by Peter McLean
Ailsa made a dismissive noise and shook her head. “I hardly think so,” she said. “He’s a retired merchant and a secret drunk whose secret is known by everyone. My mother has no respect for him at all.”
That seemed a shame, to my mind, and I felt an absurd urge to defend him. I was very drunk, as she had said.
“He’s a good man,” I said. “He’s a fucking businessman, same as I am.”
“He was a respectable merchant,” Ailsa snapped at me. “He is nothing like you.”
I snorted laughter. “Merchant, smuggler, pirate. Same fucking thing.”
She stared at me, and it suddenly came to me through the haze of brandy that perhaps that had been an unwise thing to say. Perhaps she truly didn’t know, or more likely she did and had convinced herself it wasn’t true, or if it was that it should never be mentioned.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Lady’s sake,” I muttered. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean any disrespect to your father. He’s a good man, as I said, and he showed me a kindness today and welcomed me into your family. We found some common ground over brandy, and perhaps even the beginnings of a friendship. That’s all I mean. I’m sorry it didn’t go well with you and your ma, truly I am.”
Ailsa sighed then and put her hand on mine. That surprised me a good deal, I have to allow.
“Thank you,” she said. “Perhaps that’s what was needed, a son-by-law that my feckless father can get drunk with before the sun has even set. He will probably love you forever now, Tomas, whatever my mother says. That’s good, but I don’t think she will ever accept you.”
I couldn’t see why it mattered whether she did or not, but it obviously mattered to Ailsa so I gave her hand a squeeze before she took it away.
“I have an aunt who has her prejudices, too,” I said. “I know it’s not the same, but I’m a little way toward understanding.”
“Yes, well,” Ailsa said, and turned away to stare out the carriage window.
It seemed that would be the end of it, then.
* * *
* * *
I retired early that evening, and even so the next morning I still felt the worse for drink. Sasura’s brandy had been fiercely strong, and I doubted the old rogue had paid a copper in tax on a whole barrel of the stuff. Ailsa’s father and I had a good deal in common, to my mind, but for some reason it pained me to see the way that her conversation with her mother had obviously upset her.
That was ridiculous and I knew it. The lioness was made of stone and iron, after all. Ailsa had caused hundreds of people to be killed, for the Lady’s sake; what did I care what her mother thought of her? I really had no answer for that, but enough brandy can make a man’s thoughts turn in strange directions.
I stood at the nightstand in my bedroom and bathed my face in cold water from the basin until I felt somewhat more myself, and then took a very long piss into the pot. Today was another day, and Lady willing, Ailsa’s mother was done with and wasn’t going to become my problem.
Truth be told, I was far more interested in the other thing Sasura had told me.
You show your love for the queen publicly and loudly and often, or you disappear and are never seen again.
He had quite obviously been concerned about someone hearing him say it, too, even his own servants. It was plain enough to see that Dannsburg was like no other place I had ever been.
Once I was shaved and dressed I went in search of Fat Luka and led him out into the gardens behind the house for a morning stroll. When I was absolutely sure there was no one within listening distance I told him what Sasura had told me. Luka nodded slowly.
“I’ve been hearing the same sorts of things, like I told you before the sit-down with Grachyev, but that was from our type of folk,” he said. “If the nobles feel the same way, then that really is interesting. It seems to me that our queen rules almost like a businessman would.”
He gave me a sidelong look then, and I recalled the day I had given him his own particular job within the Pious Men. I want you to watch the men, I had told him. I want you to listen to their talk over dice, and when they’re in their cups. If anyone starts disagreeing with me or questioning my orders, I want you to explain to them why they’re wrong. Then I’ll want to hear about it, and who said what.
Perhaps he had a point, I had to allow. I didn’t operate any different. All the same, I ran a business across half a provincial city, and that was one thing. Surely you couldn’t run a whole fucking country like that.
Perhaps you could; I wouldn’t know.
THIRTY-TWO
The matter of Ailsa’s father wasn’t mentioned again, and it was quite clear that it was to stay that way. That was her affair, of course, and none of my business, but I hoped to see the old rogue again before we left Dannsburg. When that might be I had no idea.
Ailsa still had yet to tell me why we were even in Dannsburg, and when she told me a few days later that she had accepted yet another invitation to yet another formal dinner that evening I found my patience wearing thin.
“What is it this time?”
“Don’t snap at me, Tomas, it’s impolite and I don’t care for it,” she said.
“And I don’t care for society functions.”
“I know that,” she said. “You would actually be surprised how many invitations I have declined, to spare you, but we have to attend this one. It’s from Lord Vogel.”
She was right, I was surprised. I had never supposed Ailsa gave a fuck how I felt about these things, truth be told, and I found the notion that perhaps she might to be strangely pleasing. All the same, that name drove any further thoughts on the subject out of my head.
“Vogel? The . . .” I groped for his official title. “Lord Chief Judiciar, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” she said. “Absolutely.”
We were in the drawing room with two footmen in attendance and Ailsa’s lady’s maid sitting demurely on a stool in front of her, holding a skein of yarn for her while she worked at some needlecraft or other. Billy was curled up beside her on the settle with his head nestled on her shoulder, like any good son with his ma. Speaking plainly was obviously out of the question.
“I remember meeting him, at the Princess Crown Royal’s reception,” I said. “We’re honored.”
I remembered Vogel all right. He was the Provost Marshal of the Queen’s Men whatever other titles he might hold, and I could see that there would be no way to decline that invitation.
“We are,” she said, and fixed me with a look that said to speak of something else in front of Billy and the servants.
Anything else.
“It’s warm today,” I said, feeling something of a fool. Empty conversation still didn’t come easily to me, but I was working at it. “I wonder if the weather might break soon.”
A ghost of a smile touched Ailsa’s lips as she responded in kind, making the sort of idle chatter that seemed to be expected of society people. She looked pleased all the same, and that was good even if nothing else was.
My desire to sit down at table with Lord Vogel was simply nonexistent, but she was right. There was no getting out of it, especially as it was probably the whole reason for this interminable trip. There was still something I didn’t understand, though, and I needed to before that evening’s dinner.
A while after Billy had returned to his studies and Ailsa had retired to dress for dinner, I followed her upstairs and knocked on her bedroom door. Her lady’s maid admitted me, and Ailsa turned with a curious look on her face. She was already dressed, of course, otherwise I would never have been let in, but the maid was obviously partway through arranging her hair.
“Could we have a moment?” I asked her.
She nodded and dismissed the maid with a wave of her hand, and I closed the door behind the departing girl.
“Can we talk freely in here?” I asked.
<
br /> “Of course,” Ailsa said, and frowned. “My servants don’t listen at doors, Tomas.”
“Your father thinks his do,” I said.
She sighed. “Yes, well, his quite possibly do but that’s beside the point. What do you want?”
“I want to know what the fuck is going on,” I said. “You dragged me and Billy all the way to Dannsburg, and I’ve hardly seen the lad since that tutor of his arrived, this man Fischer. We’re finally meeting with your boss, but that could have happened on the first day we were here. Instead we’ve sat and done nothing for weeks while Bloody Anne is fighting a fucking street war back home without me. And another thing—you said you’d been summoned but not by anyone you had to hurry for, or something like that. Surely you’d have to hurry for Vogel, so if he didn’t summon you, then who the fuck did?”
“Ah,” Ailsa said. “You seem to be working it out.”
“Working what out? There’s something here I don’t understand.”
“There are a lot of things you don’t understand,” she said. “Vogel didn’t summon me, you’re right about that. The house of magicians did.”
I blinked at her in confusion.
“What? Does that mean they know who you are?”
“They knew there was a Queen’s Man working in Ellinburg,” she said, “but only because Vogel had to tell them as much when they first approached him. The instructions to recruit the local cunning folk and send them here to Dannsburg came from the house of magicians. That request was made directly to Vogel in the queen’s name, so he had to grant it, and he ordered me to make it happen.”
“Which we did, well and good,” I said. “That doesn’t tell me what they want you for.”
“They don’t particularly; they want Billy.”
I stared at her. If they were interested in the cunning folk, then they would be all the more interested in Billy, I had to allow, but that still didn’t make sense.
“So why haven’t they come to see him, or had us go there?”
“Oh, but they have,” she said. “Billy’s tutor is a magician. He’s studying him.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, but just then something else occurred to me.
“If they didn’t know who the Queen’s Man in Ellinburg was, then how the fuck did they know about us and Billy?”
“That is an extremely good question,” Ailsa said, and I saw the flinty look in her eyes. “Someone has been talking.”
* * *
* * *
We got in the carriage shortly before sundown.
“Does Lord Vogel live far away?” I asked her as the carriage rolled through the gates and out onto the street.
“I have absolutely no idea,” Ailsa said. “He does his formal entertaining at the house of law, as befits his position.”
That felt like one of the many things that I should have known, something anyone of society would have known without making a fool of himself by asking.
“Of course he does,” I said, trying not to sound bitter. “Who are the other guests, do we know?”
Ailsa showed me a rare smile.
“You’re beginning to ask the right questions,” she said, and she looked pleased in the way that a dog trainer might the first time her hound learns to sit on command. “We will be joined by Lord and Lady Lan Andronikov; Major Bakrylov, you’ll be pleased to hear; Lord and Lady Lan Yetrov, which I’m sure you won’t; and Lady Reiter. Tell me what you know of these people.”
I felt like a boy in school again, being tested by the tutor.
“Bakrylov’s all right, for an officer,” I said. “He can lose a bet and joke about it afterward anyway, which is more than a lot of men can. Lan Andronikov’s the really rich one who squirmed out of being conscripted, and his wife is the poppy addict. Lan Yetrov is the cunt with the bear. I don’t know anything about his wife, and I’ve never even heard of the last one.”
“There seems to be very little about Lady Lan Yetrov to know, despite my best efforts to find something,” Ailsa said. “She is a pointless, insipid little social climber who married far too far above herself purely for the money, and is now rumored to be deeply regretting it. Well done, by the way.”
It irritated me how pleased I was, to hear her say that. I wasn’t a fucking performing dog.
“Who’s the other one, then? This Lady Reiter.”
Ailsa smiled again. “She’s very minor nobility, the third daughter of a baron who never amounted to anything in life and left a mountain of debt in death. Technically she’s a courtier by virtue of her birth, but due to having inherited absolutely nothing she is now in fact a courtesan, which is another way of saying ‘very expensive whore.’ She often accompanies Major Bakrylov to social occasions, to even the numbers.”
I snorted laughter.
“I see,” I said. “Bakrylov’s not married, then?”
“No,” Ailsa said, and left it at that.
“We’re still not an even number,” I pointed out. “Doesn’t Vogel have a wife?”
“He always hosts alone,” she said, “and his table is always an odd number with a vacant place setting laid at the foot. I don’t know precisely why, but it’s not something I would advise asking him about.”
No, I thought, remembering the soulless look in Vogel’s eyes. That probably wouldn’t be at all wise.
THIRTY-THREE
The house of law was an imposing building by any standard. It reminded me of the governor’s hall in Ellinburg, except it was probably three if not four times the size. The City Guard were very much in evidence outside, the light of the setting sun gleaming from their polished half-armor and the points of their spears. A huge royal standard flew from the stone heights of the building, cracking in the rising wind.
“You were right,” Ailsa said as we were handed down from our carriage by hard-faced footmen who were quite obviously more than that. “I think the weather may be about to change.”
“Aye,” I said, and found myself wondering which way she meant that.
I was starting to sink deeper into Ailsa’s world of intrigue and politics, and I didn’t care for it. All the same, there was something brewing that night. I could feel it the same way I could feel when a sit-down was about to go bad and come to knives. This whole business with the house of magicians didn’t feel right to me, and to my mind Vogel was as close to a devil walking as I ever wanted to meet.
I would have paid a great deal of money right then to be back in Ellinburg, in the Tanner’s Arms with Bloody Anne and Jochan at the table with me, with brandy in front of us and careless soldier’s talk on our lips.
No, I thought, my brother was a madman who had torn out a man’s throat with his teeth and eaten it, and Bloody Anne was fighting a running street war in my name while I attended dinner with the head of the Queen’s Men. I could feel the distance between me and my crew growing, until it felt like a great chasm separated us. I didn’t want that, but right then I couldn’t see my way clear of it.
Ailsa took my arm as I stepped down from the carriage beside her, and together we were ushered up the stone steps of the great building and through the towering iron doors. The wearing of swords was in fashion in Dannsburg since the war ended, but all weapons were forbidden within the house of law, so I was unarmed. As the great doors closed behind us I felt the lack of the Weeping Women quite keenly. The hall within was marble, the floor echoing our steps back to us as we followed the attendant footmen up a sweeping flight of stairs to a formal reception room.
I had no idea what the room should be called, but it was somewhere between a drawing room and a hall, and it seemed to have been designed to provide the least comfort possible. There were chairs, but they were arranged around the walls in formal lines, useless for conversation, and the four other guests who had already arrived were standing in two clearly distinct pairs as they sipped wine from tall glass
es.
A footman served us as we entered, and we each took a glass. I could see Major Bakrylov standing close to the huge fireplace, looking very bored. Beside him was an extremely beautiful woman with some twenty-five years to her who I took to be this Lady Reiter that Ailsa had told me about in the carriage.
The Lan Yetrovs were already there too, and I had no desire to talk to them. I saw Lord Lan Yetrov look my way, and I could tell from the curl of his lip that he had remembered what I had said to him at the court reception. Lan Yetrov hated me, I knew, and the feeling was entirely mutual.
“Talk to the major,” Ailsa murmured to me. “I’ll take the Lan Yetrovs.”
I nodded my thanks to her and strolled toward the fireplace with the untouched glass in my hand.
“Major Bakrylov, a pleasure to see you again,” I said, and realized I actually meant it.
Bakrylov showed me a grin that said he was genuinely pleased to see me, too.
“Piety, thank the gods,” he said. “I was beginning to despair of seeing a friendly face this evening.”
“Aye, well,” I said. “Us tired old soldiers have to stick together.”
“Absolutely!” he said, with a degree of enthusiasm that rather surprised me.
I glanced sideways at his companion, who he still hadn’t introduced, and he took my meaning. Our Lady save me, I was beginning to speak the language of these people.
“Allow me to introduce the Lady Reiter,” he said. “M’lady, this is Father Tomas Piety. We were at Abingon together.”
That wasn’t strictly true, of course, at least not the way he made it sound, but I let it be. We had both been at Abingon, that was true enough. Bakrylov had been a major who had got the best part of a regiment slaughtered in the process of becoming a war hero, while I had just been a company priest. Our paths would never have crossed in the war; priests and majors simply didn’t move in the same circles. Still, that was past and done, and no use raising it now. Bakrylov seemed a good man aside from that, and I was sure he wouldn’t have had the faintest idea why a simple conscript like me might possibly take ill against him for his wartime actions. He had just been rude to his companion, though, presenting her to me rather than the other way around as etiquette dictated. Very expensive whore, I remembered Ailsa saying, but that in itself should be no reason for rudeness. I wondered whether it was deliberate, or if he simply regarded her as a thing he had rented for the evening rather than a person. It wouldn’t have surprised me, in Dannsburg.