The Red Knight faced the princess. She stood in the midst of her court, with the Lady Maria at her shoulder, her face framed in a purple silk hood lined in white fur. Her overgown was edged and lined in ermine and the cloth was silk brocade with gold thread embroidery.
She seemed impossibly beautiful. Her pale skin had a gentle flush at her cheeks and her eyes sparkled.
He walked into the torchlight, to the empty space in the snow in front of her, and he lay full length in the snow. His scarlet deerskin looked like a pool of blood in the torchlight and the snow was very cold. He wondered if she would kill him while he lay at her feet, but there was no avoiding this display of loyalty with twenty thousand people watching him.
Lady Maria raised her voice. ‘The Imperial princess bids you rise!’ she said.
The princess made the motion for him to rise, and he did – first to his knees, where he kissed the hem of her gown, and then to one knee, where he kissed her hand.
He left three spots of scarlet in the snow.
Her right hand was bare, and she gripped his hand hard. And then leaned down to him. ‘It wasn’t me,’ she hissed.
He was warmed by her assertion. He liked her better than he wanted to and while he didn’t believe her, he was glad she would go through the motions for him.
He returned the pressure of her hand. ‘What wasn’t you, Majesty?’ he asked. Somewhere in his secret heart he had feared her open hatred, even while his intellect had sought to understand it.
But there were no easy answers. Toby came and dusted him off, and he was handed some hot wine which he traded off with Toby while he hoped no one was looking. They were going to try and kill him. The public dancing was a perfect venue for such an attempt, and yet he had to be present.
He was also bleeding through his bandages and the blood was very cold on his skin.
He wished he had Tom Lachlan at his side.
But he had Gavin, and Gavin’s presence warmed him like a hot fire. He bowed again to the princess and turned to his brother. ‘Everyone in place?’ he asked.
‘Ready as we’ll ever be,’ Gavin answered. ‘Master Mortirmir is standing by, as well.’
He was aware of the absence of Harmodius the way a man is aware of the loss of a painful tooth, and he kept visiting his palace and looking about, as if expecting an interloper. And well down in his list of priorities, he was also aware that if Harmodius had possessed the young Mortirmir, something would have to be done about it.
He marked the command post – the invisible place from which the night’s activities were being conducted. Mortirmir seemed to have a very slight stoop and wore a cynical smile, and the Red Knight knew him immediately.
I am weak enough to be glad to be rid of him at almost any price, he thought. He sneaked a second glance at young Mortirmir, who stood with a dozen other students of the Academy and with Long Paw, who had his own contingent out there in the dark and his own orders about Master Mortirmir, if things became ugly.
He backed away from the princess and noted that his people were standing well clear of the princess’s attendants – and the fissure between them showed. Ser Alcaeus stood between his mother and Ser Gavin, like one fragile link in a damaged chain.
‘Gavin – make sure every one of ours picks one of hers and stays close. I mean it.’ He nodded. ‘Not a breath of suspicion should reach the enemy. They have to think the whole thing went awry. Or better yet, that she’s deserted them.’
Gavin’s face registered a dark anger, but he nodded assent and smiled a thin-lipped smile at Lady Maria. Before he left his brother’s side, he said, ‘You know this is all a punishment for how much I loved the court at Harndon, isn’t it? This is court life with a vengeance.’
The Red Knight shrugged. ‘Trust Alcaeus,’ he said. He backed another step into his own men and women and walked briskly to where Mortirmir stood in the snow, handing cups of hot hippocras to revellers.
The young face wore a wry expression. ‘Bleeding? My lord?’ He made a face. ‘Solstice, you know. No hermetical working does what you expect.’
The Red Knight leaned in close. ‘It’s against the law, Harmodius. And you know what law.’
Mortirmir shrugged. ‘I’m bending the rules, not breaking them. Master Mortirmir has the switch in his hand. He can dump me whenever he likes. You are bleeding. Here.’
He made a sign and said a word, and the Red Knight felt the wounds close. Again.
Long Paw leaned in over the fire. ‘My lord. Any orders?’
The Red Knight shrugged. ‘He’s out there. Do your best.’
Michael and Kaitlin whirled by him. He turned back to the princess and bowed. ‘Your Majesty, is it fitting that we join these revellers? And if so, will you do me the honour, unworthy as I am?’
She nodded. ‘Let us dance. Is it not this for which we were made?’
He took her hand and they were away.
Moreans regarded their royalty as sacred – almost literally the stuff of saints and God himself, and there was some reluctance to take the princess’s hand at first, but the horror of breaking the huge circle – a circle of ten thousand couples or more that filled the whole circuit of the Great Square – overcame the awe and, after some skirmishing, Count Darkhair put himself at the princess’s left hand and seemed perfectly willing to hold it against all comers, regardless what the figures of the dance decreed.
They circled for far longer than Albans did, and then they began a hymn – a regiment of monks and another of nuns processed out of the cathedral and the scent of incense filled the square as a hundred censors whirled sacred smoke into the still cold air. The first hymn rose from fifteen thousand throats, and even the ancient statues seemed to raise their voices in hymn to their creator.
And then the dance began again. A snow squall hit – the fine-powdered snow came down hard enough to fill his eyebrows, and he laughed because it was so beautiful. The nuns and the monks exchanged volleys of song. A pair of drummers played back and forth, on horseback, and a single woman’s voice rose in a polyphonic descant above the nuns and monks like a personification of ecstasy.
The princess’s hand tightened on his. And then she was gone into the snow, as the women formed an inner circle. Most of the other women were as plain as nuns, so that the princess seemed to burn like a star in a dark firmament.
He wondered if she had given the order to have him killed. Gelfred had intercepted the message from Lonika two days before. But spy networks were so convoluted that the order could have originated in the palace. Certainly he had a lot of evidence proving how regularly she communicated with Andronicus by Imperial messenger.
He had plenty of time to think about it as the great outer circle of men moved around the tighter inner circle of women.
The hymns went on, and when he knew the words, he joined in, and sang. Despite the wound in his side and the creeping flow of blood, he was angry.
If I live through this . . .
If I live through this, I must deal with Andronicus, whose army is three times the size of mine. And then I must do what I can for Michael’s father and for the Queen, all the while protecting the north against Thorn and dealing, if I must, with Harmodius. If he is turning against us.
By God, if there is a God, I’ve made so many mistakes I’m losing the thread of my plan. If I ever had a plan. It’s more like riding a wild horse than planning a campaign.
I’m a fool. But what a ride!
The man at his right hand broke in on his thoughts. His voice was strangely familiar and sounded clear as bell. ‘Do you believe in fate, Gabriel?’ he asked.
The Duke’s head shot round. He recognised Master Smythe easily enough, and he grinned. ‘Haven’t we already had this chat?’ he managed.
‘And we will again,’ Master Smythe promised. ‘I love the way humans think about time.’