Bloodmoon (The Scarlet Star Trilogy Book 2)

by Ben Galley

  Dizali let the shudder of his steps fill him and thought long and hard about his visit to the Palace of Ravens.

  *

  Two hours earlier.

  ‘Prime Lord, this way please,’ the queensguard beckoned to him. Dizali swept from his carriage, his cane clicking on the steps and his top hat held tightly on his head to stop it from escaping. The breeze was fierce in the palace’s open grounds, even behind its sharp walls and fences.

  Prime Lord Dizali had been summoned. That was all there was to say. There had been no explanation by the messenger from the palace itself, just the demand for attendance, forthwith. Well, of course, he was compelled to acquiesce and, knowing the queen, instantly.

  Dizali wore the same face now as he had when the messenger had been ushered into his study: unimpressed, displeased, concerned. He tried to wipe the latter from his stern countenance as he strode up the spiralling steps, heading towards the high throne room.

  He scratched at his neatly-trimmed goatee and wondered why the queen was demanding his presence. She was becoming agitated, it seemed. Madder still. That did not bode well. The queen was supposed to let the Prime Lord carry on as he saw fit. Not harangue him at every turn. It set his face to snarling.

  Or maybe she was onto him. Dizali stowed that thought away.

  At long last they came to the doors, and the Prime Lord waited to be announced by a hollering servant in frilly garb.

  ‘Your Majesty. Prime Lord Dizali.’

  ‘In,’ echoed her voice, stern and harsh, like the cackling of crows.

  ‘In you go,’ whispered the servant, bowing and shuffling away.

  ‘Why thank you! However would I have known what to do,’ hissed Dizali. The Prime Lord of the Empire of Britannia was not in the mood.

  The queen was not either. Dizali could hear her shuffling back and forth like a caged bear eager to smell its home again. He set his jaw, raised his chin, and strode up to the heavy velvet curtain that cut the throne room in half.

  ‘Prime Lord Dizali,’ scraped her voice. She sounded angry.

  ‘My Queen,’ Dizali replied, removing his hat and bowing low despite the curtain. Somehow she could always tell if you did not.

  ‘Is there no paper in the Empire? Have we used up all the trees?’

  ‘No, Majesty,’ replied Dizali, in as flat a tone as he could manage. He had already cottoned on, and bore it out.

  ‘And what of all the ink? Have we run dry?’

  ‘No, My Queen.’

  ‘Then we must have run out of wax, with which to seal these absent letters.’

  ‘No,’ Dizali held back a sigh. ‘Your Majesty.’

  The queen shuffled forward. He could see the shadows moving under the hem of the curtain. ‘Then explain to me why it is I must call you here to have you update me on our progress?’

  Dizali took a breath. ‘My Queen, my utmost apologies. I had assumed you would rather me spend my time seeing to the executor, and building favour for the Crown with the Cardinals and Cobalts, as I have been, rather than constantly bother you with letters.’

  There was a most un-human growl. ‘Do I sense a hint of sarcasm in your words, Prime Lord?’

  ‘No, Your Majesty,’ Dizali bowed again. ‘It was purely my assumption.’

  The queen hissed her words. ‘To assume is to say you do not know, and not to know is to be wrong. Do I make myself clear?’

  Not particularly. ‘Yes, my Queen.’

  ‘Report, then. Tell me all.’

  ‘The Rosiyans have moved further south, and are camped on the edges of the Obsidian Sea, moving through Persia. They have struck some sort of agreement, it seems. The Romanian Principalities have also consented, even allied with the Rosiyans. After the last war, and our distrust of them, I expected that would happen,’ Gavisham explained.

  The queen shifted and the shadow fell away. Her voice had calmed slightly at least, though she breathed heavily, rattling as if she were still seething. ‘And what are you doing about it?’

  ‘I have half the navy off the coast of Greece and Cyprus. The Huns are still skirmishing with the Prussians, but they have allowed us passage from our strongholds in Francia. Our third and fourth airship navies are moving in over the Obsidian Sea within the next two weeks.’

  ‘And what of Karrigan’s estate?’

  The Prime Lord paused for a moment, wincing at the sound of the queen rasping at something. ‘It appears both the executor and the deeds have escaped London, my Queen. Without them, the Benches will not accept our claim, even with painting his son as a traitor.’

  A hiss and a scrape emanated from behind the curtain. ‘How could this happen?’ came the question.

  Dizali played his cards one by one. ‘Easily, My Queen. It seems he may have done so weeks ago, before you asked me to find him.’

  ‘The Benches will yield.’

  Dizali shook his head. ‘With all due respect, Your Majesty, they will not. Many are as eager to grasp Karrigan’s estate as we are, and the longer it goes unclaimed, the more eager and desperate they become.’

  He could hear it in her voice: anger of course, but something else, something desperate. ‘Then we shall declare a state of war,’ she demanded.

  Dizali stepped forwards and raised his voice a fraction, as much as he dared to. He had to choose his words carefully, or risk angering her too much for sense. ‘But we are not at war yet, Majesty, and I will not rush in without the necessary funds or resources. This must be a war we can win. It may break us, here, at home, before we lose it. The Emerald Benches will not stand for it. They will call a re-election. The new government may not share the same visions as you do, My Queen. We will lose our grip on the east and the west.’

  There was hesitation from behind the curtain. The queen had seen the truth he had laid out for her. Expertly so, if he didn’t think so himself. Dizali strongly resisted the urge to smile. She may have had others waiting in the wings—he was not naive of that, but she was scared of delay. He could see it now. He was the only option she had, to kindle her wars, to seize back the world.

  A realisation clattered into his head then, one that he cursed himself for not entertaining before. It was then that the queen spoke, and cut through his thoughts. ‘You will find those deeds, and this executor who thinks himself too smart for us. Then we shall order the Benches to war.’

  ‘I agree, Your Majesty. All I need is a week, perhaps two, before I can find him. I have the best people on the task.’

  ‘You had better, Lord Dizali, or I shall have you fed to my ravens. You have your time. Leave.’

  Dizali bowed and made his exit. He wore a frown. The queen had never made a threat quite like that before. It made him all the more suspicious. When the door to his carriage slammed, once he was settled on the velvet bench and unbuttoning his coat, he grasped it. The eagerness. The anger. The rattle in her voice. Desperation strikes fiercest when a person is faced with their mortality, forced to take stock of what they have, or have not built.

  ‘Keystreet, driver,’ Dizali barked, and there was a tap of heels on the roof to acknowledge him. The ironclad wheels crunched on the gravel, and Dizali reached for his old greatcoat and tired umbrella perched unassumingly on the opposite seat.

  *

  Could the queen actually be dying? Surely the Almighty could not smile that wide for him. Victorious had ruled the Empire longer than any monarch ever had. For over five hundred years she had reigned, as only the other great kings and queens of Europe, Indus, and Africanus knew how—the Red Tzar, the Bitter Prince, Silent Affar, Belicista, the Lady Gotha, and of course Victorious, to name a few. They were of an older race, one that had appeared in the ashes of the First Empire. Nobody had ever seen their true faces, and those that had either found themselves at the end of a noose or with their eyes in a dish. But however ancient they were, they did die eventually. That much was fact.

  When Dizali thought too hard on the matter it troubled him deeply: to be ruled by such things as the l
ike of her. Yet they were the founders of his kind, the high heads of the Order he belonged to. And so there was some credit due. But their time had come, Dizali sternly reminded himself. It was time to give up the world they had forged and move aside. They were relics to be deposed and overthrown. And Dizali would damn well see to it that he took the first step. He would lead this fractious Europe into a revolution. Governments will wear the crowns, not pompous kings and queens from a long-dead time. And then the Order will reign. He will reign. Dizali allowed himself a little smile. He hastened his pace as he headed east to Cheapside.

  Now that the sewer-workers had been given a pitiful bonus and coerced, or in some cases beaten, back into employment, the drain-stench had faded to normal levels—well, in most districts. Cheapside still thoroughly offended the nose, as it always tended to. Dizali held a handkerchief over his face as he strode through the perpetual haze that Cheapside constantly flaunted.

  He came to the door with the three red panels, and knocked three times. He paused, then knocked twice more. Curse this Fever and his theatrics, Dizali groused to himself as he waited for the scrape of bolts, of which there were a preposterous amount, and then for the inevitable jangling of keys. Then a grunt as the right one was found. Finally, a chirp of luck, the grinding of the lock, and the whining of the door as it yawned open, swinging, rather rudely, outwards into the street.

  Dizali had already learned that lesson, and stood far back. The monstrous twin was trained in crushing spines and squeezing heads, not in politely opening doors to Prime Lords. Upon the first visit, he had almost been catapulted into the adjoining wall.

  Dizali stepped inward and nodded to the twin peaks of pale skin and blonde hair that stood either side of the corridor. He passed them his hat and umbrella and strode up the dank stairs into the darkness of the upper floors.

  The walls were bare plaster and in places bare brick. Dizali ran his gloved hand over the cracks as he dug his heels into worm-riddled floorboards. A single gaslight hovered at the end of the corridor. It led him to a door, featureless and solid. Mr Rowanstone had a penchant for bolts, it seemed. This one was also covered in them, from top to bottom. Dizali rolled his eyes and smartly rapped a knuckle on the door.

  *

  Witchazel was dreaming fitfully. Flashes of eerie fiction vied with snatches of old memory for space in his dark mind. It was nightmarish, in a way.

  He was in a carriage, tottering along the river-front. It was summer. Blossoms fell and birds chirped. There was a woman by his side, her face blurred and twisted. He knew her.

  Something spooked the horses. He did not see it. The dream was too warped to know who or what.

  A dog, no, a wolf sat in the carriage with him, and he knew its eyes to be hers. Maybe that was what spooked them.

  He was careering down the slope now, too sluggish to jump, too heavy and bound by unconsciousness to escape. The screaming rose and fell. The carriage was turning, hurling them over and over, into the water, the heavy weight of something pressing them down. He could feel the heaviness of it, clutching him again. The ice-cold blast of …

  ‘Haaaaaaaa!’ Witchazel screamed wordlessly as reality wrenched him from his unsettled slumber into a freezing bucket of reality.

  ‘That’s better,’ said a voice: Fever.

  Oh, how he had come to loath the little man, how he despised him!

  Witchazel panted and choked. The water was so cold it stung his eyes, and he blinked furiously. It took a few moments for the shock to die away and for the shivering to take its place. Witchazel could feel every one of his bones rattling, emaciated as he was from the torture. Food had come days apart, sometimes not at all. This was another one of Fever’s little games, the foul criminal that he was.

  ‘What is it today?’ Witchazel spat. He had discovered that anger and backchat irritated Fever to the core. It seemed that Mr Rowanstone had a deadline to keep, and Witchazel was determined to beat him past it. It was a battle of schedules and silence, and the lawyer was intent on winning it. Whether the war would be won with it, he knew not.

  And so Witchazel had endured his time with plenty of fire and spit, sleeping whenever he was alone, to keep up his strength. They had been relentless for the first few days. Every other hour, one of them had paid a visit to his boxlike cell—whether it was from Fever, with his questions and cruel games with needles, or Sval, who liked to twist and bend things, or from Sven, who liked to pummel and poke. Blood seeped, bones bruised, and then cracked before splintering. The gloves had come off, and yet somehow he knew they were still holding back. Witchazel knew it well, and that terrified him.

  It was strange: he had never fully grasped the truth of the word torture until now. It was not simple pain and punishment, but powerlessness. That was the grain of its wood: to be incapable, at crueller hands than mercy’s, helpless to stop the beatings, the needles—helpless in aiding Tonmerion. It had set a cold ache in the fibres of his bones. Almighty be damned if he would show his fear to Fever. He found solace in blaming the shivering on the cold water.

  Yet for the last few days, he had been left adrift in complete silence and darkness. They had let him stoke his own fear. The last two nights had been spent shivering on the cold floor, nursing his searing breaks and numbing aches. Witchazel’s mind had run in ever-tightening mental circles, until he felt the darkness close in for a fleeting hour or two. They wanted the estate. Gunderton had been right. Besmirching Karrigan was just the first step. The Clean Slate …

  The stunted man seemed pleased with himself today. He was alone, and bereft of his usual briefcase, the one containing all his intricate tools and needles. ‘There’s cause for celebration,’ he said, finally breaking that false prophet of a smile, splayed across his face, ear to ear.

  Witchazel grunted, trying to keep his teeth from chattering. ‘Is there now?’ he asked, wondering whether the absence of briefcase was actually more disconcerting.

  Fever nodded enthusiastically. ‘Yes indeed. You’ve been with us a whole week now.’

  ‘Huzzah for me,’ Witchazel ground out, before lolling his head back and staring at the ceiling, playing as nonchalant as he could muster, as though the whole cell and torturer act was growing rather dull.

  ‘Every celebration needs a meal,’ Fever told him, before stooping down and picking up a metal plate layered with bread and sweaty cheese. The torturer held it out. ‘No doubt you’re hungry?’

  Witchazel’s traitorous stomach gurgled at the very mention on it.

  Fever beamed again. ‘I have my answer.’ The man placed the plate on Witchazel’s quivering knee and untied a single hand so he could eat. Witchazel could barely use his fingers, they were so sore, but hunger drove him past it.

  A flash and a stabbing pain made him stop, hands trembling an inch from the food. His stomach growled, urging him on. But there it was: a fine glass dagger in Fever’s grip, its point resting between the bones on the back of the lawyer’s hand. A globule of blood had started to ooze.

  ‘Is the food worth the pain, Mr Witchazel?’ asked Fever, his face now a mask of concern and worry. He was still standing, his hand steady as stone.

  Witchazel bared his teeth and reached his hand forwards to grasp a fat crumb of cheese. The dagger moved with him, just the very tip stuck in his skin. ‘It most certainly is,’ he muttered, in a hoarse voice.

  ‘Well, please, be my guest then.’ Fever swiftly withdrew the dagger and Witchazel stuffed the cheese into his mouth. The rich tang of it exploded over his dry tongue and clamping his mouth shut. ‘Some water?’ came the offer, and Witchazel nodded. Damn being recalcitrant and resentful, he thought. It was a chance to get some food, keep up his strength. Fever picked a glass from the floor. Witchazel gulped it down.

  ‘I shall tell you a story, while you eat, Mr Witchazel,’ Fever told him, cheerily twirling the glass blade around. If the lawyer’s tired eyes did not lie, it appeared to have an ornate jade handle, sculpted in the shape of a roaring dragon’s head.


  ‘If you must,’ Witchazel mumbled around his mouthful.

  ‘I was set to be a doctor, you see. My father was a doctor, his father was a doctor, and his father, and so on. A line longer than many of the royal houses of Europe, I’ll have you know. I was to be a surgeon. My father commanded it and so it was. From school to college to some of the finest universities this Empire has to offer, I trained and I trained. By the time I was twenty, I was offered a junior position at one of the finest hospitals in Brystol, Almighty’s Grace. Have you heard of it?’

  Witchazel shook his head.

  ‘There was a chief surgeon there by the name of Reginus. A doctor from an even longer line than the Rowanstones, believe it or not. A man so decorated with achievements that he positively glowed when he marched the halls of the Grace.’ Fever paused to chuckle nostalgically. ‘But he did not like me. No, Mr Witchazel, hated me from the moment I first set foot in his theatre, and he looked down to see me there, hand raised to shake. I had the knowledge. I had the bedside manner, I …’

  Witchazel interrupted with a snort.

  ‘…But despite it all he could not see past my stature. One morning, barely a month into my position, he demanded that I should either face the door or learn to operate on stilts, for I was too small and weak to be of any use to the infirm.’

  ‘Good man. Spot on,’ Witchazel flatly replied. He reached out for another morsel, and the dagger flashed down once more to puncture his skin. It went deeper this time. Witchazel recoiled and clutched a bloody hand, cursing. Oh, how he wanted to rip that dagger from Fever’s grasp and plunge it into his heart. It was a thought that had crossed his mind more than once in the past week. He had made quite the habit of it.

  ‘Is it worth the pain, Mr Witchazel?’ Fever asked again, cold as Thames water.

  The lawyer glowered with every hateful thought he had. Fever must have felt it, for he smiled again, still holding out the dagger. As Witchazel moved his hand, the blade came down again. The lawyer bared his teeth as he snatched a chunk of bread from the bloody plate and held it close, a large piece to give him time between stabs. Fever kept on smiling, not a twitch of impatience to be seen. The man was deplorably professional.