Count Scar - SA (9 page)

I located Bruno and the knights, standing up from a table at the far end of the room and looking as well satisfied as I felt, and gathered them up with a jerk of my chin. If Thierri had knights of his
own with whom he hoped to overpower me, my men and I would be prepared to wrestle.

But no one accompanied him as he led me through the doors from the great hall into the courtyard. A number of people observed us go, but none moved to follow. The cold air hit us at once. Night
had fallen, but the marble paths among the arbors and shrubbery were lit by flambeaux, and a nearly full moon gave fitful light when not obscured by fast-moving clouds.

Thierri's manner changed at once. "Good to get out of that overheated atmosphere," he said companionably, taking deep breaths of the cool wind. His voice was crisp and sober; he must have drunk
much less than I had. "A soldier like you surely feels as restricted by all that womanly delicacy as I do, and I have to live here all the time now!"

I considered him thoughtfully, wishing my head did not feel so thick. "You're a courtier among the courtiers, but want to appear a simple knight of the military camp to me? I would be more
impressed if I had spent less time in military camps—or in the emperors court."

"Insulting you before everyone," he said with a chuckle that sounded just a bit forced, "was the only way I could think of to get you out here for a private conversation. And let me say right away,
Count, how sincerely sorry I am to have said those things to you!" He bared his teeth in an insincere smile. "None of what I said then reflects my true respect for you and your position, but I felt
it was my only chance. Merely asking you to talk with me would have made everyone suspicious, but this way they'll leave us alone for at least half an hour. You won't need your knights,"

motioning toward Bruno and the others, who stood waiting for my orders. These knights had, I reminded myself, obeyed Thierri until two months ago.

"What sort of private conversation did you want?" I asked cautiously, not at all sure whether to accept such a lame apology. The wind made the flambeaux smoke, and their flames cast
alternating light and shadow across his face.

He dropped his voice and leaned toward me. His red hair had been turned dark by the night. "About Peyrefixade. I need to reassure you about my wife's death."

"I was very sorry to learn of your loss," I said, stiffly and belatedly.

"And to warn you of what's happening there."

He certainly had my attention, but that didn't mean I trusted him in the slightest. "Suppose I break your nose before we have this conversation," I suggested. "That way we'll allay everyone's
suspicions that we've been discussing secrets."

He chuckled again, sounding even more forced. He had, I decided, absolutely no resources other than his tongue and sheer bluff. Perhaps he really had insulted me for the purpose of getting me out
here for a conversation, but he had certainly meant it as an insult as well—and a chance to remind the rest of the court to beware of his tongue. Back among all the other members of the duke's
court after less than two years at Peyrefixade, he had been cut off from ready income, his own knights, or even the respect of his fellows. Even if not formally accused of his wife's death, he must be
a suspect in many people's eyes.

Pity pushed aside my anger with him. He was even worse off than I had been in my brother's castle. Breaking his nose could wait for another occasion. We turned and strolled slowly among the
fountains and shrubs, leaving the knights by the hall door.

The cool air, if not reminding me of the plains of battle, did at least sober me up a bit. "You were about to assure me," I said when he was silent, "that you know absolutely nothing about your
wife's tragic accident."

"But I do," he said quietly, looking up at the moon and not at me. "I had no hand in her death myself, of course. I was always within sight of a dozen people, not even counting my own servants,
the night she fell and died. Even Duke Argave admits that. But what he will not admit or even consider—and I know the real reason he would not accept me as the new count to succeed my wife

— was that she was killed by the priests of the Order of the Three Kings."

I was so startled that I could not immediately answer.

But he did not wait for an answer. "They always hated me, the whole time I was at Peyrefixade. My wife's grandfather was a pious old fool in his dotage, giving away half the county patrimony
to those self-styled holy men. Greedy hypocrites if you ask me. The spiritual advisor he'd brought to his court claimed to be a Magian, but I couldn't even get the man to work a few magic tricks
to entertain my guests. Anyway, as soon as my wife inherited she and I started trying to recover some of what the old man had let slip into the Order's fingers."

When he paused I put in, "She became penitent, however, when the Order threatened to stop praying for her parents and grandparents."

The torchlight flashed on the whites of Thierri's eyes as he looked quickly toward me, then away. "Your priest tell you that? Yes, it's true, she did weaken at one point. Having to hire men of law
to argue that the old man was incompetent in his final years started to seem a little sordid to her, even disrespectful. She needed reminding of the final goal."

As Thierri himself seemed more than a little sordid and disrespectful to me, I remained silent.

Appearing to take my silence for doubt, he hurried on, "And there's more to my certainty of their guilt in her death than the fact that the Order had a good motive. They were seen. One of my
servants had gone to look for her, because normally she joined us in the hall when I was entertaining. And he says that for a second the ramparts appeared very different than they ever had before,
as though there was a room or terrace where none had ever been— It was a foggy night, so at first it was hard to be sure. But he realized that it had all been a magical illusion, designed to make her
step out into the air, when he heard her scream."

Here he paused, as though recalling that he was describing not just any strange event but the tragic details of his wife's death. "It must have been very terrible for you," I said sympathetically,
wanting to keep him talking. My head had started aching now. Sounds of music and laughter drifted out from the duke's hall.

"Oh, yes," he said without any particular force. "As you can imagine, I dismissed our charlatan spiritual advisor, Nuage his name was, that very night. Priest or not, he'd have been put to the
ordeal two months ago if the duke hadn't refused to hear anything against the Order of the Three Kings. But I see he's already saddled you with a new capellanus from their number!"

"The duke seems very sympathetic to the Order," I agreed. If any of what Thierri was saying was true, and Brother Melchior's Order had used magic to rid themselves of a troublesome countess,
then I would have to be especially alert around him. But then I was not at all certain that anything Thierri said was true.

"Argave says that the Order is the best bulwark against the evil magic-workers whom the heretics employ," he continued. "He hates the heretics so much that it blinds him to everything else."

"And why does he hate the heretics so much?" Even if I did not trust his answers, they continued to raise intriguing possibilities. First I had thought Melchior a spy for the duke, but now he
might be an agent for his Order with a hidden mission.

But I was not prepared for Thierri's answer. "I thought everyone knew. Argave's own son Gavain was lured away by the Perfected."

"And they killed him?" I said, shocked.

"Even worse. He joined them."

We strolled on slowly for a moment, the soft sounds of our shoes on marble almost lost amidst the murmur of the fountains and the rustle of the wind in the shrubbery. "The duke has hated them
all his life. That may be why his son and heir—rebellious and troublesome as all boys are, as I'm sure you were yourself!—joined them five years ago. Since then, anyone who opposes the Perfected
can do no wrong in Argave's eyes."

We were near the back wall of the garden now, at the furthest point from the hall doors. "By the way, Thierri," I said casually, "why are you telling me all this?"

"To see justice done. To bring the evil murderers of my wife before the tribunal and to see them hang."

"There's more," I said slowly. "If you only wanted vengeance for the death of your wife, you wouldn't need me."

"I want to warn you, of course," he answered heartily. "I don't want to see the same thing happen to you as happened to her!"

"Why not? I would think my sudden death an excellent opportunity for you. The duke has to have someone at Peyrefixade, and if I were gone he might settle on you after all."

He shook his head, a faint motion in the darkness here away from the flambeaux. "If you were gone, Caloran, he'd simply choose someone else from your family. Don't you have some brothers or
nephews back north? Because the Orders complained to Argave about me, he'd just send off again for your replacement."

"But suppose I was frightened away?" I persisted. "If I fled home in terror, none of my relatives would be likely to listen to the duke's messengers again."

Thierri never had a chance to answer. Out of the shadows a dark form sprang toward me. The flambeaux behind us glinted on the steel of his knife.

Instinct saved me, born of years on the battlefield. I dropped and rolled, coming up behind him while he was still striking at the spot where a second ago I had stood. But then I lost valuable time
groping for where my sword should be before I remembered and dodged just out of the way of another slashing blow. Wine had slowed my reflexes. There was a tug at my sleeve and a ripping
sound as the assailant's blade momentarily caught in the fabric before he jerked it free.

The toes of my new shoes caught as I spun around. But I kicked upward as I fell, feeling a foot land satisfactorily in the assailant's gut. I sprang upwards, head into his chin, and heard the knife
clatter free against the paving.

For a second we rolled, grappling for each other's throats. I still had not seen his face. Then there was another shadow over us, a sharp blow of a fist, and my assailant went momentarily limp.

I struggled free of his grip and grabbed his arms to pin them, though after a second he began struggling again. At the same moment torchlight flashed anew on the steel of the blade. Thierri had
picked up the knife. While I was still pulling the man's arms behind him, Thierri jerked back his head by the hair and slit his throat.

I let him go and pushed myself slowly to my feet, my new finery ruined by the rush of blood. My arm stung where the sleeve was ripped—he must have nicked me after all. My chest rose and fell
in great gasps, and, now that it was safely over, the fear I had not had the opportunity to feel in the few seconds of the fight all caught up with me.

"Well, Count Scar," said Thierri triumphantly. His back was to the flambeaux and his face invisible in shadow. "I've just saved your life. Do you still think I'm trying to get rid of you?"

My knights were suddenly all around us. "I could have told you not to go off walking alone with this one," muttered Bruno. We dragged the assailant's body back toward the torchlight. His blood
left dark streaks on the marble.

"Is this anyone you know?" I asked them all.

No one claimed to recognize him. His features distorted, his hair thick with his own blood, he might have been hard to recognize even in daylight, but he certainly did not look like anyone I had
ever met. "Probably someone hired by the Magians," muttered Thierri.

The dukes guards had appeared by now, expressing horror and dismay that the ducal peace had been broken by such an incident. "You might want to pay more attention to the walls at the far side
of the garden," said Thierri pointedly. "It looks to me as though someone scaled them when you weren't paying attention, someone who hated our new Count Caloran."

But I pulled him aside. He was almost as bloody as I was, though I thought it all the assassin's blood. "Are you quite certain," I asked, low and intense, "that this was not an assassin you hired
yourself?"

"To kill you? My dear Caloran," with a remarkably convincing attempt at a chuckle, "your imagination has run away with itself. Why would I save you from my own assassin?" He tried
without success to extricate his arm from my grip. The duke had been summoned and was rapidly approaching, his sword drawn. Inside the music had stopped, and the other courtiers and guests
clustered in the doorway. "You killed him so that he could not accuse you," I told Thierri, speaking fast. "When you realized he would not succeed in murdering me, you had to make sure no one
would ever mention your role in hiring him."

"But I had his knife. It would have been easy enough to kill you myself if that had been my plan! Because I suspected this was a magic-worker—either a heretic or another Magian of the sort we've
just been discussing— I had to kill him before he blasted us with an evil spell." Duke Argave stood over the body, talking rapidly with my knights and members of his own guard. Men raced off
in all directions to search the shrubbery for lurkers. I turned toward the duke, but just before I did I added in a whisper to Thierri, "I think that blow of yours, before you cut his throat, was meant
for me, not him. You were slow enough to come to my rescue and only did so when you realized your plan had failed."