by Peter McLean
Luka spoke to him and palmed him a silver penny, and we were shown in and ushered straight through to a private dining room at the back. I could see my boys at a couple of tables as we walked through the common room, spread out in the crowd as was wise. Of course I paid them no mind, nor did they greet me or so much as look up when we entered. Emil knew what he was about, and he was the boss of them that night.
The private dining room was paneled in dark oak and lit with lamps, and had a single long table with glasses and brandy bottles on it. Leonov was sitting at that table, with two older men who I didn’t know. He stood up when we entered, and I nodded a greeting to him.
“Mr. Piety,” he said, “I’m glad we have managed to arrange this meeting so swiftly, and to everyone’s satisfaction.”
I wasn’t sure that meeting in a place that was actually owned by Grachyev was entirely to my satisfaction, but as Luka had said there wasn’t much to be done about that.
“Thank you for taking the time to sit down with me,” I said, addressing the two older men. I had no idea which one was Grachyev, and I didn’t want to risk giving offense. “It’s my sincerest hope that we can forge bonds of friendship between Dannsburg and Ellinburg tonight.”
“I too share that hope,” said the younger of the two. “I am Grachyev.”
He had some fifty or more years to him, and he was heavily built and dark haired with a pockmarked face. He wore a red silk doublet under a black coat, and a large gold ring with a black stone on the third finger of his right hand.
“And I am Tomas Piety, head of the Pious Men,” I said. “This is Luka, who works for me, and my son, Billy.”
Grachyev smiled indulgently at Billy and ignored Luka completely.
“My second, Iagin,” he said, nodding to the man beside him.
This one had closer to sixty years, with thinning gray hair and a heavy white mustache that all but covered his mouth. He wore a doublet of thick black leather worked in a pattern of vines and thorns.
“A pleasure, Mr. Piety,” Iagin said. “Will you take brandy?”
The form of these rare meetings between bosses who had no bad blood between them was very simple. You sat down together and looked each other in the eye and spoke pleasantries, and if neither gave offense to the other then usually a trust could begin to be formed. A fragile one, to be sure, ready to be broken by the first wrong word, but we were all businessmen and we understood each other.
We drank together and discussed business in a way that involved neither of us actually telling the other anything in any great detail, but allowed each to get a feel for the other’s interests. Grachyev, I learned, dealt mainly in taverns and inns and brothels, public baths and tailors’ shops, and the protection he could take from them rather than in industry or smuggling. That struck me as strange at first. Still, across a whole city the size of Dannsburg I supposed that was a good deal of businesses, and he obviously did well for himself.
I told him about Ellinburg, and about tanneries and factories, about the Golden Chains and the poppy trade, and he listened and nodded. He allowed that he too dealt in the poppy through some of his brothels and bathhouses, and that made sense. There were areas where we could help each other, we both agreed, and that was good.
It wasn’t until the meeting was almost over that I actually learned something useful. Grachyev had left by then, on his way to some other meeting apparently, and Luka and Billy had gone through to the common room now that we were all friends. I was alone with Iagin in the dining room, where we were finishing the second bottle of brandy between us. That I had been left with Grachyev’s second wasn’t lost on me, I’ll admit, but I didn’t take it ill. I was in his city, after all, not he in mine, and he didn’t owe me anything.
Iagin was polite enough, and I could tell he understood how things worked. He understood a little more than I expected, in fact.
“We have a mutual friend, Mr. Piety,” he said as he topped up my glass.
“Oh? Who’s that then?”
“Your lady wife,” he said.
I looked at him, trying to work out if he was being disrespectful.
“In what way?”
“We both work for the same person,” he said.
It took me a moment, but I stared at him as the cold realization sank in.
Iagin was a Queen’s Man.
TWENTY-SEVEN
It all made sense.
That was how Grachyev managed to do business in Dannsburg and how he was the only businessman running a crew in the whole city. Business in Dannsburg was done with the consent of the Queen’s Men, I realized, or it wasn’t done at all. His businesses in the city were taverns and inns, tailors and baths and stews, all the places where folk might speak unguardedly and be heard. Grachyev’s crew were listeners for the crown.
“I see,” I said. “That’s very interesting, Iagin. What do you know about me?”
“Everything,” he said. “Assume we know everything, and you’ll never be caught out in a lie that might hang you.”
Ailsa had said something similar to me once before, shortly after we had first met. I nodded.
“I see,” I said again. “Does Grachyev know?”
“No, of course not,” Iagin said. “We don’t trust him quite as much as Ailsa appears to trust you. He thinks he’s a gangster, not a spy. He’s not a stupid man, but he is a vain one, and something of a fantasist. That makes him easy to manipulate.”
I swallowed my brandy and put the glass back down on the table in front of me.
“And what do you want from me?”
“Ailsa will tell you what we want, when we want it,” he said. “Until then, just do as she tells you. Oh, and Tomas?”
“Aye?”
“Don’t bring your insane pet magician to any more meetings.”
“He’s my fucking son,” I snapped.
“No, he isn’t,” Iagin said. “I know exactly what he is, and he’s not welcome. Now, it’s time you left.”
“Aye,” I said, and gave him a hard glare. “I think it fucking is.”
Before I fucking stab you, I thought, but I didn’t say it.
Iagin just smiled at that and got to his feet. Trying to intimidate a Queen’s Man was a fool’s errand, and I should have known better. Too much brandy and not enough thought before speaking—I wouldn’t make that mistake again. He opened the door and went ahead of me, exposing his back to show me how little he thought of my hard looks. I wasn’t even armed, for the Lady’s sake.
We returned to the common room, where Luka and Billy were waiting with Emil and Oliver and the others. I kept my expression carefully blank, not wanting to betray that I had just made myself look a fool. At least Iagin had the grace not to mention it in front of my men. That, or he simply didn’t care enough about me to offer insult, which I thought was more likely.
I was glad to leave the Bountiful Harvest, truth be told. Grachyev had struck me as a decent enough fellow, but Iagin was a snake in man’s clothes. He was far more how I had always expected a Queen’s Man to be than Ailsa was.
It was late by the time the carriage brought us back to Ailsa’s house, but once I had sent Billy up to bed I found her waiting up for me in the drawing room with her embroidery in her hands and a glass of wine on the low table beside her chair.
“How was your meeting?” she asked when I came in.
I chased the footman and her lady’s maid out of the room with a glare, and ignored her until the door was closed behind them and I had poured myself a large brandy from one of the many bottles on the side table. Then I turned to face her.
“What was the fucking point?” I demanded. “What was the point of me meeting with Grachyev when you already control his business?”
“I don’t control his business,” Ailsa said. “Iagin does, as you appear to have discovered. Did he tell you himself?”
“Aye, he did,” I said. “You’re both in the same crew, aren’t you? Both Queen’s Men, I mean?”
“We are,” Ailsa allowed, “but it’s not quite that simple. Nothing ever is, in Dannsburg. There are factions, Tomas, even within the Queen’s Men.”
“And what about the Dannsburg men that Governor Hauer told me had been brought up to strengthen the Skanians’ raw recruits while we were all away at war? They didn’t dare recruit Ellinburg men so their lads were country yokels, most of them, and some hard boys from down here to stiffen them. Billy-big-bollocks, he called them. Were they Grachyev’s? Was that your crew’s doing?”
“No, obviously that wasn’t us,” she said. “They may have been Grachyev’s thugs once, bought off by Skanian agents, but of course the Queen’s Men had no hand in that. Why in the gods’ names would we?”
I sighed. No, of course they hadn’t. I was getting myself confused, that was all, tying my head up in knots with conspiracies and politics and other things I barely even understood enough to put names to them.
“No, of course not,” I said. “It’s late, that’s all, and I’m tired.”
“You’re drunk,” Ailsa corrected me. “Why did you take Billy with you tonight?”
“I wasn’t allowed weapons or guards at this meeting,” I said, “and a few men in the common room would have been little enough use if Grachyev had meant me ill. Billy, though, Billy is weapon and guard both.”
Ailsa nodded.
“He is,” she agreed. “I’m glad you see that.”
“He’s our fucking son,” I said. “I shouldn’t think of him that way.”
“He is our son and I love him as much as you do, but be realistic, Tomas,” she said. “The right man for the right job, that’s what you always say, and Billy is the right man for any number of jobs. Especially now.”
I thought of the training that Cutter had apparently been giving him, and it pained me that I had to agree with her. Partly, at least.
“He’s not a man, though, he’s just a lad,” I said, for all that he was legally of age. “Fourteen at the most, as far as anyone can tell.”
“How old were you when you killed your first man, Tomas?”
I thought of my da, dead by my hand when I’d had only twelve years to me.
“That was different,” I said.
“No, it wasn’t,” she said. “Billy killed before you ever met him; he must have done. A child alone in the ruins of Messia, how else do you think he survived? And then there was Abingon, of course, and everything that has come after it.”
“I know,” I said, and drained my brandy. “I know, but that doesn’t make it right.”
“Does it have to? It makes it the right man for the right job, that’s all. Billy is part of this family now; he knows what that means.”
I sighed and looked at her, at my wife sitting by the hearth with her embroidery in her hand. The lioness. Everything she had said was true, I knew that.
I knew that, but that didn’t mean I liked it.
* * *
* * *
Ailsa spent the next couple of days out of the house alone, staying overnight to visit friends, she said, and two nights after that we had the dubious pleasure of attending a function at court. A minor function, Ailsa assured me, which meant that at least the queen herself wouldn’t be in attendance. I supposed that was good, even if nothing else about it was. I had absolutely no desire to meet the queen, and had she even known I existed I was sure the feeling would have been mutual.
The Princess Crown Royal was hosting the evening, Ailsa explained to me: the queen’s heir. She was a girl of eleven, apparently, so I doubted she would be doing a great deal of hosting by herself.
“Tell me again what the point of this is?” I said, as we climbed into the carriage.
“In all honesty very little, but it’s an invitation to court so we have to go,” Ailsa said. “No one turns down a royal invitation, lest people begin to ask why. Besides, I told you that you need to mingle and be seen, and this is another opportunity to do it.”
I sighed. We had two footmen with us and four of Ailsa’s household guard to see us safely through streets that were heavily patrolled by the City Guard anyway, but she had forbidden me from bringing any of my men or even Fat Luka with me.
She had forbidden me.
I took that ill, I have to confess, but there was little enough I could do about it save to have Emil and two of the men follow us on foot and keep an eye out for trouble. That I had done. They wouldn’t get past the castle gates, I knew, but even that was better than placing myself completely in the hands of my wife and the Queen’s Men.
After ten minutes it came to me that we were going the wrong way. The castle was away to the left of us now, and our carriage showed no signs of turning. Eventually the street widened and there were more trees and far more City Guard in evidence, and then I saw a high wall and the top of what I could only assume was a real palace.
It was simply preposterous. I had never seen a building so large in my life save for the great citadel of Abingon, and by the time we had finally fought our way to that through the burning streets our cannon had all but smashed it to rubble.
The palace of Dannsburg was vast. It was colonnaded and marbled and gilded and with hundreds of windows in its walls, all in the new style with square panes of glass instead of the leaded diamonds of older buildings. It would be impossible to defend, and it was utterly ridiculous.
Huge banners flew from the heights, ten or more of them at least. They seemed the color of blood in the evening light, until the breeze caught them and made the white roses dance.
“I had thought that the queen lived in the castle,” I admitted.
Ailsa smiled.
“The castle is home to the City Guard and the army high command,” she said. “Castles are cold and uncomfortable places, and Her Majesty much enjoys comfort.”
“I’m sure she does,” I said.
Her Majesty was a fool, to my mind. With war brewing yet again, she dwelled in this iced cake of a building when there was a stout fortress barely two miles away? Threats of war brought assassins long before they brought soldiers. I was no general but even I knew that, and if she put that much faith in her city walls and the Guard then I had no words to say about it. I looked at Ailsa and saw the small smile still playing around the corners of her mouth.
Of course, Her Majesty had her Queen’s Men too, and perhaps that gave her another type of protection that I still didn’t fully understand. There was too much about Dannsburg that I still didn’t understand, and that didn’t sit well with me.
Could people like Iagin and my lioness truly do the work of fortress walls?
I had to allow that I wouldn’t have bet against it.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Court was worse than I could ever have imagined.
To begin with it wasn’t so different to how our visit to Lan Yetrov’s house had been. There were heavily guarded gates to pass, then hordes of footmen outside the palace, and rows of parked carriages and an abundance of fuss and ceremony and wine. The hall we were shown into was probably one of the smaller ones, but it was still vast, easily twice the size of Lan Yetrov’s. I couldn’t even imagine what the grand great hall used for state receptions must have looked like. Here, gilded chandeliers hung on long chains from an impossibly high ceiling, and musicians played everywhere, lute and pipe and fiddle all blending together under the muted hubbub of a hundred or more conversations.
A herald was gradually admitting guests into a ballroom, announcing them in a loud voice as they passed, while the rest of us milled around with wineglasses in our hands.
“Lord and Lady Lan Andronikov,” he announced, ushering in a couple in early middle age.
I saw Ailsa turn to watch as they entered the ballroom.
“Do you know them?” I asked her.
“Of course I do,” she murmured. “The Lady is a personal friend of mine. Very fond of the poppy, I’m afraid. She starts to sweat after a few hours without a pipe, tremble after six, and beg after ten. By the time we got to fourteen I could have made her do absolutely anything. Her husband managed to avoid the war by taking a position on the governing council. He is a weakling and a coward and he’s said some extremely unwise things recently, but he’s very, very rich.”
“These things are good to know,” I said, and Ailsa showed me a small smile.
I was beginning to appreciate her skills and her knowledge more and more with each day that passed in Dannsburg. I think that pleased her.
“General Garin of the Queen’s Own Cavalry,” the herald pronounced, admitting a potbellied man with sixty or so years to him. He was wearing a crimson coat and hugely bristling white side whiskers, and he swayed as he walked.
“What about him?”
“Can’t even get out of bed in the morning without a glass of brandy first,” Ailsa said, keeping her voice too low to be overheard. “It takes him three before breakfast to stop shaking. He gets through two bottles a day, without fail.”
It was quite remarkable, I supposed, that we had won the war at all with men like him in charge. I wondered how many plans had gone awry, how many attacks had failed and how many men had died, because that cunt was drunk.
“The Duke of Samarind and his paramour, Gidia of Alassai.”
“She’s only ten years old,” Ailsa said. “And yes, he is bedding her.”
That made my stomach clench with revulsion, and I glared at the Duke of Samarind’s velvet-cloaked back until he was out of sight. I wondered how it would feel to kill a duke, and if they died the same as lesser men. I remembered the man I had strangled back in Ellinburg in the winter, and I thought that they probably did.
“The Lord Lan Yetrov.”
“Well, you know him. It appears his wife is indisposed again.”
I wondered what she meant by that, but I put it down to some gossip I hadn’t heard. Of course I remembered him well enough, and his bear pit and his idea of how debt collection worked. I knew more than enough about him.