The Bandit King by Lilith Saintcrow Page B

treason, the evidence is enough that I cannot protest, and your trial will be at the Queen’s leisure. You are under
letire di cachet,
my son, and you will receive the treatment due your rank
and
the charges against you.”
    I cupped my palms and held them up, indicating the cuffs. “I will not be fleeing the nest anytime soon,
Père
.”
Send Vianne to me, drag her here if you must. I
must
see her.
“Tell my Consort I miss her.”
    If I had known how long I was to be left, I might have said more. But my mother pressed her cheek to mine again. “Fear not,” she whispered in my ear. “I have my ways.”
    Just as she always had, when as a child I feared some reprisal. My father gave me no comforting words, merely measured me again, shook his head, and left, his heels fair threatening to strike sparks. The door clanged to, and my mother trailed behind him, exchanging some low words with the guard, who paced away as well.
    I was left to a torchlit cell, cold stone, and my own comfortless imaginings.
    *   *   *
     
    Time ceases to exist for a man imprisoned. Oh, at first one marks every breath, every swallow. One devises games to keep the mind from cutting itself into ever-smaller pieces. One counts every witchlight sputter of the torch, and looks forward to the moment a stone-faced guard will bring a meal.
    At least I wasn’t starved. The food was colorless, but there was enough of it. I merely checked it for poison as well as I could—not that I thought my
d’mselle
would poison me, but she was not the only player in this game—and bolted it to keep myself strong. After two days, or what I
thought
were two days, I exercised myself as well as I could while chained, too.
    The guards were men I did not know even by sight, grim and silent in the uniform of Arcenne. I did not bother to question them. I merely counted myself lucky that the one holding their leash did not think to soften me with violence.
    She would not do that.
But then I remembered how I had tried to teach her the necessity of distasteful actions, and I wondered if she had another adviser willing to take on the duty.
    Like my father. Or Jierre.
    I kept track of time as well as I could, counting meals as the swelling in my jaw subsided bit by bit, covered over with stubble. I have seen the results of isolation and imprisonment, men forgetting their own names, reduced to groveling worms. There is only so much one can do.
    On what I thought was the fourth day, a familiar face appeared at the bars.
    Adersahl halted, touching the new growth of his mustache. Soon it would be its old, magnificently waxed self again. He looked into the cell, and his lip did not curl.
    I had settled myself on the lone cot, where I lay when it seemed to me sleep was possible. The chains had rubbed weeping sores on my wrists, and a simple charm would rid me of the risk of infection.
    It was not, however, a charm I possessed. What need, when there were hedgewitch healers in every town and army? What need, when my own sweet Vianne was a hedgewitch herself?
    My magic was only of the sort that would kill a man, or conceal a death. The rest of Court sorcery is illusion made of light and air, beautiful and useless. Spectacles are wrought at Festivals and fêtes, and during a duel the birthright of nobles is used to dizzy, distract, steal the breath, cut as steel. But to heal requires peasant hedgewitchery or Tiberian physicker’s training.
    “Captain?” It was not like Adersahl to sound so uncertain.
    Is it treason to name me thus?
I decided against waving a languid hand and making the chains clash. Instead, I watched him through slitted eyelids, my jaw aching ever so slightly under the itch.
    “I bethought myself that you would wish to know.” The slight hissing of witchlight underscored his words. “The army has arrived. Damarsene troops, and Arquitaine units as well. Some thousands, all flying d’Orlaans’s colors. With siege engines.”
    My helplessness caught in my