When it came to feeding the people, or housing them better than dogs, there were always harsh limits on what government could afford. But for a royal triumph, the Closed Council would find a way. Someone who’d starved in the camps, who’d lied her way into the hearts and beds of good people, who’d tricked and tortured to betray a cause she halfway believed in for the sake of one she didn’t at all, might’ve felt a little bitter at seeing all this money wasted.
But Vick had a harder heart than that, and for damn sure a harder head. Or so she told herself.
‘Been looking all over for you.’ Tallow was at her elbow. No need for him to shove through the crowds. He was that thin, he could just slip through the gaps like a breeze under a door. He’d brought a girl, wearing a best bonnet that even Vick, who’d never worn a bonnet in her life, could tell had been out of fashion a century ago. ‘This is my sister.’
Vick blinked. ‘The one who—’
‘I’ve only got the one.’
There was no telling how old she was. When children don’t get fed properly, sometimes they look far younger than they are, sometimes far older. Sometimes both at once. She had her brother’s big eyes but a face even thinner, so hers looked even bigger, like a tragic frog’s. Vick could see her own stern, distorted reflection in the damp corners of them, and didn’t much like the look of it, either.
‘Go on, then,’ said Tallow, nudging his sister with his elbow.
The girl swallowed, as if she was dragging up the words from a long way down. ‘Just wanted … to thank you. It’s a good place, I been living. Clean. And they feed me. Much as I can eat. Though I don’t eat much, I guess. Just … our parents died, you know. We never had anyone looking out for us before.’
Vick was hard. Ask anyone who’d tried to cross her in the camps. Ask anyone she’d sent to the camps since. Ask anyone unlucky enough to run across her. Vick was hard. But that stung. The girl was thanking her for being a hostage. Thanking her for using her as a tool to make her brother betray his friends.
‘What did Tallow tell you?’ muttered Vick.
‘Nothing really!’ Worried she’d get him into trouble. ‘Just that he was doing some work for you, and so you were looking after me while he was doing it.’ She glanced up, fearful. ‘Is the work done?’
‘The work’s never done,’ said Vick, and the girl perked up right away. Maybe she should’ve been happy that someone was happy about more work. But Vick had never been sure what being happy felt like. Maybe it had happened and she hadn’t noticed.
There was an ear-splitting fanfare, hundreds of boot heels crashing down together as the soldiers found their final places and brought the parade to an end. For a moment, all was still. Then someone rose from among the great men of the Closed Council, from beside the king, sunlight gleaming on the arcane symbols stitched into his shimmering robes. Bayaz, the First of the Magi.
‘My noble lords and ladies! My stout yeomen and women! My proud citizens of the Union! We stand at the site of a great victory!’ And he smiled out at the Square of Marshals. A place that was still being painstakingly rebuilt after he’d levelled it no more than thirty years ago. They said it would be better than ever when they were done. But things are always going to be better, or were better long ago. No politician ever got anywhere by telling people things are just right as they are.
‘Here the best the Gurkish could send against us were utterly crushed!’ And Bayaz shook one meaty fist, calling up a patriotic grumble as a conductor calls up the percussion. ‘Here their great emperor was utterly laid low. Here the Prophet Khalul was utterly humbled, his cursed army of Eaters sent back to hell where they belonged. We were told the emperor’s soldiers were countless, the Prophet’s children indestructible. But the Union was victorious! I was victorious. The forces of superstition and savagery were defeated, and the gates opened to a new age of progress and prosperity.’ Bayaz’s smile was huge enough to be seen all the way across the arena. Clearly a magus could be as pleased with his own past glories as any other old man.
‘To me – for it needs hardly to be said that I am very old – it still feels like yesterday. But the bright-eyed young heroes who fought the Gurkish here are old greybeards now.’ And he set a heavy hand down on the shoulder of King Jezal, who looked more queasy than pleased by the recognition. ‘The pages of history turn, one generation gives way to another, and today we have not one, but two new famous Union victories to celebrate! In the North, on the barren borders of Angland, Lord Governor Brock defeated enemies without!’ There was widespread cheering, and a child on someone’s shoulders frantically waved a little Union flag. ‘While here in Midderland, outside the walls of Valbeck, Crown Prince Orso put paid to rebellion within!’
Orso’s applause was quieter, especially at this end of the square, and what there was had the overblown quality of coming from purse rather than heart. The prince had few friends among the nobility, even fewer among the common folk. From what Vick could see of his expression, he knew it, too.
‘I feel bad for Orso.’ Tallow gave a maudlin little sigh. He’d a talent for maudlin, that boy. ‘Wasn’t his fault those folk got hanged.’
‘Guess not,’ said Vick. Less his fault than hers, anyway. ‘Fancy a pauper having pity to spare for a crown prince.’
‘Pity costs nothing, does it?’
‘You might be surprised.’
‘I have seen many battles fought!’ Bayaz called as the last of the cheering faded. ‘Many battles won. But I have never been prouder of the victors. Never held higher hopes for their futures. We of older generations will do what we can. To advise. To inform. To give the benefit of our hard-won experience. But the future belongs to the young. With young people such as these …’ He spread his arms wide, one towards the man they called the Young Lion, the other towards the one they were starting to call the Young Lamb. ‘I feel the future could not be in safer hands.’
More applause, and more cheering, but there was grumbling, too, among the poor around Vick. Lord Isher had nudged his horse up close to Leo dan Brock, murmuring something under his breath, both of them frowning towards the royal box.
Trouble at both ends of the social scale. Trouble all over. Vick frowned at Prince Orso, then at that Northern girl with the hair like a bird’s nest blown from its tree. She was staring at her own hand with the oddest expression. From what Vick could tell, it was shaking. She scrambled drunkenly from her horse and took something on a thong around her neck and wedged it in her mouth.
‘What’s got into her?’ asked Tallow.
‘Couldn’t say.’
Like a tree chopped down, she toppled over backwards.
‘Rikke?’
She prised open one eye. A slit of sickening, stabbing brightness.
‘Are you all right?’ Orso was cradling her head with one hand and looking quite concerned.
She pushed the spit-wet dowel out of her mouth with her tongue and croaked the one word she could think of. ‘Fuck.’
‘There’s my girl!’ Isern squatted on her other side, necklace of runes and finger bones dangling, grinning that twisted grin that showed the hole in her teeth and offering no help at all. ‘What did you see?’
Rikke heaved one hand up to grip her head. Felt like if she didn’t hold her skull together it’d burst. Shapes still fizzed on the insides of her lids, like the glowing smears when you’ve looked at a candle in a black room.
‘I saw a white horse prancing at the top of a broken tower.’ Choking smoke, the stink of burning. ‘I saw a great door open but on the other side there was only an empty room.’ Empty shelves, nothing but dust. ‘I saw …’ She felt a fear creeping up on her then. ‘I saw an old chieftain dead.’ She pressed her hand to her left eye. Felt hot still. Burning hot.