Page 130 of Play of Shadows

Listen to him, you fool! Something happened back then, in my time– something Pierzi tried to reveal during the battle, but in my rage and madness, I failed to hear him.

Duke Monsegino broke through Pierzi’s control and saidthrough gritted teeth, ‘Damelas, we must go back. This is our one chance to finally learn what happened to them.’ He let go of my wrist and shoved me away– and just as quickly as the ducal courtyard had reappeared, it faded again, hurling us back to Mount Cruxia and leaving me with a stinging cut on Corbier’s arm.

The Prince’s troops were cheering; the archduke’s supporters were crying out in dismay.

‘You see, I’ve learned a few tricks since we last fought,’ the prince said, giving a mocking bow. ‘Some of them from you, Raphan.’

Why does he keep calling us by the name only Ajelaine knew you by?I asked silently.Is it a clumsy ruse to anger you, or a message?

With the soldiers baying for blood, I was forced back into the fray, and now I was in control of the duel, pressing Pierzi back almost to the edge of his own troops. The prince’s technique was good, but he couldn’t match Corbier’s natural ferocity, and soon was stumbling from a vicious cut to his thigh where part of his armour had come off during the fight. He fell to one knee.

I could kill him, I thought absently.One thrust and the vengeance that history denied Corbier could be won.

No, the Raven said.The victory was Nevino’s, not mine, and nothing we do can change that. The truth is the prize for which we fight.

‘Well, well,’ Pierzi said, grimacing from the painful, bleeding slash, ‘I suppose there’s something to be said for animal instinct and blind rage.’

Unsure what was happening, but determined to keep up the act, I played the role required of me. ‘Save your last words for something other than mockery, Nevino. Beg Ajelaine’s spirit for her forgiveness. Beg the dead to give you mercy when next you see them.’

‘Oh, I would, believe me,’ Pierzi said. ‘I would pray to the ghosts of those two innocent boys and the spirit of that shining, brilliant woman, of whom neither of us were worthy.’ Suddenly his left hand came up from the ground and as he flung mud into Corbier’s eyes, he leaped to his feet and weaved the point of his rapier in a deadly pattern of thrusts and cuts.

Blinded by the mud in my eyes, I frantically batted the blade out of the way as I stumbled backwards.

The prince’s attacks were slowing, however, and soon the two of us were once again caught up together, each struggling for control of the other’s weapon.

‘Alas, I’m afraid it’s entirely too early for me to be making apologies to the dead,’ Pierzi said, almost merrily.

I kicked out at Pierzi’s knee, a less than honourable manoeuvre, perhaps, but one that might gain Corbier the advantage. ‘Only because my blade hasn’t yet found your heart.’

‘No,’ Pierzi said, and in avoiding the kick, he pulled me so close we were almost nose-to-nose over our crossed rapiers. He whispered something– something Corbier, maddened by rage and loss, deafened by the drumbeat of his heart, hadn’t heard on that bloody mound a hundred years ago.

But I heard Pierzi’s words now, though I almost couldn’t believe my own ears.

What Pierzi had said was, ‘Because Ajelaine and the children aren’t dead.’

Chapter 66

Mercy

Ajelaine and the children aren’t dead.

Those words pierced Corbier’s defences swifter than any arrow. From the moment he’d watched the blood spilling from her belly and the throats of the two boys, his entire being had been suffused by those memories, witnessing their deaths played out over and over again.

But if she were truly alive. . .

I jolted back to awareness and found my heels sliding back on the smooth wooden stage as Duke Monsegino shoved me away. The crowds were cheering wildly again, half of them roaring for Damelas-as-Corbier, the others for Monsegino-as-Pierzi, as if this were nothing more than a fencing match. They applauded madly as first one of us gained the advantage, then groaned in despair when our fortunes reversed, barely taking notice of the Iron Orchids among them. The uniformed militants now appeared to be content to stand idly by, resting their spears on the ground, looking more like costumed supernumeraries than a genuine threat to the people of Jereste.

My attention was brought back to the fight when the duke closed the gap between us– inadvertently opening himself up to the killing thrust that I was within a hair’s-breadth of delivering.I narrowly avoided committing murder in front of ten thousand witnesses by swinging my point aside and grabbing at Pierzi’s arm to bring us into the exact samecorpa-té-corzain which we’d left Corbier and Pierzi a moment– or a hundred years– ago.

‘Damelas, listen to me,’ Monsegino whispered fiercely, spinning us both around so that the duke was facing away from the audience and could convey his message unseen. ‘We must devise a plan.’

‘Now?’ I asked incredulously.

The two of us fought each other into another half-turn, allowing me to ask, ‘Is it true? Did Ajelaine and the children survive? How long have you known?’

Monsegino whispered as we pivoted a third time again, ‘I only learned of this during tonight’s performance, when Pierzi’s memories turned to that moment in which he hoped to reveal the truth to Corbier. But the Raven’s wrath made him deaf to Pierzi’s pleas to listen. Damelas, the killings were staged– it was all a trick, a piece of theatre, even down to the fake blood in sheep’s bladders. . .’

Saints, I thought,the very technique we’ve used in a hundred different plays at the Operato Belleza. I should have recognised it at the time, but Corbier’s eyes tinged everything in crimson, so I couldn’t spot the deception.

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