The Eighth Court

by Mike Shevdon

“It was only lemonade,” I pointed out.

  “Except it wasn’t, was it?” she turned on Angela. “What did you do?”

  Angela backed away towards the window, holding out her hands to ward off Blackbirds anger. “It was quite innocent. I never meant any harm.”

  “I never meant any harm…” said Blackbird. “Those words should be engraved in stone somewhere and used to bash the pair of you into oblivion. Well, you’ve done it now,” she said. “Does Garvin know about this?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I never thought to mention it.”

  Blackbird paused, folding her arms, thinking. “Don’t tell him,” she said.

  “What? He’s my boss. I have to tell him.”

  “As the Lady of the Eighth Court, I’m asking you not to tell him.”

  “I’m not a member of the Eighth Court,” I pointed out. “I’m a Warder. I work for all the courts.”

  “Please, Niall. He doesn’t need to know.”

  “He already knows most of it. I told him myself not half an hour ago. I can’t start keeping selected bits of information from him. What if he finds out?”

  Blackbird chewed her thumbnail. She shook her head. “We have a problem,” she said.

  “You’re right about that,” I agreed.

  “No, we have another problem. There have been discussions with Yonna, Kimlesh and Mellion. To some extent we see eye to eye on things that matter and we’ve been trying to work through the issues.”

  “So?” I said.

  “Garvin’s been present at some of these discussions, even if only in the background, and remarks made subsequently by Krane and Teoth, especially Krane, lead me to believe that they are aware of the substance of those discussions.”

  “You’re saying that Garvin is spying for Krane? That’s not possible. Garvin works for all the courts, not any single court. He’s as straight as a die.”

  “I’m saying that information is getting back,” said Blackbird.

  “No, that can’t be true.” I paced in front of the door. “There are all sorts of ways of eavesdropping on conversations. They could be using mirrors, or hidden microphones…”

  “Microphones wouldn’t work, and there are no mirrors in the High Court. Even the curtains are drawn to prevent reflections from the windows. Discussions in the High Court are limited to the people who are there,” she said.

  “What about Kimlesh, or Yonna, Mellion – any of them could be feeding back information?”

  “In theory, yes,” agreed Blackbird, “But the information revealed hasn’t helped any of them. What would they have to gain?”

  “They could be secretly against the Eighth Court?” I suggested.

  “Then why spend so much time and energy fostering it?” she asked. “If any of them changed sides, the balance of power would shift against the Eighth Court. That would be end of any negotiations. There’s no reason for secrecy. I’m telling you, someone has been telling tales and it’s someone who was there.”

  I shook my head.

  “Niall, I’m asking you not to tell him where the dreams are coming from. If Angela holds the key to this and she’s passed it to you, then it has to stay with you. I can’t afford for it to get to Krane and Teoth.”

  “We don’t even know what it means,” I said.

  “But what if Altair does?” she said.

  “Then we have to find out before he does,” I said.

  “The High Court is convening. I have to go,” said Blackbird. “The knights, the horseshoes, all of it will have to wait. Take the names to Claire. See if she recognises any of them.” She handed me the piece of paper with the names of the knights on it.

  “And if she does?”

  “Find them.”

  SIX

  When I told her I was going to see her mother, Alex volunteered to come along. This time she wore sensible shoes and jeans, but it was still clear to me that she was no longer my little girl. We turned up on Katherine’s doorstep for the second time in two days. Katherine hurried us through the door as if we were spies.

  “What’s all that about?” I asked her.

  “We don’t want anyone to know that Claire is here,” she explained.

  “Then just act normal,” I told her. “All this cloak and dagger stuff is only going to draw attention.”

  Katherine hugged Alex, and then cupped her chin in her hands and looked at her. “You have bags under your eyes.”

  “I didn’t sleep well,” said Alex.

  “Bad dreams?” I asked her.

  “N… no,” she said. I could hear the lie in that.

  Katherine hugged her again and ushered us into the sitting room. The curtains were drawn, even though it was mid-morning. I threw back the drapes without ceremony.

  “What are you doing?” said Katherine.

  “I’m letting in some light. If you leave the curtains drawn like that they’re going to think someone’s died. You’ll have the neighbours round.”

  “Someone will see her,” said Katherine. Claire sat on the sofa, blinking in the unaccustomed brightness.

  This was nonsense. There were net curtains behind the drapes so no one could see in. “We’re going to have to find you somewhere else,” I said to Claire.

  “Katherine has been very kind,” said Claire. “I’m extremely grateful.” That was me told.

  I sat down on the sofa next to her and handed her the piece of paper with the names on it. “What do you think of these?”

  “I recognise that one,” she said, pointing to Walter le Brun. “Where did you get these?”

  “Let’s just say I dreamed them up,” I said. “Any of the others?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “These are all Norman names – FitzRou is familiar, but that’s not surprising. Fitz means a child of unrecognised parentage.”

  “A bastard?” I asked, earning a sharp look from Katherine.

  “In the original sense,” Claire confirmed, “and FitzRou would imply a royal bastard or a bastard with unacknowledged royal connections.”

  “Any of the others?”

  “They’re all names I recognise, but not necessarily in this context. De Ferrers is from the Norman French, ferrieres, meaning a farrier or blacksmith.”

  “That might fit, given the horseshoes,” I said.

  “This is as a family name,” she said. “They weren’t necessarily farriers at the time. Montgomerie, that name is familiar…”

  “If I told you that these were six knights, who met in secret, would that help?” I asked her.

  She looked at me strangely. “It might,” she admitted.

  “They met in secret and another guy, Aimery, turned up with soldiers, but then the King arrived…”

  “Whoa, stop right there,” said Claire. “Where did you come by this information?”

  “I told you, I dreamt it.”

  She ran her fingers through her hair. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said, “but dreams aren’t usually considered reliable as a historical source.”

  “The King had Aimery killed.” I told her. “He had him thrown overboard on the river.”

  “You saw this?” Claire was incredulous.

  “No, but I heard the King give the order. He didn’t exactly say that, but his meaning was clear. You must be able to look that up somewhere.”

  “I’m not sure,” she said with measured patience, “that kings kept records of illicit killings. That sort of thing tended to breed unrest.”

  “Then check one of the other things. Check the names. They met in a hall with six passages leading to it under a domed roof. It must be somewhere.”

  “I’m flattered that you think my abilities in research are so well-developed,” said Claire, “but there could be a hundred places like that, and many of them will have been destroyed by fire, flood, or just fallen down.”

  “I’ve given you the names,” I told her. “You must be able to do something.”

  She looked at the list. “I’ll go
to the National Archive,” she said. “It may be that there are references in the journals. I can check, but it will take days.”

  “I could help,” said Alex brightly.

  Claire looked pained and shook her head. “Even if you were allowed access, which you are not,” she clarified when Alex looked hopeful, “You would need to be able to interpret Norman French, Middle English and be familiar with a number of conventions. No, it is a job I must do alone.”

  “What if they’re waiting for you?” said Katherine. “It’s one of the places you might go, isn’t it?”

  Claire looked from Niall to Katherine, and back to me.

  “I can’t read Norman French,” I said. “But I am willing to stand guard while you do.”

  “Then that’s what we will do,” she said.

  After four hours I was beginning to regret that offer. Claire sat in the private reading room, requesting one volume after another to be brought up from the vaults while I watched through the glass. She pored through volumes of journals written in tiny script while making notes on a lined notepad. That was as interesting as it got.

  I wasn’t allowed in the room when the documents were on display. According to the stern lady archivist, that was what restricted archive meant.

  Most of the people who came to the National Archive were interested in family history, lost in the dream that they were secretly related to the nobility, or simply interested in their ancestor’s lives, means and whereabouts. There were a few legal types working their way through ledgers and maps, but other than that it was deathly dull.

  Instead, I could sit outside, I could walk up and down, I could even request documents myself, as long as they were not from the restricted archive. I began to wonder whether I should take an interest in my own family history. After all, at least one of my ancestors wasn’t human, though I wasn’t expecting them to have records of who it was.

  There was a rhythm to it: people came, people went, documents arrived, documents were taken away. I found myself lulled by it, until my series of disturbed nights began to wear on me. I felt my eyes droop and shook myself awake to find someone sat across the table. It was Raffmir.

  “Late night?” he said. I grabbed for my sword, but he just pursed his lips and leaned back in his chair. “Too late, cousin. Far too late. If I wanted you dead, your blood would be all over that glass by now.”

  I retracted my hand, realising that he was right, and I couldn’t harm him anyway. We had both sworn under Feyre law not to harm the other under the rules of trial by ordeal. He had expected me to die that day. It was a great source of satisfaction to me that I was still here.

  He looked through the glass at Claire working her way through another journal. “What’s she doing?” he asked.

  “None of your business,” I told him.

  “I see your temper hasn’t improved in my absence,” he said.

  “Pity you came back,” I said.

  “Nor your manners,” he added.

  That was also true. With most people I didn’t like I could manage to be polite or at worst ignore them. Raffmir brought out the worst in me.

  “What do you want?” I asked him.

  “Perhaps I was simply worried for your health,” he said. “That looks nasty…” he slid his fingertips up the line of his jaw in the place the gates at the Royal Courts of Justice had left their impression on me.

  “You took a vow,” I pointed out, “not to harm me or allow me to come to harm.”

  “It wasn’t me that harmed you.”

  “Your driver, then,” I said.

  “And yet here you are in the peak of health,” he said. “A little marred, a little tainted – normal really…”

  “What would you have done if it had killed me?” I asked him.

  “…still as rude as ever,” he finished.

  “I’m serious,” I said. “It’s execution, isn’t it, if you’d killed me? I’m quite sure that Blackbird wouldn’t have let that go.”

  “The witch is still with you then?”

  “Don’t call her that,” I warned.

  “Shall I not call a goose, a goose? There is power in names, Dogstar, I think you know. And how is your lovely daughter? Such treacherous curls, it makes you want to cut them all off.” He made snipping signs with his fingers.

  “You swore not to harm her too,” I reminded him.

  “Unfortunately, she does not seem to have the same attitude to me,” he said. “I do my best to preserve her sorry little hide, and how does she repay me?”

  “I’ll ask you again, Raffmir, what do you want?”

  He leaned across the table, clasping his hands together and meeting my gaze with earnest intensity. “I’m meeting the terms of my vow.”

  “You’re not harming me? You could have done that back wherever you came from,” I pointed out.

  “You’d think it would be easier than it is,” he said. “You are my burden, and I suppose I must bear you, at least until the end.”

  “The end of what?” I asked him.

  He smiled, long and slow. “Prophesy, it’s such a fickle thing, don’t you think?”

  “I wish you’d just come out and say whatever it is that you came to say,” I told him, “and then leave.”

  “You haven’t thanked me for my last gift yet, and once again I find you are ungrateful.”

  “For what? I have to be grateful because of something you haven’t done for me?”

  He stood, straightening the lapels of his coat as he moved around the table and looked down his nose at me. “Not long now, Dogstar. The world turns.”

  “As it always does?”

  “Soon,” he said, turning. I watched his retreating back as he walked away between the tables. I shook my head, and glanced in at Claire. It looked like she’d had enough too. She was slumped across the books asleep. At least I thought she was until I noticed the dribble of red off the edge of the table.

  “Shit!” I grabbed my sword and burst into the room, wary of someone hiding behind the table, under the line of the windows, but there was no one. I lifted Claire by her shoulders and she flopped back in her seat, exposing the long slit across her throat. Blood was soaked into her clothes. Her dead eyes stared up at me.

  How? She was OK a moment ago. I’d watched her while Raffmir asked me what she was doing. No one had entered or left since then. Except me. I suddenly realised what this looked like. People were staring at my sudden activity. I stood out in the quiet archive like a food-fight in a convent. I pulled my glamour around me, but they had already seen. When asked later they would make the connection, exactly as Raffmir had wanted.

  I pushed the journals away from the growing pool of blood, streaking red across the surface.

  Blood running down translucent glass. Watching it form into sticky droplets.

  I shook my head. Not now. I had to get a hold on myself. I grabbed the journals from the table, leaned Claire’s body forward across the table again, as if she were resting. Pulling the tatters of my glamour around me, I left. With my glamour in full force, no one saw me leave, but that wouldn’t matter. They had all seen me arrive, all seen me sat outside the room. The archivist would attest that she had told me that I could not go into the room, and they had all seen me enter it.

  Bloody Raffmir.

  “You were supposed to be guarding her,” said Blackbird.

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  “Now what are we going to do?” said Blackbird. “It was bad enough that we’ve lost the knives and the horseshoes without losing the Remembrancer’s clerk as well. You’re sure she was dead?”

  “Her throat had been slit.”

  “Well I suppose it was quick, but hardly what she deserved,” said Blackbird. “This goes from bad to worse. I warned her to keep the horseshoe close.”

  “The horseshoe?” I asked.

  “Yes, she was carrying one with her. Don’t tell me you left that behind as well?”

  I thought for a moment
. “She wasn’t allowed to keep her bag with her. The archivist wouldn’t allow it. She put it in a locker. It’s probably still there.”

  “Or the police have it,” said Blackbird.

  “Well funnily enough, I didn’t stick around to ask them about it,” I said.

  “Perhaps we could try and keep the discussion constructive?” said Angela, trying to calm things down.

  “Perhaps if you hadn’t dosed him with your memories,” said Blackbird to Angela. “We’re in a bind, and no mistake.” Angela looked hurt, but Blackbird was in no mood to be sympathetic. “We’re up against it, Angela.”

  “We still have time,” I said. “I can go back for it. If I can find some way of transporting them, I could retrieve the one from the flat too.”

  “We have less time than you think,” said Blackbird. “Teoth and Krane are insisting that the Eighth Court moves out of the High Court by the winter solstice.”

  “But that’s only days away,” I said.

  “Where will we move to?” said Angela. “We won’t all fit in my house.”

  “That might be the only choice we have,” said Blackbird, “and I’m truly grateful for the offer.”

  “It wasn’t an offer,” said Angela. “I was being sarcastic.”

  “Do you have a better idea?” asked Blackbird. “Sparky, Alex, Niall, you, me and the baby – that’s not so many. The others will just have to stay where they are until we can find something larger. It’s not supposed to be a full-time home for everyone – more of a place to gather.”

  “We’ll be camping in the garden,” said Angela. “What about Andy and the bees? Julie’s about to lose her flat.”

  “Who’s Julie?” I asked.

  “She’s one of the newcomers,” said Blackbird. “She came in last night with a guy called Hathaway – I’m assuming that’s his surname. Word is spreading, Niall. They’re coming to us because we offer the best hope there is.”

  “It doesn’t say much for the other options,” I said. “We need a better plan than Angela’s house, with the greatest respect to you, Angela.”

  “I agree with you,” she said, emphatically. “What about Yonna or Kimlesh? Won’t they help us?”