A Song for Arbonne (23 page)

"I will confess that I wondered," said the man by the table lazily, speaking Portezzan with elegant, aristocratic precision. "I wondered if you were in a clever vein tonight and would come. But see, I did give you the benefit of the doubt—there is food and wine for two, Blaise. I'm glad you're here. It has been a long time. Do come and dine with me. It
is
a Carnival night in Arbonne, after all."

He stood then, leaning across the table into the light as he reached for the wine. By the shining of the two moons and the candles and the glowing, graceful lanterns swinging from tripods among the trees, Lisseut saw that he was slender and bright-haired and young and smiling, that his loose silk tunic was night-black with wide, full sleeves, and his leggings were black and white, like Arsenault the Swordsman in the puppet shows she remembered from childhood—and like the arrows she saw lying in plain sight in their quiver by the table.

"You still use syvaren, I see," said Blaise of Gorhaut calmly. He didn't move any nearer to the table. He spoke Portezzan as well.

The fair-haired man made a face as he poured from a long-necked decanter. "An ugly thing, isn't it?" he said with distaste. "And amazingly expensive these days, you have no idea. But useful, useful at times. Be fair, Blaise, it was a
very
long shot in a breeze and uncertain light. I didn't plan anything in advance, obviously, it was sheerest good fortune I happened to be in the tavern when that river challenge was made. And then I had to count on Duke Bertran being skillful enough to make it as far as the rope. Which I did, and which he was, Corannos shelter his soul. Come now, you might have congratulated me by now on hitting him from so far. The right shoulder, I take it?" He turned, smiling, a glass of wine in each hand, one extended towards the other man.

Blaise hesitated, and Lisseut, all her senses alert, knew with certainty that he was wrestling with whether to tell the assassin of his error.

"It was a long shot," was all he said. "I don't like poison though, you know that. They don't use it in Arbonne. Had you not done so they might have thought the killing was by one of Urté de Miraval's men. It wasn't, I take it?"

The question was ignored. "Had I not done so there wouldn't have been a killing. Only a duke with a wounded shoulder and a quadrupled guard, and I'd be out a rather spectacular fee."

"How spectacular?"

"You don't want to know. You'll be jealous. Come, Blaise, take your wine, I feel silly standing with my hand out like an almsman. Are you angry with me?"

Slowly, Blaise of Gorhaut walked forward over the grass and took the offered goblet. The Portezzan laughed and returned to his seat. Blaise remained standing beside the table.

"In the tavern," he said slowly, "you would have seen that I was with the duke, one of his men."

"Of course I did, and I must say it surprised me. I'd heard a rumour at the Aulensburg tourney—you were missed in Gotzland, by the way, you were talked about—that you were in Arbonne this spring, but I doubted it, I really didn't know you liked singing so much."

"I don't, believe me. But it isn't important. I'm employed by the duke of Talair, and you saw as much in the tavern. Didn't that mean anything to you?"

"A few things, yes, but you won't like them and you won't want to hear them from me. You
are
angry with me, obviously. Really, Blaise, what was I supposed to do, abandon a contract and payment because you happened to be on the scene trading insults with an Arimondan catamite? I gather you killed his brother."

"How much money were you paid?" Blaise asked again, ignoring that last. "Tell me."

The fair, handsome head was in shadow again. There was a silence. "Two hundred and fifty thousand," the Portezzan said quietly.

Lisseut suppressed a gasp. She saw Blaise stiffen in disbelief.

"No one has that much money for an assassination," he said harshly.

The other man laughed, cheerfully. "Someone does, someone did. Deposited in advance with our Gotzland branch, in trust for me on conditions. When word comes of the musical duke of Talair's so sad demise the conditions are removed. Gotzland," he said musingly, "is a usefully discreet place sometimes, though I suppose it
does
help to have a family bank."

The man still seemed amused, eerily so, as if there was some private jest he was savouring at Blaise's expense. Lisseut was still reeling inwardly, unable to even comprehend the size of the sum he had named.

"Payment in Portezzan coinage?"

Laughter again, on the edge of hilarity now, the sound startling in the quiet formality of the garden. A slow sip of wine. "Ah, well now, you are fishing for information, my dear. You were never good at that, were you Blaise? You don't like poison, you don't like deceptions. You aren't at all happy with me. I've clearly gone to the bad since we parted. You haven't even asked for news of Lucianna."

"Who paid you, Rudel?"

The question was blunt, hard as a hammer. Blaise's wine glass was set down on the table, untouched; Lisseut saw that it shook a little. The other man—who had a name now—would have seen that too.

"Don't be stupid and tiresome," the Portezzan said. "When have you ever revealed who hired you? When has anyone you respected done so? You of all men know I've never done this for the money in any case." A sudden, sweeping gesture encompassed the house and the garden. "I was born to this and all it represents in the six countries, and I'll die with it unless I'm more stupid than I plan to be, because
my
father happens to like me." He paused. "Drink your wine, Blaise, and sit down like a civilized person so we can talk about where we're going next."

"We aren't very civilized in Gorhaut," said Blaise. "Remember?" There was a new note in his voice.

The man in the chair cleared his throat but did not speak. Blaise did not move from where he stood.

"I see it now, though," he said softly. Lisseut could barely hear him. "You've had too much wine too quickly, haven't you? You didn't mean to say all of that did you, Rudel?" He spoke Portezzan extremely well, much better than Lisseut did herself.

"How do you know? Perhaps I did," the other man replied, an edge to his tone now. "Lucianna always said that good wine at night made her—"

Blaise shook his head. "No. No, we aren't talking about Lucianna, Rudel." He drew a breath and, surprisingly, reclaimed his own goblet and drank. He set it down again, carefully. "You told me too much. I understand now why you find all of this so diverting. You were paid in Gorhaut coinage. You were hired for that insane amount of money to assassinate the duke of Talair in the name of Ademar, king of Gorhaut. But on the orders and doubtless the instigation of Galbert, High Elder of Corannos in Gorhaut."

In shadow the other man slowly nodded his head. "Your father," he said.

"My father."

Lisseut watched as Blaise turned away from the table and the lights on the patio and walked back towards the fountain. He stood gazing down at the rippling waters of the artificial pool. It was difficult to see his face.

"I didn't know you were with Talair when I accepted the contract, Blaise. Obviously." The Portezzan's voice was more urgent now, the amusement gone. "They wanted him killed for some songs he wrote."

"I know. I heard one of them." Blaise didn't look up from the pool. "There's a message in this. My father likes sending messages. No one is safe, he's saying. No one should think about crossing him." He turned with a harsh gesture. "You're
meant
to tell the fee, you know. If you don't, believe me they will. It'll get out. That's a message in itself. How far he'll go if he has to. The resources they can command. You've been used, Rudel."

The other man shrugged, unruffled. "We are always used. It is my profession, it's yours. People hire us to serve their needs. But if you're right, if they really intend to make sure everyone knows who paid for this and how much, then you had better think seriously about coming away with me."

"Why?"

"Think about it. In your clever vein, Blaise. What happens to you here when your own secret's broached? When people learn who you are—and that your father killed the duke of Talair while you were supposed to be guarding him. I have some idea why you came away to Arbonne in the first place—and now, we don't have to talk about it—but you can't stay here now."

Blaise crossed his arms over his chest. "I could deal with that problem. I could turn you in. Tonight. I am employed by the duke of Talair, I'd be doing my duty."

Lisseut couldn't see his face clearly, but from the voice that emerged from shadow she knew the man named Rudel was amused again.

"The late, lamented, poetical duke of Talair. He wrote one song too many, alas. Really, Blaise. Your father ordered the killing, your old comrade-in-arms performed it? Stop being stupid. You are going to be blamed for this. I'm sorry if what I've done makes things briefly awkward for you, but the only thing to do now is figure out where we'd like to go and leave. Have you heard, by the way? Lucianna is married again. Shall we visit the newly weds?"

There was another silence. "Where?" Blaise asked quietly. Lisseut had a sense that the question came against his will.

"Andoria. To Borsiard, the count, a fortnight ago. My father was there. I wasn't invited, I'm afraid. Neither, evidently, were you, though I would have thought you'd have heard."

"I hadn't."

"Then we must visit them and complain. If he hasn't been cuckolded yet you can take care of that. I'll create a distraction of some kind."

"How? By poisoning someone?"

The man named Rudel stood up slowly. In the light now, his features could be seen to have gone still; no trace of amusement remained. He set down his cup of wine. "Blaise, when we parted a year since I was under the impression we were friends. I am not certain what has happened, but I don't have the same impression at the moment. If you are only angry for tonight, tell me, and explain why. If you are more than that, I would appreciate knowing as much, so I can act accordingly."

Both men were breathing harder now. Blaise uncrossed his arms. "You took a contract from my father," he said. "Knowing what you knew, you took a contract from him."

"For two hundred and fifty thousand Gorhaut gold coins. Really, Blaise, I—"

"You have always said you don't do this for the money. You just said it again here. Your father
likes
you, remember? You're going to
inherit,
remember?"

"And are you jealous of that? As jealous as you are of any other man who is close to Lucianna?"

"Careful, Rudel. Oh, please be careful."

"What will you do? Fight me? To see which one of us can kill the other? How stupid are you going to be about this, Blaise? I had no idea you were with the duke of Talair. By the time I knew I could not withdraw from a job I'd accepted. You are as much a professional as I am. You know this is true. I took your father's contract because it was by far the largest sum of money ever offered in our time for a killing. I admit it, I was flattered. I liked the challenge. I liked the idea of being known as the man who was worth that much as an assassin. Are you going to try to kill me for that? Or are you really wanting to kill me for introducing you to my cousin, who decided not to change her nature just because you appeared on the scene and wanted her to? I told you exactly what Lucianna and her family were before you ever saw her. Remember? Or do you prefer to just hide within your anger, hide away from everyone you know, down here in Arbonne, and forget such painful things?
Be honest with yourself, what is my sin, Blaise?"

Lisseut, flat on the wall, screened by the leaves of the plane tree with a bird now silent in the branches above, heard what she should not have heard and felt her hands beginning to tremble. This was too raw, too profoundly private, and she was sorry now that she had come. She was spying on this garden exactly like one of the evil, envious audrades who spied on the lovers in all the dawnsongs, bent on ruin and malice. The steady, quiet splashing of the fountain was the only sound for a long time. There were usually fountains in the songs, too.

When Blaise next spoke it was, surprisingly, in Arbonnais. "If I am honest with myself and with you, I will say that there are only two people on earth, one man and one woman, it seems I cannot deal with, and you are linked with both of them now, not just the one. It makes things… difficult." He took a deep breath. "I'm not going to leave Arbonne. Among other things, it would seem an admission of a guilt I do not bear. I will wait until morning before I report to the appropriate people who it was who shot that arrow. You should have no trouble being out to sea on one of your father's ships before that. I'll take my chances here."

The other man took a step forward into the full light of the candles on the table and the torches. There was no levity or guile in his face now. "We have been friends a long time and have been through a great deal together. If we are enemies now I will be sorry for it. You might even make me regret taking this contract."

Blaise shrugged. "It was a great deal of money. My father tends to get what he wants. Did you ever ask yourself why, of all possible assassins in the six countries, he hired the one who had been my closest friend?

Rudel's face slowly changed as he thought about this. Lisseut saw it happen in the glow of the light. He shook his head. "Truly? Would that have been it? I never even thought of that." He laughed softly again, but without any amusement now. "With my pride, I simply assumed he'd judged me the best of all of us."

"He was buying a friend I had made for myself in the world away from home, away from him. Be flattered—he decided your price would be very high."

"High enough, though I confess I'm less happy now than I was a moment ago. Tell me one thing, though. I think I do know why you left us all and came away by yourself, but why stay now? What has Arbonne done to buy you and hold you? What was Bertran de Talair that you will cast your lot in this way?"