Authors: Miles Cameron
Kronmir said this with such flat disinterest that the mage had to say the words again in his head to understand their import. ‘We wouldn’t want you to be captured,’ Aeskepiles agreed.
‘That would be most – unpleasant. For me, and for your cause.’ Kronmir drank more wine. ‘The capture of either of my principal agents would be just as disastrous.’
‘How much do they know?’ the mage asked.
Kronmir made an odd face. ‘Excuse me?’ he asked.
‘I mean, if they are too well informed, ought we just to be rid of them?’ asked the hermeticist.
‘Is this how you see the world?’ Kronmir asked. ‘These are people who have served the Duke well.’
Aeskepiles shrugged. ‘Of course.’
Kronmir rose. ‘I find it odd that I – the spy, the hired killer – care more about the people we use than you or Demetrius do, the noble supporters of a noble cause.’ Kronmir’s delivery continued to be so flat that it was possible he was speaking ironically, and the mage chose to take him that way.
He laughed. ‘Be that as it may, I will make you these devices. That is well within my art. And I ask you again – do you hold the Red Knight’s life in your hand?’
Kronmir didn’t smile. His cold eyes, like the eyes of falcon or a lizard, bored into the hermeticist’s eyes, and for a moment Aeskepiles felt a shudder of revulsion.
‘Yes,’ said the spy.
‘No possibility of error – your agent is that sure he can get close to the usurper?’ Aeskepiles asked.
Kronmir looked at him. ‘There is always the possibility of error,’ he said. ‘We don’t call this the game of kings for nothing.’
‘Your agent is reliable?’ asked Aeskepiles.
Kronmir leaned back. ‘You are not as far advanced in the confidence of the Duke as I would have expected, Master Mage. I will not tell you any more.’ He looked away. ‘The Duke needs this information.’
Aeskepiles risked some of his stature with the rebels and shook his head. ‘Damn it, Kronmir, I’m not the enemy. I just want to know if there’s any chance of winning this thing. I had good reason to betray the Emperor. My agenda is not advanced at all by a failed rebellion.’
Kronmir’s face finally registered an emotion – surprise. He leaned forward again. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘That was honest, Master Mage. For my part, I can provide you no assurances. I am a mere mercenary, hired under contract. I have some history with the Duke, and was willing to work on this project under certain conditions.’ He shrugged. ‘It is of little moment to me who is Emperor.’
Aeskepiles spread his hands in frustration. ‘I thought that you were deep in the councils of the Duke!’ he said.
Kronmir rose, and threw his cloak around his shoulders. ‘If I were, I wouldn’t admit it to you. And if I were not, I wouldn’t admit it to you. So I must demur, and say nothing at all. Good day, Master Magister.’ He took a step away from the table and then, with a swirl of his cloak, reappeared by the sorcerer’s side.
‘How are your relations with the Academy?’ he asked suddenly.
Aeskepiles raised an eyebrow. ‘Much like yours with the Duke,’ he said. ‘And with the same codicil.’
Kronmir laughed. Aeskepiles thought it might have been the first time he heard the spy laugh.
‘I had that coming,’ the spy admitted. ‘The message?’
‘Immediately, spy.’
Kronmir bowed, and was gone.
Aeskepiles spent far too much time getting the snow off his hood while incompetent servants fussed over his boots.
‘Damn your eyes,’ he snarled at a maid. ‘I need to see Duke Andronicus.’
The major-domo of the Lonika Palace bowed deeply. ‘Magister, the grand Duke is with the Despot in the Room of Embassies.’
The Palace of Lonika mirrored the Great Palace of Liviapolis in any number of ways – it had magnificent mosaic ceilings, gilt pillars, rooms full of furniture inlaid in ivory and bone and precious gems. But it was all on a far more human scale – the palace itself was the size of a Harndon guild hall, and there were only a hundred servants. Moreover, the relative wealth of the Dukes of Thrake and the smaller scale of the palace meant that the hypocausts worked, the floors were heated, the flues of the Alban-style inside chimneys were clear and warmth trickled even into outside halls, while the main rooms on the three main floors were positively pleasant.
The palace major-domo led the magister up two grand staircases to the Great Hall, which was dark – but warmer than the world outside. They moved silently across the warm marble floors. In the silence, Aeskepiles could actually hear the sound of distant fires roaring in the cellar furnaces.
They crossed the marble floor, passed through a low, arched corridor, and the major-domo knocked at a small inlaid door. A beautiful young man opened it and bowed deeply.
Aeskepiles entered a wood-panelled room – every panel was itself an inlaid trompe l’oeil, a picture of the same panel open to reveal helmets and sextants and paint brushes and daggers and scrolls – a masculine fantasy of the ideal collection, rendered in fine woods and ivory and gilt. It was, indeed, a facsimile of the Imperial study in the Palace of Blacharnae.
Aeskepiles thought it a remarkable piece of vulgarity and, because he hated it, it drew his eye every time he entered the room.
Duke Andronicus and his golden son sat at a magnificent table in northern cherry, mammoth ivory and gold, on ivory stools. They were playing chess, a set of pieces carved by an artist from Umroth ivory and the rare black bone of the non-dead.
‘Aeskepiles!’ said Andronicus with an enthusiasm that came across as patently false. A life of palace political life had robbed the Duke of normal human reactions – it was very difficult to determine what he thought about anything.
Demetrius, who had been kept away from court, scowled contemptuously at the mage. He didn’t hide his feelings.
‘We’re playing chess,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you respect our privacy and return at a mutually convenient time?’ The words were polite, but the intent was anything but.
Hating Demetrius was a city-wide hobby, and one that Aeskepiles disdained. ‘My lord, I would not interrupt, but that I have two pieces of news. The first is that I fear for the loyalty of the spy, Kronmir.’
Andronicus shrugged. ‘He’s his own man, I agree. But that was part of our arrangement. He has brought some remarkable tools to the table.’
Aeskepiles settled at the table. ‘He claims he can kill the Red Knight at any time, but he will not discuss his methods or the source of this message.’
Duke Andronicus caught sight of the message tube in palace colours and he reached for it.
‘I feel sometimes that I am not in your confidence, my lord Duke, despite being one of the engines of our shared rebellion. And despite having placed the Emperor in your hands.’ Aeskepiles plucked the message cylinder out of the Duke’s hands and placed it high above them with a whisper and a thought. ‘I, too, am an ally of convenience, my lord Duke, and I do not feel that my convenience has been consulted very often. I have certain goals. I would like to know the state of play.’
Duke Andronicus crossed his arms like a man in a fight with his wife. ‘Are you done?’ He turned his head to where his son had just drawn his short sword. ‘Do not threaten our guest.’
‘He’s a useless old fuck. I could gut him and we’d be the better for it.’ Demetrius stood up.
His magnificent sword – blued and gilt with a scene of the crucifixion – rusted away to flakes in a single breath, leaving only the gilt – for a moment – before the whole fell like a dirty orange snow to the floor.
He dropped the hilt as if the rust were a contagion he might catch. ‘Fuck you, you bastard,’ he spat.
‘Your son is our single greatest liability,’ Aeskepiles said, effectively muffling the boy with another small working. ‘Even your own people hate him.’
Andronicus shrugged. ‘That’s as may be. He’s my flesh and blood, and a fine cavalry officer. And I can trust him with anything. Unlike a certain mage.’
‘Don’t be a fool, Andronicus. You can trust me – I have no other place to go. Kronmir admitted that two of his agents know how we planned the coup. And who was in it with us.’
Andronicus stroked his short ginger beard. ‘They need to die, then,’ he said.
‘I’ll see to that. In the meantime, be wary of the spy. He knows too much.’ The magister brought the cylinder down from the ceiling and gave it to the Duke, who read it greedily and cursed.
But when he was done, he met the mage’s eye and smiled. ‘I know you want him killed,’ he said. ‘But he’s ridden from the city with an army, and I’ll have him in a week. In my own country? The thing’s as good as done. Can you handle his hermetical?’
‘I was the Imperial mage,’ Aeskepiles said. ‘I can handle a mercenary company from Alba.’ He leaned forward. ‘Should we move the Emperor?’
‘Why?’ asked the Duke. ‘He’s leagues west of here, with people I trust. The usurper will never get that far. Our report says he’s headed east!’
Harndon – The Queen
Desiderata dismounted from her horse and rushed across the frozen ground, but it was too late.
The Sieur de Rohan stood with a bloody sword, and one of her favourites, Ser Augustus, lay bleeding. The blood pumped from his side and flowed out of his mouth, and it ran on and on, and he lay there. His eyes found hers, and of all things, he smiled.
He opened his mouth, and more blood came out – gouts of it.
She knelt, regardless of the blood and the ordure, and took his head in her lap. ‘What is this?’ she asked.
Rohan laughed. ‘One of your lovers? One fewer, then.’ He bowed his head. ‘My lady Queen,’ he said with a smile.
Ser Augustus looked at her as if she was his hope of heaven, and she reached inside to try—
He was slipping away, like a guest leaving a party without saying goodbye to the hostess, and she tripped after him – through the open woods where they’d been riding, across the open field where the wagon waited with all their hawks, and then into the woods and he flitted on ahead of her, and suddenly she was in dark and broken country. She stopped, and watched Ser Augustus go on – up the dark slope and away from her best effort to throw her golden light to him.
She rose, covered in blood – her white wool dress now scarlet and dark brown. She stalked regally after the Sieur de Rohan. ‘Explain yourself, sir, before I have you arrested.’
‘Arrested? On the word of a woman?’ He laughed in her face. ‘Unlike these others, I merely defend your husband’s honour – as my lord, the great Captal, does on a larger field.’
She was quite calm. ‘Are you accusing me of something, messire?’
‘That is for a greater baron than I,’ he said, and his eyes were lit as if from within. ‘I will merely content myself with cutting the evil weeds from his garden.’
Lady Mary stood at the Queen’s shoulder. She stepped between the murderer and the Queen. ‘I think you are a coward and a murderer,’ she said.
The Galle’s smile slipped into blank rage. His hand twitched.
‘Mary!’ cautioned the Queen.
‘I think you are a coward who seeks to torment the Queen when all of our best knights are away – fighting the Wild.’ Mary took a step towards him.
‘
We
are your best knights. There is no knight in this beggarly country that can stand against us. Coward? I? I challenged him and I beat him. You Albans pretend that black is white. It is not. He was a coward. His hand shook when he drew his sword.’
‘And you enjoyed that, did you not? I say you are a false knight, a poltroon—’ She leaned forward—
His hand, uncontrolled, shot out and struck her, and she fell backward.
‘Arrest the Galle,’ said the Queen.
‘You bitch,’ Rohan said softly.
Desiderata’s eyes met his for a moment, and she said, ‘You want open war between us?
So be it
.’
The King sat on his throne with all of his officers present and scratched the ears of his wolfhound. ‘Are you a pack of complete idiots?’ he growled. ‘I demand my officer be released immediately. He committed no crime—’
‘He struck my daughter in front of fifty witnesses!’ roared the Constable. ‘By God and all the saints—’
De Vrailly turned to him. ‘If you desire satisfaction, challenge me, and we will settle this.’
The Count faced the Captal with an icy bow. ‘Whatever odd customs you Galles keep at home, my lord, here in Alba we have laws which bind all men. Your man has broken a slew of them – lese majestie, and assault against an innocent woman—’
‘Who called him a coward, in public, before witnesses – for a woman to do that! That she should dare to even raise her eyes to such a man!’ said the Captal. ‘In Galle, women know their places.’
There was a particularly icy silence while Gaston d’Eu, the usual peacemaker, glared at his cousin with ill-concealed distaste. ‘Do they really, cousin? I think you fantasise.’
The Captal turned his glare on his cousin. ‘Withdraw that,’ he said.
The Count d’Eu settled himself. ‘No. I, the Comte d’Eu, declare that you lie. Women in Galle are every bit as free to speak their minds at court as men. You create a world that suits yourself, rather than observing reality. I will maintain my point of view with my reality.’
The King shot to his feet. ‘Damn the lot of you!’ he roared.
Even the Captal backed away a step.
The King walked past the Queen, who sat in silence, her hands crossed.
‘Your daughter behaved like a fishwife, yelling insults at a knight,’ said the King to his Count. He walked another few steps to the Captal. ‘Your man used a duel as a pretext for murder, and made broad allegations about my wife’s fidelity – did you know about this, Captal?’
The Captal had no trouble meeting the King’s eyes. ‘It is commonly reported,’ he said. And he shrugged. ‘But my man killed your gentleman over a private matter – nothing to do with the Queen or the law. They are both knights – only the Law of War covers them. Ser Augustus was found wanting.’ The Captal shrugged. ‘I have read your laws. If my man made an accusation against the Queen, let her bring her witnesses forth. Otherwise, he was arrested for a provoked attack on a woman.’
‘Do Galles hit women so very often?’ asked the Count of the Borders. ‘None of my training in chivalry covered such a point. Is it a particular part of the Law of War?’