1

The Waiting Game

I can count on one hand the number of times in my adult life when I’ve awakened peacefully and happily, without either fear of imminent death or sufficient annoyance to make me want to murder someone else. The morning four weeks after Patriana, Duchess of Hervor had poisoned me was not one of those times.

“He’s dead.”

Despite the fog clogging my head and dulling the sounds in my ears, I recognized Brasti’s voice.

“He’s not dead,” said another, slightly deeper voice. That one belonged to Kest.

The light thump-thump of Brasti’s footsteps on the wooden floor of the cottage grew louder. “Usually he comes out of it by now. I’m telling you, this time he’s dead. Look: he’s barely breathing.”

A finger prodded at my chest, then my cheek, then my eye.

You might be wondering why I didn’t simply stab Brasti and go back to sleep; first, my rapiers were ten feet away, lying on a bench next to the door of the small cottage we occupied. Second, I couldn’t move.

“Stop poking at him,” Kest said. “Barely breathing still means alive.”

 “Which is another thing,” Brasti said. “Neatha’s supposed to be fatal.” I imagined him wagging his finger at me. “We’re all happy you survived it, Falcio, but this lying about each morning is highly inconvenient behavior. One might even call it selfish.”

Despite my repeated attempts, my hands refused to reach out and wrap themselves around Brasti’s throat.

The first week after I’d been poisoned, I’d noticed a slight weakness in my limbs—I moved more slowly than usual. Sometimes I’d try to move my hand and it would take a second before it would obey. But instead of getting better, the condition had gradually worsened and I found myself imprisoned in my own body for longer and longer each morning after I awoke.

A hand on my chest pressed down with a great deal of pressure: Brasti was leaning on me. “But Kest, I think you have to agree that Falcio is largely dead.”

There was another pause and I knew Kest was considering the matter. The problem with Brasti is that he’s an idiot. He’s handsome and charming; he can outshoot any man or woman with a bow, and he’s an idiot. Oh, you wouldn’t think so at first; he’s a fine conversationalist and uses many words that sound like the sort of words smart people use. He just doesn’t use them in the right context. Or even the right order.

The problem with Kest, though, is that while he is extremely intelligent, he thinks that “being philosophical” requires giving any idea due consideration, even if it’s utterly nonsensical and being uttered by the aforementioned idiot.

“I suppose,” Kest said finally, and then redeemed himself marginally by adding, “But wouldn’t it be more correct to say he’s somewhat alive?”

More silence. Did I mention that the two fools in question are my best friends, fellow Greatcoats, and the men I was counting on to protect me in case the Lady Trin picked that precise moment to send her Knights after us?

I suppose I should get used to calling her Duchess Trin now. After all, I’d killed her mother, Patriana (yes, the one who’d poisoned me)—in my defense, I was trying to protect the King’s heir at the time. I suspect that’s the real source of Trin’s grievance with me, as the presence of a genuine monarch gets in the way of her scheme to take the throne for herself.

“He’s still not moving,” Brasti said. “I really think he might be dead this time.” I felt his hand brush a rather private part of my body and realized he was searching my pockets for money—which Proves yet again that hiring a former poacher to be a traveling magistrate

had not necessarily been one of the King’s best ideas. “We’re out of food, by the way,” he said. “I thought those damned villagers were supposed to be bringing us supplies.”

“Be grateful they’re letting us hide here in the first place,” Kest said placidly. “Feeding more than a hundred Greatcoats is a heavy burden for a village this small. Besides, they did bring food—from their winter caches in the mountains, just a few minutes ago. The Tailor’s managing distribution.”

“Then why don’t I hear brats running around screaming and annoying us, asking to borrow our swords—or worse, play with my bows?”

“Perhaps they heard you complaining? They left their families in the mountains this morning.”

“Well, that’s something anyway.”

I felt Brasti’s fingers pulling the lid of my right eye back, and white light blinded me. Then the fingers went away and the light disappeared.

“How long until Falcio’s mostly alive and no longer entirely useless? I mean, what happens when Trin’s Knights learn about this? Or Dashini assassins? Or anyone else, for that matter?” Brasti’s voice was growing more anxious as he spoke. “You name any group of people out there who know how to kill a man horribly and I’ll bet you good gold that Falcio’s made an enemy of them. Any one of them could—”

I felt my heart moving faster and faster, and tried to force my breathing to slow down, but panic was beginning to overtake me.

“Stop talking, Brasti. You’re making him worse.”

 “They’ll come for him, Kest, you know it—they might even be coming now. Are you going to kill every single one of them?”

“If that is what’s required.” You can hear a coldness in Kest’s voice when he talks that way.

“You might be the Saint of Swords now, but you’re still just one man. You can’t fight an army. And what happens if Falcio’s condition gets worse, and he just stops breathing? What happens when we’re not here and—?”

I heard the sound of a scuffle and felt the bed shake a bit as someone was pushed up against the wall.

“Take your Gods-damned hands off me, Kest! Saint or no, I’ll—”

“I’m scared for him too, Brasti,” Kest said. “We’re all scared.”

“He’s . . . By all the hells we’ve been to—he’s supposed to be the smart one. How in the name of Saint Laina’s left tit did he let himself get poisoned again?”

“To save her,” Kest said. “To save Aline.”

There was silence for a few moments and for the first time that morning I couldn’t envision Kest and Brasti’s faces. It was troubling, as if perhaps my hearing had suddenly gone away too. Fortunately, silence is a condition Brasti’s never been able to abide for long.

“And that’s another thing,” he said, “if he’s so damned brilliant then why is it that all anyone has to do to get him to risk his life for a girl he’s never met before is just name her after his dead wife?”

“She’s the King’s heir, Brasti, and if you talk about Falcio’s wife again you’ll discover there are worse things than being paralyzed.”

“I’d take the chance if I thought it would bring him out of this,” Brasti said. “Damn it, Kest! He is the smart one. Trin’s got armies and assassins and damned fucking Dukes on her side and we’ve got nothing. How are we supposed to put a thirteen-year- old girl on the throne with Falcio in this condition?”

I felt my eyes begin to flutter some more, and empty gray started flashing to bright white and back again, over and over. The effect was a little disconcerting.

“I suppose you and I will have to try to be smarter,” Kest said.

“And just how do you propose we go about that?”

 “Well, how does Falcio do it?”

There was a long pause, then Brasti started, “He . . . well, he figures things out, doesn’t he? You know, there’ll be six things going on, none of which seem all that important, and then all of a sudden he’ll jump up and declare that assassins are coming or a Lord Caravaner must’ve bribed a City Constable or whatever.”

“Then that’s what you and I need to do,” Kest said. “We need to start figuring those things out before they happen.”

“How?”

“Well, what’s happening right now?”

Brasti snorted. “Well, Trin’s got five thousand soldiers on her side and the backing of at least two powerful duchies. We’ve got about a hundred Greatcoats and the tepid support of the creaky old Duke of Pulnam. Oh, and right about now she’s probably having a nice breakfast and going over her plans for taking the throne while we sit here starving, hiding out in this shitty little village watching Falcio do his best impression of a corpse. And I am starving.”

There was silence again. I tried to move a finger. I don’t think I succeeded, but now I could feel the rough wool of the blanket on my fingertip. That was a good sign.

“At least you aren’t having to listen to screaming children,” Kest said.

“There’s that.”

I heard the sound of Kest’s footsteps as he approached me and felt a hand on my shoulder. “So what do you suppose Falcio would make of all that? What does it all mean?”

“It means . . .” There was a long pause before Brasti finally said, “nothing. It’s all just a bunch of unconnected details, none of which have anything to do with the others. Do you suppose that maybe Falcio just pretends to be clever and no one’s caught on yet?”

I wanted to laugh at Brasti’s frustration, then I felt the small muscles at the edges of my mouth twitch, just a bit. Oh, Gods, I’m coming out of it. Move, I told myself. Get out of bed and go and help the Tailor defeat Trin’s army. Put Aline on the throne, and then get out of this business of politics and war and go back to judging land disputes over whose cow farted on whose field, and chasing down the occasional corrupt Knight.

A tightness in my stomach made me aware of how hungry I was, and I realized Brasti wasn’t the only one ready for a hearty breakfast. Food, I thought, then figure out how to save the world. I was glad I wouldn’t have to do it while the villagers’ screaming brats ran around

wanting to play at being Greatcoats with us, demanding our swords and trying our patience.

Which was odd. Why didn’t the villagers bring their children? There wasn’t much danger to the village—the Tailor had sent out scouts and none had reported sighting anything more than a few handfuls of Trin’s men—not enough to cause us grief. Come to think of it, where were the rest of Trin’s men? They might have been on missions, but surely they’d have been recalled as soon as anyone knew we were here. And the children . . .

“Swords!” I shouted.

Well, “shouted” is a bit optimistic, given my tongue was still thick in my throat, and I could barely move my lips. My eyes opened, though, which was good.

Brasti ran over to me. “Whores? What are you talking about?”

“Do you suppose he means that woman from Rijou? The one who saved his life?”

“You might be right,” Brasti said, awkwardly brushing a hand across my head. “Don’t worry, Falcio. We’ll find you another whore just as soon as—”

“Swords, you damned fools,” I mumbled. “Swords!”

“Help him up,” Brasti said. “I think he said ‘hordes’. Maybe we’re about to be attacked.”

Kest put his arm around my shoulders and helped me off the bed and onto my unsteady feet. Damn it, I was moving like an old man.

Brasti picked up my rapiers from the bench and handed them to me. “Here. You should probably have your swords ready if we’re going to get into a fight, don’t you think?”

I would have killed both of them, were it not for the fact that I was fairly sure someone else was about to do it for me.