Master of restless shado.., p.48
Master of Restless Shadows, page 48
part #1 of Master of Restless Shadows Series
So he’d resorted to the hidden passages inside the mansion walls. Fortunately, he knew them all quite well, and the mirrors in the fencing rooms had been situated to offer a panoramic view. The first moment Atreau peered in he froze. Master Ariz held Narsi by the throat. Behind them, the children capered obliviously through shafts of bright sunlight.
Then, to Atreau’s shock, Narsi reached out and drew Master Ariz’s sword from its sheath and took his dagger as well. All the while Master Ariz maintained his tense stance and bizarrely dull expression, gripping Narsi’s neck. But he clearly didn’t mean to strangle Narsi, because Narsi said something and Master Ariz responded.
Atreau strained to hear the words the two whispered, but the laughter and squeals of the children drowned out much of the exchange. At last Master Ariz released Narsi, though not before Narsi had pushed the man’s own sword into his chest and spilled a trail of his blood down the front of his shirt.
When Sparanzo’s guards came and collected the children, Atreau readied to intercede and keep Narsi from being seized by the guards. But Master Ariz betrayed no alarm to the guards—perhaps he couldn’t—nor did he display his bloodied shirtfront to them. They departed without appearing to take much note or interest in anything beyond their duty of escorting Fedeles’s son back to his mother.
As Narsi backed Master Ariz nearer to where Atreau stood, he caught more of their conversation and it became clear that Master Ariz was doing all he could to assist Narsi to interrogate him—even going so far as to hold perfectly still and offer directions while Narsi bound him.
The ensuing attempt at communication verged upon comedy—though neither Narsi nor Master Ariz appeared the least bit amused, and what Master Ariz eventually revealed was nothing less than a plot of high treason on the part of Hierro Fueres. At least, that was what Atreau deduced from the fencing instructor’s convoluted and fantastical recounting of Evriso Tornesal’s role in Cadeleonian history.
If he understood Master Ariz correctly, then Hierro meant to wed one of his sisters—most likely the newly and conveniently widowed Clara—to one of Sevanyo’s sons. He would then place his new brother-in-law on the throne with the far-reaching goal of eventually seizing the crown through his sister’s child. Seeing as Sevanyo’s heir, Prince Xalvadar was already married and the next in line, Prince Gael, had been lost at sea, that left Jacinto as Clara’s intended groom.
However it wasn’t Jacinto whom Atreau’s spies reported dining with members of the Fueres family. Only Remes had been seen keeping company with Hierro and Clara.
But Remes was destined for the celibate life of a royal bishop. He couldn’t inherit—not unless his entire family was wiped out. There was precedent, but that had been long ago, before the Sagrada bloodline had blossomed into a veritable dynasty.
Atreau considered that for several moments. The entire royal family wiped out: every single man, women and child with royal blood. That would be nearly fifty assassinations to get through without anyone noticing a pattern in the deaths.
It was a mad scheme, almost ludicrous in its ambition, and yet Atreau could believe Hierro Fueres would embark on such a plot. Particularly after hearing Master Ariz’s remark that the man believed himself chosen by God. The very fact that Hierro had been so arrogant as to allow a man like Master Ariz to know that he was enthralled betrayed the scope of Hierro’s conceit and sadism.
In his place, Atreau would’ve been far more careful of how he handled such a skilled and determined swordsman. Even enthralled, Master Ariz had clearly managed to undermine Hierro Fueres’s plots on two separate occasions. He was no mere pawn, but a very dangerous and strong-minded assassin. Had he been Atreau’s to command, he would’ve been indulged and much more carefully manipulated. Certainly never allowed to suspect that his actions weren’t his own will.
Briefly Atreau considered Master Ariz’s bowed, bleeding figure. The man had no doubt endured his own hell. He clearly felt no loyalty to Hierro and wanted to defy him. Perhaps he could become a useful asset. As a loyal servant to Fedeles, Master Ariz could prove to be a truly effective weapon.
But the knowledge that Master Ariz had murdered Captain Ciceron nagged at Atreau. And considering the struggle required for him to admit the little he’d told Narsi, Atreau suspected that Master Ariz was too compromised and too broken to depend upon. Likely the best thing to be done was to kill the man quickly and free him from Hierro’s grasp.
Atreau didn’t like the thought, but he liked the idea of simply allowing Master Ariz to live and continue to serve Hierro Fueres even less. Pity wasn’t reason enough to needlessly endanger Fedeles and his entire household, much less the entire extended royal family. It filled Atreau with an oily feeling of self-loathing to decide on Master Ariz’s death while Narsi stood next to the man with an expression of pure compassion on his handsome face. And when Narsi spoke of finding a means to free Master Ariz, it didn’t surprise Atreau at all. Of course he wanted to save the man. He was so young, so noble in his intentions.
And distractingly attractive. Atreau wanted to impress him. See him smile again. Even pretend to be the man who Narsi thought he was.
But now was hardly the time to allow himself to become sloppy.
Just as he’d reached that decision, Atreau noticed the door to the fencing room begin to swing open. An entirely different kind of alarm rushed through him as Fedeles stepped in. The tableau before Fedeles was undoubtedly horrifying, and Atreau knew exactly how it would appear to Fedeles and how Fedeles would respond.
Atreau flipped the latch that held the secret panel closed. He bounded out just as the horrific wave of darkness rose from Fedeles’s shadow. It arched over Narsi like a serpent preparing to strike and Atreau threw himself forward. He plunged into a darkness deeper than a night sky and cold as winter. He felt a frigid razor’s edge hiss across the back of his neck. He slammed into Narsi, wrapping his arms around him, and they both fell back to the floor. Narsi groaned and Atreau feared he’d moved too slowly, though the heat of life still blazed from his body and seemed to radiate into Atreau’s chest. Atreau focused on that warmth as the cold darkness sank into him.
Behind them, Master Ariz shouted, sounding ragged and raw. Atreau didn’t think he’d ever heard as much emotion arise from him before. “No! For the love of God, don’t hurt him!”
All at once Fedeles released them from the icy darkness. Atreau found himself sprawled atop Narsi in a bright pool of sunlight. Narsi appeared completely stunned, but then he gave Atreau a dazed smile. Relief that Narsi lived washed over him, followed immediately by embarrassment at his own rash action.
One kiss, apparently, was all it took to undo years of self-preservation. But why not? He had already given Narsi his whole fortune once for less than that.
“Lord Vediya?” Narsi’s eyes seemed to light with dazed wonder. “Where did you come from?”
“My mother’s womb, if your modern medicine is to be believed.” He rolled off Narsi at once and felt the back of his neck. The locks that had hung past his shoulders were shorn and now lay strewn across the floor. The collar of his jerkin and his shirt both opened in long slashes. But his fingers came back with only a tiny blotch of blood from the small scratch across the nape of his neck.
“Are you hurt?” Fedeles sounded almost frightened.
To Atreau’s surprise, Fedeles didn’t come to him, but instead rushed to Master Ariz. There was no mistaking the alarmed tenderness in his expression. Nor did Atreau miss the way Fedeles reached out to stroke Master Ariz’s shoulder before he at once set to untying the man.
When had that happened? How had it happened? Master Ariz commanded all the allure of a lump of clay. And outside of Hierro Fueres himself, he had to number as one of the worst people for Fedeles to grow fond of. God’s blood, but Fedeles had poor taste in his affections.
“Don’t trouble yourself,” Atreau called. “I’m fine, but thanks for your concern.”
Fedeles glanced back at him and nodded, completely missing the sarcasm in Atreau’s tone.
“Thank you for interceding, Atreau,” Fedeles said. “Keep ahold of the physician, though. Until we know exactly who he’s working for.”
Narsi looked unsurprisingly alarmed, but to his credit he didn’t immediately betray the fact that the two of them were in collusion.
“If Master Narsi has acted for anyone’s benefit, it’s yours, my lord.” Master Ariz bowed his head as he addressed Fedeles. “You should not release me until you’ve heard what he has to tell you.”
“What do you mean?” Fedeles stilled with his hands still gripping the knotted rope that restrained Master Ariz.
“If he tells you not to release him, you shouldn’t.” Atreau went to Fedeles’s side. “I can explain everything, but you must leave Master Ariz be, for all our sakes.”
“Thank you . . . Lord Vediya.” Master Ariz’s head hung low. The man’s face revealed as much emotion as that of a corpse, but his posture radiated shame.
If Atreau had understood what he’d heard and seen of Master Ariz’s confession, it would be important to keep the man from knowing explicitly how much he and Fedeles understood of his situation, if only to ensure that he wouldn’t fight too hard when the time came to put him down. Though it would be good to see if they could pry a little more information from him first.
He beckoned Narsi to them. Narsi came but stopped next to Master Ariz and on the far side of Fedeles. Which was hardly a wonder considering that he’d nearly been killed by Fedeles’s shadow, while Master Ariz had gone to pains to protect Narsi from himself. The entire situation was a mad wreck.
Likely Narsi was only minutes from packing his belongings and fleeing back to the safety and sanity of Anacleto. Atreau wouldn’t have blamed him if he left now, but he hoped Narsi would hold out at least a short time more.
Fedeles glowered imperiously at Narsi but said nothing. He reminded Atreau of a stallion eyeing a groom whom he suspected of slipping medicine into his feed.
“Can you make certain those knots hold, while I and the duke have a little chat across the room?” Atreau asked Narsi.
“Yes, I will,” Narsi replied, and Atreau had to admire how calm he remained.
He leaned in and added in a quick whisper, “You and Master Ariz should continue your conversation.”
Then Atreau drew Fedeles across the room and out of earshot. Fedeles listened to what he said with an expression of rising alarm, but he didn’t argue or even speak a single word until Atreau broached the necessity of disposing of Master Ariz.
“No,” Fedeles stated flatly, as if the single word was any kind of reasonable argument.
“He’s a danger to you, to your wife and to your son,” Atreau told him. “He’ll tell you as much himself.”
“No,” Fedeles repeated.
Atreau resisted the urge to bang his own head against one of the gleaming mirrors that surrounded them. A great part of what he adored about Fedeles was the man’s staunch loyalty, but there was a point when steadfastness gave way to stupidity—muleheaded stupidity.
“I know that it isn’t what any of us want—”
“You don’t!” Fedeles snapped, then his voice softened. “You can’t know, Atreau. You weren’t the one they trapped in that hell and used. You don’t know what it was like to endure that.”
Atreau frowned. He hadn’t reckoned on Fedeles’s own years living under the control of a thrall affecting his sympathy for Master Ariz, but he realized that he should have.
“He isn’t you.” Atreau watched Fedeles’s face closely. He was a man of powerful emotion and, like the horses he loved, much of his feeling showed in his large, dark eyes. Right now he was still in a kind of shock, still coming to terms with facts that he didn’t want to believe. He resisted inevitable conclusions out of reflex, not reason. Atreau needed to appeal to his emotions, then.
“Master Ariz has been enthralled by Hierro for so long that he may not even be himself anymore.” Atreau spoke calmly, trying to impress the reality of the situation upon Fedeles. “It has to have been more than a decade that he’s lived as little more than an instrument of Hierro’s ambitions. What can be left of him? What kindness would you do him by drawing out his suffering any longer?”
“By your own admission he still struggles against Hierro. He defied him only days ago.” Fedeles gazed across the chamber to where Narsi crouched by Master Ariz’s side. Atreau read the pain in Fedeles’s face as well as the naked tenderness. “I know the hell he’s living in. We have to help him—”
“He murdered Captain Ciceron. Stabbed him through the heart and took his head without a moment’s hesitation,” Atreau stated.
Fedeles gasped as if he’d been struck and turned to stare out the glass doors into the gardens beyond. Atreau briefly took in the potted yellow roses and rolling hillocks of thyme and moss roses. All very pretty, but nothing out there altered the situation in this fencing room.
“Hierro killed the captain.” When Fedeles at last spoke, his voice was rough and his eyes shone with incipient tears. “Ariz was a tool he used, the same way that Scholar Donamillo used me to murder Victaro. The same way he would have used me to slay Javier if I hadn’t been released from his thrall. The way he used me to cut Kiram’s body into pieces even as he struggled to save my life and soul.”
Two things became clear to Atreau at once: first, that he should have realized before now that the unknown person who murdered the groom Victaro years ago, when they had been at school, had been Fedeles. Of course it had been. He’d just avoided knowing it.
Second, he needed to make a clear distinction between Master Ariz’s circumstances and those that Fedeles had endured. Though in truth there was little difference. Fedeles had simply been more fortunate and better connected than Master Ariz was. It wasn’t fair to condemn one of them when the other had been saved, but life was not fair. And Atreau didn’t possess the resources to pretend otherwise, not when it meant risking so many lives. But this, too, was a dangerous direction to allow the argument to go in.
“I stripped everything from Master Ariz and his family,” Fedeles added. “All my anger at Genimo fell upon him . . .”
“You couldn’t have known that he was enthralled at the time,” Atreau said. “And that is still no reason to force him to go on like this. Neither you nor I can break the thrall he’s under. He is suffering, and there’s nothing we can do to stop that—”
“But Javier could.” Fedeles’s expression lit with hope.
Javier? Why not hold out hope that the Savior would descend from the heavens, if they were going to wish on distant stars? Frustration surged through Atreau. Javier had been exiled years ago. He courted execution if he returned to Cadeleon while the royal bishop still lived. Even Fedeles had to see that Master Ariz’s freedom was not worth the risk of attempting to secret Javier back into the capital.
Or maybe he didn’t. Could Fedeles be that smitten with Master Ariz? How could that even be possible? The man barely spoke a word, and the ones he did say were dull as the rest of him.
“What of Sparanzo’s safety?” Atreau demanded. “Master Ariz may have thwarted Dommian’s attempt, but you and I both know that Hierro isn’t going to just give up because his first assassin failed.”
Fedeles didn’t have an answer to that, and Atreau felt certain that he’d won the argument. Then the doors opened and Atreau cursed his own shortsightedness in not thinking to lock them.
Mistress Delfia leaned in. Her face paled as she took in the scene before her. Then she disappeared back behind the doors and Atreau recognized Oasia’s voice, issuing orders to her maids and guards. Oasia sent her maids and two of the guards to attend the children in the music room. The remaining two guards received orders to watch the doors and allow no one in while the duchess spoke with her husband.
Delfia cracked the door open again and Oasia followed her inside. Delfia locked the door behind them.
“What on earth is a Haldiim physician doing here?” Oasia demanded.
Both Master Ariz and Narsi looked up at the question, though Master Ariz simply nodded to his sister. Narsi, on the other hand, appeared alarmed to be suddenly called out. Likely he half expected the duchess to attack him in the same way Fedeles had.
“He’s tending to Master Ariz,” Atreau replied. “Apparently he suffers from a rather rare condition. Though I believe a number of your brother’s other servants might have contracted it as well. You wouldn’t happen to know anything of it, would you, my lady?”
Oasia met Atreau’s gaze and then she pointedly turned her serene face to Fedeles. She pushed a thick curl of black hair back from her shoulder.
“I am aware of what my brother has done.” Oasia addressed Fedeles as she glided to his side. “Despite that, Master Ariz has proved to be an indispensable source of information. He is extremely valuable to us.”
Fedeles frowned but still allowed her to take his arm in hers. She drew him ever so slowly from Atreau’s side, leaving it to Atreau to follow them back toward the stricken Mistress Delfia.
“You should have told me,” Fedeles said. To Atreau he didn’t sound angry enough by half. She’d allowed an enthralled assassin to live among them for years. Even after he’d murdered Captain Ciceron and the guard Dommian, Oasia had still sheltered Master Ariz.
