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Contents 5 страница

“Ah, but this was but a name,” Melcendre said, giving him her flirtatious smile again. “You see, le Mage du Sang is actually a scribe and an expert in heraldry and legal documents. He gained his name from his ability to conjure noble blood out of thin air.”

Michel had been living for three years in Comte Brevin’s household when he was awakened by his lord, who had come into his room quietly with a piece of paper that changed everything. Brevin had said that Michel’s skill with a blade would be wasted in a position as a guard or mercenary. He had said that Michel had a rare gift, and gifts must be nurtured, for the good of the empire. And finally, he had said that if the Academie des Chevaliers only accepted those of noble blood, well, there were nobles lying dead who had no further use for their names, and their departed spirits would be honored to lend their titles to such a worthy cause.

Melcendre almost seemed sad, staring at him, and Michel realized that he had given something away in his silence. “He recorded a payment—quite a large payment, in fact. He must have believed in you quite highly.” She sighed. “And he was right. You have become Celene’s champion.”

“Yes. I am the empress’s champion,” Michel said, “and you serve Gaspard. So why do I still draw breath?”

“Because dead, you would be a martyr slain by the grand duke as an act of villainous treachery,” Melcendre said, kneeling back down beside him. “But alive, and with your false claim to nobility brought to light, you would disgrace your empress. Imagine the trial, the public execution, the scandal, Michel. That is why you are still alive.”

Yet in her victory, she did not seem happy. There was a weakness in her smile, as her eyes fled from his.

“I would sooner die,” he told her.

“I know.” She nodded and let out a slow breath. “And it seems a waste, either way. I have seen my share of tournaments, and I can say with no small certainty that you were a man born to wield a blade. Who cares whether you are truly a noble?” She shook her head bitterly. “I play the Game better than most courtiers, and I was born the bastard daughter of a milkmaid and a soldier on leave. It is a lie they tell us to keep us in our place.”

“Perhaps.” Michel shrugged, trying to seem unconcerned. “But we have still found ourselves here.”

Melcendre gave him the sad smile again. “At least you serve a mistress who cares for those not of noble blood. You have that. I heard she forced the university to let in not just a commoner, but an elf … ah, there it is.”

Then her sadness was gone, and her pleased, cat-in-the-cream smile was back, and Michel cursed himself for a fool for talking to an Orlesian bard and thinking he could play upon her sympathy. The cold, tight feeling of dread washed over him, but he kept his face impassive. “There what is?”

“I did tell you that I grew up on a farm.” Melcendre sat beside him now with easy familiarity. “Terribly dull, which is why I fled as soon as I could, and found a new life and a new name. I’m sure you can sympathize.” She elbowed him playfully. “But I do remember a few things. When you mate a white cow with a black bull, you get calves with black and white spots. When you mate a gray mare with a black stallion, you get a gray foal … although that foal might one day grow up to sire a black foal himself. It’s like a little of the black stayed in the blood. That’s how it works with cattle, and horses, and … well, with everything, really.”

She knew.

“But when a human,” Melcendre said as though discussing the weather, “mates with an elf, the offspring is always human. No elven ears, no big pretty eyes, just a human. No way to tell him from a real man.” She glanced over and added, “Unless he gives it away himself.”

Michel swallowed.

“Gaspard wanted you removed, and he asked that I hunt for information he could use against you, but he asked that I not kill you unless absolutely necessary. He’s such a gentleman.” She smirked. “He would have been pleased beyond measure when I told him that you were a commoner hiding behind a false title. When I tell him that you’re the son of some knife-eared whore, can you imagine what that will do to Celene’s little court?”

She said it coyly, with a smile that said she’d found a naughty little secret. She was pleased with herself, willing to let Michel beg for mercy or offer her a better deal. Or maybe she was toying with him again, looking to get even more information like the trained spy and manipulator that she was.

Ser Michel smashed his forehead into her face. As she fell on her side, he rolled to his back and shoved his arms down, hooked his hands under his curled feet, and then brought them up, still bound, over Melcendre’s head. He looped, twisted, and pulled the rope taut, and her cries of pain choked off into frantic gurgles.

“I am Ser Michel de Chevin,” he said as he pulled on the rope around her throat.

With the last of her strength, Melcendre slid a dagger free from a sheath at her hip. Before she could bring it to bear, Michel yanked his hands up, then slammed them down, smashing Melcendre’s head against the ground. She went limp, and he did it again. Then again.

“I am Ser Michel de Chevin.” He grabbed the dagger from her unresisting hand and sawed through the ropes that bound him. In moments, he was free, standing over her.

Her breast still moved with breath.

“I am Ser Michel de Chevin,” he said again as he knelt beside her and finished it with a clean cut.

When he came back to his feet, Gaspard’s men were there.

* * *

Briala had grown up believing in the Maker and living in accordance with the Chant of Light. Much of that belief had spilled onto the reading room floor with her parents’ blood, and though Felassan had been reluctant to teach her too much of the ways of the elven gods, she had quietly come to look to Andruil, Goddess of the Hunt, with reverence.

But for all that she thought of herself as having cast off her Chantry upbringing, watching Felassan practice magic still raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

Briala’s mentor held the feather to his forehead, closed his eyes, and passed his hand over it. The feather glittered once, as though the afternoon sun shone more brightly upon it, and Felassan nodded. “Shall we?” Without further comment, he started walking.

“What is it like?” Briala asked, walking beside him. They were heading toward the slums, an unlikely place for Celene’s champion. She nodded to an elven merchant she’d helped last year and got a surreptitious smile in return.

Felassan seemed to consider the question carefully. Finally, he glanced over at her and said, “Itchy.”

“Itchy?” Briala glared. “That is … not a very helpful answer.”

“Consider asking better questions, da’len.” Felassan grinned. “Asking a mage to describe magic is like asking you to describe a sunset to a blind dwarf.”

If his cloak slipped off and the tattoos on his face were revealed, every elf in the marketplace would either throw themselves at his feet or draw blades to fight this creature out of legend. And for all that, he didn’t bother to put on boots, and he wore clothes that would better suit a woodsman than a living myth. He told bad jokes and refused to take anything in the world of men seriously. She wondered if that was why he moved through the world untouched.

“How are the Dalish?” she asked. “You have not spoken of your people.”

Beneath his cloak, his face lit up with enthusiasm. “They have a wonderful new plan! It ends with the shemlen killing each other off, leaving the Dales free for the elves to rule.”

Briala raised an eyebrow. “How does it begin?”

“Riding around in wagons pulled by deer. They’re still working on the middle.”

“How fortunate that they have you,” Briala said, and Felassan chuckled and shook his head.

“Do you ever tire of it, Briala?” he asked then. “Walking among the fools, bending them to your will with a word here and a gesture there?”

Briala started to answer, then stopped at Felassan’s stare. It was intent, almost angry, his eyes glittering inside the shadows of his cloak.

She thought of the chatelaine, the captain of the palace guard. She thought of the countless nobles who ignored her or called her “rabbit.”

She thought of Celene’s soft fingers trailing down her bare arm.

“I believe I am doing good work,” she finally said.

Felassan nodded and looked away. “Yes, that lasts for a while.”

They entered the slums. There were more elves than men now, and the looks they shot Briala and Felassan were narrow-eyed and angry. Felassan could easily be one of them, with his simple clothes and his hidden face. Briala, by contrast, wore a clean dress that had never been patched and fine leather boots that still had enough sole to clap on the stones with each step. Even without a mask, every elf who laid eyes on her could see that she served the nobles.

She had turned her back on her people.

For a moment, as she always did, she wanted to try to explain. She could tell them the truth, that they had an ally in the imperial palace. They would hear about elves being accepted in the upper markets and the university, and they would …

And then, as she always did, she sighed to herself and kept walking, ignoring the angry looks.

“It’s hard to impress someone with the absence of a negative,” Felassan said without looking over. “Look, you say, did you notice how nobody came into your house and beat you to death for not bowing fast enough yesterday? You’re welcome!”

“It’s getting better.”

“Of course it is. I’m here.” As Briala chuckled, Felassan added, “And you’re doing good work. And the day when you can accept that they’ll never really understand, or appreciate it, or know just how much you did…”

“What?” Briala asked. “Is that the day it gets easier?”

“Mythal’s bosom, no!” Felassan chuckled. “Honestly, it makes your heart shrivel up and die inside you. Put it off as long as you can. Oh, your champion was in here not long ago. Gone now, though.”

He had stopped outside an ugly shack of a tavern, whose sagging wooden walls were covered with crude drawings and misspelled slurs etched in charcoal.

Briala nodded and stepped inside. It was empty, save for an elf behind the bar who glared as she came in. “We’re closed,” he snapped. “Cleaning up from last night’s brawl.”

She nodded absently and looked. The barman’s knuckles were white on the glass he was gripping too tightly. He’d either been paid or threatened to keep his silence. Dark splinters from recently broken furniture were mixed in with the sawdust, and much of the sawdust on the floor was fresh, thrown down not long ago without time to soak up ale and dirt. On a table nearby was a trace of red.

“Looks more like it was just a few hours ago.”

“It was last night!” the elf at the bar said. He put his glass down and put his hand below the counter.

“Have you ever wondered how hot someone’s fingernails have to get before they melt right onto their fingers?” Felassan asked as he leaned against the bar, pulling his hood back slightly. “Because it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.”

The barman looked at Felassan’s tattooed face and went pale. He lifted his hand back from the counter very slowly.

“Thank you.” Briala moved toward the table and caught a trace of a sour, acrid scent. She occasionally used poisons in her work, and she recognized the hint of deep mushroom that suggested choke powder.

She looked at the barman, then at Felassan. “Come on.”

He nodded and led her outside. “Trap?”

“It looks that way. He was attacked by a group and then taken down with poison.”

“Poisons. Charming.” Felassan made a face.

“Yes, they’re so much less dignified than melting someone’s fingernails to their fingers.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Felassan said, waving her words away. “The fingernail just turns black and falls off, and usually the finger swells up and bursts long beforehand.”

“I’ll bear that in mind, hahren. Can you sense where Ser Michel was taken?”

“Of course.”

“Good. I just need to make one stop, then.”

She led her mentor through a maze of alleys, ignoring the looks from shadowy figures playing games with dice and daggers and trusting to the confidence of her stride to keep her safe, at least during daylight hours. She ducked into a crumbling stone building, its door unmarked. Inside, it looked no different from any other squatter’s den, though it was empty at this time of day.

She found the right stone in the wall, pressed it gently, and felt the catch come free. Another stone in the wall, identical to casual inspection, fell open, revealing a drawer inside.

The bow Briala drew out was red cedar, good enough to be worth using, not so good as to draw attention. The daggers were silverite—more noticeable, but only if drawn. The arrows were coated with deathroot toxin, their tips sealed to keep the poison fresh until she needed it.

Felassan grinned. “You have a cache in every section of the city?”

“You taught me well.” Briala closed the drawer, reset the latch, and left the building. “Let’s go.”

Felassan led the way, and soon they were in one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city. Dirty and cramped, it was the first section of the city to be home to the elves, the closest thing to a Fereldan alienage. They passed no humans on the thin and crooked streets any longer, and the elves who lived here would likely never even see the upper market.

Felassan paused as they came to a great tree in the market square. The vhenadahl was decorated with ribbons, and the dirt around it was marked with sticks stuck into the earth and decorated with bits of bright cloth hung as offerings.

“The tree of the People,” Briala said.

“Your people.”

“And yours.” Felassan looked away. “Though you don’t think so.”

“It’s a nice tree,” Felassan said. “Let it just be a nice tree.”

Briala was about to reply when the sound of booted feet and jangling armor came from around the corner, and without a word, both of them slid into the shadows.

The soldiers wore no coat of arms, but were fitted with red steel chainmail and longswords. “Too expensive for common thugs,” Felassan murmured as the men filed into a warehouse at the edge of the square. “And not from your empress.”

“No. She’d send her men in full armor, or assassins in plain clothes. Gaspard’s men.”

Felassan nodded. “Well, this is good news.”

Briala looked over. “I’m not entirely certain if you’re being serious.”

Felassan rolled his eyes. “You don’t send that many mercenaries to carry a dead body, da’len.”

“Point taken.” Briala stood. The simple servant’s dress let her move, though she hadn’t planned on fighting in it. “Next time, I’ll have to leave armor in the safe houses as well.”

“Every safe house? What if you gain weight? Can you imagine replacing that many suits of armor?”

Briala let out a long breath. “Shall we hunt?”

“Let’s.” Without breaking stride, Felassan drew forth a stick from the folds of his cloak, and it twisted and grew like a living thing, until a moment later it was a mage’s staff whose head swirled with emerald light. Together, they entered the building at a run.

The warehouse was shabby even for the slums. Piles of old crates rotted on a dirt floor, still stacked high enough to turn the warehouse into a maze, though whatever they had held had long since spoiled and been forgotten. Stains on the ground and weapon scars in the wood told Briala that the building had become a meeting place for smugglers and a dumping ground for murderers, and the cold air carried the stale smell of unwashed bodies and cheap drugs.

Somewhere in the warehouse, metal rang on metal and men grunted in pain. Briala looked at the maze of crates, then scrambled up one makeshift wall. Moldy wood crumbled under her fingers, and the whole stack of crates swayed dangerously, but moments later she had reached high enough to look down upon the rest of the warehouse.

“I know you want to embrace your heritage,” Felassan called back to her as he darted into the maze, “but we don’t all climb trees. You’ve confused us with squirrels again.”

“Ass.” Looking down, Briala saw that Ser Michel de Chevin was unarmored, standing over the body of the bard Melcendre with a dagger in one hand and a stolen longsword in the other. One of the enemy soldiers was down, but Michel hadn’t been able to hold the doorway of the alley they’d had him in, and he was flanked. There were at least a half dozen men still on their feet, and Michel favored a wound on one side. “Left, then right!”

Felassan made his way through the maze toward Michel, following her directions, and Briala lifted her bow, sighted, aimed, released a breath, and released her first arrow.

It always felt good. She wasn’t sure whether it was the rush of violence, real or imagined, or simply the thrill of being naturally gifted at something that even Celene had found difficult.

For a moment, she could almost follow the arrow as it slid through liquid air and sank into the throat of the man on Michel’s left.

She was drawing again even as the first man fell and Michel’s face went blank with shock. However surprised he was at the unexpected help, though, he was still one of the best living chevaliers. Without hesitation, he slid into the space where the dying man had stood, putting the wall of crates at his back.

As Michel parried a pair of high thrusts, Briala scanned the other men. One of them had turned to look for her. She fired, and the arrow punched cleanly through his chainmail and found his lung.

The others turned and saw her then, and she gave the biggest one a grin as she raised her bow for another shot. He stumbled back, looking for cover, and Michel stabbed the soldier in the knee, then sank his dagger into the man’s throat.

“You turn your back on an Orlesian chevalier, dogs?” Michel shouted, kicking the dead man to the ground as the others stumbled back. “Face me in combat and die with more honor than you deserve!”

“Or don’t,” Felassan said as he came around the corner. He raised his staff, and a coiling tendril of blue light snaked out across the remaining men.

The air hissed then snapped with an explosion of frost, and the soldiers stood frozen in place, a sheen of ice glittering around them. One of them had been caught in the middle of a scream.

Felassan pointed his staff at the wall of crates, and a jet of green fire ripped through the crumbling wood. The entire stack shuddered, swayed, and then crashed down on top of the frozen soldiers with a sound like someone taking a hammer to a shelf full of fine porcelain.

“I could simply have shot them,” Briala said. Bits of frozen red skated and bounced around the great pile of rubble.

“Oh, probably,” Felassan said, spinning his staff.

Panting, Michel looked up at Briala in confusion. “I seem to owe the two of you a debt.”

“We can discuss it once you’re safely back at the palace,” Briala said, climbing carefully down from the crates. She’d torn her skirts, but there’d been no helping it.

At her voice, Michel blinked. “Miss Bria? Her Majesty’s handmaid?”

“What? No. That would be madness.” Felassan gestured, and his staff shivered and shrank down until it was a simple stick again.

“We need to get you out of here, Ser Michel.” Briala glanced at his wounded side. “Can you walk?”

“Of course.” He turned to one of the dead men on the ground and yanked a small dagger free from the man’s eye, then turned to the body of the bard Melcendre. He checked her pockets with quick efficiency, then rose. “Let us depart.”

The three left the warehouse. Felassan and Michel eyed each other speculatively, the chevalier and the Dalish mage. Briala was looking elsewhere.

“Why did they take you?” she asked as they came out onto the street. If anyone had noticed the sound of fighting inside, they were keeping it to themselves. The elves in the square did their business around the vhenadahl and spared Briala and her companions not a single look.

“Melcendre said that Gaspard had asked her to get me away from the empress’s side today, and…” Michel looked back at the warehouse. “I regret that she succeeded.”

“How?” Briala stepped in until Michel stepped back. “How did she lure you here?”

“It is a matter of honor—”

“Shut up, Michel.” As he blinked, Briala stared at him hard. “You were drugged at the tavern, not the palace. You would not ignore your duty for something trivial, so she either threatened you or lured you with something. You found nothing on the body, so it wasn’t something she stole from you. A fake note from a friend, a family member?” He flinched, though he himself would not have even noticed the tiny flicker at the corner of one eye. “But I doubt any friend of the empress’s champion would be found in a tavern in the slums … and you have no living family.” The flinch again. Family was the key.

“I don’t answer to you, knife-ear,” Michel said, his stolen dagger clutched tightly in one hand, not yet raised. “If our mistress had questions, she would not send her handmaid to ask them.”

“No, you fool. She’d send her spy.” Briala turned to Felassan. “Knife-ear.”

Felassan stifled a yawn. “I was offended. Were you offended?”

“No. Because he has never called me that before, not when giving orders to the servants, not even when he was in a rush.” Briala smiled. “Which means he’s covering, trying to distract me. What is it, Michel? A scandal in your family history. No. Urgent news would not bring you away … Ah.” His face paled as she nodded in satisfaction. “Falsified family title. Comte Brevin must have seen something extraordinary in you.”

“Not his ability to hide his facial expressions, obviously,” Felassan said.

“When you’re used to wearing a mask, you forget to hide the little tells.”

“And I assume only nobles can join the chevaliers?” Felassan asked.

“You assume correctly. And what is more, falsifying a title is punishable by death.” Briala glanced down at Michel’s hands. “Commoner? No, not just that. He leaned a little too hard on knife-ear. Elven mother?”

“Be quiet,” Michel said, his voice barely more than a whisper. The dagger shifted into a fighting grip Briala recognized from years of knife training.

“Ease your grip on the dagger, Ser Michel. I doubt you could kill us both in broad daylight with nobody noticing, and let me assure you…” She gave him a hard smile. “Celene would notice my absence, and she would be very thorough in her investigation.”

Michel lowered the dagger, his hand shaking. “You’re worse than the bard.”

“The bard would have seen you disgraced and executed had you not killed her. Do you truly expect me to help complete her plan?” She pointed at him. “Gaspard threatens our empress. I will not leave her without her champion in such a time of crisis. Did Melcendre inform Gaspard of your past?”

At her words, Michel sagged and shook his head. “No. She wished to confirm it with me first.”

“Good. Then with her death, we are safe. And if Gaspard attempts something similar again, you will contact me immediately.”

Michel looked at her in disbelief, and then over at Felassan.

“I’d consider it,” Felassan said. “You didn’t handle it particularly well on your own.”

“And you will keep this secret?” Michel asked, his voice stiff and formal. He sounded like a man being ordered to his death. “Even from Celene?”

“On one condition.” Briala raised a single finger. “One day, I will ask you for something. And you will do it for me, whatever it is, if you wish your secret to survive.”

“One favor.” Michel spat. “You expect me to believe that?”

“One favor, yes.” Briala kept her voice cool. She could not pit her passion against his. A desperate man who saw his honor and his life endangered needed cool reason above all. “Any more than that, and you might decide it was worth it to simply kill me. I saw Melcendre back inside. She was dead before those soldiers ever arrived.” Michel grimaced, and Briala lowered her voice. “You have my word, as a knife-ear, that when you complete your favor, your secret is safe forever. Never written down, never whispered to a confidante. Not even Celene. One favor, however steep it might be, but no more than that.”

Michel hesitated, and Briala saw the ideas darting across his unmasked face. First the insulted pride, and then the questions. Could he trust her? Could he kill her now and ensure the secrecy of his past? Could he agree and then kill her later?

And finally, the twisted, bitter smile. “If Gaspard sends another bard,” he said, “I may need your help. We have a deal.”

“Good.” Briala might have told him that he could trust her, that he would not regret the decision. But despite his peasant blood, he had worn the noble’s mask for too long to believe those words. Instead, she turned to Felassan. “It would be safer if we could be certain that no evidence was found in the warehouse.”

Felassan nodded. “Da’len, I believe I can guarantee that no evidence will even be found of the warehouse. Always a pleasure, these little visits.” He walked back toward the warehouse, whistling merrily.

After an awkward moment, Michel beckoned to Briala. “Shall we?”

As they left the elven slums, the warehouse started burning behind them.

* * *

“I have to be honest with you, Remache,” Grand Duke Gaspard said as the coach stopped before the still-smoldering warehouse. “Today’s hunt made for a singularly disappointing day. I never thought I’d look to a trip to the slums to help improve it.”

The building was trash, like everything here in the elven slums. The oily black smoke had been visible across most of the city, and now that night had fallen, the remaining embers outshone the cheap torches set up around the square.

Gaspard stepped out of his coach, adjusting his coat with his good arm and squinting thoughtfully at the big tree in the center of the square.

Behind him, Remache, Duke of Lydes, stepped out as well. “And we are here why, precisely, Grand Duke?”

“I’m here because I had Celene’s champion tied up in that warehouse, with Melcendre sending self-congratulatory mysterious notes.” Gaspard started to point, then winced and switched to the arm that hadn’t been burned that afternoon. “And now he’s back in the palace, and I’d like to know why.” He chuckled. “And you’re here because I’m a widower, and you think your daughter would make a lovely empress.”

Remache smiled, then looked cautiously around the square, which seemed deserted. “I know you’re not afraid to get dirty, Grand Duke, but I would not have expected to see you digging through rubble.”

“No, I have people for that.” Gaspard whistled, and from the shadows came men wearing the masks and livery of Gaspard’s servants.

“No armor?” Remache asked as they approached. Behind them trailed an elf wearing a dirty, patched version of a tradesman’s leathers.

“Maker, no, armor would scare the poor knife-ears back into the shadows. I need them talking tonight.” Gaspard smiled as his men and the elf came into the pool of light near his coach. “Good evening. What’s your name, rabbit?”

“Sielig, my lord,” the elf said to Gaspard’s feet.

“Good man, Sielig.” Gaspard nodded to the burning warehouse. “Now, my men said that they’d pay good coin to any elf who could tell me what happened over there.”

“Yes, my lord,” the elf said, and swallowed. “That was my warehouse. I rented out the space to merchants who couldn’t afford the market district. A woman—a human woman, a singer—she came and said that she needed to use it. She said that she was working for you, and—”

“No, she didn’t,” Gaspard said, his smile never faltering. “She didn’t say a word of that.”

The elf blanched. “I must have misheard.”

“You don’t even know who I am.”

“No, my lord.” He swallowed. “Anyway, I saw two elves come into the warehouse after your—after some soldiers who were working with the lady. I heard fighting, and then an unarmored man came out with the elves. They talked in the square, the three of them. The man was angry at the elven woman. She said something he didn’t like. The elven man just watched, and then he walked back into my warehouse, and it all caught fire, all at once.” The elf shook his head. “The elven man had marks on his face, like the old stories about the Dalish.”

“Dalish?” Gaspard asked, laughing. “You’re not telling me tales, are you, Sielig?”

“No, my lord! And the woman … her clothes were too nice. She and the man who had been held … I followed them out of the slums. I have a pass to the merchant district!” His eyes darted up to look Gaspard in the eye, glittering in the light from the warehouse, and he fished in his pockets. Gaspard waved him on. “They went through it. The elven woman threw away her bow. Red cedar, worth a golden royal or more, and she threw it away. Then they went toward the palace, and the woman put on a mask.”

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