The Shadow Throne: Book Two of the Shadow Campaigns

by Wexler, Django

  And it wasn’t going to work. She couldn’t make it work. As she went on, the deputies kept watching, but she could feel the attention of the crowd wandering. Danton could have fired those words with the force of cannonballs, sent them flying out to smash everyone in the square right between the eyes and leave them dumb in wonder. Her father in his prime, though no Danton, could still have made the flagstones ring with lofty sentiments. But coming from her own lips, the words sounded weak, uncertain, pedantic. She closed her eyes for a moment, still speaking, trying to hold back tears of frustration.

  We worked so long for this moment. I pushed them into it—Ben, Danton, Faro, all the rest. To get me here. And it isn’t working. She took a deep breath, and began the peroration.

  “When the people of Vordan once again called for the Deputies-General, Duke Orlanko and his allies saw it as a crime, an inducement to revolution. But how can that be? The people are sovereign. We rule in their name. How can a ruler revolt against himself? How can a call for the ancient representatives of the people be anything but the exercise of a God-given right?

  “This is why I come before you today, as Queen of Vordan, in the humble acceptance of the right of the people to express their will through their gathered representatives . . .”

  Something was happening, out at the south end of the square. The crowd swirled, some moving toward the disturbance, others fighting to get away. Raesinia could hear cheers, shouts, even screams, but nothing that made any sense. She trailed off, shading her eyes to see what was going on, and caught the glitter of steel.

  Saints and martyrs. Are we under attack? She looked over her shoulder at Janus. He was standing at the back of the platform, in the shadow of the statue, looking down at his pocket watch. After a moment, he snapped it closed and looked up.

  “Your Majesty,” he said, “your timing is impeccable.”

  The crowd was parting, drawing back, but the cheers started to outnumber the shouts of alarm. Men in blue uniforms, a thousand strong, marched in a battalion column across the square. There was another column behind them, and another behind that, and between them came the great gray shapes of guns and their caissons. At their head snapped the Vordanai flag, silver eagle brilliant on a royal blue field, and beside it the battle flag of the First Colonial Infantry.

  When the first rank reached the center of the square, just below the podium, the column halted. At a shout from their officers, a thousand men slammed the butts of their muskets against the flagstones of the square with an almighty clatter, then brought their free hands up to salute. A thousand voices spoke at once.

  “God grace the queen!” they chorused, in the ancient formula. “And Karis’ favor protect her!”

  Janus smiled, just for a moment, and gestured at the crowd. Raesinia spun around and stepped to the edge of the platform, shouting the last lines of her speech.

  “I, for one, do not plan to surrender these sovereign rights without a fight! Will you join me?” Looking down at the soldiers, she spread her arms and added, “Will you join us?”

  The people began to shout. Here and there, she could distinguish a few words—“God grace Vordan!” or “God grace the queen!” The noise of the crowd grew and grew, from a murmur to a tumult to a full-throated roar that shook the square, rattling the windows in the shops and startling the pigeons from the rooftops. The soldiers joined in, until it seemed that the noise would shake the great podium to pieces. Raesinia closed her eyes and risked a smile.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  WINTER

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to join up.”

  “You never will. You’re saying it, but you won’t.”

  “I will!”

  “Last time you told me there was no point going off to die for some nob.”

  “Yeah, but that was last time. This time it’s Vhalnich.”

  “He ain’t a nob?”

  “He knows what he’s doing, is all. And he’s got some real troops to help. First Colonials, they said. You heard what they did in Khandar?”

  “I heard a lot of things. That don’t make ’em true.”

  “And you don’t want Orlanko back here, either, with his goddamned Sworn Church and his Borel tax farmers.”

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  “Besides, think about it. This time next week, a man in a blue uniform won’t be able to buy his own drinks. And the girls—”

  “Yeah, but you gotta be alive to enjoy it.”

  Winter, hands in her pockets, walked beside the pair of youths until they turned off onto a side street. She’d heard that conversation, or one very much like it, at least a dozen times since she left the cathedral.

  The deputies had retreated from the cheering mob to the cathedral’s great hall, locked in furious argument. The carefully negotiated alliances of the past week had all gone out the window, as though Janus’ speech and the arrival of the Colonials had upset the checkerboard and spilled all the pieces on the floor. And, in a way, it had. Royal Army troops were in Vordan City for the first time in living memory, and that tipped the balance of power decisively in favor of the man who held their loyalty.

  Radical, Monarchist, and Center split into a dozen competing bands. Some cheered Janus on, while others wanted to send a delegation to take command of the regiment and make sure it couldn’t be used against the deputies. Still others argued against doing anything rash, or anything at all, for fear of provoking Janus before Orlanko was dealt with. Some argued that a true constitution needed to be written, clarifying the queen’s position, before any action could be taken.

  Maurisk alternately sat in silence and shouted, soothing the worried and beating back the more ludicrous proposals. Eventually he convinced the deputies to pass a resolution of support for Janus and the Colonials, which expressed, in a general way, their hopes that he would defeat Orlanko but didn’t say anything terribly specific about what would happen afterward. Satisfied with this noneffort, the Deputies-General dissolved for the evening.

  Winter had hired a carriage to take her to the Docks, but had been forced to abandon it after crossing the Grand Span. The streets were full of people, as if the passage of the Colonials had been a magic signal to come out of hiding. Everywhere torches were burning, men and women were talking and laughing, and children played in the streets and shouted with joy at the unexpected festival.

  As she threaded her way through the crowd, Winter learned that there were more reasons for cheer than just the arrival of her old regiment. The Colonials had marched up the Green Road from the south, and they’d brought with them a considerable tail of carts and wagons. These belonged to the farmers and merchants of the area, who’d been frightened off from bringing their produce to the city by rumors of fighting. They’d flocked to the familiar blue uniforms, evidence that authority was being reasserted, and followed the Colonials to sell their wares. The road to the north was still closed, but this influx had helped to fill the food shortage and bring prices to more reasonable levels. Winter saw fresh vegetables, early apples by the barrelful, bushels of corn and sides of bacon, and the whole city seemed full of the smell of baking bread.

  Jane’s building looked like a castle just after the siege is lifted. The front doors were open, and people streamed in and out. Some of the injured were leaving, in the company of family and friends, and Winter witnessed a couple of emotional family reunions. A few Leatherbacks and some of Jane’s girls were about, but they weren’t going armed anymore.

  Winter headed up to the big dining room, following the roars of laughter and the smell of food. A feast was in progress, and she entered to find the room in pandemonium. There were easily twice as many girls crammed into the hall as could actually fit around the tables, and all the chairs had been pushed out of the way. The guests ate with their fingers from a vast bounty: huge loaves of bread, roast chickens, hams and gravy, bowls of apples and berries.
Nothing complicated, Winter noted with a faint smile. Nellie tries her best.

  Jane sat at the high table like a king in a medieval court, surrounded by her lieutenants, exchanging shouted jokes with girls at other tables and roaring with laughter. Rather than fight her way across the room, Winter slipped around the edge, finding a table in the corner where the press of young women was not quite so solid. There was even an empty chair. She sat down and leaned back, just watching Jane, drinking in the sheer laughing wild life of her. Her hair was growing out, Winter thought, red spikes changing into a tousled mop that hung forward over her eyes and made her look younger.

  No one took any notice of her, which was fine. She helped herself to an apple and half a roast chicken, pulling the bird apart with her fingers and licking them clean of the grease. She was vaguely aware of a conversation going on across the table from her, but it was only after she recognized Becks that she started to pay attention.

  “—Jane would never let us!” Becks was saying.

  “Not us,” Molly said. “The older girls would go.”

  “What use is that?” said Andy. “I want to go. Able Tom says he’s going to go, and he’s only fifteen. I lifted a water barrel when he couldn’t do it, and I beat him in a race.”

  “Vhalnich won’t want the likes of Able Tom, either,” Nell said. “He wants men, he said. Little boys don’t carry muskets, and neither do girls.”

  “I could, I bet,” Andy said. “And Becks wants to.”

  “I never said I wanted to,” Becks said. “I just said we ought to. Nobody wants to go fight, but it’s our duty as Vordanai.”

  “Do you think Jane will go?” Molly said. “Vhalnich would have to take her.”

  “He’d be stupid not to,” Andy said. “Or Jess or Nina, or any of the older girls. They fought the tax farmers for a year. I’m sure they could fight Duke Orlanko.”

  “The other soldiers would never put up with it,” Nell said, a bit huffily. “Girls can’t be soldiers, I told you.”

  “Why not?” said Andy.

  “They just can’t!”

  They just can’t. Winter shook her head. That ought to be a good enough answer for anybody. It ought to be a good enough answer for me.

  Big clay mugs of beer were circling, for anyone who wanted a swallow. Winter took a few gulps of the warm, thin stuff and sent it on its way. More girls scurried in, bringing more food and clearing away the remains. The air was hot and thick with the mixed smells of cooking and hundreds of unwashed bodies, leavened with smoke from the torches. It ought to have been choking and claustrophobic, but Winter felt comforted instead, as though the laughter and smell were wrapped around her like a warm blanket on a cold night. Someone was playing a fiddle, very badly.

  “Winter, can I talk to you for a minute?”

  She looked up. Abby was standing beside her table, shoulders hunched, arms crossed over her chest. She looked pale in the torchlight. Winter was still not entirely comfortable in Abby’s company, but the room was too crowded to escape. She forced a smile and looked up with a noncommittal shrug. “Go ahead.”

  “Somewhere a little quieter.”

  With a last glance at Jane, Winter sighed and got to her feet. She followed Abby through the crowd and out into the corridor. Abby ducked through the first open doorway, which led into a small room with a half dozen bedrolls spread out on the floor. They were all empty now, and the candles were out. Only a little of the distant light from the torches in the main hall seeped in to break up the shadows.

  “What were you doing there?” Abby said.

  “Getting something to eat,” Winter said, defensively. “Nobody stopped me.”

  “Not that,” Abby said. She hugged herself tighter. “She’s been waiting for you all night. Why haven’t you gone to see her?”

  “She looked happy. I didn’t want to intrude.”

  “She won’t really be happy unless you’re there.” Abby sighed. “Sometimes I’m not sure you understand how much you mean to her.”

  “I do,” Winter said. I think I do. “Abby, what’s wrong?”

  “I haven’t heard from my father,” Abby said. “He’s not at the house. He probably left the city after the queen surrendered, or went to stay with a friend, but . . . I don’t know.”

  “If you’re worried about him, find Captain d’Ivoire,” Winter said. “He may know where to look.”

  Abby nodded. She was barely a shadowed outline in the dark, her eyes invisible. “But I can’t leave. Not yet. I need to look after Jane.”

  “You need to start trusting her a little more,” Winter said. “Jane can take care of herself, if anyone can.”

  “You saw her the other day,” Abby said quietly. “She can take care of herself. The problem is that she tries to take care of everyone else, too.”

  “I know.” Winter shook her head. “I’ll look out for Jane.”

  “You won’t let her do anything . . .”

  “Stupid?”

  Abby gave a weak chuckle.

  “I’ll do my best,” Winter said. “Go and find your father. Or better yet, get some sleep. I only met your father briefly, but he struck me as being able to take care of himself, too.”

  “Thank you.” Abby paused. “And thank you for helping Jane. I don’t know all of what the two of you did, but all this . . .”

  Winter held up her hands. “I only gave her a bit of advice. Jane and Janus did the rest.”

  Abby nodded, tiredly. She took a step toward the door, then halted. “What happens if we win?”

  “What?”

  “Suppose Vhalnich beats Orlanko. Then what? What happens to Jane and the rest of us here?”

  “Why should anything happen?”

  “I don’t know,” Abby said. “But I feel like it can’t go back to normal, after this. What are you going to do?”

  Winter shrugged uncomfortably. Damned if I know. “I’ll figure that out when I get there.”

  Abby regarded her for a moment, a tiny gleam of light reflecting in her eyes. Then she swept out, leaving Winter alone in the darkness.

  Winter didn’t want to fight her way through the frantic, happy crowd in the hall, but she remembered seeing girls come in with fresh dishes from a door just behind where Jane had been sitting. She went in search of the kitchens and eventually found them by following the clatter of crockery. A half dozen girls were giggling together over an open bottle of wine. They looked up as Winter came in, but she ignored them. She found the door she wanted and eased it open.

  The bad fiddler had been joined by a bad piper, who from the sound of it was playing an instrument she’d carved herself. The crowd clapped its hands to keep the beat, and as Winter came forward she saw that Chris had led some of the girls up on the tables and started to dance, heedless of the occasional chicken or bowl of berries that got kicked out of the way. Jane stood between Becca and Winn, clapping as loudly as anyone, and nearly doubling over with laughter when Chris stepped right off the end of the table and toppled into a sea of welcoming hands.

  Winter stepped up and touched her on the arm. Jane looked over her shoulder, then spun around, grinning madly.

  “Winter! When did you finally turn up?”

  “Just now,” Winter said. As the other girls began to turn to look at them, she grabbed Jane’s hand. “Come with me.”

  —

  There is a law of nature—one that Winter had previously been unaware of, but now instinctively sensed—that says that the more comfortable one is, lying beside one’s lover with limbs entwined under a sweaty sheet, the more certain it is that one will eventually need to use the toilet. Winter held off as long as she could, but eventually she was forced to roll out of the big bed and pad across the chilly floor, navigating by moonlight.

  When she returned, Jane had kicked off the sheet and lay on her back, hands crossed behi
nd her head. She was gloriously naked, dappled in silver and shadow by the moonlight, and Winter stopped for a moment at the foot of the bed to stare at her in wonder.

  Jane tilted her head. “Is something wrong?”

  Winter clambered up on the foot of the bed and crawled up beside Jane, pressing up against her. Jane put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in for a kiss, and Winter closed her eyes. After a moment, though, Jane pulled back.

  “Something is wrong,” Jane said. “Winter, please. What’s going on?”

  The knot in Winter’s chest, so recently dissolved, tied itself tighter than ever. She swallowed hard. “Obviously you heard . . . what happened in the Triumph, this morning?”

  “Of course I heard,” Jane said. “Nobody talks about anything else. Vhalnich called for volunteers, and then the Colonials marched in—”

  She stopped. Winter squeezed her eyes shut, as though expecting a blow.

  “You’re going back, aren’t you?” Jane said.

  Winter nodded, her face pressed up against Jane’s shoulder. Tears were stinging her eyes.

  “You don’t have to,” Jane said, after a moment. “You know that, whatever Vhalnich says. You can stay here with me.”

  “There’s more to it than that.” Winter wanted, for a moment, to tell Jane about the Infernivore and everything that had happened in Khandar, but she quashed the impulse. She’d only think I’m crazy. “I have friends there. More than friends. The men in my company . . . I have a responsibility.” Winter opened her eyes. “You ought to understand that.”

  There was a long silence.

  “I do,” Jane said. “At least, I think I do. But . . . what happens afterward? If we win. Will you come back here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You have to come back.” Jane sat up, looking down at Winter. She sounded almost panicked. “Winter, please. You have to. I lost you once, and by all the fucking saints I’m never doing it again. Please. Promise me.”