‘Keep your place, Trattari,’ Shiballe warned. ‘That’s exactly what I said. But don’t worry; Lord Tiarren has a big family. And I’m sure the Duke will allow him to remarry in due course. No doubt this time he will choose someone who will advise him better – and show greater fidelity – than Lady Tiarren did.’
I turned to Kest immediately. ‘Get back outside the city. Get as many of the guards as will come. Make sure to bring Blondie and Krug; see who else they can convince.’
I motioned to Feltock. ‘Take Lady Valiana to the Duke’s home. Kest and I will follow as soon as we can.’
Feltock pulled on the lead horse’s reins on the carriage to get them ready, but Valiana turned on him. ‘Stop this instant,’ she commanded.
‘My Lady, it won’t be safe,’ I began.
‘It will be safe – perfectly safe,’ she said, ‘because you and your men are going to accompany us, right now. You work for me, not for this Tiarren woman. Do you understand?’
I felt heat rise in my chest. ‘Are you mad? They’re going to burn them alive! They’re going to block the doors and windows and wait until they burn or jump out the windows to their deaths!’
‘You do not speak to me in such tones, Trattari,’ she warned.
‘You want to be a Princess?’ I shouted. ‘You want to rule over your subjects? Well, there they are.’ I jabbed a finger at the woman and her crying children framed in the window. A couple of the older-looking boys held swords in their hands: man enough to carry a sword and boy enough to believe it would do any good. ‘You want power? Stop thinking about how you’re going to get it and start thinking about what the Saints want you to do with it!’
I had overstepped my bounds by miles, but she looked for a brief instant as if she might be swayed. Then I heard a cough and turned.
Shiballe had a pistol in his hand, pointed at my chest. ‘Don’t be so dramatic, my tattered friend,’ he said. ‘If the Tiarren woman is not stupid she will drop her family crest from the window and show defeat. And even if she is stupid, she still has several servants in the building, many with military training, and they will force her to surrender for her own good.’
‘And then what happens?’ Kest asked, sizing up Shiballe.
‘Then the Tiarren name will be struck from the noble lists and she and her brats will live out their lives as well-fed servants to the victors.’
‘And who are the victors, in this case?’ Feltock asked carefully.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘As you can plainly see, these fine men aren’t wearing any crests on their armour.’
Kest whispered in my ear, ‘This is what the whole world will be like, Falcio, if the Dukes get their way.’
My head was spinning and I struggled to keep myself under control.
Shiballe was having no difficulty managing the situation, however. ‘Now, my fine tattered birds, I suggest you do exactly as Princess Valiana has suggested, and do your jobs.’ He wagged a finger at Kest. ‘And don’t waste your time in idle fantasy, my friend. There are several of my men with crossbows stationed in the building behind us. I never travel without guards during the Blood Week.’
I knew we had to comply, but for some reason I couldn’t move. My legs were rooted to the ground and my right hand refused to stop its gradual progression across my body towards my rapier.
Valiana stepped in front of me. ‘Falcio, stop.’
It was the first time she had ever used my name. She had always called me ‘Trattari’ before.
‘I am … not insensitive to your concern for these people. But Shiballe is right: the woman will surrender before blood is spilled and that will be that.’
I tried to speak but it came out in a whisper. ‘And what then, your Highness? Servitude? Slavery?’
Valiana stared into my eyes. She was a beautiful woman, but beauty had long ago lost its hold on me. ‘I will speak to my father the Duke on her behalf. I promise you that if you come with me I will secure his guarantee that she will not be enslaved. I promise.’
I realised she had moved beyond simply placating me. I looked back into her eyes and saw something there I hadn’t seen before: not frustration, but fear. She wasn’t sure about Shiballe, and she didn’t believe herself safe with only his men and Feltock as an escort.
I would have left her to his machinations – but then what? I didn’t have enough men to fight off the entire city of Rijou, and if I did try and fight, I might end up making things worse for the Tiarren family. Right now they were headed only for poverty; if they were seen as allies of the Greatcoats they would fare far worse.
I felt the ground release my feet from its hold and my hand relaxed. ‘Thank you, your Highness. We will do as you suggest.’
Shiballe secreted his pistol somewhere in the folds of his shirt and clapped his hands together. ‘Excellent!’ he said. ‘So good to see a man who knows his place in these troubled times.’
THE COMING OF THE GREATCOATS
Those early days were the best, I think. King Paelis and me, sitting and playing ancient war games, talking about strategy and tactics, philosophy and ideology, justice and law. We ate a lot in those first few months – neither one of us had much meat on our frames at that point, so every meal felt like a grand event. My wounds still hurt and he continued to have the occasional coughing fit, which wasn’t surprising since the weather was turning, but all in all we were hale and hearty. I taught him how to swing a blade and he showed me sword techniques from books I had never heard of.
‘The only luxuries my father granted me in those three years I spent in the tower were books,’ he told me one afternoon in the practice field outside the barracks. ‘He would have denied me those, too, but I asked him if he was truly so afraid that I could beat him with books. I thought he’d kill me then, but you know, the old superstition against spilling royal blood was strong in him.’
‘So what did you read?’ I asked.
‘Everything,’ he said. ‘We had only twenty books in the castle library – fantastic old books on war ways and fighting styles. Falcio, I could show you books from swordmasters from four hundred years ago, great masters, whose techniques are hidden amongst layers and layers of verses. But when I finished with those, my mother, bless her, sent to the monastery in Gaziah for more. I read the works of philosophers and tyrants and clerks and kings, and when I was finished, I turned back to the beginning and read them again.’
‘You never talk about your mother,’ I said.
He looked down. ‘She prefers it that way.’
I felt as if I’d embarrassed him somehow. ‘I read a book once,’ I said. ‘It had some dirty parts in it. Those were nice.’
Paelis smiled and cuffed me on the back of the head. ‘You speak to your King that way? Besides, you don’t fool me for one second, Falcio. You’re a man of words as much as I am. The servants have seen you sneaking books out of the library at night.’
I stuttered, ‘I don’t sleep a lot any more and there’s not that much to do with my evenings …’
I thought for a second he would make some remark about the ladies of the castle but, if he had intended that, he thought better of it. ‘Books make good friends sometimes, Falcio.’ He clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Take as many as you like from the library.’
Kest was the first one to join us. I found him back in Luth where I’d left him as the days of our childhood friendship had waned and we moved on to other companions.