The Jaguar Knights (21 page)

“No! They don’t split up married couples. They’d send both of us!”

The combination was irresistible—marry Dolores, track down Lynx, and be rid of Athelgar, all in one roll of the dice.

Wolf cleared his throat, wondering if he were cutting it. “Then if the offer is still open…we could get married, I suppose.”

She did not flinch. “Can you rephrase that with a couple of romantic epithets and maybe an endearment?”

“No. I’m a killer, not a hypocrite. I’m not asking for a proper marriage. Spirits, I know what I look like! Finding that on the pillow every morning would be lifelong torture. You realize we have known each other barely more than a week? But you get me out of the Guard and I’ll get you out of the Tlixilia mission, if that’s what you want. If you really want to go, then I’ll come with you and see if I can locate Lynx. But after that we can go our separate ways.”

She regarded him quizzically. “It won’t be legal until it’s consummated.”

“If you can stand it, that would be no problem for me.” Her scent was tantalizing—mostly damp hair, but he found even that exciting.

“That was not the impression you gave me last night.” She grinned.

He had been regretting that folly ever since. “Just once and you can keep your eyes closed. You’ll get your promotion. Spirits know you’ll
have earned it.”
The absurdity of her smiles was breaking his heart. This was only business for her, why could it not be business for him?
“You can’t be thinking a real marriage! I can’t
really
marry anyone. I can’t support myself, let alone a wife. I have no money, no skills except killing, and my face makes children scream. No one would hire me.”

“We snoops will.”

He laughed. “Killing people? That’s all I am, girl, a killer! You want my private
Litany
? Hengist, Hotspur, Reynard, Rodden, Jared, Arundel, Warren, and Quintus! Plus, of course, beloved Inspector Schlutter. The Dark Chamber may need a monster, but you don’t. I’m
dangerous
!”

“No killing,” she said firmly. “When I reported this morning that you didn’t kill for pleasure, Grand Inquisitor said they knew that. They wanted you for something else. And I want you for this…” She kissed him.

She was a tall woman; he had no need to bend his head. She was surprisingly strong and she did know how to kiss. It was the sort of kiss that could lead to charges of public indecency. It was not the sort of kiss a man could ignore. It demanded cooperation and it lasted long enough to leave his scruples in ruins.

“Oh, Wolf!” she whispered into his collar. “Forget the Dark Chamber! Blades don’t need permission to marry and neither do we. I want a real marriage! Bed and loving. And children, of course. I do want children because I want to be the sort of mother I never had, but I’d like to wait a few years yet, and spirits know we’re young enough. A few years’ adventure first, yes? Why not Tlixilia? We can be rich! Oh, Wolf! We’re a good team!” She looked up, eyes full of stars. “That’s what I want. You, and someday children by you, and a lot of love. I won’t settle for less. Tenderness? Caring? That’s not too much to ask. Adventure and wealth maybe. But no killing.”

He could say only, “You’re crazy!”

“Will that be a burden, a wife insane enough to be hopelessly in love with you? Decide! You must decide now, Wolf. Right now!”

“You really mean this?”

“Absolutely.”

Life was a reflection in a soap bubble.

“Darling, I love you, will you marry me?” Was that the King’s Killer talking?

“Oh, yes!”

“Now?”

“Instantly.”

This time he began the kiss and by the time they could breathe again he had stopped caring what the Dark Chamber wanted of him. He would be an assassin if he must.

Two men in overalls came stumbling out the Pine Tree door. The taproom beyond was jammed full and raucous. Wolf led Hogwood in and almost fell over Emil, cleaning up broken pottery and spilled ale. He jumped up to move his pail out of their way.

“Master Montpurse, I am sorry to trouble you when you are so busy. Would you do me a quick favor?”

He wiped his hands on his apron. “If I can, Sir Wolf.”

“I wish to marry this person. Will you and your wife consent to witness?”

The innkeeper waited a beat before saying, “I have done almost everything imaginable to oblige Blades, Sir Wolf, but I have never married one. Blades don’t go in for marriage much.”

“Sometimes it is a necessary, er, blessing. Isn’t it, Dolores?” Belatedly, he put an arm around her and she snuggled against him. Tall, but slender. Now she felt dainty, vulnerable, precious.

“Yes, indeed,” she said solemnly. “Necessary and urgent. I may give birth at any moment.”

Montpurse allowed himself a small smile. “You wish me to call for silence and announce a wedding?”

“No!” Wolf said, having recognized a couple of Blades among the taproom throng. “We mustn’t keep the King waiting any longer than we have to.”

The minimum the law recognized was a man and a woman declaring before two witnesses that they were over the age of thirteen and were now married. Notaries and everything else were optional. The traditional six-question ceremony felt right and everyone knew it, but even that was not required.

They went into the kitchen. Montpurse asked Wolf the three questions. An outraged Mistress Montpurse asked them of Hogwood. After six
I do
’s it was done. The bridegroom slid a heavy gold ring with a jade stone over two of the bride’s fingers and told her to keep her hand closed.

“Thank you, master and mistress,” he said. “If anyone asks, of course, you will confirm that this ceremony took place, but for the next hour or so, should anyone come looking for us, would you revert to more normal Blade treatment and tell lies for me?”

He lifted his wife into his arms and ostentatiously trotted up the stairs with her. It was time for some masculine assertiveness.

V
iewed dispassionately, of course,” Dolores said, “the act of love is gross animal behavior on a par with defecation or parturition.”

Wolf said, “I had not realized you were viewing it dispassionately. In fact, I gathered a contrary impression.”

They were walking hand in hand back to the Palace in a drumming, pitch-black downpour. Rain cast a golden glory over the link-boy splashing along ahead of them; it made his reeky torch hiss and smoke, its flames dance in every dimpled puddle. No one else was mad enough to be in the streets, which meant that even a starry-eyed sex-satiated Blade must keep an eye out for trouble.

“Sir, I have never been less dispassionate in my life. You are an expert.”

Why did a man glow with stupid pride when a woman praised his skill in an act any billy goat could perform a dozen times better? She had known what to expect and her body had reacted in ways he was certain
even an inquisitor could not fake, but she was not as experienced as she was claiming. He was secretly pleased at that—he was a prude, he knew, certainly by Blade standards.

“I already told you,” he said. “You inspired me. You were stupendous. I love you beyond all reason. I am insanely happy. Am I telling the truth?”

She squeezed his hand.

“What does that mean?”

“It means ‘Close enough.’ It will do for now.”

“I will do better the next time,” he promised.

“Braggart!”

“I suppose…” Wolf wondered if the link-boy was listening to this salacious conversation. “You have been to see Cumberwell, I hope?”

She chuckled. “Isn’t it a little late to think of that? No, I haven’t. We provide our own conjurations.”

Cumberwell was a fashionable conjurer, popular with the wealthy because he could guarantee a woman would not conceive. His fees were high and the cost of the antidote conjuration was considerably higher. But love spun its own enchantments. Wolf felt as if he and Dolores were now in some mysterious way a couple, a pairing set off from the rest of the world. He had been in love before, or had thought he was, which was much the same thing, but he had never known that sense of oneness envelope him so suddenly and so tightly. He had told her that, too.

“I’ll turn in the ring,” she said.

“Get a receipt for it.”

“Of course. You think you married an idiot?”

“Yes. I’ll report to Leader. I want to tell him in private, my love. I owe him that much. He may not be available tonight. Even if he is, the King may be partying. Are you quite certain this will work?”

Squeeze
again. “If it doesn’t then your inquisitor wife will have to hang around Blade quarters spying on everyone until it does. I must report in, too.”

“To get a list of hits for me?”

“Will a dozen be enough to start with?”

“Make it fifty. Where can I find you? The Dark Chamber office?”

“No, that’s just for show. Come to Thirteen.”

“Amber Street?”

“Of course. That’s the real rats’ nest.”

Under the palace lights, Wolf paid off the link-boy, over-tipping him. The lovers parted with a very damp kiss.

The number of flunkies lighting candles in the hallways and corridors told him that there was some royal function planned, but he dripped and dribbled his way to the guardroom unseen by anyone of consequence. He wondered if the Council was still in session, if it had wrestled all day with the Tlixilia problem while he had been wrestling his wife in bed. The current front office decorations were Bloodhand and Modred, comparing their date books.

Vicious was at his desk in the room beyond, working late and in full dress uniform. Next to inquisitors, he hated paperwork the worst. He looked up sourly as the newcomer loomed in his doorway.

“Lynx’s gone, Leader. We traced him to the docks.”

“Pity. Need full report. Quondam excellent job.”

“Thank you, Leader.”

“Five-crown bonus, cancelled because you blew your mouth off in Council this morning.” That was a long speech for him.

“Did they decide anything?”

Vicious shrugged. “If I knew I couldn’t tell you. They argued long enough.” It was unusual for the Commander to be excluded from Privy Council meetings, but this affair broke all rules.

“Yes, Leader. One other—”

“Go get dry before you freeze.” He bent to his toil again.

“Pardon, Leader. An application for married quarters…”

“See Lyon.” Then Vicious looked up, surprised, even smiling. “Who?”

Wolf closed his door before telling him. His reaction was exactly what Dolores had predicted—incredulity, disgust, and finally anger. His swarthy face darkened until the great scar stood out like a jagged white rope.

“You’ve already
done
this?”

“Yes, Leader.”

He slammed the desk with his fist and leaped up.

“Go and pack your kit. Wait in your quarters.” With that he strode out.

Wolf’s quarters were a poky cubicle with a squeaky floor and an absurdly narrow bed. Deputy always assigned that room to Wolf when Court was at Greymere, probably because he so rarely entertained visitors. He dried himself off, dressed in the only civilian clothes he owned, and threw everything else he wanted to keep in a bag, mainly books. His possessions were few, because the Guard led a peripatetic life, following the King around. Then he sat down to contemplate the incredible events of the day just ended and an even more incredible future.

Freedom! A wife. A journey to the ends of the world. Danger and action. A wife. Yes, he was besotted. He felt like a sex-drunk, harebrained adolescent again, like the spotty boy who had tumbled Amy Sprat in the heather so long ago. His new wife
was
an adolescent. She was brilliant and beautiful. He was years older and grotesquely disfigured. How long before she saw the ghastly mistake her ambition had led her into? He must learn to trust people. Yes, even love was not without its shadows. It brought both a driving desire to be worthy of the loved one and a terrifying certainty that one never could. Perhaps no one could ever be worthy of true love, but in the case of a gargoyle-faced multiple murderer, that conclusion seemed more than commonly evident.

Time passed.

Too much time. He began to worry.

Dreams curdled into nightmare.

If the King had been unavailable or had refused to perform the release ceremony right away, Leader should have sent word. No matter how angry he was, he would not leave a man sitting on the edge of his bed like this, not Vicious. Was it possible that Athelgar had balked, Vicious had resigned his commission in protest, and the Guard now had a new Leader? Who might that be? Not Lyon, surely! He lacked the necessary inner meanness.

If Wolf was
not
going to be puked out of the Guard, then he should get back into uniform. He fretted. He dithered. Just as he was about to start changing again, the door opened and Ivor stuck his head in.

“Leader wants—” His eyes widened as he saw the bag. “You leaving?”

“I hope so,” Wolf said.
Oh, how I hope so!
As the two of them hurried off along the corridor, he asked, “What’s been happening?”

“Don’t know.” No further comment. A portcullis had just dropped between them.

His Majesty was in his dressing room, being shaved by one valet while two others set out the royal finery. Florian and Neil were on duty, but Vicious was there also, glowering worse than ever, and so was Sir Damon. Certainly something had been happening, because Damon was wearing the Deputy Leader’s baldric. The King stared frostily from behind a mask of shaving soap. Wolf sensed universal anger like boiling acid.

Vicious held out a hand for
Diligence
and in silence took it to the King. The valet backed away, razor in hand. Athelgar rose. Wolf knelt, busily unlacing jerkin, doublet, and shirt.

Typically, Athelgar went and spoiled his triumph. “Congratulations on your marriage, Sir Wolf.”

“Thank you, sire.” Wolf was surprised, but there was worse to come.

“The maiden we saw this morning?”

“Yes, sire.”

“Breathtaking, even in widow’s weeds. Clearly a perceptive woman, too. I wish you good chance together. I am going to miss you, Wolf! You have given sterling service these last five years and we must find other opportunities for you to serve your sovereign in days to come. Now we dub you knight…”

The sword that had bound him touched Wolf’s bare shoulders.

How
dare
the Pirate’s Son go and spoil it all by being gracious! Telling himself grumpily that Athelgar had just been taking a dig at the scowling Vicious in the background, Wolf withdrew to begin a new life, free as he had not been since arriving at Ironhall, ten years before.

When he had left the royal presence, Neil returned
Diligence
to him. He said only, “I’ll see you out.”

“What happened to Lyon?”

“Don’t know.”

That was certainly a lie, but a Blade who married an inquisitor was
no longer one of the boys. Also, of course, the Guard would be happier without the King’s Killer around, reminding everyone of unhappy times now gone.

But he was free at last.

W
ith rain falling harder than ever, Wolf persuaded his overly tender conscience that Athelgar owed him one last coach ride, but he had the driver let him off in Ranulf Square, lugged his bag through a shortcut he knew to Amber Street, and trotted two doors along to the house he wanted. He was starting to think like an inquisitor already. Although he knew that some of these old mansions were more than they seemed, he had never been inside Thirteen. The door opened for him as he ran up the steps, and he stepped through into a scabby, cracked-plaster vestibule that had seen better centuries.

The alert lookout was the boy named Flicker, and his attitude had become no more respectful since lunchtime. He jerked his head and said, “That way.”

Wolf stepped through to a fine, high hall sparkling with candles, polished paneling, shiny marble staircase. He dropped his bag, but Flicker did not take the hint. Anyone sporting a pig-sticker like that thing on his belt would not see himself as a porter.

“I am Sir Wolf.”

“I know.”

“And your name?” Meaning
real
name.

The youth smiled. “You are renowned, while I have yet to amaze the world. My congratulations on your marriage.”

“Thank you. Is my wife here?”

“Possibly.” He stepped close, too close. “Make her happy, Sir Killer.”

He was trying to look Wolf straight in the eye but was not quite tall enough. Still, the threat was so blatant that Wolf’s sword hand twitched.

“Or
what
?”

“Or you will regret it.” He was still smiling, this weedy boy-child. He thought he could deliver on his bluster. Wolf sensed Dark Chamber trickery and was annoyed.

“You are her brother, perhaps?” He was about her age.

“We grew up together. We are all very fond of Dolores. Grand Inquisitor are waiting for you upstairs, Sir Wolf.”

“I like to know the name of men who threaten me.”

“I speak for many in this instance,” the soft voice said. “Do not keep your masters waiting.”

Furious, Wolf turned his back and advanced to the great staircase.

Once this mansion had been the home of rich and powerful persons. It seemed deserted and he knew it wasn’t. He felt he was being watched by many eyes:
Welcome to the Dark Chamber.

Upstairs the only light spilled from a doorway leading into a great ballroom. In contrast to the hall downstairs, this had been allowed to fall into decay, so that rich murals had peeled from the walls and the ceiling frescoes were crumbling. Only the central chandelier of a dozen or so was lit, spilling a puddle of light below it and leaving the rest shadowed, haunted by vague shapes of unwanted furniture shrouded in dust sheets and cobwebs. Like his old master, his new one was working late tonight. In the brightness a space had been cleared for a fine floral rug, and there sat a black-clad man at an ornate escritoire, flipping through papers amid baskets of books and documents awaiting his attention. It was half of Grand Inquisitor. Hearing feet crunching toward him over the gravel of crumbled plaster, he looked up and smiled.

“Sir Wolf! Good chance!” He came around the desk, hand outstretched. “Congratulations on winning a wonderful wife. And welcome to the sink of iniquity!” He laughed. He actually laughed! In candlelight and without his normal biretta, he seemed older and unexpectedly bald, gray-streaked hair fringing a shiny scalp, everyone’s kindly grandfather. “Come and have some refreshment.”

“Is my wife here?”

“She is.” He ushered Wolf back into the shadows, to chairs clustered
around a low table. “But you and I must have a quick chat, because time is short.”

“Time for what?” Wolf perched on a spindly-legged chair.

“Time to find a replacement if you turn down our proposition. Let us drink to your future happiness. And congratulations on striking off your chains.” He clinked crystal decanter against crystal goblet, poured ruby wine.

“Perhaps my wife should hear this also.”

The smile did not waver, but there was annoyance in the way the old man’s shoulders shifted. “She knows. Sir Wolf, I am not holding your wife hostage! She is making herself beautiful for your wedding night. Do you want to hear it from me or from her?”

“From you, Grand Inquisitor, please.” Aware that he no longer had his binding to limit his indulgence, Wolf sampled the wine, which was strong and rich, with interesting aftertastes. Expensive, in other words. Had this whole palace been set up just to dazzle him? All those candles? Nice old Gramps?

Grand Inquisitor raised his glass in a toast. “To your happiness! We were greatly impressed by your performance on the Quondam mission, Sir Wolf. Very quick, very efficient work. Your identification of the raiders as Tlixilian was brilliant.”

Grand Master had done that and he knew it.

“You knew all the time, of course.”

The snoop chuckled. “We did not
know
. We suspected, because Grand Master’s letter seemed to describe what the Distliards ran into—feathers, earrings and lip-plugs, attempts to stun or disable victims instead of kill them, et cetera. It was up to you to obtain the evidence. Which you did. Now we know
Who,
we still have no notion of
Why
and certainly none of
How.
The King agreed right away to let you investigate the incident. He can be quite competent at times.”