Servant of the Crown

by Duncan M. Hamilton

  “Are you all right?” he said.

  “Fine,” she said. “A little tired, but that’s to be expected.”

  Gill looked into the tunnel and saw a large oval hole in the metal plate; the edges were melted and smeared like warm butter. A stream of hardened metal on the ground looked like it had been flowing toward the entrance to the passageway, but had cooled back to solid before it had gotten far.

  “Impressive,” Gill said, stepping forward. As he approached the former barrier, he could feel the heat of the metal, which he reckoned was still enough to fry an egg. He stepped through, careful not to make contact with any of it; he knew it would burn through his clothes and sear his flesh.

  The far side of the shaft bore all the hallmarks of somewhere that no one had been for many years. It was cold, dark, and damp, filled with cobwebs and the sound of dripping water. The thought popped into his head that it must make Pharadon feel right at home. In the next instant, he felt ashamed of the idea. He still had trouble separating the enlightened dragon from his more savage brethren, and from Gill’s own preconceptions.

  “It’s safe to come through,” he said.

  Dal Ruisseau Noir lit a narrow-beam lamp and shone it up the passage. “Looks to be clear the whole way up. Let’s get moving.”

  They all knew what they had to do, and now that they were getting closer to the palace, silence was essential. They discarded the oilskins they had worn on the fishing boat to complete their first disguise, revealing their second—the palace’s service livery of white with gold embroidery.

  They moved off at a brisk pace. Gill felt naked without a sword strapped to his waist, but there was a balance to be struck between getting into the palace without drawing attention to themselves, and being able to handle a fight. Dal Ruisseau Noir assured him that their operative in the palace had left a stash of weapons for them near their objectives. Gill thought it an empty gesture. If they found themselves in need, it would be too late to seek out their arms. Claim them too early and they revealed themselves.

  Guardsmen’s uniforms would have made more sense and allowed them to carry weapons, but were a far more complicated disguise to put together in the short time dal Ruisseau Noir had had to prepare. There was also the fact that the nature of a royal regiment was such that any mistakes or omissions would have been noticed by sergeants and officers straightaway. Gill had hidden a dagger in his tunic. It wouldn’t be much use against a guardsman with a broadsword, but it was better than nothing, and Amaury’s powder-blue vestments wouldn’t pose much trouble for its point.

  The shaft was dead straight for the most part, occasionally turning back on itself as it worked its way up through the heart of the hill. There were larger open spaces at irregular intervals—some were natural formations, while others had been cut by men harvesting some of the dazzlingly pure white limestone used in the palace’s construction. He wondered at the backbreaking labour required to cut their way down here, and at the hubris of the king who had commanded it, all to find stone that was perfectly white enough for his new palace. The end result was magnificent, but at what cost? Years of chiselling stone in the darkened bowels of the hill.

  Finally they reached something Gill recognised—the double doors leading into the palace. Dal Ruisseau Noir extinguished his lamp and turned to the group, illuminated only by the light coming in through the cracks around the door.

  “Everyone ready?”

  CHAPTER

  13

  The door provided a little resistance—mainly from long lack of use. Dal Ruisseau Noir listened by it for a moment, then pushed it open with a gentle squeal of protest from the dry hinges. The door led out into an old storeroom at the back of the palace, deep in the heart of the service area, and somewhere the building’s aristocratic inhabitants ventured only for an illicit liaison.

  The room didn’t appear to be in regular use—other than some stacked furniture covered in dust sheets, it was empty.

  “I suppose this is where we go our separate ways,” dal Ruisseau Noir said.

  Gill felt the first flutter of nerves in his stomach. Events had been unfolding so quickly he hadn’t had the time to consider them properly. He preferred it like that—the waiting was always worse than the doing. What made him concerned was that while dal Ruisseau Noir seemed to have a clear plan of action, he himself only had a vague notion of the result he sought, with no real idea of how he was going to effect it. Getting into the palace had been such a dominating obstacle that he didn’t know what to do next. Should he simply walk up to Amaury’s suite of offices and make an appointment with his secretary?

  “Good luck,” Gill said.

  “All being well,” dal Ruisseau Noir said, “I’ll see you here within the hour.”

  It sounded optimistic to Gill, but he supposed if it took them any longer than that, their mission was going to a hell in a handcart.

  Dal Ruisseau Noir gave Val and his anonymous, silent colleague a nod, and they were off, leaving Gill in the storeroom, with Solène and Pharadon staring at him expectantly.

  Gill thought hard. It was early, so if he was keeping true to form, Amaury would be in his office doing administrative work. He almost certainly had the Cup with him. Now that they were inside the palace, getting there shouldn’t be too difficult. Pretty much every guard the palace had seemed to be stationed at the gates and on the walls when Gill had gone on his walk the previous morning. Even if there were roving patrols, he didn’t think three random servants would garner too much notice as long as they didn’t do anything stupid.

  “Let’s head for Amaury’s offices,” Gill said, leading the way.

  He had to fight the impulse to run. He wanted to get there as quickly as he could and get the whole thing over with, but palace servants didn’t rush—it was a rule. Gill wasn’t sure if there was a practical reason for it, or if one of the old kings had simply found running unseemly. Nevertheless, a decorous walk was all that was allowed.

  They had not gone far before they encountered another servant, dressed in the same white and gold they were wearing. Gill’s heart was in his throat as the man drew closer, but the stranger just passed them with a nod and a friendly “Morning,” which Gill had to remind himself to return. Safely past, he wanted to let out a deep sigh, but restrained himself—so long as we do nothing out of the ordinary, we’ll blend in, just like the furniture.

  They continued their slow progress through the palace. There was nothing about the experience Gill was enjoying. He was looking forward to getting into Amaury’s office and having a fight—this cloak-and-dagger stuff was too much for him. Far better to rush a bridge filled with hundreds of men who want to kill you, than to sneak around risking heart failure like this.

  Even so, as their journey through the palace’s service passages went unhindered, Gill gradually relaxed. The passages themselves were a stark reminder of the polarised life of people in Mirabay. Here, the walls were roughly rendered and whitewashed. They had perhaps been touched up over the years, but not often, and they bore all the scuffs and marks of long use. Inches away, on the other side of the wall, there would be wood panelling, plaster mouldings, gilt work, and paintings and frescoes worth thousands of crowns, if a price could be put on them at all. Rich opulence everywhere you looked, hiding a world of whitewashed plaster.

  While he was not familiar with the palace’s service passages generally, he had used the route down to the quarry shaft a great number of times over the years, and knew the general direction of the Prince Bishop’s office. As he led the way, the trio passed numerous servants, all too busy to care about another unfamiliar face amongst many.

  Finally, it was time to exit the hidden world of service and enter the opulent world of the rich and titled. Gill took his bearings and set off. His shoes squeaked on the polished parquet floor, a marked contrast to the austere stone flags in the corridors they had just left.

  There were more people out here—guards standing sentry duty at various doorways
leading to important parts of the palace, groups of nobles discussing matters that were probably far less consequential than the aristocrats were making them out to be, with their hushed voices and severe expressions. Other courtiers moved about too, the “dandies” as they were usually known—those who participated in society for society’s sake, rather than for any political or career motivation. Lastly, there were the unnoticed, like Gill, Solène, and Pharadon.

  No one even spared them a glance as they passed. Despite Guillot’s earlier fears, being dressed as servants seemed to be the perfect disguise. Why would you need a weapon when you don’t exist?

  There was only one clerk in the antechamber of Amaury’s office suite. He looked tired, a harried expression on his face. Amaury had never been easy on his staff, and that didn’t seem to have changed. Gill felt bad—what he was about to do wasn’t going to be pleasant for the clerk, but at least it wouldn’t be fatal. A chokehold would have the man out cold in only a moment, and aside from a wicked headache bad enough to rival the most malignant of hangovers, he would be none the worse for it when he woke up.

  “Can I help you?” the clerk said as Gill moved toward him swiftly.

  Before Gill reached him, the aide twitched suddenly, then slumped in his seat, chin on his chest, mouth open and eyes shut. He started to snore. Gill cast Solène a glance and she shrugged. He hadn’t seen her do that since the highwaymen had tried their luck with him and dal Sason after they’d rescued Solène from a witch hunt in Trelain. It seemed like a lifetime ago and he’d all but forgotten that she was capable of such feats. Probably far more now, after the training and practice she’d had.

  “The Cup is yours, Pharadon, but Amaury is mine,” Gill said. “I’ll be the one to kill him. Understand?”

  Both Pharadon and Solène nodded. Guillot opened the door, revealing Amaury dal Richeau, Prince Bishop of the Unified Church, First Minister of Mirabaya, and now Regent. Despite all the grand titles he’d amassed, he was still the puffed-up prick Gill knew him to be.

  Clad in his usual powder blue, the Prince Bishop looked up from a pile of paperwork, pen in hand. His face twisted with irritation at the disturbance, and it took him a moment to recognise Gill. Surprisingly, his reaction was to smile.

  “I’d rather hoped you’d be dead by now,” the Prince Bishop said. “Life seems to be full of disappointments.”

  “That’s funny,” Gill said. “I was going to say exactly the same thing.”

  “And you,” the Prince Bishop said, turning his gaze on Solène. “After all I offered you, you chose to betray me.”

  “Everything you offered came with a price I wasn’t willing to pay,” she said.

  He shrugged, then looked at Pharadon. “You, I don’t know. While I can speculate with reasonable authority on what brings Gill and Solène to my office on this fine autumn morning, I’m at a loss when it comes to you. Have I caused you injury at any point, or are you simply in Gill’s employ?”

  “I’ve come to retrieve something that doesn’t belong to you,” Pharadon said calmly.

  “Ah,” the Prince Bishop said. “The new Cup? Is it yours?”

  “After a fashion,” Pharadon said.

  “After a fashion,” the Prince Bishop repeated. He moved a bundle of papers to one side, revealing the Cup sitting on the table.

  It was exactly like the one Gill had found, and he couldn’t be certain it was the one they were after—the unused Cup that Pharadon needed to ensure the goldscale dragon reached enlightenment.

  “Is that it?” Gill whispered to Pharadon.

  “That is it,” Pharadon said.

  “You’re sure. He has two of them now.”

  “That is the unused Cup.”

  “I’m sorry,” the Prince Bishop said. “I hate to interrupt, but I’m very busy, so can we move along? You’re here to take the Cup from me, so come and take it.”

  Gill studied him. He was very confident for a man facing three opponents. It wouldn’t be beyond Amaury to try bluffing them, to stall for time until help could arrive. He probably had a bellpull under his desk, connected to the nearest guardroom. Then again, he might have something up his sleeve, and Gill didn’t have a sword to dig his way out of trouble with, only a dagger. It would be enough to deal with this ponce, though. Gill didn’t expect Amaury to have a sword—it wouldn’t look right with his church vestments.

  “Give us the Cup and this doesn’t need to get unpleasant,” Gill said, oddly feeling bad for the lie.

  The Prince Bishop laughed. “How very sporting an offer. However, I’m afraid I must decline. Perhaps I can offer you something else? After all our history, I won’t lie to you, offer you a role in my government, titles, and a happy-ever-after in Mirabaya, but I can offer you a large sum of gold on the understanding you leave the country on the first ship and never come back.”

  He scanned the others. “I can offer you all the same deal. Ordinarily I wouldn’t even be this generous, and as much as I’d like to see your head on a spike, Gill, I’ve far bigger matters to deal with, and swatting mosquitoes is something I simply don’t have the time for.”

  “You say the sweetest things, Amaury,” Gill said. “Shame you couldn’t have been so generous when you were convincing old Boudain to have me done for treason.” He knew he didn’t have time for verbal sparring, but if he was going to kill Amaury, Gill wanted him to know that he knew all the wrongs done against him.

  “Ah, you know about that?”

  “I suspected, but now I do. Like you said, we’ve a lot of history. A turd that big won’t make it under the bridge with the water. Give me the Cup and I’ll end you fast and painlessly.”

  The Prince Bishop gasped in mock indignation. “Well, when you put it like that.”

  He reached for the Cup and Gill moved to cut him off, drawing his dagger. He was too slow—the Prince Bishop lifted the Cup, put it to his lips, and tipped it back.

  Pharadon roared. Solène blasted the Prince Bishop into the back wall of his office. He sat there a moment, dazed, shaking his head. Gill grabbed him by the neck and hauled him to his feet.

  “You greedy bastard,” Gill said, holding his dagger to Amaury’s neck. “There’ll never be enough for you, will there? You’ll always want more. I wonder which hell you’ll end up in.” Before he could cut Amaury, he found himself flying back across the room and slamming into the wall with a brain-rattling impact. Groaning, Gill did his best to get back to his feet while trying to stop the room from spinning around him.

  “Well, I’ve definitely never managed anything like that before,” the Prince Bishop said, “so I’d say it’s worked. To think, it’s been sitting on my desk, full to the brim, for a couple of days now, and I was too afraid to drink from it.”

  Gill looked up at Pharadon and was pained by the distraught look on the old dragon’s face. He stared dumbfounded at the Cup, lying on the floor. It was Gill’s fault. If he hadn’t insisted on being the one to kill the Prince Bishop, the bastard would be dead and they’d be on their way out of the palace with the king, the Cup, and the realm saved. He was a fool. Such a bloody fool.

  “I have to thank you, Gill,” Amaury said. “You’re the perfect cure for the paralysis of indecision. Do I know enough to make it work? Should I take the chance? You forced my hand. All that wasted emotional energy. Not good for the heart. Still, all’s well that ends well. You won’t, of course. End well, that is.”

  The Prince Bishop smashed him into the wall again. It was an odd sensation. Not initially painful, it was like being hit by a wave. The impact was the thing, and that knocked the air from his lungs and filled his vision with stars.

  “This really is something special,” the Prince Bishop said. “And to think, Solène, that you’ve had nearly this much power all along, and done what with it? Bake nice bread in Trelain until you were nearly burned at the stake? You could have flattened that mob and taken the whole town as your own. What a wast—”

  The Prince Bishop’s words stopped abr
uptly. Gill looked at Solène, who had a look of furious concentration on her face.

  “Get out now,” Solène said. “I’ll. Hold. Him. As. Long. As. I. Can.”

  “I can’t leave you here,” Gill said.

  “Go!” she hissed through clenched teeth. “I’ll follow when I can.”

  Pharadon grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him out the door. They started to run.

  CHAPTER

  14

  Gill slumped down on the riverbank, exhausted from running through the palace corridors. He and Pharadon had attracted a number of disapproving looks from senior serving staff, and possibly one or two admiring glances from younger ones who had not yet fully given in to the rules. The boat wasn’t waiting for them, and neither were dal Ruisseau Noir and his party. Either they’d already left—and Gill reckoned dal Ruisseau Noir’s devotion to his cause would have allowed him to make that call with little hesitation—or they had not yet returned.

  Hopefully their mission had gone better than his. He couldn’t look Pharadon in the eye. His desire for revenge, to settle the score with Amaury, had cost them everything. How could he have been such a fool? How could he have allowed himself to grow so arrogant again? A little luck against one deranged adult dragon and a couple of immature, unenlightened juveniles, and he had behaved like he was back in his prime. Was he doomed to never learn from his mistakes?

  “We were so close,” Gill said. “Pharadon, I’m so sorry. This is my fault.”

  “Perhaps it is,” Pharadon growled.

  His voice held that low rumble that Gill had only heard from dragons in their natural form. It seemed completely unnatural coming from a man and made the hairs on the back of Gill’s neck stand up. Feeling naked without a sword at his waist, Gill looked at the dragon in human form, but it was impossible to judge what Pharadon was thinking or feeling. Every expression on his face was artifice, intended to make him look like a normal person. If he believed Gill was responsible for their failure, there was no telling what the dragon’s reaction would be. Likely it would be fatal.