Knight's Shadow (Greatcoats, #2)

by Sebastien de Castell

Great heroics are nice, but when you’re still partially paralyzed and terrified, a dirty win works just fine. It won’t be assassination if I simply kill her, will it? This is a battle—we’re at war. Even the King would have understood that. Wouldn’t he?

She stood there, silent, looking back up at the stars for a very long time. “Then it has to be me, doesn’t it? If I don’t do this then it will fall on somebody else and it might be even harder for them. They would have to be braver than me.” My voice caught in my throat as I said, “I don’t think there is anyone braver than you, sweetheart.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “We don’t always get to be who we want to be, do we?”

“So you’re the Saint of Swords, eh?” She let her gaze drift from his face to his hands to his feet and back again. “I’m finding it hard to be impressed.” “Four moves,” Kest said. “What?” “You’re wondering if you could take me. You’d last four moves.” “Well then,” she said, smiling innocently and reaching a hand out to touch his chest. “Suppose I take you in your sleep?” “I took that for granted when I said four. Did you want to know how long you’d last if you didn’t take me by surprise?”

Her favorite tactic at the beginning of each attack was to put on a show of running in terror, screaming as one of Trin’s men pursued her, only to turn and smile as she drove the point of her sword into his neck. Brasti took to calling her “Deadly Dari.”

“Do you think she’ll hurt her?” “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Dariana certainly knows how to fight. But she’s so damned eager in battle. I don’t know how to place it. It’s like she’s—” “Fucking insane?” Brasti suggested. “Something like that.” “Well, if it makes you feel any better, Valiana’s going to do a lot better studying under Dari than with her last teacher. She looked up to that man like he was a Saint and yet he completely ignored her.” “Who was that, then?” I asked. Brasti patted me on the shoulder. “You.”

“Or maybe she’s an innocent girl who’s been attacked and is now scared for her life,” I said. Dariana snorted. “Do you really believe that?” “No. I’m fairly sure it’s a trap.” “Then why go in?” “So I can find out—” “Because that’s what he does,” Brasti interrupted. “He asks himself what the dumbest possible thing to do would be in any given situation and then he does it.”

She looked at me with a smirk. “Are you trying to save my life or my soul? You think I’m not ready to die fighting these bastards? You think I’m afraid?” “Dariana, I think you’re utterly insane. I think you’re eager, if not desperate, to die fighting. But Valiana’s not like us. She’s not—” “She may be a pretty little bird but she’s got the heart of a lion, First Cantor. You shame her by treating her like a child.”

“You see our friend here, the Saint of Swords? He reckons we can kill eight of you before you kill us. Now, I’m sure some of you are perfectly nice people, though why a perfectly nice person would ever choose a career as a Knight I don’t know, but everyone makes mistakes. One time I even—” “Get to the point, Brasti,” I said. “Right. Well, if any of you are wife-beaters, child-killers, perhaps murderers of old people? Could you just sort of raise a hand or nod? It would make it a lot easier for us.” “Brasti, that’s ridi—” But to my utter amazement, one of the Knights started to raise his hand, just for a moment before he saw his fellows look at him. No one ever said you had to be brilliant to wear armor. “Right,” Brasti said. “So which was it? Wife-beating, child-killing? Did you—? Ah, I suppose it doesn’t matter.” He pulled an arrow and let it loose. It pierced the man’s gorget and he went down, blood spouting from his neck. “All right. Who’s next? Anyone mean to animals?”

“First Cantor, my understanding is that you three are the best of King Paelis’s Greatcoats.” He smiled at Dari and Valiana. “No offense to either of you; I’m sure you’re both stout fighters. But if the stories are to be believed, Falcio escaped a Ducal prison, tamed a fey horse, defeated Dashini assassins—something that’s supposed to be impossible—and slew the Duke of Rijou.” “Which is not nearly as impressive as the fact that he brought him back to life,” Brasti said. “Quite so. Therefore, First Cantor, I can only conclude that if my men had killed you before I intervened, Duke Isault would have no use for you.” We

“I see you brought whores. Which one of them is for me?” Dariana said, “That would be me, your Grace.” Isault saw the disturbing grin on her face and turned to me. “Why do I get the feeling that this nasty little creature has things other than my pleasure in mind? Perhaps she would enjoy it more if I bound her hand and foot first?” Her expression changed instantly. “I would delight in your attempt, your Grace.”

They’re dead. What is it that keeps you going now?” “There are a few left I haven’t gotten around to. Yet.” She smiled and walked over and kissed me on the cheek. “See? Now that’s something I can get behind.” She reached down and picked up my clothes and handed them to me. “You should get dressed. If we’re about to fight Shuran and his men you won’t want to do it half-naked.” “Why would we have to fight Shuran?” I asked. “Has he—?” “He hasn’t done anything, yet. I just don’t trust him.” “Is there anyone you do trust?” “Not really. But your real problem is that the Saint of Swords doesn’t trust him either. Looks like Shuran is preparing to leave ahead of us, and Kest thinks that means Isault is going to betray Aline. I suspect he’s going to do something reckless.”

“I have a question,” Dariana said after I was done. She was sitting cross-legged on my bed, quite unconcerned that the dirt on her boots was rapidly transferring itself to my blankets. “What?” I asked. “Do you have any plans that don’t involve telling Valiana and me to run away and hide somewhere while you—?” “—while he tries to get Kest and me killed?” Brasti finished. “No. That’s pretty much the crux of all of Falcio’s masterful stratagems, so you might as well get used to it now.”

“How did you know it was us?” Brasti asked. “I know where every thread starts and where every thread ends,” the Tailor replied without looking up from her sewing. “Besides, I could hear your footsteps coming down the hallway. The three of you walk like a cross between a drunken three-legged horse and a family of ducks.”

“That’s what you ‘think’, is it?” the Tailor asked, still staring at her sewing. “Because what I find interesting is the idea that a former poacher with a mind the size of a pea is under the illusion that what he thinks matters one bit to the world. You’re nothing but a wayward bastard, Brasti Goodbow. You’re a hanger-on to better men, hoping some kind of meaning will rub off on you from one of these other two fools.”

Aline looked at me for a moment. “I’m going to smile now,” she said. “You smile too, and then we both close our eyes and keep them closed until I’m gone. That way we’ll always remember each other like that.” “I . . . All right, Aline, we’ll do that.” She smiled at me, and it was as if the whole world became bright, just for a moment. Then I smiled too, and closed my eyes quickly, afraid our smiles might break

before I had them tight shut. I kept my eyes closed and a moment later heard the sounds of Aline’s light footsteps alongside those of the Tailor. I stayed where I was, leaning against the bench, and listened as they walked out of the room and along the hall, down the stairs and, ever so faintly, through the front door of the inn and out of my life.

laughed. “So our strategy is go to Luth and blackmail a Duke, and then if that fails, run very fast.” He turned to Kest. “People still think he’s the smart one, you know.”

To mayhem and fighting,

“Leave her be,” Dariana said quietly. “You won’t make it better, so at least don’t make it worse.” “She fights as if she wants to be killed,” I muttered. “Of course. She fights like you.” “What? Are you mad? I don’t—”

As if sensing my disappointment, he said, “We need justice to be a river, Falcio, always flowing, always wearing against the rocks that stand in its way, not a sword that shatters when you strike it against stone.” “Then perhaps we should outfit the Greatcoats with boats instead of blades.”

Nile smiled and reached out a gauntleted hand to touch her arm. “Don’t look so frightened, my lady. I’m dying from a belly

wound, not the winter flu.” Valiana knelt down next to him and gripped his hand in hers. “Well, as long as it’s not catching.” Nile laughed. “Ah. Hmm. Say, I’d swear I’ve seen a portrait of you. Gaudy damned thing sent by the Bitch-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Did that foul old woman ever mention me? I caused her trouble a time or two.” Valiana hesitated for a moment, then said, “She spoke of you many times. She said you were one of the few Greatcoats she feared, and that if she could see you dead at her hand she’d end her days a happy woman.” Nile gave a chortle. “Oh, I like this one, Falcio. She knows how to lie with a straight face. Should’ve been a court lady. Now that I think of it, weren’t you supposed to be Queen at some point?

Maybe the King planned it this way all along—he told the others to wait until one of his heirs revealed themselves, and then they were to kill off the Dukes and clear the path to the throne. And you know what else? I’ll just bet you he told every one of the other Greatcoats, ‘Don’t go telling Falcio about this. He wouldn’t understand. Falcio’s a sensitive lad, wants to save the world, don’t you know’.” My skin was growing hot. “I think I knew the King better than you did, Brasti—” “Really? Is that what you think? Because I think almost everyone in this damned country knew the King better than you did.”

For a brief instant I thought about Ethalia and how, just an hour before and a few miles back, I had been standing at a crossroads where I could have chosen another road. A different Falcio val Mond might have found rest and comfort, and a few final days of love. Instead, I’d chosen bloodshed once again.

“What isn’t their fault?” I asked her. “They don’t know how to be like you.” “I don’t want them to be like me,” I said. “I’m not some—” “Yes,” she said, and knelt down next to me. She put a hand on my chest. “You are. Stop insisting there’s nothing special about you, Falcio. It makes the rest of us feel worthless.”

You want to save the world, Falcio. I want to save the people in it.

I didn’t bother to respond; I was too busy trying to deal with the smell. You sometimes hear storytellers trying to frighten their audiences by talking about the scent of despair. They’re not being poetic. Fear really does have a smell. If you mix sweat and shit and blood with stale air and dank, musty walls, like magic! as a jongleur might say, you get the genuine scent of human despair.

“I may be dog,” he said, “but I am fucking tough dog, eh? Fucking strong dog.” Shiballe’s eyes grew wide as the pressure from Ugh’s fingers began pressing hard into the flesh of his skull. “Maybe boy needs a tough guy right now, eh? Not fat worm that slinks along the ground.”

The old man laughed. “Ah, see, not as dumb as you look, then.” “How would you know how dumb we look? You’re blind,” I said. “True, and yet I can say with absolute confidence that you look like a fool. Isn’t the universe a wondrous place?”

I carefully turned my gaze to Dariana. It still hurt. “You see what happens? You go to all this trouble to betray someone and you still get stuck listening to the tone-deaf troubadour.”

Just before he falls backward, Dariana grabs him by the lapels of his coat and holds him up. “I am Dariana, daughter of Shanilla, Thirteenth Cantor of the Greatcoats,” she says. “And I am the King’s Patience.”

Happiness is a series of grains of sand spread out in a desert of violence and anguish.

Of course she loves you, for she is compassion and you are valor itself, and compassion is ever drawn to valor.”

Nehra frowned. “Do you always run headlong into certain death?” “Sometimes he walks,” Dariana said. “Occasionally he shuffles. Once I’m pretty sure I saw him amble into certain death.” Nehra rolled her eyes. “You risk your lives on foolish odds.” “We risk our lives to make them count,” Valiana said. “It’s what we do.”

“That on your best day—on your very best day—you could never beat me.” “I do know that,” I said, “and thanks very much for reminding me.” “Then why all this pretense? Why go through the motions?” He sounded genuinely interested. “Because, you . . .” I reached for the worst insult I could think of and settled on, “you stupid son-of-a-Saint, I’ve been beaten and tortured and killed eight times. I’m tired and weak. My best friend sits trapped in that stupid circle, despising himself. The daughter of my King is possessed by Trin through magic, which I hate, by the way, and the woman I love has just set herself up to be killed horribly in a manner that I can’t stop replaying in my head, over and over.” “I don’t understand your point.” “My point is, you feckless thug, this isn’t my best day. It’s my worst. So I’m going to use it to put you down.”

“He had . . . he gave this up? For you? Why?” “Because the fights that matter most aren’t won on skill,” I said. They’re won on sacrifice.

“I am Valiana val Mond,” she called out, “and I am the Heart’s Answer. I was at Aramor.” “I am the friend in the dark hour,” Ethalia said. Her voice was no louder than a whisper, and yet it seemed to ripple across the field, “and I stood with my love at Aramor.”

“I am Tommer,” he shouted, his high tenor voice drifting like a tiny boat across the vast ocean of the field, “heir to Rijou and the last student of Bal Armidor. I am the Minstrel’s Voice at Aramor, and you will not touch her while I live.”

“That’s what you never understood, Falcio: I never followed the King—hells, I never even followed the Greatcoats. I’m a simple man at heart. I don’t go in for Dukes or Gods or Saints, and nor does Kest for that matter, or anyone else.” “Then why—?” “You, Falcio, you idiot. I followed you. We all did.”

Brasti laughed out loud at that. “For all the Gods’ sakes,” said he begged, “please, don’t put on a pretty dress and start acting like a virtuous maiden! The world’s seen quite enough chaos already.”