THE APOTHECARIES
I had promised myself I would give her the choice, not try to stop her from taking the soft candy. It was a cold, callous calculation born from my own sense of weakness, but if I couldn’t keep her safe, and if capture would mean torture and a slower death, then surely it was her right to make her own decision. It’s the choice I would have made in her position – and the choice I would have made years ago, looking down at the destroyed body of my dead wife, if someone had given it to me. If I’d held in my hand a tiny package, a berry-flavoured sweet that would end my pain instantly, I would have taken it without a thought – and then what? No long journey into and out of madness, no climbing the foetid passageway of Castle Aramor to commit regicide, no discovery of a young, weak, but brilliant King. No Greatcoats. No royal library, no nights poring over ancient texts on swordplay and strategy. No chess with the King or riding into every village and hamlet in the country with Kest and Brasti and the others to bring some small measure of decency and justice to the world. No Greatcoats. No Greatcoats.
‘Please.’ The small word shattered the spell.
I looked over and my hand was on Aline’s wrist. I’d no recollection of putting it there. My grip was tight and I could see it was hurting her, but I couldn’t seem to let go. The look on her face was frightened, desperate, and I could see that she thought that I had lied, that I wouldn’t let her choose her own death. It’s her death, I told myself, not yours, and my fingers released just enough for her to pull her hand away. She stepped back several paces and rubbed her wrist. She looked hurt and confused.
She stopped backing away and brought the soft candy back towards her mouth.
‘Aline!’
The shout had come from behind me, so I pulled my right-hand rapier from its sheath and crouched low into a forward guard. A man and a woman were running towards us, no weapons in hand, nor at their sides that I could see. The man was heavyset but not so muscled as to be a soldier or blacksmith – so someone who worked for a living, worked with his hands but not in hard labour. His clothes told me he wasn’t destitute, but his rough beard and dark hair made it clear he wasn’t a merchant either. The woman beside him was much the same in clothes and bearing, though slimmer and prettier. I guessed both to be in their middle thirties.
‘Aline!’ they called again, and I rose up a little. I kept the point at the man’s gut.
‘Don’t hurt her,’ he said, his voice thick with concern.
‘Hurt whom?’ I asked.
‘Aline, come here,’ he said, keeping his eyes on me and his right arm protectively in front of his wife.
‘Radger?’ Aline said from behind me. ‘Laetha? What are you doing here?’
‘We’re looking for you, silly girl. We heard what happened and Mattea sent us to find you!’
‘Who is Mattea?’ I asked, my sword not moving an inch.
Aline tried to push past me, but I barred her with my arm.
‘Mattea was my nanny,’ she said impatiently. ‘Radger is her son and Laetha is his wife. They’re apothecaries – they’re my friends. Now let me past, Falcio.’
‘Put up your arms,’ I told them.
‘What foolishness is driving you, man?’ Laetha said. ‘We’re here to help Aline to safety. We thought you were one of the Duke’s men taking her away.’
‘All the same, put your arms up and turn around.’
‘Falcio, stop this.’
‘In a moment. First, I want them to put their arms up and turn around.’
Radger eyed me carefully. ‘Aline, get ready to run,’ he said urgently. ‘If he attacks us, just run and don’t look back.’
‘Hells! You’re all fools!’ Aline said.
‘Everyone shut up,’ I ordered. ‘Now, if you’re truly friends, you’ll do as I say. If you’re not, let’s get this over with. I haven’t killed anyone for several hours and I’m getting a cramp.’
The man looked scared; the woman’s eyes went from Aline to me and looked furious. But they both complied. They raised their arms as I’d ordered, which pulled their clothes tighter against their bodies, as I had intended: this makes it much easier to see if someone is wearing weapons on their person. As they turned, I looked for bulges in their clothes or places where the cloth was tighter than it should be – signs of things concealed – but there were none. I don’t know why people try to pat their opponents down; you’re more than likely to miss something that way, and you’ve made yourself vulnerable by getting in so close, even if you’ve got a partner with you.
‘All right,’ I said, looking around one last time. As I resheathed my sword, Aline shoved me aside and ran to the couple, who hugged her tightly. Radger said something in her ear, but I couldn’t hear what it was.
‘Where is Mattea?’ Aline asked. ‘Is she all right?’
‘She’s fine,’ Radger said. ‘Out of her wits searching for you, of course, as is the rest of the damned city, it seems.’
‘Thank Saint Birgid we found you first,’ Laetha said. She put an arm around Aline’s shoulders. ‘Is this the man – the tatter-cloak – who took you?’
‘You probably don’t want to say that again,’ I said calmly.
‘Forgive us, stranger,’ Radger said. ‘We don’t know your ways. Do you prefer “Trattari”?’ He was either the best actor in the world or he really was clueless, so I decided to let it go.
‘I prefer Falcio,’ I said.
‘Falcio, then. I don’t mean to offend you, but why did you take Aline?’
‘Her family is murdered,’ I said, ‘and she’s being hunted by the Duke’s less-than-courteous lackeys, not to mention every guardsman and bully boy in Rijou. There was no one else to take her.’
‘You could have brought her to us,’ Laetha said angrily. She looked down at Aline. ‘Sweetheart, you could have come to us.’
‘I didn’t want to bring more pain to your house,’ Aline said. ‘After Mother had to let Mattea go … We didn’t have money – the Duke took—’
‘Silly girl,’ Laetha said, embracing her once more. ‘Do you honestly think Mattea would ever hold that against you? Do you think we would ever turn you away from our door?’
‘And how well would you fight off the men trying to capture her?’ I asked. ‘How would you cross blades with the thugs and gangs looking to reap from Shiballe’s generous harvest?’
‘How well have you been protecting her?’ Laetha demanded.
‘Not especially well,’ I admitted.
‘Stranger – Falcio –’ Radger put a hand on my shoulder, as tentatively as if he were touching a dead eel – ‘No man can fight off the entire city. It’s beyond belief that you’ve kept her alive until now. But we can help. We can move her from family to family, quiet as a shadow, and keep her from the Duke’s men until this damnable Blood Week is over. Then … then she can live with us. We’ll care for her, I promise you.’
‘We can hide you,’ Laetha said confidently to Aline.
‘But Laetha, I don’t want you or the others harmed when they realise you’ve been hiding me,’ Aline said. ‘Or worse—’
‘Pish!’ Laetha said comically, like an old grandmother, and I guessed this was something Mattea the nanny might say. ‘They’ll never know. The common folk of Rijou have been hiding bigger things than you for years, sweetheart.’
I strongly doubted that was true; more likely whatever petty smuggling or black marketeering that went on simply wasn’t very important to the Duke. But Aline, for some reason, was.
‘I don’t think it’ll be so easy,’ I said.
‘Do you honestly believe she has better odds with you?’ Radger asked gently.
The answer was no, of course, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit that.
‘Falcio,’ Aline said softly, putting her hand on mine, ‘I think … I think this is worth trying. I don’t know what else to do, and I have only one other course available to me.’
I realised she’d pressed something into my hand. It was the soft candy. ‘All right,’ I said, putting the tiny package back in my pocket. ‘But I’m coming.’
Radger started to protest, but I put my hand up to stop him. ‘You might still encounter Shiballe’s men between here and your home. Once we’re there and Aline’s settled, I’ll take my leave of you and make my way out of the city.’
They looked mollified by this, and Radger turned to point the way. ‘It’s half a mile straight down Broadwine Road,’ he said, ‘but we’ll want to take the alleys, to lessen our chances of running into trouble.’
‘Lead on,’ I said. A half-mile journey, and then I would be free of this – free to wriggle my way out of this city like a worm and make my way back to the caravan, to Kest and Brasti. And then what? Help assassinate a childish Princess before she could do more harm? Or fight Kest and lose in a hopeless effort to stop him?