All The King's-Men (The Yellow Hoods, #3)

by Adam Dreece

  The well-dressed, bald tailor at his feet took the pins out of his mouth. “Thank you, Andr— I mean, Monsieur LeLoup.” The chubby old man tried to hide his nervousness, but he was dripping sweat. His round face was tense and his mouth puckered.

  When LeLoup had walked in the door, Pascal had greeted him warmly and all was good, until Pascal had addressed him as Andre. LeLoup’s green eyes had come alive with disdain, drilling fear into the old man’s heart.

  “Pascal, just LeLoup. There’s no need to be formal; we’ve known each other too long for that.” LeLoup gazed about the small shop, at the rolls of cloth lined up against the wall on wooden poles, at the wooden mannequins with their dashing new and classic suits. Pascal’s two assistants, who normally did all the pinning work, were huddled against the back wall.

  LeLoup had yelled at them earlier, wanting only Pascal to do the work. They had stayed rooted to that spot ever since. LeLoup could smell their fear; he found it calming.

  “Yes… sir… LeLoup,” replied Pascal, putting the pins back in his mouth and finishing his work on the pant legs. “There we go.” He brushed off his hands and then, putting his hands on his bent knee, stood with a huff. “I can have them ready—”

  LeLoup put his hands on either side of Pascal’s cheeks. “In about an hour. An hour sounds reasonable to me. What about you?” he asked, his words laced with threats and malice. He knew it was impossible.

  The old man’s eyes dashed around the shop, landing on his two assistants. “All four suits? But…”

  LeLoup took another peek at himself in the mirror. “Well, it’s not like you had to make them. They were already made. They just need adjustments.”

  Pascal stopped himself from saying that, as LeLoup already knew, they had been intended for other customers. LeLoup had threatened him and offered a lot of money to Pascal to make them his.

  The tailor clasped his hands together gently. “Could you give us until the end of the day? What with the jackets and… we want to do a good job for you. You deserve that much, LeLoup.”

  A genuine smile crept across LeLoup’s lips and he released the fat man. “Pascal, I trust you. If you say you need until the end of the day, then you shall have it. I have some other errands to run that will keep me busy. How’s Manny doing? I’m a couple of months late picking up something special from him.”

  “He’s good,” said Pascal, wiping his brow again. “He’s… he’s good.”

  “I’m so glad,” said LeLoup, smiling. “You know what? I’m rather...what’s the word for it?”

  “Peckish?” blurted one of the assistants.

  “Yes!” he said, snapping his fingers and making the assistant jump. “Peckish! Goodness, how I’ve missed civilization and real words. Is Blaise’s Conundrum still around? I love that pastry shop, with its two small pastries for one price. Which one to devour first? Should I keep one for later? So clever.”

  “It’s still in the same place it has always been,” said the other assistant.

  “Still wonderful, best in town,” said the first, wiping his forehead with his sleeve.

  LeLoup gave them all a sinister, toothy grin. “Excellent. I do so love devouring things.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  King's-Horses

  Christina stopped and put her heavy backpack down. The forest clearing was about twenty feet in diameter, big enough to camp in if they needed to. She gazed up at the high forest canopy and got a rough sense of the time. The sunlight was partially diffused, giving the forest a warm, golden light.

  With a nod, Christina confirmed to everyone that they could rest for a bit. Tee took off her backpack and plunked herself down on the cool, moist earth.

  Elly grimaced at the backpack, and then glared at Christina. She’d offered to carry it, but Christina had insisted that Tee do it. Elly had thrown up her hands and walked away from it.

  Christina smiled at Tee. She’d heard about her over the years, starting with when Jennifer had first been pregnant. Nikolas was so proud of his granddaughter, and had remarked on every little achievement or precious moment. She’d felt Nikolas’ angst when he’d shared William and Jennifer’s plans. They’d been cramming as many of the secrets, and special skills, into Tee that they could in a few short months, rather than over years. Ultimately, Nikolas come around to their point of view, realizing that the world was more dangerous than he’d wanted to admit.

  Christina had been no stranger to secrets growing up, but she and her father had never stayed in any place long enough for her to make a friend like Elly. It had been clear from the moment they’d left the battlefield and made their way back to Minette that there was an incredible bond being tested. She envied the relationship, but not the conflict that clearly was going on inside Tee.

  Tee saw the seriousness of Christina’s expression. “My legs hurt, my back hurts, my ribs and arms are bruised, but I’m hanging in there.”

  “Good,” said Christina, smiling.

  Elly bristled at Tee’s words. Too much of her didn’t want to feel sympathy for Tee, but she couldn’t help it.

  “Do you feel like the oil is leaking out of your lamp?” asked Mounira. “Does that make sense in Frelish? It’s an expression from home.”

  Tee nodded as she thought it through. “I think I know what you mean. No, I don’t.”

  “Phew!” said Mounira. “I felt that way after I lost my arm. It took a long time to feel better.”

  Christina pointed at her sidekick and scooped up her backpack. “You’re with me; the rest of you stay here. If there’s any trouble, make as much noise as you can.”

  Mounira gave Tee a pat on the back and skipped off after Christina.

  Franklin kicked the ground as they left. “I really hoped she’d leave that backpack. She slept with it like it had the blooming crown jewels in it. I wonder what’s in it?”

  “Your soul!” said Elly, getting a laugh out of Tee and a grimace from Franklin.

  He sat down on a log, and soaked up the forest view. He’d never hiked so much in his life, but he was keeping up better than he’d thought he would.

  Intellectually, the task was trivial: walk through miles of forest, avoid hitting trees, and keep going until he was at the destination. In reality, uneven terrain was exhausting at times, and the temperature could vary greatly from one area to another. As a scientist, he found it fascinating.

  “Have you ever had a black eye before?” Franklin asked Tee, realizing he was staring at her. She was pretty, even with her shiner. Franklin quickly dropped his gaze, having learned that if he allowed himself to think of Tee as a pretty girl for long, his words and thoughts would get jumbled up.

  Tee shook her head. “No. I’ve had plenty of bruises, but no black eyes or broken bones.”

  “What about that time we were six and we fell off my house?” asked Elly.

  Tee paused for a moment, recalling the memory. She chuckled at how much trouble they’d gotten into for having a tea party on the roof. “I think I sprained my arm. I can’t remember.”

  Elly nodded. “That sounds right. You had a sling for a while.”

  Franklin threw a stone, swimming through the mess of his thoughts and emotions. Every time he tried to do what seemed right, it came out twisted and he was rebuked for it. It felt like home. “My sister gave me a black eye once. Took about a week to heal. I tried to take her teddy bear, and she let me have it. Probably the best right jab an eight-year-old ever threw in the history of pugilism.” He noticed their expressions and got annoyed. “Boxing. Punching. Pugilism means—”

  “I know what pugilism is. You have a sister?” said Elly, surprised. “You never mentioned her.”

  Franklin sat down and crossed his legs. “Oh… yeah. Mean little thing. Well, I shouldn’t say that, but she’s a lot like my mother and, well… my mother and I aren’t an award-winning pair at the county picnic.”

  Tee and Elly glanced at each other and shrugged.

  “Have either of you ever been this
far outside of Mineau before? The trees are a brilliant yellow and green. I’d guess we aren’t in the Red Forest anymore,” said Franklin.

  “No,” said Elly. “Before yesterday, I’d never been further than Mineau.”

  Tee stared at Elly and Franklin. There was an uncomfortable pause before she replied. “I’ve been to visit my Aunt Gwen. She–”

  Franklin cut Tee off excitedly. “Hey, I have a question. When do you go to school? I just realized I’ve been gone for months now. I’m actually starting to miss it. I figure you must be on a break.”

  Tee and Elly shrugged at each other.

  “What’s ‘school’?” asked Elly, turning back to Franklin.

  He laughed. “Nice! No, seriously. Were you on break when I showed up?”

  Tee scrunched up her face. “Are you asking if the school thing is broken?”

  Franklin stood up and rubbed his hair in frustration. “Are you playing word games with me again?” he asked, annoyed. He felt like every time he spoke to Tee, something caused his darker, defensive side to flare up.

  “No,” said Tee, motioning for him to settle down. “We don’t know what you mean by ‘school’.”

  Franklin was a bit taken aback. “School is… um, a place you go to learn lessons about history, language, maths, and whatnot. You know, school.”

  Elly bounced her hand off her forehead. “Oh, lessons. You mean lessons! Why can’t he just say lessons?” she asked Tee.

  Tee shrugged and shook her head. “He’s a boy.”

  Elly nodded in emphatic agreement, then stopped, tilting her head. “Richy’s a boy, though.”

  Tee smiled at her, eyebrows raised.

  “Too much hanging around with us, you think?” asked Elly.

  Tee shook her head. “No, just the right amount. I’m sure he’ll make some woman very happy one day. We’ll have boiled enough of this—” she gestured at Franklin—“out of him that he might just be loveable.”

  Elly giggled and Tee smiled. For a moment, things felt almost normal between them.

  Franklin folded his arms. “Are you quite done? I have some dignity left, I’m sure.”

  Tee waved for him to calm down. “We have lessons every day. Different lessons for different things at different times of year. We go to the person’s house or meet somewhere, like a blacksmith’s forge or a baker’s kitchen. Wherever the lesson needs to take place,” said Tee.

  “Oh,” said Franklin. “That’s… that’s actually rather interesting.”

  Elly stood up and pointed. “Wait, what are those?” she said, her mouth agape. Tee and Franklin followed Elly’s astonished gaze.

  Christina was leading what at first seemed to be a convoy of three horses, with Mounira on the first one and tan blankets on the backs of the others. However, as they got closer, Elly, Tee, and Franklin saw that these horses were not alive. They were entirely mechanical in nature.

  “What are those?” asked Franklin.

  “They’re amazing!” said Mounira excitedly. “They were just hiding in the forest under a sneaky blanket that looked—” Christina frowned at her, reminding her that she wasn’t supposed to say anything until Christina gave the all-clear.

  Letting go of a trigger in the mouth of the first horse, Christina brought the three horses to a quick stop. She removed a cable that went from horse head to horse head, and pulled off the blankets. “These are the remaining King’s-Horses. They were created more than forty years ago by Nikolas Klaus and my father, Christophe Creangle.”

  Franklin’s eyebrows shot up. “They were made forty years ago?” he said, flabbergasted. “Them? These here? No way. They look almost new.”

  Christina gave a tight-lipped smile and nodded. “We know how to take care of our toys,” she said.

  Franklin moved about the King’s-Horses in complete disbelief. He’d never witnessed such art and technology together before. The quality of the machining was something that he’d only recently started seeing at home. “There’s nothing like these around today, at least not that I’ve heard of, and my father’s told me about a lot.” His arms were folded, his fingers drumming on his face in astonishment.

  Each King’s-Horse was covered in brilliantly sculpted wood and dark bronze panels, giving it the appearance of a real horse from a distance. There were numerous holes through which gears and belts could be seen. Where the joints of a horse would be, there were rotating plates. Its motion had been remarkably natural.

  Tee moved her hand along the side of the third mechanical horse. “Wow. My Grandpapa helped build them that long ago?” She kept stuffing her emotions down deep inside herself as she thought about him. “I had no idea.”

  Elly shook her head as if to wake up from a crazy dream. “I thought the sail-carts were amazing. He must have taken no more effort than to yawn.”

  Christina’s face said she wasn’t entirely comfortable sharing the information about the horses, but she knew if she withheld everything about them, she would quickly have a little rebellion on her hands. “Nikolas and my father wanted to prove to the King of Teuton that the purging of inventors was wrong. They thought, as Conventioneers and nearly King’s-Men themselves, that they had enough credibility to risk creating these and showing him what could be made outside of the restrictive boundaries of the Conventioneer Act. The High Conventioneer didn’t even know what they were doing.

  “The King came to a private showing of the four King’s-Horses. After having a terrified servant ride around on one in the inner courtyard, the King mounted one.

  “He loved it so much, he took it out and rode it through the capital’s streets and back. After several days, his ambitions came alive. He realized that Nikolas and my father had imaginations worth tapping, but he wanted weapons that the other Conventioneers said were impossible. Nikolas and my father refused to make them, and were arrested.

  “The King gathered his best Conventioneers, and asked them to make him a hundred King’s-Horses. He figured that, in making a hundred, they would learn everything about them and be able to build him whatever he wanted afterward.

  “He initially offered them one of the four King’s-Horses to disassemble, but they went through three trying to figure out how the machines worked, without success. When they came back to ask the King for the final one, he took a mace to it right in front of them, smashing it to pieces.

  “He raged for a week, but finally, under the repeated suggestion of his High Conventioneer, he went down to the prison and freed my father and Nikolas on the condition that they make him some new King’s-Horses.

  “For two months, they worked under the watchful eye of the High Conventioneer. The new ones were simplistic copies, built to be of little value for weapons-making, and likely to fall apart within a year. While they worked on these, Nikolas and my father plotted with the High Conventioneer to escape.

  “On the night my father and Nikolas escaped, Nikolas took one of the original King’s-Horses and my father took the other three. You see, they’d actually secretly made eight rather than four in the first place, but they’d kept this from everyone, including the High Conventioneer.”

  “From what I heard, the High Conventioneer was caught trying to escape. I don’t understand how he wasn’t executed, but he eventually became the regent of Teuton. Some years later, its people ousted the monarch and it became a democratic republic. He serves as their president for life.” Christina scratched her cheek, her eyes away from everyone.

  Franklin, Mounira, Tee, and Elly were quiet as they absorbed the tale. Christina took the time to double-check that the saddles were properly secured. She then folded down some pedals and adjusted their height.

  Detecting something in the way the story had been told, Elly asked, “Who was the High Conventioneer?”

  Christina sighed. She liked Elly. The girl was sharp, funny at moments, and apparently held her own in a fight. Christina uncomfortably replied, “Marcus Pieman.”

  Franklin’s jaw dropped as he realized that
Nikolas and Marcus knew each other. Any lingering effects from Nikolas’ speech two days ago were dispelled, and Franklin’s anger intensified. Who was Nikolas to tell him what to do and how to behave? He felt disgusted that he had thought that maybe one day he could be like Nikolas.

  His hands shook as the rage built up inside him. He glared at Christina. “Pardon?! Did you just say the name of the man who tried to kill us? Are you telling us that saintly Nik is best buddies with the Pieman?” Franklin stormed about. “It was probably his blooming army that burned Mineau to the ground. Is that why he took Nikolas? Picked up his old chum before the scorching started?” He scowled at Tee. “What’s going on here?” He wanted to believe she didn’t know. He immediately wished he’d asked her and not accused her, but he’d missed the moment.

  She held Franklin’s gaze, saying nothing.

  Elly fired on Tee too. “What do you know, Tee?” she said, shattering the fragile sense that things were back to normal between them.

  Tee pulled her hood up. “Nothing. We should get going.”

  “Good idea,” said Christina, chiming in.

  “Why don’t I believe you, Tee?” said Elly, her fists clenched.

  When Tee answered, her voice was devoid of emotion. “That’s your choice, Elly.”

  Elly stomped her foot and shook her fists at Tee. “Stop locking me out! Stop it!”

  Franklin shook his head and caught a glimpse of a panel where the mechanical horse’s heart would otherwise be. “What’s that spot for? That… heart-panel,” asked Franklin, pointing to the six-inch square door.

  “Storage,” snapped Christina.

  “Storage?” repeated Franklin incredulously.