‘Who’s Gerrald?’
‘I am,’ said one of the guards, reaching a hand, palm-up, through the bars of the Tailor’s cell.
She snorted and said, ‘I’m imprisoned, ye great twit. Where would I get silver?’
Gerrald said nothing, but kept his hand where it was.
Finally the Tailor reached into a pocket of her coat. ‘Greedy bastard. I should have you killed.’
The guard smiled. ‘My missus thanks you, ma’am.’
He and the other guards left us there.
‘I thought you were pardoned,’ I said.
The Tailor shrugged. ‘I was, but these accommodations suit me fine and sometimes it’s useful for people not to know one’s true status.’
‘Does Valiana know where they’ve put me?’ I asked.
The Tailor gave me a wink.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but I don’t speak crazy old bat. Is that a yes?’
‘It’s a yes,’ Valiana said, coming down the hall. She had a man with her, tall and slender, with long, shaggy blond hair and a bushy beard that made him look older than I suspected he actually was. He wore a greatcoat like mine but his collar and cuffs were lined with thick grey-white fur. He carried a tall staff shod with bands of iron at one end and an eighteen-inch curved blade at the other. ‘Falcio, this is—’
‘Son of a bitch,’ I said. ‘Morn?’
He nodded.
‘The beard is new. Makes you look uglier than I remember.’
Morn, once called the King’s Glaive after the weapon he habitually carried, raised a hand to his chin and grinned. ‘Gets cold where I’ve been these past few years.’
‘And where is that?’
A loud clang followed by a crash drew everyone’s attention towards the entrance to the dungeon. I stuck my face up against the bars, but I couldn’t see what had happened . . . then I heard the voices and the ‘what’ didn’t matter.
‘I told you it would work,’ Kest said. ‘It’s just a matter of calculating the force required against the weakest point on the door.’
I heard a loud snort that could only have come from Brasti. ‘Wonderful. Perfect. It just happens to make enough noise to bring the castle down on us.’
They came into view, the pair of them carrying a log which Brasti promptly dropped when he saw who else was in the dungeon. ‘Saint-fucking-Zaghev, if it isn’t Morn the King’s Arse-Licker come for a visit.’ He pointed at Morn’s glaive. ‘Still carrying that ugly thing instead of a proper weapon?’
Morn looked to me. ‘So he’s still insulting other people’s weapons and thinking it’s clever?’
‘Yes,’ Brasti said before I could respond, ‘but this time it’s true: a glaive really is the ugliest weapon ever devised.’
Morn grinned. ‘I’d beat you senseless for that remark, Brasti, but it looks as if you’ve got enough problems.’
He reached out and pulled Brasti into a rough bear hug and then turned and did the same to Kest, who was still hanging onto his end of the log with his one hand. It was a nice moment, when seen from inside a cell.
‘Oh, by the way,’ Brasti said to Valiana, ‘the Saint of Mercy asked me to convey to you that if Falcio isn’t released within the hour she’s going to bring what’s left of the castle down on everyone’s heads.’ To me he added, ‘Sainthood is really making her moody.’
I let that rather terrifying thought slide because something else was bothering me. ‘Why wasn’t I told Morn had returned?’ I asked Valiana. ‘And why did you bring him down here?’
It was the Tailor who replied, ‘Because he has something to tell us.’
I sat back on the bed in the cell, finally putting the events of the last hour together. ‘Shit. It’s not by accident that I find myself in this cell, is it?’
‘We needed a meeting,’ the Tailor said, ‘one that wouldn’t arouse suspicion or bring too many ears.’
I looked at Valiana. ‘So you goaded me into threatening the Dukes as a pretext for having me arrested just so you could bring me down here.’
‘I didn’t have to push very hard,’ she pointed out, and I could see she was still hurt by my behaviour. Hells, how was it she had me sitting in a cell and I got to feel guilty for it?
I looked at Morn. ‘What was the King’s last command to you? Was it something to do with Orison?’
‘A little further west,’ he replied.
‘There is nothing west of Orison,’ Brasti said, ‘just mountains and . . . Oh . . . fuck me.’
‘Avares,’ Morn confirmed. ‘Land of piss-drinking barbarians and not a single decent beer for three hundred miles.’
I stood up from the bed. ‘King Paelis sent you to Avares? To do what?’
Morn leaned on his glaive. ‘Oh, you know how the King was. Brought me into the library on his last day, took a drink from his glass and said, “Need you do to a little ranging for me, Morn.” Then he pointed on a map and said, “Keep an eye on this for me, will you?”’
‘“Ranging”?’ Kest asked.
It was an odd word to use, since normally it meant sighting distance in preparation for launching an attack. It also sounded a lot like . . . Ah. ‘The King told you to join the Rangieri?’ The word sounded odd on my tongue.
Morn pulled at the fur collar of his coat. ‘Join them? When’s the last time you saw any Rangieri running around? I doubt there are ten left in the whole Western Mountains. I spent the first year just trying to find one to get him to teach me how to survive in all that damned freezing wilderness. I swear the King picked me for this mission because I used to complain about having to go on those damned long journeys up the trade routes.’
‘And you’re sure he was pointing to Avares on that map?’ Brasti asked.
Morn stopped for a moment, then his eyes went wide and he stood up. ‘Hells! You know, I think he might have been pointing at Hervor – Saint Gan-who-laughs-with-dice, have I just spent six years in the wrong damned country?’
‘All right,’ the Tailor said, ‘if you’re done having your fun, we need to get down to business.’
‘Wait a minute,’ I said, ‘I still don’t understand. Why would the King send you to spy on Avares?’
‘Because no one else would,’ Valiana said. ‘The Dukes recalled all of their diplomats and spies after the King was deposed.’
‘Why in hells—?’
‘They needed them here, close to home, so they could keep track of their enemies within Tristia.’
Here we were in a castle infested with spies, but we had none in the country that might actually decide to invade us one day soon. As if I needed another reason to be annoyed with the Dukes . . .
‘The King had some of his own spies in Avares, of course,’ Morn said, ‘but the Dukes ratted them out so they all died.’
‘And yet you survived?’
He smiled and made a show of inspecting his fingernails. ‘They don’t call me the King’s Magic for nothing, Falcio.’
‘Nobody ever called you that,’ Brasti said. ‘He named you for that stupid stick with the knife on the end of it – and anyway, with all that fur on you we ought to change that to the King’s Rug.’
I shook my head in disbelief. ‘Are you telling me that for all these years we’ve had one man keeping an eye on the country that’s gone to war with us seven times in the last hundred years?’ I looked at Morn. ‘Okay, so what’s going on in Avares?’
For a moment he didn’t speak, then he sighed. ‘I’m not exactly sure.’
‘You’re not sure?’
‘It’s a big country, Falcio, and not an easy place to blend in.’ He rubbed his jaw through the beard. ‘But I’ll tell you this: it isn’t the country it was.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Over the last five years their warbands have become better organised, and more dangerous. They’re act
ually forging their own steel now.’
The Tailor stood up and leaned close to the bars. ‘There’s no way in any hell they should be working in steel, Falcio, not for at least another ten years. They lack the organisation to mine properly, to work forges, to . . . well, I won’t waste my time explaining it all, but it’s enough to say that moving this quickly isn’t natural.’
‘Falcio,’ Morn said quietly, ‘I’m fairly certain I saw cannons.’
That hit me like a blow. We had cannons, of course, but not good ones, not the kind you hear about from across the sea in Darome.
‘And that’s not the worst of it.’
‘Fantastic,’ Brasti said, throwing his arms up in the air. ‘Let me guess, whatever Gods are still living have taken a vote and decided to side with the barbarians?’
‘Not quite,’ Morn replied, ‘but there is a new Warlord in Avares, a man they call the Magdan – which means “King of Battle”, by the way – and he’s started uniting the tribes.’
‘Have you seen him?’ the Tailor asked.
‘No, he’s too clever. His men know how to run a camp. You’d never get within a mile of him without being caught.’
I stood up and pushed at the door, only then realising the guards hadn’t locked it. ‘So you came back to warn us. Have you told the Ducal Council? They should send troops to the borders.’
Morn looked at the Tailor.
‘Go ahead,’ she said.
‘That’s not why I came back. I’ve been crossing the border back and forth every few months for years to keep up with what’s happening here in Tristia as well. The last time I snuck into Avares, I got captured by another of these Avarean Warlords: a big brute of a man with the sense of a donkey but with an army of two thousand warriors. I managed to convince him that I was just a travelling merchant, someone willing to risk the dangers of trading across the border for the profits that such trips can bring. When I was in his camp, a woman visited him: an impossibly beautiful woman with a smile that made my blood go cold. She offered him a great deal of money, payment to bring his army on as mercenaries. Falcio, her name was—’
‘Trin,’ I said with a shudder. ‘Trin is hiring mercenaries from Avares.’ I looked at Valiana and the Tailor. ‘You want me to go to Orison. You want me to pretend to go and settle the villages down for the Ducal Council when in reality I’ll be tracking down Trin.’
‘You’ll also be looking into this new Warlord Morn’s been telling us about,’ Valiana said.
Hells. If Trin really was hiring Avareans as mercenaries, they could wreak untold damage on the country. We couldn’t stand another civil war, not this soon after the last one. As much as I hated the thought of leaving Aline alone, this was a threat we couldn’t ignore. There was another reason I would go, though: for the chance to kill Trin, to rid the world of her and Patriana’s vile line once and for all.
‘Falcio, there’s something else,’ Valiana said, catching the look on my face. ‘I need you to bring her back alive.’
‘Alive? Are you insane? Even the Dukes wouldn’t want her brought back alive – Saints, Duke Jillard is her father and he’d be the first to congratulate me for putting a blade in her belly.’
‘He might,’ she said, ‘but that would send the message that we’re scared: that we had to resort to assassination because we feared one woman so much. Worse, it will confirm the fears of those who believe the Greatcoats are nothing more than Aline’s private army. Falcio, if we bring Trin back to Aramor and make her stand trial for what she’s done, the country will know that justice is still alive in Tristia.’
I turned to the Tailor in disbelief. ‘You agree with this? You’d let Trin come back here and—?’
The old woman spat. ‘I’d rather rip out that little bitch’s cunt with my bare hands just to make sure we never see another like her.’ She let out a long breath. ‘But Valiana’s right, and wiser than either of us, thank Saint Felsan-who-weighs-the-world – oh, wait, he’s dead, too, isn’t he?’ She stood up and rested her hands against the bars of her cell. ‘This country is on the brink of failing, Falcio. You’ve seen this. There are plenty of reasons, but the most insidious is that the people of Tristia have no faith in their leaders and even less faith in our so-called laws. Given nowhere else to turn, they’ll simply follow whichever fool talks the loudest.’
Brasti groaned. ‘So this was just a way to get Falcio down here to appeal to his love of suicide missions? Now we’re supposed to invade a foreign country and, while avoiding capture, simultaneously track down and kidnap Trin and then somehow bring her back alive to stand trial?’
‘He’s right,’ Kest said. ‘The Greatcoats weren’t meant for operating inside a foreign country. We don’t know the people or the land – our chances of being captured and killed once we cross their borders are . . . significant.’
The Tailor ignored them both and favoured me with a sour grin. ‘Think of this as an act of daring and valour, Falcio. You’ve always been fond of those.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Stonemason
Freed from my very temporary captivity, I spent some time in the Greatcoats’ wardroom preparing for the journey: packing my clothes, re-sharpening my climbing spikes, oiling throwing knives and hunting around for supplies to refill the dozens of now-empty pockets in my coat.
King Paelis, back when he was still alive, appointed Magisterial Valets: specialists whose job was to prepare our coats before each journey. They’d oil the leather using compounds formulated by the Tailor for whichever climate we were heading for. The bone plates would be inspected and replaced where necessary, and each pocket would be checked, all our tricks and traps and weapons carefully maintained and replaced as needed. One of our pockets is designed especially to carry writs for our forthcoming cases, and sometimes the King would sneak in a little note – and he was fond of the odd practical joke too (one circuit, I spent days trying to work out why I smelled so powerfully of lavender). Those childish pranks of his reminded you that he cared – he knew he was sending you off into danger, and he would be so proud when you returned. It was for that reason, as much as the bone plates and the weapons, we felt almost invincible when that greatcoat was on our shoulders.
Rummaging through one of the old cabinets near the weapons racks, I scrounged up a few small fragments of amberlight. I had less luck finding any jars of the black salve we use to treat wounds incurred on the road. Worse still, I was completely out of the hard candy that I’d relied upon so many times these past few years. By the time I was done, I felt oddly naked in my coat; far too many of the pockets were empty. Not for the first time, I worried about how the other Greatcoats – those who’d yet to return to Aramor – were faring without the means to replenish their supplies.
Deal with the problem in front of you, I reminded myself. Get Aline on the throne, then you’ll have all the time in the world to find the rest of the Greatcoats and get the things we need to make us functional again.
With my preparations complete, I spent a few restless hours wandering the halls of Castle Aramor, which had been my habit in the old days on the night before a long journey. Kest used to spend that time reading – travelling through rain, cold and muck with books is seldom a good idea. Brasti would get drunk or seek out . . . other diversions. But me? I liked to remind myself that we weren’t entirely alone out there and to take with me some small sense of this strange castle where I’d first snuck in, a madman, covered in filth and bent on revenge, and had left months later as a King’s magistrate, with a sword at my side and a greatcoat on my back.
I could almost imagine Paelis himself following me down the halls, making fun of my penchant for nostalgia, but sometimes just feeling the stone flags beneath my feet gave me the sense of solidity that was absent in every other part of my life.
‘Take another step and you’re dead,’ a woman’s voice called out.
My rapier was in hand even before I turned to face whoever had come for me. I was in one of the passageways that ran behind the throne room, the few lanterns casting more shadow than light. ‘I only just cleaned this blade,’ I said, ‘so I’m going to be even more pissed off than usual if I have to kill someone with it tonight.’
A figure stepped into view – a woman in a stonemason’s heavy leather apron, carrying a mallet in one hand and a chisel in the other. ‘Reckon you’re going to duel in a hole in the floor, do you?’ She gestured with the chisel to the patch of shadow where I’d been about to step.
The stonemason was far enough away that I allowed myself a glance back. Sure enough, I’d nearly walked right into a three-foot wide hole in the damned floor.
‘Goes down nearly twenty feet,’ she said, coming to join me. ‘The rubble below is so damnably sharp your skin would be cut to ribbons even before your bones broke from the impact, you blind idiot.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, resheathing my rapier. ‘For the warning, I mean, not for calling me an idiot.’
She stuck her tools into the leather loops attached to her apron. ‘Midreida,’ she said, offering her hand. ‘Chief Stonemason. I’m the one who’s keeping your castle from falling down.’
‘Falcio val Mond,’ I said in turn, ‘First Cant—’
‘Everybody knows who you are, you blithering—’
‘For someone whose job is to keep this place standing, perhaps you should fix the fucking gaps in the floors rather than casting aspersions at others.’
‘You might have a point there,’ she conceded, staring down at the hole in front of us. ‘But almost nobody uses this particular passageway anymore, so we’ve just been using it to store our tools at night. We’ll get to it eventually, but there’s only so many hours in the day and this whole place is a wreck.’
‘You and the others have been working on this for two months already – shouldn’t things be—’
‘“Two months”,’ Midreida repeated in a tone laden with sarcasm. ‘Two whole months? Has it really been that long? Hard to imagine how we couldn’t have finished rebuilding the single largest structure in the entire fucking country in that time, isn’t it?’
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