Master of restless shado.., p.10
Master of Restless Shadows, page 10
part #1 of Master of Restless Shadows Series
“Yes, I can see that,” Lord Quemanor commented as he regained his feet.
Still, Ariz had to knock Lord Quemanor down twice more before the duke struck back with all his strength. Then he moved marvelously and with enough speed to land a few glancing blows. Ariz hardly noticed; the dull practice blades raised welts but rarely broke skin. Instead he delighted in matching Lord Quemanor’s attacks and testing his defenses. As his heart hammered and sweat beaded his body, his spirit lifted.
He could not rely on himself to defend Lord Quemanor, but he could train the duke to match him, perhaps even better him.
Their blades rang and scraped. Lord Quemanor charged and Ariz blocked. He feigned to the left, but Lord Quemanor parried his thrust and they continued to circle and strike at such speed that at last Ariz no longer felt the presence of the brand burning into his chest. He fought as he had when he’d trained under his uncle, taking exuberant delight in equaling his partner’s prowess.
Suddenly, without warning Lord Quemanor bolted back and held up his hands.
At once Ariz lowered his weapon.
“Are you hurt?” Ariz asked. It horrified him to think that he might have struck too hard and drawn Lord Quemanor’s blood.
“No, you are.” Lord Quemanor gestured to Ariz’s right arm, his expression drawn. For the first time Ariz noticed the vivid red splotch spreading across his gray shirtsleeve. “Did I—” Lord Quemanor began, but Ariz cut him off.
“No. An accident last night. It’s nothing,” Ariz assured him.
“It bleeds quite a bit for nothing.” Lord Quemanor dropped his practice blade and came quickly to Ariz’s side. When he reached to take his right hand Ariz sidestepped out of reflex.
“It’s been seen to already,” Ariz said, hoping that explained his unwillingness to allow Lord Quemanor to see his injury.
“Has it?”
“Yes.” Ariz seized upon a sure source of distraction. “And I owe you my thanks for providing us with a new physician. I hope this one will outlast the previous.”
“That . . .” Predictably Lord Quemanor’s expression soured. And why wouldn’t it? The man had spent three years being insidiously tortured and possessed by a physician called Donamillo. Ariz’s own cousin, Genimo, had assisted in the crime. And despite Lord Quemanor’s gentle manner, many people still whispered about his mania and madness and claimed that traces of that murderous possession lingered in the duke’s long black shadow.
Now that shadow fell across Ariz, but he didn’t fear it, not even when he noted how it seemed to coil around him. He knew what corrupting sorcery felt like when it crawled over him. Lord Quemanor’s shadow didn’t sicken him, nor did it oppress his thoughts; if anything it felt calming. Years ago he’d discovered the refuge that the duke’s shadow offered while fencing with the man. Now he sought it out almost unconsciously. Some days the fall of the duke’s shadow had been the only respite Ariz could win from weeks of scorching agony. Ariz supposed it was no wonder that he’d grown so attached to Lord Quemanor.
“Father Timoteo has retained him, actually.” Lord Quemanor frowned down at Ariz’s injury. “I’ve not yet met the man. How did he strike you?”
“He seemed assured in his manner and capable in his practice.” The Haldiim physician had stitched his wounds better than most of the barbers and charlatans who’d patched him up over the years. More importantly, Hierro would never employ a Haldiim, not even as an assassin. This new physician might at last be a man who could be trusted to attend to the duke and duchess and perhaps even treat Sparanzo’s leg with something other than quackery and malice.
“Yes, but would you trust him? Perhaps choose him as a friend?”
“I . . .” Ariz could not fathom how to answer that question. He hadn’t had a friend since he was fourteen years old. “I haven’t spent enough time with him to find out if we have anything in common. But I think that he could be a great boon to your household, my lord.”
“Really? Then show me his handiwork,” Lord Quemanor demanded.
Reluctantly, Ariz extended his right arm and then pulled back his shirtsleeve. He should have kept his bandages on, but he’d not wanted their bulk to give him away and the wounds had seemed scabbed closed well enough when he’d woken this morning. None of the silk stitches had torn out, but blood seeped up from the tender seams of his wounds.
Lord Quemanor scowled. To Ariz the injuries looked quite healthy. Neither pus nor any fierce red inflammations showed.
“The stitches are quite straight and clean,” Ariz commented. “And the flesh is hardly swollen—”
“For God’s sake, your arm is a bloody mess. We will not be fencing any further this morning,” Lord Quemanor stated flatly.
Ariz’s spirits sank. These morning practice sessions were the only time he could ever hope to have alone with Lord Quemanor. In fact, Ariz already heard the duke’s personal retainers greeting courtiers as they gathered in the hall outside. Soon some page or courier would wheedle his way in and then a sea of men and women would wash through the doors and carry Lord Quemanor off to wittier and lovelier company than Ariz could hope to offer.
But there would be tomorrow, he reminded himself. The promise of the morning ride lifted his spirit.
“As you wish, my lord.” Ariz bowed and then turned and replaced his practice sword on the rack. Lord Quemanor went to retrieve his discarded blade.
“There is still a little time left,” Lord Quemanor commented.
Ariz waited, watching Lord Quemanor’s reflection in the mirror. The duke gazed out one of the windows, his expression distant but untroubled.
“Sparanzo demonstrated a Labaran dance for his mother and me last week. He said you taught it to him.”
“Yes, the estanfai.” Ariz hoped he hadn’t overstepped by introducing a Labaran custom when relations between the Cadeleonian court and the Labaran Count Radulf were was so contentious. Mastering the intricate footwork had seemed to help Sparanzo’s confidence. “It’s normally a sword dance, but I thought it best to teach him the steps before involving any weapons.”
“Probably wise,” Lord Quemanor agreed. “Can you teach it to me?”
“Yes. With pleasure.” Ariz felt certain that his grin gave him away, but when he caught his reflection he realized that his plain face remained as expressionless as ever. He made a concerted effort and the corners of his mouth lifted, offering Lord Quemanor’s reflection a brief, faltering smile.
“Lead on then,” Lord Quemanor said.
Ariz demonstrated the steps, once slowly, then at speed. The momentum of an opening spin allowed him to seamlessly shift his weight from foot to foot and from heel to toe, gliding forward and back across the floor as if he were skating over ice. He indulged himself in a backflip before he at last he spun to a halt and bowed low before Lord Quemanor.
“You do possess a magnificent grace, Master Ariz,” Lord Quemanor commented. “I doubt I could ever hope to equal that.”
“It’s just a matter of practice, my lord.” Again Ariz tried to return Lord Quemanor’s flattering smile, but his reflection showed him a stony, dead expression.
“Certainly there is some joy in it as well?” Lord Quemanor asked as he emulated Ariz’s footwork with slow careful steps.
“As you lead with your right leg you will want to shift the weight on your left foot back to your heel,” Ariz informed him quickly, and Lord Quemanor nodded and corrected himself. Then he cocked his head as if contemplating Ariz.
“You haven’t answered my question, you know.”
“I know,” Ariz responded. “I’m thinking about it.”
“Is joy so strange a thing to you that you must ponder it so deeply?” Lord Quemanor’s tone was warm and teasing.
“You missed your backstep,” Ariz informed him. Lord Quemanor offered him facetious salute before beginning again.
“When I’m dancing or fencing at my very best . . . it’s not exactly joy I feel,” Ariz admitted. “More that I lose myself and become pure motion. I imagine it’s how a hawk feels as it dives. Speeding so near disaster that nothing else can matter.”
Lord Quemanor paused midturn. He met Ariz’s gaze with a curiosity that Ariz knew he should take as a warning.
“You are so unlike your cousin,” Lord Quemanor said. “And yet every now and then I think that I can almost hear his voice in your words.”
Ariz felt the blood draining from his face. There was no need to wonder which of his cousins Lord Quemanor referred to. Only one member of the Plunado clan had schooled with the duke. He’d betrayed Lord Quemanor and his treachery had cost the family everything. Ariz bowed his head.
“I’m sorry, my lord. I meant no offense—”
“No, I worded that poorly.” Lord Quemanor frowned past Ariz and pinned his own reflection with an intense glower. “Genimo wasn’t devoid of insight or charm. How else could he have wormed his way so deep into my family’s trust?”
But what he’d done with that trust had been terrible, and in the end it had not just cost Genimo his life but had also stripped the entire Plunado family of their titles, lands and nobility. All they had once possessed had been surrendered to Fedeles Quemanor by royal decree.
Ariz had no idea how to respond. In all the time he’d served Lord Quemanor’s household he’d never used his family name, nor had Lord Quemanor ever remarked upon his relationship to Genimo.
“At one time he was my dearest friend. I suppose that’s why I was so furious when he betrayed me.” Lord Quemanor sighed heavily, then he turned to Ariz. “My suit against your family must have seemed out of all proportion to the injury done to me. To you and yours, I mean.”
Ariz could hardly tell him that he understood what it was to be possessed and used like a mere instrument. He understood the horror of having his own will overwhelmed and feeling his body become a prison.
“Our ruin was not your doing, my lord,” Ariz replied, though it pained him to think of all that his family had endured and lost. But the king’s ruling had been far from the worst dishonor Ariz or his sister had suffered. They had both already been under the Fueres family’s power for years by then. “Genimo was to blame. No one else.”
“Yes.” Lord Quemanor abandoned all pretense of dancing to pace between the marble columns and scowl at the gold-framed miniatures of swordsmen at practice. “That’s what begins to trouble me now that I’ve had a decade to reflect. Neither you nor anyone but Genimo wronged me, and yet I have taken so much from you.”
“What is done is done. I can’t imagine the king rescinding his decree.” Ariz shrugged.
“Not the current king, but perhaps—”
“Lord Quemanor!” A man’s voice rose from the hallway and then the door swung open. A scrawny courier dressed in royal blue and gold pelted into the room at such speed that he slid several feet across the polished floor before he could drop into a formal bow. Sweat plastered the young man’s brown hair to his flushed face. Several courtiers peered in through the open door. Of all of them, only Atreau Vediya looked at Ariz.
“Your Grace.” The courier paused, attempting to catch his breath. “News from the south gate. Captain Ciceron has been murdered. Beheaded, sometime in the night.”
Lord Quemanor did not attempt to hide the horror and sorrow on his face but instead he turned his back to the courier and the pack of gawking courtiers. He strode to the doors opening out onto the grounds and, throwing them open, he let loose a furious, inarticulate shout.
It was no secret that Captain Ciceron was among the duke’s favorites. Ciceron’s advancement from night warden of the dreary city jail to the prized south gate posting had been Lord Quemanor’s doing. Further, the captain had accompanied the duke to the opera on numerous occasions and afterward taken his rest in the duke’s rooms. Ciceron had been exactly the sort of brash, vivacious, handsome man whose company Lord Quemanor most enjoyed.
As courtiers edged into the large chamber, Ariz backed to the weapon racks. He stilled in the shadows, abandoning any pretense of animation. He let dead numbness enfold him, preferring it to the guilt of watching Lord Quemanor’s back shudder as he slumped forward, convulsed with racking sobs.
At last Atreau broke from the circle of courtiers and went to comfort Lord Quemanor with a brotherly embrace. However pox-riddled and licentious Atreau might be, Ariz was glad that he was here now. He whispered something that won a choked laugh from Lord Quemanor.
After a few minutes the two of them turned back and Lord Quemanor questioned the courier for the few certain details surrounding Captain Ciceron’s death. There was little doubt that he’d been murdered by a practiced assassin, likely more than one considering the captain’s strength and skill. He’d not been robbed and his head had not yet been discovered.
“His widow and children may need your support,” Atreau told the duke. “But there is the other matter as well.”
“Yes, you’re right,” Lord Quemanor said.
Other nobles closed in around the two of them—their conversations ranging from how large a bounty to offer for the assassins to how best to aid the widow as well as what monies might be given to Ciceron’s pregnant mistress without causing a scandal. Then there was the matter of the captain’s final rites. Already a rumor had sprung up that the royal bishop would refuse to bless the man.
“Timoteo will bless him if you ask,” Atreau assured the duke. They drifted out through the garden doors. The duke’s attendants and retainers trailed after, leaving Ariz with only his own dead-eyed reflection watching him.
Chapter Nine
Narsi had forgotten how unbearably early Berto rose, but the recollection returned to him quickly when he found himself pulling on his clothes in predawn light. Berto paced the exam room while excitedly informing him that the rumors that the dying King Juleo had been sanctioned to become a Hallowed King had proven true. Once the old king’s passed, Prince Sevanyo could at last be crowned the new king. And, in a bold gesture of solidarity with the Grunito family, he’d chosen Father Timoteo to preside over the coronation.
“Which means that the royal bishop will have to make Father Timoteo a bishop after all!” Berto all but skipped around the exam room in his glee; then he stopped suddenly. “I’ll have to work like mad to have all of his sermons in order if they’re to be published in the coronation year. Perhaps it would be wisest to print several separate smaller books. That way some, if not all, of the Holy Father’s ideas will be known by the time of the coronation.”
Narsi managed a few groggy responses before he awoke enough to realize why his gray physician’s coat was proving so difficult to button.
“You could have mentioned that I was putting the thing on inside out,” Narsi commented.
“Who am I to judge how you choose to dress?” Berto replied.
Narsi pinned Berto with an accusatory glower, but the other man hardly noticed. He continued to speculate on possible future publications and what new income the Holy Father might expect, which, in turn, could mean increases in his and Narsi’s allowances.
At last, properly clothed, Narsi followed Berto across the grounds to the steps overlooking the kitchen gardens. There, Berto wheedled two bowls of barley water from the bakers. Then the two of them ate on the steps. Narsi recognized Querra out with the several groundsmen tending the trellises of ripening red solanum fruit. When she glanced his way they exchanged a friendly wave.
“How can you have already charmed a woman?” Berto commented. “You haven’t even been here a day.”
“You have your holy studies and I have my interests to pursue.” Narsi drained the last of his barley water and stared hungrily at the beds of fat, red strawberries only a few feet from him. “I have to get an early start if I’m ever to entice the Cadeleonian maidens here to allow me the pleasure of their precious bounty.”
Berto frowned at him and Narsi rolled his eyes.
“Oh, don’t scowl at me like that,” Narsi chided his friend. “I’m not speaking euphemistically. I’m far too tired and too hungry to have designs on anything more than strawberries and the eggs that fat hen is clucking on about over in the cabbage patches.”
Narsi pointed to where a plump black hen settled herself down amongst the rows of red and green cabbages. Spying the maids collecting eggs from the large coops, Narsi couldn’t help but feel a little affection for this one determined bird, which had escaped the henhouse to lay in secret.
Berto chuckled, but then called to one of the passing kitchen maids. The dark-haired young woman clutched her egg basket close to the folds of her yellow skirt and eyed the two of them suspiciously before informing them that the cook would decide if any eggs could be spared for the lunch at the master’s tables. But, in her opinion, all that she’d collected should be used to make splendid meringues and custards to grace the table of the duke and duchess.
“Don’t lose heart.” Berto grinned at Narsi. “All you need do is charm your way to the duke’s table. How difficult could that be for a physician?”
“I suspect that will be a fine day in all three hells,” Narsi replied gamely. “I’d better save a few pennies to buy my own little hen.”
They made their way to the chapel.
The Duke of Rauma’s household was a little city in itself. Gardens and acres of carefully maintained woods, as well as a large pond and an ornamental stream, camouflaged the fortresslike quality of the surrounding walls and provided produce, game and even fish for the duke’s table. Beyond the three-hundred-room mansion of the duke’s private residence lay dozens of workshops where smiths, brewers, carvers and leatherworkers—to name just a few of the craftsmen Narsi greeted in passing—all plied their trades at the duke’s behest. The sculleries and henhouses, pigpens and milking sheds employed scores of women, while the armory and guardhouses appeared populated by an equal number of men.
