Chapter 11

The sharp crack echoes against the stone, smoke billowing past the open door.

There is a grunt of pain but men still rush past the threshold: tall, becloaked, bearing blades. Mother bares her own, undaunted by the numbers, but a shot sounds from the back and she staggers. Red blooms on her chemise, deep in the belly, and she lets out a wet gasp before she is struck across the mouth. Angharad can do nothing but watch: her screams die in her throat, her limbs are made of lead. Mother falls against the wall, against the rich wood panelling she so loves, and when another shot takes her shoulder blood is splattered all over it. She falls to her knees, breath a rattle, and then the last man walks in. Tall, fat and with eyes cold as ice. He owns the others, they only watch as he raises his pistol. It was the wrong choice, Lady Maraire, he says. Mother rasps out an answer, but the words are drowned out by the roar of the flames. Smoke swallows everything.

Angharad woke with wet eyes, the way she always did after dreaming of her mother.

She could only be grateful that it had ended early this time, before her father’s whisper in her ear and the last of the horror. Her neck was beaded with sweat but she stayed there, lying in her cot, and tried to blot out from her mind the bloody, broken figure the nightmare had fixed in her mind. She hated it, that this was how she should remember Mother. Rhiannon Tredegar had been long and lean, like the crack of a whip made into a woman, with only green eyes softening a faced shaped stern by the Sleeping God’s own hands. There had been a presence to her, a severity demanding respect. That was the way Angharad would remember her, but her dreams did not bend to her wants. She could still see hear the thump of knees hitting the floor, the blood spraying on wood.

Angharad had thought the nightmares finally gone, having had none since Sacromonte, but she had counted her blessings too soon.

The noblewoman rose in her covers, unsurprised to find most were yet asleep. Only Song, perched at the edge of the aqueduct with a veiled lantern besides her, had woken for her turn on the watch. The Tianxi did not turn at the sound of someone waking, and in the privacy that afforded her Angharad wiped her eyes. Letting her breath even out, she passed a hand through her hair. The slant braids would keep for a week or two more, she thought, but soon they would need redoing. She almost missed when she had kept her hair shorter, in Malani knots, instead of braids going halfway down her back. Almost. She had let it grow out to celebrate the earning of her last mirror-mark and that much she would not let herself regret even out here.

Mother had been so proud, she remembered. Lady Rhiannon had been skilled with a blade but not a mirror-dancer, and the joy had been plain on her face that day. Angharad had basked in that pride, feeling that at last she added to her mother’s legacy in some small way. Rhiannon Tredegar had made a name sailing the dark seas, crossing waters which no Glare touched with only the trembling lights she had brought with her keeping darkness at bay. She had faced storms of Gloam and sea, the hatred of merciless spirits from the depths and even the fleets of pirates to emerge one of the great explorers of the age. It had been Captain Tredegar who first found the hidden isle of Lunkulu, who sailed through the perilous Western Canals and reached the lands beyond.

And now it was all smoke, Angharad bitterly thought. The Tredegar name passed into nothing while she scuttled like a rat in a maze for the pleasure of the Watch, debasing herself earn seven years under their protection. If she could even do that, the noblewoman grimly thought. Her eyes turned to the manner their company had lain down to sleep for the night and in the meagre light of Song’s lantern showed their divisions laid bare.

The Cerdan brothers lay furthest away from her, Cozme Aflor guarding them. Both now openly counted her an enemy. It was only the disgust of everyone else at the murder of their own valet that had kept Augusto from trying to order her killed. On the opposite side Angharad’s own cot lay with two others close, Brun of Sacromonte sleeping in one while Song’s lay empty. In between the two camps Isabel and her maids lay, bridge and moat. When Brun and Song had grown closer to her as the Cerdans revealed themselves honourless curs, Isabel had been forced to step in as peacemaker. She had prevailed on the brothers to respect Angharad’s truce, reinforcing that there would be no fighting until their company had left the throes of peril. Yet, despite the infanzona’s efforts, the dark-skinned noblewoman knew this company to be a barrel of powder with a lit fuse.

And sooner rather than later it would blow up in her face.

Her mother’s lessons would avail her of nothing here. It had taken boldness for Rhiannon Tredegar to raise their house’s name and Mother displayed it in all things, so it had troubled Angharad all the more when Mother confessed to fearing the High Queen’s court. There is nothing to fear, she had insisted, childishly offended by her idol’s sudden weakness. The royal court had duels the way dogs had fleas, but Mother was a skilled blade and who but the finest of swordmasters could threaten her? Even if she offended some lofty izinduna, a grudge could not be pursued beyond the reasonable. The High Queen was the keeper of Malan’s honour and she did not allow any slight upon it. Sweetling, Mother had gently replied, stroking her hair, I would be dead long before my sword left the scabbard.

She had explained, then, how the duels that could lead to embarrassment never happened at all. Knives and poison and curses would settle it long before that, any difficulty on the way to earning the High Queen’s esteem ruthlessly snuffed out. Mother’s way to survive had been to remain a mere curiosity, a famed explorer kept in the court’s eye only by the High Queen’s favour and wielding no real power or influence. She had avoided the hangman’s noose that would be rising in station and remained at sea instead of playing courtier, too far to be counted as an enemy by the powerful of Malan. That had been a rude awakening for many a reason, among them that Angharad had known even then that she would not follow her mother out at sea.

Was she to let the name of Tredegar – Maraire, to the Malani, but blood ran true no matter the letters – fall back into obscurity when her mother passed? Mother had had no answer, and in the end it had been Father who soothed her.

“Your mother has mastered her fear of an unknown,” he told her. “That which lies beyond the Glare, the seas that devour ships and hopes. But pride blinds her to realizing she surrenders to all the other unknowns of Vesper, believing that courage against one is courage against all.”

He smiled then and though Gwydion Tredegar was never the tallest or most handsome of men, when he smiled Angharad had always thought her father outshone all rivals.

“You need not share her unknowns,” Father said. “Come, I will teach you so that you may learn and so knowledge may end fear.”

She had not loved his lessons but she had learned them, well enough that when standing among the sons and daughters of izinduna when tournaments took her to Malan she’d sailed those waters without falling afoul of the hidden reefs. And it was her father’s lessons she must call on again, now that honour had led her to make enemies of half the company she must fight alongside with to survive. Like a swordmistress at the High Queen’s court, she must ensure she’d live long enough to bare her blade. And the first step to that did not begin with her closest companions, not with Isabel or even Master Cozme. Instead when they raised camp, not even an hour later, she made a quiet request of Isabel Ruesta.

The dark-haired beauty considered her for a moment, eyes intrigued.

“In a spirit of peace, I would hope,” Isabel asked.

Above them the stars burned cold, as they had for her forebears in distant Peredur. In the wind Angharad Tredegar thought she had caught the echo of their old shore-songs, story and lesson and question all in one. She almost began to hum the first few notes of The Fair Wife.

“Not to make enmity,” Angharad swore.

Love is sweet, a heady brew,

but my hand must be won fair

Sweet love, what will you swear

as troth if your love is true?

When the trek north began anew she found herself walking at the back of their company, Lord Remund Cerdan besides her. To prove they were all still allies, Isabel had suggested. A gesture of goodwill. The youngest Cerdan moved warily, as if with every step he feared she might jump out and cut his throat. For all that, Angharad feared not getting from him what she desired. She knew what Augusto Cerdan wanted most of all, so she owned half his name.

“It is regrettable we are at odds, my lord,” she said, forcing a mourning sigh.

She did not lie: in all of Vesper, there must be a soul capable of such regret. The infanzon frowned at her, as if puzzled by her civility. The moment she had become his enemy, she divined, what little esteem he’d granted her before had disappeared. Now she might as well be some savage from Triglau, raiding colonists by the sea.

“You lay grave insult at the feet of House Cerdan,” Remund stiffly replied.

“An insult demands redress,” she said. “Yet is should be given where it is deserved, not carelessly offered to the unworthy.”

“And what would a Malani know of what is deserved?” the infanzon mocked, rolling his eyes.

“We may well have all died yesterday, if not for your contract,” Angharad said. “That is deserving.”

Of many things, let Remund Cerdan decide which without her help. The younger brother puffed up and for a moment Angharad felt sick. It might be that the man was so vain any praise at all went to his head, she thought, but she’d known other boys like him. Born to great families and stalking about with their knives ever bared, offended and offending, but so often beneath that there had been a wound. How starved of esteem must you be, that an enemy’s words are all it takes to straighten your back?

“It is good you recognize as much,” Remund drawled. “I thought you an ingrate, I don’t mind admitting it. It is said to be common flaw of your people that you take a mile whenever you are given an inch.”

“Malani are not without flaws,” she said. “I like to think ingratitude is not one of them.”

“Oh?” the young man smiled, eyeing her up and down. “Then how am I to be rewarded?”

She kept her face calm at the implied insult. He had no interest in her, not really. He was simply waving around his knife, hoping to score red on flesh.

“Honour is to be earned with one’s own hands,” Angharad said. “And it occurs to me than any lost by Cerdan hands could be regained by the same.”

Remund breathed in sharply, eyeing her with surprise and a different kind of wariness than before. He’d looked at her the way one might a wild beast, when this began, but now there was a different tint to it.

“You surprise me, Tredegar,” the infanzon murmured. “Perhaps you are not so dim after all. Such a thing could solve many problems at once, yes.”

She held her tongue, letting him stare at the pond until he found the reflection he was looking for.

“A duel to first blood to avenge my house’s honour,” he mused. “It is true a victory against a swordmistress would be the talk of the season, enough to avoid the ire of my lord father over Augusto’s unfortunate end.”

“One hopes,” Angharad said with measured precision.

Dark eyes narrowed at her.

“Getting Cozme out of the way so you have an opening would not be impossible,” Remund conceded. “But how can I be sure you’ll hold up your end of the bargain?”

“My word is my bond,” she flatly replied. “I will swear oath to it, should you prefer.”

The nobleman smiled, laying his palms against the back of his head as he strolled forward with a touch of unearned swagger.

“No,” Remund Cerdan finally said, smile widening.

Angharad hid her surprise, slowly inclining her head. She must have made a mistake, or perhaps underestimated the bonds of brotherhood.

“You gain much with this and me too little,” Remund idly added. “I require more of you.”

The sliver of respect she had been feeling died young.

“I am listening.”

He leaned close, too close, smiling still for all that his eyes were without mirth.

“This little dance of yours with Isabel, it is to stop,” Remund said.

Silence again, for no words were more persuasive than one’s own.

“She encourages you, no doubt,” the younger Cerdan shrugged. “It is her way. She enjoys the attention, and in truth I do not begrudge her that. Why marry at all, if your wife is not to be the envy of all your peers?”

The lie lay in the tight cast of his jaw as he forced the first not through his lips.

“But it irritates me, your flirtation,” Remund smiled. “I find tasteless the presumption that, even in jest, you could be the rival of an infanzon. So you will cease. Keep your distance from her.”

“You want an oath,” Angharad surmised.

“I do,” the dark-haired main jovially replied. “And one for our other bargain too. There will be no slipping out at the last moment, my friend.”

The words came easy to her, as if they had always lain on the tip of her tongue.

“On my oath, I will no longer seek the company of Isabel Ruesta,” Angharad said.

He sighed.

“I suppose no longer speaking to her at all is too much to ask,” Remund conceded. “And?”

He cocked an eyebrow, gesturing for her to get on with it. She chose the phrasing carefully, pruned away the right words and left them in the grass for him to find.

“On my oath, I will cede victory to you in an honour duel over Augusto Cerdan’s death in the same.”

Remund cocked an eyebrow at her, a hint of smugness to his mien.

“Speak it again,” he said, “only specifying my name instead of simply you. Let us not be careless with our words, yes?”

She did as asked.

Victory is poison to reason, my darling, Father had taught her. Once men have caught you out, they think themselves your better in all things. Remund Cerdan, for all that he despised his brother, thought him Angharad’s match with a sword even though he manifestly was not. It had not occurred to him that an honour duel could be to surrender as well as death, that she could simply wound the elder Cerdan to death’s very edge before allowing him surrender. And if Augusto Cerdan died after the honour duel, not during, then she owed his brother nothing at all. Lord Remund Cerdan smiled condescendingly at her, deigning to engage her in small talk now that she had become his tool, and under her breath she hummed the old tune.

I promise the stars in a cup

and the sea in your hand.

a hall reaching the clouds;

a hearth where hundreds sup

She had not turned the brothers against each other, that hatred had taken root long before she came into their lives, but now she had ensured they would not make common front against her. That would ensure Master Cozme was not easily made to act against her: he was beholden to both brothers and now one wanted her to live. At least long enough to be of use to him, not that Angharad believed he truly intended to hold up his end of their bargain. More likely than not he would try to use the vagueness she had purposely left in the phrasing – in an honour duel, not specifying one to first blood – to try and kill her by surprise during their bout. Victory at first blood would win him praise from his peers, but avenging his brother? Oh, it might well make him famous.

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It did not matter. Snake or not, she knew half his name. He would not bite until he had obtained his heart’s desire.

Now she must prune away the other dangers, to ensure she made it to the hour where she would get her bargain’s worth. That began with seeing to her own back, ensuring that the companions she’d made would have no reason to turn on her. When their company halted for rest, she volunteered to join Brun at the front until the next halt. The Sacromontan seemed to appreciate the gesture, especially when she took it upon herself to carry the lantern. Their advance was smooth and almost pleasant, the High Road living up to its name: it was largely even ground, broken up only by where enterprising weeds had taken root in the stone. Most of their attention was not reserved for the path ahead, anyhow.

It was below that their eyes strayed, down into the plains they were soon to reach the end of. The lupines that had hunted them for the better part of yesterday were left behind when they crossed a deep gully unmarked on Song’s map, unable to cross, but there was no telling if the creatures had gone around to continue their pursuit. The spirits had not been able to do anything from below, but the incessant howling had frayed everyone’s nerves – and risked drawing in some greater spirit that would not be kept away by something as simple as the height of the aqueduct. So far they had glimpsed a few silhouettes creeping across the flatlands, but none ever came close enough to be lit up.

The infanzones, Angharad would admit, had hatched a very clever plan. If not for the misfortune of being set upon by the lupines the march all the way to the second trial might have gone without a single drop of blood spilled. She was not alone in that opinion.

“I am glad not to be walking the plains,” Brun told her. “I would find it difficult to lower my guard long enough to sleep down there, after that mess with the lemures.”

“Perhaps our misfortune will have helped the others,” Angharad said, though she did not truly believe it. “It would be some small solace.”

“I suppose there is need for all of that we can find, these days,” Brun drily said.

She grimaced.

“I regret that our company has become at odds,” Angharad said. “And know I played a part in it.”

The fair-haired man dismissed her words with a wave of the hand.

“I’ll not quibble with ruthlessness, not on the Dominion of Lost Things,” he said, “but you were right to strike the man. It would have been a fool’s act to let the Cerdans murder one of us without consequence.”

His face darkened.

“Infanzones already dispose of lives too easily for my tastes,” Brun said. “I would not encourage the habit.”

It was uncomfortable hearing him speak of his rightful rulers in such a way, but she must admit that the disrespect might not be unwarranted. Not for all infanzones, for while Sacromonte’s nobles were shadows of what they had once been they were still of noble blood, but she would not deny the Cerdan brothers were not living up to the duties of their privilege. It was a failure that reflected badly on their kin, who should have properly educated them to the responsibilities of rank.

“You do not sound fond of them,” Angharad tried.

“I am the son of miners,” he said. “Theirs was not a pleasant life, Lady Angharad, and it was spent enriching the same kind of men as these Cerdan.”

“I’m sorry to hear of their passing,” she gently said.

“It has been years,” Brun shrugged.

The calm on his face she could hardly understand, for the grief she felt over her parents would surely be a wound in her side until she died. She could not think of anything but vengeance that would lessen it even slightly.

“Some are better than others,” he continued. “Lady Isabel seems decent enough.”

He shot her a knowing look at that.

“She has been very kind,” Angharad stiffly replied.

“Briceida tells me she’s decided not to withdraw after the first trial,” Brun told her.

She did not hide her surprise, at both the words and the implication that one of Isabel’s handmaids would gossip about her mistress’ affairs in such a way.

“Was this ever in doubt?” she asked.

If so, it was news to her. Isabel had never hinted as much, though it was true she had spoken little of her plans.

“She hesitated after learning her cousin had died,” he said. “Did she not speak of it with you?”

Angharad shook her head.

“Perhaps she worries of your safety,” Brun idly said. “Without her mediation, our troubles with the Cerdan would only grow worse.”

It would be foolish, she chided herself, to think Isabel would risk her life for her when what lay between them was but a flirtation. The thought still brought a pleasurable flush to her cheeks.