‘Aline, if there was another, would you want them to take your place?’
‘I . . .’ Tears were dripping slowly down her cheeks and I wanted to hold her, but I knew she didn’t want to be touched. So we stood there until she finally looked up at me. ‘They would have to deal with the same things I do, wouldn’t they?’
I nodded. I didn’t speak, for I could see that her heart had made its decision and now her mind was catching up to it.
‘And . . . and it would be worse for them, wouldn’t it? Because they won’t have faced the things I have. It’ll all come down on them at once.’
‘I think that’s probably true.’
She stood there, silent, looking back up at the stars for a very long time. ‘Then it has to be me, doesn’t it? If I don’t do this then it will fall on somebody else and it might be even harder for them. They would have to be braver than me.’
My voice caught in my throat as I said, ‘I don’t think there is anyone braver than you, sweetheart.’
She wrapped her arms around herself. ‘We don’t always get to be who we want to be, do we?’
It took me a minute before I could speak. I hadn’t fully understood until that moment how much I’d wanted her to refuse her birthright; to tell me she wanted me to take her away. I’d not admitted, even to myself, how much I longed to go to Ethalia and live out a normal life without the burden of trying to carry on a dead King’s fading dream. I remembered back to the day when I had first met King Paelis and the wild, idealistic insanity that had followed. I thought about Kest and Brasti and all the others: every one of them had their own tale, every one had made the same choice. ‘I think . . . I think we get to be what the world needs us to be.’
Aline sniffed once more, as if trying to take back in the tears she had shed. ‘Then that has to be enough. I’ll be the Queen, then, Falcio, if that will make things better. If that is what the world wants of me.’
We stood like that for a little while before she took my hand and we began the walk down the path and back towards the village.
I should have made a vow then, loudly, to the night and to whatever awaited us in the morning. I should have promised to always be there for Aline, to always protect her. I should have made an oath to the Gods and Saints. But I didn’t. Aline was a smart and serious girl, and she didn’t like it when people made vows they couldn’t keep.
*
I awoke the next day as I had for the previous several days, unable to move or speak. The first time it had lasted only a few terrifying seconds. Now, as I tried to count the minutes in my head, the paralysis felt expected, almost natural.
Someone was in the room with me. The sound of my visitor’s breathing was soft and slow, punctuated every few minutes by a moan of pain or fear that wasn’t quite breaking through their sleep. Valiana, I thought. Only hours from nearly losing her own life and yet here she was, sitting watch over me. I imagined the Tailor had forced her to stay away from Aline’s cottage and she’d decided to guard me instead. How much she’d changed from the haughty noblewoman I’d met just a few months ago, served by everyone around her, raised to rule over the country. What must it be like to imagine yourself a princess only to discover you’re the child of an unknown peasant woman with no title, no family, no name? I wished I could open my eyes and see her. I wished I could see anything.
I met a blind man years ago, selling fruit along the trade road, being led around by a very old woman who I assumed was his wife. I’d asked him what it was like to be without sight. Close your eyes, he’d said. Think of a beautiful woman. That’s what I see every minute of every day. His wife had looked over at him fondly. He’d told me the world could be the most lovely place you could imagine, so long as your imagination was fuelled by love. I wanted to tell him that when I closed my eyes I too saw my wife, and the sight filled me with pain and sorrow and a rage I could never control. But I feared that if I did tell him I might change the vista he beheld, and so the gap-toothed grin on his old face held me back.
Now, all these years later, I couldn’t remember my wife’s face. Not really. I could describe her to you – her hair, her skin, the crooked smile when she mocked some silly thing I had said . . . That smile. It promised laughter and kisses and more. I could tell you every detail because I’ve made myself remember them, but only as words. We had been poor, so there were no paintings or sketches of her. The sight of her was lost to me for ever and there was only one way to get it back.
A rough hand grabbed my jaw and the heat of someone’s breath brought an uncomfortable warmth to my face. I heard Valiana move in her chair. ‘Stop!’
I felt the first tingles in my fingertips. I couldn’t be sure how long I’d been paralysed this time, but it felt longer than the day before. My eyes began fluttering open. If ever there was a face I didn’t long to see at that precise moment, it was the Tailor’s.
‘Wakey-wakey, First Cantor,’ she said, her voice a mixture of sarcasm and urgency. ‘Time to get up and greet the day.’
Valiana entered my view as she tried and failed to push the Tailor away. ‘It’s still hours away from when you said we were leaving.’
‘That was before,’ the Tailor said.
‘Before what?’ I asked, the thick feeling in my tongue slurring my words.
The Tailor looked at me and only then did I realise how much anger was in her eyes. ‘Before the Duke of Pulnam betrayed us.’
*
Outside the cottage the other Greatcoats were making preparations to leave the village. Horses were dragging litters holding the dead bodies of fallen Knights and some of the homes damaged in the fight were being hastily repaired.
‘No sense leaving the villagers with broken homes and a bunch of dead Knights to bury,’ the Tailor said, striding towards the far end of the village just a little too quickly for me to keep up in my current state. ‘We’ll take them out and leave them in a nice pile for Trin and that bastard Erris, Duke of Pulnam, to find.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Why did he betray us? I thought you said our raids were working.’
She sneered. ‘The raids worked too well. Trin offered him an armistice. She won’t take the duchy away from him and in exchange he’ll give her troops access through southern Pulnam so they can bypass the Duchy of Domaris’ defences. He’ll also pay for the cost of her troops’ passage.’
‘He’ll pay? For what?’
‘Protection,’ the Tailor said. ‘Seems there are Greatcoats about.’
As we reached the far side of the village I saw Kest and Brasti readying their horses. ‘Finally,’ Brasti said. ‘Falcio, would you tell her to stop ordering us about without telling us why?’
‘What is this?’ I asked the Tailor.
‘You’re going south.’
‘To where?’
‘Aramor. Where it all began.’
‘Saints,’ Brasti said, rolling his eyes. ‘You do recall that we’re wanted for murder in Aramor, don’t you?’
‘Trin killed Lord Tremondi,’ Kest said. ‘Surely Duke Isault must know that by now.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ the Tailor said.
‘Why?’ Brasti asked. ‘Because the three of us are expendable?’
‘Because we have no damned choice, you fool. Duke Isault’s got money and soldiers. We need both and we need them now.’ The Tailor grabbed a stick from the ground and began drawing lines in the dirt. ‘Trin’s going to go south from here,’ she said, ‘to the Duchy of Domaris and its endless forests. Hadiermo, the vaunted Iron Duke of Domaris, is an idiot but he’ll fight her. He knows that Duke Perault has become Trin’s lover, and that he wants to expand his own duchy’s borders. If Domaris falls, Perault will take one half and Trin will take the other and Duke Hadiermo will be left standing out in the cold in his underclothes.’
‘How long can he hold out against the combined forces of Trin and Perault?’ I asked.
‘A few weeks. Maybe a month.’
Kest, Brasti and I look
ed at each other as the magnitude of events came crashing down on us: Hervor, Orison, Pulnam and finally Domaris – all four of the northern duchies. Trin would hold them all with an army that would sweep the south unless the southern duchies rose united against her, which they never would, not without a King or Queen to lead them.
‘Ah,’ the Tailor said. ‘It seems light does eventually reach even the dimmest places.’
‘Why would the Duke of Aramor side with Aline?’ Kest asked.
‘Aramor has always had a special relationship with the Kings of Tristia,’ the Tailor replied. ‘Isault didn’t love my son, but he didn’t hate him the way the others did. And he’s an opportunist. He’ll know he can get a better deal from us than from Trin.’
I was still dubious. This ‘special relationship’ hadn’t done King Paelis much good when Isault and the other Dukes came for his head. ‘Let’s say we can turn Isault,’ I began.
‘You will turn him,’ the Tailor said. ‘Make no mistake: if he sides with Trin this is all over and the world itself won’t be big enough to hide any of us. You’re going to go down there and stroke his ego and promise him whatever you must to get his support.’
‘Fine. So I turn him. Then what?’
She tapped each of the duchies of the southwest on her map in the dirt. ‘From Aramor you go to secure the support of the Dukes of Luth and then Pertine. The Duchy of Baern will fall in line behind them.’
‘Trin will have the north and Aline will have the south,’ I said.
The Tailor gave me a grim smile as she poked her stick dead centre in the heart of the country. ‘And the final battle will be fought in Rijou, where your old friend Duke Jillard will decide the fate of the world. Still proud of yourself for not killing him when you had the chance?’
‘He swore to support Aline’s claim,’ I said. ‘Besides, there are laws, even in times of war.’
‘Aye. But you don’t seem to have learned the first one: it’s the victor who makes the laws.’ She swept the marks in the dirt away with her foot. ‘I’ll take the Greatcoats to Domaris and we’ll do our best to slow Trin down. If she thought our raids were a pain before she’ll be amazed at how much damage we can do once her soldiers have to travel through a hundred and fifty miles of forest.’
‘What about Aline?’ I asked. ‘You can’t mean to keep taking her into battlefields like this?’
‘You have a better solution?’ the Tailor asked.
‘We’ll take her with us. We get her the hells away from Pulnam and Domaris, take her south where we can find somewhere safe for her until all this is over.’
The Tailor smiled. ‘Perfect. I like your thinking, Falcio.’
I searched the old woman’s face for signs of mockery. I couldn’t believe she’d go along with a plan I’d had all of ten seconds to devise. ‘You’re serious? You’ll let me take her?’
She shook her head. ‘Of course not, you fool. But I’m counting on the fact that you aren’t the only one who thinks a woman’s place is hiding behind men.’
I started to protest, but she held up a hand. ‘Don’t start telling me about all the female Greatcoats you recruited. If Aline were a man you’d say she needed to show the world she was brave enough to lead it.’
On the long list I kept in my head of things I hated about the Tailor, second from the top was the arrogant way she presumed to see every one of my flaws. Top on the list was that she was probably right. ‘If my instincts are so flawed, then why—?’
‘Because Trin thinks like a man, too. She’ll believe we’ll send Aline south and she’ll be convinced you’re the one who will take her. You really are quite predictable, Falcio.’
Brasti snorted. ‘It won’t take her spies long to realise we don’t have Aline with us. What are we supposed to do, parade Kest around in a sundress?’
‘You’re not going by yourselves,’ the Tailor said as Dariana stepped out from behind one of the hitching posts. She was wearing a greatcoat. ‘Ah, Dari, there you are.’
‘I’ve warned you before about calling me that.’
‘Well, threaten me a few more times and perhaps I’ll remember to give a damn one of these days.’ The Tailor turned to me. ‘She’ll be going with you.’
‘Looks a bit small for fighting,’ Brasti said, looking her up and down. ‘Or much of anything else, really.’
Dariana wasted only the briefest of glances on Brasti before she gave him a dismissive little snort and then turned to stare at Kest somewhat more appraisingly. ‘So you’re the Saint of Swords, eh?’ She let her gaze drift from his face to his hands to his feet and back again. ‘I’m finding it hard to be impressed.’
‘Four moves,’ Kest said.
‘What?’
‘You’re wondering if you could take me. You’d last four moves.’
‘Well then,’ she said, smiling innocently and reaching a hand out to touch his chest. ‘Suppose I take you in your sleep?’
‘I took that for granted when I said four. Did you want to know how long you’d last if you didn’t take me by surprise?’
‘Oh, great Gods save me from these mad duellists,’ the Tailor moaned. ‘Could the two of you compare the length of your swords someplace else? It’s time for you to go.’
‘So that’s it?’ I asked. ‘At least let me say goodbye to Aline and Valiana.’
‘Aline is already in hiding with my men,’ the Tailor said. ‘You said your goodbyes last night, even if you weren’t aware of it at the time. As for Valiana, you can talk to her all you like on the way south. Here she comes now.’
Two of the Tailor’s new Greatcoats were hauling Valiana between them, lifting her by the arms as she struggled to break free.
‘Stop!’ the Tailor shouted, and at first I’d assumed she was ordering her men to stand down, but then I realised my rapier was in my hand. ‘Valiana’s unharmed,’ the Tailor said to me.
‘Which is more than I can say for the rest of us,’ one of her Greatcoats growled as they dropped her in front of us. ‘Little twit gave me a cut across the cheek before we got the sword out of her hand.’
The Tailor walked up to him and without warning slapped him hard across the face. His eyes darkened. ‘What’s that for?’ he asked. ‘You ordered us to bring her—’
‘All that secret training, all your deadly arts, and a fool who barely knows how to draw her own sword without cutting herself nearly takes your eye?’
‘He’ll lose more than that if he touches me again,’ Valiana said, rising to her feet and snatching the rapier from my hand.
The other Greatcoat reached for his sword, but Dariana put a hand on Valiana’s arm. ‘There now, pretty bird. How about we teach you how to handle that little pig-sticker of yours and then we can go and kill a few men – and do it properly, eh?’
The Tailor turned from her men and back to us. ‘Have we done with the games? Time is wasting and I have more important things to deal with than your petulance.’
‘I’ve sworn my life to protect Aline,’ Valiana said. ‘I won’t leave her.’
‘Yes, and if we’re all lucky, that’s just what Trin will think.’
‘But—’
‘You want so badly to be a hero like these fools?’ the Tailor asked, pointing at Kest, Brasti and me. ‘You want to die thinking you saved Aline; that your life was worth more in the end than it was in the beginning? Fine. Do what I ask and go with them. Go and take the blade in your gut and know that in some small way you’ve helped protect her. Let’s hope Trin’s hatred of you will prompt her to waste resources chasing you. You’re useless to Aline here, except perhaps to get in the way of those with the strength and skill to keep her safe.’
The anger drained from Valiana’s face, along with her pride. She’d been clinging so desperately to the oath that she’d made to Aline because she needed to believe she stood for something, for anything, so that her life could have some meaning. She was just like I had been, years ago, when I first met the King. He’d believed in me, and he’d
made me believe in myself. King Paelis was an idealist and a romantic and a dreamer. But the Tailor was none of those things.
‘I’ll do what you ask,’ Valiana said finally. She turned and walked away from us towards the horses.
The callousness of the Tailor’s words, the way she discarded all of Valiana’s pain and sorrow – all of the pain each of us had experienced in our lives – burned in me. I needed her to know how much I hated this, all of it: her cold, calculating strategies, the way she planned and plotted: she wasn’t much different from the Dukes we all despised.
The others were looking at me, waiting to see how I would react. I didn’t want to be an angry, petulant child. I wanted to be noble and brave and all the things I’d tried to be since the day the King had shaken me out of my madness. But I couldn’t. I simply didn’t have it in me. ‘You’re a fucking bitch,’ I said.
The Tailor smiled. ‘Aye, I am. I’m exactly what the world needs me to be – what my granddaughter needs me to be. Now go and be what she needs you to be. Get me the support of the southern Dukes so we can win this damned war before the girl we’ve both sworn to protect gets killed.’
Chapter Seven
The Mask
The ancient trade route known as the Bow was our means out of Pulnam. When trade was good, as it had been during King Paelis’ reign, hundreds of horse carts and caravans would travel its three-hundred-mile length each year. Roadside inns and taverns had made good business off the success and heady optimism of travelling merchants and those seeking their fortunes in the eastern duchies. Now, five years after the King’s death, the cobblestones laid down centuries before were gradually becoming covered in sand and dirt. Hardy desert brush the colour of burnt leaves worked its way slowly from the sides of the road, worming in between the stones. Brigands outnumbered honest travellers now, and even they had trouble making ends meet.
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