The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [116]
“Well, he wants you alive for something, or you wouldn’t be, right?”
“Werlic.”
She shook her head. “Why would the Blood Knight want you alive?”
“He didn’t really say.”
“Curious.”
How long was she there? he suddenly wondered. Did she hear the whole conversation? Is she testing me?
Or was she, after all, with Fend?
Either way, he should probably kill her. He reached for the feyknife casually, as if he were just going to take the reins.
CHAPTER FIVE
AUSTRA
“THAT’S LIKELY IT,” Cazio breathed, gesturing with his nose toward the long coil of the Old King’s Road they could see from the cobbled-together treehouse z’Acatto referred to as their “mansion.” There, a carriage with an armed escort was making its way along the ruts. The driver, Cazio could make out, wore the gold, black, and green livery of the duchess of Rovy, which was Anne’s household title.
“So it’ll be a fight,” z’Acatto sighed.
Cazio was starting to ask what the old man meant when the scene suddenly shifted into finer focus.
The escort wore the orange and dark blue of the knights of Lord Gravio, one of the Church’s military orders.
“She’s already been captured,” he murmured.
“There’s no proof she’s even in there,” z’Acatto said. “It may be some fat sacritor or a half dozen soldiers.”
“It might be,” Cazio agreed, “but I only see five. I’ll worry about any in the carriage later.”
“Five men in full armor mounted on war steeds,” z’Acatto pointed out. “One or two would be plenty.”
“Yes, I’ve learned my lesson there,” Cazio said.
“I doubt that.”
“No, I have. One doesn’t fence such men; one hits them with something heavy, yes? So what do we have that’s heavy?”
He searched for an answer to that. The mansion was nothing more than a sort of blind they had constructed where the branches of two large trees came together. It was about ten pareci off the ground. They had some empty wine carafes and a few sticks. That was about it. Given the distance, they still had a little time, but not more than a quarter of a bell.
Z’Acatto took another drink of their last bottle of Matir Mensir, and for a moment Cazio thought he was going to sleep. Instead, he sighed and wiped the back of his hand across his stubbled mouth.
“I have an idea,” he said.
As Cazio stepped into the road in front of the small cavalcade, he was still not certain that z’Acatto’s idea was a good one, but it was the only one they had.
“Halt there,” he shouted.
The knights lifted their visors, and he could see their astonishment.
“What’s the matter with you?” one of them, a fellow with a reddish mustache, asked.
“I heard knights of Lord Gravio were on this road,” he said. “I said to myself, ‘Has the knight of Gravio ever been born that I couldn’t beat wearing nothing more than my skin and a sword?’ And the answer, of course, was no. But then I wondered, ‘What if there were two or three of them? I might break a sweat.’ But I’m thinking four of you might have a chance.”
“Get out of the road, you naked idiot,” another of the knights said. “By that popinjay’s sword you wield, you’re no knight.”
“Let me get this perfectly clear,” Cazio said, leaning on Acredo. “You’re afraid to fight a naked man. You understand I was saying you can all come at me at once, right?”
“Knights of Gravio only battle knights, you slack-jawed pig sodomizer,” the mustached man said. “All others have two simple choices: stand aside or be cut down like honorless dogs.”
“I heard that about you brave, brave fellows,” Cazio said. “Heard you mostly kill women because headless lovers can’t complain of your impotence.”
“Leave him be,” one of the fellows in the back said. “He’s clearly mad.”
“There’s only so much I can hear before I must act,” Mustache gritted. “But I make allowances. Stand aside.”
Cazio stepped a little closer. “If it’s my words that are the problem, let me use a language more apt to you fellows.”
He sent an arc of urine in their direction.
That did it. Mustache howled, and two of his fellows broke after him, all drawing broadswords.
Cazio turned and ran as fast as he could.