Spymaster

by Margaret Weis

  “Aren’t you afraid the servants will see us?” Henry asked. “A husband and wife aren’t supposed to be in love—at least not with each other.”

  “The servants won’t come until I ring to take the tea tray,” Ann replied. She patted her belly. “And as for showing that I love you, I’m afraid we have let that particular cat out of the bag.”

  Henry smiled, but his smile didn’t last. “I am glad to have a chance to talk. I have been thinking of giving Her Majesty my resignation.”

  “Henry!” Ann sat up straight to stare at him. “You’re not serious!”

  “I am very serious, my dear,” Henry replied. “We could move away from the city with its plagues and bad air and assassins, retire to our country estate in Staffordshire. You could go about the tenants with a little basket, doing good works. I could be a country squire and raise prize hogs. I think I would like that. Pigs are quite intelligent creatures. Far smarter than humans.”

  “There, I knew you weren’t serious,” said Ann, snuggling back down with him.

  “I am, though not perhaps about the hogs. I am serious about a life where I could be home with my family at night. Hal could run about the lawn with a huge, slobbering dog. Our daughter will have her own pony to ride.”

  “First, we do not know that we are having a daughter. Second, our country house also came under attack from assassins, which makes the country just as dangerous as the city. Third, you would die of boredom and leave me a widow.”

  Henry shook his head, not convinced.

  Ann smoothed the frown lines from his brow with her fingers. “Tell me what this is about, Henry. Is my aunt being more difficult than usual?”

  “I have been trying to talk to Her Majesty about the line of the succession,” said Henry. “She must make her wishes known, although I fear her silence on the subject is partly my fault. When she did finally deign to discuss it with me, she hinted that she was thinking of naming her younger sister, Elinor, her successor. I was so shocked she would even consider that horrible woman that I may have overreacted.”

  “I know I am also on the list,” said Ann. “But I always forget exactly where. Far down, I hope.”

  “Very far down,” said Henry. “Your father and his brother are sons of the late King Godfrey, which makes them Mary’s half brothers. But they both carry the ‘bar sinister’ so they can’t inherit. Damn Godfrey and his philandering. This is all his fault. And to think I saved his life when I was young!”

  “Godfrey was hopelessly in love with Lady Honoria, so my father always told me,” said Ann. “She was the love of his life.”

  “Godfrey was fortunate the lady was married and that her husband was a fool. As it was, he had to pay an enormous sum to hush up the scandal. I’ve always stated love was the ruin of a man,” Henry added, shaking his head in mock sorrow.

  Ann punished him by kissing him on his long nose and then slid off his lap. Returning decorously to her chair, she rang for the servants to remove the tea tray. After the servants left, Henry drew his chair close to hers to continue their conversation, while Ann took up her embroidery.

  “Godfrey made matters worse by claiming your father and his brother as his sons,” said Henry. “He gave them titles, land, et cetera. Your uncle, Hugh, expected the throne and he was furious when Godfrey named his legitimate daughter, your aunt, as his heir.”

  “My father said Godfrey couldn’t do anything else,” said Ann. “Mary had the support of the most powerful nobles. He and Hugh did not.”

  Henry was silent, remembering. Seventeen years ago, he had been the one to make certain Mary had the support of the key members of the House of Nobles. He had been the one to make it clear to the dying Godfrey that in order to ensure the stability of the realm, he had to name Mary, not his bastard son, as his heir.

  Henry had been twenty-eight years old then and he had discovered the power of secrets. He had learned how to ferret them out, how to keep them, how to use them to his advantage and the advantage of those whom he served.

  Henry had ostensibly worked in the Foreign Office. His true job was spymaster to the king. Ever since he and his friends had helped thwart an assassination attempt against Godfrey when he was crown prince, Henry had handled various matters of a delicate nature, including concealing Godfrey’s secret liaisons with his mistress, Lady Honoria.

  Godfrey had ruled only a few years when the physicians told the king that there was nothing more they could do to treat the malignant growth in his stomach and that he had only weeks to live. Henry had coolly considered where to place his allegiance. He could have aligned himself with the bastard, Hugh, and his faction, for Henry knew that Godfrey wanted to name his son as his heir. Or Henry could side with Princess Mary.

  Henry recalled discussing the matter with Alan, Simon, and Randolph.

  “My loyalty is first and foremost to Freya,” Henry had told them. “Mary is the legitimate heir. Hugh is a bastard. If Godfrey were to name Hugh his heir, we would be embroiled in civil war. Our enemies would like nothing better.”

  Ann nudged his foot with her own.

  “My dear, you have wandered off and left me,” she said.

  Henry smiled. “Sorry, my love. I was woolgathering.”

  “I was saying that it was too bad my father is the younger son. He would make a good king,” said Ann.

  “He would, in fact,” said Henry. “Sadly, your father would never consider it. Jeffrey is devoted to the Reformed Church and he has enough to do as bishop, trying to save the Church from the scandal following the war and the growing popularity of the Fundamentalists.”

  “Why don’t you like Uncle Hugh? He is a good man, I believe,” said Ann, frowning over her embroidery, counting her stitches. “Is it because he’s an ironmonger or something like that?”

  “An ironmonger sells kettles and horseshoes. Your uncle owns a coal mine and a steel mill,” Henry said. “I have no objection to his occupation. I don’t like him because he is brash and insolent and has radical ideas, such as abolishing the House of Nobles—”

  “No! Truly?” Ann regarded him with consternation.

  “That said, I may be forced to support him,” said Henry, adding with a grimace, “I prefer Hugh to the devout Elinor and her Rosian husband. I can manage Hugh. I could do nothing with Elinor.”

  “My aunt will never agree to name Hugh her heir,” said Ann, shaking her head. “She dislikes him and my father.”

  “Mary and her sister never forgave them for being born,” said Henry drily. “I suppose that is natural. Godfrey made it clear he loved his bastard sons more than he did his legitimate daughters. Poor Godfrey. He may have been a good king, but he was not a very good man.”

  Ann was shocked. “Henry, don’t say such things. It’s … sacrilegious. Godfrey was God’s anointed.”

  Henry wisely kept silent. Ann had been raised in a pious household, her father being the Bishop of Freya. He had taught his children to believe that monarchs derived the right to rule directly from God and therefore were subject to no authority except God’s.

  Henry did not believe in the divine right of kings, but he did believe that a strong monarchy overseen by the nobility was the best form of government. He had witnessed firsthand the chaos that resulted when ordinary citizens, such as Frau Aalder, tried to rule a nation.

  Ann was regarding him with an anxious air, undoubtedly convinced he was going straight to hell. Henry assumed he probably was, but he doubted it would be for thinking that kings and queens were human, could make mistakes like other mortals.

  Knowing he had upset his wife, Henry looked for some way to make amends. He reached into her work basket and drew out a folded section of the Haever Gazette he had noticed hidden under several skeins of yarn.

  “Ah, now I understand,” said Henry, indicating the article on the fold. “My wife is no doubt going to advance the claims of the dashing Prince Tom who believes himself to be divinely chosen to rule Freya.”

  “I would do no suc
h thing, Henry!” Ann protested. “How can you think that of me? This Prince Tom comes from a family of traitors. His forebearer James stole poor King Oswald’s throne, then murdered him and his sons!”

  “King Oswald’s own claim to the throne was not the strongest,” Henry reflected. “His grandfather, Oswald the First, stole the throne from his older half brother, Frederick—the true and rightful king. Oswald did not murder his half brother, but he did lock him up in some godforsaken castle for the rest of his life. Thus, I suppose one could say Oswald the First began this trouble by deposing an anointed king. Perhaps God is punishing us by sending us Prince Tom.”

  His wife lowered her embroidery to her lap and turned to her husband with a troubled look. Seeing him grinning, she relaxed. “Henry, you have been teasing me.”

  “Just a trifle, my dear,” he admitted. “But if you don’t approve of Prince Tom, why have you been reading about him?”

  “Not him,” said Ann. Blushing deeply, she took the paper and turned it over to indicate another story on the other side. “I have been reading ‘The Adventures of Captain Kate and Her Dragon Corsairs.’”

  “Subtitled ‘The Tales of a Female Buccaneer’ by Miss Amelia Nettleship,” said Henry, glancing at the story with a smile.

  “Kate has such wonderful adventures, Henry, and she is so bold and free and not afraid of anything,” said Ann, her eyes shining with enthusiasm. “Lady Rebecca introduced me to the stories. All my friends talk about Captain Kate far more than Prince Tom.”

  Henry read a passage aloud. “‘Captain Kate shook back her beautiful mass of shimmering gold hair, drew her cutlass and leaped onto the deck of the Rosian warship. Pointing her cutlass at the throat of the cowering Rosian captain, she shouted, “Surrender or die, you scurvy dog!”’”

  Henry shook his head in mock sorrow. “I see how it is. The day will come when Nurse will be devastated to inform me that my wife stabbed Polly with a sword and ran off to become a pirate.”

  “A corsair, my dear,” said Ann. “‘Captain Kate and Her Dragon Corsairs.’ Kate is a real person and her adventures are true. She lives in the Aligoes. I wonder if Captain Northrop knows her? I will have to ask him the next time he visits.”

  “And Alan and I are blamed for being a bad influence on our son!” Henry said, heaving a deep sigh.

  “I will make you a bargain, Henry,” said Ann. “I will not run away to be a pirate if you will not resign. My aunt needs you.”

  “No prize hogs?” Henry asked.

  “No hogs of any sort,” said Ann firmly.

  “Very well, my dear,” said Henry. “I will not resign. And you will not join Captain Kate’s bloodthirsty crew.”

  Ann laughed. She looked so charming when she laughed that Henry was obliged to kiss her, and for a time he was able to forget about the cares of state.

  He kept the newspaper, however, folding it and tucking it into his coat pocket when Ann wasn’t looking. She had given him an idea.

  FOUR

  Captain Kate edged her way among the rocks and boulders, careful where she put her feet, for she was perilously close to the edge of a cliff. The undergrowth was tangled, wet, and slippery and she had to be mindful of rockslides. Edging her way as near the edge as she felt was safe, she stopped to survey her surroundings, to see if she had missed anything worth taking.

  She had received a report that a Travian merchant ship had been caught in a wizard storm and sunk. Some of the crew had managed to escape in lifeboats and reported hearing sounds of a crash, which meant that the ship had likely slammed into the side of Mount Kaius, one of the six mountains in the Aligoes. Kate and her crew of “wreckers,” as they were known, had been searching for the valuable wreck for a week, ever since they’d heard about the sinking.

  Kate had an advantage other wreckers did not. She had a dragon. Her friend Dalgren could fly beneath the Breath to search the Aligoes Islands floating in the Deep Breath—a chill, damp, and fog-bound realm beneath the surface of the Breath.

  The Aligoes consisted of a thousand islands or more, clustered together, and six mountains, known as the Six Old Men, whose peaks thrust up above the Breath and thus were often mistaken for islands. The Aligoes were a treasure trove of natural resources, from indigo and logwood to sugarcane and cotton. Every major nation on Aeronne had staked out a claim to one or more of the larger islands, founding cities and establishing lucrative trade routes.

  Merchant ships from all over the world passed through one of the Aligoes’ two major channels. Although the channels provided the fastest means of travel, they were unfortunately subject to an odd natural phenomenon known as “tides,” because the magic of the Breath ebbed and flowed much like tides in an inland ocean. During ebb tide, the magic decreased to the point where a ship could be in danger of sinking. During high tide, the magic increased, touching off violent wizard storms that—ironically—could also sink a ship.

  Shipwrecks were therefore not uncommon and, by the international Law of Finds, a ship abandoned by the crew became the property of anyone who managed to find the wreck.

  Katherine Gascoyne-Fitzmaurice, known to her friends and crew as Captain Kate, had loftier ambitions, but for now she was a wrecker. It was a difficult and dangerous job, and often thankless, too, for wreckers had the reputation of being little more than scavengers.

  Ships generally crashed on islands below the Breath, which meant Kate had to contend with the cold and the fog and the damp, all the while crawling among wreckage that might be, like today’s wreck, teetering precariously on the edge of a cliff.

  And while Kate hoped for the day she would discover the wreck of an Estaran treasure ship packed to the bilge with gold and jewels, she was far more likely to find cargo such as she had found today: barrel hoops, shovels, a cask of iron nails, and rotted bags of rice.

  Shivering in her thick peacoat, Kate pulled her stocking cap down more closely about her ears. She envied Marco and her crew, who had already returned to the ship. The Barwich Rose rode at anchor, moored to two mahogany trees on an island far above. Her crew would be sweltering in the heat of an Aligoes afternoon, while she was down here in the Deep Breath, freezing in the cold and the damp.

  “Akiel’s magic spell must be starting to wear off,” Kate muttered.

  She reached into a pocket of the peacoat and drew out a timepiece she had found on a corpse in one of the wrecks. She should probably have felt guilty about robbing the dead. Her lady mother would have been horrified. Even her father, Morgan, would have been shocked. Kate didn’t have the luxury of sentimentality. The dead had no use for rings or watches and she did.

  They had been down here since dawn. Kate decided that she had found everything worth finding and began to climb back up the steep hill, crawling among the broken planks, splintered masts, and tangled rigging.

  “Dalgren!” Kate shouted, waving her arms to draw the dragon’s attention as he circled overhead. “I need you to haul up this lift tank!”

  Dalgren flew closer, saw the lift tank, and gave a disdainful snort. He could see that the lift tank was beyond repair. Dented and battered, the tank would leak lift gas like a sieve.

  “Are you sure you want that piece of junk?” the dragon asked.

  “I can sell it for scrap,” said Kate. “Take it to the ship, then come back. I have one more thing for you to carry.”

  Dalgren scooped up the lift tank in one of his left front foreclaws. He rarely used the right leg. A member of the famed Dragon Brigade, he had been hit by cannon fire during the Battle of the Royal Sail, shattering his shoulder joint. Dragons used their own magic to heal themselves, but for some reason, Dalgren’s wound had not healed properly. His right foreleg hung at an odd angle to his body.

  The right leg worked as well as the left. Dalgren had no difficulty leaping into the air to take flight or walking on it. He claimed his right leg was weaker, but Kate told him that was because he favored it. The right leg would grow stronger if he would only exercise it. Dalgren re
fused. He was a noble dragon from the Dragon Duchies in Rosia and was sensitive about his appearance. He was embarrassed when he walked on his leg, believing he looked awkward and ungainly.

  “As if I were eight hundred years old,” he would grumble.

  Kate hadn’t been able to argue with him on that point. She hadn’t given up scolding him, either.

  Dalgren disappeared in the mists as he flew the lift tank to the Barwich Rose.

  Kate shivered again and turned up the collar on the peacoat to stop the chill from flowing down her back. She had dressed in boy’s clothes when she was a girl, and she still adopted men’s clothing, finding it far more comfortable and utilitarian. Skirts and petticoats were not suitable for crawling among wreckage and debris. She particularly favored the loose, baggy trousers sailors termed “slops,” adding a touch of color with a red sash and red kerchief around her neck, blue calico shirt and blue knit cap. She wore men’s boots and thick wool stockings, and carried a cutlass on a leather baldric slung over her shoulder.

  Both cutlass and baldric had belonged to her father and neither was in very good shape. She used the cutlass for chopping down vegetation, slicing through rigging, and occasionally for defending a find against fellow wreckers.

  Dim gray sunlight filtered through the mists. Overall she was pleased with the day’s work. She and her crew had salvaged what remained of the cargo, which wasn’t much. When the ship crashed, it had broken apart and a good portion of the hull had tumbled over the cliff, taking most of the cargo with it.

  Kate would make more money off the carcass of the ship itself, selling the scrap at the auction in Wellinsport. Balloon silk, wood planks from the hull and deck, sailcloth, a few spars that hadn’t been smashed to splinters, and pots and pans from the galley would fetch a fair price and would, as her mother was wont to say, “keep body and soul together” for a time yet.

  Kate’s best find was a brass helm. It was smeared with blood, but mostly undamaged, having sustained only a few dents in the fall. Kate hadn’t had time to test the magic yet, but she was hopeful that the constructs on the helm were still able to function.