen belongings, of Gilly’s missing flask, but, unwilling to get closer, allowed her to set the book aside for his embroidery box.

“How you wrong me,” she said. “My gossip is never the ordinary. I am as clever as your baron when it comes to ferreting secrets.” Her agile fingers sought the catch.

“Tell me if you must,” Maledicte said.

Her fingers stilled as she smiled at him. “Last dislikes you very much; you return the sentiment,” she said.

“Old news,” Maledicte interrupted.

“But Kritos dislikes him beyond that. You’ll not suffer Last for long. Kritos means to kill him before Last has a chance to disinherit him in favor of Janus. It is his only way to salvage his debts. So he raises coin, even now, to hire an assassin.”

Outrage scoured him, all unexpected. His vengeance—stolen? And by the man who had done him such wrong before?

Mirabile’s fingers found the catch; the lid opened. Her painted mouth made a delicate “oh” of surprise, and then her lips curled. “Not what I expected,” she said. “But perhaps you and I can understand each other. Shall I make myself clear?”

“I wish you would,” Maledicte said, the rage fading slowly as he wrestled for control. He watched her select the vial of arsenixa, admiring it in the lamplight as if it were a gemstone.

“I need funds desperately,” she said, “thus a husband. But my reputation is such that the moneyed men, who can afford to be selective, will not be caught. And time grows short.

“My lord Westfall is a most impatient host, and Brierly has had the poor judgment to allow herself to become with child. Her vanity is so great that she will not be seen while she is increasing, and so we must rusticate with her. And I will not stomach a country clod for a husband.” She ran her nails along the crystalline vials until they hummed.

Maledicte reminded her, “My fortunes are as negligible as yours.”

“So your dog said, barking most convincingly. I see only one option left me,” she said.

Maledicte stiffened. “Surely—”

“Hmm—” she said, interrupting him, tugging out a soft roll of cloth-bound powders. “You are not so indifferent to the female sex as you pretend. Not and keep Harlot’s Friend in such ready supply. I own I am glad to see it here.”

“Potions be damned,” Maledicte said. “Make your point and be gone, Lady.”

Her hands clenched, then eased as she mastered her temper. “Shall I be blunt? Even Vornatti must grow bored in his bed. He has his rough servant and he has your elegance—don’t try to deny it,” she said. “I know what they call you in the court when your back is to them—Vornatti’s catamite. And I must believe them, since you so nobly defended your fellow, Gilly—you’re both whores, one simply better dressed than the other.”

“I am not a whore,” he said, reflexively. His anger leaped but fell back beneath caution. She wanted something of him, more than the obvious. Her entire visit felt a sortie, its purpose cloaked in layers. She wanted his alliance in her schemes; he believed that. But his acceptance or denial was not the answer to quench the burning question in her eyes. Maledicte wanted badly to know what she truly sought; he would deny her everything he could.

“Whore or not, it doesn’t signify,” she said, “except that lovely as you both are—surely he’s surfeited with male flesh. He’s willing to pay and pay well for his desires. My price isn’t so dear, a simple ceremony and ring.”

“You think he’d wed you? He can find other women without wedding them,” Maledicte said.

“He will wed me,” she said, the fury so long missing from her face flaring to life. “Be careful, Maledicte. I would like to have you at my side, in my bed, a partner in this, but I will not tolerate your disrespect.”

“Respect you? When my contempt grows apace?” Maledicte said.

Mirabile’s hand curled inward, her forearm tensed; that warning was enough for Maledicte. As her hand rose, fingers clawed, he freed the sword, using the blade like a shield.

Her sharp nails sang along its length; her hand closed over his on the hilt. She shuddered as the steel feathers bit into her skin, raising blood on her white hands. The rage faded from her eyes, her face; her jaw slackened, lips quivered. “What—” she gasped. “I hear…whispers, a question—” For a moment, her face went slack, as her own driving question was answered with another.

Maledicte jerked the sword away, her fingers welling blood. She brought her hand to her mouth, licked the wounds, her eyes never leaving his. “It’s true. Chancel, blight him, was right. All true,” she said breathlessly. “You
are
Ani’s creature—the gods are no more gone than the sun at sundown…. Tell me how you did it,” she said, her voice feverish, the white flesh of her breasts flushing. “Tell me! Is it true? All true? Are you immune to poison, to injury? Such power you must have, perhaps enough to share?” She leaned toward him, all fervor and white teeth bared in wild rejoicing.

“You’re mad,” he said. “And long past your welcome.” He pushed past her and fled, hating to leave her loose in his chamber, but equally loath to stay with Ani stirring to an interest beyond Maledicte’s vengeance. Coldness grew in his belly, coiling, twisting; what if Ani, grown sick of his slow scheming, left him?

What of Kritos? Though Maledicte had little respect for the man’s ability, what if Kritos succeeded? What would Ani do then?

Polite laughter rose from the floor below and he checked in his stairward movement, thinking the laughter directed at him, at his allowing Mirabile to cozen the truth from him that he had never meant to reveal. He growled, retraced his steps, and slipped down the servants’s tairs, stroking his fingers for balance along the ill-lit walls.

G
ILLY LOOKED UP
from the household books. This, too, was his task, the endless daily budgeting and balancing of accounts. Of late, he found the minutiae soothing. So he sat now, lamp wicking down on the desk, one long leg curled back beneath the chair rungs. When Maledicte drifted into the study, a vision in dark silks, he found his first response not pleasure but dismay.

“Shouldn’t you be with your dinner guests?” he asked.

“Absolutely not,” Maledicte said, sulking into the deep, plush chair that Vornatti usually claimed. “What did you say to her, Gilly?”

“Her?” Gilly echoed.

“Mirabile,” Maledicte said, kicking at the carved legs of the chair in bad temper.

“She’s not still hunting you?” Gilly said, surprised.

“No. Yes,” Maledicte said. “She’s decided to wed Vornatti and make me her paramour.”

Gilly scoffed, unconcerned with the black look Maledicte turned on him. “And you deciphered this how?”

“No effort at all,” Maledicte said, rising smoothly, stalking the room. “She told me so herself in my chambers.” He growled wordlessly and for the first time, Gilly saw the knife edge beneath the familiar petulance and temper.

Gilly said, “She was in your room?”

“I left her there,” Maledicte said.

“Mal—” Gilly trailed off, thinking of Mirabile in Maledicte’s room, snooping, finding more than she could have imagined. “Go roust her out. You cannot withstand her scrutiny. Her husband believed in the gods’ survival—”

“Gilly, don’t be foolish,” Maledicte said, “The damage is most thoroughly done. She is now quite introduced to Ani.” He settled down on the desk, careful of the ink bottle and the fallen pen, as if Gilly’s outburst soothed his own.

“She knows?” Gilly said.

“She cornered me until she provoked the response she wanted. And while I despise her, I must admire her boldness. It’s quite inspired me.”

“To what end?” Gilly asked, closing the ledger over his fingertip. He misliked the angry precision of Maledicte’s words, the fey light in his dark eyes.

“I thought to dedicate my night to gambling,” he said, taking the ledger from Gilly and flipping through it.

“Your entire existence seems one gamble after another. You have a dinner party to attend and the old bastard to soothe—what do you seek at the gambling tables?” Gilly took the ledger back, set it in the drawer, and shut it.

“Kritos.”