Kings and Assassins (26 page)

“I intend to,” Janus said, and they shared an honest smile, the pleasure of two men who knew themselves to be in control of their destinies.

“So, Espit or Naga?” Ivor said. “Despair or greed? If Naga had His coils about your lady, His greed might prove troublesome. But I see no sign of His presence in her.”

“She picks at her food,” Janus snapped, “like one who's never known want or hunger.”

Ivor pushed his breakfast tray back toward Janus, and said, “Should I call for more? You've obviously missed your meal.”

Janus shook his head, belatedly embarrassed at his outburst. Ivor pulled the bell cord and when his seneschal appeared, said, “Please ask the kitchens for another breakfast. And a new pot of coffee.”

Ivor stifled Janus's protest. “Please. It's only my duty as a host. Nothing more. And you'll recall I breakfast uncommonly early. A second breakfast would not go amiss on my plate either. Espit, you think?”

Janus allowed himself to be drawn back into speculation. “Espit is
the most truly dead of the gods, the only one who went gracefully according to the legends.”

“As you say,” Ivor agreed. “I cannot imagine Psyke strong enough to lure Espit from Her chosen grave. Unless your lady's with child?”

“I think not,” Janus said. His heart gave a sudden lurch. Himself, a father? It would be disaster. With a child of his blood, Psyke could position herself well. Even Gost, his dubious ally, would turn to Psyke and an untainted child to turn into a king or queen.

“Death and the beauty, then,” Ivor said.

“Haith,” Janus said. “The god of death and victory.” It fit with the little he had been thinking before, the sketchy details he had gleaned from the tracts Delight had sent. He licked his lips, a revealing habit he had thought conquered years ago in the Relicts, when his mother, Celia, had used it to gauge when he was lying.

It went unnoticed by Ivor, his attention gone to the opening door and the trays the maids brought in. The scent of fresh bread and the pepper-spiced meats came in before them. Janus, who often found the food in Antyre too fussed for his tastes, nearly salivated.

“Lovely,” Ivor said. “Makes me hungry again, myself.”

Janus allowed the maids to serve him; there was no point in denying himself simply to spite Ivor.

“Come back to Itarus,” Ivor said, his forkful of pastry held abeyant. “Grigor rather admired you.”

Janus smiled. “As if Grigor's attention is something to be courted. It's as dangerous as it is to be desired. You agree, or you wouldn't have come here to play auditor.” He picked up his pastry, sans fork, crunched into it. Flavors exploded over his tongue, memories of three years of breakfasting with Ivor, plotting strategy and murder.

Ivor collected the broadsheet laid beneath the covered plates, opened it, raised eyebrows, and set it down.

Janus felt wariness seep back into his bones, pushing away the dangerous comfort he felt in Ivor's company.

“Death is a reclusive god and difficult to court,” Ivor said. “I know of only one who succeeded. Your Cold King, the first of the Redoubts. The battlefield poets had praised him in verse so greatly that Haith heard his name echoing below and rose from His sepulchre to
see such vitality for Himself. Redoubt stood, surrounded by dead soldiers, facing his enemies all about him, and laughed.

“Haith interceded, though no one recorded how, only that once Redoubt stepped out of His embrace, he walked through the streets, and all who opposed him died. I notice that Psyke's maid has taken ill…”

Janus poked at pastry crumbs, refusing to be drawn into speculation.

“So sullen today, though I suppose that's only natural, given the broadsheets. Poole goes too far, I think. I own amazement that you've not killed him yet.”

“Poole?” Janus said, the word slipping free. The name tasted foul in his mouth. “What's he done now?”

“Done as he always has,” Ivor said. “Made mock. You've not seen it?”

The broadsheet left smudges on the linens when Janus snatched it up. The cheap ink bled on his fingers—a second printing, if it was still wet—and what could Poole have drawn to have proved so popular?

Janus had become accustomed to virulent screeds on his vicious-ness, the accusations of regicide, but the actual image made him flush with humiliation and fury.
Assassin
, he could bear.
Viper in the court, a wolf in the fold;
these were images he was accustomed to, and, if forced to be honest, images he rather enjoyed. Dangerous creatures were always worthy of admiration. But this …

The sketch showed him as a petulant boy, yanking Chryses's arm beside the cannon, crying,
Again! Again! Make it go Boom! again!
, looking nearly as witless as Adiran. At the edges of the sketch, Gost and DeGuerre shook their heads, while Ivor, drawn wearing bestial furs and a beard, grinned. The cannonball, Janus noted, stove in the side of a boat called
Peace
.

“It does divert your mind quite wonderfully,” Ivor said. “Your wife is no threat to you, no matter that you fear her. Poole, on the other hand, or rather those behind him—”

The paper tore beneath Janus's hands; given that his poise was so obviously shattered, he took childish satisfaction in ripping the rest
of it to bits and flung the confetti in Ivor's direction. Childish, yes, but his blade was across the room, the seneschal moving discreetly between Janus and his weapon, and Ivor was, after all, a foreign prince, and untouchable. Despite claims made otherwise, Janus had no desire for war; while he wanted Itarus's shackles taken from Antyre, there had to be less damaging ways to see that done.

Ivor kept his smile, and, as Janus regained his composure, collapsing into the mess he had made, Ivor's smile only deepened. “Oh, I've missed you, my pet. Be my right hand. I'll give you more power than the Antyrrians will ever allow you.”

“And see Antyre fall? The throne is more than a prize,” Janus said.

“Prettily put,” Ivor said, “but spoken to the wrong audience. I know you, know your nature. People rarely change.”

Janus said, “But they can learn what matters to them. I can make this country better, stronger, return it to glory.”

“You can't,” Ivor said. “While that fool child lives, you'll rise, at best, to regent, and find your every decision debated, your plans stymied on all fronts. But come aid me as you once did, and I'll see you rewarded.”

Janus flicked bits of newsprint from the table in silence. Ivor was likely correct. Adiran blocked his path, a symbol too easily used by the duchess, by the Parliament, by the counselors. If Janus couldn't supplant the boy prince, the future—his and Antyre's—promised nothing but a series of battles, some won, others lost.

He licked his lips, and Ivor said, “Janus …” his tone pleased, confident.

Janus raised his head, met Ivor's eager gaze, and banished all friendliness in the man's face, real or pretend, with a few, simply stated words. “I'm Antyrrian, Ivor, to the bone.”

S
J
ANUS LEFT THE OLD
wing of the palace, he found Evan Tarrant pacing outside, casting fulminating looks at Ivor's guards. “I'm his personal page—” The boy broke off, his anxiety switching to a quick grin at the sight of Janus. Janus had the uncomfortable thought that this boy might be one of the few people in this city that would smile at his appearance.

The boy's anxiety returned; he fidgeted in a manner unbecoming to a member of the palace staff. “Sir—”

“Not here,” Janus said, snatching the boy's sleeve and turning him like a wave collecting driftwood.

The boy's stumbling gait smoothed as he caught up to Janus's quick pace, and trotted alongside him. “It's Gost and DeGuerre, sir.” His voice, breathy, was pitched for Janus's ears and so Janus let him continue, bending to accommodate the boy's piping voice. “Admiral DeGuerre got a letter from Prince Ivor and then he and Mr. Gost shut themselves up in the king's study.”

“Are they still meeting?” Janus asked. He cast a glance at his guards, following as faithfully as his shadow.

The boy nodded, and Janus clapped his shoulder. “Thank you, Evan. You've done well.” Beneath his grip, the boy squirmed, pleased to be praised and careless about showing it.

Janus headed to the closed double doors of Aris's study. Janus
nodded at the guards outside, a clear sign that he expected to be let in; after a moment, one of the guards opened the door for him. His sword hilt, Janus noted, was not beribboned.

Gost and DeGuerre stood on either side of Aris's desk, leaning over it, the crowns of their heads nearly touching. When Janus entered unannounced, their expressions commingled aggravation and outrage.

“I'm sorry to intrude,” Janus said, “but as this is the king's study, it can hardly be a personal problem that DeGuerre sought you out for, and if it involves Antyre, well, I knew you'd be wanting me.”

DeGuerre bristled. “Wanting you! If it weren't that Adiran were … as he is, I would see you whipped from—”

“Words, hastily said, take far more time to forget,” Gost interrupted, taking off his spectacles and folding them neatly into thirds. “Janus, you were with Ivor all morning, did he tell you nothing of this?” he asked, gesturing at a sheet of vellum on the desk.

Janus, who had spent all of his childhood untaught, nonetheless suddenly understood all Delight's extravagant dislike of being called on the carpet by his various tutors. He raised his chin and said, “We discussed other matters.”

“Useless,” DeGuerre muttered.

Gost frowned; it aged his face from merely distinguished to something approaching old and weary. He said, “Well, as you're here, come and see what you have wrought.”

As such had been his intention, Janus made no demur, but stepped obediently to the desk. Gost spread out the letter. This was a letter meant to intimidate, Ivor at his most official. From the weight of the vellum, nearly as thick as cloth, to the precision of letters and spacing of the lines, every word was as elegant as a well-kept blade.

“Don't know why you bother, Gost,” DeGuerre said. “The boy can't read it.”

“I haven't been a boy for quite some time,” Janus said, finding something he could protest. The rest was regrettably true: another letter written in that damnable High Antyrrian.

“Your display at the docks was nothing but boyish temper and pride,” DeGuerre said, and Janus's mask of politeness cracked.

“Is it you I have to thank for Poole's lovely sketch? I might remind you, it was
your
son who—”

“I have no son,” DeGuerre said, voice overriding Gost's quiet reprimand.

“My father felt the same way once, and he had need of me nonetheless.”

“Your father died of it—”

“Your sons may do the same,” Janus said. “While you sit, secure behind your walls, Chryses walks among the antimachinist agitators. While you find fault, Delight builds machines—”

“Delight is nothing of mine and Chryses is, and always has been, a fool.”

“Fools? They
act
to save their country while their elders fuss and fret. Aris used to harp on the need for young men; I begin to understand,” Janus said.

“Aris,” Gost said, “is irrelevant to the matter at hand. Last, shall I translate the letter for you? Or would you prefer to bicker longer?”

“Translate. If you would,” Janus said. He forced a veneer of civility over his frustration and rising temper. In this situation, Maledicte would have seized the fireplace poker and burnt out their mocking eyes; faced with a language he couldn't read, Maledicte would ensure they couldn't do so either. But any violent act Janus chose must be for better purpose than simple relief.

Gost coughed, and Janus met Gost's all-too-knowing gaze. Kingmaker, they called him, and while Janus mocked Gost's reputation, he knew the man understood ambition and hatred.

“The letter is, as said, from Ivor in his position as treaty auditor. He has made a list of demands in reaction to what he deems a ‘most troubling call to arms in the very heart of the city.’”

“Call to arms, indeed,” Janus muttered. “Why must everyone persist in assuming I want war when Antyre lacks the resources to fight one?”

DeGuerre's automatic rebuttal stalled on the man's lips. He
looked… thoughtful, and Janus wondered why this one throwaway complaint might do more to prove his intentions to DeGuerre than a workshop full of plans.

Gost said, “We also lack the resources to pay the fine Ivor asks. Ten thousand sols from each of the families involved.”

DeGuerre's expression grew cold again and Janus sighed. Gost had appalling timing.

“… As well as a fine from the kingdom itself, matching in total the penalties assessed on the families. Ivor also requires immediate surrender of the new cannons and shot, so take pleasure in that at least; Ivor was favorably impressed by your designs.

“The money is nothing,” Gost said. “One more hardship piled among others on Antyre's back. Ivor's next demand is ruinous. He requires us to allow his ships entrance to our waters, our harbors, the very heart of our country. One moment of arrogance, Janus, and you see our shores invaded in the name of peace.”