Honor among thieves

Chapter Sixty-Five

Malden leaned down and kissed Cythera gently. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into the bed. They lay there together for a while, just holding one another. Lovers in a busy time, stealing precious seconds.

In a moment, Malden knew, he would have to get up and go back to work. He could ignore the people knocking on his door, ignore their constant pleas, for a little while, but it turned out that having power mostly meant having to listen to every person with a complaint and finding some way to reassure or help them-lest one lose that power again.

He would have given it up for a bent farthing. He didn’t dare give it up for all the treasure in the world’s coffers.

“You seem to like men of position,” he said with a smile, as Cythera ran one finger up and down his arm.

“Some positions more than others,” she laughed.

He brushed hair away from her forehead. He had so many questions he wanted to ask her. So far he hadn’t dared. The night after the sacking of Castle Hill, she had come to him. It had not been their first night together, but it felt different. It felt like something real had grown between them. Something fragile but invaluable. Something that could be lost as quickly as it was found.

This was Cythera. He knew-knew it with all his heart-that she was not merely attracted to his new powers or the money that came with them. Yet he didn’t understand why she had chosen this moment to show it.

“I could buy us a house now, on the Golden Slope,” he told her. “We could live there as man and wife.”

Her shoulders tensed. She couldn’t seem to meet his eye. “Why would I want that?” she asked, her smile gone. “I’ve spent the last seven nights in a whore’s bed, and there have never been seven sweeter.”

Malden ran a hand across the coverlet. He hadn’t considered that he’d brought her to a bawdy house, or how she would see that. The place just felt like home to him.

“I had Elody change the sheets,” Cythera jested.

“Marry me,” Malden said, suddenly urgent.

He had asked her as much a thousand times. He’d made a game of it, because every time she said no, but in such a way as to suggest she might one day change her mind. That she longed to be his wife, as much as he longed to be her husband.

“No,” she said again.

This time there were no promises hidden in her eyes.

Malden sighed and laid back, his head on a pillow. He wanted to ask why not. He wanted to force the issue. When would it ever be the right time, if not now? Yet he was terrified of finding out why she would be his leman but not his lady. He was terrified of what she might say.

Especially because he had begun to suspect he might know the truth.

“Seven nights of bliss,” he said, wandering around the subject, “but eight nights ago I spoke with your mother. Together she and I watched Castle Hill burn. She told me I would have to take up this mantle, or someone else would, someone not of my choosing.”

“She sees much. Perhaps more than she should,” Cythera told him. She reached over and grasped his hand tight, as if afraid a great wind would come and blow away everything they had.

“Even before that I think she knew this would happen. When I tried to give my sword to Ommen Tarness, I could not lift it. Witchcraft held it down.”

Cythera closed her eyes.

“I think I know why she would not let me be rid of Acidtongue. A blade I never wanted, nor ever learned to use and can’t even sell. She made this happen. She made me defy the Burgrave, so I would become Lord Mayor.”

“Coruth didn’t do anything of the sort.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t Coruth who cast that spell.”

Malden sat up in the bed, perhaps too fast. If it hadn’t been Coruth, then… He could feel Cythera moving away from him, flinching as if she’d been struck. That had not been his intention. “Cythera-”

“I hear the fear in your voice, Malden. And I know why it’s there,” she whispered. “Be not afraid. Ask me the question in your mind, and I’ll answer it.”

“You?” he said, almost a whisper. “You did it?”

She turned away from him. “Croy gave you the sword for a reason. He believed you were its rightful wielder, not the Burgrave. That’s all.” Which didn’t answer his question at all, but only forced another.

“Croy,” Malden said. “Who was once your betrothed.”

“Croy,” Cythera repeated. “Who is very far away now.”

She reached for him, and he took her hand. Drew closer to her, so that their faces were nearly touching. He was still Malden. She was still Cythera. Even if she was something else now, too. “You’re a witch,” he said, his lips moving against her forehead.

“Not yet,” Cythera told him. “But I’m learning.”

“But-why? Why would you want that, when you could have… something else?” he asked. When she could be his wife, he thought.

“When I was a child I begged Coruth to teach me more. So many times I begged.” She sat up in the bed. “Malden, women in this world don’t have it easy.”

“I know it too well,” he said. His own mother’s life had been a litany of sorrows. Poverty, hunger, disease. An early, painful death. Yet she had always said how lucky she was to have never married. Men in Ness regularly beat their wives as much as the law would allow. Getting pregnant was always half a death sentence-a woman would watch her belly swell with love and pride, yet always wonder if she would live to see her child’s first breath, for one of every two women died in their birth pains.

“No, you don’t. You don’t understand what we suffer, and you never can. I grew up believing I was the equal of any man. Smarter than most. Mother’s magic kept me healthy, and my father’s teaching made me strong of will. Yet when Croy fell in love with me, and asked for my hand in marriage, I understood. It didn’t matter who I was, or what I wanted to become. My life’s course was already set. I was never going to be a person of importance. I was going to be a person of importance’s wife.”

Despite himself Malden felt the need to protest. “Croy never wanted anything for you but happiness,” he said.

“Oh, I know it. He was the sweetest trap I’ve ever sprung. He was gallant, and so very kind. And he would take away every freedom I owned. Not because he wanted to harm me, or even to own me like livestock. Yet that was all he could ever offer me. A room in his castle, where I could do embroidery and read silly love poems until eventually I died trying to give him an heir. If I was very lucky, I might live long enough to hear that he had been killed on some foreign battlefield, and spend the rest of my days alone, aching for companionship. Even on the night he proposed I think I knew I could never marry him. I wanted to run away. I wanted an antidote for love, and an excuse that would let me say no to him.”

She sighed deeply, and stared into Malden’s eyes. “I knew only one thing that would make it so. I went to my mother, and I begged her to make me a witch. To train me in her art. A witch can’t be owned by any man-not even a handsome knight.”

“But that was some time ago,” Malden pointed out. “She must not have-”

“She refused me then. She said she’d seen enough of my future, and that she had reason not to give me power. She would not explain further. I hated her that day.” Cythera shook her head. “I didn’t understand. I didn’t know-she wanted me to see the world. She wanted me to know love. She wanted me to meet you.”

“She saw us together?”

Cythera shrugged. “She saw I could have some kind of life. The very thing I wanted. Even if it could only last a little while.”

Malden held her close. “It can last the rest of our lives, if you choose.”

“No, Malden. It can’t. When we first returned to the city she had a surprise waiting for me. She told me she’d changed her mind. That it was time for me to begin my training.”

“Your training as a witch,” Malden breathed.

“Please don’t look at me like that,” Cythera told him. She grabbed his hands, pulled him up so he sat facing her. Leaning forward very carefully, she placed her lips against his.

“You’ll be a witch. Like Coruth.”

“She feels the times coming upon us will be hard. Very grim. She feels I’ll need every bit of power I can muster.” He could see in her eyes there was more to it, but he didn’t press. “She feels the same way about you. It’s why she-and I-guided you toward taking this job.”

“A witch,” Malden said, because he couldn’t stop thinking it. A witch like Coruth. There were worse allies a Lord Mayor could ask for than a pair of resident witches. Though for some reason the thought of Cythera wearing shapeless robes and staring into other places with wild eyes made him feel weak and alone.

A witch could not be owned by a man, she had said. And what man would want such a dangerous creature for his own? He might have answered that question. And yet he sensed there was more at stake here than Cythera simply becoming a woman with her own power.

Where witchcraft was involved, there were always rules. Rules only a doomed man would fail to follow. Rules no man could ever know.

“I don’t understand,” he said, his body going limp with a sudden weakness.

She wouldn’t let him go. She pulled him toward her, and he lacked the strength to resist. “Don’t shy away from me now,” she said. “I haven’t even had my initiation yet. Let’s make it seven nights and a day.” She reached up and started unlacing her bodice.