She smiled at him.
He had difficulty breathing for a moment.
‘Can you defeat the traitor and recapture my father?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ he said.
He felt the probe of her hermetical enquiry.
The Duke nodded his head. Very, very quietly, he said, ‘In Alba, that would be considered very rude. Or even an attack.’
Her expression did not change. ‘I am quite desperate,’ she said with crushing honesty. ‘Where I sit, there are no rules at all.’
One by one, they introduced their officers – his mercenaries, and her palace officers, military and civil.
‘It is my intention to treat you as my Megas Ducas,’ she said. ‘You are indeed the commander of my armies and navies, which currently consist of a single armed galley at the Imperial mole and the forces you have seen tonight in the palace, with the addition of your own men. And perhaps the Vardariotes?’
‘I took the liberty of paying them a year’s arrears of pay,’ the Duke said. Sitting wasn’t any better for his hip than standing, and his armour felt as if it was a machine built to break his body.
The Captain of Ordinaries and the acting chamberlain both coughed.
The Lady Mary looked at Ser Alcaeus, who gave her a very slight nod.
‘I know that you are Earl Muriens’ son,’ said the princess.
‘I know that you are Ser Alcaeus’s mother,’ the Duke said to the woman with the shears. ‘And the knight at the end of the table, seated by Acting Spatharios Darkhair, is my brother. Just in case all of this becomes a family affair.’
‘You paid the Vardariotes, my lord Duke. I do not have the means to make such a payment – or to repay you. Even if I did, I’d use that money to buy some of my Thrakian lord’s allegiances. I would like to know what you plan to do to defeat the traitor and retake my father.’
The Red Knight – the Duke of Thrake, now – inclined his head. ‘Majesty, your palace is riddled with spies and traitors, and I intend to be very careful to whom I disclose my plans.’
The princess frowned. ‘I agree that my palace has spies. Palaces generally do. But those in this room can be trusted. We are only twelve people.’
‘Jesus only had twelve,’ the Duke said. ‘Look how that came out.’
The Moreans had less experience of blasphemy than Albans, and they gasped. The princess looked physically pained.
The Duke shrugged. ‘At any rate,’ he said. ‘I intend to win over the Academy and build you a fleet. Since both of these will require a great deal of public action, there’s no sense in hiding my intentions.’
She pursed her lips. ‘The Academy is loyal,’ she said. It was the first sign she’d shown of hesitation.
The Duke paused. ‘The Academy has enough hermetical firepower to overthrow the Emperor and the church together, if that’s what they wanted. They allowed the Magister Militum to turn against your father. I suspect that they are unhappy with something.’
The princess looked away. ‘I have no money for a fleet.’
Her new Megas Ducas nodded. ‘I will borrow the money to build a fleet,’ he said.
Lady Maria spoke for the first time. ‘The Etruscans will burn your new fleet on the stocks.’
Bad Tom grunted. ‘Let ’em try,’ he said. He was never at his best without sleep – this morning, he looked like a black boar made into a man, with the hair at his brow curling up like a satyr’s horns.
Lady Maria leaned forward, interested. ‘I had assumed we would buy the Etruscans aid with trading privileges. It has worked before – offer Genua concessions, or Venike, and play them against each other like barbarian tribes.’
‘When you are yourself strong, you can afford to make concessions,’ the Duke said. ‘With a fleet to back your Imperial will, you can dictate your terms to the Etruscans. Right now, they are blockading your ports, shutting out your primary sources of Imperial revenue.’ He shrugged. ‘Besides, we will need a fleet to raid the traitor’s lands, as you call him, and to trade with Alba.’
‘We have no trade with Alba,’ said the princess. She paused, and for the first time, her hands fidgeted. ‘I suppose we have a little.’
The acting chamberlain spoke up hesitantly. ‘We do have trade, Majesty – over the mountains to Albinkirk. Only a trickle, I’m sure.’
‘And that cut off by the Wild,’ said the Duke. ‘Alba is richer and more vigorous than your father or grandfather imagined, Majesty. I, too, am a scholar, at times. And I have a friend who is a great merchant. I enquired at length before coming here. Your silks – some of the finest brocades in the world, made within the walls of this city – travel all the way to Venike before they come back to Harndon, which is just a few hundred leagues along the coast.’ He smiled. ‘And there are other things we share. The fur trade.’
‘A few bolts of brocade will not save the Imperial revenues,’ said the princess. ‘And the furs come from the north – Thrake lies between us and our border revenues. We will not see any furs this season.’
‘Will we not?’ the Duke asked.
Lady Mary put a hand on her mistress’s arm.
‘This is the whole of your plan?’ asked the Imperial princess.
‘No, Majesty. This is the very tip of my spear, and will itself serve to cloak my other activities.’ The Duke smiled. ‘If you’d rather, I suppose I can gather my bucellarii and ride away.’
She sighed. ‘You are the very barbarian mercenary I imagined. Your manners are better, and you speak the High Archaic, but your arrogance is staggering.’
‘Majesty, your arrogant barbarian mercenary would not have a plan to restore the Imperial revenues while maintaining the quality and numbers of the Imperial Army. For fifty generations, your forefathers have squandered their inheritance and purchased foreign soldiers to protect them and maintain the rump of their Empire – and now you think I am arrogant?’ The Duke met her eye squarely. ‘You should get out of this palace, Majesty, and see what the rest of the world is like.’
‘And you imagine that you can save me?’ she asked.
‘I believe I can defeat the traitor and rescue your father,’ he answered.
‘You failed today,’ she countered.
Lady Mary put her hand on the princess’s arm again, but Princess Irene brushed it off.
The Duke nodded. ‘It didn’t help that the traitor knew I was coming, and had already placed his right flank nearest the gate,’ he said. ‘Nor was I warned that he had a most puissant mage waiting to cut my men’s bowstrings and fire the grass. Mmm? Majesty?’
She nodded. ‘I am not responsible for these things,’ she said.
The Duke shrugged. ‘To me and my men, you are entirely responsible. You are the Captain of your Empire.’ He met her eyes.
The princess had the look of a young man trapped in an alley by footpads. Brave enough to fight it out. But aware of the inevitable outcome. She rose. ‘You accuse me, for your failure, my lord Duke? Or you imagine that I betrayed you?’
He shook his head. ‘Let us deal with political realities, and not accusations. If you can rule – if you can hold the palace and the city – I can defeat the old Duke and the Etruscans. If you wish to be rid of me – let me stress this, Your Grace – you have only to bid me go.’ He met her, eye to eye. ‘There is no need to assassinate me.’
They looked at each other long enough to become lovers. The look stretched on and on, neither blinking.
Lady Maria stood. ‘The princess will withdraw. We thank you for your efforts on our behalf, my lord Duke. In future, you must use a little less familiarity in dealing with the Imperial presence. Princess Irene is not used to so much confrontation and finds it irreverent and confusing.’
The newly minted Duke stood straight, his hip screaming at him now and joined by an unsealy chorus of bruises, abrasions and pure fatigue. He ignored the polyphony of pain and knelt, took a handful of her hem as she swept by and kissed it.
The princess blushed. ‘You think me ungrateful,’ she
said. ‘You find me defenceless, with a traitor at the gate. This Empire has been the bulwark of civilisation for more than a thousand years, and I fear—’ her hand toyed with the diamond cross at her throat ‘—I fear to be the cause of its fall.’
He smiled into her gown. ‘A knight can make a tolerable gate keeper,’ he said. ‘You are not defenceless. There is no chance that the traitor will take this city. Let us build on that.’
She smiled, reached down – cautiously – and touched his hand. Then she glided away.
Lady Maria paused in the doorway. Ser Alcaeus bowed deeply and kissed her hand. She smiled. ‘You have done brilliantly,’ she said to him. Then she turned to the Red Knight. ‘The patents of your appointments are being drawn up even now. I love the boldness of the idea of building a fleet.’ She shrugged. ‘I simply cannot imagine it succeeding.’
Everyone bowed, and the Imperial party swept away, leaving only the Captain of Ordinaries. He turned to the Duke. ‘She touched you!’ he breathed.
The Duke ignored the man. ‘Leave him, Tom,’ he said, without turning around.
Tom lowered his arms and spat at the Captain of Ordinaries’ feet. ‘Your turn is coming, dog,’ he said.
The man turned white and grabbed the cross at his breast. ‘I’m innocent!’ As soon as the Albans were gone, he turned to his lieutentant and murmured, ‘Barbarians.’
Bad Tom appeared in the Captain’s doorway. ‘You two fucking, or can anyone come in?’
Sauce was leaning over the writing desk, shaping the word omega with her mouth, tongue in her teeth. The Duke was holding her hand as it drove the sharp stylus into the wax.
Toby fled.
The Duke looked up without releasing Sauce’s hand. ‘Tom, do you know that some people could find your sense of humour offensive?’
‘Really?’ asked Bad Tom. He sank onto a camp stool, which groaned. ‘Jehan, as usual, thinks you are selling us down the river. Could you pat him on the head?’ The big man chuckled silently at Sauce’s discomfiture.
Sauce glared at Bad Tom like an angry cat. ‘You can go fuck yourself,’ she spat.
‘Does the truth hurt, baby?’ Tom asked, and his eyes were hard as flint.
Sauce took a breath and smiled. ‘Jealous? You just want him for yourself,’ she said.
Tom’s right hand shot to his sword hilt.
Their Captain had gone back to work, and ignored their exchange.
Master Random,
If you would be so kind – I need a loan of a hundred thousand ducats and two Master shipwrights. Also a table of values for brocades, silks, and northern furs on the dock at Harndon. In haste—
He tended to stick out his tongue slightly when he wrote too fast, and he sucked it in and clenched his teeth as he finished.
Toby returned as if summoned, sanded the finished document and laid it on a side table.
‘You two done?’ the Red Knight asked.
Bad Tom tore his eyes away from Sauce. ‘You paying the archers after mass on Sunday? Also we need a cleric of some kind. A priest.’
‘We have two priests, I believe. Father Peter from Albinkirk and the mendicant friar—’
‘He’s wode – clean mad, lost his wits.’ Tom crossed his arms.
‘You ought to like him, then,’ said Sauce.
‘A regular chaplain. It’s been mentioned a fair amount by the lads.’ Tom looked at Sauce. ‘And the lasses.’
‘I’ll look into it.’ The Captain went back to writing.
‘I gather we’re to call ye Duke.’ Tom’s voice was itself a warning.
‘Yes. I like it. My lord Duke.’ The Captain sat back.
‘You ain’t our lord. Y’er our Captain.’ Tom shook his head. ‘I mislike it.’
The Captain met his eyes for a moment over his pen. ‘Your reservations are noted,’ he said coldly.
‘Like that, is it, boyo? Don’t get to big for yer braes.’ Tom got up and leaned over the table.
‘I’m not. I’m tired and injured and listening to two posturing idiots puts me in a foul mood.’ The Captain paused. ‘I had enough of it at the palace.’
Tom shrugged. ‘Aye. Well. So you’ll pay the lads on Sunday?’
The Captain met his eye. ‘Perhaps.’
Sauce shook her head. ‘Of course he’ll pay them – Tom? What are you on about?’
The two men were staring at each other.
‘He gave all our money to the fucking Easterners. We don’t have ten silver leopards together. Do we, my lord Duke?’ Tom put both hands on the table. The action was threatening.
The Duke smiled. ‘Tom, it is ten o’clock in the morning, and I’m tired and pissed off. Yes – if that’s what you want to hear – I spent all our money to buy the Vardariotes. It’s no matter. I can get more.’
Bad Tom shook his head. ‘For once, my lord Duke, I’m with Jehan. This is a tom-fool contract with no gold and no gain and too many enemies. Let’s go back to killing monsters.’
The Captain leaned back and put his hands behind his head. He closed his eyes and stretched a little, favouring his right hip. Then his eyes opened. ‘Want a good fight, Tom?’
Tom smiled. He looked at Sauce. ‘Anytime, baby.’
‘Would you settle for catching the spies in the palace?’ he asked.
Tom’s smile came more slowly.
‘Look around you, Tom. This is the richest city in the world. The diamond cross on the princess’s neck would pay the company for a month.’ The Duke stretched again. ‘I have the right to tax this Empire for our pay. Think a little bigger, Tom. There’s never been a contract like this.’
‘Best pay the archers on Sunday then,’ Tom said. He grinned. ‘Christ’s skinny knees, you bought me with hunting spies. Will there be fighting?’
‘You can kill anyone you catch, but Tom, how about we extract a little information from them first, eh? Gelfred will have the bulk of the fun but, before Christmas, we’ll have a good fight.’ He rose. ‘Friends, I have to go to bed.’ He handed three scrolls to Toby. ‘See these placed on the birds. Yourself.’ He turned back. ‘And while I’m handing out tasks: Sauce, I want you to learn everything you can about Aeskepiles. Start with the Nordikan, Derkensun. Do not ask anyone connected to the princess.’
Toby nodded gravely.
Sauce raised a dark red eyebrow. ‘We don’t trust the princess?’
The Red Knight sighed. ‘We absolutely do not trust the princess.’
Tom put his hands on his hips. ‘Sweet Christ, Captain my Lord High Duke Commander! We don’t trust our employer?’
‘I need sleep, sweet friends,’ the Duke said. ‘Our employer, for good or ill, is the Emperor. Not the princess. That’s our legal and quite possibly our moral stance, as well.’
Bad Tom caught his Captain’s arm. ‘I can’na wait to see how this comes out. But – you know I have to go in the spring.’
‘And drive the cattle? Of course you do, Tom. I’m counting on it.’ The Captain smiled. And vanished through the curtain to his sleeping room.
Tom turned and looked at Sauce. ‘He’s counting on it? What the fuck does that mean? I hate it when he does that.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t really mind that he’s smarter than most folk,’ she said. ‘I just hate it when he rubs my nose in it.’
‘Amen, sister,’ Tom said.
Chapter Eight
Jarsay – Jean de Vrailly
The Captal arrayed his little army on the hilltop and watched the Earl of Towbray’s retainers form up on the opposite hillside. He’d sent his defiance to the Earl and then burned a swathe a mile wide down the Earl’s principal valley; looted four of his towns and wrecked his ripe crops, and killed more than a hundred of his peasants. And that night, his angel came again.
He fell on his face. The angel was even brighter; like sapphire and emerald fire.
You will defeat Towbray, his angel said.
‘Of course,’ de Vrailly said into his prayer carpet.
Do your
best to take Towbray alive, the angel said. Later, he will prove useful.
De Vrailly was human enough to feel that he didn’t need angelic visitation to see these truths.
You desire to be the best knight in the world. Your triumph is at hand. At the spring tournament, all will be as we have said.
De Vrailly smiled, even under the oppressive fear of his mighty ally. ‘Ah, the tournament,’ he said.
But there are other ways in which this kingdom must be brought to orthodoxy. The Queen must fall. She is a pagan adultress. You must have no pity on her or her people.
De Vrailly bridled. ‘Not even for the wrath of heaven would I make war on a woman.’
The angel could be heard to sigh. You are the most arrogant mortal I have ever known.
De Vrailly smiled into the carpet.
Very well. You are my chosen servant, and I will allow you your will. But you must not stop her fall. The angel sounded insistent. Almost wheedling.
De Vrailly shrugged. As to that, I care nothing for the witch.
Good. Let us add some religious discipline. There is a monk – a pious man – in Lucrete. It is the will of God he become Bishop of Lorica. And restore these heathens to the way. He is a true apostle and he will stamp out the heresy of their witchcraft.
De Vrailly sometimes found talking to his angel was tiresomely like bargaining with a merchant for a horse . . .
In the full light of dawn, armed and mounted, he turned to his cousin Gaston. ‘He won’t soon defy the King his master,’ he allowed, and laughed.
Gaston was waiting patiently while a squire fixed the buckle on his visor. ‘It appears to me that he’s defying you and the King right now. That’s his standard – and there are his knights.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Quite a few more knights than we have.’
De Vrailly laughed. ‘I will defeat him easily – first, because his array is weak and his men fear to be taken as rebels, and second because I am a better knight.’
Gaston sighed and bent his head while Forwin buckled his visor. ‘As you say, cousin. Has your angel spoken to you?’
‘Yes. He told me I will soon be king,’ De Vrailly said. ‘And to summon my cousin Guillaulme to become Bishop of Lorica.’