got no further than that. Moving as gracefully as ever, Remy of Orreze, her former lover—every woman’s former lover, someone had once said, though not bitterly—slipped neatly under her instinctive, warding gesture, put a shoulder to her midriff and had her hoisted in the air before Lisseut could even try to phrase some remotely plausible reason why she should be exonerated from the water-ducking. A dozen pairs of hands, both before and behind, hastened to assist him in bearing her aloft like some sacrifice of the Ancients towards the ducking basin by the bar.
Every year! Lisseut was thinking, grasped too tightly to even struggle. We do this every cursed year! Where was my brain just now?
In the chaos around her she noticed that Aurelian had already turned back to the door to resume his counting. Remy had her around the waist from below and was tickling now, which was inexcusable, given what he ought to have remembered about her. Cursing, giggling helplessly, Lisseut felt her flailing elbow crack into something and was unconscionably pleased a second later to note that it was Elisse who staggered back, swearing like a soldier herself and holding a hand to the side of her head. Holy Rian must have guided her elbow; there was no one else in the room she would actually have wanted to hit! Well, with the exception of Remy, perhaps. She frequently wanted to hit Remy of Orreze. Many of them did, when they weren’t listening intently to some favoured joglar singing his newest song.
Lisseut saw the basin loom beneath her. She felt herself being swung completely upside-down. Her feathered hat, which was also new, and expensive, flew from her head undoubtedly to be crushed underfoot amid the densely packed, raucously shouting crowd. Through the arc of a swiftly inverting world she glimpsed her dripping-wet Arimondan predecessor being unceremoniously bundled aside. Dragging a quick breath of tavern air into her lungs, still cursing herself for a dewy-eyed fool, Lisseut closed her eyes tightly as they swung her down into the water.
It wasn’t water.
‘Marotte!’ she cried, spluttering and gasping when they finally lifted her out. ‘Marotte, do you know what he’s done! This isn’t—’
‘Down!’ Remy commanded, cackling uproariously. Lisseut frantically sucked air again just before she was once more submerged.
They held her under for a long time. When she finally surfaced, it took all her strength to twist her neck towards the bar and croak, ‘It’s wine, Marotte! Cauvas sparkling! He’s using—’
‘Down!’ Remy shrieked again, but not before Lisseut heard a howl of outrage from Marotte.
‘What? Cauvas? Remy, I’ll flay you alive! Are you dunking people in my best—?’
Pushed back under, her ears stopped, Lisseut heard no more, but a small, inner glint of satisfaction made the last ducking easier to endure. She even took a quick swig of the wine before they pulled her out for the third and final time. Cauvas sparkling gold was not something young joglars tasted very often, even conceding that being dunked head first into a basin of it after an oiled and perfumed Arimondan was not the connoisseur’s preferred mode of consumption.
They swung her out and righted her in time for Lisseut to see a red-faced Marotte confronting Remy across the bar top.
‘Carnival tithe, Marotte!’ the fair-haired darling of the troubadours was saying, eyes alight with mischief. ‘You’ll make more than enough off all of us this week to cover the cost.’
‘You madman, this is a sacrilege!’ Marotte expostulated, looking as truly outraged as only a lover of fine wines could. ‘Do you know what Cauvas wine costs? And how many bottles you’ve wasted in there? How in the name of Rian did you get into my cellars?’
‘Really, Marotte,’ Remy retorted with lofty, exaggerated disdain, ‘did you really expect a padlock to keep me out?’ A number of people laughed.
‘Seven!’ Aurelian said crisply, his low voice cutting through the hilarity in the room. Everyone—including Lisseut, vigorously drying her face and hair with the towel one of the servers had kindly offered—turned expectantly towards the door. A young, red-headed student came in, blinked a little at the scrutiny he was subjected to and made his way uncertainly towards the bar. He ordered a flagon of ale. No one paid him any attention. They were watching the entrance.
They didn’t have long to wait. The eighth person in was a broad-shouldered, competent-looking coran of middle years. As it happened, a number of those in the tavern knew him very well, including Lisseut. But before she had a chance to properly register and react to the enormity of what was about to happen the next man, the ninth, had already passed through the door.
‘Oh, dearest god!’ Marotte the innkeeper murmured, in an entirely uncharacteristic appeal to Corannos. In the abrupt silence his voice sounded very loud.
The ninth was Duke Bertran de Talair.
‘Nine,’ said Aurelian, an unnecessary confirmation. His voice was hushed, almost reverential. He turned to Remy. ‘But I really don’t think …’ he began.
Remy of Orreze was already moving forward, his handsome face shining, a wild, hilarious look in the blue eyes beneath the damp ringlets of his hair.
‘Hoist him!’ he cried. ‘We all know the rules—the ninth is ducked in Rian’s name! Seize the duke of Talair!’
Valery, the coran, Bertran’s cousin and old friend, actually stepped aside, grinning broadly as he sized up the situation. The duke himself, beginning to laugh, held up both hands to forestall the swiftly approaching Remy. Jourdain, very drunk already, was right behind Remy, with Alain and Elisse and a handful of others following a little more cautiously. Lisseut, mouth open in disbelief, realized in that moment that Remy was actually going to do it: he was about to lay hands on one of the most powerful men in Arbonne in order to dunk him in a tub of water. Correction, she thought, a tub of vintage, insanely expensive sparkling Cauvas wine. Remy—mad, cursed, blessed, impossible Remy—was going to do it.
He would have, if another man, clad in the blue-on-blue colours of Talair but with a full, reddish-brown beard and features that stamped him unmistakably as from Gorhaut, had not stepped forward from the doorway behind Bertran just then and levelled a drawn blade at Remy’s breast.
Remy’s reckless, giddy motion was carrying him forward over the slippery floor too swiftly to stop. From her place by the basin, Lisseut, hands flying to her mouth, saw the whole thing clearly. Bertran quickly spoke a name, but even before he did the man with the sword had shifted it aside. Not all the way, though, just enough for the tip to glance off Remy’s left arm and away.
It drew blood. The man had meant to draw blood, Lisseut was almost certain of it. She saw her former lover come to an awkward, stumbling halt and clutch at his arm below the shoulder. His hand came away streaked with crimson. She couldn’t see his expression, but it was easy enough to guess. There was a collective growl of anger from the musicians and students gathered in The Liensenne. The rule against drawn blades in taverns was as old as the university; indeed, it was one of the things that had permitted the university to survive. And Remy of Orreze, for all his impossible ways, was one of them. One of their leaders, in fact, and the big man who had just bloodied him with a blade was from Gorhaut.
In that tense moment, with the scene in the tavern on the brink of turning ugly, Bertran de Talair laughed aloud.
‘Really, Remy,’ he said, ‘I don’t think that would have been a good idea, much as Valery might have enjoyed suspending his own good judgment long enough to see me ducked.’ He flicked a sidelong glance at his cousin who, surprisingly, flushed. The bearded man with the drawn sword had not yet sheathed it. Now he did, at a nod from de Talair.
‘I think Aurelian might have been trying to tell you as much,’ En Bertran went on. Lanky, dark-haired Aurelian had indeed remained by the bar, not far from Lisseut. He said nothing, watching the scene with sober, careful attention.
‘You know the rules of Carnival,’ Remy said stoutly, his head high. ‘And your hired northern lout has just broken the city laws of Tavernel. Shall I report him to the seneschal?’
‘Probably,’