The trick to hitting the ground is to roll. Well, mainly it’s not to break. But rolling helps. My legs crumpled beneath me, resisting my momentum as manfully as they could and pitching me forward, already rolling as I fell. I smacked into the flagstones far harder than anyone should and went arse over elbow, coming to a halt in a groaning heap several yards on.
Father Daniel landed a short distance back from me, shattering both ankles. He continued to crawl after me, sparking memories of several old nightmares, but now reduced to an even slower pace than he managed in life.
I staggered up and limped away. The thud behind me as the giant landed nearly stopped my heart. With a groan I increased the tempo of my limp, cursing my right knee, which seemed to have become filled with broken glass. By the time I reached the side of the Poor Palace, gasping out cries for help, I still hadn’t seen a single person other than Ronolo who wasn’t dead and trying to kill me.
I followed my childhood route to the roof of the Poor Palace, windowsill to window arch, two gargoyle heads – mouths gaping and ready to vomit foul water from the privies within – another sill another arch and the tricky matter of clambering over the lip of the roof from an underhang. That had been a lot easier when I weighed a quarter of what I do now and had yet to realize that I wouldn’t just bounce if I fell.
How the giant was following me I didn’t understand. It sounded rather as if it were tearing handholds out of the sandstone walls. I gained the dark slate slope of the roof with the dead thing reaching for my heels.
Running up a forty-five degree slope feels like climbing a cliff at the best of times. After the chase I’d been through the best I could manage was a steady crawl. Behind me it sounded as if the monster was breaking through the eaves of the roof rather than attempting to circumnavigate them. I found a loose slate and turned to hurl it at the dead man’s head. It sliced past his ear and arced out into the night.
I reached the base of the west spire as the giant pulled itself onto the roof, its skinned face glistening in the light of the rising moon. My brain had no advice to offer but ‘up’ and I followed it. There’s a point where exhaustion settles in so deep that it leaves no room for new ideas. I climbed by instinct, hands finding the familiar holds that had led me up and down these spires for a decade and more. It’s an easy climb and one that offered little hope of defeating my pursuer, but I’d run out of places to go. I grabbed the first of the gargoyles and drew myself up. Technically they’re grotesques, given that they don’t spout water, but large ugly stone monsters will always be gargoyles to me, also I’m not one to care about the niceties of architecture when being hunted down by a skinless horror. Or when I’m not.
I climbed and the monster climbed beneath me.
In truth, though I had climbed down this particular tower I had never ascended it. I relied on the fact that it was twin to the east spire that stood on the other side of the grand portico, which I had scaled many times when visiting Great-uncle Garyus. The window directly above me was in fact, of all the palace’s many windows, the last one I would choose to clamber through. Only the certain knowledge that the Silent Sister was in Slov, combined with the presence of a huge and gory corpse following me up the wall gave me the impetus to keep going.
I got one hand on the windowsill, one foot on the back of the last gargoyle’s head, one moment when I thought I might make it, then the monster’s fingers closed on the heel of the boot on my dangling leg.
‘Oh, come on!’ It seemed so unfair.
I braced my leg against the gargoyle and heaved with all my might to break free. I hadn’t a chance but I’d try anything in desperation.
The gargoyle gave way with a shockingly loud crack. The dead giant hung on for a split second even as the man-sized statue hit him square in the face. In the next heartbeat both were falling. A second gargoyle interrupted the drop to the roof of the main entrance far below. The dead thing became momentarily impaled on stone horns before the weight of the first statue tore it free and both punched a hole through the flat roof of the portico and, slamming down to the entrance steps, created a stone-dead flesh-stone sandwich.
I hung there, gasping, so nearly torn away with the pair as they fell. Time passed and at last the thunder of my heart ceased to fill the world. I stared at the raw stone where the gargoyle had broken away from the wall. It had been waiting to fall since before I was born. Sometimes the difference between saving a life and taking one is just a matter of timing – the right moment and the wrong.
Dry-mouthed, I struggled up through the Silent Sister’s window, trembling in every limb.
I saw nothing until I stepped to the side and let the moonlight flood in after me. A small and empty antechamber. The dark steps spiralling down to the foyer below. The door to the Silent Sister’s room stood closed, one tall-backed chair beside it. A second chair, twin to the first, had been moved to the middle of the antechamber, halfway between the door and the arch to the staircase. On it rested a goblet, moon-washed and silver, a strip of linen, and a boot.
‘What the hell?’ I staggered forward, my left leg hurting unaccountably and my right foot cold against the stone floor. I looked down. The giant hadn’t released his grip on me – the sole of my boot had torn off in his hand. Blood ran freely down my left leg from a gash above the knee – one of the gargoyle’s horns must have torn me as it came free.
I took the linen and bound my leg. The boot looked suspiciously like a new version of the one I was wearing. Ridding myself of the remnants of the old boot I slipped the new one on. A perfect fit. The goblet stood three-quarters full of water. Some must have evaporated in the two weeks since my great-aunt placed it there. A black fly floated in it.
‘I’m not that thirsty!’ A hoarse dry whisper. I took the goblet and flicked the fly corpse clear. I wasn’t even fooling myself, and I’m good at that. I drained the cup and wiped my mouth, wondering if the old witch had weakened the joint that held the gargoyle to the wall. I felt weak and dizzy, sweaty with exertion and fear.
How much had she seen? ‘Do you ever get it wrong, old woman?’ A short laugh burst from me as I wondered if there were other such tableaux set against foreseen events that never happened. If I’d never climbed the tower I wouldn’t know she got it wrong…
At that point another wave of dizziness swamped me and my legs gave out. I collapsed into the chair, placed in just the right position to receive me.
‘Show off.’
18
I came to myself with a start, bewildered for a second, then guilty, hoping I had only rested in the chair a few moments. I stood and patted the empty scabbard at my hip. The room held no replacement sword.
‘Surprised you there, you old witch!’ I couldn’t manage a smile over the victory. It’d been a moment of madness, regretted almost immediately. Still, I hoped Martus had survived. How else would I take the credit for it at every opportunity for the rest of our lives?
‘Lisa!’ I meant Micha and Nia as well, but it was Lisa’s name that broke from me as the sudden realization hit me and I was off and running. If Hertet had gathered every guard in the compound to his side then the Inner Palace would be the place to go for safety. The DeVeer sisters would be there, sheltering under the new king’s wing with Darin’s child.
Nobody in the dark hall of the Poor Place foyer, no guard on the door. I took the front steps in one leap. The landing reminded me how badly my knee hurt. A sprint-hobble took me across the courtyard, through a passage, and across another courtyard bringing me to the Inner Palace. I angled for the guest wing.
‘Stop!’ A booming voice. ‘Stop right there!’
I halted ten yards shy of the entrance to the guest wing and turned to see a tall palace guardsman approaching, a squad of a dozen wall guards at his back, spears over their shoulders.
‘I need to see—’
‘Nobody can break the curfew.’ The man’s voice was the kind of deep that sounds as though it must hurt. ‘By order of the king!’
> I eyed him. Young, thick-thewed, a gleaming breastplate, his face the variety of handsome that declares an unabashed lack of imagination. ‘Your name, Guardsman?’ I tried to sound in charge. Technically I was.
‘Sub-captain Paraito.’
‘Look, Sub-captain, I’m Prince Jalan.’ I hadn’t the energy to put on my royal roar. ‘I need to check on my family, then I’m going to see Hertet so—’
‘Put him in the cells with the other dissidents.’ Paraito waved his men forward. Four of the chain-armoured wall guards came forward. I reached for my absent sword, something that was becoming both a habit and a liability.
‘Look!’ I found my roar as the four men reached for me. ‘I’m the marshal of this entire fucking city, appointed by the Red Queen herself, and in case you hadn’t noticed – Vermillion is under attack. Half of it’s burning and there are dead things stalking this very palace.’ I slapped away the closest hand. ‘So if you plan on living to see the dawn I strongly advise you to bring me before my uncle. Right now!’
The sub-captain stared at me as two of his minions took my arms. The frown on his handsome brow suggested that I might perhaps have put a small dent in his surety. ‘We’ll take him to the court and let the king decide if he wants to see him.’ He turned and led off.
‘Wait!’ I dug in my heels but started to walk as it became clear they would drag me. ‘Wait! Where are we going?’ The palace man had set off back across the courtyard, directly away from the Inner Palace.
‘The king has made court in Milano House.’
‘But … that’s insane.’ The palace was compromised and Hertet had set up as king in his old house? The Inner Palace had been the seat of kings for generations. Spells and wards layered the place thicker than any rugs or tapestries: it was a place of safety against dark magics. For all I knew any dead thing crossing its threshold would burn or turn to dust … or simply become the more traditional kind of corpse, cut free of the necromancer’s strings. I very much doubted Milano House enjoyed the same protections. Still, Uncle Hertet had been practising to be king beneath that roof for longer than I’d been alive. Perhaps he felt safest there. Perhaps the Red Queen’s throne scared him. It would me. Especially if my claim were premature…
Passing by Scribes’ Row I saw the wiry form of a mire-ghoul, stark against the moon, just for an instant as it crested the roof.
‘There!’ I twisted to free an arm and failed. ‘Up there, a ghoul!’
‘Don’t see it.’ Sub-captain Paraito glanced upward without breaking stride.
‘Aren’t you at least going to send men to investigate?’ I managed to shake off one of the guards. ‘Unhand me, you buffoon, my uncle is exactly who I want to see. I don’t have to be dragged there!’
‘The king has ordered all men-at-arms to defend Milano House. Our patrols are to round up traitors and forewarn of any attack. We’re not to go chasing shadows.’
I shook my head and carried on walking. In all honesty the shadows would probably eat Paraito and his squad if they ventured into them.
I didn’t make another break for it until we passed within sight of Roma Hall. In one of the upper rooms a faint light escaped the shutters. I twisted free and took a stride. One more stride and I would have made it clear, but one of the wall guards, either by accident or design, got the haft of his spear tangled between my legs and I went down with two men piling on top of me.
They dragged me up, spitting grit from the flagstones.
‘Bind the prisoner!’ Sub-captain Paraito nodded to one of his squad.
‘I wasn’t trying to escape, you idiot!’ An echo of berserker rage rang through me and more guardsmen stepped in to help hold my arms. ‘Prince Darin’s wife and child are alone in Roma House with a necromancer.’ I took a deep breath as they looped the rope about my hands. ‘I’ll remind you again. I’m a prince, and the marshal of this whole damn city! If you let my sister-in-law die… Wait! The necromancer! He’s a threat to Hertet – the king, I mean. It’s your duty to—’
‘It’s my duty to enter the information in my report.’ The sub-captain motioned his men on, and on they went, dragging me while I fought my bonds.
As we approached Milano House I saw a host of armoured men drawn up around its walls, torches burning in such profusion as to light the entire courtyard. I saw members of the palace guard, the throne-room elite, the wall guard, the grounds guard, the aristocratic remnants of the Red Lance, Long Spear, and Iron Hoof cavalries, prison guards from the Marsail keep, even house guards from the noble houses.
‘Alphons!’ I spotted one of Father’s men in the host gathered before the front steps. ‘Alphons! Is Lady Micha safe? Lady Lisa?’
He shouted something but I only caught the word ‘double’ before my captors forced me up the front steps along a narrow corridor of armoured knights. The great bronze doors opened a begrudging two feet, allowing us to file into the crowded entrance hall.
‘Keep a tight hold on him.’ And Paraito left us, presumably to file his report.
I stood there, sweaty, hurting, and above all furious. Every person crammed into the entrance hall appeared to be talking at once, the tide of conversation making only the slightest of dips when I was brought in. The antechamber held a dozen clusters of lords, the occasional lady, a few barons, an earl, even merchants plumped up in their most expensive finery, all talking at each other, some jovial, some worried, some heated. I saw Duchess Sansera wearing her age tonight, along with all her diamonds, Lord Gren, my old adversary in matters of gambling on both horses and men, looking more nervous here than he ever did at the pits, a score more highborn who might be expected to speak for me. A few glanced my way but the ropes on my wrists discouraged any from coming forward.
‘We can’t just stand here!’ I looked around at the four men detailed to guard me, a distinctly dowdy presence amid the silks and gold of the high and the mighty. ‘You saw what it’s like out there … You—’
‘Cousin Jalan!’ Hertet’s second-eldest son, Roland, came in through the main doors, spotting me immediately. Martus called him ‘the Chinless Wonder’, and to be fair the growing of a sort of beard to hide that fact, and siring the Red Queen’s first great grandson, did rank highest among his few notable achievements. ‘Father will want to see you!’
I met his watery blue eyes, he seemed oblivious to the fact I was under guard. I, managed a smile and nodded. ‘Lead on.’ And with a swirl of his emerald cape, embroidered with the trefoils that Uncle Hertet had adopted for his branch of the Kendeth family tree, Cousin Roland led on.
‘A moment, cousin!’ I stopped Roland as we approached the doors to the great hall. ‘You know the DeVeers? Everyone does.’ I didn’t give him pause to answer. ‘A necromancer has taken St Agnes. I fear Lisa and Micha DeVeer may still be in the main house with my infant niece. It would be a great favour to me if you could dispatch a squad of men to ensure they have escaped and to bring them to safety if need be.’
‘A necromancer?’ Roland mangled the ‘r’s and left his mouth open in surprise. ‘In the palace?’
‘In the church. At Roma Hall. A baby in peril!’ I nodded and kept it simple. I hoped mention of the baby might stir him, as a father. ‘You could send some guardsmen.’
Roland blinked. ‘Most certainly.’ He raised his hand and beckoned. ‘Sir Roger! Sir Roger!’ A short knight in the shiniest armour I’d ever seen clanked awkwardly toward us. ‘Ladies in distress at Roma Hall, Sir Roger!’ Roland made a ‘Woger’ of each ‘Roger’.
‘I shall attend to the matter, Prince Roland.’ Roger, pockmarked and sporting a thick black moustache, gave a curt bow, all efficiency and purpose.
‘Take a dozen men, Sir Roger.’ All the advice I could offer as Roland continued toward the doors. ‘Good ones!’
Cousin Roland elbowed past the elite guardsmen at the entrance to his father’s court, four of them in the queen’s fire-bronze armour beneath her scarlet plumes. He set both hands to the towering oak panels and pushed into the
great hall.
I hadn’t been into the great hall at Milano House since Roland’s wedding when I was thirteen. Father and his eldest brother had fallen out over some matter concerning the disciplining of the house-priest. It wasn’t really about the priest, of course – it was about who got to boss who around, as are most disputes among brothers. In any event, heavy words were lightly thrown and Father led his brood from the hall in high dudgeon, Martus forcibly detaching a slightly drunk young Prince Jalan from a pretty young bridesmaid whose name I forget.
In the subsequent decade the hall had changed beyond recognition. Dozens of bejewelled lanterns joined to cast a brilliant light across what was undeniably the most splendidly appointed room I’d ever laid eyes on. The tapestries behind Hertet’s mahogany throne were of gold-and-silver wire, the rugs of Indus silk, colours so vivid they assaulted the eye. Suits of gilt armour stood around the perimeter of the hall, intermixed with Grandmother’s guard, so immobile that it was hard to say at a glance which armour stood empty and which held men.
The throne room proved less crowded than the chamber before it, with thirty or so of Uncle’s favourites gathered around, wine goblets in hand, servants hovering. I saw a dozen familiar but anonymous lords, Sir Grethem all in armour as if prepared for one of the tourneys that made his reputation, Lady Bellinda, stood close to the centre, the most recent and youngest of Hertet’s long string of mistresses. And beside her, perhaps Hertet’s most powerful supporter, the Duke of Grast, a burly fellow sporting a thick grey beard, a man I might have spread the odd cruel rumour about over the years after he caught me with his sister.
Hertet’s ebony chair stood on a dais and rose above him, the back spreading in a dramatic scroll, the lines of it tracked with inset rubies, returning the lantern light and turning to glowing drops of blood.
None of this splendour exerted quite such a draw on my eye as the crown upon the new king’s head. Grandmother’s imperial crown, a heavy thing of iron, honouring the bloodiest of her ancestors and the days of the Red March when we were warriors one and all. Centuries had softened the thing with a wealth of diamonds and a tracery of red-gold, but it still spoke of power won by the sword and the bow.