‘Let’s get back to how you evaded Morn and his warriors,’ I said.
‘Ah, that. Well, I’d like to say it was some vastly clever ruse on my part, but in fact I got lucky: a passing blizzard took pity on me. It hid my tracks and I took the opportunity to bury myself in the snow until my pursuers had passed by.’
‘You buried yourself?’
‘Well, you can actually keep quite warm if you do it right. Of course, there are risks. You have to make sure you wake up, for one.’ She pulled the glove from her right hand and I saw three of her fingers were gone from the second knuckle. ‘Alas, I’ll never play the harp, I’m afraid. The frostbite was severe, so I had to cut them off before it spread.’
She said all this as if it were nothing at all, merely the cost of doing business. I found that as terrifying as everything else about her. ‘You appear to be almost impossible to kill, your Grace,’ I said, and I let my hand stray to the hilt of my rapier. ‘But you should know I’m willing to try a few more times.’
It was an idle threat. Even if I could have killed her at that moment – an unlikely prospect, given she had an army at her back – that would just prove the Greatcoats couldn’t be trusted, I’d end up dead and the others would be expelled by the Ducal council, leaving Aline unprotected.
Trin laughed, as she always did at my threats. I suppose it made sense, seeing that I’d yet to successfully harm her in the slightest. ‘Ah, my tatter-cloak. Would that we could be friends.’
‘Quite impossible, I fear, given that you’re a lunatic monster who wants to take over the country.’
‘Why must you always accuse me of madness, Falcio? It’s really quite rude.’ She looked down at the ruin of the fingers on her right hand. ‘I suppose you’re right, though.’ Her eyes went to me and there was something akin to genuine sorrow there. ‘Do you know, I think my mother might have driven me insane as a child intentionally? She did all manner of terrible things to me, all part of my training.’
‘Hang on,’ I said, ‘I’m beginning to feel sympathy for you – oh no, it’s passed now. Please do go on.’
Trin put the glove back on. ‘Whatever her faults, my mother made me strong, and for that, I suppose I must always be grateful.’ Again she looked back at her troops. ‘It is a bit of a mad world, though, don’t you think? I wonder if she understood this at some level deeper than you or I could ever grasp, and perhaps that’s why she made sure I’d be willing to do whatever must be done to save this poor benighted country of ours.’
Something in her confession bothered me; how many times had someone suggested that to preserve Tristia, one must be willing to abandon decency and reason in favour of black bloody murder? How many times in the past weeks had I let that same thought infect me? I shuddered.
‘What do you intend to do now, Tarindelle?’ I asked.
Her mouth twisted into a smile and her lips parted as if she were going to speak, but then she stopped and stood there silently, as if wrestling with an unseen opponent. Finally she said, ‘Go, Falcio, leave this place. Take Kest and Brasti. Take the whor— Take Ethalia.’ She hesitated a moment longer. ‘Hells . . . you can even take Valiana with you. Take them all, now, today. Run from this place, from this country, and I swear I will never pursue you, nor allow anyone else to do so.’
The sincerity in her voice troubled me, so I countered it with defiance. ‘You appear to be forgetting, your Grace, that I’ve beaten you before. Every time, in fact.’
She reached out a hand and I flinched at first, but then I found myself frozen by the odd tenderness in the gesture. Her fingers brushed my cheek. ‘That was a different time, Falcio. You know that now, I think. This is about politics, and the ruthless arithmetic of power. Even after all the terrible things you’ve seen, the horrors you’ve endured, your heart isn’t near black enough for what comes next.’
Some small part of my mind – the part that managed to invent plans and tactics and could figure out the answer ahead of my enemies – forced words out of my mouth that I hadn’t ever wanted to utter. ‘Let me take Aline,’ I pleaded, ‘and I’ll do what you ask: I will leave this all to you.’
Trin shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Falcio. I truly am. If I could let you have her, I would, but you know I can’t; that’s not how this works. There would be confusion among the people, and some would seek to take advantage, to sow discord in hopes of achieving victory at some later date. I have to secure the country’s future now, Falcio, and that means there must be one monarch, and it will be Filian.’
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
The Pact
One of the mistakes fencers sometimes make before a duel is to focus too much on their adversary. You can pour over court records, fixate on every detail of your enemy’s trials by combat (devoting entirely too much time to their victories and not their defeats – but that’s a separate issue). You can even seek out their former opponents and ply them with wine and coin to learn their weaknesses. All of these are fine things to do, but all of them fail to appreciate the true origins of every fencer’s style: their teacher.
Anyone who studies the sword becomes both an imperfect reflection and an improvement on their first master – that’s where you’ll find the key to understanding the danger that you face. The problem for me was that Trin’s teacher had been Duchess Patriana, the most cunning, brilliant and vile manipulator to come out of Tristia (which is saying a lot). Which meant my best chance was to go see the second most cunning, brilliant and vile creature I knew: the Tailor.
That she hadn’t already come to me, recounting in agonising detail every mistake I’d made, demanding to take charge and begin setting the world to rights – the way she saw it, anyway – could only be because she wanted the additional satisfaction of seeing me crawling on my hands and knees to her cell to beg for her guidance.
Fine. I could do that. To defeat Trin I would seek the Tailor out, my head hung low and my tone respectful, and take my medicine like an errant child. I’d already been called a fool and worse by my enemies and my allies alike, not to mention almost every member of my own Order. How much worse could this be?
As it turned out, I was never to find out, because by the time I got down to the dungeon, the Tailor was gone, her cell all but bare.
‘Where is she?’ I shouted back down the hallway to Gerrald, the guard.
‘She left,’ he shouted back, his footsteps thumping as he came to join me. ‘Last night – didn’t even say goodbye.’
I raised an eyebrow at that. ‘“Didn’t even say goodbye”?’
He shuffled about awkwardly. ‘It’s not as if she was locked in, sir. I wasn’t even guarding her, really. Mostly I was just bringing her things or delivering messages for her.’
Some of the furniture – the bookshelves and cot and her big leather chair – were still in the cell, but everything else – every book, every bottle, every last spool of thread – was gone.
‘She left nothing behind?’ I asked.
Gerrald held out his fist and opened it, palm up, to reveal a silver coin. ‘She finally paid up for our bet.’ He put the coin in his pocket and then withdrew an envelope. ‘Oh, and she left this for you.’
I tore open the envelope and found a note inside, a few paltry words scrawled in her own handwriting:
Falcio,
She has won.
Forgive me.
Magrit Denezia
‘Who in the name of Saint Ebron-who-steals-breath is “Magrit Denezia”?’ I asked.
The guard was silent for a moment, his expression unreadable, then he let out a despairing sob, quite at odds with his deep voice. ‘I think that was her name . . . before she . . . became whatever it is she became.’
I had known this strange woman more than half my life and yet I’d only recently learned that she was the King’s mother – and even then, it had never occurred to me to wonder who she’d
been before she became the Tailor. Now I stared at that name on the paper, Magrit Denezia, and wondered why she’d never told me before.
The answer was obvious, of course; it just took me a little while to work it out. The Tailor was an Inlaudati – an unknowable genius with the ability to cunningly shape events that could change the course of history. Magrit Denezia was a grandmother, to Aline, and to Filian too. Duchess Patriana had created the perfect trap for her deadliest adversary: she’d given her a choice no woman could ever bring herself to make.
That was why the cell was empty. That was why the Tailor was gone, and had written down her old name for me. She needed me to know that she was no longer the Tailor.
*
I left the cell feeling unmoored, confused and filled with an unexpected sorrow. For all the Tailor and I had fought, and sometimes come perilously close to one of us dying, she had been a constant in my life for longer than I’d been a Greatcoat. Her schemes had more than once come close to killing me, but the coat she’d crafted for me had saved me from death more times than I could count. Now she was gone, and I felt alone.
‘The hour grows late for this little country of ours,’ Duchess Ossia said.
The surprise of hearing her voice sent me stumbling into the open cell.
‘It’s time for you and me to save it, Falcio.’
It took me a moment to make out her form, sitting on a chair in the shadows of the hallway leading out of the dungeon. Even in such surroundings, she was a strikingly elegant sight. ‘You surprised me, your Grace.’
‘A great number of things surprise you of late, First Cantor. You should have anticipated that the Tailor would be removed from the board.’
Excellent. Just what I needed: another talking-down-to by our illustrious nobility. I was still feeling raw, so I retreated into my old defences. ‘I am a magistrate, your Grace. My role is to adjudicate the law and see it enforced, not to play games with the future of nations.’
She rose, the heavy fabric of her skirts falling into place as she stepped towards me. ‘I think not, Falcio. You gave up the right to such facile answers the day you and the other Greatcoats took up King Paelis’ final commands. Or would you pretend that the missions he gave you were simple legal disputes?’
She was right, of course, but still I resisted. ‘Each of the King’s commands was a step towards restoring the rule of law to Tristia, nothing more.’
‘Is that so? We are in an interregnum, Falcio. Since when has the judiciary taken it upon itself to choose the next monarch?’
Why is she pushing me?
‘As I have explained to others of late, your Grace, we are not in an interregnum. We have a lawful heir to the throne.’
‘In fact, we appear to have two: a matter I believe you could have resolved in a cell in Avares. I wonder, did you spare the boy’s life because you do not believe he is Paelis’ son, or because you do not care and will see Aline crowned regardless?’
‘I spared him because I am not a murderer.’
She looked as if she was about to object, so I cut her off. ‘I have killed men who were trying to kill me or those in my care, or who were guilty of crimes worthy of death. You know the difference, Duchess Ossia, so please don’t waste my time with whatever philosophical speculations on the nature of justice happen to appeal to you today.’
‘The deaths which concern me, First Cantor, are those which will flood this place with blood once Filian’s lineage is proven.’
‘The City Sages have only just begun to arrive, your Grace. Perhaps they will declare that he is not of Paelis’ issue. I doubt Trin has spoken an honest word in her life; why should we believe her now?’
‘She speaks true,’ Ossia said bitterly. ‘Damn Paelis and his “charoites”: a fool’s scheme to keep his line alive. And now, thanks to other fools, we will all pay the price for it.’
‘You know, your Grace, I’ve been on the receiving end of these little chats ever since the day the King died. It occurs to me, however, that both Duchess Patriana and Duke Jillard – among others – knew that King Paelis had sired children and kept them hidden from the world. So while I accept my part in never realising there might be an older child with a stronger claim, I wonder why someone like you – someone who has always been obsessed with bloodlines – managed to miss this possibility.’
She blinked, and now I saw that she had known; this was the true reason for her anger, not that I’d been a fool.
‘Patriana,’ the Duchess spat. ‘She boasted – she crowed – that she had killed them all, every one of them. Her own allies believed she spoke truly – after all, why keep one alive when we all knew she was planning to put Trin on the throne? What kind of mother steals another’s child only to keep it safe as a spare, just in case her own daughter should die?’
I didn’t reply because the answer was as simple as it was horrifying: Patriana understood the ways of power better than any of us. There’d always been a chance that she might be found out and killed, that Trin would be prevented from being crowned. So she’d raised another heir in secret, inculcating him with her values, growing him like a weed hidden amongst the flowers of a garden, so that once it had taken root – once he took power – he would bring Trin with him. They would marry, and Trin would be Queen at last.
Jillard had told me Aline’s betrothal would be the first step towards her elimination; that choosing her husband would be her single act as monarch. Would that happen if Filian became King? Would he die of mysterious causes shortly after his joyous marriage, his death blamed on . . . well, me, probably, somehow, leaving Trin – Tarindelle – to rule alone, as Patriana had always intended?
Ossia caught the look in my eyes, the expression on my face. ‘Forgive me, Falcio. We have all of us been played for fools, I more than most.’ She took my arm. ‘But now we must take action before it is too late.’
I shook my head. ‘The matter isn’t settled yet. The City Sages might still—’
‘I told you, they will not! Filian will be revealed as the true heir and all will be lost!’
‘No, listen, Kest has been looking into the matter and it might not be as simple as that. The Ducal Coun—’
The slap surprised me; usually my reactions are better.
‘Fool!’ she declared. ‘You spend your life trying to protect this country but you don’t understand it at all! If Aline were the elder, the other Dukes might well find a way to declare the younger sibling the true heir: anything to avoid a woman on the throne! They will not go the other way.’
‘Jillard knows Trin better than anyone – he’ll do whatever it takes to keep her off the throne—’
‘The Duke of Rijou is lying to you, Falcio. He plays you like a Bardatti drummer, making you dance to his rhythm. He uses Tommer’s death as the instrument to control you, through your guilt and your maddening need to pretend that men such as he can be redeemed. Don’t you understand, Falcio? He is playing you, he has been all along!’
‘Duchess . . .’ I found myself suddenly weary from the weight of her accusations. What must it must be like to be a noble, to have so much power and yet never feel safe because your fellows are always plotting, always waiting for the chance to work against you?
Not that my life is turning out any better.
I’d always believed the Greatcoats were different, that we were united by an ethos that went beyond our oaths, but Kest had been warning me for years that I was romanticising the past. Maybe this truly was the way of the world: power was a drink that invariably made you thirstier for more.
‘What would you have me do, your Grace?’ I said quietly. ‘Even if what you suspect is true, I cannot . . . I will not murder a fifteen-year-old boy who has committed no crime.’
I half expected her to slap me again, but instead, she squeezed my arm. ‘I know you can’t, and I can’t fault you for the decency in your heart.�
� She sighed. ‘In truth, I expected as much. That is why I come to you with an alternative: a negotiation. Shared power.’
‘You want Aline and Filian to rule? How would that even work?’
The skin around her lips looked tight, as if the words she was trying to get out were distasteful. ‘It isn’t as unusual as you might think. They are only half-siblings. The old royal lines often had—’
‘You want Aline to marry Filian? Have you lost your mind?’
‘No, Falcio, I have simply run out of options.’ She held up a hand. ‘Listen to me. Aline is clever, and wise. She has a strong spirit and she could hold her own in any power-sharing arrangement. She would have the right to her own bodyguards, and you and your fellow Greatcoats would keep her safe from Trin’s machinations. After a while, Filian might even become a good King.’
‘Trin will never allow it.’
Duchess Ossia smiled. ‘That is why we will not give her a choice.’
‘Killing her will make Filian into an intractable enemy.’
‘We needn’t kill her. All we need to do is take control of the castle for a little while – a week at most, time for negotiations to take place. I will bring the Dukes to our side by showing them the wisdom of having both heirs share power.’
‘So that they have time to decide which one to have assassinated?’
‘Perhaps – but more likely my fellow Dukes will see that power-sharing will keep the crown weak, which is, let’s face it, our preferred state of affairs.’
I found the idea sickening for a hundred different reasons, but she was right: we were out of options. Although we were ostensibly waiting for Filian’s lineage to be proven, the Dukes were already rushing to his side; we had no other leverage. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘how does this work?’
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