In Ashes Lie (8 page)

Even then, the taint would remain, poisoning her body. Had she not stumbled ... Lune wavered to her feet, trying not to lean too obviously against Antony for support. “I will fetch a physician,” he murmured in her ear.

“No,” she whispered in reply, and forced her back straight. He was right: the poison must be drawn, and soon. But that would take time, and since she was not dead, it was imperative that she first deal with the situation. She dared not show her weakness.

Her rescuer had likewise risen, behind the protecting wall of her bodyguard. The golden-haired elf was not of their number; his name was Sir Leslic, come perhaps five years ago to her court, and up until this point she had taken little notice of him. Blood spattered his face and darkened the sapphire of his doublet. He was wiping his skin clean when he saw her and went instantly to his knee. Space had cleared for a good three paces around them, excepting the bodyguards who ringed her. “Your Majesty. I beg your forgiveness, for drawing a weapon in your presence.”

She would hardly punish him for that offense, when he had saved her life. “What happened?” she asked, and managed to sound authoritative instead of shaken.

“I saw it as the dance brought me near. He seemed to join in our sport, but then he broke without warning for your Grace’s person, and pulled forth that knife. Had I been but a moment faster, I—I might have stopped him in time.”

Shame broke his voice. Lune said, “You have done well, Sir Leslic.” With one hand she prodded her bodyguards aside, giving her a clear view of her would-be killer. He was a pathetic thing, filthy and ragged on the marble. The luster of the stone was dimmed where the knife had fallen, and smeared with her blood.

The knight moved suddenly, stepping forward and then checking himself as her guards twitched. Antony half-dropped his buttressing grip on Lune’s arms, but restored it as she swayed. Leslic’s attention flew past Lune’s shoulder like an arrow.
“You,”
he said, spitting the word. “You brought this murderer here.”

Sir Cerenel stood trembling just behind her and to the right, mouth open in sick horror. Leslic’s snarl brought him up with a snap. “Do you accuse me of conspiracy?”

Lune’s own thoughts had not yet gotten that far. Clutching to her bleeding shoulder the fold of cloth Amadea provided, she went cold with sudden fear. Had she so misjudged him? Could Cerenel be playing at agreement with her ideals, all the while paying heed to Nicneven’s agents?

The knights’ anger was evenly matched, and rising. Leslic said, “I would not so impugn her Majesty’s judgment as to imagine she would take such a traitor into her bosom. But you found this man; you brought him here. Are you not of the Onyx Guard? Is it not your duty to protect your Queen from harm? What measures did you take to ensure her safety?”

Cerenel went pale. “Upon my oath, you will withdraw that insult to my honor, sir.”

“For the insult to our gracious sovereign,” Leslic said, “I stand by my words. Prove your honor, sir, or prove it lost.” He spun to face Lune. “Madam, this
knight
has given the lie to my words. I beg your leave to face him in combat.”

It was too much, too quickly. Lune’s head spun, and blackness feathered the edges of her vision.
I should have withdrawn.

Antony’s hands tightened on her arms, and his answer struck both knights into silence. “You would make demands of your Queen? On the heels of such an outrage? Your
honor,
sirs, is not worth a brass thimble!”

But if she had gone, they would still have had this confrontation. At least now she had some hope of controlling it. Lune had never forbidden dueling, for her people rarely fought to the death, and a little bloodshed for the sake of honor was understandable enough. But for this, a private duel would not serve; it touched too closely on
her
royal honor. The settlement of the question must be public.

Cerenel was still pale, and he looked at Lune with desperate eyes. That he had not planned this, she was certain. But his honor and reputation
were
damaged, and he must be given leave to defend them.

Not tonight. “This matter shall be settled in honorable fashion,” she said, holding on to strength with her fingernails. “When we are recovered, we shall oversee it in person. Until such time, we forbid you to visit violence upon one another, nor even to speak; nor to allow any of your allies to do the same, save to arrange the terms of the duel.” She glared both knights down as if she could stop them by will alone. Which she hoped she could. “Do not think to disobey us.”

Later, Antony went to her bedchamber, where she had dismissed all of her ladies and sprites and sat gazing at a candle flame. “What of the blade?” she asked, without turning to face him.

She sounded far calmer than he would have expected, though he could see the bulk of a bandage altering the line of her shoulder. “Safely gone,” he replied. “It was a cheap Sheffield knife, such as any man might own. Nothing to learn from it. We found a sheath in his clothing, though—made of hawthorn, to mask its presence. Someone prepared this.” Nicneven, without a doubt. She had threatened violence before.

But always against him. Never Lune. Anger such as he rarely felt heated Antony’s blood. Murder was a foul thing; regicide, far fouler.

Lune did not comment on the sheath, though he knew she had heard him. Antony swallowed down his anger and cleared his throat. “Will you ...” He hesitated to give the question tongue. No one had been wounded with iron during his time here; he realized now that he did not know what would happen. “Will you recover?”

“In part.” Lune’s breath hissed between her teeth before she continued. “The poison has been drawn. But wounds so given never fully heal.”

And she was immortal. Never would last a very long time for her.

The ensuing silence persisted long enough that he opened his mouth to take his leave. She needed to rest, and might do so if he were gone. But then she spoke again. “Did you mark how Leslic leapt on the man?”

He had watched the incident from the dais—all of it over too fast for him to see much. Or so he thought. But now, recalling the scene, he noted what he had overlooked in the moment. How had Lune, bleeding on the floor, seen such a small thing?

Easily. She knew far better than he how the presence of iron felt. “He did not flinch.”

“No,” Lune said.

Another silence, this time as they both considered the implications. Antony stayed by the door, suspecting she did not want a companion in her weakness. She rarely did. Instead he asked, “Do you wish me to find out where he got the bread?”

She shook her head, then stopped as if the movement hurt her shoulder. “The trade in it is so brisk, I doubt you could trace it. The better question is why he had eaten of it so recently, and was so conveniently protected against the iron.”

He did not know the golden-haired knight well, but he remembered the company in which Leslic had been seen. Fae who sneered at mortals as lesser beings, and rarely set foot outside the Onyx Hall. What bread they had was generally bartered for political favors, not kept for their own use.

Antony said, “I will look for the answer.”

“No,” Lune said, turning to look at him at last. “You have concerns enough of your own. I have others who can find out more efficiently.”

Concerns. Trade, and his family, and the day-to-day governance of his ward. He would get plenty of rest, now that he need not concern himself with Parliament. But Lune was right; there were others who could do that work better. “Then let them have a care for their safety, too,” he said. “Those who would kill you would not hesitate to murder others.”

Wiping his mouth with a napkin, Eochu Airt said, “I am glad to see you so rapidly recovered, madam. Please accept as well the sympathies of the Ard-Rí, who is most outraged over such a foul, dishonorable offense.”

Lune was not quite so recovered as she took pains to appear, but the wound from that knife had already incapacitated her for nearly a week; she could not afford a longer absence from the field. She was at least glad to see that her thought about Eochu Airt had borne fruit. He was much more agreeable when given venison and boar to tear into, rather than pickled lampreys. The quiet meal they shared now was still not the rowdy public banquets hosted by the kings and queens of his land, but it helped, and was a bargain at the price.

She sipped from a cup of wine well fortified with strengthening herbs and said, “The offender answered with his life.”

The ambassador smiled in a way that said he recognized the opportunity she gave him. Lune’s body might still be weak, but she had not missed the implication of his phrasing: that the lunatic’s attack was more than an unfortunate accident. “But what of the one behind him?”

Lune replied with nothing more than politely raised eyebrows, waiting to see how he would continue.

“You may recall, madam,” he said, fingering a bone on his plate, “that nearly a year ago, I offered you information. I assure you, its value has not fallen with time.”

“But has its price? What you offer, my lord ollamh, may not be so valuable as you think. No doubt you offer me some intelligence concerning the Gyre-Carling of Fife. Oh, yes,” Lune said, “I am not ignorant of the pattern here. This is the only attempt so direct against my person, but there have been other attacks, and I know their source. True, I do not yet know their cause—what has changed in Fife, thus changing Nicneven’s tactics. But you are hardly my only means of learning
that,
my lord.”

“Aye, you have other ways—but how long will they take you? And how many more threats will there be in the meantime?” The sidhe had abandoned the last pretense of casual conversation; now he studied her with a frankness that stopped just shy of insult. “You know our price. It has not changed. Bring down Wentworth, and you shall have the name, and more besides.”

Behind him, the door opened to admit Sir Peregrin, who bowed and waited. “We shall bear that in mind, my lord,” Lune said, rising and extending her hand. “In the meantime, I am afraid obligations call me away. You are welcome to attend, if you so desire.”

“Thank you, madam. I may at that.” Eochu Airt kissed her hand and departed.

Left with the lieutenant of her guard, Lune said, “I will come presently.”

“If it please your Majesty,” he replied, “the Goodemeade sisters beg a moment of your time.”

“Show them in.” The brownies dropped into respectful curtsies, straightening as soon as Peregrin was gone. “I am due in the amphitheater,” Lune said. “Please say you have something for me.”

Rosamund answered briskly, incongruous in someone who still, despite years of association with the court, appeared so very country. The Goodemeades almost never changed into fine clothes for their visits to the Onyx Hall. “Sir Leslic hasn’t gone above since March, and as near as we can tell, he had no plans to do so.”

Confirming her suspicions. What to do about it depended on what happened tonight. “Thank you,” Lune said, checking the pins that held up her elaborate curls. “I may have need of you soon. Will you stay for the duel?”

Gertrude wrinkled her round face in distaste, but nodded. Lune touched her shoulder briefly in thanks, then went forth from the chamber.

The amphitheater lay in one of the more distant corners of the Onyx Hall. Its ancient, crumbling stones dated back to the Romans; long since buried beneath the changing face of the city, it thus found itself incorporated into the faerie palace below. When the space was quiet, one could still hear the faint shouts and screams of the men and beasts who had died within its ring.

But it was far from quiet now. Lune strode out onto the white sand to find what looked like every member of her court settled onto the risers, with cushions and cups of wine, ready for entertainment. A canopy of estate covered the box where she took her seat, just behind the low wall ringing the sand. When she nodded, two trumpeters blew fanfares from the entrances, and Sir Cerenel and Sir Leslic entered, followed by their seconds.

The black-haired knight and the gold. If she weighed their hearts aright, they stood opposite one another, when it came to mortal kind. This duel would be seen as a fight between those two perspectives, and unfortunately, she could do nothing to prevent that.

They made their bows before her, and Lune pitched her voice to carry. “Sir Leslic. Upon what grounds do you come here today, in defense of your honor?”

Challenging Cerenel had been his right, even though the offense was his to begin with, because Cerenel’s defense called into question the truth of Leslic’s words, and therefore his honesty. According to the forms of such things, this had nothing to do with the attempt on Lune’s life; it was entirely a question of whether Leslic had spoken rightly in calling Cerenel negligent. The golden-haired knight recounted the tale with simple but effective phrasing, as if there might be a mouse in the corner that had
not
already heard the gossip.

“Sir Cerenel,” Lune said when he was done. “As the challenged, what weapons do you choose for this duel?”

He bowed again. “If it please your Majesty, rapier and dagger.”

“We approve this choice.” A formality; the entire question had been settled by their seconds the day before.

As accuser, Leslic took the oath first, then Cerenel, both of them upon their knees in the sand. “In the name of most ancient Mab, and before your Grace’s sovereign throne, I hereby swear that I have this day neither eat nor drank, nor have upon me, neither bone, stone, nor grass, nor any enchantment, sorcery, or witchcraft, whereby the honor of Faerie may be abased, nor dishonor exalted.”

But when Cerenel was done, Leslic remained kneeling. “Madam,” he said, “though I fight to defend my honor, I do so for your own glory, and never my own. May I beg you to grant me your favor?”