Allies & Assassins

by Justin Somper

  She nodded, needing little encouragement to share her thoughts. “Each chair at the table of state—the Prince’s Table—comes with one vote. I want to understand whether if Axel occupies, albeit temporarily, two chairs, does he also carry two votes during that time?”

  Jared nodded, aware that Emelie’s perceptive question had unsettled some of her previously more relaxed colleagues. “Thank you,” the Prince said. “I’m glad to have the opportunity to address this. There is no precedent in the Book of Law because this situation has never before arisen.” His eyes skimmed from Emelie’s to Axel’s, then back again. “What I am proposing here is that, for now, Axel retains just one vote.”

  “In that case,” Emelie said, “Aye.” She lifted her hand to join the others.

  Jared now turned his attention to Nova Chastain, the only one whose hand was still not raised. “Nova, does what I’ve told Emelie provide the same reassurance you are seeking or is there another matter for us to address?”

  Nova’s eyes met Jared’s. She held his gaze for a time before speaking. “I can’t endorse your choice of Edling,” she said.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Jared replied.

  “I know there were good reasons that Prince Anders did not make Axel his Edling.”

  This bold comment caused a ripple around the table. No one looked more shocked than Axel himself.

  Jared held the Falconer’s gaze. “Is there something more you would like to say?”

  She considered for a moment, then nodded slowly. “I suppose I just want to be clear that you made this decision independently and that you are not merely bowing to pressure from your family.” She glanced across to the dais and Jared knew that Nova was not only making reference to his mother now, but also to Axel’s parents, Lord Viggo and Lady Stella, who did not have access to meetings of the Twelve.

  Prince Jared did not turn around. “Nova,” he said. “I am new to this position and, though I have sat at this table for two years, you and I do not know each other well yet. But I can assure you that the reason—the only reason—I have made Axel Blaxland my Edling is because I think he is the best person for that role.”

  His conviction seemed to take her by surprise. Jared was, in turn, surprised to hear the applause building around the table. As it faded, Nova addressed him.

  “You are our new Prince, Jared,” she said. “If this is, in your opinion, the best way forward for Archenfield, so be it.” A moment passed after she had finished speaking before she at last raised her hand.

  “All right then,” Jared said, keen to bring this meeting to a close. “This vote is unanimous among the Twelve. Thank you all. I confirm that Axel Blaxland is now my Edling as well as my Captain of the Guard and retains one vote at the table.”

  There was another burst of applause. Jared cast his eyes around the table and saw Logan wink quickly at him, giving his approval at the way he had handled Nova. Then Jared glanced over to the dais, where Elin nodded discreetly. So the matter was concluded. Jared had done what he had needed to do. And, hopefully, he had managed to convince The Twelve that it was what he had wanted.

  Seeing his mother alone on the dais, his thoughts returned to Edvin. He had to go and find him and explain to his brother the true state of things.

  But as he turned, he was met once more by Axel.

  “Cousin,” Axel said. “Brother. I thank you for this honor. The Blaxlands thank you too. Today, you have ushered in a new epoch in Archenfield’s history. Together, we will rule this nation as it has never been ruled before.”

  Jared was not surprised by Axel’s words. He had no need for confirmation of his cousin’s hunger for power. It was an insatiable hunger, but one which he—and perhaps he alone—must now control. Smiling at Axel, Jared shook his head. “There can only be one ruler of Archenfield. I am Prince and your main responsibility is to advise and support me.” He smiled. “But I am confident, Cousin, you will prove to be a very satisfactory second-in-command.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  The West Tower, the Palace

  WITH SOME EFFORT, JARED PUSHED OPEN THE door and stumbled out onto the wind-blown circular roof of the West Tower. He saw, with relief, a figure standing up on the ramparts. Dressed in his dark greatcoat, Edvin looked like a giant version of one of Nova’s falcons—perched on the very edge of the palace, contemplating the world spread out before him.

  Hal Harness remained in the doorway. “Should I come out or wait inside for you, your highness?” he asked.

  “Please wait in the stairwell!” Jared shouted over the noise of the wind. “I need to talk to my brother in private.”

  The Prince turned and, head bowed down against the wind, began making his way carefully across the blustery rooftop. Edvin did not turn around. Surely he must have heard his shouts or registered the footsteps on the gravel, strewn here to make the slippery roof more secure underfoot? Perhaps he was too preoccupied by his own thoughts. Or was he simply intent upon punishing his brother?

  Edvin was lean and tall for his fourteen years—a little taller already than Jared. The youngest surviving Wynyard looked decidedly fragile standing there, up on the ramparts, his long pale-blond hair and steel-blue greatcoat buffeted by the wind.

  As Jared climbed up to join him, he was possessed by the sudden fear that Edvin might suddenly propel himself over the edge. As the fantasy became all the more vivid in his mind, he reached out a hand toward his brother in a last desperate effort to save him. Just then, Edvin turned to face him and the stupid fantasy was revealed for just that—and another sure sign that Jared had an unhealthy amount of adrenaline pumping through his veins. His brother might be tall and occasionally clumsy in his new height but he knew the palace ramparts as intimately as the features of his own face; his footing, in his heavy winter boots, was rock steady.

  “Found you!” Jared said, smiling with relief.

  “What makes you think I wanted to be found?” Edvin didn’t return his brother’s smile. After a moment of scrutinizing Jared’s face coldly, he turned his eyes away from his brother and gazed out again into the distance.

  Jared tried another way in. “I should have known you’d be up here. If only I had stopped to think for a minute.” This time, he was met by utter silence. Still he wasn’t ready to give in. “Remember the time we made our camp right here? How old were we? Maybe seven and nine? We were forever making camps in one part of the palace or another but I think this was our personal best.” This time, his words, and the memory carried by them, succeeded in igniting the flicker of a smile.

  “I was six and you were eight,” Edvin corrected him.

  Jared nodded, ploughing on. “We were gone for hours, completely wrapped up in our game. Father had the guards out combing the palace borders for us. We saw the patrols from up here but this was the one place they didn’t think to look.”

  “He was incandescent with rage!” Edvin remembered, his eyes wide. “Said it was ‘highly irresponsible.’ That we were not ordinary boys; we were princes and we ought to behave accordingly.” He smiled at last, but only briefly. He shook his head. “It’s a wonder he even noticed we were missing. He was out with Anders—Anders the Golden. Training him in hunting or archery or whatever part of his princely apprenticeship was on the cards that day.”

  Jared nodded. “Poor Anders never had a moment to call his own, did he? While you and I had the run of the palace and its grounds for all our games of spies and soldiers, allies and assassins.” He put his hand on Edvin’s shoulder, caught up in fond memories of their shared childhood and feeling the need to rekindle that closeness.

  Edvin turned his face toward Jared. It was a shock, seeing once again how similar Edvin’s face was to their dead brother’s. Anders and Edvin were like two shoots from the same tree. And yet it was Edvin and Jared who had always been so close, brought together by age, proximity and circumstance. Anders had always been the outsider in this most exclusive of clubs.

  “That’s all changed now, hasn’t it
?” Edvin’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Now we have real assassins to contend with. Anders is dead and it’s no game. And you are the Prince, with not a moment to call your own.”

  “You sound angry,” Jared said, removing his hand from his brother’s shoulder. “Edvin, are you angry with me?”

  Edvin shrugged. Though he remained silent, his body language gave Jared a clear answer to his question.

  “I needed to see you,” Jared told his brother. “You left the council chamber so suddenly after I announced Axel as my Edling, I wanted to make sure you were all right with it and to make you understand my reasons.”

  Edvin shrugged again. “Why should I care?” he asked.

  “I would understand if you did care,” Jared said carefully. “It was my intention to tell you before the meeting—but I never got the chance. I was holed up for hours with Logan Wilde, preparing for the assembly. Edvin, you were always the one I wanted as my Edling—the only one. I’m pretty sure you know that. But, last night, I was summoned to our mother’s rooms and she told me in no uncertain terms that I had to choose Axel. For the good of our family and to minimize an incipient threat from the Blaxlands.”

  Edvin smiled with no trace of humor. “An incipient threat? Listen to yourself, brother. How quickly you’ve become one of them.”

  “That’s not fair!” Jared said, flushed suddenly with anger. Edvin had no idea what he’d had to contend with in the crowded days since Anders’s death. “You know what? Maybe you are too young to be Edling.”

  “I’m the exact same age as you were when Anders chose you.”

  “Yes.” Jared couldn’t argue with that. “And that was too young. I wasn’t ready for the responsibility. How many times have you heard me tell you that?”

  Edvin ignored this question and asked another. “Are you ready now to be Prince?”

  It was Jared’s turn to shrug. “I don’t have much choice about that, do I?”

  “I suppose not.” Edvin pursed his lips. “I really don’t care about you choosing Axel. Surely, you know such things don’t matter to me.”

  “Well, that’s what I thought,” Jared said, confused. “But when you stormed out of the council room…”

  “I didn’t storm out. Don’t be so melodramatic!”

  “Edvin, you marched out of the room pretty well the minute I spoke Axel’s name. And then you fled up here and I’ve been looking all over the palace for you since. And now that I’ve found you, well, you don’t exactly seem pleased to see me.”

  “Maybe I just wanted some time on my own.” Edvin turned away again from him. Jared followed his gaze. It was ages since he’d stood up there and he’d forgotten what an amazing view it was—out across the palace grounds and to the diverse landscape of fields, fjords and mountains beyond.

  “For your information,” Edvin resumed, “the reason I left the room had nothing to do with you or Axel or who gets to be your Edling. The truth is, I didn’t even hear you make the announcement. I was thinking about Anders and about how none of this really matters. All I heard in that room was jarring noise. All I saw was people pretending that they are important when in fact none of them are. None of us, none of this, matters one iota. We’re all going to die—whether by natural means or by the assassin’s blow—and until then, we’re just killing time. We’ve got no more of a stake in our own fate than do the drones in Emelie’s hives.”

  Jared frowned. “I’m not sure I completely agree with that.”

  “Agree or don’t,” Edvin said. “It’s all the same. I’m entitled to my views and if you don’t like it, well you can piss off and find your own turret.”

  For some reason, this made Jared laugh. He couldn’t stop himself. And the strange thing was that although initially his laughter made Edvin look even angrier, he then started to laugh himself. Soon, the ramparts were ringing out with the sound of the brothers’ blended laughter.

  “Piss off and find your own turret!” Jared repeated.

  “There are enough of them,” Edvin said, with a grin. “Take the East Tower. The views from there are rubbish compared to this one.”

  The brothers’ laughter ended as suddenly as it had begun. Once more, there was silence between them.

  “You asked me before if I’m angry at you,” Edvin said. “So, I’ll be honest with you. Yes, Jared, I’m angry.”

  Jared was growing impatient. “But you said you didn’t care…”

  “Not about the Edling thing,” Edvin broke in. “Forget everything about the Edling! I’m angry with you because you don’t seem to be upset in any way that our brother is dead, that he was assassinated. I know you weren’t close to him, Jared, but even so. He was our flesh and blood.”

  “Is that what you really think?” Jared was stunned. “That I’m not upset?”

  “You don’t show any sign of it. You’re like an automaton. Prince Anders is dead. No problem. Send for Prince Jared to pick up the crown and carry on running the Princedom.”

  Jared shook his head, profoundly shocked. “You know me so much better than that.”

  “I thought I did,” Edvin said, with obvious sadness. “I thought I knew you like a favorite book, cover to cover, but in the past forty-eight hours, I’ve been forced to revise my opinion.”

  Jared was silent in the face of his brother’s latest, deepest attack.

  “At least you don’t try to deny it,” Edvin said.

  Suddenly Jared felt a tidal wave of anger building up inside him. “Deny it?” he spat. “What good would that do when you’ve already made up your own mind? You who claim to know me better than anyone in this palace, anyone in this world!” He shook his head. “Do you have any idea what the past forty-eight hours have been like for me? The things I’ve had to get my head around—from giving a speech to thousands of people from that balcony down there to running meetings of twelve people, many of whom, it transpires, can’t stand each other, to contending with Cousin Axel’s ambitions and our mother’s somewhat different agenda and signing a death warrant and accepting that the peace our brother brought to this nation might be coming to an end? Do you have any idea what it’s like to have not one waking minute to call your own? And then to lie awake all night because you’re so fearful that you’ve made the wrong decisions the day before and even more fearful of the decisions you’ll be asked to make in the day ahead? And you can’t even think about how bad you really feel deep down, how much you are crushed by the loss of your brother, because if you give that thought oxygen for even a second, it might just send everything else crashing down around you and stop you from doing what small good you can to honor your brother and your father and the Princedom to whom you swore your service.” Jared swiftly drew breath before continuing. “And while I’m swimming through all of this excrement, you just sit at the side and judge me! You of all people!”

  “I’m sorry,” Edvin said and, for the first time, his voice faltered.

  “Those are just words,” Jared said angrily storming away.

  “Jared, I really am sorry,” Edvin repeated, his voice becoming shaky.

  Feeling hot with fury, Jared jumped down from the ramparts.

  “Wait!” Edvin followed him. “Please, let’s talk about this.”

  “There’s nothing more to say,” Jared barked back. I’ve wasted precious time coming to find you. I’ve got a thousand and one more pressing things to do and you’ve made your position abundantly clear.” He anger suddenly flipped into sadness once more. “You know, I thought I’d lost one brother two days ago but now I see I lost both of you. Thanks.” He sighed “Thanks very much. Now I know what it feels like to be utterly alone.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  The Forest

  JARED WAS SURPRISED TO FIND HIMSELF ALREADY in the heart of the forest. he realized his feet must have made their way through the palace grounds and out into the forest quite automatically, as his head processed all the pernicious thoughts that had built up inside it over the past few days. He realized too
that, for the first time in three days, he was completely alone.

  “Hedd!” he called. “Come here, boy!”

  Jared stood perfectly still, eyes and ears alert for clues as to where his canine companion had gotten. Suddenly, there was a rustle of leaves, followed by the crack of a twig, and a blur of silver fur. The Irish wolfhound came bounding toward him.

  “Good boy!” Jared said as the dog careered to a halt at his side. He knew he could trust Hedd—he would dart off and explore all the hidden scents of the forest that were so fascinating to him but would always sprint back, in response to a call or a whistle. Especially on days like today, when Jared’s pocket was filled—thanks to Vera Webb—with strips of cooked chicken. Hedd knew exactly how the system worked and was already sitting in front of his master, wiry tail swishing the leaf-strewn ground expectantly.

  “There you go,” Jared said, offering Hedd a nice plump gobbet of meat, which the hound licked enthusiastically off his hand. “All done!” Jared told him, when he lingered in hope of a second treat. “You can have another piece later. On we go!”

  Jared couldn’t believe how liberated he felt there. Perhaps it was something to do with the height of the sequoias. They enfolded him in their color and scent and made him feel dwarflike in comparison to their size. Jared realized someone might enter the forest, feeling a sense of importance because they were Prince; but he only had to stroll among those truly majestic trees for a short time for him to gain a true sense of perspective.

  As he moved on, he became aware of the low afternoon sunlight slanting through the trees. He remembered walking with the Woodsman through this very stretch of his beloved forest some time before. Jonas had told him then that some of the trees there were more than three thousand years old. They had seen many Princes come and go, Jared mused, and he wondered how many other new Princes had found much-needed sanctuary here within the green shade of the forest.

  As he reached the next sequoia, he reached out and pressed his palm flat against its bark. There was something deeply calming about making a connection with the strength and age of the tree. When he withdrew his hand, he was pleased to see the imprint the bark had left on his flesh. It spoke of a kind of brotherhood, albeit a temporary one, as he watched his flesh become smooth again.