Fifty-three
The bethrotral soiree for Justine Chanderelle and Marjerie D'Targele was a somewhat subdued affair.
The wine was lovely, a bit fruity with a hint of peach. Those were out of season here yet in Orlais, so no doubt they had been brought in from a warmer, more northerly port just for the occasion. It had been a warm day and was continuing into a warm evening. Those who had dressed more heavily looked sweaty and tired, while those who had opted for lighter dress continued to swirl around the garden, chatting, and playing the Grand Game.
Taesas had been surprised to receive the invitation. While he had helped make a case to Comte Chanderelle in favor of Alycine's daughter, he had not brought any real influence to the table to sweeten the deal. Yet the Comte had pursued the engagement on his own, with favorable outcome.
As such, the invitation had come from the Comte, not from Alycine. She had not written him, as she said she would after their fateful encounter in her doorway at Lydes. Perhaps he had forfeited that explanation when he arrived at her door the next morning with her daughter to meet the sting of her palm across his cheek. He had taken the time to write her, to no avail.
He knew she had to be somewhere around the Chanderelle's chateau, but he had not seen her and that bothered him.
Regardless, the young lovers looked happy as the entire party revolved around them.
Justine was handsome for a young man, especially in the suit of black that had been chosen for him, if not a bit arrogant in the way he held his shoulders and head.
Marjerie was wearing white, in stark contrast to her deep black hair and the ice blue eyes she inherited from her mother. Her hair was curled and she wore a white flower on the left with a vibrant pink center. She still moved and spoke a bit too rough, but she appeared much more restrained and polite than when he had last met her.
Perhaps she had taken his words about the Game truly to heart? Maybe she would someday opt to play, whereas her mother had chosen not to engage? Perhaps someday she would hold Orlais by the throat, as Alycine might have if only she cared to?
He had spoken to the young couple only briefly. Marjerie had given him a introduction full of praise beyond what he deserved. Justine had chosen to shake his hand, a pleasantry that he did not need to extend to Taesas even despite his high position in the Circle, but that Taesas had accepted for the unknowing gift that it was.
They had discussed a wedding in the month of Justinian, when they were both of age and ready for such solemn vows. Taesas had promised to send a gift befitting of their blessed union. Marjerie promised an invitation. He had thanked her and promised not to take any more of her time.
He had observed the young couple for a time, watching as foxes and hawks and vultures circled in to speak with them. Taesas had taken note of them, of their gestures and reactions to the conversation. Justine was not nearly as guarded as he should be, though Marjerie appeared to have charmed more than one elderly visitor who had approached with brows bent in consternation and then left in at least cordial acceptance.
But more than Marjerie, Justine or even Alycine, Taesas had been watching another from across the party.
Cecille Colieux had arrived shortly after him with Duke Galien in arm, although without the bastard child of his she had carried secretly to term and that was being raised in his house quietly.
It had been a few weeks since he last saw her and at least a month longer since she had appeared in the tower at Montsimmard. That she was here now seemed to be no mere coincidence. Yes, Comte Chanderelle and Duke Galien did share a few mutual friends, but hardly the type of bond that would draw such as him to a betrothal party without something else to gain from it.
He watched her now as she excused herself from the side of the Duke, the gold an emerald jeweled mask glinting in the evening sun as she descended the garden stairs in his direction. She lifted her head and made eye contact with him, smiling, as she lifted the front of the impeccably cut white and gold sundress that struck just the right balance between formal and fitting of the duke's station and casual for the event and the heat that settled upon it.
Taesas tipped his glass and watched her as she approached, tasting the pulp of peach that had settled to the bottom as he drained the last of the cup.
"First Enchanter," Cecille said with a low and polite curtsy and all the faux sweetness she could muster. "What a pleasure to see you here. I was not aware you knew the Comte well."
Taesas took her hand and planted a chaste kiss upon her knuckles, that the duke might take notice. "As well as you, I'm sure," he said in response. He knew full well that she was no closer to the Comte than he was, as well as signalling that he was distinctly aware she knew that his connection was Alycine and little more.
Cecille was showing a few signs of her age, but she was still a well put-together woman. Her green eyes still sparkled with a little youth and her curly golden blonde hair was styled well, pulled back slightly and held in place with the clips that held her expensive mask over her eyes. The birth of her son a year ago had filled out her figure more than she might have liked, but she played it well by distracting eyes from glancing at her hips or stomach by exposing more of her breast that had filled out with infant's milk.
The large, bulky necklace of gold and emeralds dangling just above the crevice at her chest also served as an adequate diversion. What the duke had parted with to obtain it for her, Taesas could not dare to guess.
"Would you care to dance?" she asked, turning her head to look back and the quartet of string and flute players. That section of the garden was empty. The young couple had shared a dance before the gathered hours ago and no one saw the need to spend any time dancing, especially considering the heat. "I am told you are particularly deft on your feet."
"And you, off yours," he would have liked to say, but instead answered with, "Of course, Cecille. It would be my distinct honor."
If she wanted to play the Game this way, he would oblige her.
Taesas led her toward the musicians, gently holding her fingers in his, ignoring the glances cast in his direction except for that of the duke as he peered down from the railing of the raised garden terrace. The duke did not betray any particular emotion, only glancing back to his own conversation without a reaction.
As they arrived in the corner of the garden, Taesas quickly swept himself around her, clasping her palm into his as he moved his arm around to the small of her back, a bit lower than might have been proper if she were a true noble, but high enough to avert any suggestion of scandal. He pulled her body close to his, until her chest touched lightly against his robe.
Her lips were pursed, suppressing what was no doubt an utterance of offense at his forward approach, but she quickly settled, taking her free hand and placing it on top of his heart as he began to lead her in some slow, easy steps.
"Are you always this aggressive?" Cecille asked quietly, so that no one might hear but them.
"How might I have stolen the First Enchanter's title from you if not by being aggressive?"
"I suppose it helps to suckle at the Grand Enchanter's teat."
No doubt she wanted him to make some vulgar suggestion about what she had been suckling at to obtain her position, but he deferred. "How is your son?" he asked instead.
"Very well, thank you," she answered, choosing not to try to deny the boy. "And yours?"
Curious, he thought. What was she playing at? If she meant to insinuate that Alycine's new son was his? She had made it quite clear to him during their last encounter that was not the case. He had believed her. She had no incentive to lie to him.
It was fully possibly that out somewhere in the Empire there was a half-elven boy that shared his genes, but no one had ever confronted him publicly or privately. Then again, no one would willingly acknowledge a bastard child of elven heritage.
"I'm afraid I don't have any. Mages are forbidden from raising children," he added as they spun and he dipped her backward.
She laughed as she bent, tossing her hair as he pulled her back up and close to his body again. "It's a pity that we are forced to be adversaries."
"We don't have to be," Taesas said. "You could simply accept that you were outplayed. Spend time with your duke. Raise your son. Let the Game play on without you."
Cecille sighed. It was a manufactured response, for effect, nothing more. "Sadly, that just wouldn't be my style," she said. "Although it does sound like a quaint, peaceable idea, I don't believe I could."
She re-adjusted her hand in his, to lightly squeeze his fingers as she looked up to him with a small smile as they twirled.
"It must be so dull, so unfulfilling. To sit around, care for a family, with little else to do. It must be maddening, trapped in a cage, seeking any glimmer of excitement," she said. "No, I'm afraid I never could choose such a path. Not like Lady D'Targele."
Taesas nearly missed the next step in the dance, but caught his foot just before it fell and turned correctly and true. So this is what she had been playing at. She had chosen this as her battlefield. He had not been terribly discreet in his relations with Alycine, yet it was now clear that it was the vantage point from which Cecille intended to strike.
It would happen here, tonight. Cecille wouldn't make the move herself, that would be amateurish. No, she would send a proxy against him. But what was her style? Poison? Armed thugs? Or mere whispers?
He regretted not keeping closer tabs on her and letting her bide her time at Galien's manor. He should have recalled her to Montsimmard and made excuses to keep her there. It would have been within his power to do so, although, at the time, he had feared that taking her out of her place of power and leaving her in the tower, his place of power, to poison the well would be more dangerous.
There was a small, foolish part of him that wondered whether she would just spend her time caring for her child and let the Circle be. Instead, she had merely been hiding, scheming, preparing.
And he was at the disadvantage. He had not expected her to be here in the first place and there was little he could do with the Duke hawking over her. Besides all of that, this was the betrothal party of Alycine's daughter, and he would have prefered not to disrupt it if at all possible.
"Some would call her the wiser," he finally said, hoping he hadn't paused for too long as calculations ran through his head, "for choosing not to attempt to cross me."
Cecille only fluttered her eyelashes under her mask at smiled. She would not be cowed by mere words and so, as he finished the next spin, he disengaged his hands from hers and stepped back.
"You dance well, Cecille," he said. "A pity you dress like an overfed prostitute."
"I never thought you to be the petty type," she said with a chuckle as she swatted aside his insult. "Enjoy the party, First Enchanter."
Cecille retreated back across the garden and toward the steps, back up to the side of her duke and into his sphere of protection. The duke glanced down to Taesas, while Cecille gave him a small wave with a twinkle of her fingers, then turned her back to him.
Taesas folded his hands behind his back and paced toward the fountain, glancing left and right to take note of who was watching him.
There was a man and a woman, both modestly dressed, but their mouths betrayed that their glance was merely that of racism, their wondering how a knife-ear was allowed to attend as a guest and not a servant. Comte Chanderelle and his wife were speaking to a small group of people, none of them paying him attention. Justine was standing at attention while speaking with a chevalier, while Marjerie was surrounded by a group of young women who were comparing their dresses and shoes and, undoubtedly, lavishing compliments on her in hope of currying some type of favor.
It was then and only then that, for the first time, Taesas noticed Alycine, sitting alone on the upper terrace at a high table, with a glass of red wine clutched between her long fingers.
Her onyx hair was long and combed straight and shining and she was wearing a simplistic but stunningly cut dress of red. Alycine always looked best in red, he thought. Such a bold and powerful color, brought out best on the body of a bold and powerful woman.
She wasn't looking in his direction, instead gazing off toward the house and nothing in particular.
Taesas scooped up another glass of a peach-infused wine as he crested the steps and approached her table, sliding into the only other high chair across from her. As he sat, Alycine brought her gaze back from the side of her house, placing her glass of wine down.
"You know a trap has been laid for you and I hope you haven't become so blind not to realize that I'm the bait they've set out," she said.
He did know that. But he suspected that while Cecille had put some thought into whatever she had concocted, that she might not have expected him to walk so willfully into it. Taesas glanced in her direction, but she and her duke were paying him no mind.
"I've missed you," he said as he returned his gaze to Alycine. Last he had seen her, she had been halfway to birth. But now, now she looked again as she always had, except for eyes heavy with either fatigue or loathing.
"Please, don't," she protested. "I can't. Not here."
"All I want to know is why, Alycine," Taesas said.
She rotated her wrist, the wine swirling in the glass as she looked down at it. "You talk as if I wanted this," she said without glancing up to him. "As if I had a choice in the matter."
Taesas leaned a bit across the table. Was she suggesting what he thought she was suggesting? "What happened?"
"My husband Guillaume is a chevalier. He has been at war. What more do I need to say than that?" Alycine said. "You all of people should know what the thrill of danger does to excite a man."
He remembered the closet at Lydes four years back. Even when the duke and his wife had stepped away from their own party to berate one another privately in their bedchamber, Taesas had not stopped with Alycine's legs wrapped around his waist and her back pressed firmly to the wall, the sounds of the married couple shouting at one another acting as the perfect cover noise from their labored breathing and the grunts and moans they stifled in closed mouths. All of that after Taesas had started a duel between two lords who each had been sleeping with the other's wife, leading to the men bloodying each other with sabres in the middle of the dance floor.
But what she was hinting was different, completely different than that.
"I'll kill him," Taesas said between gritted teeth.
Alycine frowned and reached across the table toward his clenched fist. "I know you will," she said dolefully as she wedged her fingers into his fist and unrolled them until her palm laid on top of his.
She brushed her fingers across his palm lightly, not saying anything for a moment, meeting his eyes with hers. Her ice-blue eyes flitted away for just a moment, then back to his, as she took a slow breath inward.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry I couldn't stop this. I tried, but I failed."
"Stop what?" Taesas asked, scanning her sad and frightened eyes. This wasn't her. She was strong, snarky, full of life. What had they done to her, to steal her light like this?
He was answered by the sting of leather across the back of his head.
"First Enchanter!" a man's voice shouted from behind him. "Step away from my wife and stand to answer my call for satisfaction you prurient dog!"
Alycine retracted her hand from his as Taesas turned his head to see Guillaume D'Targele standing behind him in the garb of a chevalier, with a blade at his hip and the yellow feathers of his profession protruding off the back of his masked helm.
"Where is your honor, ser, to strike a man whose back is turned?" Taesas challenged as he stood from the seat to face the man down.
"You presume too much to call yourself a man," Guillaume answered. "That I do not simply strike you down where you stand is a privilege I bestow upon you if only so that I may face you in an honorable duel."
"Father! What are you doing!" Marjerie shouted as she came jogging up from the stairs, obviously hearing the disturbance from the lower level.
"Stay out of this, my daughter. This does not concern you," he commanded while keeping the eye slits of his helm pointed squarely at Taesas.
"You're ruining my party!" she protested still.
"This is a matter of honor, Marjerie," he said. "Nothing is more important than honor."
"Father, stop it!" Marjerie said and tried to step forward, but Taesas extended his left arm out to the side to halt her.
"It's fine, Marjerie," he said.
"Get your filthy paw away from my daughter, First Enchanter, or I will be forced to remove it from your limb," Guillaume threatened.
"State your grievance, chevalier, or begone with you!" Taesas demanded as he lowered his arm back to his side. He glanced to to his left to see Alycine grabbing Marjerie and pulling her away.
"You have defiled the sanctity of my marriage and despoiled the honor of both my wife and myself. Such wanton, licentious behavior cannot be allowed to continue. Confess to these transgressions I lay at your feet or be prepared to bleed," Guillaume announced.
"You slander me and embarrass yourself, ser," Taesas answered.
"You lie and deny your guilt?" the chevalier pressed.
"I cannot admit to that which I have not done," Taesas responded.
"Then the Maker shall serve as judicator in a test of arms, unless you are too cowardly to accept my challenge?"
"I accept," Taesas said. Then raised his voice loud enough so that everyone at the party who now had their eyes and ears pointed their direction could hear. "I request that Duke Galien serve as arbiter, to ensure fair and equitable grounds are laid. Do you agree?"
If Cecille were to sick Alycine's scum of a man at him, at least Taesas could drag her paramour into the dirt along with him. If Guillaume wanted to duel him, so be it, but should anything suspect occur, let it besmirch Galien's name, too.
Guillaume's head turned, following the Duke as he approached with Cecille in tow a step behind him until he came between the two men.
"If the duke is willing, I agree." Guillaume said.
The duke looked at Guillaume, then at Taesas. Cecille was two steps behind him, her eyes pasted on Taesas, smiling wickedly.
"On my honor and in my duty as Duke, I agree," Galien said with a nod.
And so, Cecille's trap was sprung.
Taesas removed the mask from his face, as not to obstruct his vision.
The Duke had laid fair terms. Magic had been forbidden and in exchange, the Duke had agreed to strike the typical duel by blade. Although Taesas considered himself fairly adept with his bladed staff, he was not nearly as skilled with a single-handed sword in comparison to a trained chevalier, even one as middling as Guillaume D'Targele.
In the effort to strike parity, the Duke had decided upon crossbows, to which both men had been agreeable. Comte Chanderelle, like any Orlesian noble worth his weight in gold, had a fine pair of compact crossbows for hunting and, when necessary, the ubiquitous Orlesian "hunting accident."
He took each measured pace as the duke called them out with a pause in between. All of the party guests formed two lines on either side, creating a narrow alley of death where the men could shoot at one another. There was a quiet pall in the air as they all waited for that last step, a quick turn and the prospect of blood drawn.
While it was not uncommon for men to shoot wide on purpose to prove a point and maintain their honor, Taesas had no illusions that Guillaume wouldn't fire for blood.
He inhaled as he took his final step and lifted the mask to the center of his chest. As the duke announced the final number, clearing them to turn and shoot, Taesas bent his neck to the left and lifted up the mask just over his right shoulder.
The porcelain shattered as the bolt from the crossbow hit it.
There was a surprised scream from the onlookers as Taesas slowly bent his head back to its normal position and tossed away the broken shard of mask that remained between his fingers.
He turned, making sure to keep his own crossbow pointed down at the ground in his unbent right arm.
"Impossible!" Guillaume declared as he lowered his crossbow slowly. His eyes were now drawn wide, the frightened whites visible even from across the field as he stared in disbelief. "He must have used some sort of magic!"
"Silence, you pitiable excuse for a chevalier," Taesas bit, loudly, before anyone else could interject. "Even a mewling novice of the Grand Game could have predicted your moves before you made them."
"What! I am-"
"An old fool who is lucky to not have been left a corpse upon the field of battle," Taesas finished for him. "You walk heavy on your right leg to compensate for pain in your left knee, throwing your balance to that side. Your eyes are glossy, growing cloudy in your old age as cataracts form across your field of vision. The grip on your sword is worn unevenly, telling everyone here that you keep a non-standard grip.
"All of these together broadcast to your foes that you are out of equilibrium to your right side, worse the greater the distance with your failing eyesight," Taesas finished to quiet murmurs.
"And yet, warlock, you surmised that I would not aim for your trunk?" Guillaume teased.
It had been a risk, a risk he had been willing to shoulder for the possibility of this exact payoff. There was no shot powerful enough from these hand bows at these distances that would prove fatal to him except for a strike to the head or neck. Even if Guillaume had fought his baser instincts to do what was sensible instead of what his inner animal told him to do, a bolt could be extracted and healed with magic.
The chance, the inevitability to humiliate him in this manner was worth all of the danger.
"Of course," he answered. "If nothing else, Ser D'Targele, you are a short, slight, petty man who would settle for nothing less than bloody vengeance of imagined slights."
"How dare you besmirch my honor-"
"Your honor? Ser, I am not the one flippantly demanding satisfaction for fabricated crimes. You march up to me, you accuse me of immodest behavior and yet you do not know the first thing about me because you are a witless blackguard.
"And me? I know everything worth knowing about you, even though you are far from worth knowing, Guillaume D'Targele, fifth son of the late Comte Baudouin III D'Targele, heir to nothing, last of your class at the Academic des Chevaliers, father to six, beloved by none, and frequently absent husband to the one woman chained cruelly to your name, who none would fault for seeking the warmth of any other man's arms. And yet, yet, you slander her good name too with baseless allegations no doubt whispered into your dim head by spiders weaving webs in the empty space of your skull."
There was silence now as Taesas took a breath at the end of the merciless string of insults. Even some of the other gathered nobles appeared to look ill and ashamed for Guillaume at having to stand and eat such words.
In defeat, the defiance snuffed from him, Guillaume opened his mailed fingers, allowing the crossbow to drop from his ground to the ground behind. He lowered his head, shading his eyes as he breathed slowly, perhaps for the first time accepting the fool he was being played as by Cecille Colieux and whatever conspirators she bound to her cause.
He took another breath, his shoulders rising slightly and falling back down as he exhaled it.
"You withhold your bolt, First Enchanter," Guillaume noted. Indeed, Taesas still clutched the crossbow at his side, having not lifted or moved it yet. "And unless you are an errant shot, I stand little chance to defend myself from it.
"Whatever you may do, I only ask that you answer me, truthfully, First Enchanter, man to man," Guillaume said with a sincerity of a man with one foot already deep into his grave.
"Did you lay with my wife?"
Guillaume lifted his head to await the answer. Taesas turned his gaze left, past Cecille and Duke Galien, to Alycine. The striking red of her dress, the cool black of her hair, the sparkling blue of her eyes. She stood, her hands rested atop her daughter's shoulders as Marjerie stood with one hand clutched over her mouth and the other firmly grasped in the palm of her betrothed, trembling as she waited to see whether her father would die today.
Alycine blinked slowly, then met his gaze, only for the briefest second before averting her eyes down to the back of her daughter's neck once more.
How many times had they been together? How much loneliness and desperation had he felt in her touch as she embraced him, as her arms wrapped around him as his lips met hers? How serious had she actually been when she suggested they run away, somewhere, anywhere, far away from Orlais and this gilded cage they languished in?
Taesas looked away from Alycine, taking in the gazes of the dozens of party guests who are were solely staring at him. He could feel their eyes from every direction as they glanced between him, the loaded crossbow in his hand and the defenseless chevalier across from him. And in every eye, in every look, in every pursed lip, he could see the same thing.
They loathed him.
They loathed that they suffered the presence of him and his pointed ears. They loathed knowing that he had risen to a position of great honor in the Circle and of Orlais itself that he was allowed to stand before them. They loathed that he had successfully and utterly shamed a chevalier, one of the highest and most honored men in all of the Empire.
And so Cecille's trap closed fully around him. Her intent was never for him to fall in a duel. She might have expected that Guillaume would fail in his attempt at satisfaction. No, she meant to put him on this stage, in this moment, for the peers of the Empire to stare at him and loathe him.
There was no winning proposition from the position. If he chose not to shoot, it would not matter. They would all whisper to one another of the savage humiliation he had visited upon one so unworthy. If he fired for blood, regardless of whether the shot killed Guillaume, they would call him a butcher, a murderer, who looked a cuckolded man in the eye, lied to him and claimed his life.
Anyone worth their gold already knew the truth of the matter.
Still, appearances mattered.
"No, Guillaume, I would never dishonor your wife in such a way," Taesas said, delivering the lie straight to the chevalier's eye.
Guillaume swallowed. Perhaps he even believed it.
"And from here, onward, neither shall you."
In one fluid motion, Taesas raised his right arm, sighted the crossbow, squeezed the trigger and expelled the bolt. With nowhere to dodge and no time to react, Guillaume D'Targele had little option but to bleed as the bolt pierced through the padded codpiece of his armor and lodged deeply into his groin.
There was a horrified scream, one that came from the chevalier's mouth louder than that of any onlooker, as the knight crumpled to the ground, his hands going directly to the bloody wound that was now what remained of his manhood.
Taesas lowered his arm and began to walk away. He approached Duke Galien and extended the spent crossbow to him, the stunned duke taking the weapon from Taesas' outstretched hand. Taesas gave to the slightest nod to his paramour.
"Cecille," Taesas said. "Always a pleasure."
With that, he turned toward the exit of the estate as people rushed to attend to the fallen chevalier.
As he walked, everyone stepped out of his way. If they wanted him to tarnish his reputation, let it be tarnished in the most spectacular fashion.
As he walked, looking up toward the sun in the sky and enjoying the temperate day the Maker had gifted him, he listened for footsteps behind him, to discern whether Alycine might try to follow him out.
As he reached the front gate, he stopped, paused for a moment.
When he didn't hear her steps, or hear her voice, or feel her breath upon his neck, Taesas sighed and stepped outside of the manor, on his way.
