by Peter McLean
I wasn’t going to let that pass. I would get rid of Aleksander Lan Letskov if he needed me to, but after that we were done as far as I was concerned.
I was done with being Lord Vogel’s fucking puppet.
*
First Councillor Aleksander Lan Letskov was considerably wealthier than Archmagus Nikolai Reiter, for all that the latter was the head of the house of magicians. It seemed that the archmagus drew a good deal less coin from the coffers of his house than some of his opposite numbers did from theirs, although of course Lan Letskov was a hereditary aristocrat and had probably inherited the majority of his wealth, as such people usually did.
I stood across the street from the gates of his estate that night, hiding in the shadowed doorway of a closed bank with Oliver and Emil beside me, and I watched the movements of his house guard. No, I decided then, this wasn’t going to work. I had managed a frontal assault on Lord Lan Yetrov’s estate the previous year because Fat Luka had bought his head man and most of his staff, and I had secured the support of his wife in advance. That wasn’t going to work here, I could see that. The Lan Letskov estate was like a fortress, and even with Bloody Anne and Beast and help from Iagin’s crew, I simply didn’t have the manpower to take it by force. I could have unleashed Billy against them, of course, but that would have been like bringing a cannon to a tavern brawl. No, even a Queen’s Man had to maintain a veneer of plausibility, and that would never have done. There was only so much that could be covered up by Iagin’s words, after all.
It looked like I would have to do this the old-fashioned way, then, the gangster way, and simply swagger it out afterwards. And I could do that, I realised suddenly.
The Queen’s Warrant is an official license to do absolutely anything, with the full and unconditional backing and funding of the crown. It means that I am above the law. I am utterly untouchable.
Ailsa had told me that, and I knew then that I needed to heed those words. I am utterly untouchable, those were the words I needed to remember. Fuck taking his house by force, I realised, when I could see him in the chambers of the governing council tomorrow through the simple act of turning up for once. That wasn’t something I was in the habit of doing, but I believed I could make an exception on this occasion. I carried the Queen’s Warrant and there was nothing I couldn’t do in Dannsburg, however fucking outrageous it might seem.
All the same, we couldn’t just murder people in the street. Some degree of subterfuge had to be maintained, but I had the perfect cover to do it. Lord Vogel had seen to that.
‘No, fuck this,’ I said. ‘It’s not going to happen. We can’t take them in open battle.’
‘What are you going to do, then, boss?’ Oliver asked.
‘I’ll see him at work in the morning,’ I said.
Ailsa had as good as told me this was going to happen, of course.
Lord Vogel wants one of them killed, and sitting members of the governing council are notoriously difficult to get close to unless one is also a councillor, she had told me.
I realised then what she had meant, and what Vogel had been doing all along. I had been placed on the governing council purely to kill First Councillor Lan Letskov, and to replace him as the house of law’s puppet. Well, the latter wasn’t going to happen but we would have to see about the former, I supposed.
Anyway, I spent a fitful night thinking on it, and what it would mean for the future. Aleksander Lan Letskov had done me no harm save to fall in love with my wife, and fool that I was, I had to allow that I had done the same thing. All the same, by the time I finally fell asleep I knew what had to be done. It was for the greater good, I told myself, and I hold to that now. With war looming it was imperative that the governing council stood with us, and was led by one of our people.
After the morning’s session of the council, which consisted mostly of back and forth arguing over the terms of the guild of masons’ contract for the rebuilding of the city walls and a conspicuous ignoring of the civil unrest that still raged in the city, First Councillor Lan Letskov adjourned the meeting. He was a man past his sixtieth year, after all, and by then he seemed to be in quite some need.
I followed him to the privy.
‘My lord First Councillor,’ I said to his back as he relieved himself with a groan of satisfaction into one of the bowls.
He half turned to face me, his cock in his hands, a look of horror on his face as I drew Remorse.
‘Sir Tomas, no. If you want the podium that badly, then . . .’
‘Dieter Vogel sends his regards,’ I said, and I rammed Remorse through his chest.
He crumpled at my feet, and with that I supposed it was done.
The First Councillor was dead, and no one would ever question why or how. That was simply how Dannsburg worked. Vogel would manipulate the vote to see Markova elected into his position, and no one would argue with that either.
I thought about that, as I watched First Councillor Lan Letskov’s blood pool around him on the privy floor. That was how much power Vogel already had, and I didn’t think I was at all comfortable with it.
I wiped Remorse clean on Lan Letskov’s coat and sheathed her at my side. I lingered in the privy to take a piss myself, because as every soldier knows you should never turn down the opportunity to eat, sleep or take a piss, as you never know when the chance may come again. That done, I returned to my seat in the council chamber. By then Beast and Oliver would have used my name and the notes of permission I had signed for them to get inside the council building and spirit Lan Letskov’s body away. I sat and awaited the First Councillor’s return as though nothing had happened. He had disappeared, and that was all there was to it.
If there’s one thing the Queen’s Men teach you, it’s sheer audacity. The knowledge that you can do a thing, anything, and there will be no repercussions, is something it takes a while to get used to.
But by then I think I was starting to.
Chapter 46
Bakrylov came to see me again the next morning.
I hadn’t been expecting his visit, and if I’m honest I wasn’t really in any fit state to receive him. I had drunk myself into oblivion the night before, after I had assassinated First Councillor Lan Letskov in broad daylight and walked away from it as though nothing had happened, which of course it officially hadn’t. He had disappeared, and nothing more needed to be said about that.
Such was the life of the Queen’s Men.
‘Bakrylov,’ I greeted him in the common room of the Bountiful Harvest, and if I looked half as rough as I felt then he did a good job of hiding his reaction.
‘Sir Tomas,’ he said, and sketched me a bow that I thought half mocking and half sincere.
Mocking was Major Bakrylov’s normal demeanour, so I didn’t take it ill. If anything, the sincere half could be considered a compliment, coming from him.
I forced down a gulp of small beer and tried not to throw up on his boots.
‘What do you want?’ I asked, and if that was somewhat blunt then he didn’t react to it.
I am a blunt man, after all, knight and councillor though I may have been, and I think Bakrylov was used to that by then.
‘There’s been another riot,’ he said. ‘Another of the learned magi was lynched last night, his carriage overrun by an angry mob on its return from one of the city’s finer brothels.’
‘So?’
‘So I’ve been put in charge of stopping it,’ he said. ‘Curfew obviously isn’t working, so something more drastic is required. I thought I ought to let you know that we both serve the same house, Sir Tomas. Although I don’t carry the warrant, I’ve been around long enough to know how this works. Plans within plans, and nobody knows what anybody else is doing save the Old Man himself. I don’t want you thinking me an enemy of the people and planting one of your blades in my back.’
‘I’d guessed, and I wouldn’t do that,’ I said, and realised that I meant it. ‘Not without a direct order, anyway. Why, though? Why you?’
‘I’m a war hero,’ Bakrylov said once more. ‘People trust in heroes. They understand heroes, or at least they think they do. No one understands the magi, so no one trusts them. Simple people can easily be made to distrust learning, and fear of the unknown is a powerful tool. So the Old Man told me, and I dare say he’s right.’
Ill-informed and ignorant people are easier to suppress and control.
‘But you’re army, not City Guard,’ I said. ‘Or is this some sort of undercover mission?’
‘No, absolutely not,’ Bakrylov said. ‘What’s the use of a hero in disguise? This is the complete opposite of undercover. Vogel has used his legal authority as Lord Chief Judiciar and publicly sent in the army to quell the unrest.’
I paused for a moment to let the implications of that sink in.
Vogel had sent in the army.
In Dannsburg itself.
In Our Lady’s name, civil wars had been started by less.
‘The army,’ I said, and for a moment I was honestly lost for words. ‘He’s sent in the army?’
To stop riots that we had started ourselves, but of course I had no way of knowing if Bakrylov knew that so I didn’t say it.
‘Yes,’ Bakrylov said. ‘We will be putting down any and all unrest from the house of magicians until peace and civil order is restored to Dannsburg.’
Of course it was the house of magicians they would be targeting, and never mind those who had carried out the lynchings and started the riots. The house of magicians was the rival of the house of law, that was known well enough, so it would be against them that the army’s wrath would be turned.
I found a new appreciation of Lord Vogel’s skills as I realised exactly what he had done here. He had used the queen’s death at the hands of the Skanians to implicate his greatest political rivals in the atrocity, and then created enough civil unrest to give him just cause to bring in the army and exterminate them.
That was one thing, I supposed, but I would much prefer the army to be on the walls of Varnburg and Dannsburg awaiting the imminent Skanian threat. That, to me, was more important than the house of magicians and their university and their theatre, but it seemed the house of law thought differently about that.
‘Gods, you look terrible,’ Bakrylov said, unexpectedly. ‘Late night?’
‘I suppose it was,’ I said, although I didn’t even remember going to bed so had no idea what time it had been.
‘Mmmm,’ he said, and that could have meant anything.
‘What?’ I snapped.
‘I hear they are holding elections for a new presiding head of the governing council,’ he said. ‘It seems that First Councillor Lan Letskov has disappeared. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Sir Tomas?’
‘I am seldom at the council,’ I said.
‘You were there yesterday.’
‘What if I was?’ I snarled at him. I felt like shit, and this war criminal lording it over me was the last thing I needed right then. ‘I carry the Queen’s Warrant, Bakrylov. What if I fucking was?’
He laughed, and surprised me by clapping me on the shoulder.
‘Oh, very good, old boy,’ he said. ‘Defiance, we like that.’
We like that? I looked at him, and narrowed my eyes. Exactly who was he speaking for here?
There are factions, even within the Queen’s Men.
I wondered then exactly how deep into the whole circus Major Bakrylov truly was.
*
I went out with Bakrylov again that night, partly to make up for my harsh words and partly because I was intrigued by what he had said that morning. Factions indeed, and I wanted to know whose side he was truly on.
I didn’t find out, as he was wearing his armour of mockery and jest once more and didn’t open up to me at all. I could tell after five minutes back in the Jolly Joker that I would get no serious words out of him that night, whatever I said.
For all of that, we had a pleasant enough evening together, and once more I saw Doctor Almanov in there, playing cards with a table of men who I didn’t know. I watched him out of casual interest, having given up on getting anything but mirth from the major, and it seemed to me that he was losing heavily. The good doctor was sweating in his brocade coat, and although I couldn’t see well from where I was sitting, I thought a couple of his opponents at the card table had the look of the sort of men you wouldn’t want to owe money to if you valued your kneecaps. Men from south of the river, I was sure, remembering when Ailsa had told me that, in one of the many dressings-down she had subjected me to when we still lived together as husband and wife.
We didn’t stay out late, as I found I had no appetite for it with the major being as frivolous as he was, and I had council business the next morning anyway.
With Lan Letskov’s disappearance now common knowledge among the members of the governing council, a vote was to be held for his successor. Aye, it had been barely a day since he had vanished, but this was Dannsburg and everyone on the council knew what that meant. No one was under any illusion that he would be coming back again, for all that none of them would have dared to say anything about it.
I sat on the green leather bench the next morning with my fellow councillors around me, and watched and waited as Speaker Ivankova formally proposed the election of a new First Councillor. Her motion was carried almost unanimously, as I had never doubted that it would be.
‘I propose myself,’ Lan Drashkov announced at once, to the surprise of absolutely nobody.
Judging from the polite yet restrained smattering of applause, his support was vanishingly small. I could see that he knew it too, and he regained his seat with his face flushed even redder than usual.
I too rose to my feet, and cleared my throat.
‘I propose Councillor Markova,’ I said.
The applause I received was thunderous, and that told me all I needed to know about the amount the house of law had expended in bribes to make this happen. Markova herself turned and nodded to me, then stood and faced the Speaker.
‘Seconded,’ she said.
‘Thirded!’ shouted a man from the back benches.
‘Fourthed,’ called out a woman from my left.
No one so much as seconded Lan Drashkov’s proposal, so at least we were spared the farce of a formal election. Councillor Markova was the new presiding head of the governing council, and that was it.
So simply was Lord Vogel’s will done, through the exercise of no more than gold and influence. So simply were the reins of power placed in the hands of the house of law.
Gold, power, influence.
The levers that moved the world.
*
I saw Ailsa afterwards, in the mess at the house of law.
‘It’s done,’ I said, when she raised her eyebrows.
We were alone in there, and I could tell that she felt safe enough to ask the question.
‘Why did you turn him down, Tomas? It’s not often a Queen’s Man turns down an offer of advancement from the Provost Marshal himself.’
‘For the reasons I gave him,’ I said carefully. ‘Being First Councillor isn’t something I know how to do, Ailsa. I was flattered by the offer, aye, but I think Markova will serve us better in that post than I could ever have done. I put the interests of the house of law before my own, always.’
That was utter horseshit, of course, and I suspected that she knew it was, but it was the only right answer I could have given when there was always the prospect of someone listening at the door, or from some concealed space behind the walls. You never could tell, in the house of law. Or most places in Dannsburg, for that matter.
‘Yes, well,’ she said. ‘I hope you’re right, Tomas.’
‘She’s an intelligent woman,’ I said, ‘and she knows which side her bread is buttered on. I don’t think Markova will let us down.’
‘For what it’s worth, nor do I,’ Ailsa admitted.
She looked troubled, though, and after I had poured us both a drink I sai
d as much.
‘What’s on your mind?’ I asked her.
Ailsa sighed and took a sip of the wine I had given her.
‘I’m worried about Her Highness,’ she admitted after a moment. ‘She keeps demanding to see “the shining boy”, and nobody has the faintest idea what she’s talking about. All she says is, “I want that boy, the one who shines.” She talks nonsense a lot of the time, of course, but this seems to matter to her and she rages when we have to gainsay her through simple lack of understanding. Two footmen were badly burned last week, in some strange accident involving a lamp.’
‘She means Billy,’ I said, before I could think better of it.
‘Billy? Our Billy?’ Ailsa said, and I could see the utter confusion on her face. That wasn’t a thing I had seen before.
I could have kicked myself, but it was done now, I supposed.
‘Aye, our Billy. He says she’s a cunning woman, although he’s not sure if she knows she is or not,’ I had to explain, ‘and I think he’s right. You remember the fire at the queen’s funeral? That wasn’t natural, it can’t have been. Back when I received my knighthood she told the entire court that he shone, and Billy says she does too and that’s how the cunning folk know each other.’
I could tell that this revelation had shaken Ailsa, but after a moment she took it in her stride. Adapt and move on, that was what the Queen’s Men did, and Ailsa was a Queen’s Man to the core.
‘Gods be good, I had completely forgotten about that,’ Ailsa said. ‘In all truth she says so many mad things that I scarce take notice any more.’
‘Aye, well, there it is,’ I said. ‘It’s Billy she wants.’
‘Well,’ she said, and took a sip of her drink. ‘If she wants Billy then I suppose we must arrange an introduction.’
I wasn’t sure that I liked it but I supposed we probably must, at that.
Chapter 47
It was arranged for the following day, such was the princess’ insistence. I had explained it to Billy that night, back at the Bountiful Harvest.