Allies & Assassins

by Justin Somper

  Elin shook her head. “My answer is to give them a sign—to make them think that they are being brought closer to the table. We did it once before; when your father made Axel his Captain of the Guard. Now we need to pull your cousin in even closer, make him feel that his hands are in touching distance of the crown.”

  “If he becomes my Edling, then his hands are in touching distance.”

  “Only if you die,” Elin said matter-of-factly. “Which you’re not going to do.” Her eyes met his again. “I certainly don’t intend to lose two sons in quick succession. No, you are young and healthy and you have a long reign in prospect. We will put Axel into position for the time being then in ten years, maybe less, we shall reconsider. There are means at our disposal. Then, perhaps you can move Edvin into position so that we consolidate the Wynyard line. Or, of course, we may wish to consider Silva’s child in order to renew the alliance with Woodlark.”

  Jared listened to his mother’s machinations. “You talk about all this—about all of us—as if it is a game of chess.”

  “Do I?” she said, holding the thought briefly. “Well, I suppose it is in a way. Only much, much more important.” She surveyed her canvas, paintbrush in midair. “So, we are agreed, Axel will be named your Edling.”

  “I suppose so,” Jared said slowly. It was one thing standing up to the Council of Twelve but quite another taking on the force of nature that was his mother.

  “This has to happen,” Elin said. “And it has to happen tomorrow.”

  “All right,” he agreed. “There’s a meeting of the Twelve tomorrow morning. I can announce my decision then.”

  “Excellent,” she said, dipping her brush again and continuing her work away on the canvas.

  “I’m curious,” Jared said now. “What are you painting?” He leaned closer toward her.

  “No,” she said, raising her free hand. “I’ve not quite finished.”

  He wasn’t sure if she was talking about her picture or their conversation.

  “How is Silva today?” Elin asked now. “Have you seen her?”

  “Not since the speech,” he said. In truth, he had not paid much attention to her there, having other things and other pressing people more centrally on his mind.

  “The poor creature is badly shaken,” Elin said.

  “Understandably,” Jared rejoined.

  His mother seemingly declined to engage in this volley, busily daubing at her canvas again.

  “I’m sure she feels utterly alone,” Elin said, after a pause. “She’s never really taken to Archenfield as her home. Have you seen how wistfully she looks through the windows up at the mountains? Thinking, no doubt, of what lies beyond.”

  “No,” he said. Jared realized that he had never paid sufficient attention to his sister-in-law to make such an observation. He was surprised that his mother had but he was starting to recognize that very little escaped Elin’s notice.

  “Well, I can assure you, Jared, that is what she does. And if she was feeling homesick before she lost her husband, imagine how much worse it is for her now. That baby growing inside her will only make it worse. She’ll be pining for Woodlark, mark my words.”

  “Perhaps it would be a kind gesture to allow her to visit her family?” Jared said.

  “I don’t think so,” Elin shuddered at the thought. “Not at this time. They will, of course, come to Anders’s funeral and stay to attend your coronation. But there is no question of Silva crossing state borders—not with the latest addition to our family tree growing inside her.”

  She spoke, Jared thought, as if Silva were only a vessel for Anders’s child. He found himself pitying his sister-in-law. He made a mental note to seek her out at dinner and ask how she was bearing up. Someone had to show her some basic human kindness.

  “You should marry her,” Elin said.

  “What?” Looking up in shock, Jared saw his mother’s eyes twinkling above the rim of her canvas.

  “You should marry her. That way, she remains the Prince’s Consort and we keep the baby secure in our midst.”

  Jared’s eyes narrowed. “That’s very romantic,” he said. “But I’m confident, when the time is right, I can make my own choice of bride.”

  “Your own choice?” Elin laughed at that. “Really? Is that what you think your brother did? I know Logan Wilde excelled himself at seeding the story of Anders and Silva’s fairy-tale romance but I had no idea that you had believed it so wholeheartedly.”

  Jared was unnerved. “You’re telling me it wasn’t a fairy-tale romance?”

  Elin shook her head. “I’d never say such a thing. When your brother laid eyes on the beauty of Woodlark, how could it have been anything but a fairy tale?” She smiled. “Does it really matter whose pen was writing the narrative?”

  Once more, Jared had the sense of his mother’s deft hands hovering over a giant chessboard. He and his brothers; and Silva and Axel—they were all just pieces to be shuffled around to satisfy her power play.

  Just when he thought he was at last getting to know her, he wasn’t so sure that he wanted to.

  “I can see you are morally outraged,” Elin said. “Don’t try to deny it! Your face is easy to read, Jared. That’s something we must work on too. I shall talk to Logan.”

  “No,” he said, rising to his feet. “Don’t talk to Logan! Stop trying to manipulate me… I’ll do your bidding as regards Axel, but it stops there. I’m not your puppet.”

  “Of course not, darling,” his mother said, calmly setting down her brush. “You’re tired. You said so before. That’s why you’re overreacting. I’m certainly not trying to manipulate you, just hoping to share with you the benefit of my experience. After all, you are not the first Prince of Archenfield I have put on the throne. If I can’t offer you informed advice, who can?”

  Perhaps she was right. Maybe he was overreacting due to tiredness. Maybe she hadn’t even been serious in suggesting that he marry his dead brother’s wife.

  She couldn’t have been, could she?

  “I’ve finished,” she announced. “You may give me your verdict.”

  It took him a moment to realize she was referring to her painting. She was surveying it with a critical eye. He walked over and, at last, the picture was revealed to him. Elin’s painting was of a stag. The animal had been wounded—Jared could see the hunter’s arrow deeply embedded in its side, and the trail of blood as it lumbered away.

  “What do you think?” she asked him now. “Be frank. I’m always receptive to criticism.”

  “It’s very good,” he said. Though the subject matter was questionable, there was no doubting the technical artistry behind the scene.

  “Do you really think so?” She rose from her seat. “It commemorates the moment when you first learned you were to be Archenfield’s new Prince. Kai Jagger was kind enough to describe the scene for me. Though it’s not as if I don’t know how a wounded stag looks! I’ve shot enough of them in my time.” She turned her gaze from the painting to Jared. “But this isn’t intended as a nature scene,” she told him. “It’s symbolic. The stag represents the court of Archenfield. He has been wounded very close to his heart, but he is still moving. Though he is in pain, and bleeding, he knows that he has no alternative but to struggle on.”

  Jared’s eyes were assaulted by the vivid red she had mixed up for the stag’s blood. It took him back to that defining moment. But, of course, it hadn’t been his arrow that had felled the stag. He wondered who had embroidered the truth—the Chief Huntsman or Elin herself.

  “I painted it for you,” she told him, looping her arm through his. “I hope you will find it an inspirational gift.”

  “Thank you, Mother,” he said automatically. He would have to find somewhere suitable to hang it. Somewhere where he would rarely have to set his eyes on it. Both the image and his mother’s explanation of it made him uneasy.

  Elin seemed oblivious to his reaction. “Well,” she said. “All of a sudden, I’m famished. Sometimes paint
ing really drains me of my resources. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to wash up and change for dinner.”

  She kissed him, her lips like the wings of a butterfly on the side of his cheek. Then she was gone into the next of her chambers. Jared was left alone, with only his mother’s grim artwork for company.

  NINETEEN

  The Dungeons

  MORGAN BOOTH SMILED AT THE LAST CHIMES of “his” hour faded away. he always felt a particular sense of peace and homecoming as he descended the cold, stone steps to the Dungeons below. Yes, this was the starkest area within the palace complex. It was not the place to come if you valued placing your feet upon richly embroidered carpets—or indeed any kind of carpet. Nor, he reflected as he continued his descent—lantern in hand—would you find in the subterranean dankness fine artworks or elegantly inlaid wooden furniture, such as you certainly would in the rooms, suites and corridors above. Such fripperies mattered little to the Executioner. The Dungeons were the one part of the palace he could call his own. And though it was as true down here as up above that every brick and beam was property of the Wynyard clan, still he knew that the humble Booth family could also lay its own claim to this place.

  At twenty, Morgan was undoubtedly young to be on the ruling council. He had succeeded in the role of court Executioner from his father, Atticus Junior—who had assumed it in turn after the death of his own father, Atticus Senior. The passing of the role from generation to generation down a single family line marked out Morgan Booth as unique within the current Council of Twelve, but he had not inherited the position in any passive way—far from it.

  He had claimed the position by virtue of one of the final decisive battles in the war against Eronesia. The battle had laid claim not only to the life of Prince Goran but also to Atticus Booth Jr. It was a battle in which Morgan, then only eighteen years old, had distinguished himself. The cool-headedness and appetite for violence he had demonstrated on the battlefield had, so Prince Anders later told him, made his succession to Executioner a clear-cut matter.

  Though his father and grandfather were both now deceased, still Morgan often felt their presence there in the dungeons. It occurred to him that they too had felt such a strong sense of belonging there that they had opted never to leave.

  Perhaps for that reason, he liked it best when the Dungeons were empty, save for these jovial family ghosts. No one would say that Booth was an out-and-out loner. He might be found sharing a joke or a smoke with the Captain of the Guard, the Woodsman or members of the night patrol, but still, he valued his time of quietness and solitude. It enabled him to think—and to read.

  He had, within two short years, amassed quite an extensive library down here. This was thanks to, in no small part, to Queen Elin. At the beginning of his tenure, Elin had invited Morgan into the Queen’s Library, high above, in the East Wing and, after questioning him closely about what subjects might be of most interest to him, had sent him away with his heavily tattooed arms loaded down with volumes.

  The Queen had been delighted a few weeks later when he had returned, telling her he had read not just one but all of her recommendations. They had entered into lively debate on their merits. She had insisted that he keep his favorites among the books, telling him that she was constantly fighting a losing battle for shelf-space in the her own library.

  Over a short period of time, the Executioner had become a firm favorite of the Queen’s. Over tea in her library, she quizzed him about what he had just read and what he might like to read next. Her choices rarely failed to intrigue him—though in spite of her best efforts, he was never quite so gripped by novels as by histories, biographies and, best of all, journals of adventure and expedition.

  Morgan kept his growing collection of books on a wooden bookcase he had crafted himself from a felled Archenfield oak. It was positioned against the wall to the right of his workbench. Pausing in front of it now, he ran his hand across the book’s familiar spines. In a way, it was like greeting old friends. There was one in particular he was keen to seek out. The light from his lantern illuminated the titles across each spine. There it was! Reaching forward, he took the thin volume in his hand and, moving back toward his bench, he set the book down. It would come in useful later, once his labors were complete.

  Now he utilized the lantern he had brought in with him to light another at his workbench so he would be able to see clearly what he was doing. It was none too clever to mess around with axes in poor lighting. There they were, his beauties! As the second candle took its flame, the array of different-sized axes above his bench was illuminated. Another row of friends, he thought, reaching out and making his selection.

  Enjoying the familiar touch of the worn hickory wood handle, he placed the axe carefully down so that its convex blade jutted out just over the edge of the workbench. He gently pressed the pad of his thumb against it. Sharp but not sharp enough. No matter. He knew exactly what to do.

  First he scanned the blade for signs of damage. There was one small blemish and he picked up a piece of coarse sandstone to attend to this. He was very gentle, as if he was one of the grooms, brushing the napes of the horses or dogs in the stable complex. After he’d been at it for a brief time, he paused, glancing down at the blade. The blemish was gone. Satisfied with his work, he set down the piece of coarse stone.

  Next, the sharpening of the blade. He took another piece of stone in his hand for this, running his finger across its surface to satisfy himself that this was indeed a finer grade of sandstone. Whether it would do the job better wet or dry was a matter of preference. Booth opted for wet, submerging the stone circle in a basin of water for a moment or two.

  Shaking off the excess liquid, he then applied the stone to the blade of the axe in a practiced circular motion, just as he’d seen his father and grandfather employ on the very same bench. Down and up, down and up with the stone. As he made the gentle circles, he remembered the very first time he’d done this, his father’s large hand guiding his own as he circled the sandstone against the cold metal.

  “Be gentle, Morgan. Gentler even than that.” When his father’s hand had released his own and allowed him to finish the job himself, he had almost burst with pride.

  This blade didn’t need any more work. It would be sharp enough now to trim his neat mustache and beard. He set down the stone and finally picked up a worn leather strop. He ran the strop back and forth across the blade, where the stone had traveled before it, until he had dispersed every tiny bur of metal from the blade’s edge.

  Setting down the strop, he inspected his work. A perfect job. The axe was ready. Satisfied, Morgan thought he’d pour himself a nightcap and settle down with his book.

  As he was pulling the stopper from the flagon of aquavit, he heard a sound from along the corridor. It must be the prisoner. The Executioner shook his head—he’d been so busy in his work and lost in his own thoughts that he’d forgotten he had company.

  Now he withdrew his hand from the aquavit and took up instead the first of his lanterns, walking away from his work area and over to the cells. Booth could remember times when every one of the cells had been inhabited. That seemed a long time ago now. Peace had come to Archenfield under Prince Anders and it had proved a lasting peace. Until now. Tonight, there was but one prisoner, but if Axel was right and one of their neighbor states was on the offensive again, the Dungeons were likely to become crowded once more, as they had been in his father’s and grandfather’s day. It was not a prospect Morgan relished—the sounds, the smells of so many others in his domain—but he’d live with it if he had to.

  And, on the plus side, he’d get to use his axes a bit more often.

  The layout of the Dungeons paralleled the floors above, opening out from an alleyway to a circular area where above them the West Tower of the palace began. Beneath this tower was a central pod of cells, segmented like an orange. And within one of these segments was the prisoner.

  The light within the cell was poor—the candle in the prisoner
’s lantern had burned low since Morgan had last checked. The Executioner set his own lantern on the floor in front of the cell door, then turned the key and let himself inside.

  Michael Reeves was sitting on the stone shelf that served, if desired, as a bed. He had wrapped himself in the coarse wool blanket provided. Nonetheless, he was shivering.

  “Can I have some water?” the prisoner asked.

  Booth saw that the earthenware pitcher he had left there earlier was empty. He nodded. Taking up the pitcher, he walked back out of the cell without bothering to lock the door again. There were guards on the doors to the Dungeons, easily summoned by a whistle. Michael Reeves had nowhere to run. And if he tried anything clever, Morgan Booth was very quick when the occasion demanded.

  He filled the pitcher with fresh water, then, on a whim, picked up the flagon of aquavit and a beaker for himself. When he arrived back in the cell, Michael was sitting in the exact same position. Booth set the pitcher of water down at his side. Leaving Michael to sort himself out, Booth pulled the stopper from the bottle and helped himself to a slug of aquavit.

  “You look like hell,” he observed. “I’d have thought your masters in Paddenburg would have prepared you better than this.”

  Michael took a gulp of water. “How many times do I have to tell you? I have no masters—other than the head steward. I had nothing to do with the Prince’s assassination.”

  Morgan smiled wryly and took a sip of his drink. “ ’Course not,” he said.

  They remained in Michael’s cell, neither one initiating further conversation for some time.

  “You know what,” Morgan said, at length. “I’m going to do something for you.”

  He returned to his desk and picked up the book he had earmarked earlier. He walked back over to Michael’s cell and handed over the volume. Michael was taken by surprise.

  Morgan shrugged. “Some people make a great fuss about their last meal. My view is—what does it matter what food you shovel into your mouth in the hours before your death? You’ll only excrete it out again.” His eyes met the prisoner’s. “But the last book you read, well that just might have an impact on your eternal soul.”