Maurisk slapped the windowsill and turned to glare at Faro, who smiled back impishly. Maurisk appeared to completely lack a sense of humor, which left him ill at ease in Faro’s company.
“I take it the news has reached the market, then?” Raesinia said.
“This afternoon,” Cora said. “We saw De Borg himself strutting about like the top peacock, rubbing everyone’s faces in it.”
“And we did well?”
Cora gaped, made speechless by this colossal understatement. Faro, grinning upside down and head lolling like a corpse, said, “Quite well, apparently. I don’t pretend to understand the specifics of it, but I gather we’ve just about hit the jackpot.”
“It’s not that complicated,” Cora protested. “I bought De Borg’s paper at ten pence, on a ninety-five-point margin, and as of close today it was back to par. After fees and so on, that gives us a return of about a hundred and eighty to one.”
Truth be told, Raesinia didn’t follow the specifics, either, but she trusted Cora’s assessment. She’s a prodigy, after all. That last number made her sit up and take notice, though. Raesinia was no financier, but she could multiply, and a hundred and eighty to one meant that the little pool of money their circle had laboriously accumulated had been transformed overnight, as if by alchemy, into a substantial fortune.
“I’m not really recommending it,” Faro said, “just throwing the idea out, really, but you realize that we could just take the money and run. Go to Hamvelt and live like princes for the rest of our days.” He looked around the room, from Maurisk’s burning eyes to Raesinia’s guarded ones, and sighed. “Fair enough. I’m just saying.”
“It’s not about the money,” Raesinia said.
“Of course it’s not about the money,” Maurisk said. “I’ve always said money is only a distraction. We should be out there”—he stabbed a finger at the window—“raising the awareness of the common—”
Faro laughed and slid off the couch like a cat, landing in a crouch and rolling his shoulders before straightening up.
“I think awareness is not our problem,” he said. “Everyone is perfectly aware of what’s going on. They just don’t see anything they can do about it.”
“Then we need to tell them—” Maurisk began.
“In any case,” Raesinia said, raising her voice before the usual argument could get started, “we’re on our way.”
“We certainly are,” Faro said. “Though God knows to where.” He slapped his thighs. “This calls for a drink, I’d say. Let me go and get something.”
He went out, and Raesinia turned to Maurisk. “What about Ben and the doctor? Are we expecting them?”
“Not tonight,” he said, with a glower. “They’re in Newtown. Reconnaissance, Ben calls it, though he wouldn’t tell me what he’s expecting to find.”
Cora waggled her eyebrows and gave a lewd giggle, and Maurisk snorted. This was a joke; neither of the last two members of their cabal was likely to be found in any of the South Bank’s notorious brothels.
“Well, I’ve got news. I suppose we can fill them in later.” Raesinia paused as the door opened and Faro returned, with two bottles under each arm. “I’ve had word from my contact at the palace.”
“Oh?” Cora perked up. “Anything I can take to the Exchange?”
“I’m . . . not sure. The king is going to name Count Mieran to the Ministry of Justice.”
There was a pause. Faro uncorked one of the bottles and started setting up mugs on a side table.
“This is the same Count Yonas or some such who has been smiting the heathens so heroically in Khandar?”
Raesinia nodded. “Count Janus bet Vhalnich Mieran.”
“And what do we know about him?” Maurisk said.
“Not much,” Raesinia admitted. “But there’s no love lost between him and Orlanko.”
“That’s got to be good for us, then,” Cora said. “The enemy of my enemy, and all that.”
“I don’t know,” Faro said. “I’ve found that most of the time the enemy of your enemy can be relied on to stick a dagger in your back while you’re busy with the first fellow.”
“We’ll see soon enough,” Maurisk said. “It’s Giforte who really matters. If Count Mieran puts someone new in as head of the Armsmen, it’ll tell us a bit about what he plans. If he promotes Giforte instead—”
“Then I’ll drink another toast,” Faro said. “Giforte is a crusty old fart with more breeding than brains. Not that there’s any shortage of such around His Majesty.”
“Long may he reign,” Cora said, and the others echoed her automatically.
“Here,” Faro said. “Better to do that with wine in hand.”
Maurisk glared at him while Faro distributed the mugs, then looked up at Raesinia.
“Was there anything else?” he said. Maurisk was a teetotaler, yet another point of contention between him and the hard-drinking Faro.
“Not at the moment,” Raesinia said, accepting a mug herself.
Maurisk’s habitual scowl deepened. “Then I will say good evening.”
He went for the door, dodging Faro’s attempt to offer him a mug, and let it bang closed behind him. Faro stared after him for a moment, giving his best impression of an abandoned puppy, then laughed and turned back to the others. “And I will say good riddance.” He took a long sip from his mug and swallowed thoughtfully. “Honestly, Raes, what possessed you to bring him into this?”
“He’s smart, and he believes in taking the country back from Orlanko,” Raesinia said. “And he takes it seriously.” She brought the mug to her lips.
The wine was actually rather good, Raesinia thought. In spite of its run-down appearance, the Blue Mask kept a good cellar. The unwashed floors and ratty furniture were a deliberate affectation, an act; situated as it was on prime real estate beside the University, the rent on the Mask was probably higher than many noble town houses.
An act. Raesinia stared into the depths of her mug, letting the conversation drift around her. Faro talked enough for three, anyway, pretending to flirt with Cora and laughing hugely at his own jokes.
It’s all an act. Raesinia Smith was an affectation, just like the Blue Mask. So, for that matter, was Raesinia Orboan, the delicate, empty-headed princess she played at Ohnlei whenever formal ceremonies demanded it. She might have been real, once, but she’d died four years ago, coughing her lungs out in a bed stinking of piss and vomit. What had risen from that bed was . . . something else, an imposter.
She felt the binding twitch, ever so slightly. It wouldn’t let her get drunk—she suspected it saw the inebriated state as a problem to be corrected like any other. Once, as an experiment, Sothe had procured a gallon of potent but awful liquor and Raesinia had downed the lot in a single sitting. All it had produced was a powerful need to visit the toilet.
There were only three people in Vordan who knew what kind of creature lurked underneath her masks. One was Raesinia herself, and another was Sothe, whom she had come to trust with her life. The third was the Last Duke, Mallus Kengire Orlanko. It was Orlanko who had intervened when Raesinia ought to have died. He’d called in his backers, Sworn Church priests in black cloaks and glass masks, and they had done something.
At the time, Raesinia hadn’t appreciated the brilliance of it. Now she understood all too well. The king had no sons, not since Vansfeldt, so what better way to keep the future queen under your thumb? Let even a whisper of the truth escape—that the princess was cursed, damned, not even human—and the mobs would be howling for her head, with every priest in the city egging them on. When the king died . . .
Long may he reign. Raesinia took a pull from her mug. But he wouldn’t; anyone could see that. Already the city lived in fear of the duke’s Concordat, and the tax farmers squeezed the common folk to pay the Crown’s debt to Viadre. When her father died, Raesinia would ascend the thro
ne, but Orlanko would be king in all but name. His northern allies would come seeking their rewards, and no doubt Raesinia would find herself married to some Murnskai prince, while Borelgai profiteers looted the kingdom and Sworn Priests burned the Free Churches.
And so Raesinia Smith had built her little conspiracy, step by step, lying to everyone. The depth of her betrayals—not telling Cora and the others who she really was, breaking her father’s confidences—roiled her stomach, but there was no other option. If Orlanko found out she wasn’t the empty-headed, pliable princess he thought she was . . .
Cora laughed, and Faro grinned. Raesinia looked away from them and stared down into her mug. It’s not a betrayal, not really. We all want the same thing. Power in Vordan for the Vordanai, and the end of the Last Duke. No more tax farmers, no more Borelgai bankers muscling honest merchants into poverty. No more disappearances in the night and mysterious bodies floating in the river. No more screams from the depths of the Vendre.
It was the right thing to do. She knew it was. Even Father would understand that, wouldn’t he?
CHAPTER TWO
MARCUS
“By the third day, we were pretty much used up, and those big naval guns were knocking the place to pieces around our ears,” Marcus said. “If the colonel hadn’t turned up when he did, I doubt we could have held on until nightfall. Even as it was, things got pretty heated. I had to go out myself—”
He stopped. And Adrecht saved my life, and lost his arm. Adrecht, his best friend, who had later tried to kill him, and who was now a set of slowly bleaching bones somewhere in the Great Desol. Along with quite a few others.
Count Torahn, Minister of War, knew none of this. His jowly face was alight with vicarious martial excitement. “Splendid, Captain. Absolutely splendid. Have you thought about writing up your experiences in the campaign? Colonel Vhalnich will submit his official report, of course, but it’s important to have as many perspectives on the thing as possible. I’m sure the Review would jump at the chance if you did them a little monograph.”
Marcus tried not to grimace. “Thank you, sir. I think Giv—uh, Captain Stokes was trying his hand at writing something about it when I left.” He didn’t add that Give-Em-Hell’s memoir, titled Across the Desert with Bloodied Saber, seemed to be turning into more of an epic than a monograph.
“Wonderful. I look forward to reading it,” Torahn said. He glanced over his shoulder. “I’ve always said that a properly led Vordanai force should be a match for any army in the world, eh?”
This last was directed at the other end of the little anteroom. Duke Mallus Kengire Orlanko sat in an armchair, stubby legs barely reaching the ground, flipping idly through an enormous leather-bound ledger. He looked up, spectacles catching the light from the candles and becoming two circles of pure light.
“Indeed, Torahn,” he said. “You have certainly always said so. Now if only our soldiers could learn to walk on water, the world would truly be within our grasp.”
It was hard for Marcus to believe that this was the infamous Last Duke, Minister of Information and master of the dreaded Concordat. He looked more like somebody’s cheerful old grandpa, at least until he turned those oversized lenses in Marcus’ direction. Then his magnified, distorted eyes became visible, and they seemed to belong to some other person altogether. Not a person, even. Eyes like that belonged on something that lived at the bottom of the sea and never ventured out of the shadows.
You sent Jen to me. Marcus matched the duke’s gaze as levelly as he knew how. You sent her and told her to do whatever she needed to do.
He’d always known Jen had worked for the Concordat, but somehow he’d allowed himself to believe—What? That she could fall in love with me? At the very least, he’d thought she’d finally been honest with him. Then, that awful night in a cavern full of monsters, she’d thrown it all back in his face and revealed herself to be something much more than a simple agent. Ignahta Sempria, the Penitent Damned, the demonic assassins serving an order of the Church that was supposed to have disappeared more than a hundred years ago.
Marcus had tried to kill her, in the end, but Jen had brushed aside his best efforts. Only Ihernglass, in some way that Marcus still didn’t understand, had been able to use the power of the Thousand Names to bring her down. When he’d left Khandar, she still hadn’t awoken, and Janus wasn’t sure she ever would.
“Are you certain?” she had said. “Are you—”
Count Torahn was saying something, but Marcus had missed it entirely. He smiled at the Minister of War and wondered how to politely ask him to repeat himself, but a click from the door saved him the embarrassment. Janus slipped quietly out of the king’s bedchamber.
“Well,” the Last Duke said. “I take it congratulations are in order.”
Count Colonel Janus bet Vhalnich Mieran bowed formally. For his visit to the Royal Palace he’d put on a formal uniform Marcus had never seen him wear before, a cross between his usual blues and something more appropriate for a courtier. It included a long, thin cape, which fluttered elegantly as he moved, and was trimmed in the bloodred and Vordanai blue that were his personal colors as Count Mieran. In his ordinary dress blues, giltless and patchy from repeated washing, Marcus felt like a beggar by comparison.
“Thank you, Your Grace,” Janus said. “I will do my utmost to be of service to His Majesty.”
“Gave it to you after all, did he?” Torahn said. “I argued against it, you know. Nothing against you personally, you understand, but it didn’t seem a proper post for a military man. I’d hoped to use you elsewhere. Still, I suppose the king knows best.”
“I’m sure he does,” Janus said.
Marcus felt as if he’d come to class to find everyone else had studied for a test he didn’t know was on the schedule. Janus, as usual, had explained nothing, either during the uncomfortable journey or since they’d arrived at Ohnlei. He must have been able to see the confusion in Marcus’ face now, however, and he took pity on his subordinate.
“The king has honored me with his trust,” Janus said. “He has named me to the cabinet as Minister of Justice, to oversee the courts and the Armsmen.”
There was a shuffling sound from one corner. Representatives of all three of the organizations tasked with protecting the king’s safety were on hand, standing at attention so quietly that Marcus had nearly forgotten they were there. There was a sergeant from the Noreldrai Grays, big and imposing in his dark uniform and tall cap, and an impeccably uniformed grenadier from the Royal Guard. In addition, there was an Armsman, in a somewhat more ornate version of the dark green uniform worn by these officers of the law. At Janus’ words, he had stiffened up and saluted.
“Speaking of the Armsmen,” Orlanko said, as Janus nodded and signaled for the guard to relax, “their captaincy is vacant at the moment. If you’d like, I can have my people prepare dossiers on some suitable candidates. I believe Vice Captain Giforte has been serving in that role since the previous minister’s passing, but he—”
“Thank you, Your Grace,” Janus interjected, “but that will not be necessary. My choice is an easy one. Captain d’Ivoire will assume the post.”
“He will?” Orlanko’s magnified eyes shifted.
“I will?” Marcus said.
He looked at Janus and caught a flick of his eyes. Marcus didn’t have Fitz Warus’ effortless ability to understand his superior’s unspoken commands, but he was slowly getting the knack of reading the colonel’s expressions. This one said, Later.
“A good idea,” Torahn said. “That’s the trouble with the Armsmen these days. Too many layabouts at the bottom, too many lawyers at the top! A good, honest soldier will shake things up a bit. And you could hardly do better than the captain here.”
Marcus wasn’t foolish enough to believe that the Minister of War had taken that much of a liking to him in their few minutes of conversation. This was another salvo ai
med at Orlanko. Marcus felt like a fisherman rowing between two foreign men-of-war, caught in a conflict he understood next to nothing about, crouching to keep his head beneath the gunwales as broadsides flashed back and forth overhead. Whether this one had hit the mark, he had no idea, but Orlanko brushed it aside.
“I’m sure the captain will do a fine job.” The Last Duke closed his ledger and heaved himself onto his feet. “And now I must be going. You may rely on my people, of course, for any information your new duties may require.” He gave a very slight bow. “I look forward to working with you, Count Mieran.”
“Likewise, Your Grace,” Janus said. “Your Excellency, if you will excuse me as well. I have much to do.”
“Of course,” Torahn said, then wagged a finger genially. “Don’t think this gets you out of writing me a proper report!”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Janus said. “Come, Captain.”
The Armsman beside the door saluted again as they passed. The anteroom let onto a corridor leading out the back of the king’s suite, opposite the much larger entrance to his formal audience chambers. Like all the hallways at Ohnlei, it had been decorated within an inch of its life, in this case with a pattern of tiny bas-relief eagles whose eyes were tiny, sparkling mirrors. Candles flickered in cleverly concealed braziers.
“Sir—” Marcus began.
“Jikat,” Janus said quietly.
This was a word in Khandarai, of which there were probably only three speakers within a hundred miles. It was an ancient and expressive language. The word “jikat” meant “quiet,” but more than that. A literal translation might read “the silence we observe in the presence of our enemies.”
Enemies? Marcus said nothing.
“Back to our rooms,” Janus said. “Everything should be ready by now.”
—
The invisible, omnipresent administrative apparatus of Ohnlei—the true rulers of the kingdom, Marcus sometimes suspected—had assigned Janus and his staff to a cottage not far from the palace, on one of the many curving gravel roads that wandered through the grounds like a plate of dropped noodles. “Cottage,” in this context, referred to a two-story stone-and-timber building, elegantly appointed and self-sufficient in the matters of kitchens, baths, and so on, with its own staff and caretakers. This one was called Lady Farnese’s Cottage. Marcus had gathered that the kings of Vordan were in the habit of building these little houses for their friends, mistresses, and favorite courtiers, and once these original inhabitants died or fell from favor, they were repurposed as housing for guests of the court.
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