Marie Brennan - In Ashes Lie

“I saw it as the dance brought me near. He seemed to join in our sport, but then he broke without warning for your Grace’s person, and pulled forth that knife. Had I been but a moment faster, I—I might have stopped him in time.”

Shame broke his voice. Lune said, “You have done well, Sir Leslic.” With one hand she prodded her bodyguards aside, giving her a clear view of her would-be killer. He was a pathetic thing, filthy and ragged on the marble. The luster of the stone was dimmed where the knife had fallen, and smeared with her blood.

The knight moved suddenly, stepping forward and then checking himself as her guards twitched. Antony half-dropped his buttressing grip on Lune’s arms, but restored it as she swayed. Leslic’s attention flew past Lune’s shoulder like an arrow. “You,” he said, spitting the word. “You brought this murderer here.”

Sir Cerenel stood trembling just behind her and to the right, mouth open in sick horror. Leslic’s snarl brought him up with a snap. “Do you accuse me of conspiracy?”

Lune’s own thoughts had not yet gotten that far. Clutching to her bleeding shoulder the fold of cloth Amadea provided, she went cold with sudden fear. Had she so misjudged him? Could Cerenel be playing at agreement with her ideals, all the while paying heed to Nicneven’s agents?

The knights’ anger was evenly matched, and rising. Leslic said, “I would not so impugn her Majesty’s judgment as to imagine she would take such a traitor into her bosom. But you found this man; you brought him here. Are you not of the Onyx Guard? Is it not your duty to protect your Queen from harm? What measures did you take to ensure her safety?”

Cerenel went pale. “Upon my oath, you will withdraw that insult to my honor, sir.”

“For the insult to our gracious sovereign,” Leslic said, “I stand by my words. Prove your honor, sir, or prove it lost.” He spun to face Lune. “Madam, this knight has given the lie to my words. I beg your leave to face him in combat.”

It was too much, too quickly. Lune’s head spun, and blackness feathered the edges of her vision. I should have withdrawn.

Antony’s hands tightened on her arms, and his answer struck both knights into silence. “You would make demands of your Queen? On the heels of such an outrage? Your honor, sirs, is not worth a brass thimble!”

But if she had gone, they would still have had this confrontation. At least now she had some hope of controlling it. Lune had never forbidden dueling, for her people rarely fought to the death, and a little bloodshed for the sake of honor was understandable enough. But for this, a private duel would not serve; it touched too closely on her royal honor. The settlement of the question must be public.

Cerenel was still pale, and he looked at Lune with desperate eyes. That he had not planned this, she was certain. But his honor and reputation were damaged, and he must be given leave to defend them.

Not tonight. “This matter shall be settled in honorable fashion,” she said, holding on to strength with her fingernails. “When we are recovered, we shall oversee it in person. Until such time, we forbid you to visit violence upon one another, nor even to speak; nor to allow any of your allies to do the same, save to arrange the terms of the duel.” She glared both knights down as if she could stop them by will alone. Which she hoped she could. “Do not think to disobey us.”

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: May 5, 1640

Later, Antony went to her bedchamber, where she had dismissed all of her ladies and sprites and sat gazing at a candle flame. “What of the blade?” she asked, without turning to face him.

She sounded far calmer than he would have expected, though he could see the bulk of a bandage altering the line of her shoulder. “Safely gone,” he replied. “It was a cheap Sheffield knife, such as any man might own. Nothing to learn from it. We found a sheath in his clothing, though—made of hawthorn, to mask its presence. Someone prepared this.” Nicneven, without a doubt. She had threatened violence before.

But always against him. Never Lune. Anger such as he rarely felt heated Antony’s blood. Murder was a foul thing; regicide, far fouler.

Lune did not comment on the sheath, though he knew she had heard him. Antony swallowed down his anger and cleared his throat. “Will you…” He hesitated to give the question tongue. No one had been wounded with iron during his time here; he realized now that he did not know what would happen. “Will you recover?”

“In part.” Lune’s breath hissed between her teeth before she continued. “The poison has been drawn. But wounds so given never fully heal.”

And she was immortal. Never would last a very long time for her.

The ensuing silence persisted long enough that he opened his mouth to take his leave. She needed to rest, and might do so if he were gone. But then she spoke again. “Did you mark how Leslic leapt on the man?”

He had watched the incident from the dais—all of it over too fast for him to see much. Or so he thought. But now, recalling the scene, he noted what he had overlooked in the moment. How had Lune, bleeding on the floor, seen such a small thing?

Easily. She knew far better than he how the presence of iron felt. “He did not flinch.”

“No,” Lune said.

Another silence, this time as they both considered the implications. Antony stayed by the door, suspecting she did not want a companion in her weakness. She rarely did. Instead he asked, “Do you wish me to find out where he got the bread?”

She shook her head, then stopped as if the movement hurt her shoulder. “The trade in it is so brisk, I doubt you could trace it. The better question is why he had eaten of it so recently, and was so conveniently protected against the iron.”

He did not know the golden-haired knight well, but he remembered the company in which Leslic had been seen. Fae who sneered at mortals as lesser beings, and rarely set foot outside the Onyx Hall. What bread they had was generally bartered for political favors, not kept for their own use.

Antony said, “I will look for the answer.”

“No,” Lune said, turning to look at him at last. “You have concerns enough of your own. I have others who can find out more efficiently.”

Concerns. Trade, and his family, and the day-to-day governance of his ward. He would get plenty of rest, now that he need not concern himself with Parliament. But Lune was right; there were others who could do that work better. “Then let them have a care for their safety, too,” he said. “Those who would kill you would not hesitate to murder others.”

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: May 11, 1640

Wiping his mouth with a napkin, Eochu Airt said, “I am glad to see you so rapidly recovered, madam. Please accept as well the sympathies of the Ard-Rí, who is most outraged over such a foul, dishonorable offense.”

Lune was not quite so recovered as she took pains to appear, but the wound from that knife had already incapacitated her for nearly a week; she could not afford a longer absence from the field. She was at least glad to see that her thought about Eochu Airt had borne fruit. He was much more agreeable when given venison and boar to tear into, rather than pickled lampreys. The quiet meal they shared now was still not the rowdy public banquets hosted by the kings and queens of his land, but it helped, and was a bargain at the price.

She sipped from a cup of wine well fortified with strengthening herbs and said, “The offender answered with his life.”

The ambassador smiled in a way that said he recognized the opportunity she gave him. Lune’s body might still be weak, but she had not missed the implication of his phrasing: that the lunatic’s attack was more than an unfortunate accident. “But what of the one behind him?”