“Of course, sir.”
“That will be all.”
Andreas ghosted out. Orlanko looked at the stack of reports, adjusted his glasses, and unclipped the top pile.
What nobody understood was how hard his job was. Riding herd on the city sometimes felt like trying to keep his seat on an unruly stallion. Yes, he knew about everything of importance practically before it happened, and yes, he could whisper a name and Andreas or someone like him would drag that person into a cell where they’d never see the light of day again. But really, what good was that? You couldn’t lock everybody up. His task was much trickier-to make them forge a prison in their own minds, out of their own fears, in which they would lock themselves and throw away the key. He’d been working at it for years, and he liked to think he’d done a fair job. The black coats were part of it. The occasional vanishing, the odd body found floating in the river, those just helped to grease the hinges. Fear would populate every shadow with hooded figures, when even he couldn’t possibly employ enough agents to do the job.
He wasn’t afraid of conspiracies. No conspiracy could survive exposure and decapitation, after all, and he was an expert at both. But Orlanko had learned to feel the mood of the city, as though it were a single vast organism. Sometimes it was sleepy and complacent, when times were good and people were fat and happy. When times were lean, it was snappy and irritable, prone to sudden rages and panics. And the death of a king always put people on edge.
He could feel something coming. The city was like a dog growling deep in its throat, not quite ready to leap but not far from it. It was his job to calm it, with either a nice bloody steak or a well-placed boot. Which it would be, Duke Orlanko had not yet decided.
But once the king died, after the chaos subsided, he would finally have what he’d dreamed of all these years. A ruler who would listen.
She’ll listen. Orlanko smiled to himself. Or else. .
PART ONE
RAESINIA
The mirrored halls of the Royal Palace at Ohnlei were dark and quiet.
Not silent, for the thousands of footmen, maids, gardeners, guards, cook and candle boys who made the great palace run could never really stop moving, any more than a heart could stop pumping. But they moved cautiously, avoiding loud footfalls on the marble floors and talking in low voices, and only a few candles flickered in the enormous braziers. The great black velvet drapes and carpets had not been hung, for the king had not yet died, but in a hundred cellars and storerooms they had been unrolled, aired out, and checked for wear.
Raesinia and her party clattered through the hush like a wild stallion in a glazier’s. First came the princess’ hard-soled shoes, tak-tak-tak, and then the heavy, flat-footed tromp of the trio of Noreldrai Grays who provided her escort. It gave everyone plenty of warning to form up and clear the way, so that her progress was marked by a bow wave of dipping heads from staff lined up on either side of the corridor. The occasional courtier sparkled like a precious stone among the pale blue of the Royal livery. Ordinarily, politeness would have obliged her to stop and exchange a few pleasant words with anyone of sufficient rank, but under the circumstances the nobles merely bowed their heads and let her by. No doubt they began whispering as soon as she turned the corner, but Raesinia was used to that.
The ground-floor apartments of the king were reached through a broad marble arch, carved with a frieze depicting King Farus VI in the act of smiting some armored foe. Raesinia’s great-grandfather was everywhere at Ohnlei. He’d died decades before she was born, but she’d seen his narrow-cheeked, pointy-bearded countenance on so many statues, bas-reliefs, and portraits that he was as familiar to her as any of her living family. This one was actually not a particularly good likeness, she’d always suspected. The sculptor had given the king a squint, and he looked out at the viewer rather than keeping his eyes on the business at hand, as though to say, “Who are you, and what are you doing at my battle?”
Beyond the arch was a grassy courtyard, roofed over with great sliding panes of glass that could be opened to let the air in when the weather was good. Here the king, in better days, would receive guests or dine with his favorites. It was surrounded by a colonnade and a terrace floored with marble, from which a dozen oak-and-gilt doors led to the king’s private chambers and the residences of his servants and guards. A dozen of the latter were scattered around the courtyard, not just the somber-uniformed Noreldrai Grays but Armsmen in their forest green coats and white trousers and Royal Army grenadiers in Vordanai blue and polished brass. Guarding the king was a great honor, and none of the three services was willing to leave it to the others.
In the middle of the lawn, looking a bit incongruous, was a polished oak dining table surrounded by high-backed chairs. Raesinia had eaten there many times with her father, in the company of the mightiest nobles of the land, surrounded by a veritable swarm of servants and flunkies. Now the long, mirror-smooth surface was nearly empty. At the far end sat a gray-haired man, back hunched from a lifetime of bending over the beds of his patients. He got painfully to his feet as Raesinia approached, in spite of her urgent gesture.
“Good morning, Your Highness,” he said, with as much of a bow as his stiff back could muster. “I hope you are well?”
He had a Hamveltai accent, which turned “well” into “vell.” Raesinia nodded.
“As well as ever, Doctor-Professor Indergast,” she said.
He peered at her over the top of thin-rimmed half-moon spectacles. “I ought to have a look at your diet,” he said. “Some days it seems to me that you are not growing up properly. Your mother was nearly as tall as I when she was nineteen, you know.”
Raesinia, who had to look up slightly to meet the stoop-shouldered doctor’s gaze, gave a careful shrug. “Perhaps, someday. But we have more important things to worry about at the moment. I got a message to come at once-is he all right?”
“His condition has not changed, Your Highness,” Indergast said. “I am sorry to have worried you. It is only that he is awake, and asked to see you.”
Raesinia’s heart gave a weak flop. Her father slept more than he was awake, these days, and sometimes he was delirious with pain and fever. She’d spent many hours at his bedside, holding his hand, but he hadn’t often known she was there.
“I’d better go and see him, then,” she said, “before he falls asleep again.”
“Of course, Your Highness. Pay no mind to me.” He gestured at a huge book, which lay open on the table where he’d been sitting. “I was only paging through a volume of Acheleos that the Grand Bishop was kind enough to lend me, to see if he had anything useful to tell us.”
“And does he?”
“Alas, no. Like all the ancients, he has many theories but very little practical advice.”
“You’ll figure something out. You always have.”
Doctor-Professor Indergast ran one gnarled hand through his wispy hair. He had been personal physician to her father since before Raesinia had been born. Some at the court wondered why the king needed a foreign doctor to attend him, but Raesinia had come to love the old man. He’d pulled the king back from the brink more than once, when no other doctor at the University would have dared even make the attempt.
“I’m honored by your trust, Your Highness,” he said, but his expression was grave. “I beg you, though, not to place too much faith in my poor skills.” He paused, then added quietly, “Miracles are the department of His Grace the Grand Bishop.”
Raesinia set her lips but said nothing. She gave the old man a nod and swept past him, toward her father’s bedchamber.