by Rod Duncan
Gloved, Elizabeth might have risked it. “I can’t,” she said. And then: “I must go, before someone comes looking.”
As she felt her way back along the walkway, holding the chain, she heard Mary’s voice calling after her, “Why are you lying to me?”
The guard had the door open for her and stood to attention as she approached. Desperate to get out of his view, she turned left in the corridor instead of right, bringing her quickly to the corner of the passage. Her eyes were stinging. She screwed them closed, trying to force the tears away, not understanding how a prisoner had so unsettled her emotions. It was not Mary Brackenstow, she thought. It was the isolation and the argument with Edwin and the loss of a mother she hardly remembered, a bereavement long overdue.
She pinched the skin between her thumb and finger, the sharpness of her nails forcing her thoughts back into focus.
In near-darkness, every corridor and spiral stairway looked the same as all the others. She began climbing, hoping to go up two floors, but found her way blocked after one. She turned right, which seemed to her like north. But when the passageway reached its corner, the turn was in the wrong direction. Disorientated, she stepped to a window. A glance outside would fix her bearings.
“State your name!”
The voice brought her up short. A man emerged from the deeper darkness of a doorway.
“Edwin,” she said.
The man stepped closer, as if unconvinced. “It’s my orders. I’ve got to ask what you’re doing here.”
“Whose orders?”
“Mr Janus.”
She sharpened her voice. “Why does Mr Janus want to know?”
“I’m sorry… sir. It’s the search. For the other magician, I mean. We’ve started up again. And I’m set to watch that he doesn’t sneak past.”
“How many days more will you be searching?”
“We’ll have it done in two. But… I’ve got to ask it again… What is your business, Mr Edwin?”
“I’m keeping watch,” she said. “I’m keeping watch, like you.”
CHAPTER 27
Brandt Shanks, the leader of the embassy, had been given an apartment in the main keep of the castle. Red and four more of the party were sharing the adjoining room, though it was smaller. The remaining Newfoundlanders took bunks in the garrison building. All this according to Edwin’s instructions. He had stayed back whilst the arrangements were being made, out of sight but watching as best he could.
Brandt refused the offer of a breakfast feast. Also the offer to postpone negotiations until the next day. Having ordered coffee and salted oatmeal, the Newfoundlanders ate in their quarters.
“He said they didn’t ride across America just to feast and get fat,” one of the kitchen boys reported, his eyes widening as he said it, as if not believing he was being allowed to speak such words to the king’s magician.
“Who said this?”
“The top man.”
“And who did he speak it to?”
The boy leaned closer and whispered, “To Lord Timon!”
Edwin put a newly minted copper with the face of the king onto the outstretched palm. “Good lad. Keep your ears open.”
“They’re eating the oatmeal like they’re starved,” said the boy, hopefully, then seeing that no more money was coming, he turned on his heel and scurried away to join a line of other kitchen workers carrying empty bowls.
Edwin had dressed fully male again. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d gone so long constrained. If he let the embassy see who he really was, the apparent strangeness might work to his advantage. But different people would react in different ways. Foreigners were in any case unpredictable. The way his sister had told it, the people of Newfoundland were a warrior cult. Strength of arms meant status to them. Any perceived weakness or difference might be a barrier to the negotiations.
He could manage for another few days. Clothes were only an outer expression, after all. Yet the difference between what he was inside and what others could see had begun to feel like a physical weight. He longed to lay it down.
At ten in the morning, according to the castle clock, the king took his place on the throne in the Great Hall. The servants had been at their work early and a good blaze already crackled in the fireplace. Timon had seated himself close to it. Janus stood just behind the king’s brother’s chair, far enough from the action to show a moral distance. Close enough to read every nuance of the negotiations. As First Counsellor, Edwin had taken his place immediately to the right of the throne, angled so he could see the king’s expression.
The king himself was the last to sit. Then the room fell into an awkward silence. A messenger had gone to fetch the embassy. Yet no one came.
Now, it seemed that the air was too hot. Edwin became aware of sweat on his brow and upper lip. Most of the courtiers were looking at their feet or gazing at the ceiling. But some of the younger ones were staring at him. The consort too. The king’s expression hadn’t changed, but Edwin knew the man well enough to read his impatience. He half-turned and Edwin leaned in to hear his words. But all that came from the royal lips was a sigh. Twice this happened.
“Should I send someone else?” Edwin whispered at last.
The king seemed set to agree, but on that moment a guard hurried in and gave a vigorous nod. Then Edwin heard the sound of booted feet outside. They weren’t keeping step, but it was the sound of an army nonetheless: men advancing towards conflict.
Brandt Shanks led them into the hall. Senior members of his party followed: Red and the others who’d been sitting close to their captain around the campfire. Edwin still didn’t know their names. Chairs had been set out for them at the front of the room, level with the king, but placed at an angle so that all could see each other without turning. The angles implied a deliberate ambiguity of status.
Brandt had achieved the same as on the previous night, Edwin thought. Then he’d held back from attending the planned feast. Now he had made them just late enough to fray tempers, but not to the point of insult.
Edwin kept his gaze fixed forwards, listening to the scrape and shuffle as they took their seats.
“You are welcome to my hall,” the king said, in a ringing tone.
“Thank you,” Brandt replied. “And for sending food last night. Though it wasn’t needed. We’d managed well enough for two thousand miles. One more day wouldn’t have starved us.”
“It was my pleasure,” said the king, who had had nothing to do with it.
“The company of your brother was also welcome,” Brandt said. “But who is the man standing next to you?”
“This is Edwin, my First Counsellor.”
“The same Edwin who left an empty bed for us to find this morning.”
It wasn’t a question. Edwin kept himself still and erect, facing the end wall as before.
“Edwin is a magician,” the king said. “He disappears and appears where he will.”
“We have conjurors in the east. And jugglers too. Makers of entertainments.”
“A different kind of magic,” the king said. “It was Edwin’s foresight to invite you here. He sees the future.”
“Then is our future set? Do we poor souls from the east have no choice?”
Edwin became aware of the king’s glance towards him, and a growing irritation.
“If I may speak, sire?” Without waiting for an answer, Edwin turned towards the embassy, making a low bow, but no smile. “To see the future is akin to predicting the weather. We may say that August will be hot and January cold. Yet the wind is unconstrained. It blows where it will. Your king will decide whatever he will decide. All I can say is this – the unseen forces that direct our lives are in flux. If we align ourselves with this change, then great things may be achieved.”
“What things?”
“Wealth beyond the dreams of men. Power over all the world.”
“Power for who?”
“For Newfoundland and for Oregon.”
“And
what would you do with this power if you had it in your hands?”
Edwin almost answered but caught himself.
“Well?” An insolent tone had crept into Brandt’s voice. He was pushing too far. One of his embassy leaned close and whispered something. Edwin tried to remember where that man had been sitting at the campfire. The knuckles of the king’s hands had started to whiten as he gripped the arms of the throne.
“Kings use their power as they will,” Edwin said. “Whether that be only such power as would fill a drinking cup, or enough to over-flood this great continent. Your king may take this offer, or refuse it, as is his right. Then he would never need to decide what might be done with his portion.”
“How did you disappear last night?” Brandt asked.
“He’s a magician,” said the king again. “It’s what he does.”
The man who had been whispering in Brandt’s ear now turned and spoke: “There’s no such thing as magic.”
He was a thin man with a prominent aquiline nose.
“Who are you?” the king asked.
“My name is Gilad.” There was no bow.
He had been there at the campfire, Edwin thought, but not sitting with the men of power.
The king stood. His patience exhausted it seemed. “Gilad, is it? Well, boy, there may be no magic in Newfoundland. But there is in Oregon. It has swept my enemies away. And it will sweep away all those who stand against me!”
As the king stalked out, with Timon and the consort close behind, other members of the court seemed less certain. But when Janus strode out after the royal party, it was the signal for everyone else to follow. Damn but the man had found a way to lead once more.
Brandt stood and strode from the room by a different door, followed by his men. Gilad was the last in line, though it was his rudeness that had broken the king’s patience.
“It’s a long way to ride,” Edwin said. “Two thousand miles.”
Gilad turned in the doorway, paused, stepped back in. It was just the two of them remaining. “A long ride,” he agreed.
“Will you be leaving today, do you think, for your journey back?”
“We’ll do whatever my master decides.”
“What would your king in Newfoundland say if you just turned around and rode home?”
“Oh, we’d tell him we tried, but the mighty king of Oregon demanded we submit to his rule. Or something like that. We’d make a good story of it. He’d reward us for our saddle sores.”
“You’d lie?”
“As would you, magician. There is no magic, as you know well. So don’t you accuse me of lying in that high tone.”
Their conversation had become hushed as it became more dangerous.
“What do you want?” Edwin whispered.
“It’s not what I want that you need to worry about.”
“It’s your rudeness that stopped us.”
“You look but you don’t see. Tell me, magician, do all in this castle agree? Do all want this alliance?”
Edwin didn’t answer.
Gilad nodded. “Then why should it be different in Newfoundland?”
“Who should I be worried about?” Edwin asked.
“Red. He hates the new ways. Any overlord is bad enough for him. But you want to make our king into an emperor.”
“Do you agree with Red?”
“I don’t know, for myself. But you say change is coming. Perhaps it is.”
“Does Red like to hunt?” Edwin asked.
Gilad cocked his head, as if puzzled. “He does.”
“Then stay another day or two. Killing something might soften his heart. There are deer to be had.”
The other man smiled, as if appreciating some morsel of new knowledge. Or seeing a joke deeper than Edwin’s intended irony. He dipped his head, then stepped away. Unlike the others in the party, his footsteps were so light that Edwin could barely hear them.
Climbing the stairs, Edwin felt a sudden hollowness. His future had become welded to the negotiations. Janus would be doing his best to sour the king’s mood, pointing out the numerous clear insults to their hospitality, with a few imagined ones thrown in. That’s where Edwin should be: by the king’s side, protecting the royal ear from poison.
But danger was approaching from so many directions that he couldn’t begin to think through the map of what might happen. Foreboding pressed down on him, like a dead weight.
Halfway up, he stopped, held his breath, counted to twenty, listening. Those spiral staircases built within the thickness of the castle walls had a way of carrying sound, making distant things feel close. But all he could hear was the clanking of pans in the castle kitchens and far off, the call of a hawk.
At the top of the stairs he stopped again. This time, he caught the sound of fabric against stone. It had come from an alcove further along the passageway. Janus often paid a man to stand there, but not a spy of great quality. Sometimes he breathed so loud that Edwin could hear him from that alone.
At the door to the Room of Cabinets, he turned the tumblers, making them click through the symbols his mother had designed. He expected his sister to be standing, waiting as before. But when he found her, she was curled up on the floor with two blankets over her and a third rolled up to make a pillow.
It was the first time he’d seen her sleeping. No. That couldn’t be right. They had slept together as children. For a moment he allowed himself to imagine running away with her. They could escape the castle, travel only at night, walk their way out into the wilderness, find a place to live quietly, away from politics. A shack in the hills. But it wouldn’t do. The storm that was coming would sweep the world, one way or another. There was no hiding to be done.
He crouched, put a hand on his sister’s shoulder, feeling her warmth. His own shoulders were thicker, broader. And yet dressed in identical clothes to him, those differences seemed to vanish.
She stirred. It seemed a shame to be waking her.
“What’s happening?” she asked, her voice thick with sleep.
“Nothing. I just need to talk.”
She sat up. “What time is it?”
“Still morning.”
“I thought you’d be gone all day.” She blinked, as if bringing her eyes to focus.
“I need to talk,” he said again.
There was no time to get the stove hot, so he lit a spirit lamp on the bench and set the coffee pot over it. At the other side of the room, Elizabeth was washing her face. When she returned, all sign of sleep had gone.
“Tell me everything,” she said.
He narrated the events of the morning, remembering more details as he went, all the way up to the disaster in the Great Hall. As he spoke the pot began to rumble. She poured herself a cup and cradled it in her hands, breathing the steam but not sipping until he had finished. Then she did drink, pulling a face as she swallowed.
“I’ll never get the taste for coffee,” she said.
“What should I do?” he asked. “What should we do?”
She shook her head. “It will be wrong, whatever it is. You tried to be welcoming and friendly. The Newfies took it as a sign of weakness. That’s what you’re telling me. But when you acted formal, they chose to take it as an insult. They’re looking for an excuse to turn around and ride home. They’ve made the middle ground narrow as a tightrope. Even if you found the right tone, your enemies could simply push a little one way or the other. You’d fall from your balance. I’m sorry.”
He got up, fetched a pewter mug and poured from the pot. The coffee made his heart speed. All that his sister had told him was true. He could have worked it out for himself. But it had been helpful nonetheless: the process of speaking it out and having her confirm his fears.
“What of you?” he asked. “Don’t you want me to fail?”
She took another swallow, her face screwing. It seemed wrong that she should have such different taste from him.
“I want Oregon and Newfoundland both to join the Gas-Lit Emp
ire,” she said.
“That will never happen.”
“Why not?”
“The king has an army. He has guns and explosives. They can’t not be used.”
“Then thousands will die.”
“Yes,” he said, though the truth was worse. The deaths would be numbered in millions. “The king will have his war.”
“What if he were to die?” This she asked in a whisper.
“His brother would become king. Timon. Not a man of subtlety. Janus’s advice would be more to his taste. They both want to launch their war before winter sets in. They’d work their way south, ahead of the snows. I’ve seen the plans. City by city. They’d lay waste to the continent. So much ruin.”
There was a long silence after that. She drank more of the coffee, as if the act were some kind of penance. When the cup was empty, she handed it back to him.
“I can’t count the dead like this. Numbers in a mathematical equation. I can’t understand even one of them.”
“No one can,” he said. “There’ll be millions, either way. No one can weigh that. You have to turn it around. Think of the lives saved. If my plan leaves one million dead and Janus’s plan kills twenty million–”
“If,” she said, cutting in. “You can’t know any of this.”
“But if no one does this calculation… Do you not see the danger?”
She sighed. “What does Gilad want?”
“That’s what I don’t know. He was the rudest one. But he stayed back to speak to me afterwards. He must have had a reason for that. He could have just marched out with the others.”
“I wish I could meet him. Or do anything, really. I hate the waiting. Does he believe in magic, do you think? Gilad, I mean.”
“No. On that point he was set.”
She frowned.
“What is it?”
“I just thought to ask… What would happen if Janus were to die?”
“The killer would be thrown from the battlements,” Edwin said.