Well, fuck me. You can’t even trust men who murder their own relatives any more.
‘Oh, don’t look so surprised, Falcio. If it makes you feel better, I’m sure Rhetan can be persuaded to change sides for the right price. Probably a little more land and a lot fewer taxes.’
‘What will it take for Hadiermo and Erris?’ I asked.
He looked at me quizzically. ‘What will it “take”? You mean, to buy their votes to put Aline on the throne?’ He shook his head. ‘You will never have their support; they are far too delighted at the prospect of a male ruler. Their inexhaustible determination not to have a woman on the throne is the closest thing either have to a principle.’
‘Fine. I don’t need them if I have you, Ossia, Meillard and Pastien. Ossia will certainly support Aline, and I’m fairly sure Pastien can be bought. That leaves you and—’
‘She will never be Queen, Falcio,’ Jillard said quietly. Before I could protest he raised a hand. ‘It is through no machinations of mine, I assure you. Given the choice between her and Patriana’s puppet, I have no doubt that Aline is the best hope the country has for stability.’
‘Then—’
He interrupted, asking, ‘How many Queens have we ever had ruling Tristia?’
‘Three,’ I replied. I’d checked.
‘Describe them for me.’
‘Well, Illenia the First was—’
‘No, no, not their names: tell me of their rule. What great and grand things did these Queens do?’
The question took me aback – I’d sought only to make sure that a Queen could hold the throne, not study their economic or military achievements. ‘I’m not sure I understand—’
‘You understand the question perfectly, Falcio. The few Queens we’ve had sit the throne, some prettily, some less so, have done nothing to change the country. They allowed the Dukes to rule as they saw fit; they made no major changes to the laws or the government – in fact, they largely stayed out of politics altogether. Now, does that sound like Aline to you? Does that sound like the girl who – before she was even on the throne – repudiated more than a thousand years of royal prerogative by telling the common folk that they need never again kneel to the monarch?’
I didn’t smile; I didn’t want Jillard to mock me for my pride in her, but she’d been so brave, so brilliant. In a moment when the whole world expected her to take vengeance on those who’d set themselves against her, she had instead given them not only forgiveness but hope in a single command: Rise.
‘You are a damned fool!’ Jillard said, smashing his wine glass on the floor. Apparently I’m not as good at hiding my emotions as I think I am. ‘You see the world in such sweet dreams, Falcio – that alone should tell you that you’re asleep!’
‘You’re saying Hadiermo and the others won’t tolerate a strong Queen.’
He waved a hand. ‘The hells for the Dukes; I would kill them all myself if I thought it would do any good. It’s not just them, Falcio. It’s all the nobility: the Margraves and Margravinas, the Viscounts and Viscountesses, the Lords and Daminas: none of them will let her do the things she will want to do. Go amongst the Lords Caravaner and the wealthiest of the merchants and ask about your little Queen – in fact, speak to the peasantry. You will find the same thing, Falcio. No one wants a fourteen-year-old girl telling them how to live their lives.’
He stared at me as if he expected me to deny his logic, to shout at him or threaten bloody murder, but I did none of those things.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I have underestimated you. You already know this.’
I nodded.
‘And you think you have a solution.’
Again I nodded. ‘Before I left for Avares, we had been discussing marriage for Aline.’
‘Falcio, that ship long ago left its port. You cannot hope to—’
‘A Duke,’ I said, cutting him off. ‘What if she were to marry into one of the Ducal lines?’
Jillard looked taken aback, and I didn’t blame him. A month ago I would have cut off my own foot with a rusty blade rather than even think about what I was about to suggest.
‘Pastien?’ he asked. ‘He’s young and . . . malleable, but I’m not convinced he can be trusted.’
‘I wouldn’t trust that little shit with passing the salt,’ I said. ‘Not Pastien.’
‘Then I’m afraid you have a poor set of choices, Falcio. Hadiermo and Erris would be monsters to her, Meillard is already married and Ossia is . . . not of the appropriate persuasion, even if Aline was. Which only leaves . . .’
This was the part that really made me want to cut my own tongue out. ‘You,’ I said. ‘What if she married you?’
I’d never seen the Duke of Rijou taken by surprise before and I felt I should press the advantage. ‘You’re unmarried, your Grace – Tommer’s mother died in childbirth, didn’t she?’
‘She did.’ His tone was flat, cold.
‘Yours is the wealthiest Duchy in the country. Your nobles are among the few who are – well, if not precisely loyal, at least sufficiently cowed not to risk crossing you. The other Dukes would be confident that you’d keep Aline from any excesses of common decency in her governing of the country. Most of all, you have the one characteristic I most desire in a spouse for her.’
‘Which is?’
I didn’t lock eyes with him, or put a hand on my rapier. I didn’t even take a step towards him. I knew I didn’t need to. ‘You know without a shadow of a doubt what I would do to any man who would lay an unwelcome hand on her.’
He stood there, staring at me – and then he burst out laughing. ‘That is quite the proposal you offer me, Falcio: the seething resentment of my allies, the outrage of my enemies and the promise of what I presume will be a most uncomfortable dismemberment should I ever displease my new bride.’
‘That’s about the size of it,’ I said. ‘Also, you’ll get to help save the country.’
He walked back to the glasses, picked up a clean one and filled it with wine. ‘I take it you haven’t discussed this with Aline?’
‘Not yet,’ I confessed.
‘So out of your endless love and respect for this girl, you’d push her into marriage with a man three times her age with a history of . . . shall we say, flexible ethical positions? I must confess, the sheer perversity of your willingness to abandon your values holds a certain appeal to me.’
Just so long as she becomes Queen, your Grace. I’ll figure out the rest later.
Jillard made short work of his wine, filled the glass a second time, then, moments later, a third. Something was wrong.
‘Your Grace, are you—?’
‘No,’ he said finally, the word coming out almost as a grunt.
‘No? You’d have more power than—’
‘Get out.’
Before I could even ask why, he threw the glass at me. I ducked in time and it shattered on the wall behind me. ‘Get the hells from my sight before I have you killed, Falcio!’
I started to leave, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking, ‘Why?’
‘Because there are some lines even I won’t cross, damn you!’
I could hear his guards massing outside, preparing to take me down, but still I couldn’t leave. ‘That’s rubbish! You’ve never shied away from anything that would increase your power and influence. You expect me to believe that somehow her youth stops you from this? Try something better, your Grace, because in a thousand years I can’t believe you’d—’
‘Tommer,’ he said, cutting me off. He reached for the bottle of wine, then stopped himself. ‘He would never forgive me.’
‘Tommer is dead,’ I said cruelly, my need outweighing any common decency left in me.
‘He is,’ Jillard said. ‘So why is it I see his face everywhere, Falcio? I can see him now, if I just close my eyes for a moment. Why does he look at me
with such . . . hope, as if he expects me to live up to his example somehow?’ He shook his head, shame painted across his features. ‘I do not know what my dead son expects of me, Falcio, but it is surely not what you ask.’
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
The Summons
For the next two weeks I conceived a hundred new and ingenious schemes that would enable me to put Aline on the throne without requiring me to commit murder in the process. I failed, of course; for every political or legal machination I attempted, someone else – Hadiermo or Erris or some other damned noble or Gods-forsaken merchant managed to stop me.
Filian was kept well away from me, and I avoided anyone I cared about. I couldn’t stand the thought of them seeing who I was becoming.
The hells for it. Put the girl on the throne and fix the rest later. Those words had become a prayer I found myself repeating with more dedication and fervour than even the most zealous monk.
In the meantime, everything that could go wrong, did. We’d intended to bring the City Sages to Aramor quietly, but word of a second heir to the throne had spread – I was pretty sure Hadiermo and Erris had been responsible for that. They’d been busying themselves eliciting support with the usual mix of bribery, blackmail, subtle threats and promises; the two of them were apparently going to become very important people one day soon.
Too many people had taken sides for there to be a peaceful resolution to this. The City Sages would soon be assembled, and we would either have a united decision, which might settle matters in the wrong direction, or a disputed lineage, which would mean civil war.
Eventually someone tired of my attempts to subvert the machinery of royal succession and late one night six guardsmen showed up at my door. I’d heard them coming, of course, and had put on my coat and prepared my weapons, although I stopped in time when it occurred to me that there might be consequences for killing Aline’s personal guards.
‘She wants to see you,’ Antrim Thomas said, leaning in my doorway with his arms crossed over his chest, looking nothing like the soldiers standing rigidly to attention behind him.
‘You know you’re supposed to work for me, right?’
‘Really?’ he asked. ‘I heard you weren’t the First Cantor any more.’
I followed him out into the hallway. ‘Was there ever a time when my fellow Greatcoats actually respected me?’
Antrim chewed on that as the lot of us walked down the hall and towards the stairs leading up to Aline’s private chambers. ‘Probably not,’ he said after a while, then gave me a wry grin. ‘Mostly we just followed your orders because we were afraid Kest would kick the shit out of us if we didn’t.’
*
‘I should have you arrested,’ Aline said as she motioned for me to sit on a delicate gilded chair next to a small card table.
I looked over at Antrim and his guardsmen, standing just outside the door. ‘I’m fairly sure you already did, your Majesty, although no one’s yet mentioned any particular crime.’ I reached over and picked up a biscuit from the intricate arrangement on a silver tray. ‘What exactly am I charged with?’
‘Prostitution, I should think. Possibly slavery.’ She leaned back in her chair. The way she sipped from her teacup reminded me uncomfortably of Ossia. ‘Tell me, First Cantor, what would be the appropriate punishment for attempting to sell a fourteen-year-old girl to the Duke of Rijou?’
‘I wouldn’t have—’
‘Oh, don’t bother, Falcio. I knew you’d come up with something at least this stupid the moment you came back to the castle with my brother in tow. I suppose it’s my own fault for having asked you to help me choose a suitable husband in the first place. Why did Jillard refuse you, anyway?’
‘Tommer.’
That surprised her, and I saw her hand shake as she put the teacup down on the table. ‘I . . .’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have told you.’
The sorrow left her eyes, pushed out, no doubt, by the enraged irritation that now filled them. ‘Falcio val Mond, since when has it been your business to keep secrets from me?’
I didn’t have an answer for that, so I busied myself with eating the biscuits at a pace that would have embarrassed even Brasti. Saints, how long has it been since I last ate?
‘I was proud of you, you know,’ Aline said.
‘Proud?’ Crumbs escaped my lips in an embarrassing spray down the front of my shirt.
She smiled, my awkwardness somehow buying me a measure of forgiveness. ‘Yes, you oaf, proud. When I saw Filian standing there with you, when I realised what you must have done . . . the choice you’d faced . . . I can’t imagine how hard that must have been.’
I poured myself a goblet of water from the flagon on the table. ‘It turned out to be rather a stupid choice in the end. All I did was buy us a thousand more problems.’
Aline grabbed my hand. ‘No, Falcio, that’s not what you did. You saved my father’s son – and more than that, you proved everyone wrong, once and for all. You showed the nobles and the Dukes and everyone else that the Greatcoats uphold the laws, no matter the cost to themselves.’
‘Sure, except for the guy who’s planning on invading Orison and Hervor and who just happens to have . . . what was it again? Oh yes, the vast majority of the Greatcoats on his side.’
‘And yet with all that, still the First Cantor found the strength to do what was right rather than what was easy.’
I found the admiration in her gaze profoundly uncomfortable. ‘See, when you say it like that, I don’t sound nearly as stupid as I feel.’
She grinned. ‘Oh, don’t worry; you’ve more than made up for it with all your nonsense these past two weeks. Honestly, Falcio, you really should stick to deciding which farmer gets which part of the cow from now on and stay out of the business of deciding who should rule the country.’
She put on a good show, but I’d known her far too long to believe this act. Aline was as afraid as anyone would be in her position. Unlike me, she was refusing to let it rule her.
‘You’ve spoken to him?’ I asked, trying to change the subject. ‘Filian, I mean?’
She nodded.
‘What do you think of him?’
‘I . . . I’m not sure. We’ve met several times now. He’s clever, and certainly knowledgeable. He might make a good King.’
‘Or he might be a monster.’
‘I don’t know. It’s true he’s difficult to read; what is certain is that he loves my – our – father, even though he never met him.’ Aline took my hand again. ‘That’s the one hope we have, if things turn against us: Filian’s desire to be connected to King Paelis. You could guide him in that, Falcio. Yours could be the voice that keeps him to the path of my father’s ideals, rather than Duchess Patriana’s cold logic.’
I shook my head. ‘Sweetheart, if he becomes King I don’t plan on being within a thousand miles of this place ever again.’
‘You must,’ she insisted. ‘Falcio, I’m telling you, the one hope we have is his admiration for you. He looks up to you, just as my father must have done. That’s how we protect the country, Falcio, that’s how—’
A knock at the door stopped her mid-sentence, and I wondered if her raised voice had made Antrim worry about her, but when he opened the door he was holding a note in his hand. ‘We have a problem,’ he announced. ‘A large contingent of soldiers has just arrived at our gates. They’re carrying Tristian banners.’
‘Isn’t that a good thing?’ I asked. ‘New conscripts arriving – so maybe we finally have some decent troops to work with.’
‘Oh, they’re well-trained soldiers, that much is certain,’ Antrim agreed. ‘The problem is more their commander.’
‘Who is it?’ Aline asked.
‘Trin, my lady.’ He turned to me and abandoning any pretence at decorum, added, ‘Apparently that prick Morn couldn’t even
kill her properly.’
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
The Triumphant Return
The gleam of early morning sunlight on the shields and armour of the arriving troops was almost blinding. They held their banners high, sable for Orison and silver for Hervor, catching the breeze and contributing to a tableau so magnificent that I couldn’t help but wonder if she hadn’t timed her arrival just for that effect. Had anyone but her been at the head of this army, I would have felt a surge of relief so overwhelming I’d have been tempted to drop to my knees and thank the Gods dead and alive for their generosity. As it happened, I was spared the need for any display of piety.
‘My, my,’ Trin said, gazing at the ruins of the castle. ‘You’ve really let the old place go, haven’t you, Falcio?’
I ignored the jibe; my mind was occupied with figuring out how she’d got here – we’d not been aware of her presence in the country, which meant Trin had brought her troops down through Domaris, which meant Hadiermo had arranged for safe passage. The second and more pressing issue was the young man who burst from the castle doors and ran past me to embrace her, shouting, ‘Tarindelle!’ He hugged her desperately.
It was the first time I’d heard her called that, but of course I understood why: ‘Trin’ was the name Patriana had given her for her role as Valiana’s maidservant, but it was hardly the name of a Duchess . . . or a future Queen. Tarindelle. Hells, it even sounded royal.
For her part, Trin was looking at me over Filian’s shoulder as the boy clung to her like a sailor hanging onto a mast in the midst of a storm. She mouthed ‘thank you’ to me, then she whispered something to Filian, who reluctantly let go of her and went back inside the castle.
‘You look remarkably alive for someone who sacrificed herself to the barbarians in the snow,’ I said. ‘And you made remarkably good time getting back.’
‘I did tell you I was a survivor, Falcio.’ She looked back at her soldiers, standing smartly at attention, waiting for orders. I guessed there must be two thousand of them, almost twice as many as the rest of the country had sent us. ‘The soldiers of Hervor and Orison have always been more loyal than those in the south,’ she said, noting the pathetic conscripts gazing out from their poorly constructed tents. ‘Perhaps because we treat them better.’
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