She’s a warrior, I reminded myself, by choice now, not just by chance. Warriors get scars.
‘We shall drink,’ Brasti said, ‘to a remarkable fellow, though one too often forgotten in the wake of his great deeds. A man of vision and of valour. A man some would call a legend and all know as a hero. A man who—’
‘To Falcio!’ Aline announced loudly.
‘No, I meant—’ Brasti’s efforts to speak over her were cut off by boisterous shouting of my name, none of it for my benefit, of course, but I was happy to play my part in taking Brasti down a peg.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Aline said, after the noise had died down. ‘Were you referring to someone else, Brasti?’
‘In fact, I was – you know, this is why this country goes to rot all the time. The sheer unfairness, the way those who do the real work of protecting it get—’
‘To Valiana!’ I shouted, and everyone else joined in, ‘To Valiana!’
‘Gods damn you all!’ Brasti said, and he was about to launch into a further tirade when a young man interrupted us with a cough. He held a small silver platter in his hands upon which sat an envelope bearing a Ducal seal imprinted in red wax.
The seal had already been broken. The clerk looked rather nervous.
‘What is it, Claiden?’ Valiana asked.
He held out the platter as if the letter itself were too hot to touch. ‘I bring a message, Realm’s Protector, news from the North. There have been some—’
‘Stop!’ Brasti said.
‘Sir?’
He walked over to Claiden and looked down at the envelope resting on the silver salver. ‘Have you read the letter?’
‘I . . . um . . . it is my duty to do so, sir. The Realm’s Protector—’
‘I asked Claiden to review all letters,’ Valiana interrupted. ‘I trust him.’
‘Good,’ Brasti said. ‘So, Claiden, you already know the contents of this letter?’ And when the hapless clerk nodded, he said, ‘I take it there are dark tidings? Trouble brewing? Dangers and dilemmas and catastrophe right around the corner?’
‘That . . . that is a reasonable assessment, yes, sir.’
Brasti rubbed his jaw. ‘And will any of these calamities befall us tonight?’
‘Tonight? Well, no sir, not exactly – but perhaps if I could deliver the message to the Realm’s Protector—?’
‘No.’
‘Er . . . no, sir?’
‘Brasti,’ Valiana said, ‘leave the poor man alone and let him deliver his message. If there is urgent business—’
‘Of course there’s urgent business,’ Brasti said, throwing his hands up in the air. ‘There’s always urgent business. Haven’t you all figured it out yet?’
‘Figured out what?’ Kest asked, looking puzzled.
‘That the entire world is out to get us. Whatever’s in this letter? It’s just the first volley from whoever is next in line to make our lives miserable. So I say, let’s leave it for tomorrow.’
‘And you’ve decided to make such decisions on behalf of the Crown, have you?’ Aline asked, her eyes narrowed.
Brasti made a show of examining his fingernails. ‘Someone has to run this country. Clearly it’s too complicated for all you lot.’
‘So what,’ she said, rising to her feet, ‘are your commands, oh wise and mighty archer?’
He grinned wickedly. ‘Dancing.’
‘Dancing?’
Brasti signalled to Nehra and Rhyleis. ‘I want to see Kest Murrowson, once Saint of Swords, once King’s Blade, currently Queen’s Shield, and by far the most dour son of a bitch ever to walk the earth . . . dance the grandanza!’
Nehra had clearly been prompted beforehand, because she launched into the first chords of a grandanza, a dance in an odd time signature that changes tempo between verse and chorus. It’s a dance performed almost exclusively by experts.
All of us, the clerk included, turned to stare at Kest.
‘Come on, swordsman,’ Brasti goaded him. ‘Time to show you’re brave enough to fail at something for once.’
Kest rose to his feet and looked around at all of us. His expression was inscrutable, and I began to wonder if he had taken genuine offence.
‘Kest, you don’t need to—’
But I was cut off when he turned to Ethalia and extended his left hand gracefully to her. ‘My Lady, if you would?’
Ethalia rose, Kest placed his right arm around her and then gently took her right hand in his left. He extended his right leg very far back. As the song came back to the opening beat of the measure, he stamped his back foot down and began drawing Ethalia into the odd, circular steps of the dance. Brasti roared with laughter and the rest of us chuckled, but as the song progressed – none of us were experts at dancing, so it took a while—
‘Saint Zaghev’s scorched balls,’ Brasti said. ‘It’s not possible—’
‘The evidence appears to suggest that it is,’ Aline said.
‘No!’ Brasti shouted, waving unsuccessfully at Nehra to stop playing. ‘He can’t be fucking good at everything.’
In fact, Kest was a remarkable dancer; he was twirling Ethalia through the complex forms as though he’d spent his whole life at court. ‘What?’ he asked, even as Nehra continued playing. ‘A number of treatise on swordplay commend dancing as excellent training for a fencer’s footwork. In fact, the grandanza is mentioned in numerous texts as one of the—’
‘Son of a bitch,’ Brasti swore. ‘There really is no justice in this world, is there?’
‘Not much of it,’ I said, rising and extending an invitation to Valiana to dance with me. ‘But we’re working on it.’
The rest of us, never having practised this particular dance, made a terrible hash of it and when Nehra shifted to a fast country reel we only got worse. But it didn’t matter. We danced because we were together, because we loved each other, and because tomorrow was inevitably going to bring more strife and sorrow.
Aline joined Valiana and me, and the three of us spun each other around, the music filling the air as the world whirled by us. With every turn I saw Claiden standing there patiently, the envelope resting on the tray in his hand, waiting for us to acknowledge this new threat. I found the lightness of my heart at odds with that dark premonition, because for the first time since the King had died, I finally understood what he wanted from us. The Greatcoats hadn’t been formed to bring back the past. King Paelis wanted us to protect the future.
The contents of that envelope would doubtless herald the next tyrant who thought he could take that future for himself.
I looked over at Ethalia, still dancing with Kest, then at Brasti and Darri, at all of them, and finally back to the letter on the tray.
You want our country? I thought. Then you’d better bring more than just Gods and armies with you.
My foot slipped and I felt myself losing my balance, tumbling back onto the stones of Castle Aramor’s ramparts. Valiana and Aline rushed over and knelt by me. Someone said something, but I couldn’t hear what it was over the music. Then Nehra stopped playing and a moment later all of them were standing around me. I looked up and saw the people I loved best in the world, ringed by more stars in the sky than there are devils upon the earth. I tried to speak, but it came out as laughter.
‘What did he say?’ Aline asked.
Ethalia leaned over and put a hand on my cheek. ‘I think he said, “The Greatcoats are here”.’
THE END
The story of Falcio, Kest, Brasti and the Greatcoats continues in Tyrant’s Throne.
Acknowledgements
The Author’s Lament
My eminent editor and publisher, Jo Fletcher, insists that at no time did she promise me that the third book in a series would be easier to write than the second. Well, gentle reader, who are you going to believe? The woman who helped bring you books from giants of the field such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Terry Pratchett and who now brings you new stars such as Naomi Foyle, Snorri Kristjansson and Sue Tingey? Or
will you instead put your faith in an author whose own narrator’s memories of the past are sometimes suspect? Wait . . . don’t answer that.
Making this my favourite book of the series was hard going. Fortunately, when the going gets tough, I turn to . . .
The Saints
Supernatural intervention sometimes requires the spilling of a lot of Saints’ blood:
Christina de Castell-who-reads-and-reads-and-reads, Saint of Literary Tolerance
Jo Fletcher-yes-that-jo-fletcher-even-though-she-lies-about-books-getting-easier-to-write, Saint of Editing
Kim Tough-who-knows-Tristia-better-than-I-do, Saint of Emergency Skype Calls
Eric Torin-who-sees-what-isn’t-written, Saint of Narrative Philosophy
Heather Adams-who-keeps-writers-employed, Saint of Agents
The Inquisitors
Relentless, fearless, and happy to torture the truth out of authors and their stories:
Wil Arndt (@warndt)
Brad Dehnert (@BradDehnert)
Sarah Figueroa
Kat Zeller
Jim Hull (www.narrativefirst.com)
The Inlaudati:
Some people help make books successful in secret, working their magic upon an unsuspecting world:
Nathaniel Marunas, who went further than any publisher should ever have to in order to get the right cover for the US edition
Nicola Budd, who remembers the things everyone else forgets
Andrew Turner, whose tweeting we all miss
Olivia Mead, who’s getting the Greatcoats back on the road
Patrick Carpenter, with whose covers we’d never know what to pick off the shelf
Dave Murphy and Ron Beard, the sales kings
Frances Doyle, the ebook queen
The Bardatti:
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: the heroes of the publishing world in the 21st century are the bloggers, booksellers, librarians, readers and sometimes even fellow authors who go out of their way to share books they’ve discovered with the world. They’re also the people who make being an author fun. Here are just a few of the wonderful folks I got to interact with this year:
Mieneke van der Salm of www.afantasticallibrarian.com who is a delightful dinner companion and kindly pretended my Dutch wasn’t awful.
Walter & Jill of White Dwarf Books who are relentlessly supportive of fantasy and sci-fi authors.
Cindy of draumrkopablog.wordpress.com who I got to meet at Nine Worlds in her dazzling steampunk outfit.
Conn Iggulden, who reminded me to let the characters decide where the story goes.
David and the fine crew of Goldsboro Books who put out lovely first editions of the series.
Margo-Lea Hurwicz, who writes some fine Greatcoats poetry.
Robin Carter of parmenionbooks.wordpress.com, who really deserves a greatcoat.
Wendell Adams of bookwraiths.com who probably also deserves a greatcoat at this point!
John Gwynne, who is incredibly gracious and has the nicest family on the planet.
Sam Sykes, who says nicer things about the Greatcoats books than I do.
Bob Milne of beauty-in-ruins.blogspot.com who wrote one of my favourite reviews ofKnight’s Shadow this year.
Eon (Windrunner) who drove out to Capetown so we could have coffee and chat about books.
Annika Thomaßen of lesekatzen.blogspot.de who is my only means of knowing if the German editions of my books are good!
Nazia Khatun, who randomly runs up to strangers and tells them to read my books.
And, of course, to all you kind readers who take the time to write me emails with thoughts, questions and comments about the Greatcoats. Reading your emails is one of the highlights of my day.
With gratitude,
Sebastien de Castell
twitter: @decastell
web: www.decastell.com
The Hague, Netherlands
January, 2016
Bonus Content
P.S. Anyone who takes the time to read a book’s acknowledgments deserves to know some of its unwritten secrets.
In one of the inside pockets of Tommer’s greatcoat, his father, Duke Jillard, found a carefully folded letter.
Aline,
You may be wondering why I’ve just handed you this letter, written years ago when I was just a foolish boy of twelve. As you read it, imagine me as I was then: not yet a man, small of stature (though I hope I’ve grown taller by now) and lacking in accomplishments (though that, too, I hope to have rectified these past years.) Think back on that boy who chased after you (subtly, I hope), and always sought to be by your side, sword in hand. Understand that he knew full well how silly he looked. He knew he was as much encumbrance as protector in those early days. He knew he had no chance to win your heart.
If you are reading this now, it is because I am once again standing before you, no doubt with a long line of suitors waiting impatiently for me to step aside. These will be good men, I am sure, each with virtues and qualities that outshine my own: Lords, Margraves, Dukes, doubtless even foreign Princes will have come seeking your hand. I picture them holding gifts for you: the finest jewellery, the greatest works of art, chests upon chests upon chests of gold and silver. This will be their one mistake, and my one chance. I will bring no jewels, no money and no title, for I intend to renounce my father’s Ducal throne.
When I stand before you, Aline, it will be holding only this letter. When you read it, you will know that I loved you even before I was a man, and that you were my Queen even before you wore a crown. You will know that I have spent every day since I first met you trying to become a man worthy of your esteem, and if after finishing this letter you look up at me and smile, it will all have been worth it.
Your
Tommer
Duke Jillard read the letter three times before sending it to the flames of his hearth fire.
About the Author
SEBASTIEN DE CASTELL had just finished a degree in Archaeology when he started work on his first dig. Four hours later he realized how much he hated archaeology and left to pursue a very focused career as a musician, ombudsman, interaction designer, fight choreographer, teacher, project manager, actor, and product strategist. He lives in Vancouver, Canada, with his wife.
You can visit him at www.decastell.com or talk to him on Twitter @decastell.
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