Priest of Gallows

by Peter McLean

  I wasn’t sure if he was referring to the knighthood or my appointment to the governing council, or perhaps both, but that didn’t matter. What he really meant was, ‘You are senior to me in the Queen’s Men.’

  I nodded in return, and waved him to a seat and offered him the brandy bottle that stood on the table beside my glass.

  ‘To what do I owe this pleasant surprise?’ I asked him as he poured himself a generous measure.

  ‘Oh, I know, I know,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have come uninvited. I should have left a calling card, and all that old-fashioned shit like our parents did, but come on, Piety. Us old soldiers have to stick together, and all that.’

  Like our parents did? We couldn’t have grown up more differently, Bakrylov and me.

  ‘Aye,’ I said. ‘Something like that. It’s not slipped your mind that I’m married and don’t care for men in that way, has it, Major Bakrylov? I wouldn’t want us to have another embarrassing misunderstanding.’

  I still didn’t know if he truly preferred men or if that had just been a clever ruse to distract me from Lan Andronikov’s murder that night, but I supposed that was beside the point.

  ‘Oh, don’t play the fool, man,’ he said, and knocked back his brandy with a flick of the wrist. ‘That was merely a bit of fun; you’re far too old for me anyway. I wondered if you fancied a night out gambling?’

  I blinked at him in surprise. Not at the too old, as I had ten years on him at least, but at the sudden social invitation. There had to be a reason for this, but I couldn’t for the life of me think what it might be.

  The major met my eyes, and I had the distinct sense that there was something he wanted to talk to me about away from anyone else who had anything to do with the family, even my own crew.

  ‘I must admit it’s been a while since I had a game of cards,’ I said at last.

  I confess I prefer dice to cards, common though that might make me, but very early in our marriage Ailsa had informed me that all gentlemen played cards. Dice were for conscripts and criminals, apparently, which was probably why I preferred them, on account of having been both of those things. Still, she had made me learn cards, and I’d found that I had quite the knack for it.

  ‘Oh, do say yes, old boy,’ he said, and I could tell this wasn’t another unwanted advance. There was definitely something he wanted to tell me in the utmost confidence.

  ‘Aye, why not?’

  We went off out together, the major and me with Oliver and Emil along for muscle. Bakrylov took us maybe two or three streets away from the inn to a gaming house he knew. We were breaking curfew, of course we were, but then we were two wealthy gentlemen with bodyguards, and although it would never be admitted in public, it was widely known that curfew truly only applied to the working classes and anyone who might possibly be suspected of supporting the house of magicians. I had the Queen’s Warrant in my pouch, if it came to it, and I suspected that Bakrylov knew that. Either way, our privilege protected us from the City Guard, and we weren’t challenged on the streets.

  The place was called the Jolly Joker, and it was a fine old place indeed. The main room was warmly lit by two blazing fireplaces and numerous lamps and candelabras, and bards played at either end of the long space. The multiple tables were busy with richly dressed clientele with cards in their hands, stacks of wooden counters on the tables in front of them and glasses of wine and brandy set before them. I wondered if this place had belonged to Grachyev, and therefore now to Iagin, and decided that it almost certainly had.

  If Bakrylov wanted to get away from the family he had picked the wrong place, but he obviously wasn’t high up enough in the pecking order of the Queen’s Men to know that. That told me something, in itself.

  We found an empty table and ordered drinks, and although Bakrylov busied his hands shuffling the cards, he seemed in no hurry to deal them. I waited until the serving girl brought us a bottle and glasses, my two men standing impassively behind our chairs. I was sure no one there knew who I was, but Oliver and Emil looked the part between them and it was obvious I was someone, and Bakrylov was clearly a cavalry officer. I suspected most people thought him my guest and not the other way around, but that was well enough. I’ve always found it best, when in an unfamiliar environment, to act like you own the place. It’s truly astonishing how many people fall for that, and ask no questions. Either way we were left alone, and that was good.

  ‘What’s on your mind?’ I asked once the serving girl had left us, gratefully clutching the silver penny I had given her for a tip.

  ‘Perhaps I just wanted your company, old boy,’ Bakrylov said, and raised a teasing eyebrow.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve told you that’s not going to happen, and you’re not a fool. You don’t even want it to happen, for Our Lady’s sake. You’re not here for that, so what is it?’

  He poured brandy for us both and swallowed his, then looked at me across the card table with a truly serious look on his face for probably the first time since I had met him.

  ‘I am a war hero,’ he said, and there was no hint of boast in his voice. Quite the opposite, if anything. ‘I took the west gate at Abingon with barely six hundred men, everyone in the city knows that story. Lord Vogel has made sure of it. I got a fucking medal for it, don’t you know?’

  ‘Aye,’ I said carefully. ‘I know.’

  I knew that story too, everyone did. I had been there, after all, although mercifully in a different regiment. I don’t think I would still be alive to record these memoirs if I had been cavalry. Major Bakrylov had assumed command of his regiment after their colonel fell; he had given them the order to storm the gate. He’d had barely six hundred men after he had taken it, to be sure – when he gave the order to charge, he’d had over three thousand.

  I met the major’s eyes then, and I realised that he had never forgiven himself for that.

  ‘What is it you’re looking for, Bakrylov?’ I asked him. ‘Forgiveness? A priest? Because I’m that, aye, and I’ll hear your confession if that’s what you want to give, but I reckon Our Lady knows your name well enough already. You sent two and a half thousand and more of our countrymen’s souls across the river to Her in the space of barely half an hour, and the gods only know how many of the enemy’s.’

  ‘Bakrylov the Bear, that’s what Vogel called me,’ he said, in a low voice. ‘I was presented with my medal by Her Majesty the Queen herself, but I knew those were Vogel’s words she spoke. And do you know what the common soldiers called me?’

  ‘Aye, I do,’ I said, and in that moment I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. I had kept my peace about it at Vogel’s dinner for political purposes, but I knew this was different now. I looked at him for a moment and I realised that he wanted me to say it. Needed me to say it, perhaps, however much it hurt him. ‘Bakrylov the Butcher.’

  He hurled his brandy glass onto the floor and put his head in his hands, both elbows braced on the card table as he sobbed into his palms. I didn’t really know what to do with that. The war affected all of us who fought, but was I truly expected to comfort Bakrylov the Butcher? I thought him a decent enough fellow, as Dannsburg society people went, but that didn’t mean I could truly see past what he had done in the war.

  ‘I didn’t know what else to do,’ he said after a while, once a footman had come over to reprimand him for the broken glass and Emil had chased him away again with a savage glare that resulted in the serving girl bringing a fresh glass and no more said about it. ‘The colonel was dead, and his last orders had been to take the gate whatever it cost. So I . . . I took the gate. I couldn’t see any other way to do it. I was only following my orders. But Bakrylov the Bear? Fuck off! I didn’t even ride in the charge. I wanted to, but the colonel’s adjutant said I had to stay with the command post, had to . . .’

  He hiccoughed incoherently through his sobs, and I filled the replacement glass and pushed it across the table to him.

  ‘Drink that and pull yourself together, man,
’ I said. ‘People are staring.’

  They were as well. In fact, a man I didn’t know was making his way towards our table even then, a worried look on his face.

  ‘It’s battle shock, isn’t it?’ he said as he approached. ‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m a doctor. I’ve seen this before. Too many times before.’

  I looked up at him. He had somewhere around sixty years to him, with grey whiskers and thinning hair that he combed straight back over his bald spot.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ I asked.

  ‘Doctor Almanov,’ he said. ‘I work at the palace, Sir Tomas. I recognised you, and I felt obliged to help your friend.’

  If you work at the palace and recognise me then you must know fucking well who I am and what I do, I thought, but I didn’t say it. Such were the webs the Queen’s Men spun. Always someone watching, and always someone to watch the watcher.

  ‘My thanks,’ I made myself say instead, and I held my peace while the doctor checked Bakrylov’s pulse and his temperature and did all manner of other things that are no fucking help whatsoever to a man suffering a bout of battle shock. Not much is, save for friends and patience and understanding. Bakrylov seemed to have none of those on hand, and for that I felt sorry for him. The other great helper of course is brandy, which I relied on heavily myself. There at least he was taken care of, in my company.

  ‘It’s all right, Major,’ I said to him eventually, for all that it made my guts clench to do so. ‘Our Lady has heard your confession, and She forgives you your actions. In the end you were only following orders, as you say. In Our Lady’s name.’

  It didn’t have to be fucking true, did it? It just had to sound like I meant it, and if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s sounding like I mean it. That was a large part of why the captain had made me a priest in the first place. Bakrylov put his head on the table and wept, and his shoulders shook as Doctor Almanov met my gaze above the major’s shuddering form.

  ‘What is it you do at the palace, exactly?’ I asked him. ‘I don’t think I recall seeing you there.’

  ‘Oh, I’m quite new to the palace,’ he said, ‘but I came very highly recommended from the Grand Duchess of Varnburg. I’m the Princess Crown Royal’s new personal physician.’

  Very highly recommended. Aye, I was sure he was at that.

  By the Dowager Duchess of Varnburg.

  There couldn’t possibly be anything wrong with that, could there?

  Chapter 45

  It didn’t take very long for the ice to form between Lord Vogel and me, and it didn’t surprise me one little bit when it happened. Vogel summoned me to his office one morning, a few weeks later, and Ailsa and Iagin were already there waiting when I arrived. I had attended three or perhaps four meetings of the governing council by then. I can’t truly remember now but it was only on the days when I really couldn’t get out of it, although after my somewhat conspicuous entrance to the council chamber I had maintained a fairly low profile. Most of the debate had been around the ever-growing civil unrest in the city, and I wanted no part of that. Even so it was enough that I was known, a real councillor like all the others.

  Councillor Lan Drashkov quite publicly hated me, but that was just politics and I didn’t take it personally. He worked for the house of law himself anyway, although I had no idea if he knew that I did. Or even if he knew that he did, for that matter. In truth, I doubted it. Many of the recipients of our bribes and blackmail had no idea where they really came from.

  I had become casually close with Councillor Markova over the last few weeks, and we had enjoyed spending some social time dining together outside the council chambers, discussing matters of policy and our shared interest in the ownership of racehorses. She understood the technicalities of horse breeding, which was more than I did, and I learned a lot from her. In truth I liked the woman.

  Such only served to make Lan Drashkov hate the both of us even more, of course, and that in turn ensured we both voted against any motion he put before the council, however sensible it might be. The only time all three of us voted the same way had been when my motion to rebuild the city walls was put before the council, and I knew fucking well that was Vogel’s doing. The motion passed, of course, as at least two thirds of the council were to some degree in the pay of the house of law by then. I had received a very handsome gift from the guild of masons for my proposal and their subsequent contract, which swelled my coffers nicely. I could only imagine how much more handsome Lord Vogel’s had been, for making sure it got voted through. That was how government worked, in those times we lived in.

  The whole system was fucking ridiculous, I realised, and could never work. Lady’s Grace, it wasn’t supposed to work. That was the whole point of it. The governing council was the stranglehold the house of law maintained over the country, a veneer of democracy that ensured nothing could ever get decided that the house of law didn’t want to be decided.

  I stepped into Lord Vogel’s office and gave him a short bow.

  ‘What can I do for you, Provost Marshal?’ I asked him.

  He gave me a look then, and for a moment I wondered if perhaps I had overstepped the mark, but I thought fuck it.

  I had phrased the question as though I was considering doing him a favour rather than preparing to receive his orders, and I knew that wouldn’t be lost on him. That was the first feint in my long, drawn-out fencing match with Dieter Vogel, and I will record it here as the point at which things began to change between us.

  I was beginning to dig my heels in even then. I may not be an educated man but I like to think that I’m not a fool, either. There’s another thing that has to be understood about me too: I will not be bullied.

  Not fucking ever.

  Not since my da, never again. Back down to a bully once and you’ll never stop doing it, my da had taught me that well enough. Never again. Vogel intimidated people for a fucking living. As Our Lady is my witness I will admit that he had intimidated me, to begin with, but I was done with that now. He was just a man the same as any other, and fuck how important he thought he was. I wasn’t having it, not from anyone.

  Powerful people have power over you only for as long as you believe that they do. Then the day comes when you realise that they are just people, and everyone can die the same way. In a world where you can do absolutely anything, why would you fear anyone? Your only restraint is your own conscience, and I didn’t really have one of those. That was the bit I was missing, after all.

  No, I was done.

  I was done with it all, but I knew I would have to play Vogel’s game for a while yet before I could begin to extricate myself from the web of the Queen’s Men.

  ‘How good of you to ask, Tomas,’ Vogel said, and the frozen razorblade of his smile was the coldest I think I had ever seen it. ‘If it would suit you, I would very much like to make you the second most powerful man in the country.’

  That threw me, I had to allow. I blinked and looked at him, and still his soulless eyes bored into mine.

  ‘If that suits you, of course,’ he said.

  ‘You want me to . . .’

  ‘Remove First Councillor Aleksander Lan Letskov and assume his place as presiding head of the governing council, yes,’ Vogel said.

  ‘You want me to arrest him, or . . . not?’

  ‘What in the gods’ names for?’ Vogel snapped, and in that moment he was the Provost Marshal again. ‘He disappears, and you are voted presiding head of the council. That will be expensive, but it can be taken care of easily enough. This isn’t difficult, Tomas.’

  ‘I would be most grateful if you did, Tomas,’ Ailsa said.

  You know he thinks he’s in love with you.

  Aye, I dare say Ailsa would be glad to see the back of Aleksander Lan Letskov every bit as much as Lord Vogel would, albeit for completely different reasons.

  The man had done nothing to me, save to probably try to fuck my wife. Which was more than I had ever done, I had to admit. I paused for a moment and massa
ged the bridge of my nose between finger and thumb. Me, the First Councillor? It was ridiculous. I had only been on the governing council for a matter of weeks, for Our Lady’s sake, but of course that didn’t matter. I was officially a member, and any member of the council could be elected to the podium by a majority vote of their peers. With two-thirds or more of them taking the house of law’s coin they would vote the way they were told to, and he had more than enough support to carry the vote in a landslide. I could be the presiding head of the governing council within weeks. The second most powerful man in the country, as Vogel said.

  I supposed there could be worse outcomes.

  Respect, power, authority. Those are the levers that move me.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  Vogel stared at me, and that stare could have frozen a cannon mid-fire.

  ‘No?’ he said.

  ‘Let Markova have it. She’s one of ours, isn’t she? She’s welcome to it, and with my blessing. I’m more use to you out on the streets than I would be stuck in the council chamber every day, and Markova will make a much better job of it than I would. I’ll get rid of Lan Letskov for you, but I’m not going to waste my time heading the governing council. That’s a job for a career bureaucrat, not a soldier.’

  He was a subtle and clever man, was Dieter Vogel. He was much cleverer than me, I have no doubt, but in this he had fucked up, and he had fucked up very badly.

  If there’s one thing I truly understand, it’s how to move people. The first thing I do upon meeting someone new of any importance is to work out their levers, and it seemed that Vogel thought the same. Find the levers that move a person and you can make them do anything, and to his credit he had found mine. However, the thing that has to be understood is that I had been doing this for so long that I knew when I was being moved in turn. Being bullied. I could feel my levers being pulled, and I wasn’t having it.

  Oh, no, not one little bit I was not.

  This cunt thought he knew me, and he thought he could buy me with promises of power and influence that would keep me out from under his feet and away from the things he didn’t want me looking at, and he was wrong on both counts.