The Fall of Neskaya (64 page)

A meal had been laid out on a folding table, along with a flagon of wine from the same mysterious stores which had produced the tent and scrap of carpet. Rafael Hastur himself was nowhere in sight, although a young aide busied himself about the tent. She recognized him, although she’d forgotten his name. When he saw her, he bowed and stammered greetings.

Outside, Taniquel lowered herself to the smaller of the two camp stools and composed herself to wait. Her stomach rumbled, for she had not eaten since breaking her fast that morning, but she wanted sleep more than anything else. Or rest, for she feared that on this night of all nights, sleep would elude her. Not yet. Once this night’s business was finished, maybe then.

The sky darkened and more stars became visible. The aide lit torches. The moons swung in their silent dances. Mormallor set and Kyrrdis rose to shimmer like a blue-green jewel.

Rafael Hastur strode up to his tent, talking in quiet tones with Gerolamo. Taniquel rose and bowed, the restrained salute of one monarch to another. In the flickering orange light, the lines of his face, etched deep by the strain of the past year, ran like gullies through the landscape of his flesh. He filled both goblets with wine, handed the flagon to Gerolamo with a nod to go off and enjoy it, and downed his own. As he settled on his own stool, his dark eyes glinted.

“What a day’s work,” he said in a voice roughened by exhaustion. “What I really want is to fill my belly and get more than halfway drunk.” He reached for a chunk of bread. “But I don’t think you’ll let me.”

“I am not your Keeper,” she replied, smiling despite herself. “And if any man deserved it, you do.”

Rafael gestured to the meal laid out. “Break bread with me and then we will talk.”

They ate in quiet. The camp food, although better than anything the men would receive, was dry and tasteless. After they finished, Rafael sat stroking his beard. “What is on your mind? You would not be sitting there so primly without a reason.”

She met his gaze, levelly. “Damian Deslucido and his son.”

“They are both in chains. Neither of them is going anywhere tonight.”

“Except to Zandru’s coldest hell.”

“Lord of Light, woman!” he cried with such force that the two swordsmen standing guard turned to see what was the matter. “What do you want of me—to just cut their heads off and be done with it? Without a trial?”

“What purpose would that serve?” she plunged on, hating what she must do. “Except to buy them a slim chance of escape or rescue. Uncle,” she leaned forward, thought of touching his arm for emphasis, then held back, “that must not happen. If we are to wipe out the whole nest of scorpion-ants, we must do so at once. Deslucido and his son are within our grasp. We must finish what we have begun. We will never get a better chance.”

Rafael sighed deeply. She felt, like a shimmer along her bones, how much he wanted this whole bloody business to be over with. He was exhausted in spirit as well as body, tired of slaughter, tired of hard pounding days in the field. Tired of the endless struggle to hold something of value together in a time where every force split the land apart. Compassion whispered through her and she wished there were some other way.

“Perhaps you are right,” he said, straightening his shoulders, “and it must be done quickly, before the heat of battle has faded. The people will accept a swift execution as the natural outcome of defeat. Deslucido gambled on easy conquest—and he lost. Such is the way of the world.”

When he met her gaze once more, the light in his eyes glinted. Jaw muscles tightened, visible along his temples. With a word, he summoned his aide and gave orders for Deslucido and his son to be brought.

“But first,” Rafael answered Taniquel’s objection, “I will hear him.”

“He is not to be trusted,” she cried. “You know he will swear anything if it serves him.”

“I will hear them both.” His voice deepened in pitch and he sat even straighter. “Deslucido faced his test and chose tyranny, but we must not answer him with the same. Do you see, it is not enough to defeat him by force of arms or superior strategy? If we follow our passions and do as we please, without any regard for justice, then we are no better.”

“But he
lied
—”

He hushed her with a gesture, and she saw him torn between his own ideals and the absolute necessity of preserving Darkover’s fragile progress from chaos. With a shiver, she realized he would not retreat. He would insist on justice as well as peace.

Deslucido and Belisar were brought to the tent, the father hobbling as best he could with ankles as well as wrists in irons, the son carried on a stretcher. One leg had been bandaged and lashed to a makeshift splint. His eyes, dull with endurance, flashed briefly as he recognized her.

Deslucido, too, seemed subdued, his fire quenched. He lifted his head and glared directly at Rafael.

“Vai dom,”
he said, without the slightest incline of his head. “You have won the day. Our people will be eager for our safe return. What are your terms for our ransom?”

“That depends,” Rafael answered, “upon how you explain certain irregularities of conduct.”

One eyebrow twitched upward. “Irregularities? This is war, my most worthy opponent, not a game of battledores with a code of regulations.”

“I am not referring to our present conflict, but to the events which preceded it. The meeting of the
Comyn
Council.”

“Oh.” Deslucido’s eyes widened minutely, and Taniquel could almost hear his thoughts scattering, scrambling. “Are you holding me responsible for the Council’s failure to achieve an amicable resolution and avoid all this? May I remind you that the Council sided with
my
arguments and that
you
were the one to defy them. I thought you supported the Council.”

“I do.” Rafael’s quiet tone sent shivers up Taniquel’s spine. “So much so,” he continued, “that I take special offense at any action which undermines its most basic principles.” He paused, as if waiting for a reaction.

Deslucido’s expression did not change, that mixture of battle weariness, noble acceptance of defeat, and implacable arrogance. After a long moment, he said, “Are you accusing
me
of undermining the Council?” He lifted his manacled hands in a gesture of disbelief. “However could I have done that? I, a newcomer presenting my first petition? Why, I barely know the other lords. Are you suggesting I found a way to
suborn
the Council?
Vai dom,
surely you realize how foolish and unnecessary these charges are. We were at war, and you won. You have no need to prove your righteousness or my own culpability.”

Deslucido made as if to kneel before Rafael, but the shackles on his legs prevented a graceful movement. “You have triumphed on the field of battle,” he said, his voice eloquent in surrender. “I am your prisoner, at least until we settle upon honorable terms. What more do you want of me?”

“Something I fear you are incapable of offering.” Rafael’s own voice turned steely. “The truth.”

“I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. At the meeting, we all testified under truthspell. You were there. You heard me. You saw the light on my face.”

“I heard what I heard,” Rafael said. “And I saw what I saw. What I want from you now, to answer your question, is an explanation of how you were able to do it.”

“Do what?”

“Tell a deliberate falsehood under truthspell.”

Deslucido blinked, the picture of innocent consternation. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came.

Deslucido glanced about the tent, as if searching for escape. His eyes lit on Taniquel, and it was all she could do to hold steady, so hate-filled was his glare. His mouth twisted, his cheeks flushing an angry red. “This—this monstrous charge is all your doing!”

He turned back to Rafael. “I don’t know what she’s told you, but she’s nothing but a spoiled, manipulative little hellcat! She cares for nothing but her own whims! She’ll say or do anything to cause trouble—even cast ridiculous accusations upon her betters.”

His voice sank to a velvety purr. “You are a man of discernment and experience, Rafael. You must have seen through her spite by now. Surely you would not put her insinuations before the word of a fellow King! I will swear by anything you hold sacred that whatever she’s told you about me is a lie!”

Taniquel trembled with the effort of remaining silent. Her uncle was letting him go on and on, spinning a web of the most reasonable-sounding deceit. She remembered how he had swayed the
Comyn
Council with his honeyed words. In another five minutes, she thought, he’d have all of them, even her uncle, believing he was an honorable man with only the best intentions.

“Tell me, Deslucido,” Rafael said with that slow, infuriatingly patient tone, “why I should trust any of your vows, made under truthspell or not? How can I believe that you will keep any conditions of parole?”

“Because we are both men of the world,” Deslucido went on, his voice like soft golden thunder. “We understand how things have always gone, how they always will. These women have no notion of anything beyond their own apron strings. But we—we share a vision of what Darkover can become. A world of unity and peace.”

“Your peace,” Rafael returned. “But for anyone who opposes you, the peace of the yoke. The peace of the grave.”

“You mistake me entirely. I have never desired anything other than the highest good for all our people. I promise you—”

Taniquel’s nerves had been frayed to the breaking point by the
laran
attack, her journey through the Overworld, the exhaustion of battle and then that single heart-rending mental cry from Coryn. If Deslucido uttered one more soothing reassurance, she would break his neck with her own hands.

“That’s enough!” It was the same tone she’d used to snap Rafael and Gerolamo out of their confusion under the Tramontana madness. “We can debate this all night and be no closer to the truth.” She strode over to Deslucido, but still beyond the reach of a sudden lunge. She came close enough to see his eyes in the torchlight.

“You,”
she pointed at him, “kept me from a proper vigil for Padrik. You pawned me off with a bunch of excuses—”

“If I’ve offended you—” Deslucido began, clearly thinking her outburst due to frustrated womanly feeling.

“What offends me,” she cut him off, “is that you told the
Comyn
Council you
had
given me leave.” She paused to let that sink in.
“Under truthspell.”

For a long moment, no one moved. Outside the tent came the usual camp noises, a whinny from the picket lines, a snatch of a ballad, men talking.

Deslucido closed his mouth, visibly gathering himself. Rafael glanced from his captives to Taniquel and back again. His expression remained impassive.

“A thousand regrets, my lady,” Deslucido said, “for the distress you’ve suffered from this simple misunderstanding. Let me explain what really happened—”

“Don’t even try!” Now she whirled on Belisar, who blanched as she approached his stretcher. “Tell them what you told me—the ability to lie under truthspell is a family trait. What did you call it? The Deslucido Gift? You have it, just like your father—”

“No! No!” Deslucido yelled. “It’s all a mistake!”

“Oh, give it up, Father,” came a voice from the stretcher. Belisar strained to lift his head, his features distorted with loathing. “It’s no use, don’t you see?
They know!
”

“You fool! Shut up!” Deslucido turned as quickly as the shackles would permit. Had he not been bound, Taniquel thought, he would have struck the boy, wounded or not. She caught the flicker of an image, a weasel twisting and turning in a trap. She remembered that some animals would rend their own flesh, even chew off a paw, to escape.

Belisar shouted again, “It’s all over! They know!”

Deslucido threw himself at the stretcher, manacled hands outstretched. Rafael leaped from his chair to pull Deslucido back. A heartbeat later, his men came in and wrestled Deslucido under control. The very air of the tent swirled restlessly after he and his son were removed.

“I cannot let them live.” Rafael stood, his chest rising and falling. “You were right, niece.”

“You had no choice.” Tears of relief stung Taniquel’s eyes. She sniffed, tasting dust and the rank sweat of fear. Deslucido’s, Belisar’s. Her own.

We alone will know the truth,
she thought with a strange hot sadness,
that Deslucido and his son died not for their aggression in war but for their deceit in peace.

She sent a silent prayer to whatever god would listen that this horrible secret would end with them.

T
aniquel watched, numb and dry-eyed, as the bodies of Damian Deslucido, once King of Ambervale and Linn, then Acosta and Verdanta and a handful of other conquests, along with his firstborn son and heir, were cut down from the trees.
Hanged at dawn
sounded like something from an old ballad, and doubtless one would be made about this one, but the reality had been quite different and she was glad she had not had the stomach for breakfast.

Word of the execution had spread through the camp. She felt the whispers rather than heard them, saw the whitened cheeks and tight jaws of the Ambervale prisoners. Yet there was no hint of censure and more than a little of relief. Rafael Hastur might be seen as a harsh victor, but also a just one. And from her own Acosta men came the exhilaration of liberation, even in their exhaustion.

“Bury them on the battlefield,” Rafael ordered, “but in unmarked graves, so that no man can say who was the loyal soldier and who the King who led him into defeat.”

He gave other orders, too. An elite cavalry force under his most experienced general would press on to Ambervale Castle while he himself returned to Thendara. Taniquel would go with her own men to Acosta. Rafael had offered a squadron of his own men in addition, in case any remaining Deslucido forces put up a fight. She accepted.