“You—” I remembered Lisa and bit off the accusation. “Were the DeVeers there that night?”
Darin wiped away his smile. “Alain DeVeer was. The shock of it killed his father, Lord Quentin—died abed later that week. Fortunately there was some kind of scandal at the house the day of the performance and the sisters were kept in. Very fortunate in fact as I’ve married Micha, the youngest of them. Just off to our country house now as it happens.”
I kept my face blank. Too blank in fact.
“Micha! You know her, surely? You must have met her?” Darin said.
“Ah, yes . . . Micha.” A good half-dozen times. Most of them in her bedroom after a difficult scramble up an ivy-clad colonnade. Little Micha, a beauty whose face shone with the innocence of an angel and whose tricks I’d had to teach the ladies down at the Silken Glove and at Madam LaPenda’s. “I remember the girl. Congratulations, brother. I wish you joy of each other.”
“Thank you. Micha will be glad to learn you survived. She was always anxious to hear the rumours about you. Perhaps you’ll come to visit when you’re settled? Especially if you’ve any words of comfort to offer about poor Alain’s last night . . .”
“Of course. I’ll make a point of it,” I lied. Micha was probably checking I was dead to set her mind at ease regarding any tales I might tell her new husband. And I doubted she wanted to hear that her brother died in a toilet after I kicked him in the face while he hauled my trousers down. “I’ll visit first chance I get.”
“Do!” Darin grinned again. “Oh! I forgot, you won’t know. You’re going to be an uncle.”
“What? How?” The words made sense individually but didn’t add up into anything comprehensible.
Darin threw an arm over my shoulder and put on a mock-serious voice. “Well . . . when a daddy and a mummy love each other very much—”
“She’s pregnant?”
“Either that or she swallowed something very big and round.”
“Christ!”
“Congratulations is what most people say.”
“Well . . . that too.” Me an uncle? My Micha? I felt a sudden need to sit down. “I’ve always thought I’d make a great uncle. Terrible. But great.”
“You should come with me, Jalan. Recover from your ordeal and all that.”
“Maybe.” Watching Darin and Micha play happy families was not how I anticipated spending my first few days back in civilization. “But right now I need to see Father.”
“Back on your travels so soon, Jal?” Darin cocked his head, puzzled.
“No . . . why?” He wasn’t making sense.
“Father’s in Roma. The pope summoned him for an audience and Grandmother said he had to go.”
“Hell and fire.” I had questions that wanted answers and I might have squeezed them out of Father more easily than elsewhere. “Well . . . look, I’m going to get cleaned up and—wait, you didn’t throw out my clothes, did you?”
“Me?” Darin laughed. “Why would I go touching your peacock feathers? It’s all there as far as I know. Unless Ballessa took it upon herself to clear your rooms out. Father certainly won’t have got around to giving any instructions. Anyhow, I’d best go. I’m late as it is.” He motioned for his man to start hauling the chest again. “Visit us when you get the chance—and don’t rile Martus, he’s in a foul mood. Grandmother appointed Micha and Alain’s elder brother, the new Lord DeVeer, to captain the infantry army that’s been put together these past few months. And Martus had already decided the post was his. Then a few days ago some other calamity or indignity. I wasn’t really paying attention . . . something about a huge bill from a merchant. Ollus I think the name was.”
“Maeres Allus?”
“Could be.” Darin turned at the doorway. “Good to see you alive, little brother.” A wave of his hand and he was off and gone. I stood, watching, until the carriage took them from sight. He hadn’t even asked where I’d been . . .
Alphons kept his gaze front and centre at the door. The less ancient guard, Double, a dark fellow with bags beneath his eyes, watched me with undisguised curiosity. I let the insolence slip. It was good to see that at least one person found the returned adventurer fascinating.
TWENTY
With Father gone to Roma, Darin shacked up in his country retreat with my sweet little Micha, and Martus on the warpath over being presented with my posthumous gambling debts, I had no immediate family to regale with the saga of my accidental exile.
In the hope that Martus might actually pay Maeres what I owed before he discovered I wasn’t dead I kept a low profile in the house. I reinstalled myself in my rooms and called a couple of the housemaids to scrub my back and incidentals while I had a much needed bath. The water soon turned black, so I had Mary go heat up some more while Jayne helped me select an outfit for court. All in all it had proved a disappointing homecoming so far and even the maids didn’t seem as pleased to see me as they should be. I gave Jayne a little squeeze and you’d think she was a princess for all the offence she took! And that set me thinking about the last princess I met, the striking Katherine ap Scorron, owner of a particularly tempting behind and a vicious left knee. Memory of how she’d deployed that left knee put me right off my game and I sent Jayne off back to her duties, telling her I’d manage to dress myself.
Nothing felt quite right, as if the palace were another man’s boots I’d pulled on by mistake. I went to the Glass Chamber, a room where some previous cardinal had gathered a collection of glassware from the sunken cities of Venice and Atlantis, all displayed in tall cabinets. I’d avoided the room for years since the incident with the egg fight where somehow Martus and Darin escaped scot free and conspired to have me take the blame. Now, though, I paced among the old cabinets and their forgotten contents gleaming in all the colours between red and violet, led on by some old memory and the taste of blood.
Crouching in a corner, I pulled away a piece of loose skirting board, and there, glowing in a small hole in the plaster sat the rune-set cone of orichalcum that had fallen from Mother’s hand as Edris Dean killed her. When they released me from the care of the surgeon and his nurses, and when at last I had my first opportunity to be alone, I went to the Star Room, retrieved the cone from beneath the couch where it had been kicked, and came here to hide it. The thought that Garyus might want it back never troubled me, and he never asked after it—perhaps because to do so would mean accusing me or my mother of theft. I had hidden it away, and pushed all thought of the murder from my mind: the cone, its hiding place, the whole terrible business. Until Kara’s blood magic woke those memories.
“Mine.” I snatched the thing up, cold in my fist. The light pulsed through my hand, making the flesh rosy and the bones of my fingers into dark bars. I wrapped it in a handkerchief and thrust it deep into a pocket.
I stood, but kept my place, staring sightless into the corner. I say Kara’s magic, because it was her spell that brought those dead recollections back to life, her work that disturbed their peace and set them playing over and over upon the inside of my skull like some monstrous shadow play . . . but the key had started it. Truly it had been Loki’s key that unlocked all this—against advice I’d used the key and opened a door onto the past that I couldn’t close. I wondered then just how hard it might be to close the door Snorri had it in mind to open.
I replaced the skirting board and for the next hour paced the corridors of the Roma Hall. Sleep did not come easy that night.
• • •
I needed to speak to someone who might understand what had happened to me. I considered going to Garyus but seeking advice from a man who hadn’t left his room in sixty years and had never been outside the palace walls seemed foolish. Besides, the power lay with his sisters. After half a day reflecting on the matter I decided to confront the non-silent one. I strapped on my dress sword before going. The door guard would take if off me but Grandmoth
er would notice the scabbard and she liked to see her spawn go armed.
The walk to the Inner Palace was nearly long enough to erode my store of courage to the point where I turned back. Another hundred yards or so would have done it, but instead I found myself climbing the steps to the grand doors.
Ten of the queen’s personal guard flanked the topmost steps, enduring the heat in their half-plate. The knight at the door towered over me, made taller by his high helm and crimson plume. “Prince Jalan.” He bowed his head a fraction.
I waited for the “but you’re dead,” ready to be irritated, and found myself disappointed when it didn’t come. “I wish to see my grandmother.” She always held a noon court on Sunday after church. I’d gone to the Roma mass hoping to see her there, but she must have attended her private chapel, or skipped the whole tedious business as I normally do. Bishop James had conducted the mass at the Hall and offered thanks for the return of a lost sheep to the fold. I would have preferred “conquering lion to the pride” but at least it made my return official and meant Maeres couldn’t have me quietly murdered.
“Court is in session, my prince.” And the knight struck the door for admittance, stepping aside to let me past.
• • •
The Red Queen’s court is unlike others in the region. King Yollar of Rhone holds a sumptuous court where aristocrats gather in their hundreds to slight and bicker and display the latest fashions. In our protectorate of Adora the duke hosts philosophers and musicians in his halls, with lords and ladies attending from across his realm to hear them. In Cantanlona the earl is famed for debauched court parties that last for a week and more, draining the towns around his capital of wine. Grandmother’s court is more dour. A businesslike affair where fools are suffered only briefly and the sparkle of a new gown is seldom seen, there being no audience for such.
“Prince Jalan Kendeth.” The court officer, Mantal Drews announced me, clad in the same sombre greys he wore the day I left.
The dozen or so attendees turned my way, heavily outnumbered by the royal guard hulking around the margins in their fire-bronze mail. These latter spared me not a glance. No surprise showed on the faces pointed in my direction, not even a whisper of it muttered behind fans—news travels fast in the palace. The word would have rippled out through guards and servants overnight, confirmed that morning by the highborn who saw me at the service.
The queen herself did not look up, her attention occupied by a fellow in a purple robe too heavy for the season, hunkered before the throne and making some or other impassioned plea. Two of Grandmother’s sour old retainers flanked her, one a bony stick of a woman and the other a stout, grey-haired matron in her fifties, both in drab black shawls. I glanced around for the Silent Sister but saw no sign of her.
Gathering my resolve, I strode into the midst of the throne room, old anxieties queuing at my shoulder. I did my best to present the mask that had served me so well for so long: bluff Prince Jal, hero of the pass, a devil-may-care man’s man. I lie as well with my expression and body language as I do with my tongue and like to think I carry off the deception rather nicely. The courtiers, or rather I should call them today’s supplicants, for none of the aristocracy kept at court past the completion of their business, gave me space. I recognized a few of them: minor lords, the Baron of Strombol down from the shadow of the Scorron Aups, a gem merchant from Norrow whose daughter I’d known rather well for a night or two . . . the usual.
“And there he is!” The man before the throne concluded his petition by raising his voice past the point of decorum and pointing his finger directly at me.
“You have me at a disadvantage, sir.” I offered him a tolerant smile, pretty sure we’d not met before, though something about him looked familiar.
“You’ll get no advantage from me, Prince Jalan!” He looked to be about thirty, a solid fellow, shorter than me but wider, somewhat brutal in the cheekbones, and red-faced with anger. “I heard of your return and left my regiments immediately to discover the truth.” He started to unbuckle his empty scabbard—which caused the guard to settle hands upon hilts. “I demand satisfaction. I demand it now.” He threw his scabbard at my feet in the old way, making his challenge. “Fight me, and your reappearance can be a brief but swiftly corrected error on your obituary.”
“Have a care, Lord Gregori.” Grandmother from the throne, her voice low with warning.
The fellow swung round and offered a deep bow. “Meaning no disrespect, your majesty.”
Fortunately I’ve had plenty of experience in avoiding duels and Grandmother had just handed me the key to exit this one.
“I don’t pretend to know you, sirrah.” I let mild outrage colour my tone. “But since you appear to know me then you will also understand that I am a prince of Red March, a man whom if ill fortune befell this royal house might one day have to carry the burden of the crown.” I didn’t mention quite how many other heirs would have to die to make that happen. “As a veteran of the Scorron campaigns my heart compels me to meet any challenge to my honour with cold steel.” I saw him rise at that. “However, duty is a higher calling, and directs me to draw your attention to Gholloth’s Edict of Year Six. No prince of the realm shall lower themselves to meet the challenge of mere aristocrats.” I paraphrased the original and added in the “mere” to rub salt in the wound, but I knew my royal decrees in this area better than any lesson my tutors ever tried to teach me. In short he was beneath me—of insufficient rank to challenge a prince to combat.
For a moment I let him seethe, blood darkening his face until I thought he must either attack me or start bleeding from the eyes. I would have been happy to have him jump me and be cut down by the guard for his impudence, but sadly he drew a deep and shuddering breath before turning his back on me.
The pounding of my heart subsided to a point where I could hear myself talk and, now angry at being confronted in front of the court, I kicked his scabbard back at him.
“Your name, sir, and line!” I knew of no Lord Gregori.
He made a slow turn, empty hands flexing. “Lord DeVeer of Carnth, commander in chief of the Seventh Infantry. And you . . . prince, you deflowered my sister Lisa DeVeer, an act of unconscionable violation that drew my younger brother, Alain, to his death.”
“Ah . . .” I understood where the familiarity came from. He had his brother’s looks. The same overly hard skull too, no doubt. “Deflowered you say? Hardly, sir! They deflowered me if anything! I’ve never known sisters with such appetite!”
Again Gregori seemed on the very edge of throwing himself upon me, his rage so hot it left him unable to form words—then suddenly he lowered his hands.
“They? They you say? They! Your own brother’s wife . . . my little Micha?”
“No!” I yelped the word before regaining control. “No, don’t be more of a fool than you have to be, Lord DeVeer. Sharal of course.” A man shouldn’t name names but there were only three sisters in question. I couldn’t help looking away for a moment to picture the lovely Sharal, hair reaching her hips, tallest of the three, always wanting to be on top . . .
“Sharal . . .” He said it with a tone of satisfaction that drew my attention back to him. Of the reactions I expected, “pleased” was very far down the list.
I flicked my fingers at the man, shooing him toward the bronze doors. “If your business is complete, DeVeer . . .”
“Oh don’t worry, Prince Jalan. My business is complete. I shall retire.” He bowed to Grandmother. “With your permission, highness.” And receiving the nod he bent to scoop up his scabbard—a nice piece of work decorated with plates of black iron. “I will however pause at the city home of Count Isen. You may know the man?”
I didn’t grace him with a reply. Everyone knew of Count Isen, the reputation he’d cut for himself down south had spread even beyond Red March’s borders. In the lands he held for the crown his private army harassed smugg
lers and even pursued pirates across the sea to the very shores of the Corsair Isles.
Gregori offered me a curt bow. “Sharal is now engaged to be married to the good count. I’m sure when he hears how you pressed your lechery upon my sister, leaving her no options for resistance, that he too will wish for satisfaction of his honour . . . and I think you’ll find that when a count comes knocking you will no longer be able to hide behind the late King Gholloth’s skirts.”
Gregori made a final bow to the throne and strode out.
• • •
It was only Gregori’s departure that led my eyes to the Silent Sister, standing in the deepest shadow to the left of the great bronze doors, bone-pale and wrapped in cloths that looked to have been applied wet and dried in place like a wrinkled second skin.
“So, Reymond’s boy.” My grandmother’s voice turned me back to the throne. “Where have you been?”
I looked up at her, a yard above me on the dais, and met her gaze. Alica sat there—the same girl from the Castle of Ameroth, who opened the siege with what she called the mercy killing of her youngest sister and ended it bathed in blood amid the ruin of her enemy—with a little help from her eldest sister of course. True, the passage of five decades and more beneath the Red March sun had sunk her flesh about her bones, scorched her skin into tight wrinkles, but the same ruthless calculation lay behind her eyes. I would get nothing from her if she thought me weak. Nothing if she caught scent of my fear.
“Lost your tongue again, child?” Grandmother narrowed her eyes, thin lips thinning still further into a line of disapproval.
I swallowed and tried to remember every hurt I’d suffered since the night I left the city, each hardship, each unnecessary moment of terror.
“I’ve been where my great aunt sent me.” I swung round to point at the Silent Sister by the entrance. She raised her brows at that and offered me a mirthless grin, her blind eye almost glowing in the shadows of her face.
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