Chapter Twelve The Golden Cobra Encounters Bandits
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Golden Cobra Encounters Bandits
“You must be the famous Golden Cobra,” remarked the Emperor.
The Cobra said, “No, thank you.”
When the Emperor circled the wicked marquis with the inexorable movement of a stalking cat, his stalk was suddenly arrested and the Emperor looked suddenly entertained.
Lord Marius Valerius placed himself, an immovable shield of ice, between the Cobra and danger.
Time of Lies, ANONYMOUS
Other men might find being held at knifepoint alarming. A Valerius was not as other men. Marius had heard the steps disturbing earth and crushing grass, the singing-scrape of steel being unsheathed, and felt the whisper of warmth before fingers closed hard on his curls, all with perfect clarity.
Marius leaned his head back against Eric’s shoulder, to give Eric better access, and awaited further events.
One of the bandits, an individual in need of a shave, stepped forward. “I’m the leader. Cut his throat and you can have a share of the take.”
“Intriguing offer, but I’m the Golden Cobra. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?” Eric laughed.
He was the most infamous man in the kingdom.
Richer than the royal treasury, master of spies, consorter with thieves and actresses, conspirator with the Beauty Dipped In Blood.
Once, Marius would have burned with fury to hear him brag of his wickedness, but that was when he was only the Golden Cobra, before he was Eric.
Now Marius watched these golden tidings, with their accompanying golden prospects, strike the bandits.
“Listen.” With rising outrage, Marius realized Eric was using his gentle voice.
On common criminals! “Few people hope to be bandits who live in the woods when they grow up. Most of you were forced onto this path by panic at the new war, or by the greed of your lords. But you have turned extremity into art. I heard news of you from all my spies. You’ve passed the test. You’ve impressed me.
Congratulations on deftly plying your trade, but you must know few bandits retire rich.
Let me offer another path. I can use people with your talents. Come work for me.”
The bandit spat on the Cobra’s offer, spittle landing on the grass mere inches from their feet. Marius went for him.
Or tried to. The beringed fist in Marius’s hair wrenched tight and pulled to the hot, sweet point of pain.
Eric’s whisper took on the edge of command. “I believe I already made a sharp suggestion to hold still!”
Marius obeyed.
At the same time, the bandit chief jeered. “Make a bargain with a lord? Us?”
“With a lord?” Amusement wound bright as gold thread through Eric’s voice.
“No. Make a bargain with a liar. The best you’ve ever met.
Everyone knows the ‘Marquis of Popenjoy’ is a fiction.
I used to be a street thief. One day, if you ally with me, you’ll be rich enough to act the lord.
Come, what will it be? Enough rope to hang you, or enough riches to get away with any crime?
This should not be a difficult decision. ”
Amelia called out helpfully, “The talented are richly rewarded by the Cobra. His word is gold, and his gold is better.”
In the hush of the woods, a leaf drifted down in the air.
“I say I spit on you again!” bellowed the bandit chief, charging.
In the instant it took Marius to calculate how he might simultaneously disarm and shield Eric, others moved.
A woman and a freckled youth among the bandits.
She wore a red kerchief in her tight curls and gestured to the youth.
The freckled bandit lad closed in on one side, the red-kerchiefed woman on the other, and both plunged their knives in at the same moment.
As the former bandit leader toppled over, the woman wiped her red knife on her side-slit skirts, and bowed with a flourish. “I say, how may I serve you, my golden liar lord?”
Eric released his hold on Marius’s hair with a last brief clasp, rings cool against the nape of Marius’s neck, in what might be apology or reassurance. He dropped the blade on the grass and stepped forward to meet the bandit woman halfway.
“Excellent choice.”
Marius did not find approaching bandits unarmed to be an excellent choice. He caught Eric’s arm and tried to draw him back, behind him, where he could be safely guarded. Most would surrender in the hold of a Valerius. The Cobra patted Marius’s gauntleted hand with breezy unconcern.
“Don’t worry about him, he’s a kitty cat.”
The new bandit chief shot Marius a hard glance. “The House of Valerius turns out kitty cats these days?”
Eric positioned himself deliberately between them. For such a clever man, the Golden Cobra behaved in a senseless manner.
“What I mean is, he’s chosen to wickedly ally with me. Everyone’s making wise choices these days. May I suggest another wise choice? Don’t take this the wrong way – I entirely blame your former malodorous leader – but when was the last time all of you bathed?”
Scarce half an hour later, they located a freshwater stream running through the woodsthat fed into the Lake of Sorrow near Marius’s home. Both bandits and their people had discreet sentries posted, but so far a cautious peace held.
The Golden Cobra sat on the riverbank, knees to his chest, surveying his latest acquisitions with every sign of satisfaction. The waters reflected a silver sky above, with only the faintest trace of red remaining.
“Do you think the sky’s still red over the capital?” Eric mused aloud.
“Surely not. People couldn’t carry on their ordinary lives under a sky gone mad.”
“I wonder.” Whether Eric was wondering about the sky, or about people, was unclear.
Finally, Marius had the chance to crouch at Eric’s side on the riverbank and say, “May I demand – may I ask for – an explanation for your outrageous behaviour?”
“I’m sorry I held you at knifepoint. I had to think fast.”
“Not that.” Marius waved off this irrelevance. “Why have you adopted a bandit gang?”
“Well, but the poor things,” said Eric.
“The poor bandit gang?”
“We’ve had the talk about how sometimes people’s circumstances, which you’ve never experienced and shouldn’t judge, force them into behaviour you consider immoral. Honour is a luxury for some.”
“Honour is a necessity for the honourable,” Marius snapped.
“Some of them were starving before war in the capital made them desperate,” Eric snapped back.
“If you don’t know what starving looks like, I do.
They need help, not a blade. Was I supposed to let you slaughter them all?
Risk them killing some of us? Better to have as many people as possible on our side. ”
“Don’t put yourself in danger.”
“Don’t worry about that.” Eric spoke as if his wellbeing was not the primary concern of Marius’s life.
“I’m skilled with people and wealth management.
I have a great eye for who’ll stay bribed.
” He leaned briefly against Marius’s side, caught his eye, and gave a wicked wink. “Trust me, I’m a villain.”
Eric had the sweetest temper of any man alive, which meant he took dangerous risks when he wanted to trust people: Lady Rahela, and now bandits. On the whole, Marius preferred the bandits.
Marius would triple the sentries. Any thief in the night searching for gold would find steel. And if any of these bandits did prove trustworthy, Marius would have to guard them as he did whatever Eric held dear.
I swear to love all you love, and hate all you hate.
You will feel no rain, as I will be a shelter for you.
You will feel no hunger or thirst while I have food to give or wine in my cup.
When my name is in your mouth, I will always answer, and your name will be my call to arms. I will ever be a shield for your back, and the story told between us will be true.
Everything agreed between us, I will carry out, for yours is the will I have chosen.
Marius had sworn, and he would keep his vows.
Even though Eric hadn’t shared his story with Marius. The story told between us will be true. Eric had made no vows, Marius reminded himself for the hundredth time. Marius could not be angry with him. It was not safe. Marius couldn’t blame Eric for his king’s death. He could only blame himself.
Eric studied him with a hopeful air. “Do you understand? A little?”
“I don’t have to understand,” Marius answered steadily. “Yours is the will I have chosen. Remember?”
Eric blinked, as if taken aback every time he did remember. He leaned away and studied the trees. Air ran a current as cold as water between them.
Splashing on the far bank, Amelia and the new bandit chief seemed to have made fast friends. Amelia cupped her hands and called out: “Cobra! Come join us!”
“I’m coming, and I’m bringing soap,” the Cobra shouted over the water. “I’ll give a special bonus to the bandit who uses the most soap.”
A vicious scuffle broke out. Earlier in the day, Marius would not have predicted that the battle of the bandits would be fought over soap. The Cobra stood. Safe in his shadow, Marius let his lips curve slightly.
When he glanced up, he found Eric watching him with unconcealed fondness. “Thank you for trusting me not to cut your throat.”
Marius stared in polite bafflement.
“I am in your hands. My throat is yours. Cut if you choose.”
He knew he’d got something wrong again when the Cobra’s eyes widened. Eric usually made that expression before he described Marius as “incredibly intense”. Marius didn’t know any other way to be.
Marius beckoned over his captain so he could order the tripling of the sentries. Marius would watch by Eric’s tent, of course. He would trust nobody else.
Captain Diarmat nodded in agreement, then shook his head in wonder. “Never thought I’d see the day when we were allying with bandits instead of executing the grubby criminals.”
Not so grubby, once the Cobra had his way. Marius repressed another smile.
“You see?” Marius asked. “It’s different now.”
The captain nodded. “My lord, I see very well.”
After Diarmat departed to arrange the sentries, the thought of his ancestral manor loomed in Marius’s mind, as sometimes it did when Eric was not by. Chill enclosed him, as though he was already trapped in the tomb of his maddened, bloodthirsty forebears.
A laugh ran across the babbling brook like the sun on the surface of water.
The Golden Cobra had shed his waistcoat and stood bare-chested with the river up to his thighs, vigorously ducking a bandit underwater.
When the bandit surfaced, he was laughing too, coaxed into brightness.
Eric stretched gold-braceleted arms triumphantly over his head, beads of water on his dark, bare skin and long, black ropes of hair turning into liquid drops of gold, body an arc against the radiant wash of a pure-gold sunset.
The children of their party who hung timidly back came wading into the river, wanting only to be close to the beacon he made.
The Cobra saw Marius looking, misinterpreted, and beckoned. Marius shook his head, and cut his own gaze away into the waiting dark among the trees.
To preserve that light, Marius had broken his old vows, betrayed his king to his death, and shattered every notion he had ever held of honour. Though he knew he should, he still could not bring himself to regret it. That was how Marius knew himself for a hopeless villain.
He would follow that light anywhere. Even home.