Saint's Blood: The Greatcoats Book 3 (27 page)

‘Please, Lady Ingetha, do not trouble yourself for me.’

‘Two visits in one day, your Grace! You do me such great kindness!’

Jillard smiled and reached over to hold one of her hands. ‘My Lady, the pleasure is mine.’ He paused theatrically and announced, ‘I must confess, however, that it isn’t by my design that I return to you this evening.’

Lady Ingetha looked at me, then back at Jillard, and the Duke reached out his other hand and laid it on my arm. ‘Falcio here insisted we come – he’s been absolutely beside himself with worry since the events of this afternoon. “How is she, Jillard?” he’s been demanding, over and over. “I must see her!”’

The old woman’s eyes widened and she reached out her other hand for mine. Even her son looked a little less homicidal, though I imagine I just looked confused. I neither recognised the Lady Ingetha’s name, nor did I remember ever having met her. ‘I’m sorry, my Lady, but I—’

‘He had no choice, you see?’ Jillard broke in. ‘The life of the heir to the throne was at stake. “If only I could have leaped sooner, Jillard,” he kept telling me, “I might have saved that poor woman from being injured.”’

Only then did I make the connection. ‘I hit you,’ I said, stupidly.

Lady Ingetha squeezed my hand. ‘It wasn’t your fault, dear. You had to protect the heir.’ She gave a sidelong glance at her son. ‘I could never blame you for that.’

The man appeared to reach a decision; he rose to his feet and extended a hand to me. ‘I said some wrong-headed things about you, First Cantor, and about the Greatcoats. I was wrong.’

We shook, and he nodded as if we’d just settled a trade agreement.
This is why Jillard brought me here – not to visit the woman I’d injured, but to placate her son’s outrage.
How close had I come to creating yet another enemy of the Crown for Valiana to contend with?

I glanced over at Jillard. His expression was studiously neutral, but even with all his skill he couldn’t keep the delight from his eyes. He’d taught me my lesson: I needed a political ally. I needed
him
.

‘Oh, Love bless all of you,’ Lady Ingetha said, her eyes glistening. ‘To think such great and powerful men are so concerned over the wellbeing of an old woman!’

Jillard smiled and reached down a hand to stroke her cheek. ‘And what else should great and powerful men concern themselves with, my Lady?’

She batted his hand away affectionately. ‘You are an outrageous flirt, your Grace, always have been: a veritable devil in the guise of a man.’

Well
, I thought, as Jillard and I left the woman and her son,
at least one true thing was said tonight.

I wandered the Palace of Luth for the next several hours, propelled by the need to puzzle through the insanity of recent events, not to mention a perverse desire to master the use of the damned cane. When you’ve spent most of your life learning to wield a sword with some degree of facility, it feels odd to be overwhelmed by a wooden stick.

However, all I really accomplished was to make my ankle and my head equally sore. Bleary-eyed, I accepted defeat and set out in search of a bed.

The palace halls were almost empty by then, but eventually I found a young woman in a page’s doublet who appeared to know what she was doing and, more importantly, where I was supposed to be. ‘The Ducal Protector set aside rooms for you,’ the page informed me, and proceeded to recite directions so complicated they should by rights have led to buried treasure.

‘Thanks,’ I said, after having her repeat them for the third time.

‘That Lady Ethalia is remarkable,’ the girl said, wistfully. ‘She moves with such perfect grace, doesn’t she?’

‘Um . . . I suppose so,’ I mumbled, a bit taken aback; generally speaking, pages don’t express opinions to guests. But Ducal pages came from noble families, of course, so to her a Greatcoat was probably little better than a common tradesman.

I left the girl and headed up the stairs and down the successive hallways, following the route she had assured me would lead to my rooms. It wasn’t until I turned the corner into a narrower passageway lined with elaborately carved wooden doors that I realised why the page had mentioned Ethalia.

The damned Ducal Protector put us in the same room
, I realised.
He doesn’t know we’re not together any more.

With all the insanity that had been whirling around us, there had never quite been a moment in which to discuss something as banal as sleeping arrangements. Now two guards stood in front of the door that led to what I had no doubt would be a wonderfully comfortable private apartment with a wonderfully comfortable bed that I would
not
be sleeping in tonight.

I turned to leave. Even as full as the Palace of Luth was, there must be a spare room somewhere – and if I couldn’t find a bed anywhere else I could always find Kest or Brasti and bunk with them.

‘
You know your problem, Falcio
,’ I imagined Brasti declaring, ghostly finger wagging at me in the empty air of the corridor. ‘
Your problem is that you allow life to be complicated.
’

I knew Brasti’s advice would be to walk straight down the corridor to my room, give the two guards a wink and knock on the door.

‘
Now, when she opens the door,
’ my ethereal advisor went on, ‘
forget all this shit about Saints and fevers and devilry. Kiss her full on the lips and count to sixty. When you’re done, take her by the hand and lead her to bed.
’

Although it would defy all natural laws, I wondered if Brasti might just be right for once. Why was I accepting the premise that magic and intrigue and – Gods-help-me! – religion should dictate the terms of our existence? When had I become so willing to let the darkness of an hour fill the entirety of my day? Even during the worst of the years since King Paelis died, when Kest and Brasti and I spent every day fighting just to stay alive, we’d shared the same world view: that we would laugh in the face of death and stare down the worst of life’s tragedies.

You’ve fought pikemen with a crossbow bolt in your thigh, taken on three duels an hour later with the wounds still fresh. Hells, you’ve beaten Knights and Dashini assassins and Shuran himself in worse condition than you are now. Stop being such a milksop.

I held up the walking stick and stared at it. I’d only been carrying this thing around with me for a few hours and already I felt like an old man. I leaned it against the wall and left it there.

A true swordsman likes a little pain – it focuses the mind.

I strode up to the guards without allowing myself to limp. ‘Good evening, gentlemen. Nice night, don’t you think?’

One of the guards looked as though he might say something, but caught a glance from the other and contented himself with, ‘A fine night, First Cantor.’

I was gratified by his use of my title. Ducal guardsmen usually just call us ‘Trattari scum’ or ‘tatter-cloaked coward’.

I raised my hand to knock on the door when I noticed something sitting against the floor – a wooden box about a foot square and perhaps eight inches tall. ‘What’s that?’

‘Oh, hells,’ said the guard. ‘I almost forgot. That’s for you.’

‘Someone left me a box?’

‘I believe so, sir.’ The guard reached down at his feet and lifted up the worn oak case. ‘There’s no note on it so we just assumed—’

‘Who brought it here?’ I asked.

‘It was here when we arrived, First Cantor,’ the second guard said.

I examined the card; finding nothing other than my name on it, I turned my attention to the box itself. It was entirely possible that it was a trap of some kind, but most of the time it’s vastly easier and more reliable to send someone to stick a knife in the back of your neck. Nonetheless, I worked my way carefully around every edge, looking for anything that might trigger once I opened the lid. Finding nothing, I handed the box to the shorter of the guards.

‘What’s your name, guardsman?’

‘Sedge, sir. Lord Meretier sent our company to join the palace guards after Duke—’

I cut him off. ‘Save your life history for the tavern, Sedge. Just hold the box out so the front faces the opposite wall.’

He did so without hesitation and I took up position next to him and carefully opened the lid. When no magical fire appeared or exploding darts shot out, I looked inside.

The other guard saw it first. ‘Saints . . .’ he swore.

Inside the box was an iron mask.

Like the one Birgid had worn, it was roughly fashioned to look like a face full of madness and fear. There were no holes for the eyes, just the same three thin vertical slits like those of a Knight’s visor where the mouth should be. The same strange iron funnel had been welded to the inside, designed to be forced into the mouth of the wearer, preventing them from speaking.

Keeping them from doing anything but screaming.

‘Where is the man who gave you this?’ I asked, expecting my voice to be cold with rage, and yet to my ears I sounded more like a child walking into a dark room full of imagined terrors.

‘It’s as we said, sir,’ the tall one replied. ‘It was here when we arrived.’

‘What’s your name?’ I demanded.

His voice trembled. ‘I’m Beltran, sir. I’m one of—’

‘Who gave you orders to guard this door?’

‘The Ducal Protector himself, sir. He said the lady needed complete silence and solitude on account of some sort of condition she—’

‘There’s something underneath,’ the other guard, Sedge, said suddenly. ‘In the box.’

I looked back inside. Sticking out from under the back half of the mask with its cruel-looking clamps to hold the two pieces together was the corner of a note. I removed it gingerly. It had been written in plain, almost merry handwriting.

It said,
You Will Make Her Wear It
.

‘Who put this here?’ I asked, my hands shaking so hard I nearly dropped the mask.

‘We told you, sir, it was—’

I grabbed Sedge by the neck with my left hand. Even through his leather collar I could feel his throat contracting. ‘Are you lying to me? Did someone bribe you to bring this here?’

Beltran drew his blade, looking uncertain what to do. ‘Sir, it’s as we said, the box—’

The man I was choking grabbed at my arm. ‘Please, sir, I swear—’

‘Falcio?’

The blood rushing in my ears was so loud I hadn’t heard the door open. Ethalia stood only inches away from me, dressed in the pale blue nightgown that Aline had gifted her.

I released the guard and held the mask at my side, out of view.

‘Falcio, what’s wrong?’ Ethalia asked.

I tried to speak, but words wouldn’t come and she looked at me with concern and pity in her eyes. She stretched out a hand. ‘Come inside. We can talk.’

‘Forgive me,’ I tried to say to the guard, to her, to the world around me. ‘I took a wrong turn on my way to bed.’

‘Nothing to forgive, sir,’ Sedge said.

I looked to the other guard, Beltran. He nodded. ‘Perfectly understandable, First Cantor. We should have searched for the messenger when we found the box here. We apologise.’ He started to bow.

I’d been about to turn and head back down the hall, but his deference stopped me cold. ‘You
apologise
?’ I asked.

Ethalia’s eyes were on me. ‘Falcio? I can feel your anger. You’re burning up inside. Whatever is wrong—?’

With my free hand I shoved her backwards, sending her tumbling into the room, and before either of the guards could react, I swung the iron mask and caught Sedge on the ear, knocking him back into Beltran.

Ethalia was back on her feet. ‘Falcio, why are you—?’

‘Bar the door,’ I shouted, ‘for the love of Saint Birgid!’

My choice of Saint was enough to make her comply instantly; the heavy door swung shut and the click of the latch was followed by the sound of the bar dropping in place, echoing in the empty hallway. Sedge was holding his face with one hand and his sword with the other. Beltran stood next to him, his own shortsword at the ready. ‘Sir, please, calm yourself. Let one of us get the captain and we can sort this out before—’

‘I’ve been a Greatcoat for fifteen years,’ I said. ‘Ten of those years were spent going back and forth to palaces like this one. I’ve been dealing with guardsmen and soldiers from every part of the country. Let me tell you: in all those years, never once have I met a Ducal guard who’s ever
apologised
to a Greatcoat, especially not one who’d just been accused of taking a bribe. And I’ve never met one who would even
think
of bowing to me.’

For a long time the two guardsmen just stared at me, looking as innocent and confused as children who’d been struck without reason. Then the shorter one, Sedge, his face red and already swelling, broke. It started as a twitch at the side of his mouth, then twisted into a wide grin.

‘Who’d’ve thought that politeness could get you into so much trouble?’ His voice and diction were clearer now, no longer a rough-born soldier but someone of wealthier stock.

Beltran, also recognising the game was done, said, ‘Not as much trouble as attacking two men when you can barely stand, and you without even a sword in hand.’

‘You can scream for help if you like,’ Beltran added politely. ‘But we cleared the wing an hour ago.’

Sedge winked. ‘“First Cantor’s orders”, we told them.’ He’d taken on his fake guardsman’s voice. ‘“Wants to reconcile with his Lady”.’

It annoyed me no end to realise it had been that easy. For the first time I took more careful stock of them both. Sedge was a little shorter than me, but his shoulders were broader. If he got his arms around me I’d have a difficult time getting free. Beltran was a few inches taller than either of us, with a long reach that would serve him well, even with a guardsman’s shortsword. He walked a little heavier on his right foot, though, which likely meant he had a problem with his left. That would shorten his lunge.

I took a step back and the pain in my ankle jagged up my leg, helpfully reminding me that I was the most vulnerable one of the three of us.

‘Looks like he didn’t appreciate your gift of the stick, Sedge,’ Beltran said.