The Shadow Throne: Book Two of the Shadow Campaigns

by Wexler, Django

  “Just like that?” Raesinia shook her head. “It’s too easy.”

  “He has a fearsome reputation,” Janus said. “But I must say he’s proven to be only a mediocre opponent. He’s badly overplayed his hand, and now he’ll have to pay for it.”

  “He won’t give up,” Sothe said. “Not Orlanko. If there’s a card left in his hand, he’ll play it, and be damned to the consequences.”

  “That’s what worries me,” Janus agreed. “The Last Duke is finished. But now that he has nothing to lose . . .” He trailed off, staring past Raesinia and Sothe into the middle distance, then shook his head. “We will have to take precautions.”

  MARCUS

  “The vice captain is here,” Staff Eisen said from outside the door to Marcus’ office.

  “Send him in,” Marcus said. His desk was clear of paperwork. He looked below it, to make sure the stack of files from the archives were still there. Evidence, in case he needed it.

  The door stuck, as usual, then shuddered open. Giforte pulled it shut behind him, turned, and saluted.

  “Vice Captain,” Marcus said.

  “Sir!” Giforte relaxed a fraction. “People have been trickling in, sir. We’re still well below strength, but I think by tomorrow morning I should have at least—”

  “I have a question for you, Vice Captain,” Marcus said. “I want you to answer it honestly, if you can.”

  “Sir?” Giforte’s face became a frozen mask.

  He knows, Marcus thought. He knows that I know. Time to cut through all the secrets. He took a deep breath. “What is it that Duke Orlanko has over you?”

  A long moment passed in total stillness. Marcus kept his eyes on Giforte, watching the man’s face. His control was good, but not perfect. If he tries to brazen it out . . .

  Then, all at once, his expression relaxed and his shoulders slumped. There was defeat there, but also relief, as though a great weight had been lifted.

  I was right. Marcus had to restrain himself from pumping his fist in triumph. I wonder if this is how Janus feels all the time.

  “I should have known I couldn’t hide it,” Giforte said. “I should have offered my resignation the day you took command.”

  “Now, that would have been a disaster,” Marcus said. “It is the Last Duke, then?”

  Giforte nodded, looking resigned. “He . . . it was my wife, to begin with. You’ve met my daughter. My wife never really recovered from the birth. Our local surgeons threw up their hands, so I wrote to doctors from Hamvelt, the best there are. One man said he could help, but the price he asked . . .” He shook his head. “I borrowed from a moneylender, but it was all for nothing. My Gwendolyn died before the doctor even arrived, and he refused to refund his fee. I was broken and penniless. I would have killed myself, if not for Abigail.”

  “And then Orlanko offered to help with the debt,” Marcus guessed.

  Giforte nodded. “I was too desperate to care what strings were attached. It wasn’t long before he started making . . . requests. Certain investigations he wanted stopped, suspects he wanted released without further questions. Your family . . . that was one of the first.”

  “You didn’t know about it beforehand?” Marcus said. “You weren’t involved?”

  The vice captain drew himself up. “Of course not! You . . .” He paused, and sagged again. “You have no reason to believe me, of course. But I’m not a murderer. I would never have done anything like that, whatever Orlanko told me. All he wanted was . . . no questions.” Giforte shook his head. “When I heard you had been named as captain, I came close to panic. None of the other captains ever paid much attention, but you . . .”

  Marcus exhaled slowly and leaned back in the squeaky old chair. “I went looking.” Though I might not have, if not for Adam Ionkovo.

  Giforte straightened up again. “Sir. I will draft my letter of resignation immediately. If the Minister of Justice wishes to offer charges, I am at his disposal.”

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  “Sir?”

  “I’ve been reading up on you,” Marcus said. “Your tenure with the Armsmen has been excellent. I don’t think there’s anyone else I would want for the post.”

  “But . . .” Giforte swallowed. “What about Orlanko? He holds my debts. If he comes calling, and I don’t obey—”

  “The Minister of Justice will handle your debts,” Marcus said. They hadn’t discussed any such thing, but he was certain Janus would come up with a good solution. This is too good a man to lose. “And I don’t think the Last Duke will be a problem for much longer. In confidence, I can tell you that the new queen is not a friend of his.”

  “She’s going to unseat him? The Last Duke?” Giforte shook his head. “That’s going to mean plenty of trouble. He’s had three decades to dig in.”

  “That’s why I need you,” Marcus said. “We’ve got to get the Armsmen back together and providing some kind of order. And I suspect the Minister of Justice may have need of me, so a lot of that work is going to fall on you. I trust you’ll be up to it.”

  Slowly, Giforte saluted, fighting a smile. “Sir. Absolutely, sir.”

  “Good. You’d better get to it.”

  And once this is over, Marcus thought, as Giforte saluted again and departed, once the Last Duke has fallen, I’m going to dig through the Cobweb until I find the truth. And then he’s going to pay for it.

  WINTER

  The sun was lighting the eastern horizon by the time Winter returned to the fortress, at least half-drunk and feeling more maudlin than ever. She’d fallen in with a mixed band of Docksiders and University students, who were passing several bottles of middling-to-awful wine around a circle and debating the significance of the fact that the deputies had been summoned to the Sworn Cathedral. One faction held this to be a bad sign, indicating that the queen intended to continue Orlanko’s policy of accommodation of the Sworn Church. Another group thought that it was a deliberate gesture in the opposite direction, a statement that the business of the Vordanai state was to be placed above the rights of Elysium and foreigners in general. Winter hadn’t taken a side, and limited her participation to a couple of swallows whenever a bottle went past. They hadn’t resolved the issue by the time she took her leave, and she suspected they’d be there until everyone involved had fallen out into a drunken stupor.

  A mix of exhaustion and alcohol had Winter on the verge of that herself, and her steps were heavy as she dragged herself through the Vendre’s courtyard and back to the big, half-open doors. She carried a sealed bottle in one hand, a present for Jane, who hadn’t gotten the opportunity to get out and enjoy herself. The only question, Winter thought muzzily, was whether she would manage to deliver it before she collapsed into some corner. The chamber Jane had taken over had a bed, she seemed to recall. That would be . . . convenient.

  She was vaguely aware of passing Leatherback guards, at the main doors and again on the stairs, but they all let her through with a wave. Winter answered with a cheery lift of her bottle, trudging up to the floor where the old prison staff had had their quarters and where Jane had made her own accommodations. At the top of the steps, she took a moment to compose herself, standing where a cool breeze came in by a gun slit and trying to shake the muzziness from her head.

  Maybe I should just go to bed, and find Jane in the morning. She wasn’t that drunk, but alcohol had formed a dangerous cocktail with the aftermath of too many nights without sleep and the loneliness of being by herself in the midst of the citywide revel. She felt fragile, on edge, and suspected the sight of Jane might bring her to tears. I’ll feel better in the morning.

  Good sense warred for a moment with sentimentality, but sentimentality gained the upper hand. Winter shook her head, feeling the world reel slightly. I’ll just see how she’s doing. Jane’s been up all night, too. She might need someone to . . . talk to.

 
The door to Jane’s room stood a few inches open, but there was no sound of conversation from inside. The council had apparently departed. Hell, Winter thought suddenly. She’s probably asleep by now. I’ll just poke my head in and check on her.

  Wood creaked, and Winter froze, just beside the doorway. Something scraped against the floor, as though someone had pushed a chair. Listening closely, below the fading roar of the now-exhausted crowd outside, she could make out soft, quiet sounds. Quick breaths, the rustle of cloth, a faint sigh.

  Jane?

  She ought to have turned around, then and there. Every instinct Winter had was telling her to go back the way she’d come, to write the whole thing off as a drunken, maudlin fantasy. She fought them all and eased forward, setting the wine bottle on the floor so gently it didn’t even make a click. The gap between door and doorframe was only a few inches away, and Winter leaned toward it, hardly daring to breathe.

  Someone gasped. Jane said, very quietly, “Don’t.”

  “It’s been”—pause—“weeks. Seeing you every day”—pause—“and every night, I . . .”

  This was Abby’s voice. Winter finally got her eye against the crack in the door. She saw Jane, leaning on the big council table, her red hair damp and spiky with sweat. Abby was pressed up against her, arms wrapped around her waist. Her lips brushed a delicate trail of kisses from Jane’s collarbone up into the hollow of her neck. Jane leaned her head back, like an animal offering its throat in submission, and her hands clenched the edge of the tabletop.

  “I told you,” Jane said weakly. “We can’t. I can’t.”

  “I know.” Abby kissed the corner of Jane’s jaw, then her cheek. “Just for tonight, all right? Just once. Please.”

  “Abby . . .”

  “Call the guards, if you like. Throw me in the dungeon.”

  Abby kissed Jane full on the lips, and after a moment’s resistance Jane’s arms came off the table and wrapped around Abby’s shoulders. Abby’s hands roamed upward, running gently over Jane’s flanks, her fingers tangling in the hem of Jane’s shirt.

  Jane moaned, very quietly, but Winter was no longer there to hear. She stalked away down the corridor, leaving her bottle by the doorway, eyes brimming with unwanted tears.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  RAESINIA

  For the moment, they were letting Raesinia remain in her chambers in the Prince’s Tower. Eventually, she assumed, some court stickler for protocol would probably demand that she move over to the Royal Apartments, but that would require refurnishing, and the staff of the palace was fully occupied. So many of the more cautious nobles and their retinues had departed for the country as the riots had developed that the royal household had been left with a skeleton crew, managing a building that was suddenly vastly too large for its inhabitants. The task of putting the palace in its mourning garb was big enough to occupy an army, even without considering all the changes to the lists of precedence that would be required by so many departures and the consequent adjustments to social calendars, place settings, and so on.

  Raesinia was happy to leave well enough alone. Sothe was adamant that her days of sneaking out to visit the revolutionaries were over, but it was nice to know that she still had her convenient-if-painful escape route from the tower. New rooms would come with a squadron of new servants, too, with all the complicated negotiations that entailed. Here in the Prince’s Tower, Sothe ruled with an iron hand, and she had a very simple protocol—when Raesinia was present, Sothe met visitors at the door and no other menials were allowed to enter. The cleaning and laundry staff had learned to pounce on the room the moment Raesinia stepped out the door.

  This morning, Sothe brought breakfast to her table, as usual, together with a stack of the morning papers. One advantage of being queen was that she could pay attention to current events more openly, without having to play the part of the brainless princess.

  There was no news except the Revolution, as the papers were already starting to call it. Several woodcuts of Danton looked up at her, including a rather good profile in the Barker. The Deputies-General, scheduled to open today, had driven everyone into renewed frenzies of excitement. A more or less permanent camp of revolutionaries, centered on the occupied Vendre, was surrounded by a temporary mob whose size varied with the mood of the public. Today, Raesinia read, they occupied most of the Island, leaving only a small clear space around the cathedral in the hands of the Armsmen. The South Bank was boiling, and even the North Bank was starting to rumble, centered on the University and the Dregs.

  Not all the news was good. Fresh water was becoming scarce on the Island, in spite of the best efforts of the merchants selling it at ruinous prices, so some of the gathered thousands had been reduced to drinking river water. The result was an epidemic of the bloody flux, which had already laid low hundreds and was claiming several victims a day. One paper even helpfully provided a cartoon, which showed Raesinia herself walking over the bridge to the Island in full regalia only to be met by a tidal wave of oncoming diarrhea.

  In addition to disease, the prostitutes and thieves who gathered wherever there was a crowd to fleece were out in force, and with the Armsmen banished there was nothing to restrain their street feuds. Still, it looked to Raesinia as though everyone was behaving remarkably well under the circumstances, and the view of the papers seemed positive. The people believed in the deputies, which was exactly what the deputies needed in order to be effective.

  The people also believed in Danton. Several papers reprinted the text of his latest speeches, beside columns calling for him to have some kind of a role in government even before the deputies had met. Or Raesinia should marry him, and make him king, so his wisdom could lead Vordan to a new golden age.

  “Look at this nonsense,” Raesinia said, rattling the paper. “He’s telling everyone to stay calm, which is all well and good, but then he goes on and on about the nature of the social compact and the theory of a just monarchy. That’s Maurisk’s writing, obviously.” She turned the paper over and rolled her eyes. “It goes onto the back, in small print. He never did know when to shut up.”

  Sothe didn’t comment. Raesinia tossed the paper aside. “You delivered his speech for today?”

  It had taken her most of the previous week to write, and Raesinia thought it was a pretty fine piece of work. As the keynote address to the new Deputies- General, coming out in Danton’s glorious golden voice, it would go a long way toward setting the tone.

  “I did. The others accepted that it was something you’d written before you . . . died.” Sothe was frowning, and Raesinia thought she knew why. She decided it was better to bite the bullet.

  “And? Did you see Cora?”

  “I saw her.”

  “And?”

  Sothe sighed. “Pri—my queen. I’ve said before that the farther you stay away from her and the others, the safer everyone will be.”

  “That’s why I sent you to look in on her instead of going myself.”

  “It’s still an unnecessary risk. I could be recognized, followed.”

  “We both know a dozen bloodhounds couldn’t follow you across fresh snow.”

  “It’s a possibility,” Sothe insisted. “And I worry that you won’t be content to simply ‘look in’ forever. It’s better that you make a clean break, my queen.”

  “I just want to know if Cora is all right,” Raesinia said. “Maurisk and Sarton can take care of themselves, but Cora’s just a girl.”

  “She seemed fine,” Sothe said, relenting. “She has taken your ‘death’ hard, but otherwise she appears to be in reasonable spirits. I believe Maurisk has been talking to her about the need to carry on, ‘for Raesinia’s sake.’”

  Raesinia clapped her hands. “He’s not completely clueless, then. Sooner or later, I want to find a way to bring Cora in.”

  “Much too risky. She’ll recognize you, and then the secret is as
good as out.”

  “Not if we asked her to keep it. Cora would never betray me.”

  “The same as Faro?” There was a long, painful pause. “I’m sorry, my queen. But the stakes are extremely high. Perhaps, in time, I might be able to find a way.”

  “Think about it,” Raesinia said. “You’ve seen how talented she is with money. We’re going to need all the coin we can get if we’re not going to continue Orlanko’s policy of mortgaging the kingdom to the Borels.”

  Sothe nodded, lips pursed. There was a knock at the door, and she got up to answer it. Raesinia read a few more paragraphs of Danton’s speech, then pushed the papers away in disgust.

  I’m going to have to have a talk with Maurisk. Then she remembered that she couldn’t, not now and probably not ever. As far as Maurisk was concerned, Raesinia had fallen from the Vendre’s walls with a bullet in her skull, dragging the traitor Faro to his death. A whole chapter of her life had ended, almost as though she had died. Rationally, she could agree with Sothe that it was probably for the best. Now that her father was dead and she was under greater scrutiny, sneaking out would be too risky; besides, the conspiracy had served its purpose. The will of the people, expressed through the Deputies-General, would give her the means to rid the country of Orlanko. With Janus as an ally on the Cabinet, she might be able to start putting things right.

  Orlanko still held his trump card, the threat to expose her as demonically possessed. But the very power of that move would make him afraid to use it. Without being able to install himself as regent and thus as a clear successor to the throne, the result could only be chaos, possibly even another civil war. Raesinia’s reign would have to be short, in any case, since eventually the public and the court would become suspicious of their unaging queen. Unless Janus finds a solution in the Thousand Names. But I can’t count on that. She would have to marry someone she trusted to be the kind of king the country needed, the kind her father would have wanted and that her brother would have been. Then Raesinia could “die” with a clean conscience, and after that—something else. She had never allowed herself to think that far in advance.