Time's Assassin, page 2
part #3 of The Islevale Cycle Series
Blood gushes from the gash in Orzili’s thigh. He’s already fired his weapon. People from across the strand converge on them, some loading weapons, others aiming. Most of the Sheraighs lie dead, as do two of his men. Three soldiers flee northward, back to the city.
Orzili has little choice but to do the same. He hobbles away as fast as he can, discards his weapon, clutches his sextant. He expects at any moment to be shot in the back.
A pistol thunders. Anguish explodes below his shoulder. He stumbles, rights himself, runs on. As he limps over the wet sand, he sheds clothing, his shoulder and leg screaming in protest, until, at last, he is naked. He aims his sextant and with a twitch of his thumb activates the device. The familiar tug jerks him forward, out of firelight, beyond the crash and retreat of the surf and the cries of the princess, still alive. Another failure.
The gap swallows him.
Chapter One
11th day of Sipar’s Waking, Year 619
The bells tolling in the ward outside her shuttered window were a summons to the king’s court. They had been every day since her arrival in Herjes. They should have roused her from her bed today.
Lenna remained where she was, buried beneath woven blankets, curled in a tight ball, her face damp with tears.
Her entire body hurt: her jaw tender and tight where he had hit her, her back and hips and thighs aching from her vain attempts to fight him off, her most private places abused. Her spirit was broken as well; she was too humiliated to call for the castle’s healer, too ravaged to stand before the king and his court, too weak to kill the bloody fiend. She loathed herself.
Yet, that wasn’t even the worst of it.
Eight turns had passed since she arrived in Herjes from Windhome—
Jispar IV’s new Walker, celebrated throughout the royal city of Vondehm, feted with a dizzying ceremony in the king’s throne room and a sumptuous feast afterward. She tripped through that day in a haze, overwhelmed, brimming with pride and excitement. If only her parents and sisters could see her!
Soldiers in green and silver livery, their faces marked with the intricate black etchings for which Herjes was known, bowed to her as they would to royalty. Ministers welcomed her as an equal.
The twin doors outside the king’s chamber stole her breath: carved in the form of a great serpent, coiled, head reared to strike, inset pearls for eyes. And yet this was nothing compared to the interior. The walls were curved, the chamber a great circle. Glazed windows looked out over an enormous garden, and a thick, woven rug covered a floor of pink marble. As in the chancellor’s chamber in Windhome, colorful tapestries hung along the walls and a pigeon cage rested by the window to the right of the door, the birds it held cooing softly. There was a standing desk beside it, broader than the chancellor’s, and far less neat.
These common furnishings, though, were the only similarities
Lenna could see between this chamber and the one she remembered from Windhome palace. Comparing the two rooms was akin to equating a common Kant to an Oaqamaran Marauder.
Directly in front of her, a throne gilded in silver rested on a raised dais made of some dark, finely grained wood. And upon the throne sat her king, the man who had paid to bring her here.
Jispar accepted her obeisance—three prostrations, as was expected of newcomers to the court—with a smile and a lingering gaze that warmed her cheeks. He stood then and walked to her, a welcome on his lips. She heard none of what he said.
She was barely fifteen years old, an innocent in matters of the heart and the body. If asked, she would have said that she’d never had a romance with a boy in Windhome. Yes, she had cared for Cresten, before their encounter with the Tirribin, Droë, before Tache’s death and all that followed. But they had been children, she and Cresten both.
This king, Jispar—he was something entirely different. He was...
He was stunning. He stood at least three hands taller than she, and she had long considered herself tall for a girl her age. His chest and shoulders were broad, powerful. She thought him relatively young—late twenties, or perhaps— perhaps —early thirties. Flowing black hair, full lips, dark eyes, and a complexion somewhere between the blanched pinks of the Inner Ring, and the dark browns of Lenna’s fellow novitiates in Windhome. Black etchings spiraled around his right eye and down over his cheek and jawline, giving him a fearsome aspect. His smile, however, revealed perfect white teeth and crinkles around his eyes and mouth. With every change in expression, every raised eyebrow and quirk of his lips, the markings on his face shifted so that they seemed alive.
He wore a loose ivory tunic and satin breeches of green and silver. A silver crown rested on an emerald cushion beside the throne, along with a scepter of silver and crystal.
Throughout that first day, he was so intent upon her that she might as well have been the only person in his court. He walked her through his gardens and down one wondrous corridor of his palace after another, acting as chaperone and guide and companion. Women in the court, those wearing diaphanous gowns rather than ministerial robes, followed her with their glares, or gazed possessively at their liege. At the time, Lenna hardly cared. She basked in his attentions, in his words of welcome, in his recitation of her pedigree and the words of praise he read from the letter of introduction sent by Windhome’s chancellor.
She blushed when he took her arm and hung on his every word as he spoke of art and history, of Herjean customs and luminaries and conquests. At the banquet, he had her sit at his right hand, and after the stewards filled their cups with Brenthian white, he and
all his guests rose in tribute to her. Later, when the platters had been cleared and musicians began to play in the hall, he danced with her, his warm, strong hand pressed to her back, his eyes holding hers.
Lenna retired to her chamber that night breathless and smitten.
But still naïve.
When she was summoned to Jispar’s chamber five nights hence, she assumed he wished to speak with her of a Walk he needed her to complete or—dare she think it?—wanted to include her in a discussion with his most trusted ministers.
A guard, silent and severe, steered her through torchlit corridors to the king’s quarters and ushered her inside. There, she found Jispar alone, dressed in satin sleeping garments, the chamber lit by the hearth fire and candles that smelled of bay and musk.
His eyes glinted like onyx, and the smile with which he greeted her was harder than the one she recalled from the day she arrived. The writhing of those marks around his eye put her in mind of snakes. She shrank from him and his grin sharpened.
She turned from the memory then, burrowed deeper beneath her blanket. He had sent guards for her many times since. Too often.
Once, when she refused his summons, he came to her chamber, beat her, and took what he wanted anyway.
That should have ended her resistance. Surely, the king expected it would.
But Lenna was not one to surrender. She was a Walker of Windhome, raised by parents who possessed next to nothing but lived and loved and thrived anyway. Jispar’s assaults awakened the pride her mother and father had instilled in her when she was little more than an infant.
Lenna continued to resist, to endure the beatings, the violations. He wouldn’t kill her. She knew this. He had paid handsomely to bring her to Vondehm, in part because having a Windhome-trained Walker enhanced the standing of his court. He also wouldn’t back down. She knew this as well, steeled herself to whatever would come.
So she believed.
He had brutalized her again just last night. That, however, was not why she hid beneath her blankets, why she shed tears and ached deep in her chest. She had put up with his cruelty for nearly eight turns and would for as long as she had to until she could escape this place, or rid herself of the king.
No, it was a different exigency of time that kept her huddled in the warmth of her bed—equally stark, as immutable as the tide.
Two turns had passed since her last bleeding.
Each day for some time now, she had awakened feeling queasy, a sour coating on her tongue. This morning, upon waking, she vomited until her stomach was empty and her throat ached.
Innocent though she might have been not so long ago, she had never been a fool. She carried Jispar’s child in her womb. Pride was one thing, but this... She wanted to die.
On the thought, her mood shifted subtly. Why not die?
If she could have killed the king, she would have, but she knew that was next to impossible. He was guarded night and day by the fiercest warriors in all Herjes. He had tasters for each meal, even for his midday tea and his evening wine. And even if she managed to evade the soldiers and attack him, using the skills she had honed in the lower courtyard of the Travelers’ Palace, Jispar himself was said to be a skilled swordsman. He was canny, cruel, as strong as a Presziri horse.
That said, he did have a weakness: All in his court knew that he wanted a son. Desperately.
For the first time since this nightmare began, she considered taking her own life. Not out of despair, but as an act of defiance. She would tell the king that she carried his child—she might even claim she knew it to be a boy. Walker magick could tell her such things, she would say. She doubted he would know enough to question this. And then she would kill herself, and the babe with her.
Grim purpose, but purpose nevertheless. Lenna stretched, winced, threw off her blanket, and swung herself out of bed. She splashed cold water on herself, rinsed her mouth, and spat into her chamber pot. She dragged a comb through her bronze hair and perfumed it. Last, she donned her ministerial robe. Green and silver, of course. In those first days, she had worn Herjes’
colors with pride. Now they reeked of him, like everything else.
Like her.
She could not hide the bruising on her face, and she would not go to the healer, even now, having come to this decision. She would enter the king’s hall with her chin raised. Strength. Pride.
Folly, perhaps. One did what was required to endure.
Lenna followed the maze of corridors to the hall, swept past the guards who opened the twin doors for her, and entered the hall.
It was crowded. A blessing. Some by the doors marked her entrance. A few stared at her bruised jaw. Most in the grand chamber took no notice of her. She skirted the edge of the
throng, making her way to the cluster of ministers flanking the throne. As she walked, she tried to hear what was being said. She gathered that Jispar had consented to an audience with subjects of his kingdom who wished to petition the crown for some small boon or mercy.
Another stroke of fortune. None would presume to ask a favor of the king that involved his Walker. Perhaps Jispar was unaware of her absence and late arrival.
She reached the rear of the hall, slipped in behind the Minister of Protocol, offered a weak smile when he glanced back at her.
His gaze dipped to her chin before he faced front again. He had served in this court long enough to know how she had come by the bruise.
She heard little of what was said to or by the king.
Periodically, polite applause rippled through the hall, acknowledging Jispar’s magnanimity. Each time, of course, Lenna clapped with the rest. The morning crawled by. Her stomach remained unsettled, but now discomfort warred with hunger.
At last, a sharp noise echoed through the chamber—the rapping of a staff butt on the marble floor. A guard announced that the audience was over, and men and women began to shuffle out of the hall. When the citizenry was gone, the king’s ministers exited the chamber as well. Before long, Lenna, a few guards, the king’s page, and Jispar himself were the only ones left in the hall.
The king regarded her, his expression revealing nothing, the etching quiescent for now.
“You wish to speak with me?”
Her gaze flicked to the guards.
“Leave us,” Jispar told them. “Close the door.” He eyed her jaw.
When they were alone, he said, “You should see the healer about that.”
“Are you concerned for me, or for your reputation?”
Jispar laughed, not kindly. “Neither. What is it you want?”
Bastard. “I thought you should know. I’m...” She swallowed. “I’m with child.”
“It’s about bloody time, isn’t it?”
She felt like she’d been slapped. “What?”
“I’d been wondering how long it would take. With the others, it happened a good deal sooner. How far along?”
“Um...” She gave a small shake of her head, racing to catch up with the exchange. “A turn or two. No more.”
“I see.” He considered her, eyes narrowing, the black lines on his face stirring. “I’ve wondered if a child of ours might someday become a Walker. Do you think that’s possible?”
Only if it lives.
“I wouldn’t know.”
“My liege,” he said, his tone pointed.
Lenna dropped her gaze. “My liege.”
“Well, I’m grateful to you for letting me know. I will inform the palace stewards. Anything you need will be provided, of course. I will expect you to fulfill your responsibilities to this court, until such time as you no longer can.”
“Yes, my liege.”
He picked up the silver bell from beside the crystal scepter and gave it a sharp shake. Before the sound of it died away, several guards, the page, and a pair of stewards had entered the hall once more.
“Is that all?” Jispar asked, in a tone that made clear he had already dismissed her.
What could she say? “Yes, my liege.” She curtsied, straightened, and hurried from the chamber, her breath coming in shallow gasps.
Rage, shame, contempt for herself—these followed her through the corridors and out into bright sun and a cool northerly wind.
Once in the gardens, away from the scrutiny of others, she allowed herself to cry, tears burning like acid.
It’s about bloody time...
Demons take him!
She hadn’t told him it was a boy, as she had intended. Not that he would care.
Why— why! —when he asked whether their child might be a Walker, hadn’t she said yes? If she couldn’t deprive him of the son he so fervently wanted, she could dangle before him the possibility of bearing him a Walker before she ripped away his hope.
With the others it happened sooner...
How many others? Did this child matter to him at all? Did she, beyond the expenditure of gold that brought her here?
Would he care when she killed herself?
This question she could answer with confidence. He wouldn’t care in the slightest. She was no more to him than a whore who could Walk through time. He would enter her death into a ledger, an asset lost, gold spent and wasted, akin to a ship lost at sea, or a horse gone lame. Except she was reasonably certain that he loved his mounts.
So why die for him?
She heard the question in her father’s voice, a remnant of a childhood forever lost.
Why spend your own life when he is the one who ought to die?
“I could be killed in the attempt,” she whispered, as if in conversation.
Wouldn’t that be a better death?
Lenna placed a splayed hand on her belly. Wasn’t her child more deserving of life than Jispar? If nothing else, didn’t she owe herself and the babe the possibility of a future beyond this castle?
So be it then. She would kill the king or die making the attempt.
But how?
She could Walk back in time, of course. That was her greatest gift, her most valuable talent.
Yet, as with all else, Jispar exercised strict control over her, over all his Travelers. He kept their Bound devices—her chronofor, the Spanners’ sextants, the Crossers’ apertures—which, in fairness, were purchased for them with Herjean gold, always locked away in his treasury. Only when the king wished for one of the Travelers to Walk or Span or Cross did he allow them access to the devices. From all she had been taught in Windhome, and all she had heard from her fellow Travelers in the castle, this was highly unusual. Most royals bestowed the devices on their Travelers, and thereafter, they were treated as the property of those who could use them.
Even if she could think of a way to kill him that involved Walking back through time, she would need to request that he give her the chronofor, or she would have to steal it from the treasury. Impossible.
In truth, she didn’t see how a Walk would help her anyway.
Traveling to any time since her arrival in Vondehm would leave her with the same obstacles she faced now: his constant vigilance, his guards, and his own prowess as a fighter. Going back farther, to a day before her arrival in his court, would only compound her disadvantages, make him that much harder to reach.
It occurred to her that if she offered freely what he had taken thus far, she might get close enough.
“No,” she whispered in the sunlight.
She would kill him or fail, survive or die. She would not abase herself by insinuating herself into his bed. Better to make no attempt at all.
Lenna wandered the gardens for some time before returning to her chamber, no closer to a plan, but fully resolved to see her dark ambitions through to their conclusion. She had been a victim of Jispar’s depredation for long enough. From this time forth, he was her prey, even if he didn’t know it.
Days passed, measured by mornings of sickness, pointless audiences with the king and his court, and nights of fruitless plotting. To her relief, Jispar no longer summoned her to his bed or forced himself into hers. It seemed his goal had been to get her with child. No doubt he had moved on to some new conquest, someone more compliant than she. Lenna was certain there were plenty of women in the court who would have welcomed the king’s advances.
She had yet to decide how to kill him, despite considering the problem day and night. He did like to hunt, usually in the forest lands north of Vondehm, leagues from the castle and his army.
Guards accompanied him, of course, but a small contingent.
Lenna hadn’t yet decided what to do with this information, but his hunts struck her as the best opportunities she might have to carry out his assassination.
