‘So these New Greatcoats of yours—?’
‘Useful, potentially. I suppose in one sense you were right, though – they do lack a great deal of dignity. But that was the whole point: bring back the people’s beloved Greatcoats, but with more tractable – more noble – dispositions.’
‘You mean, make sure they’re stupid, vain and largely useless?’
He smiled. ‘Not an entirely unfair characterisation, I suppose. But yes, give people something that looks like a Greatcoat and talks like a Greatcoat, but who can judge a case in a way that produces a more satisfactory and predictable outcome.’
‘And when people start to realise they can’t trust them?’
‘Then they’ll turn away from the Greatcoats and the result will be just as good.’
I thought about that for a few moments. ‘I must apologise again then, Lorenzo.’
‘For what?’
‘Next time I beat you down I’m going to have to make sure you never get up again.’ The swinging was starting to make me nauseous. ‘Hey up there,’ I said to the man in front, ‘keep it steady or there’ll be no tip for you when we get to the palace.’
‘Ha! See, that’s the Falcio I’ve learned to admire in such a short time. You’ve got a sense of humour, of style.’
The swinging stopped. ‘Ah, but see, we’ve arrived at the palace. It was nice seeing you again, Falcio val Mond. I regret that we are unlikely to ever meet again.’ Then Lorenzo pinched my nose with the fingers of his right hand and put his left over my mouth until I passed out.
THE DUCHESS
My first day or so of torture turned out to be the best sleep I’d had in years. I’d been going for days without rest, and I’d been in half a dozen fights which I’d barely survived. I had dozens of bruises and shallow wounds all over my body, none of which had had time to heal, and of course I’d been poisoned with a deadly paralytic that was only offset by a slightly less deadly overdose of the hard candy.
But worse than all these other things was the complete realisation that I had failed. I’d failed as badly as any man in the history of the world had done, and no action or intent of mine could change that. Aline was dead, I was soon to die and, even if Kest made himself a murderer to stop Valiana from taking the throne, I suspected the Dukes would have their way in the end. The long line of failures that made up the story of my life started with my failure to save my wife Aline, continue with my failure to save my King, to maintain the Greatcoats, and now I had failed to protect a simple young girl whom I tried to save for no better reason than that she had the same name as my wife. There was nothing left but torture and death, and I felt free. I doubt you’ll hear it said by clerics, but the truth is that those who truly and completely fail are those who sleep the deepest and softest of all.
Eventually though, I did awaken, to find myself in a cell only a few feet longer than my own height, with my wrists held in manacles hanging from a wooden structure that looked something like a gallows. I supposed they could have attached the chain at a more unfortunate location on my body, so I counted myself lucky.
It took a moment to realise there was a man in the room with me, sitting on a wooden stool.
‘Oh, hello,’ I said.
The man looked up. He was a big one, for sure, thick at the shoulders and at the waist. He wore the customary red leather mask of a torturer.
‘Did I miss breakfast?’ I asked.
Torture in Rijou is administered using a mixture of beating and poisons, a variety of ointments and creams that produce every degree of pain, from blinding agony all the way up to a simple itch that won’t go away. The itch is the worst in many ways; they rub it on a bit of bare flesh and leave you in your cell with no chains or manacles, and then they wait for you to start tearing the skin from your own bones. The substance they use to produce the itching isn’t a contact poison, so the feeling spreads over all the body, so that there is literally not an inch of you that doesn’t itch. It’s quite common that the first thing to go is your eyes.
But they didn’t start with that. I guessed they might want to soften me up first, which is why I wasn’t surprised when he began pummelling me in the face, stomach and back, asking questions all the while. His accent was so thick, I could barely understand him, but he kept repeating one question, as if by rote.
‘She wants to know, are there any others?’ A blow to the stomach.
‘She wants to know, are there any others?’ Another blow, this time to the ribs on my right side.
‘Any other what?’ I asked.
Another strike, this time to the face. ‘She wants to know, are there any others?’
Our relationship went on like that for some time.
Sometimes he stopped for a while, but only so he could lavish my skin with creams which burned like spilled lighting oil across my chest.
Then he would begin again with the beatings.
I didn’t try to hold my tongue – that’s a big mistake. Expressing pain is part of how the body releases it. He wanted me to talk, so talk I did: I told him how I felt. I told him where it hurt. I told him all about myself. I grunted and I moaned and I wept for mercy, and in those moments when he stopped, when I could get myself to speak again, I did what a Greatcoat is supposed to do when we’re captured. I recited the King’s Laws.
‘The First Law is that men are free,’ I sang softly. ‘For without the freedom to choose, men cannot serve their heart, and without heart they cannot serve their Gods, their Saints, or their King.’
‘What is the Greatcoats’ most powerful weapon?’ King Paelis asked us. He was standing on a low dais in the courtyard as all one hundred and forty-four Greatcoats stood at attention. It was the first day of spring and, for the very first time, the full power of the Greatcoats would go out to the cities, villages and hamlets of the country, to hear cases and administer the King’s Justice. We had trained; we had prepared; we were ready. But the King – never one to leave well enough alone – still felt the need to impart one more lesson before we left.
‘The sword is the greatest weapon,’ someone shouted.
The King shook his head. ‘There will always be someone better with a sword.’
‘Well, maybe Kest’s sword, then,’ someone else said. There was laughter.
‘Secrecy,’ another offered.
Again the King disagreed. ‘We are at our best when people know who we are and what we bring.’
‘Speed!’
‘Strength of will!’
It went on like that for a few moments, and the King looked down at me as if expecting me to speak, so I said, ‘Our greatcoats. It is our greatcoats that shield us from danger. Their surface protects us from the swords of our opponents. Their lightness makes us move faster than an armoured Knight. Their warmth protects us from the freezing cold. Their pockets hold the things we need to survive. Our greatcoats are our best weapon.’
There were murmurs of agreement from the others.
But the King shook his head. ‘Ah, Falcio, even you … No, your greatcoat is still just a thing. It can be taken from you.’
‘Never!’ someone shouted.
The King put his hands up for silence then stepped forward to the very front of the dais. ‘Your greatest weapon is your judgement,’ he said simply. ‘Everything else can be taken from you; everything else could be provided by someone else. There are many men and women with swords; anyone can fight or run or kill. But only you, my Magisters, only you bring the power of your judgement to the people. It is your knowledge of the laws – not just the words, but the meaning behind them. That’s why we sing the laws, so they will be remembered! You sing the verdict so the men and women will carry it in their minds and in their hearts, long after you have left their villages. Your ability is to render judgement, not just as punishment, but as a solution to the fracturing in the heart of the people that occurs when the laws are broken. It is your judgement that sets you apart. My Greatcoats, in your dark hours – and there will be many, make no mistake – in your dark hours, turn first to your judgement, to your voice, and sing the words.’