The Death of Dulgath (5 page)

“Mister Stow, I don’t believe I can trust you about art or anything else. How can I when you refuse to let me look at your work? You’ve denied everyone even a glimpse at your two-month masterpiece.”

“Truth isn’t created on schedules.”

“Truth? Is it truth you are painting? I thought it was me.”

“I am painting you—or at least trying to—but you are causing the delay by your refusal to cooperate.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“You hide from me.”

“I—” Her eyes almost shifted. He saw the pupils quiver with the struggle. Biting her lower lip, she gathered herself, and the lock of her gaze redoubled. She lifted her chin, just a smidge, in defiance. “I’m right here.”

“No…you’re not. The Countess of Dulgath in all her refined nobility and grand regalia stands before me, but that’s not you—not who you really are. I want to see the person inside. The person you keep hidden from everyone for fear they’ll see—”

She looked at him. Not a glance, not a stare, but a fierce glare of fire. Only a flash, but he saw more in that instant than he’d seen in two months. Powerful. Violent. A tempest corked in a woman’s body and glazed over with the sadness of loss and regret. He’d
seen
her. The vision rocked him, so much so that Sherwood took a step back.

“We’re done here,” Lady Dulgath declared, breaking the pose and throwing off the fox. “And I see no reason to continue with this foolishness. I only agreed to this portrait because my father wanted the painting. He’s dead, so there’s no need.”

She pivoted on her left heel and strode toward the exit.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Sherwood called after her.

“No—you will not.”

“I’ll be here.”

“I won’t.” She slammed the oak door on her way out, leaving Sherwood alone in the study, listening to the echo of her fading footfalls.

He stared at the door, which had bounced with her thrust, rebounding and hanging agape so that he caught a glimpse of her gold dress as she retreated down the corridor.

Fascinating.

A heartbeat later Sherwood picked up his brush and rag, both of which he’d dropped without realizing, and started to paint. The brush flew with unconscious ease, moving from palette to canvas in a blinding fury. So intense was his concentration that he didn’t notice the young man enter the study until he heard him speak.

“Is there some kind of trouble?”

Sherwood recognized the blue satin doublet even before seeing the goatee and immediately pulled the drape over the front of the painting. He kept the cloth tacked to the top of the canvas’s frame for quick deployment. Covering works in progress to keep gnats, dust, and hair out of the paint wasn’t unusual, but now it served a more important purpose.

“Lord Fawkes. Sorry, I didn’t see you. What did you say?”

“I was asking if there was a problem,” Fawkes said, looking around the study with his trademark mix of bewildered innocence and sinister suspicion. “I heard a loud bang and saw the countess storm out. Is there some way I can be of assistance?”

“Not at all. This was a particularly good session, but it’s over. I’ll just gather my things. We made excellent progress today.”

Fawkes circled around the easel and frowned at the covered portrait. “I hope that isn’t one of the bed linens.”

“My nightshirt, actually, or what’s left of it.”

“What do you wear to bed?”

“Now? Nothing at all. Can’t afford it.”

“Thank Novron it’s nearly summer.” Lord Fawkes picked up Sherwood’s bottle of Ultramarine and tossed it from hand to hand. For him to choose to play with
that
particular bottle of pigment was too coincidental. Unlike the rest of his ilk, Lord Christopher Fawkes must have been familiar with the art trade. “Why are you still here, Sherwood?”

The artist pointed at the covered painting and smiled. Pointing was easy; the smile was more of a challenge as he watched Fawkes continue to toss the blue bottle.

The lord glanced over his shoulder with a dismissive sniff. “You painted my aunt Mobi’s picture last summer at her villa in Swanwick.”

“Yes, I remember. Beautiful place. Lady Swanwick was most gracious and generous.”

Fawkes nodded. “Yardley painted her portrait as well, two years before, and yet she insisted on one by you, his apprentice.”

“Actually, that happens quite often.”

Fawkes paused in his game of toss to hook a thumb at the covered painting. “Everyone gasped when you unveiled her portrait.”

“I get a lot of that, too.”

“Aunt Mobi sobbed when she saw what you’d done. Ten minutes passed before she could say anything at all. Uncle Karl was certain you’d offended her.”

Sherwood nodded. “The Earl of Swanwick called his guards.”

“I heard they took you by the wrists and started dragging you away when Aunt Mobi found her voice and stopped them.
That’s me!
she said.
That’s how I really am—no one has ever seen me like that before.
”

“I get that, too.”

“Did you sleep with her?” He tossed the bottle higher than he had before.

“Excuse me?”

“Is that how you impressed her so? How you got her to be so
generous
?”

“Did you see the painting?”

Fawkes chuckled. “No. I just heard the tale. Aunt Mobi keeps it locked in her bedchamber, where I’m certain she dreams of the young artist who
captured
her so exquisitely. I wonder why a woman married to an earl would be so impressed by a penniless artist.”

“Does this story have a point?”

Fawkes smirked. “My point is, that painting—which captured Aunt Mobi so perfectly that she may have betrayed her husband—took five days to create. So once more I ask, why are you still here, Sherwood?”

“Some portraits are more difficult than others.”

“And some women are harder to seduce.”

Sherwood snatched the bottle in mid-toss. “Pigments are not toys.”

“Neither is Lady Dulgath.” Fawkes stared at the bottle in Sherwood’s hand for a moment, then turned away. “I assumed you were merely freeloading off your patron’s goodwill. Possibly lingering because you had no other prospects. Now I believe I’ve been naïve.”

He looked again at the linen-draped painting as if it were a veiled face watching them. “Life as an itinerant artist must be taxing and perilous. I suspect that living in a castle with your own bed and studio is a significant improvement. But you’ve forgotten one thing. She’s noble; you’re not. There are laws against such things.”

“No, there aren’t.” Sherwood placed the bottle of blue pigment on the easel’s tray and stepped between it and Lord Fawkes.

Fawkes glared. “There ought to be.”

“If we are speaking of things that should be, you would have been born a dairy farmer in Kelsey instead of the cousin to King Vincent. Although that would have been a terrible injustice to cows, which I’m certain is what Maribor was thinking when he made you a landless lord.”

Sherwood was exceedingly pleased that Lord Fawkes no longer held his precious bottle of Beyond the Sea. The Maranon lord of no-place-in-particular sucked in a snarl. His shoulders rose like the fur on the back of a dog. Before he could open his mouth to cast some vile insult, Sherwood cut him off. “Why are
you
still here? The funeral was more than a month ago.”

This had the effect of pouring cold water on a flame. Fawkes blinked three times, then settled into a murderous glare. “In your single-minded efforts to enter Her Ladyship’s bed, it may have escaped your attention that someone is trying to kill her.”

“And what does that have to do with anything?”

“I’m staying to protect her.”

“Really?” Sherwood said with more sarcasm than he intended, but he was more than nettled with the lord. “Perhaps it has escaped your attention that she has a contingent of well-trained guards for that. Or is it your belief that the only thing standing between Lady Dulgath and death is the assassin’s fear of the king’s second cousin?”

This comment did nothing to alleviate Fawkes’s glare, but his gaze did shift to the easel again.

Sherwood knew what the lord was thinking and took another step forward. The painter had no grand illusion of beating Fawkes in a brawl. A law
did
exist making it illegal to strike a noble, even a despicable one. Sherwood’s advance was a bluff, but the artist tried to sell it as best he could by rising to his full height, which was an inch taller than Fawkes, and returning that venomous glare with a firm jaw and ready hands.

Bluff or not, Fawkes chose to merely spit on Sherwood’s shoe before walking out.

He, too, slammed the big door, but this time it stayed shut.

Chapter Three
Maranon

The weather remained horrible all the way to Mehan. If the clouds weren’t following them, as Hadrian imagined, and all of northern Avryn was suffering the same deluge, then Wayward’s pond was likely a lake after the three additional days of downpours that soaked Royce and Hadrian’s travels south. On the morning of the fourth day, the skies woke clear and blue, a huge southern sun shining upon a land of gorgeous rolling hills.

Most of the jobs Riyria took occurred in and around Medford, with a few sending them only as far south as Warric. Although Hadrian had grown up less than fifty miles from the border, this was his first trip to Maranon. If the peninsula of Delgos were a mitten, Maranon would be the thumb, and a green one at that. A land that was deep, velvet-rich, and the color of a forest by moonlight stretched out in all directions, broken by small stands of leafy trees. Maranon was known for its horses—the best in the world. At first, Hadrian thought he saw deer grazing in the meadows, but deer didn’t travel in herds of fifteen or more. Nor did they thunder when racing across the fields, shifting and circling like a flock of starlings.

“Are they owned? Or can you just grab one?” Hadrian asked Royce as they rode their mangy northern mounts, which were at least clean thanks to three days of rain.

Royce, who had thrown his hood off and was letting his cloak air-dry on his shoulders, glanced at the horses racing over a distant hill. “Yes and no. They’re like deer up north—or anything anywhere, really. There’s nothing that isn’t claimed by someone. Those are wild, but everything here belongs to King Vincent.”

Hadrian accepted Royce’s expertise. Despite his partner’s lack of idle conversation, he knew Royce had traveled extensively—at least in Avryn. He appeared most familiar with the congested areas around the big cities of Colnora and Ratibor, those places a thief and former assassin would find the most work. For Hadrian, the trip to Maranon felt like Riyria was taking a holiday. The change in weather only added to the sense that they were in for some relaxation.

Rising in his stirrups, Hadrian gazed across the open land. Aside from the road they followed and the mountains in the distance, Hadrian didn’t see a soul, city, or village. “So what’s to stop me from roping one and taking it home?”

“Aside from the horse itself, you mean?” Royce asked.

“Well, yes.”

“Nothing really. Unless you’re caught, in which case you’ll be hanged.”

Hadrian smirked, but Royce wasn’t looking. “If caught, we’d be hanged for most of what we do.”

“So?”

“So, this looks nicer. I mean…” He gazed at the few puffy, white clouds, which cast fleeting shadows over the hills. “This place is incredible. It’s like we crawled out of a sewer and wandered into paradise. I’ve never seen so many shades of green before.” He looked down. “It’s like our Medford grass is sick or something. If we have to steal, why can’t we take horses for a living? Got to be easier than climbing trellises and towers.”

“Really? Ever try grabbing a wild horse?”

“No—you?”

“No, but explain to me how a man on a horse catches a riderless horse. And a
Maranon
one at that. In a land of endless rolling hills, there’s no place to trap them. And even if you were to catch one, what then? There’s a difference between a wild horse and an unbroken one. You know that, right?”

In one of the back corridors of his mind, Hadrian recalled having heard something like that, but he hadn’t remembered until Royce brought it up. Horses born on farms were raised around people. They weren’t trained and didn’t take to having folk hop on their backs any more than a dog would, but they were still relatively tame.

“Got just as much chance with a wild horse as you would have saddling a stag.”

“Just an idea,” Hadrian said. “I mean, how long will we do this for?”

“Do what?”

“Steal.”

Royce laughed. “Since I teamed with you, I hardly ever steal. Annoying really. There’s a certain beauty in a well-done theft. I miss it.”

“We stole that diary.”

Royce turned to give Hadrian a pitying look and a sad shake of his head. “That’s not theft; it’s petty pilfering. And now this. The idea of preventing someone from assassination feels…”

“Dirty?” Hadrian asked.

Another look, this one baffled. “No. It feels
wrong,
like walking backward. Seems simple enough in theory, but it’s awkward. I’m not even sure what they want me to do. Am I expected to talk to this woman, this walking target? Don’t usually chat with the soon-to-be dead.”