by Peter McLean
I promised myself that I would ensure he had a full military funeral worthy of a colonel, but that too would have to wait.
“Who has the seniority now?” I demanded, my voice cutting over the babble of talk in the hall.
A man stepped forward, the thick-bellied sergeant who had been the first to call me sir at the barricade.
“I have, sir,” he said. “Sergeant Miller.”
“You’ve been promoted, Captain Miller,” I said. “Detail enough men to organize a search of the ground floor and the cells. I want anyone who’s armed killed and anyone who isn’t secured. Then you’ll come with me.”
“Sir.”
I left him to it and went to my brother.
“How bad is it?”
Jochan looked up at me and he said nothing, but there were tears rolling down his cheeks. Cutter was alive, but his left eye was gone and half his face with it. His beard was burned away on that side in a mass of blisters and livid, weeping red that hurt just to look at. He must have been in an indescribable amount of pain, but he bore it in silence, with only the flecks of spit that bubbled between his tightly clenched teeth telling of the agony he endured.
“Right,” I said. “Fuck this. Take who you need and get him back to the Tanner’s, have young Billy do what he can.”
“What can he fucking do with this?” Jochan hissed at me, his eyes bright with grief and battle shock and murder. “He’s in Our Lady’s hands now, but She doesn’t heal men, does She?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, “but Billy will do something. He saved Hari, you remember? I don’t understand the cunning, Jochan, but I don’t underestimate it either. As you say, he’s in Our Lady’s hands and She works through Billy.”
I didn’t know how much I believed that, and Jochan turned and spat on the floor in a way that said he didn’t either anymore, but he helped Cutter to his feet all the same. The man groaned in torment as he moved, but no more than that. As Our Lady is my witness, Cutter was not made of the same thing as normal men. Jochan pulled Jutta and two of her girls out of our group, and between them they helped Cutter back out into the street, taking care to skirt what was left of Captain Rogan and his two men as they went.
“Done, sir,” Captain Miller said beside me. “The clearing party are about their work.”
“Good,” I said. “Take us to the governor’s study.”
Miller led the way up the great stair, in the lead with me and Bloody Anne and Florence Cooper and five of our guardsmen behind. He marched along a corridor and pointed at a door, and I kicked it open so hard it almost came off its hinges.
Governor Hauer was sitting behind his desk in his nightclothes, obviously having been roused from his bed by word of the violence on the streets. His face was pale and sweaty, and he was guzzling wine from a goblet as though his life depended on it.
He wasn’t alone.
The other man in the room was tall and lean, and had some sixty years to him, with long iron-gray hair bound back from his face. He wore a plain black coat and an unremarkable doublet, but I knew who this must be. This was the Skanian equivalent of a Queen’s Man, standing right there in front of me.
He had the same quality to him that Iagin had, back in Dannsburg, something that put me in mind of a snake in man’s clothes.
“Who the fuck are you?” I asked him as Bloody Anne stepped into the room behind me and held her crossbow trained on the governor.
“You don’t need my name,” he said.
“I’ll have it if I fucking want it,” I assured him.
He snorted, and there was no hint of fear in his cold eyes.
“This is an act of war, Mr. Piety,” he said. “Are you absolutely sure you wish to proceed with it? I assure you, I have the full authority of the King of Skania.”
“And I have the Queen’s Warrant,” I said, “and that means your cock’s no bigger than mine. Arrest him.”
Miller and his men stepped forward, and the governor’s already pale face turned the color of rancid cheese. He dropped his goblet, and wine ran across the desk like blood.
“The Queen’s . . .” he whispered. “Tomas, please, I can explain. I can explain everything!”
“Oh, you will explain, Governor Hauer,” I said. “At length. In Dannsburg.”
I turned to Captain Miller.
“They’re for the house of law to deal with. Chain them and throw them both in the cells.”
“You can’t do this!” Hauer wheezed.
“I have the Queen’s Warrant,” I told him. “I can do anything.”
FIFTY-FIVE
I got no sleep that night.
There were bodies to be cleared off the streets and disposed of, a great number of them, and order to impose. The newly promoted Captain Miller proved competent at least, and I gave thanks to Our Lady for that. For that, and for allowing me to see another dawn.
Ailsa joined me at the governor’s hall as the sun was rising. She brought word with her that Cutter had survived the night and was being watched over by Billy the Boy, who was doing what he could. Jochan was with him, refusing to leave his side even to drink.
I thought on that, and I wondered what Jochan’s wife would make of it, but that was his affair, not mine. Jochan was caught between two loves, I realized, or perhaps between a love and an obligation. I wouldn’t know, and truth be told, it was none of my business anyway. I was just glad that Cutter was still alive.
“Well and good,” I said.
We were in Hauer’s study and I had taken the seat behind his desk, out of habit more than anything else. It occurred to me then that it should be Ailsa sitting there, not me. I got to my feet and said as much.
“No,” she said. “No, sit. It suits you. I thought it would.”
I blinked at her. I’d seen hard fighting that night and I’d had no sleep, and I didn’t take her meaning.
“Governor Hauer is under arrest and has been relieved of his position,” she said, taking the seat across the desk from me as she spoke. “He is going to the house of law, and he won’t be coming out again. Someone has to rule here. The crown empowers me to appoint an interim governor of Ellinburg until a permanent replacement can be found and sent from the capital. That will be you, Tomas.”
I stared at her, feeling something of a fool.
“Me?” I echoed. “I don’t know how to govern a city.”
“Of course you do,” she said. “You ruled the Stink for years. You governed there, Tomas. You set and collected taxes and you spent them wisely, you provided welfare for your people, and you kept the peace on your streets. That’s what a governor does. It’s no different.”
I had to allow that perhaps it wasn’t.
“I’m no noble,” I said.
“No, but you have at least been introduced to society, and you are well known in Ellinburg and well respected. The common people will accept you.”
“And the fucking nobility won’t.”
“Perhaps not, at first,” she allowed, “but you have the Queen’s Warrant. You should use it sparingly, Tomas, but it is there to be used when necessary. I’d advise you to start with Lan Barkov; he has the most influence in society here. Order him to your side and he will speak well of you to his peers. They will listen to him.”
“There’s still the Northern Sons to think of, and what’s left of the Alarian Kings. They’re strong crews even without the Skanians behind them.”
She shrugged. “A governor must deal with such things. Broker a peace between them and the Pious Men and draw up a border, or use the Guard to exterminate them. I don’t really care. A word of advice, Tomas. You should bring Lord Vogel solutions, not problems. Preferably solutions that you have already successfully implemented.”
“Aye, well,” I said. “I suppose I can do that. With your help I can. We’ll rule together, then. I can be the fa
ce of the governor, with you at my side.”
“No,” she said. “One Queen’s Man is enough in Ellinburg, and that’s you now. Besides which, I shall need to accompany the wagons that take Hauer and the Skanian leader to Dannsburg. Lord Vogel will want me back in the capital now, to deal with the implications of this. You’ll have Rosie, and of course you’ll have Luka.”
“You’re my wife,” I whispered. “I . . . I think I love you, Ailsa. Billy loves you. Stay with us, please. Please, Ailsa. I don’t think I can do this without you.”
“I’m sorry, but you will have to,” she said, and there was neither love nor compassion nor pity in the eyes of the lioness.
She felt nothing for me, I realized, and she felt nothing for our son either. The lioness was stone and iron, and who was I to speak to her of love anyway? That cold devil in me was no more capable of love than she was. My hands clenched on the table, my fists balling on the sticky wood where Hauer had spilled his wine, and the breath hissed in my throat.
Battle shock.
“Just breathe,” she whispered.
“Don’t,” I told her, in the flat tone of murder that I retreat behind when I don’t want to face the world in front of me anymore. “Just don’t, Ailsa. When do you leave?”
“Tomorrow,” she said. “Miller will give me enough guardsmen to escort the prisoners’ wagon. Use Luka, Tomas; he’s very valuable. He has worked for us for years.”
I stared at her as I worked my way around to understanding this new revelation.
There are only so many shocks a man can take in over the course of one conversation, after all. All the same, in my mind’s eye I could already see my hands closing around Luka’s fat neck.
“What did you say?”
“He worked for my predecessor. We had him watching you even before the war, while you were spying on the governor for us. Everybody is watched by someone, Tomas. Even me. Perhaps especially me.”
“And who watches Luka?”
“I really wouldn’t know, but be assured that someone does.”
Always someone watching, and always someone to watch the watcher. That was how it was done in the Queen’s Men. I wondered who had been watching Luka, and I thought about Rosie.
“And what am I supposed to do without you?”
“Govern,” she said, and her voice was the cold razor of Vogel’s smile. “With war brewing again we must have stability in Ellinburg now. That is all that matters. Taxes must be levied and paid to the crown, and to do that you will need productive industry and strong trade. No more workers’ uprisings, no more street violence. We do not want sedition or resistance or thinkers, and the gods only save us from activists. Why do you think Lord Vogel wants to do away with the magicians and the university? Ill-informed and ignorant people are easier to suppress and control. We require a well-behaved, productive, obedient workforce, and you will make that happen.”
I just stared at her, and I could find no words to say.
Sorrow would keep. Everything would keep, the cold devil told me. Grief, love, betrayal, honor, it would all keep until I could shove it into the strongbox in the back of my mind where it belonged and bury it there until it was forgotten. There was work to be done.
I looked up and met her eyes.
“If you’re going, then go. I’ve got a fucking city to run.”
* * *
* * *
I had my things moved out of our house and into the governor’s hall. Ailsa and me were still married, I supposed, for what little that had meant, but I didn’t want to see her. She had never felt anything for me; I knew that now. I was the right man for the right job, that was all, and she had been using me the same way I used fucking everyone else. I had to allow that I didn’t care for it when it was done to me.
People need to see you and become . . . accustomed to you.
I remembered her telling me that when she had first dragged me into society against my wishes. I had asked her then why it mattered what society people thought of me.
One day it might matter a great deal.
It seemed she had been right, as though she had known even then.
Perhaps she had, at that.
I spent the day in a cold rage, but there was work to be done.
I had Jon Lan Barkov brought to me in the governor’s study, as Ailsa had advised, and I showed him the Queen’s Warrant and I told him how it was going to be. He was shaken when he left me, pale-faced and scared, but I knew he would do as I told him. Ellinburg society would recognize me as their new governor, and there would be no complaints.
That was what the Queen’s Warrant could do.
I wondered just how long the Queen’s Men had been planning for this. I remembered the first Queen’s Man, before the war, and how even then I had thought it strange just how much gold he had been willing to pay me. Had they been playing such a long game even then, merely hoping that I would survive the war? Perhaps there had been others who hadn’t. Perhaps I hadn’t even been their first choice for this. I very much doubted that Lord Vogel ever placed all his bets on the same horse.
Could and might and possibly, I thought. That was how the Queen’s Men made plans.
I had Fat Luka brought to me as well, and I didn’t strangle him after all. I wanted to, but he was too useful to kill, the cold devil told me. Ailsa had had the right of that, at least. The right man for the right job, always, and there were many jobs Fat Luka was suited to. There was a lot to do and little time to do it in, and I needed him. All the same, I spent our entire meeting staring at his neck, and wanting to put my hands around it and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze until his head came off in my hands.
I set him to brokering the peace with the Northern Sons and the Kings, and I threw him out before temptation got the better of me. I think he knew how close I had come to violence that day, but I needed him. I needed to impose order in the city, as fast and as hard as possible. I needed to sleep as well, but I couldn’t.
I’ve always said that in Ellinburg I was a prince, but now I wasn’t.
Now I was a king, and kings have no time for sleep.
* * *
* * *
Ailsa left the next morning with her prisoners in irons in the back of a wagon and enough guardsmen to keep them safe on the road. I didn’t go out to say my farewells. That was done, to my mind, and the past is best left buried.
Eventually I made my way to the Tanner’s Arms under heavy guard. The barricades had been taken down by then, but there was confusion on the streets. Word had spread about what had happened, and who I was now, and I wasn’t sure my people knew what to make of that. I was still Tomas Piety, but now I was riding surrounded by City Guard who did my bidding, and that was too big a change for folk to take lightly.
They would have to get used to it. This was how it was now, and this was how it would stay.
Look at me, Ma, I thought. I’m the governor of Ellinburg.
I wondered what she would have made of that. I knew exactly what my da would have made of it, and it was nothing good. Da was a working man, when he was sober enough to work, and he didn’t hold with nobles or politicians or the City Guard. No one in the Stink did, nor in the Wheels either. Da would never have forgiven me for this, for what he would have seen as a betrayal of who I was and where I had come from.
But then my da was a cunt, so fuck what he thought.
I left the guardsmen outside the Tanner’s and went in alone. Bringing them in there with me would have been too much, I knew that. All the same, the busy room fell into an uneasy silence when I stepped inside. When I had been in Dannsburg in the summer I had thought that I could feel the distance growing between me and my crew, and I could see now that I’d had the right of that.
Bloody Anne was waiting for me with Florence Cooper and Aunt Enaid at her side.
“How’s Cutter?” I asked.
“Alive,” Anne said. “Asleep upstairs with Jochan. Billy is doing . . . whatever he’s doing. Mina’s with him, and I don’t think they want disturbing.”
“Aye, perhaps not,” I said. “What’s the lay of things?”
“Come in the back with me and I’ll tell you.”
I followed Bloody Anne through to the back room, where we could be alone.
“So?”
Anne rounded on me and I saw the look in her eyes, and I’ve no shame in admitting that for a moment then I feared her.
“The lay of things is that the world is on its fucking head,” Anne snarled at me, standing with her hard hands clenched into fists by her sides. “Working in secret for the crown, averting a war, I’ll allow you had your reasons for that. Taking the Queen’s Warrant, well, that’s another thing again, but I can just about see my way to how you might not have had a choice. But this? You’re the fucking governor of Ellinburg, Tomas, that’s the fucking lay of things!”
I sighed, and sat down in my place at the head of the table.
“A lot has changed, I’ll grant you,” I said. “Things have changed too quickly for my liking too, but there it is. I am the governor now, if only for a short while. I can’t be two things at once, Anne.”
“What do you mean?”
I got to my feet again, and I held out the chair for her.
“Sit down, Anne,” I said. “Sit here.”
“No,” she said, and all the anger left her as she took my meaning. “No, I can’t do that. All last summer I ran the Pious Men for you while you were in Dannsburg, but I never sat in that chair. I was just ruling as your second, and I did it from the seat at your right hand where I belong. I’m not—”
“I need you, Bloody Anne,” I interrupted her. “I need you now like never before. I can’t be the governor of Ellinburg and the head of the Pious Men at the same time. There aren’t enough hours in the fucking day. Lady willing I won’t have to be governor for long, but I can’t know that, and while I am I need someone I trust to sit in this chair. You’re my second, Anne. You’re the one I trust with this.”