by Stephen Hunt
Carter bowed towards the prince, but Owen waved him up. ‘None of that, Mister Carnehan. I would still be stranded and far-called at the dark ends of the world if it wasn’t for you and your father.’
The prince indicated the officer. ‘This is Field Marshal Samuel Houldridge, commander of the standing army. It’s the field marshal and his officers who have kept me safe since I arrived in Arcadia.’
‘It is no more than my duty,’ rumbled the portly old warrior. ‘Your father appointed me head of the army during his reign, and despite the best efforts of that bloody shoemaker, I still command the army, rather than whichever jumped-up aviator from Marcus’s new skyguard the devil’d like to stick in m’post. Over these dead bones! Yes, I recognized the boy in the man as soon as I clapped eyes on his highness here. A man of honour and the best man for these difficult times.’
‘You’re willing to fight for Prince Owen when the time comes?’ asked Carter’s father.
‘I used to allow the prince and his two brothers to ride my horse when they were no higher than m’knee,’ barked the field marshal. ‘I’ll lend his highness a massed cavalry charge, if that rascal of a usurper doesn’t step down when he’s lawfully commanded. He’ll discover why my men call me Hard Charging Houldridge.’
Owen looked older than Carter remembered. It was odd that the cares of the world in Weyland’s so-called civilized circles could have aged him more than a near lifetime of captivity as a slave inside the sky mines. ‘It seems a long time ago now.’
‘I suppose it does,’ said Owen. ‘Back in Vandia, always dreaming of escape, I thought my troubles would be over when I returned home. How wrong I was.’
‘The troubles aren’t with the country,’ said Anna. She was wearing civilian clothing, but she had a large army pistol holstered around her thigh. She was obviously still acting as Prince Owen’s bodyguard. ‘They’re with your damned uncle.’
‘True enough,’ said Owen. ‘I’m glad to see that Mister Purdell here made it through with the message I entrusted to the Guild of Librarians, though. I was worried that my uncle’s agents would act against you before you received my warning.’
‘Oh, they certainly tried,’ said Jacob. ‘Of course, if we had done things my way when we first returned to Weyland, that “problem” of ours would be a surprised corpse occupying a shallow hole in the ground.’
‘I won’t begin my reign with regicide,’ said Owen. ‘Not when the throne is mine by right and the laws of the kingdom.’
‘It’s a pity that Marcus wasn’t so scrupulous about the niceties of the law,’ said Jacob, ‘when he arranged for the rest of your family to be buried in an avalanche so he could steal the throne and pocket the Vandians’ blood money.’
‘All the more reason to seek justice in the right way,’ said Prince Owen. ‘I am not my uncle. Tell me, is Lady Cassandra Skar still safely in custody?’
‘For what it’s worth, the imperial brat’s on her way to Rodal by now,’ said Jacob. ‘It might have been more fitting if we’d shipped her across the ocean to the Burn’s slave markets … give her a taste of her people’s own medicine.’
‘You do not defeat your enemy by stooping to their methods, Father Carnehan. It is not merely an exchange of tyrannies I seek here.’
‘Those are fine words, but I’m a pragmatic man,’ said Jacob.
‘And still a vengeful one?’ asked Owen. ‘Do I not have that right too, after all I suffered as a captive? My brothers worked to death. My youth wasted. Put it aside, Father. Nearly all men can withstand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. My uncle has failed that test and he must be removed. But he must be made to abdicate by the just laws of our land and the will of our people. Emissaries from the League of the Lanca have been here all week mediating between the two sides. The People’s Assembly will vote tomorrow on the matter of succession.’
‘And how many assemblymen have been bought and paid for by the usurper, Your Majesty?’ asked Tom Purdell.
‘Not nearly enough to save my uncle’s skin,’ said Owen. ‘Sons and daughters who have followed their parents into the same living for fifty generations find their old trades dead; the only work available to them is on terms that would shame a poorhouse foundling’s keep inside mills owned by Marcus’s cronies. Prices soar beyond the common people’s means to feed their families. But the workers still have the vote and their voices shall be heard.’
‘I’ve seen a few of those common people up north,’ said Jacob. ‘Hungry and jobless and desperate and roaming the roads like wolves.’
‘Common people are the best in the world,’ said Owen. ‘Surely that’s the reason the saints make so many of them in Weyland.’
‘I’ve had a gang try to pull me out of a coach and gut me, Your Majesty,’ said Tom. ‘I didn’t think so kindly of them, then.’
‘I appreciate the Guild of Librarians’ interpretation of the constitution in favour of my claim,’ said Owen. ‘And your personal efforts, Mister Purdell. Would that all our guilds were so partial to my cause.’ He returned his attention to Jacob. ‘Father Carnehan, I will ask you to testify about the king’s treachery tomorrow in the assembly if the vote is looking in the balance. How his guardsmen betrayed you and attempted to murder Northhaven’s rescue party.’
‘They won’t believe Marcus allowed the slave raids in return for silver,’ said Jacob. ‘Not with most of the newspapers in the king’s pocket and printing his lies.’
‘The truth can meet any crisis,’ said Owen.
‘We’ll have to disagree about that, but don’t doubt I’ll do whatever it takes to shove Marcus off his stolen throne,’ said Jacob. ‘You received the note I sent this morning?’
‘Indeed,’ said Owen. ‘I’m sorry to hear about Willow’s difficulties. She was the best of us inside the sky mines and she deserves far more than a loveless match with her consent provided by a bottle of laudanum and a bribed priest. Although the saints know, that’s hardly a unique tale in the south these days. I have investigated matters and the Landor family are staying in the Winteringham Hotel; the grandest in the capital. The hotel is hosting a ball tonight in favour of my uncle’s cause, and the man you say Willow is to marry, the Viscount Wallingbeck, is going to attend as one of the speakers. It seems his house is permanently impoverished and he’s looking to the king to reward his loyalty, no doubt in equal measure to the Landor dowry. He’s a lieutenant-colonel in the Territorial Army down here and commands a good-sized regiment of irregulars.’
‘A rank amateur,’ said Field Marshal Houldridge. ‘Commanding pasty-faced loom workers who can barely march in order, let alone load, sight and discharge a rifle under fire. We’ll see them off in quick order if the usurper has the gall to defy the assembly.’
‘I’ll pay Wallingbeck what he’s due,’ growled Jacob. ‘Damned if it’ll be what he’s expecting.’
‘I ask you not to act rashly, Father Carnehan,’ said Owen. ‘Matters are finely balanced inside the capital, it’s a veritable tinderbox. Party marches of Gaiaists and Mechanicalists clash regularly; mill owners pay thugs to act as regulators and go on the streets to keep order with whips and clubs. The labour combines and little guilds have lost their power with so many unemployed workers flooding in, and they’re champing at the bit for a quarrel too.’
‘We won’t do anything rash,’ promised Carter. ‘I just want Willow to be free to choose her own future. That’s her due under the law.’
‘You’ve arrived at a bad time, Northhaven,’ said Anna. ‘King Marcus is a cornered fox, now, and you know that’s the biting kind. One of his hirelings tried to slip poison in Prince Owen’s supper last week and damn how his death might look to the rest of the country. It’s getting to be we’d be safer having stayed back in Vandia breaking our backs for Helrena Skar.’
‘Bide your time,’ advised Prince Owen. ‘Soon enough I’ll have the throne. I’ll make the viscount an ambassador and order him dispatched to the ends of the league, a
nd if old Benner Landor gives you any trouble, I’ll appoint him governor of the Rotnest Islands and he and his wife can retire to a sea-view of a couple of thousand screeching gulls and damp sheep.’
I can’t wait that long.
Anna noticed Carter’s poorly suppressed anger, and she shook her head sadly. ‘There never was a bigger fool in the sky mines, or a man who took more whippings and created more trouble for the Vandians.’
‘I see that Carter hasn’t changed,’ said Tom.
‘No, I’m not that slave anymore,’ said Carter. ‘I won’t fight unless I’m forced to. But there’s no way in the world I’m going to allow Willow to come to harm, that much remains the same.’
Jacob bowed towards the prince. ‘Thank you for pointing us in the right direction, Your Highness. We’re just going to make sure the viscount doesn’t hang his washing on someone else’s line, is all.’
‘Be careful,’ called Prince Owen, somewhere between pleading and ordering, as the three men left the room. ‘For all of our sakes.’
‘I’ll go ahead to the Winteringham Hotel,’ volunteered Tom as they walked through the barracks. ‘None of the Landor family or their staff know me. I can scout around and make sure that your lady will be attending the dinner before you turn up for her.’
Carter removed the portrait miniature of her from inside his pocket watch and passed it across to his guild friend. ‘This is Willow.’
‘You don’t get many red-heads down south,’ said Tom. ‘It won’t be so hard.’
‘Don’t be too eager, boy,’ warned Jacob. ‘With so many of Marcus’s highborn allies in one building, that hotel’ll be locked down tighter than a drum.’
‘I still have my guild credentials,’ said Tom. ‘There should be dozens of runners carrying packets in and out for the librarians and radiomen. I’ll just be one more face in the crowd.’ He reached out and put a hand on Carter’s shoulder. ‘We’ll get her out of their hands. You’ll see.’
‘You’ve been a good friend to me, Tom,’ said Carter. For the first time since Carter had set out from Northhaven, he allowed himself to feel a sliver of hope that things could work out for Willow, and for him.
Willow found it hard to concentrate on what the maid was saying as she rocked with the carriage’s motion, the clatter of metal-rimmed wheels against cobbles throbbing intensely inside her head. The male servant seated opposite kept his hard, cold eyes resting on Willow, reaching for the pocket under his coat, tapping the little glass bottle whose contents he forced down Willow’s throat when she proved uncooperative, as if to make sure he hadn’t left it behind in the viscount’s estate. Willow’s mind was returning to her now, slowly, even if her body still drifted, detached. Whether it was the result of the ‘medicine’ or her brutal so-called marriage, she couldn’t say.
The maid raised a privacy blind on the coach’s window, checking their progress through the jammed streets. ‘We’ll be there soon enough. We would have arrived already if the police hadn’t turned us away from those strikers on Maddox Street.’
‘Dull-witted loafers,’ said the servant. ‘I should be so lucky as to get paid a little guild rate working for the viscount. Here now, make Lady Wallingbeck’s hair presentable before we arrive. She looks like she’s been dragged through a hedge backwards.’
Willow tried to push the woman’s hand away as it snaked towards her with a brush, but the servant opposite dragged her hand away and patted his coat again. ‘You want to enjoy the evening, don’t you, your ladyship? Or do you need another swig of hysteria’s helper to help settle your nerves?’
‘Let me brush your hair,’ hissed the maid. ‘Don’t be a fool. If you keep acting like this, his lordship will have you committed to an asylum.’
‘I’m already in one,’ muttered Willow. She heard a peal of laughter from the rear of the carriage, the two footmen clinging to it exchanging levities with a servant sat next to the driver. A full complement to chase her down if she tried to lurch away from her ‘fine new life’.
The maid pawed at her hair. ‘It’s a mistake bringing her to the dinner.’
‘All she has to do is sit at a dining table,’ said the man. ‘How hard is that? Anyway, it’s nothing to do with me. His lordship’s orders. This’un’s parents are going to be at the banquet, too. Want to make sure their dowry is well invested, I reckon.’
‘My mother’s long dead and my father might as well be.’
‘I’m still owed five months’ wages,’ complained the maid, ignoring Willow’s slurred mumbles. ‘It had better be invested in my direction pretty soon, or I’ll be seeking fresh service.’
Willow tried not to gag. ‘Take me with you.’
‘Oh, do be silent, your ladyship,’ said the maid. ‘Do you realize how selfish you sound? How many people have what you have? Half my brothers and sisters are forced to lodge with my mother with no work or prospects, and you’re whining about spending a warm night in fine silks, dining in the company of lords and ladies to the accompaniment of a chamber orchestra.’
‘You know anyone hiring?’ said the servant. ‘Because I don’t.’
Willow clung to the carriage’s seat, feeling queasy and coughing faintly. ‘No better than a slave.’
‘Here now, if a night at the Winteringham is slavery, you can drop those chains on me,’ guffawed the male servant. ‘You’re to be on your best behaviour this evening, your ladyship. If you try to run again, we’ve got his lordship’s blessing to give you a proper chastisement. He’s going to be too busy with his tongue up half the court’s arse tonight to be bothered with your peculiar little fevers.’
Willow rested her head against the seat’s padding in misery. There was none of the kindness of the servants at Hawkland Park at the hall, not even during the strange diminished period of her stepmother’s regime. These hirelings weren’t part of the house’s family, because what fool would want to claim Viscount William Wallingbeck as kin if they had a choice in the matter? They took his money and did what they had to, which was a greater choice than Willow had been allowed.
‘Don’t give her the rest of the bottle,’ said the maid. ‘She can hardly stand as it is.’
‘Good,’ said the servant. ‘We can’t have her scarpering tonight. You heard about old Luther? Broke both legs when he was thrown from his horse trying to chase her through the orchard. Poor bleeder’s laid up in the stable as useless as an ice teapot and I hear he’s going to be dismissed. A new groom’s already been hired.’
‘I wish I was in service to a proper lady,’ said the maid, finishing mauling Willow’s hair. ‘Not asylum keeper to a mad hare.’
‘Mad hare’s father is good for a few coins, though,’ said the servant, grudgingly.
‘That’s as maybe, but you keep your eyes on her ladyship every second during dinner,’ said the maid. ‘Don’t move away from behind her. No sharp cutlery to be slipped out; or there’ll be more than broken legs for one of us at the hall tomorrow when she recovers.’
The servant sighed. ‘By the saints, I’d let the bloody viscount jigger me for just a tenth of what he’s been paid to take this loon on, and I’d thank the dirty dog kindly for his troubles.’
The carriage lurched to a halt, side-mounted oil lamps illuminating the face of the liveried bruiser who swung the door open; two men jumping down from the rear to make sure the House of Wallingbeck’s prize new possession didn’t abscond. Willow shivered uncontrollably as the cold breeze came from outside and cut straight through the ridiculous clothes she had been forced into. Her copper-coloured corset bustle dress with more sequins than stars in a sky might have been all the style inside the capital, but it was in no way practical against a hard winter. A hand from behind shoved Willow down into the waiting servants’ grasp, a wary loathing for her written across their features. Willow’s carriage was one of a line drawn up inside the courtyard of the same grand hotel where she’d stayed when she first arrived at the capital. Golden light spilled from its tall windows, but there was o
ne new addition – the doors into the lobby now stood guarded by tall blue-uniformed soldiers from the king’s own guard, a stiff yellow stripe down their trousers as they stood ramrod straight.
Two footmen opened the doors of the carriage in front of Willow’s and she swayed groggily on her uncomfortable shoes as she watched Leyla Holten step daintily down its folding steps, swathed in an even more ludicrous dress than Willow’s, a mound of purple satin above a billowing underskirt and a corset so tight it was a wonder she could still breathe. Benner Landor exited the carriage behind her, Willow’s father looking pompous and stiff in a dark heavy tailcoat and curling green cravat. The haughty woman had, it seemed, finally had her way and successfully remade the Landor patriarch as a southern gentleman. Even slowed and fogged by the servant’s sedative, Willow found the hatred she felt for the interloper who had invaded her life still burned fierce and strong. Willow thought that the misery she’d suffered in Vandia had made her compassionate towards the worst mankind had to offer, but she realized that given the strength and opportunity, she’d happily strangle this malicious woman as though she was no more than a wounded animal.
