by Anna Butler
John raised the hand nearest Peter and made a chopping motion. Peter shot him an apprehensive glance and clapped his hand over his mouth. He could have been a model for those delightfully drawn newspaper illustrations advertising toothache remedies. All he needed was a rabbit-eared handkerchief tied around his jaw. The poor chap looked to be in torment, and I believe he wished he were still safely in Shanghai, where all he had to deal with were wily opium dealers who’d slit his throat as soon as look at him.
I had some sympathy with the opium dealers.
There was no point in appealing to Peter, even if I felt inclined to do so. He had always taken John’s part. “Even supposing my friendships were any of your business, John, I had no opportunity to tell you. We are hardly bosom friends. It’s not as though we see each other outside House events.” I did understand John’s point of view, although I had no sympathy with it. Any well-intentioned House member would have made a point of coming to John to ask for advice on how to make the most of it for the House. Well, obviously I was not well-intentioned. “And just for the record, I don’t think my friendship with Ned Winter is any of your business. I won’t parade my friends for your inspection.”
The snake drew in a hissing breath but spoke with a calm that appeared to cost him dearly. His hands clenched in spasms, and his voice fairly thrummed. “My father intends to see you later today. He has the foolish notion he can work on you to do your duty to the House, to support our efforts to extend our influence. We both know that will never happen. You’d see us all to Hades first. I know that.”
Dear God in heaven, another visitation? And the Stravaigor himself? Well, that explained John’s presence in my coffeehouse. Typical Lancaster, trying to get in first and screw out of me whatever advantage he could. I would probably do the same in his position, although when it came to his dismal incompetence in carrying out the duties of a First Heir, I honestly couldn’t do worse myself.
John let out a long breath. “Listen to me well, Rafe Lancaster. My father will not live forever. His curious indulgence for your insolence and disobedience will not survive him. I will deal with you as you deserve. I will call in all loans. I will refuse to acknowledge you as a member of my House. You will be nothing to us, to the entire House. An outcast.” The viper showed his fangs in a sharp, poisonous little smile. “You know what that means.”
Yes, indeed. That no one would speak for me if John decided to make my banishment more… permanent, shall we say. My hand closed over the half crown in my pocket end-on, the serrated edge hard, every hill-valley-hill-valley indentation biting into my palm.
“If you wish to avoid that, you will apologize. And you will turn over the handling of Ned Winter to me.”
He meant it, that was clear. I stared. And then… I couldn’t help it. I used the only real weapon I had against him.
I laughed.
John couldn’t have looked more astonished if I’d slapped him about the face with a seven-day-dead codfish. All the color ebbed from his face, leaving him pasty white, and when it came back, his skin was patchy and mottled. He stiffened as if every muscle had spasmed into rock. Beside him, Peter’s jaw fell open, and his eyes became as round as pennies.
Two fools. Two astonished fools.
“Look, John….” I released my grip on the half crown and took my hand from my pocket. I expected to see the Queen’s head imprinted on my palm, I’d held the coin so tight. Nothing but a faint pink mark. “I realize the only friend you have is Peter, so you probably don’t know how this works, but you do not hand over your friends as if they were a secondhand suit. Ned is my friend, not an asset. I do not intend to let you or any other member of this House exploit him.”
“Then I will break you, Rafe Lancaster. I will destroy you. I will see you in the gutter for this, you… you…. You will do as you are told!” John bit out each and every word.
“No, he won’t.” The quiet voice made us all jump.
John’s head jerked. He stared at the doorway between my office and the coffeehouse proper. His mouth dropped open, and the spots of red on his cheeks drained again to pallor so fast he must have been dizzy. He leapt to his feet. “Father!”
The Stravaigor’s expression was unreadable, as usual. He strode across to my chair—no old man’s doddering steps and uncertain gait for him. The head of my House looked reassuringly healthy, and I can’t tell you how surprisingly comforted I was. I wouldn’t last long when John came into his inheritance. I quite believed him when he said he’d break me. I was so heartened I didn’t even have to be reminded to hop up sharpish to offer the Stravaigor my seat. He took it as if it were his by right.
Peter let out a faint squawk and jumped up like a jack-in-the-box. He looked like he’d find it a relief to gibber.
The Stravaigor didn’t invite us to sit. John and I stood before him, side by side, a pair of errant schoolboys facing the headmaster. His stare had me fighting to keep my feet from shuffling. I don’t know what John felt. He was possibly more used to it.
The Stravaigor deigned to acknowledge me. “Rafe.”
I bowed like the little gentleman I am. If he chose to take self-preservation as respect, well, let him. He acknowledged me with a quirk of the lips, not quite a smile.
The Stravaigor glanced beyond me. “Peter, would you join us?”
Peter made the mewling noise of a cat stuck down a well. It must have been consent, for an instant later, he joined John and me to stand in front of the Stravaigor’s chair.
“I wasn’t expecting you here so soon, sir.” John sounded like a man with a garrote around his neck.
“No?” The Stravaigor was oh so genial. “Well, I shall endeavor to keep you better informed about my engagements.” He turned his attention to my brother. “Peter, your loyalty to John is pleasing, but I would regret your allowing your devotion to John’s interests to—inadvertently, I’m sure—undercut mine.”
“Sir.” Peter’s voice was a ghost of its usual plummy self. “Of course, sir. Please accept my apologies if I’ve offended you. It was the furthest thing from my mind, I assure you.”
“I’m certain of that.” The Stravaigor looked at his son, letting the silence stretch until it was twanging like a bowstring with an arrow on the nock. “I am gratified, John, that you have taken to heart my advice to grasp the detail of House business and throw all your energies into furthering it. However, I would prefer to have those measures I have planned myself remain undisturbed. It would be better if you concentrated on other issues.”
The Stravaigor’s tone was mild and, written down like that, what he said doesn’t look too bad. You had to have been there. My toes curled inside my boots, and his little speech wasn’t even aimed at me.
“You can’t trust him! It’s madness to think of it. He cares nothing for the House. He’s out of control, dangerous, unprincipled, and disloyal—”
“Oh, I’m aware of Rafe’s views on the House system. That’s a far cry from treachery. It merely means he requires a different sort of handling.”
Did I, indeed?
The Stravaigor rested his elbows on the chair arms and steepled his hands together. He regarded his son with a benevolence that had me looking for cover. “I really do think you should leave Rafe to me.”
“I… I just wanted him to understand he has to play by House rules.”
“Rafe understands that completely, I think.” He turned to me and raised an eyebrow. “Is that not so?”
I forbore to crack a joke. To everything there is a season and all that, and after all, the old man held my mortgage on the place. I just nodded.
“Good. Then we all understand one another. I think, John, that it’s time you and Peter left me to my discussion with Rafe.”
John looked from me to his father. He gave a jerky nod, half turned, and stopped. “That’s twice, Rafe, that you’ve crossed me. There won’t be a third time.”
I could only hope that was a promise. The less I saw of John Lancaster, the better fo
r both of us. Well, at least, for me.
The Stravaigor had his own guards with him, of course. One of them knocked on the office door just then and opened it. I recognized him from my occasional visits to the House. What was his name? Thatcher? Thatchlock? Something like that. Whatever he was called, he was a rather undistinguished man, neatly dressed in a subdued town suit with a smart bowler hat over a shiny bald pate. At first glance, I’d as soon expect a bank clerk or a shopkeeper to draw a pistol on me as this man, with his bland, characterless face and air of respectability. And therefore I kept a wary eye on him. He was far more dangerous than the tough that John had brought with him.
The Stravaigor glanced up. “Mr. John is just leaving, Tatlock.”
Tatlock! That was it. The Stravaigor’s chief guard and distant cousin, doubly tied to service.
John jostled past me, Peter scuttling along in his wake.
“John.” The Stravaigor’s tone was back to freezing fire.
John stopped. When he turned, his face and neck were brick red, his jaw clenched so hard the cords in his neck stood out. “With your permission, sir.”
His bow was a mere jerk. Peter squeaked out something that may have been a polite farewell and bowed so low his nose scraped the floor.
The Stravaigor let the silence stand for an eternity. Probably no more than half a minute, but in those few seconds of silence, he underscored just who was in command. At last he inclined his head. “Safe journey home, my son.”
Chapter 2
IF THE Houses were dogs, we’d be banned by the Kennel Club.
We’re shockingly inbred. It’s one of the reasons we have stud books, setting out everyone’s precise relationship with their fellow House members. Of course, the books are described in rather more genteel terms as the Lineage Annals and stored in the Lord Chancellor’s Office, but their entire raison d’être is to keep us from committing biblical levels of consanguineous marriage.
The inbreeding means we run true to type, like pedigree setters, say, or foxhounds. Despite attempts to vary the bloodline—the Stravaigor himself married “out” to the daughter of an impoverished French aristocrat—there is a Stravaigor form. A breed standard, if you will. The archetypal Lancaster is tall and rangy, with the dark hair and eyes that came from an infusion of strong Anglo-Indian blood a century ago. The Stravaigor conforms to the standard. So, sadly, do I. When I, too, am on the shady side of sixty, I’ll look just like him. But other than these trifling physical similarities, I’d prefer to believe we don’t have a lot in common. He’s nowhere near as charming as me, to begin with.
The Stravaigor looked around him, his gaze scanning every last item in the room. I was finally included in the scrutiny, the frost-cold eyes raking over me, head to foot. At last, a corner of his mouth quirked up. “You look well, Rafe.”
“As do you, sir. I’m honored by your visit. It’s very kind of you.”
His mouth pulled up into something that might approximate a smile. If you weren’t too choosy about the definition. “Yes. It is.”
There! His version of the Lancaster charm in action. I’d have done it with a delightful self-deprecation and the sort of smile that would invite you to join in the joke. He, however, meant it.
We watched each other for a moment. He looked more amused than anything.
“Do you know, Rafe, I would very much like to try a cup of your coffee.”
“I would be delighted to offer you some, sir.” I glanced at Tatlock.
Who touched his bowler with a forefinger and jerked his head in a nod toward the coffeehouse. “I’ll tell one of ’em.” He closed the door when he left.
I was waved to my own sofa, and we sat and stared at each other for another few moments. I didn’t interrupt the silence. It wasn’t my place to force my House Princeps into conversation unless he wanted it. Blowed if I knew what to talk about anyway.
In the end, he smiled again. “I intend no threat, Rafe.”
“I didn’t suppose you did, sir.”
Hugh appeared with my best porcelain coffee set on a large tray. He was swift and silent, pouring coffee into the delicate little cups with a deft hand and setting out a plate of iced cakes from Will Somers’s bakery next door, before retiring back to the coffeehouse. Both he and Alan would stay in easy reach of the electric alarm button, I knew. So reassuring to have good staff.
The Stravaigor took his coffee with cream swirled through it, white curling through the black. A sip, an appreciative nod. He allowed his free hand to hover over the plate of fairy cakes, fingers twitching slightly as he rubbed the tips together against the pad of his thumb, then pounced to catch up one of Will’s fancier creations, a confection crowned with thick swirls of chocolate icing. He ate it in two bites.
I sipped my coffee. I had no appetite for cake.
The old man drank his first cup of coffee and ate two more fairy cakes before he essayed into speech again. He presented me with his cup for a refill. “I have never been here before, but I have seen photographic images of the coffeehouse when the Jongleur owned it. Very nice, Rafe. It is improved beyond recognition.”
Ignoring the reference to the previous owner, Mr. Pearse, and not just because he was as against the Houses as I was despite technically being a House Princeps himself, I focused on the compliment. “Thank you, sir. I flatter myself it has a welcoming ambiance.”
“No doubt.” The wave of his hand was dismissive. “I’d rather thought we’d see you at the House before now. You haven’t visited since Emily’s wedding. More than a month.”
I hadn’t visited before the wedding either. Was that an oblique criticism of some etiquette oversight on my part, some lack of civility? Admittedly circumstances the night of his daughter’s wedding in late June—the kind of circumstance that had me running across rooftops to rescue Ned Winter, my soon-to-be lover, from a perfidious kidnapping—had delayed my polite note of thanks for the hospitality shown me at the event, but I had sent it. I’d proffered my cordial regards to the entire family, all in my neatest handwriting. I even remembered to put a stamp on it. He hadn’t had to pay the postage.
“Uninvited, sir?”
He lifted the coffee cup to his lips and regarded me over the rim, his gaze steady. When he set the cup in its saucer, he was smiling the kind of smile that was both real and rather disturbing. “No. Not a fool. But how is it we appear to have been fooled by you for so many years?”
“I don’t know, sir. Peter says I make it easy for him to underestimate me, but I rather think it’s innate talent rather than artifice on my part.” But then, Peter was the real chump in the family.
He chuckled. “Definitely no fool, and you’ve proved yourself to be discreet in the past. I have no doubt you will also treat this conversation as confidential.”
I nodded. What else could I do?
He returned my nod. His was jerkier, with something reluctant about it. “I am not best served by my First Heir, Rafe. I did not sanction his visit today, and his ham-fisted approach is all of a piece with the discussion I had with both of you at the wedding.”
Well, I certainly wasn’t going to agree in actual words. I said something like “Mmmmnnn,” and took a hasty gulp of coffee. But yes, indeed, John had demonstrated his incompetence at the wedding and the Stravaigor had not been pleased.
“You should be aware that John holds you responsible since you failed to enlighten his ignorance.”
I’d got the hint that John blamed me for his troubles. “I’m sorry to cause John distress. It was quite unintentional.”
“I’m sure.” He regarded me for a moment. “What everyone in the House fails to understand, however, is that I do have options.” His steel trap of a mouth closed down with a snap.
Options? If he meant for the succession, of course a House Princeps had an absolute right to disinherit his First Heir if the fancy took him—although usually only when he had a spare heir waiting in the wings and was willing to make the disposal of the first one lethally
permanent. John, however, was the Stravaigor’s only son, and no man would entrust his House’s governance to one of his daughters. If the Stravaigor meant he had other options for making alliances outside the Cartomancer’s sphere, well, of course he did. And good luck to him.
None of it was any business of mine.
“My difficulty, Rafe,” he said, “is we must navigate some very tricky waters. We are not yet at the point of an absolute rupture with the Cartomancer, and it may be that the action I am taking will heal the breach. But I have to look at other possibilities. Minor Houses do best allied with one of the Convocation Houses. They have the power, and we have the resources to support them and to make our way alongside them.” A wry smile. “Taking some very plum crumbs from their table en route, as it were.”
And that, in a nutshell, explains our government. The Queen is head of the Imperium, true. But its power is based on those who, for all practical purposes, are its body, the heart and arms and legs that give it life and motion: the eight Convocation Houses. This cabal of great men divide up the governance of the Imperium between them—administering its departments of state, exercising absolute authority in the Imperium’s name—and their almost unimaginable wealth rests on holding the reins of power tight in their hands.
The lions.
The Minor Houses are the jackals and hyenas, circling the kill and waiting for their own particular lord-and-master lion to take his share first before dashing in to capture a prize for themselves. I suspected the Stravaigor had dashed in prematurely and was suffering a metaphorical swipe from the lion’s paw for his temerity.
I could understand his desire to broaden his alliances. A leonine clip to the back of the head would probably make a man wince a bit. Bring tears to the eyes. “Hence marrying Emily to the Plumassier’s son,” I said.
“It puts us at one remove from Gallowglass, but that’s closer than we’ve ever been before. A most suitable match.” The Stravaigor smiled broadly. “And now you bring me the Gallowglass First Heir.”