“As you wish, Sire. If I may? Today is Tiffsday, so of course the colors of Saint Tiff are appropriate, but we are also in the season of equinox, which is ruled by Saint Fessa …”
They put him in raven hose with gold embroidered vines, a bloodred silk doublet with a standing collar and gold florets, and a robe of black ermine. The familiar routine of dressing— complete with Pafel’s nonstop explanations—made William feel better. This was, after all, an ordinary day. He wasn’t dying, and there was nothing to be afraid of. By the time he was dressed, his hands and legs had stopped shaking, and he felt only that distant foreboding he had carried for the past several months.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” he told his dressers. When they were gone, he composed himself with a few deep breaths and went to the Hall of Doves.
The hall was as light and airy as a room all of stone could be, built of dressed alabaster and appointed with drapes and tapestries in pale greens and golds. The windows were broad and open; after all, if an army won past the floodlands, three city walls, and the outer fortress, all was lost anyway.
A faint rusty stain in the otherwise unblemished floor reminded William that it had happened once before. Thiuzwald Fram Reiksbaurg, the Wolf-Coat, had fallen here, struck through the liver by the first William Dare to reign in Eslen, just over a hundred years ago.
William stepped past the stain. Robert looked up from an armchair—William’s armchair—where he pretended to study a prayerbook. “Well,” he said. “There was no need to pretty yourself up on my account.”
“What can I do for you, Robert?”
“Do for me?” Robert stood, stretching his long, lean body to its full height. He was only twenty, decades younger than William, and to emphasize the fact he wore the small mustache, goatee, and close-cropped hair that was currently in fashion among the more effete courtiers. His regular features were somewhat marred by a smirk. “It’s what I can do for you, Wilm.”
“And what might that be?”
“I went for a walk last night with Lord Reccard, our esteemed ambassador from Saltmark.”
“A walk?”
“Yes. We walked first to the Boar’s Beard, then to the Talking Bear, over the canal to the Miser’s Daughter—”
“I see. The man isn’t dead, is he? You haven’t stirred us up a war with Saltmark, have you?”
“Dead? No. He’s alive, if somewhat remorseful. War … well, just wait until I’ve finished.”
“Go on,” William said, trying to keep his face straight. He wished he trusted his brother more.
“You may remember Reccard’s wife, a lovely creature by the name of Seglasha?”
“Of course. Originally from Herilanz, yes?”
“Yes, and a true daughter of that barbaric country. She cut her last husband into a gelding, you know, and the one before that was hacked to pieces by her brothers for slighting her in public. Reccard is quite terrified of her.”
“Not without cause, it seems,” William said.
Robert arched his brows. “You should talk, married to that de Liery woman! She’s at least—”
“Speak no ill of my wife,” William warned. “I won’t hear it.”
“No? Not even from your mistresses? I’ve heard a few choice complaints from Lady Berrye concerning your wife, in words I do not think she invented.”
“Robert, I hope you didn’t come to lecture me about proper behavior. That would be the goat calling the ram hairy.”
Robert leaned against an alabaster pillar, folding his arms across his chest. “No, brother dear, I came to ask if you knew that Hansa had moved thirty war galleys and one thousand troops into Saltmark.”
“What?”
“As I said, poor Reccard is quite terrified of his wife. I guessed correctly that he wouldn’t want her to know about the games we played at the end of the night, with the ladies in the Lark’s Palace. So I convinced him that he ought to be … friendly to me.”
“Robert, what a schemer you are. It’s not fitting for a Dare to act so.”
Robert made a disgusted sound. “Now who is lecturing on morality? You depend on my ‘unworthy’ behavior, William. It allows you to keep the armor of your righteousness clean and polished, while at the same time retaining your kingdom. Will you ignore this information because I obtained it so?”
“You know I cannot. You knew I could not.”
“Precisely. So do not lecture me, Wilm.”
William sighed heavily and looked back out the window. “Who knows about this? About these Hanzish ships?”
“At this court? You and me, and the ambassador, of course.”
“Why would Hansa invest Saltmark? Why would Saltmark allow it?”
“Don’t be silly. What other reason could there be? They’re preparing something, and Saltmark is with them.”
“Preparing what?”
“Reccard doesn’t know. If I had to guess, though, I’d say they have designs on the Sorrow Isles.”
“The Sorrows? Why?”
“To provoke us, I wouldn’t doubt. Hansa grows fat with men and ships, brother. The emperor of Hansa is an old man; he’ll want to use them soon, while he still can. And there’s nothing under the sun that he wants more than that crown you wear on your head.”
Marcomir Fram Reiksbaurg isn’t the only one who wants my crown, William thought sourly. Or do you think me too thick to know that, dear brother?
“I suppose you could simply ask the Hanzish emissary,” Robert went on. “His ship anchored yesterday.”
“Yes, that complicates things, doesn’t it? Or simplifies them. Perhaps they’ve come to declare war in person.” He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “In any event, I’m not scheduled to speak to that embassy until the day after tomorrow, after my daughter’s birthday. I will not change that; it would seem suspicious.” He paused, considering. “Where is Reccard now?”
“Sleeping it off.”
“Put spies on him, and on the Hansans. If any correspondence passes, I want to know of it. If they meet, let them, but make certain they are overheard. Under no circumstances must either get a message out of the city.” He knitted his fingers and looked at them. “And we’ll send a few ships to the Sorrows. Quietly, a few at a time over the next week.”
“Wise moves all,” Robert said. “You want me to act as your sinescalh in this matter, then?”
“Yes. Until I tell you otherwise. I’ll draft the formal writ of investment this afternoon.”
“Thank you, William. I’ll try to be worthy of you and our family name.”
If there was sarcasm in that, it was too subtle to detect. Which meant nothing, actually. William had known his brother only since his birth. It wasn’t long enough.
A bell jangled faintly, from the hallway.
“Enter!” William said.
The door creaked open, and John stepped in. “It’s the praifec, Sire, just returned from Virgenya. And he has a surprise with him.”
The praifec. Grand.
“Of course. Show him in.”
A moment later, the black-robed praifec Marché Hespero stepped into the chamber.
“Your Majesty,” he said, bowing to William. He then bowed to Robert. “Archgreft.”
“How good to see you, Praifec,” Robert said. “You’ve made it back from Virgenya in one piece.”
“Indeed,” the churchman replied.
“I trust you found our kinsmen as thickheaded as us?” Robert went on.
William wished, not for the first time, Robert would keep his mouth shut.
But Hespero smiled. “Let us say, they are as seemingly intractable in many ways, even in the matter of heretics, which is troubling. But the saints dispose, yes?”
“I trust they do,” William said lightly.
Hespero’s smile didn’t falter. “The saints work in many ways, but their most cherished instrument is the church. And it is written that the kingdom should be the knight of the church, the champion of it. You would be distressed, King William, if your knights failed you?”