Priest of Gallows

by Peter McLean

I thought of the Guard of the Magi with their plate armour and great helms, their halberds and heavy war swords.

  ‘How many of the populace died?’ I asked him.

  He frowned. ‘I didn’t see a final body count,’ he admitted after a moment. ‘Twenty, maybe. I don’t know.’

  I swallowed my brandy and poured another. Vogel spent the lives of the common folk like copper pennies to get to his enemies in the house of magicians, and he seemed to think nothing of it.

  ‘And the Skanian merchants still in the city, and their families?’

  ‘Four lynchings so far, that I know of. Seven shops burned down. Most of them have already fled the city walls, although where they’ll go is anyone’s guess. Their only ships back home sail from Varnburg, and they won’t be welcome at the city gates there.’

  I sighed and turned to look at him. They would starve outside the walls of Varnburg, we both knew that. It seemed Lord Vogel had reached some sort of accord with the Dowager Duchess, and a messenger had already been sent to her city’s governor with orders to admit no Skanian refugees nor accept their ships into her harbour. Iagin’s face was composed, his heavy moustache unruffled, but there was something in his face that made me think perhaps he was troubled by what we were doing. The lines seemed deeper around his unblinking blue eyes, the creases more pronounced on his broad forehead.

  ‘I saw Sabine in the crowd, that first day, urging them on,’ I said. ‘She’s good at this sort of thing.’

  ‘Aye, that she is,’ Iagin said, and swallowed his brandy. ‘Mother Ruin. I’m going back to my office, I’ve got work to do.’

  He was halfway to the door when I spoke.

  ‘Iagin,’ I said, and he stopped and turned to look at me.

  ‘What?’

  He looked irritated now, and I thought better of it.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Let me know if you need any help.’

  ‘I’ve got this under control,’ he said, and clumped off down the corridor.

  Too soon, I told myself, and immediately wondered for what. What exactly was I thinking?

  There are factions, Tomas, even within the Queen’s Men.

  Ailsa had told me that the previous year, and I still wasn’t sure what she had meant by it, but I thought Iagin had the makings of an ally should I ever need one. The three of us, I thought, might stand against Ilse and Konrad and Sabine if it came to it.

  If it comes to what, you fucking fool?

  I pinched the bridge of my nose between finger and thumb and let out a long sigh. This world of intrigues wasn’t my natural environment. I was a soldier and businessman, for Our Lady’s sake. Politics was a foreign country to me, and I would have been quite happy for it to stay that way, but it seemed that wasn’t going to be the case.

  Rosie had told me that morning that I had a social engagement to attend at the palace tomorrow. A formal introduction, she had called it, one that had to be witnessed by as much of Dannsburg high society as possible. Apparently that included me, ridiculous though that felt, but then I supposed I was a knight now. I was a knight, and more to the point I was a Queen’s Man. A proper one now, not just some poor fool Ailsa had given a battlefield promotion to when we had both half expected to die the next day. No, I was in the life for true now, and it was well known that the only way to leave the service of the Rose Throne was in death.

  So, a formal introduction it was, the beginning of one of the slow social dances that could put arses on thrones in the fullness of time. The young Grand Duke of Varnburg was to be introduced to the Princess Crown Royal as a suitor, with a view to betrothal, and I was to be there to witness it.

  *

  ‘I have reached an accommodation with the Dowager Duchess of Varnburg,’ Lord Vogel told me quietly the next morning as we waited together in an anteroom at the palace, surrounded by the glittering heights of Dannsburg society.

  I had thought as much. I recognised Lady Lan Yetrov, away in the crowd and glittering with diamonds, but I didn’t approach her. I wasn’t sure that she would want to see me again after the night I had fed her husband to his pet bear, despite the fact that I had set her free from years of violent domestic abuse in doing so. Perhaps she would remember that, and count me as a friend, but perhaps not. You never could tell, in Dannsburg.

  ‘Aye, so I see,’ I said. ‘You suggest that her boy could sit on the Prince Consort’s throne, and she promises to make no trouble over her husband’s unfortunate death nor give refuge to the Skanians in Varnburg, is that the lay of things?’

  Vogel showed me the razor edge of his smile, and said nothing.

  Could and might and possibly, such were the promises of the Queen’s Men.

  I admired the duchess, for all that I didn’t know her or much care for her. She had been very quick to make the best of a bad situation, after all. She had seen the way the wind was blowing, and knowing it was futile to fight an impossible battle, she had reached the best agreement she could in order to not only protect her son and the future of the House of Varnburg, but actually advance their prospects while she was about it. She would have made a ferocious businesswoman.

  We were eventually admitted to what I supposed you would call an informal drawing room, a great tapestried space full of gilded chairs with red velvet upholstery and pointless little tables that were too low to use for anything useful. I had brought Billy along for the experience, although he looked very bored. That couldn’t be helped. If he was to grow up to become a gentleman he needed to become accustomed to society life, and where better to start than at the top?

  Footmen circulated with trays of wine and brandy, for all that it was not yet noon, but it seemed events for children were not to be held in the evening. The Grand Duke of Varnburg, young Marcus, fidgeted nervously behind his mother’s skirts as they waited in front of the huge fireplace. Billy waved at him and Marcus smiled shyly, but made no move to come and speak to him. I strongly suspected his mother had forbidden him from seeing Billy since the events at the inn, no doubt having judged him too dangerous for her precious son to mix with.

  There had been muttered talk of witchcraft among the duchess’ men during the last few tense days of our journey, and although no accusations had actually been brought, it was clear that Billy was strongly out of favour. That was a great shame, as I had seen obvious possibilities in my son being friends with the young Grand Duke, but it seemed Billy had thrown that into the shithouse when he burned that inn down. I tried not to take ill against him for it, reminding myself that he was young and inexperienced and foolish in the way of lads that age. It was my fault, I reminded myself yet again, not his. I sighed, and looked around the room.

  The Dowager Duchess herself was wearing all black, severe mourning clothes as would only be expected after her husband’s recent passing. Her son, however, had been presented in something resembling a dress uniform, complete with a crimson sash across his tightly fitted black jacket. It was ridiculous; he barely had ten years to him, after all.

  ‘Who dreams this shit up?’ Iagin muttered as he joined us, a glass of morning brandy in his hand.

  ‘You, usually,’ Vogel said, and that was the closest to a jest I think I ever heard him utter.

  I coughed into my fist and held my peace, and a moment later I was rescued by the arrival of the Princess Crown Royal’s entourage.

  She was preceded into the room by a trio of heralds, who blew the first few bars of the national anthem through their curled brass horns, then three burly nuns and two black-garbed men, who I took to be tutors. Then came the Prince Regent with his daughter on his arm, and behind them came Ailsa.

  I had barely seen her since my return from Varnburg, and once more I was struck by how truly beautiful she was. The time of mourning for the queen’s death had begun to be gradually relaxed while I had been away from the city, and she wore a gown of shimmering green Alarian silk that made her look like some sea goddess from a distant shore.

  Fool, fool, I thought, but those were the fact
s of how I felt and nothing I thought could change them.

  ‘It’s Mama!’ Billy whispered, and I had to put a hand on his arm to stop him running to her and causing a spectacle in front of half the court.

  The Princess Crown Royal herself looked much as I remembered her, a tiny porcelain doll dressed up as a woman in a dark silk gown. Her eyes were wide with the drugs that coursed through her, but she allowed herself to be led forward by her father until she was standing before the young Grand Duke and his formidable mother.

  He bowed deeply, as he had no doubt been coached to do, and in turn the Dowager Duchess dropped a low curtsey. The princess herself smiled at them both, and said nothing. Her face looked blank, vacant, as though she had absolutely no idea where she was or why she was there. I dare say she hadn’t, at that.

  Ailsa leaned past the Prince Regent to whisper something in her ear, and after a moment she dipped a tiny curtsey of respect to her potential future husband.

  ‘Your Grace,’ she said, enunciating the words extremely carefully like an adult who was very, very drunk and trying hard to hide it. ‘It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.’

  ‘Highness,’ the boy said, repeating words obviously much rehearsed under his mother’s critical eye. ‘You are every bit as beautiful as I had been told.’

  ‘It hurts,’ she said, quietly but unfortunately still loud enough to be heard by the whole room. ‘Beauty is pain, Your Grace, and pain is beauty.’

  Little Marcus looked up at his mother in obvious confusion.

  They were off-script already, and the poor lad clearly had no idea what to say in response to that.

  ‘Such is the curse of womanhood,’ Ailsa said smoothly. ‘One becomes accustomed to it, Highness, in time. All ladies do.’

  ‘Yes, precisely,’ the duchess said, but I could see her looking murder at Ailsa for all of that.

  The Prince Regent cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable with this women’s talk that he couldn’t possibly understand.

  ‘Come, young Marcus,’ he said, ‘walk with me. If you wish to court my daughter we should get to know each other, what? Tell me, do you enjoy country pursuits? When I was your age I had a magnificent falcon which . . .’

  They passed out of my hearing. I couldn’t imagine the poor lad wished anything less than to court the Princess Crown Royal, but at his mother’s urging he allowed himself to be swept off by the Prince Regent and two of the tutors.

  ‘The tutors are ours,’ Vogel murmured at my side. ‘He won’t say anything too stupid.’

  ‘Such as, “Don’t fucking do it, you idiot child”,’ Iagin whispered, and I almost snorted brandy out of my nose. I didn’t think Vogel had heard him.

  I fucking hoped he hadn’t, anyway.

  There was definitely something going on, even then.

  There are factions, Tomas.

  I put that from my mind and returned my attention to Ailsa. She was talking to the duchess, obviously treating her as a social equal. That was interesting in itself, that the inexplicably knighted daughter of an immigrant Alarian merchant of no noble heritage whatsoever should be so accepted by a grand duchess, but again this spoke of how the hierarchy worked in Dannsburg. There was the aristocracy, yes, with all its traditions of peerage and titles and orders of succession.

  And then there were the Queen’s Men.

  It’s a thing that has to be understood, a thing that I have written of before, that we don’t officially exist. The Queen’s Men are a fiction, a fairy tale to frighten little children with. Do what your father says or the Queen’s Men will take you away.

  Except we’re not. We are very real indeed, and everyone who matters in Dannsburg knows that. The Dowager Duchess of Varnburg knew that very well indeed, I could tell.

  Soldiers will come from Dannsburg.

  I could see then that she knew exactly who Ailsa was, and what game she was playing. She knew the rules, I think, did the duchess, and she knew how the game was played.

  ‘Talk to her,’ Vogel murmured in my ear. ‘Nothing threatening. Just remind her that you are here too.’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ I had to reply, and I made my way through the crowd towards them with a fresh brandy in my hand and Billy clinging to my side.

  Ailsa saw me coming and welcomed me with a smile that I wish I could have believed.

  ‘Your Grace, may I present my husband, Sir Tomas, and our son,’ she said, as she reached out and took Billy’s hand in hers.

  The Dowager Duchess looked at me and Billy like one might look at a dog that had just shat on her finest Alarian carpet.

  ‘We’ve met,’ she said coldly.

  I gave her a short bow, the bow one gave to a social equal. I was beginning to learn how to play this game, and may Our Lady forgive me for that. That would have been a staggering insult from anyone else of my social standing, a mere knight, but I knew I could get away with it, and truth be told, I revelled in that knowledge. She knew that I carried the warrant, and that changed everything. I had shown her that in the Sea Keep, and there was nothing she could do about it, however much it humiliated her.

  The fact that I was a mere knight still made my head spin. I was the son of a bricklayer from the Stink in Ellinburg, for Our Lady’s sake. Knighthood was not something that would ordinarily have ever been remotely within my grasp, and yet now I was important enough to insult the Grand Duchess of Varnburg and get away with it?

  Look at me, Ma. What do you think of this?

  She would have boxed my ears and no mistake. Deliberately humiliating a grand lady? Oh, I knew very well what my ma would have thought of that and it wouldn’t have been anything good, but I had my reasons.

  ‘Lady Varnburg,’ I said. ‘I trust you and your men have settled well into the city?’

  I haven’t forgotten your fifty guardsmen, that was what I was telling her. She knew too that it was in my power to summon enough of the army to exterminate her fifty guardsmen in a single night should I choose to do so. The Queen’s Men are not to be taken lightly, and it is our duty to remind the aristocracy of that every chance we get. The equilibrium is a delicate thing, after all, and we must always make sure the scales weigh on our side. All the same, that had been ill done of me and I knew it, but sometimes that was how things worked. That was how the nation managed its balance of power, and I had come to understand that.

  ‘Well enough, Sir Tomas,’ she said. ‘Dannsburg is much as I remember it, but it will be forever the city where my beloved husband died.’

  ‘Aye, my condolences for your loss once again,’ I said. ‘Although, all being well, it may also become the city in which your son becomes the Prince Consort of the Rose Throne.’

  ‘Mmmm,’ she said, and looked pointedly from me to Ailsa and back again. ‘And whose decision would that be, may I ask?’

  ‘The Princess Crown Royal is an independent young woman,’ Ailsa said. ‘Headstrong, as girls that age often are. We can but pray to the gods that your son retains her favour.’

  Pray to the Queen’s Men that you retain our favour, she was saying. That message was plain enough.

  The Queen’s Men all but ruled Dannsburg in those days, and from the look on the Dowager Duchess’ face I could see that she knew it too. She nodded slowly, and raised her untouched glass of wine to Ailsa.

  ‘I do so pray,’ she was forced to say.

  Chapter 34

  The next morning saw me in the Prince Regent’s private chambers with Ailsa and Lord Vogel. The atmosphere in the formal drawing room was strained, to speak lightly of it.

  ‘I don’t like it, Vogel,’ the prince said, stalking back and forth in front of the fireplace while the four guards stationed against the walls looked on impassively.

  I still wasn’t sure that he had grasped that they weren’t there for his protection, but ours. Not protection from him, as such, as he was about as threatening as a drunken weasel, but from who he might see and what he might say to them. It had been them who had prevented the elder
Grand Duke of Varnburg from visiting him during his period of official house arrest, after all. He was still under tacit house arrest even now, I supposed, although I doubted he was possessed of enough imagination to grasp that either.

  ‘What is it that you don’t like, Highness?’ Vogel asked.

  I could sense the thin veneer of respect covering the razorblades of his personality, and wondered just how thin it had grown.

  ‘He’s nearly three years her junior, and only a grand duke of our own country. Couldn’t we at least have managed a crown prince, secured a foreign alliance somewhere?’

  ‘No,’ Vogel said coldly. ‘We couldn’t. Your daughter is . . . not easily sold.’

  ‘Sold?’ the Prince Regent shouted, and he rounded on Vogel with a look of fury on his face. ‘No one is selling my daughter!’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so naïve,’ Vogel said. ‘What exactly do you think a political marriage is? Your daughter either marries upwards, to a crown prince destined to be a king who will take her as his queen in some foreign land where you will probably never see her again and quite possibly end up at war with her in a few years’ time, or she marries down to a duke who will become her prince consort when she assumes her mother’s throne in her own right. The line of waiting foreign crown princes is vanishingly short to the point of non-existence. We only have Varnburg because he is barely ten years old and his mother is desperate to hold onto her seat, but his duchy is exceptionally wealthy. Be thankful, Highness, that we have this. It will play well to the populace, at least, and do the royal treasury a world of good that it sorely needs.’

  ‘Young love,’ I said, Billy and Mina in my mind as I thought aloud. ‘It always plays well. Everyone likes the ideal of it. A princess and a grand duke, betrothed as children, rising to rule the nation together. It’s like something from the stories, from the theatre. The people will accept it. The people will love it, in truth.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Vogel said.

  ‘Highness,’ Ailsa said, and she smiled in that way she had that always seemed to get through to him. ‘You were the son of the Grand Duke of Drathburg, as I recall. The second son. When your father and elder brother both fell at Krathzgrad . . . yes, well. You became the heir. You inherited everything.’