Guy Kay - A Song for Arbonne

"He was buying a friend I had made for myself in the world away from home, away from him. Be flattered—he decided your price would be very high."

"High enough, though I confess I'm less happy now than I was a moment ago. Tell me one thing, though. I think I do know why you left us all and came away by yourself, but why stay now? What has Arbonne done to buy you and hold you? What was Bertran de Talair that you will cast your lot in this way?"

Blaise shrugged again. "It has done nothing, really. Certainly not to buy me. I don't even like it here, truthfully. Too much goddess for me, as you might have guessed." He shifted a little, from one foot to the other. "But I have a contract of my own, just as you did. I'll wrap that up as honestly as I can, and then see where I end up. I don't think I'm casting any lots, really."

"Then think again, Blaise. Think harder. If your father was sending a message to the world by killing the duke of Talair what shall we take that message to be? What is Gorhaut telling us all? My father says there is a war coming, Blaise. If it comes, I think Arbonne is doomed."

"It is possible," said Blaise of Gorhaut, as Lisseut felt the colour leaving her face. "As I say, I will see where I am in a little while."

"There is nothing I can do for you?"

Lisseut heard a tired amusement in Blaise's voice. "Don't let the wine make you sentimental, Rudel. I am going to report you as an assassin at sunrise. You had best begin making your own plans."

The other did not move. "There is one thing," he said slowly, as if to himself. He hesitated. "The factors in all of the Correze branch houses will be sent a letter from me ordering them to receive and conceal you should the need ever arise."

"I will not go to them."

It was Rudel's turn to sound amused. "That much is out of my control. I can take no responsibility for your pride. But the letter will be written. I take it you are leaving your money with us?"

"But of course," said Blaise. "With whom else should I trust it?"

"Good," said Rudel Correze. "The one thing my father most hates is investors withdrawing their accounts. He would have been deeply unhappy with me."

"I would regret being the cause of such unhappiness."

Rudel smiled. "If I had not seen you, Blaise, I should be an extravagantly pleased man tonight, flushed with my great success. I might even go out and join the Carnival. Instead I am rendered curiously sad and forced to take a night voyage, which never agrees with my digestion. What sort of a friend are you?"

"One who is not an enemy, at any rate. Be careful, Rudel."

"And you. That Arimondan will kill you if he can."

"I know. If he can."

There was a silence. "A message for Lucianna?"

"None at all. The god guard you, Rudel."

Blaise took a step forward and the two men clasped hands. For a moment Lisseut thought they would embrace but they did not. She moved silently back along the wall, felt below in darkness with her feet for the wooden crate and slipped down into the odours of the alleyway. She heard the rats again as she moved quickly back towards the street. As she left the alley, she picked up her mask, discarded on the street, and put it on. She wanted some sort of barrier between herself and the world just then, and what she still wanted, even more than before, was a quiet time and a clear head that would let her think.

She didn't think she was going to get either tonight. She went back down the empty street away from the square at the top, past the massive iron doors that were the entrance to what she now knew was the Arbonnais palace of the House of Correze. She knew the name, of course. Everyone knew the name. She had stumbled into something very large and she didn't know what to do.

A little further down she came to the arched doorway she'd watched from before, when Blaise went down the alley. She slipped back into it, looking out from behind the elongated eye-slits of her mask.

She didn't have long to wait. Blaise of Gorhaut came striding out of the alleyway a few moments later. He stopped in the street and looked up at the stern, square tower of Mignano. She knew why now, she knew more than she should, or even wanted to know: Mignano was controlled by the Delonghi family, it had been for a great many years, and the only daughter of Massena Delonghi was a woman named Lucianna, twice married, twice widowed prematurely.

Three times married, she corrected herself. To Count Borsiard d'Andoria now. She wondered, briefly, why a man of power and means would marry her, knowing her family's ambition, knowing her own reputation. She was said to be very beautiful. How much could beauty excuse or compel? Blaise had turned away from the tower and was coming back down the street, walking quickly. The lantern light burnished his hair again, and the full beard.

She didn't know, until the moment she actually called his name, that she was going to do so. He stopped, a hand moving swiftly to his sword, then wavering before it dropped to his side. A woman's voice; he wouldn't fear a woman.

Lisseut came out from her archway into the light. Her mask was on. She reached up and removed it; the makeshift coiling she'd done with her hair came undone as she did, and she felt the tangled tendrils coming down about her face. She could imagine what she looked like.

"Ah," he said. "The singer." Some surprise in his voice, not a great deal. Not a great deal of interest, either. At least he recognized her. "You are a long way from the Carnival here. Do you want an escort back to where there will be people?"

His tone was courteous and detached, a coran of the god doing his sworn duty by someone in need. It hadn't even occurred to him why she was here, she realized. She was merely an Arbonnais female, presumably in need of assistance.

Her mother had always said she did too many things on impulse and that it would cost her one day. It already had, more than once. It was probably about to do so again, she thought, even as she opened her mouth.

"I followed you," she said. "I was on the garden wall under the plane tree. I heard what you both said, you and Rudel Correze. I'm trying to decide what to do about it."

She was briefly gratified at the level of astonishment that showed in his face, even behind the beard—as much a screen in its own way as all the masks were tonight. The feeling didn't last long. It was entirely possible, she realized, that he might kill her now. She didn't think so, but it was possible.

She braced herself for his fury. She thought, in the uncertain light, that she saw it come, a lifted head, a narrowed gaze upon her. He had stabbed Remy, she remembered. He had killed six men by Lake Dierne. His hands remained still, though. She saw him working out implications, surprise and anger giving way to a flatly professional appraisal. He was quick to control himself; had she not watched him earlier in the garden spilling wine in response to a woman's name spoken she would have thought him a cold, grim man.

"Why?" was all he said finally.

She'd been afraid of that question. She still didn't have an answer. She wished her hair was pinned properly, that her clothing was clean and dry. She felt like a street urchin. Her mother would be so ashamed.

"You seemed to be hurrying somewhere," she said hesitantly. "The way you left the pier. I think I was very… irritated with you in the tavern, I wanted to… know more."

"And now you do." He sounded more tired than angry, actually. "So, what will you do?" he asked.

"I was hoping you would tell me," Lisseut said, looking down at the cat mask in her hands. "I heard you say that you were going to stay instead of leaving with him. I heard him say there might be a war, and I… I heard who paid for the killing." She forced her head up to meet his gaze.