‘This is more help than I ever expected,’ the Duke said. ‘The food – the logistika.’
‘Not to mention a slight deflection of a certain crossbow bolt. From which you may assume that things are worse than you imagined.’ Master Smythe inclined his head pleasantly, and flashed a flirtatious smile at a woman in the inner circle.
The Duke winced. ‘And I thought I was doing so well,’ he said with a certain sarcasm.
His partner turned his head. ‘You are, but our adversary is – beneath his arrogance and pride – very able. Are you ready to be King of Alba?’ he asked.
‘No,’ the Duke said. ‘I had planned to build myself a place here. And stay away from there. For ever.’ He shrugged and danced a few steps, turned back towards the dragon and nodded to the music. ‘As you must already know.’
‘But you’ll throw all that over to rescue Michael’s father and the Queen?’ Smythe asked.
The Duke set his face. ‘Yes.’
‘Even if it means you must go sword to sword with your father?’
The Duke danced a few steps. ‘Don’t you find it tiresome to ask questions to which you already know all the answers?’
Master Smythe’s dancing was a little too graceful. But he nodded. ‘Free will generally trumps foreknowledge,’ he said.
The Duke flashed a smile as the chorus to a hymn burst from the monks and nuns. ‘That is, I think, the best news I’ve ever heard. I hope you tell the truth.’
‘Me, too,’ said the dragon. ‘Andronicus must go, before Thorn joins hands with Aeskepiles.’
‘I agree,’ the Duke said.
The dance gathered speed. ‘Do you know that everywhere that good men live – and irks and other creatures – they perform this dance at the winter and the summer solstice? Whatever they believe, whatever god they worship, this is the night when the walls are down, and anything may happen?’
‘So my mother always said,’ the Duke muttered.
‘Do you know that there is an infinity of spheres? Of which this one is but one?’ Master Smythe asked.
‘I try not to think about it,’ the Duke said.
‘I will leave you in a few moments. Before I do: the Queen’s tournament. You know of it?’
The Red Knight nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, in case a being with godlike powers couldn’t see in the torchlit darkness. Off to his left, the princess was a golden sun of splendour.
‘It is a node. So many lines come together there that I cannot see past it, or what is immediately around it. Thorn and his master have their own plans and I cannot see them.’ Master Smythe stopped dancing. ‘There,’ he said, with uncharacteristic satisfaction. ‘Time and place. And undetected. My solstice gift to you.’
‘Would you tell me if this tournament ends with my death?’ the Duke asked.
The dragon paused for a moment. ‘It may,’ he said. ‘Which I would regret. Even to tell you that much is to trespass beyond the borders of the game.’ Master Smythe shrugged. ‘To be fair, I missed your assassin until he struck. By the way, he’s quite close now, and I am not allowed to take action. You seem to understand all this well enough.’
The Red Knight nodded. ‘I was born to it,’ he said with unfeigned bitterness.
‘I know,’ said the Wyrm of Erch. He flexed his hands. ‘It is so long since I took a direct part in the affairs of men,’ he said wistfully. ‘What if it proves addictive?’
‘Sod off,’ said the Red Knight, but he said it very, very quietly.
The men were closing in on the women, and another snow shower hit them – a flurry of flakes all around him, so that, despite the hands on his right and left, he seemed all alone. The snow muffled sound, as well.
He reached out a hand for the princess, and felt a warm hand in his. But to his utter shock – and he was not a man easily surprised – he took the Queen’s hand instead.
She paused as he raised her hand. ‘You!’ she said.
They turned as the music – a polyphony of musics – rose around them, and the snow fell harder. Her hand was light as air. She was obviously pregnant, but she danced with angelic grace. He smiled, and she smiled too.
‘Have you come to see my husband?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said. And he moved on, relinquishing her with a backward glance that met her serene smile over her shoulder.
He turned his head, raising his hand for his next partner, and there was Amicia. He was a beat too late, and she was biting her lip in annoyance, lost in the music, a nun who loved to dance.
Their eyes met. Hers widened, and she caught her breath.
The ring on her finger sparkled.
‘You are wounded,’ she said. ‘Is it you who has been drawing from me all day?’ She smiled like the rising of a summer sun and he was flooded with warmth.
He couldn’t think of anything to say, so he turned, her hand in his. She wore the plainest brown overgown with a blue kirtle under it – on her shoulder was the eight-pointed star of her order.
‘Oh!’ she said in delight. ‘My handkerchief!’
He opened his mouth, and she danced away into the snow.
His third partner was his mother.
She took his hand and took a graceful, gliding step. ‘The walls are truly down tonight,’ she said.
He grunted, and looked back over his shoulder.
She laughed. ‘You’ll have her in the end, I have no doubt,’ she said. ‘Look at you! The very lord of this world.’ She took another pavane step and laughed. ‘You are everything I hoped you would be, Gabriel.’
And having sliced him with the razor of her words, she stepped away into the snow.
He might have sagged, but Amicia’s touch still burned on his hand, and he took the next three steps the way a trained swordsman will keep fighting when hurt.
Another queen took his hand – not one he knew, but a slight figure in white, embroidered in gold with red berries with her pale hair piled atop her head – a Snow Queen.
‘You must be the Red Knight,’ she said. ‘Ah! We have done it. All the chains are joined this night.’ She smiled at him, and whirled in a spray of snow, doubling to the time of the music. ‘May light triumph over dark,’ Tamsin said, and turned away. ‘Let this be a dagger in his black heart!’
He turned outside her and stepped away, wondering and dreading who might emerge next from the snow, but the hand that grasped his was a familiar one, and he found himself turning with Sauce. She grinned. ‘Surprised?’ she asked. ‘I never know which circle I should be-’ As she spoke, her face changed, and she stepped past him and threw him to the ground as if they had been wrestling, not dancing. It was all done in time to the music and, surprised, he fell hard.
The assassin was frustrated at the snow and doubly frustrated at the attentiveness of the soldiers, who were, indeed, everywhere in the crowd. After two passes that didn’t bring him close enough to his target, he knew that his one chance would be to press straight in. The hymn told him where the dancers ought to be – in a few measures, the men would leave their fifth female partner and come out to the outer circle and turn again with the men.
If he wormed to the edge of the non-dancing crowd, he’d have to be lucky – but if he was, he’d have his shot at arm’s length or less. He paused, counted the beats, and burrowed past a clump of goodwives like a mole in the dirt.
But his basket and his relative movement drew the attention of a clump of mercenary archers. He saw them move – saw the change of the glint of their helmets.
If he turned away now, he’d never have another chance.
He pushed harder.
Long Paw saw the man with the basket at the same time as Ser Gavin, and the two moved into the crowd like mastiffs, Ser Gavin leaving Lady Maria standing alone and breaking the circle while Long Paw, half a bowshot away, had the harder journey through a thousand people.
There was a cracking sound, and the snowbound sky was lit by a bolt of lightning. And a sudden play of colours, like a localised aurora.
Morgan Mortirmir grabbed his head as if he’d taken a blow. Then, after a moment’s disorientation, he turned on his heel and ran towards the Megas Ducas, dancing with Ser Alison.