The Shadow Throne

CHAPTER TWO

MARCUS

“By the third day, we were pretty much used up, and those big naval guns were knocking the place to pieces around our ears,” Marcus said. “If the colonel hadn’t turned up when he did, I doubt we could have held on until nightfall. Even as it was, things got pretty heated. I had to go out myself-”

He stopped. And Adrecht saved my life, and lost his arm. Adrecht, his best friend, who had later tried to kill him, and who was now a set of slowly bleaching bones somewhere in the Great Desol. Along with quite a few others.

Count Torahn, Minister of War, knew none of this. His jowly face was alight with vicarious martial excitement. “Splendid, Captain. Absolutely splendid. Have you thought about writing up your experiences in the campaign? Colonel Vhalnich will submit his official report, of course, but it’s important to have as many perspectives on the thing as possible. I’m sure the Review would jump at the chance if you did them a little monograph.”

Marcus tried not to grimace. “Thank you, sir. I think Giv-uh, Captain Stokes was trying his hand at writing something about it when I left.” He didn’t add that Give-Em-Hell’s memoir, titled Across the Desert with Bloodied Saber, seemed to be turning into more of an epic than a monograph.

“Wonderful. I look forward to reading it,” Torahn said. He glanced over his shoulder. “I’ve always said that a properly led Vordanai force should be a match for any army in the world, eh?”

This last was directed at the other end of the little anteroom. Duke Mallus Kengire Orlanko sat in an armchair, stubby legs barely reaching the ground, flipping idly through an enormous leather-bound ledger. He looked up, spectacles catching the light from the candles and becoming two circles of pure light.

“Indeed, Torahn,” he said. “You have certainly always said so. Now if only our soldiers could learn to walk on water, the world would truly be within our grasp.”

It was hard for Marcus to believe that this was the infamous Last Duke, Minister of Information and master of the dreaded Concordat. He looked more like somebody’s cheerful old grandpa, at least until he turned those oversized lenses in Marcus’ direction. Then his magnified, distorted eyes became visible, and they seemed to belong to some other person altogether. Not a person, even. Eyes like that belonged on something that lived at the bottom of the sea and never ventured out of the shadows.

You sent Jen to me. Marcus matched the duke’s gaze as levelly as he knew how. You sent her and told her to do whatever she needed to do.

He’d always known Jen had worked for the Concordat, but somehow he’d allowed himself to believe-What? That she could fall in love with me? At the very least, he’d thought she’d finally been honest with him. Then, that awful night in a cavern full of monsters, she’d thrown it all back in his face and revealed herself to be something much more than a simple agent. Ignahta Sempria, the Penitent Damned, the demonic assassins serving an order of the Church that was supposed to have disappeared more than a hundred years ago.

Marcus had tried to kill her, in the end, but Jen had brushed aside his best efforts. Only Ihernglass, in some way that Marcus still didn’t understand, had been able to use the power of the Thousand Names to bring her down. When he’d left Khandar, she still hadn’t awoken, and Janus wasn’t sure she ever would.

“Are you certain?” she had said. “Are you-”

Count Torahn was saying something, but Marcus had missed it entirely. He smiled at the Minister of War and wondered how to politely ask him to repeat himself, but a click from the door saved him the embarrassment. Janus slipped quietly out of the king’s bedchamber.

“Well,” the Last Duke said. “I take it congratulations are in order.”

Count Colonel Janus bet Vhalnich Mieran bowed formally. For his visit to the Royal Palace he’d put on a formal uniform Marcus had never seen him wear before, a cross between his usual blues and something more appropriate for a courtier. It included a long, thin cape, which fluttered elegantly as he moved, and was trimmed in the bloodred and Vordanai blue that were his personal colors as Count Mieran. In his ordinary dress blues, giltless and patchy from repeated washing, Marcus felt like a beggar by comparison.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Janus said. “I will do my utmost to be of service to His Majesty.”

“Gave it to you after all, did he?” Torahn said. “I argued against it, you know. Nothing against you personally, you understand, but it didn’t seem a proper post for a military man. I’d hoped to use you elsewhere. Still, I suppose the king knows best.”

“I’m sure he does,” Janus said.

Marcus felt as if he’d come to class to find everyone else had studied for a test he didn’t know was on the schedule. Janus, as usual, had explained nothing, either during the uncomfortable journey or since they’d arrived at Ohnlei. He must have been able to see the confusion in Marcus’ face now, however, and he took pity on his subordinate.

“The king has honored me with his trust,” Janus said. “He has named me to the cabinet as Minister of Justice, to oversee the courts and the Armsmen.”

There was a shuffling sound from one corner. Representatives of all three of the organizations tasked with protecting the king’s safety were on hand, standing at attention so quietly that Marcus had nearly forgotten they were there. There was a sergeant from the Noreldrai Grays, big and imposing in his dark uniform and tall cap, and an impeccably uniformed grenadier from the Royal Guard. In addition, there was an Armsman, in a somewhat more ornate version of the dark green uniform worn by these officers of the law. At Janus’ words, he had stiffened up and saluted.

“Speaking of the Armsmen,” Orlanko said, as Janus nodded and signaled for the guard to relax, “their captaincy is vacant at the moment. If you’d like, I can have my people prepare dossiers on some suitable candidates. I believe Vice Captain Giforte has been serving in that role since the previous minister’s passing, but he-”

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Janus interjected, “but that will not be necessary. My choice is an easy one. Captain d’Ivoire will assume the post.”

“He will?” Orlanko’s magnified eyes shifted.

“I will?” Marcus said.

He looked at Janus and caught a flick of his eyes. Marcus didn’t have Fitz Warus’ effortless ability to understand his superior’s unspoken commands, but he was slowly getting the knack of reading the colonel’s expressions. This one said, Later.

“A good idea,” Torahn said. “That’s the trouble with the Armsmen these days. Too many layabouts at the bottom, too many lawyers at the top! A good, honest soldier will shake things up a bit. And you could hardly do better than the captain here.”

Marcus wasn’t foolish enough to believe that the Minister of War had taken that much of a liking to him in their few minutes of conversation. This was another salvo aimed at Orlanko. Marcus felt like a fisherman rowing between two foreign men-of-war, caught in a conflict he understood next to nothing about, crouching to keep his head beneath the gunwales as broadsides flashed back and forth overhead. Whether this one had hit the mark, he had no idea, but Orlanko brushed it aside.

“I’m sure the captain will do a fine job.” The Last Duke closed his ledger and heaved himself onto his feet. “And now I must be going. You may rely on my people, of course, for any information your new duties may require.” He gave a very slight bow. “I look forward to working with you, Count Mieran.”

“Likewise, Your Grace,” Janus said. “Your Excellency, if you will excuse me as well. I have much to do.”

“Of course,” Torahn said, then wagged a finger genially. “Don’t think this gets you out of writing me a proper report!”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Janus said. “Come, Captain.”

The Armsman beside the door saluted again as they passed. The anteroom let onto a corridor leading out the back of the king’s suite, opposite the much larger entrance to his formal audience chambers. Like all the hallways at Ohnlei, it had been decorated within an inch of its life, in this case with a pattern of tiny bas-relief eagles whose eyes were tiny, sparkling mirrors. Candles flickered in cleverly concealed braziers.

“Sir-” Marcus began.

“Jikat,” Janus said quietly.

This was a word in Khandarai, of which there were probably only three speakers within a hundred miles. It was an ancient and expressive language. The word “jikat” meant “quiet,” but more than that. A literal translation might read “the silence we observe in the presence of our enemies.”

Enemies? Marcus said nothing.

“Back to our rooms,” Janus said. “Everything should be ready by now.”

The invisible, omnipresent administrative apparatus of Ohnlei-the true rulers of the kingdom, Marcus sometimes suspected-had assigned Janus and his staff to a cottage not far from the palace, on one of the many curving gravel roads that wandered through the grounds like a plate of dropped noodles. “Cottage,” in this context, referred to a two-story stone-and-timber building, elegantly appointed and self-sufficient in the matters of kitchens, baths, and so on, with its own staff and caretakers. This one was called Lady Farnese’s Cottage. Marcus had gathered that the kings of Vordan were in the habit of building these little houses for their friends, mistresses, and favorite courtiers, and once these original inhabitants died or fell from favor, they were repurposed as housing for guests of the court.

Small squads of Noreldrai Grays patrolled the grounds, mostly for the look of the thing, but they were met at the front door of Lady Farnese’s Cottage by a pair of soldiers in an unfamiliar uniform, cut like a Royal Army outfit but with the same red-on-blue trimmings Janus was wearing. Marcus guessed that these must be men in direct service to Janus in his capacity as Count Mieran, and this impression was shortly confirmed. One of the pair, a lieutenant by his shoulder stripe, stepped forward and saluted, and Janus made the introductions.

“Captain, this is Lieutenant Medio bet Uhlan, of the First Mierantai Volunteers. Lieutenant, Captain Marcus d’Ivoire, lately of the First Colonial Infantry.”

“Honored, sir,” said Uhlan, speaking with a gravelly upcountry accent. He was a young man, clean-shaven and handsome, with a crispness to his stance and salute that Marcus found depressingly keen. “Thank you for taking such good care of the young master.”

“For the most part it was him taking care of me,” Marcus said. “But it’s good to meet you in any case.”

“You’ve made the preparations as I asked?” Janus said.

“Yes, my lord.” Uhlan saluted again. “Everything is in readiness.”

“Good. Let’s go inside.”

The cottage had a serviceable parlor, suitable for entertaining guests, and another pair of Mierantai guards stood at attention as they entered. When Uhlan shut the door behind them, leaving his companion on guard outside, Janus gave a small, contented sigh.

“Here, I think, we may speak freely.” He glanced at Marcus. “The Last Duke knows everything that goes on in the palace, so you should always assume you are being overheard. The same holds for most of the rest of Ohnlei. We’re only a mile from the Cobweb, after all, and he’d be a poor spider if he didn’t know what was going on in his own lair.”

“But not here?”

“Here Lieutenant Uhlan and his men will keep watching for stray eyes and ears. They’ve already swept the house for hidey-holes-did you find any, by the by?”

“Yes, my lord,” Uhlan said. “One trapdoor and a tunnel through the foundation, and a spot outside where the moldings make a sort of ladder leading to a way in through the roof. We’ve closed them both, as you instructed.”

“And the staff?”

Uhlan grimaced. “It took some argument before they agreed that you could provide your own household, but we managed. I’ve sent to Mieranhal for our people, but it will be a few days before they arrive.”

“Mieran County is too remote and too insular for our friend Orlanko to infiltrate easily,” Janus said to Marcus. “I thought it best to import a few people we know we can trust.”

Marcus didn’t feel quite so blasé about it, but if Janus wanted to trust in Uhlan and his crew, he had little choice but to do likewise. He nodded.

“Where’s Lieutenant Ihernglass?” Janus said.

“Upstairs,” Uhlan said. “And asleep, I believe.”

“Just as well. It’s been a long journey, and I won’t need him until tomorrow.” He gestured at an armchair. “Sit, Captain. Lieutenant, would you ask Augustin to bring us some refreshments?”

“Of course, my lord.”

Marcus settled himself into the chair, wincing at a protest from his lower back. It was a legacy of the hell-for-leather carriage ride from the coast, two days of misery in a jolting, bouncing wooden box, trying valiantly to hold on to his lunch.

It had, indeed, been a long journey. Preparations had been under way to bring the entirety of the First Colonials back to Vordan, but when Janus had received the news of the king’s illness, he hadn’t wanted to wait. He’d commandeered the fastest ship in the harbor by the simple expedient of asking the captain how much gold it would take to convince him to dump his current passengers and cargo and make for Vordan, then offering him half again as much for the quickest passage he could manage. The ship, a sleek Vheedai frigate, had made the run in less than half the time it had taken the lumbering transports on the way out, at the cost of running full-sailed through a blow Marcus had been certain was going to sink them.

Then, instead of turning west for the mouth of the Vor and the slow plod upriver to the capital, the colonel had led them ashore at Essyle and paid another hefty sum to arrange a stagecoach. Riders galloped ahead of them, bearing instructions to have fresh horses ready and waiting, and so the wheels of the coach had barely stopped turning from the coast to the capital. Even the famous Vordanai mail coaches didn’t run by night, but Janus had paid for spare drivers as well as spare horses, and the broad highway of the Green Road was smooth enough to traverse by torchlight. As a result of all this effort, their little party had covered the three hundred miles from Essyle to the outskirts of Vordan City in a bit more than thirty-six hours, which Marcus was certain had to be some kind of record.

The few hours of sleep he’d managed to snatch between their arrival and the royal summons had not made up for the previous few days, and Marcus couldn’t blame Lieutenant Ihernglass for taking the opportunity to rest. He himself found the overstuffed armchair dangerously comfortable, but a certain anxiety kept him from drifting off. Janus favored him with one of his flickering smiles.

“I imagine you have questions, Captain? I’m sorry I couldn’t explain earlier. It wouldn’t do to tip our hand.”

“I can think of a few,” Marcus admitted. “What did the king say to you? And what did you mean about making me head of the Armsmen? You know I don’t know the first thing about running a city-”

Janus held up a hand. “Let me begin at the beginning. I believe I’ve had the opportunity to explain that Duke Orlanko and I do not always see eye to eye?”

“I’d gathered that, yes.”

“Our success has placed him in a difficult position,” Janus said, with another half smile. “He doesn’t know what happened in the temple. All he knows is that his gambit to obtain the Thousand Names and to destroy me has failed, and that his assassin has not returned. At the same time, the victory has given me a certain popularity with the commons as well as favor with the king and the Minister of War.”

“I can see how that would vex him.” Janus had yet to explain just what was so damned important about the set of ancient steel plates he called the Thousand Names. Having gotten a glimpse of the world of demonic magic firsthand, Marcus wasn’t certain he wanted to know.

“Indeed. However, by returning without the rest of the Colonials, I have placed myself at a disadvantage. Apart from you, Lieutenant Ihernglass, and Lieutenant Uhlan and his men, there is no one in the city I can fully trust. Whereas for Orlanko this is his home ground, mapped and quartered, and he can call on legions of informants and all the power of the Concordat.”

Marcus frowned. “In that case, why the damned hurry to get here? We could have taken the transports with the rest of the Colonials.”

“Unfortunately, waiting that long would mean giving away the game before it began.”

Janus sat back in his chair as Augustin entered, bearing a tray with a teapot and cups. The sight of the old manservant reminded Marcus of how much he missed his own adjutant, Fitz Warus. He’d been forced to agree when Janus suggested that Fitz be left behind to supervise the transfer and loading of the Colonials; Val had command by seniority while Marcus was away, and that kind of organizational detail had never been his strong suit.

When he was equipped with a steaming cup of tea, Janus continued. “You know the king is very ill.”

“You told me he was dying.”

“He is, though that is not yet widely known. When he dies-which cannot be long delayed, I’m afraid-the crown passes to the princess royal.”

Marcus accepted his own cup from Augustin, ignoring the man’s faint scowl. Augustin had never approved of his master’s putting so much trust in Marcus.

“All right,” he said. “So Raesinia becomes queen.”

“It’s been more than three hundred years since Vordan has had a queen regnant, and we’ve never had one so young. Things are going to be. . unsettled.”

“From the sound of it,” Marcus said, “the Last Duke has matters well in hand.”

“That is exactly the point,” Janus said. “There is considerable unrest in the city. Orlanko is not well liked.”

“Nobody likes the man who has to crack heads to keep order,” Marcus said, omitting for the moment the fact that Janus proposed to put him in exactly that position. “And there’s usually someone willing to cause trouble whenever an excuse comes up. I remember the riots after Vansfeldt.”

“This may go beyond mere rioting. There are plans for full-scale insurrection.”

Marcus snorted. “You can’t be serious. We haven’t had a real revolution since Farus IV and the Purge.”

“Times are changing, Captain. How long has it been since you’ve spent time in the city?”

Marcus reckoned backward, and felt suddenly old. He could remember leaving home for the last time, waving to his little sister as his carriage lurched into motion, the familiar old house vanishing around the corner. .

He clamped down hard on that line of thought, before it could lead him into familiar darkness. “Not since I left for the College, I suppose. Nineteen years.”

“Since Vansfeldt, things have been different. After the end of the war, Orlanko all but threw in his lot with the Borelgai, and their influence has only grown since then. Borelgai merchants rule the Exchange, Borelgai bankers run the Treasury, and Borelgai Sworn Church priests preach on the streets. There is nothing that so arouses a people as an infestation of foreigners.” Janus raised an eyebrow. “As you and I have good reason to know.”

Marcus grinned wryly. “Fair enough. Nobody likes the Borels. How does that lead to revolution?”

“Nobody believes that Raesinia will be able to rule in her own right. When she takes the throne, it will be Orlanko who takes power. And as far as the people are concerned, that means the Borelgai will have finally completed the conquest they began ten years ago. Rising against the rightful king is one thing. Rising against a queen perceived as a foreign puppet is quite another.”

“I hate to seem callous,” Marcus said, “but what of it? If all this is true, Orlanko must be well prepared by now.”

“Indeed. In fact, I’m certain he’s planning on it. The revolt will be bloodily suppressed, and the subsequent crackdown will cement his control. Then there will be no stopping him.” Janus cocked his head. “You see now why we had to hurry? If the king had died while we were en route, we would have arrived too late to take a hand in matters.”

“Balls of the Beast,” Marcus swore. “No offense intended, Colonel, but I’m not sure I want to take a hand in matters. You make it sound like Vordan is as bad as Ashe-Katarion, and you remember how that turned out. Maybe we should have stayed in Khandar.”

“That might have been an option for you, Captain, but not for me. If Orlanko consolidates his power, he will have no more reason to fear me. A mere ocean would not be enough to blunt his reach.” Janus did not appear particularly discomfited by this thought, but Marcus thought of Jen, glowing with coruscating, unnatural power, and shuddered. “Besides,” Janus went on, “I have a duty to my king, and my future queen.”

“So, what did the king tell you? Giving you Justice when there’s going to be fighting in the streets seems like setting you up for disaster.”

“Fortunately, the situations are not exactly analogous,” Janus said. “The king has always been aware of Orlanko’s ambitions, of course. He asked me to serve as a counterweight on the Cabinet. To protect Raesinia, and try to ensure that she gets a genuine chance to rule in her own right.”

“He doesn’t ask for much, does he?” Marcus muttered.

“He’s desperate,” Janus said. “And he knows that Orlanko has ways of getting to even the best people. He needed someone who already had the Last Duke’s enmity. The fact that our victory in Khandar has gained us something of a reputation is all to the good.”

“All right,” Marcus said. “Fair enough. So, what’s the plan?”

“I’m still working on it,” Janus said, with another fast smile.

“What?”

“We’ve been here less than a day, Captain. All my information is weeks old. It will take time to receive new reports from my sources, and more time to formulate a course of action.”

“Wonderful,” Marcus growled.

“One thing is for certain, however. We must discover the depth of the connection between the duke and the Priests of the Black. That may shed light on. . a great many things.”

Are you certain? she’d said. Marcus nodded slowly. “How?”

“Putting you at the Armsmen was the first step. The more friends we have among the city authorities, the better.”

“Making me captain doesn’t put the Armsmen in your pocket,” Marcus said. “Not if we’re talking about fighting in the streets. When both sides wear the same uniform, the chain of command can get a little. . confused.” An image of Adrecht came to him, scared and defiant, clutching the flap of his empty sleeve.

“Of course. And I have no doubt the Armsmen are liberally salted with Concordat agents. But you will do what you can. In the meantime, you will have the legal authority to investigate the activities of the Black Priests, once we uncover them.”

“Do you think that’s likely? With Orlanko’s backing, I imagine they’ll be well hidden.”

“I have a lead that may prove fruitful. You get accustomed to your new command, and I will do what I can. For the moment, I suggest you get some sleep. A rest in a real bed will do wonders for your disposition.”

After all this, Marcus thought, I’d better learn to sleep with one eye open.

“Before you do,” Janus said, sipping his tea thoughtfully, “you might wake Lieutenant Ihernglass. I would like to have a word with him.”

WINTER

She awoke from a warm, jumbled mess of a dream. The feel of a body pressed against her, soft skin, fever-hot, and delicate fingers running across her. Lips pressed against hers, hesitantly at first, then with mounting enthusiasm. Hot breath against her neck, her hands running through long red hair, spiky with the sweat of their exertions. Green eyes, boring into her like daggers.

Jane. Winter groaned, half-awake, and opened her eyes. The air was stuffy and smelled of dust, and she lay in the peculiar semidarkness of a room with heavy curtains drawn against the daylight. The bed underneath her was titanic and sinfully soft, and she was surrounded by a nest of silk pillows. The one beneath her head was damp with sweat.

Ever since that horrible day at the Desoltai temple, she’d traded one set of nightmares for another, though. The new ones had begun as a vague feeling of confinement, of being trapped in darkness while distant voices droned on and on. On the journey from Khandar, they’d gradually sharpened until she could nearly make out the words. She knew, somehow, that these visions welled up from the pit of her being, where the thing Janus had called Infernivore slumbered like a quiescent predator digesting its meal.

Dreams of Jane were almost a relief, a familiar ache in her chest. Jane, whom she’d fallen in love with and then abandoned to an awful fate. Whose memory she’d fled across a thousand miles of ocean to escape.

And now I’m back. Under a different name, wearing a different identity, but. .

The knock at the door came as something of a relief. Winter tried to sit up, but the deep feather bed thwarted her efforts, and she ended up half rolling, half flopping until she got to the edge. The knock repeated.

“Lieutenant Ihernglass?”

It was Captain d’Ivoire. Winter managed to escape from her mattress, kicked off the ensnaring sheet, and got to her feet.

“I’m awake,” she said. “Just one moment.”

There was a full-length mirror in one corner, a luxury she’d rarely had in Khandar. Winter went through an automatic self-examination to confirm that her male disguise was intact. While Janus knew the truth of her gender, Captain d’Ivoire did not, and there would be servants and guards as well. She found that she was still wearing her uniform, though a couple of buttons had come loose as she tossed and turned. Apparently she had barely managed to get her boots off before collapsing.

She fixed the buttons, adjusted her collar, and tugged a bit at her cuffs. Once she felt reasonably presentable, she went to the door. Doors with proper latches-that was something else to get used to. Khandarai mostly made do with curtains.

Captain d’Ivoire was waiting in the corridor. There were dark circles under his eyes, and Winter sent up a silent prayer of thanks that the colonel had let her sleep. D’Ivoire looked about ready to fall over.

“He wants you,” the captain said. No need to specify who “‘he” was. “Downstairs, in the parlor.”

“Yessir.”

“If he needs me, I’ll be over”-he gestured vaguely toward the doors to the other bedrooms-“there. Somewhere.”

“Yessir.”

He staggered off. Winter stepped out into the hall and shut the door behind her, looking around curiously. She hadn’t gotten much more than a cursory look at the cottage when they came in, tired as she’d been. Now, making her way down the stairs, she let its fundamental weirdness sink in. It was huge, ceilings far higher than necessary and corridors far broader, and what wall space wasn’t occupied by vast paintings was taken up by glass-shielded braziers, ablaze with candles even in the middle of the day. The art was mostly moody, sweeping landscapes, with the occasional nautical scene thrown in for variety, all set in fantastically carved gilt frames. The carpet underfoot was thicker and softer than her army-issue bedroll.

The only place she’d ever been that was anything like this was the palace in Ashe-Katarion, and that had been partially burned and entirely looted before she’d gotten there. The orphanage she’d grown up in-Mrs. Wilmore’s Prison for Young Ladies, as the inmates had referred to it-had once been a noble’s country house, but any vestiges of luxury had been obliterated by decades of careful effort on Mrs. Wilmore’s part. The casual opulence on display here took her breath away.

She could hardly believe they were actually at Ohnlei. The Royal Palace and its grounds had always seemed semimythical to her, like the heavens the Khandarai believed were somewhere up among the clouds. The stories of the king and its other inhabitants had felt no more real than those same heathen myths. The idea that it was a physical place that you could simply drive to in a carriage was something she was still getting used to.

The parlor was a large room downstairs with no obvious function, containing a couple of bookshelves, a fireplace, several armchairs and a sofa, and a few fussy little tables. Janus sat in one of the chairs, feet propped up on an ottoman, reading from a thick sheaf of paper. He looked up as Winter entered.

“Ah,” he said. “Lieutenant. You rested well, I hope?”

“Very well, sir.” After weeks aboard ship and days in a rattling coach, just lying still felt like an unimaginable luxury. “Captain d’Ivoire asked me to tell you that he’s gone to bed.”

“Just as well. It’s been an exhausting day for everyone.” Though if exhaustion had any effect on Janus himself, it didn’t show in his face. “Have a seat.”

Winter settled herself cautiously into the chair opposite Janus, and Augustin glided in with tea.

“I should start out by telling you the same thing I told the captain,” Janus said. “At Ohnlei, the walls quite literally have ears. You should always assume you’re going to be overheard. I’ve brought down some of my own men from Mieran County, men I trust, and so this cottage is probably secure for the moment. You may speak of anything relating to our mission.”

He hit the last few words with peculiar emphasis, and his gray eyes drilled into Winter. She took his meaning easily enough. “Men I trust,” eh? She supposed that trusting someone not to betray your confidence was one thing, and trusting him with the secret of the Thousand Names-and Winter’s involvement with it-was quite another.

“I. . understand, sir.” She paused. “What is our mission here?”

“Much the same as it was in Khandar, at some level. The king has appointed me Minister of Justice.”

Winter wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so she decided to play it safe. “Congratulations, sir.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Janus said politely. “But I fear the problem it presents is considerable. The city is close to the boiling point, and getting closer as the king’s health worsens. I am expected to ride herd on it with no time to prepare, and no way to know who among my subordinates may be working for my. . enemies.”

This last, again, carried more than its surface meaning. As far as Vordanai politics was concerned, Janus was opposed by Duke Orlanko and his allies, but only Winter and a few others knew it went deeper than that. The revelation of the true nature of Jen Alhundt had shown that there were more sinister forces at work. Feor, the Khandarai priestess Winter had rescued from the Redeemer cult, had called them the Black Priests.

“I understand, sir.” Winter sipped her tea thoughtfully. “And I appreciate the difficulty.”

“Accordingly, I’m afraid I will be leaning quite heavily on you and Captain d’Ivoire, at least until the rest of the Colonials arrive.”

Bobby, Winter thought automatically. And Folsom, Graff, Feor, and the rest. Not to mention the nondescript wooden crates full of steel tablets, engraved with the secrets of centuries. “I’ll help however I can, sir.”

“I’m going to take you up on that,” Janus said, with just a hint of a smile. “I have a task for you.”

Something about his tone made Winter’s skin crawl. I’m not going to like this, and he knows it. “A task, sir?”

“One of the primary centers of unrest in the city is the Southside Docks. There’s a. . society, you might call it, of dockworkers and other menials who have been responsible for an increasing number of violent incidents. They call themselves the Leatherbacks.”

“I see,” Winter said, though she didn’t.

“The Armsmen have attempted to suppress this group, with no success. Much of the Docks is a rat’s warren, difficult to penetrate and search, and the Leatherbacks enjoy the tacit support of the residents. The occasional arrest and, I may say, brutal example has not dampened their ardor. A more subtle approach is required.”

“Subtle, sir?”

“Infiltration, Lieutenant. We need to know more about this group. Our friends at the Concordat claim to have placed several agents among them, but given the lack of success, we have to assume they are either withholding or deliberately falsifying the information they pass along. I need someone I can rely on.”

“Someone-you mean me, sir?” Winter almost laughed out loud. “I’m sorry, but do you really think I would be able to blend in with a gang of burly dockworkers?”

“Ah, but I haven’t told you the most interesting part,” Janus said. His half smile returned, and he leaned forward in his chair. The bastard was enjoying this, Winter thought. “The Leatherbacks have an inner circle that appears to be composed entirely of women.”

“What?” At first Winter was occupied trying to picture a band of revolutionary dockworkers taking orders from fishwives in skirts, so it was a moment before the real import of his words struck home. “What? Sir, you can’t be serious!”

“You don’t think you can pass as a woman?” Janus said, eyes flicking to the front door, where the guards were waiting. “I understand it’s something you’ve done before.”

“I don’t. . I mean. .” Winter paused and sucked in a long breath. “Even if I could. . pass as female, that doesn’t mean I’ll be able to just waltz in and join up! These women are all Southsiders, aren’t they? I won’t. . look anything like them, sound like them, or anything!”

“I agree that you are not the spitting image of a fisherman’s daughter,” Janus said, eyes sparkling. “Fortunately, there is another way. In the district adjacent to the University, colorfully known as the Dregs, there is another center of unrest. The students are notorious for preferring talk to action, however, and now and then one of them gets fed up and crosses the river to join the Leatherbacks. I believe you could present yourself as one of these pilgrims quite easily, and it would provide a useful explanation of why you lack friends or connections.”

“But. .”

Winter couldn’t say what she wanted to say. Not just because of the guards, who didn’t know her secret, but because she had a hard time even putting it into words. He wants me to. . to put on a dress and walk down the street in broad daylight? The notion filled her with a sort of instinctive revulsion, born of two years of terror at the thought of being found out. To just throw off that mask, after so long. .

She swallowed hard. “I. . appreciate the trust, sir. But I’m not sure I could do it.”

“I appreciate that it’s difficult for you. But you would be, after all, only putting on a disguise. Once the current crisis is surmounted, you can simply. . take it off.”

“I. .”

“And I hope that you appreciate,” Janus said, leaning forward in his chair, “how important this is. There is no one else I can trust with this. And when I say that the fate of the kingdom may rest on what we do in the next few days or weeks, understand that I am not simply being melodramatic.”

Winter closed her eyes and said nothing. Her throat felt as if it had fused into a solid mass, blocking her breath.

“There’s another thing,” Janus said. “Before we left Khandar, you asked me for a favor. Locating an old friend of yours, I think.”

“Jane.” Winter’s eyes opened. “Have you found her?”

“Not just yet. But I suspect we’re on the right track.”

“She’s alive? She’s not-”

“As far as we know.” He held up a hand. “It may take some time. I just wanted you to know that I hadn’t forgotten the matter.”

Winter stared at the colonel’s face, so apparently guileless, wearing a half smile that never touched his bottomless gray eyes. He would never stoop to anything so straightforward as an obvious quid pro quo, but the implication was clear enough. Remember, he was saying, what I can do for you, when you think about what you will do for me.

In the end, Winter reflected, not without some bitterness, what choice did she have? She’d saved Janus’ life in Khandar twice over, but in doing so she’d placed herself at his mercy. There was nothing for it but to go along, and hope like hell he knew what he was doing.

“I can. . try,” Winter said, around the knot in her throat. “I still don’t think they’ll accept me, but if you want me to, I’ll try.”

“That’s all I ask, of course,” Janus murmured.

CHAPTER THREE

RAESINIA

One advantage of the palace’s state of premourning was that it was considered normal for the princess not to emerge from her tower for long periods. Overcome with grief, obviously. Or so Raesinia had managed to convince Sothe, in any case. While her maid hurried back to Ohnlei to tell visitors that the princess was feeling unwell, Raesinia was able to walk the city in daylight for the first time in months. Sothe worried about leaving her alone, but as Raesinia pointed out, what could really happen to her?

Besides, she was spending the day in the company of Ben Cooper, and it was hard to imagine anything bad befalling her with him around. Ben was a tall young man with sandy hair, broad shoulders, and a lantern jaw, who looked a bit like a classical depiction of one of the more muscular saints who spent their time smiting the unrighteous. In addition to these physical attributes, nature had blessed him with a sunny, honest disposition and a strong sense of justice, which as far as Raesinia was concerned was about as good as hanging a giant “Kick Me” sign around his neck. Spending too much time around him made her feel intensely guilty, both because she had to lie about who she really was and from the puppy-dog eyes he directed at her whenever he thought she wasn’t looking.

Her other companion was cut from a different cloth. Doctor-Scholar George Sarton looked as though he had been born to skulk under rocks. He was actually nearly as tall as Ben, but he made himself seem short by hunching his shoulders, walking with a strange, crabwise gait, and cringing whenever someone looked directly at him. He spoke with a helpless stammer that practically invited mockery. It was Ben who had recruited him, of course, recognizing in the miserable-looking medical student a remarkable mind waiting to be put to good use.

Faro completed their party, dressed in his usual gray and black and wearing a rapier as current fashion dictated. Raesinia wondered idly if he knew how to use the thing, or if there was even a blade inside the elegant chased-silver scabbard.

“And you still can’t tell me what we’re going to see?” Raesinia said to Ben.

“Don’t want to prejudice you,” Ben said. “I need to know if you see the same thing I do.”

Raesinia shrugged. Truth be told, she was simply enjoying the freedom from the stuffy corridors of the palace. They were walking across Saint Parfeld Bridge, newest of the many spans over the Vor. It was a bright summer day, and the bridge offered expansive views in both directions, as well as a river breeze that cut through the July heat. Upstream, to Raesinia’s left, she could see the spires of the University loom above its wooded hillsides on the north bank, and the low bulk of Thieves’ Island lurking around a slight bend in the river like a smuggler’s ship. Downstream were the enormous marble-faced arches of the Grand Span, and beyond that the endless fields of warehouses and brick tenements that faced the docks. The river was crowded with traffic in both direction, little water taxis driven by two or four burly oarsmen darting among the big, flat-bottomed cargo boats.

They had just walked through the Exchange, where the day’s business was beginning to heat up. Ahead of them was Newtown, a perfectly regular grid of paved streets and imposing four-story brick cubes, whose original Rationalist design was now barely visible under the accumulated debris and damage of nearly a century of habitation. The broad, easy-to-traverse streets had been turned into a maze by a profusion of vendors, spontaneous outdoor cafés, and simple accumulations of trash. Something as simple as a stuck wagon could start the process-leave one in the street, and before the week was out, someone would be using it as a platform to sell oranges, while another enterprising merchant put up a cloth lean-to from the side to start a fortune-telling business and a poor mother tried to raise two children underneath. The looming facades of the apartment buildings were pitted and torn, half the facing bricks looted for building material or washed out in the rain, and plastered over with posters, notices, and painted slogans.

“This place gives me the creeps,” said Faro. “It’s the grid. It makes me feel like everyone has set up shop in a graveyard.”

“It’s l. . l. . logical,” Sarton said. He was nearly always referred to as “Sarton” or “the doctor,” but never “George.” “Or it ought to be, if it were p. . p. . properly organized.”

“Come on,” Ben said. He led the way down the granite steps at the Newtown end of the bridge and into the chaotic swirl of traffic.

The first to accost them were the sellers of papers, pamphlets, and other ephemeral publications. These were mostly boys of eight or nine, who rushed about in enormous flocks toward whoever looked as though they had money and knew how to read. Densely printed sheets of newsprint, folded and emblazoned in one corner with a little caricature of the author for easy identification, could be had for a penny.

Raesinia passed by the Weeping Man, the Shouting Man, and the Kneeling Man, but much to Faro’s annoyance she stopped and bought a copy of the Blacksmith’s latest and one from the Hanged Man, who was always good for a laugh. The sight of her purse brought a new flood of pamphleteers, all shouting at the top of their lungs about the superiority of their product. She doubted any of the ragged street children could read what they were carrying, but it was a moot point, because she couldn’t understand any of them in the cacophony.

Ben bought a couple of papers that were written by friends of his, and Sarton took a pamphlet full of new woodcuts of interesting vivisections. Faro, meanwhile, swatted any of the youngsters who got close to him, which provoked a whole gang of them to start tugging his clothes and trying to pinch him. They only veered off when some sharp-eyed scout spotted a two-horse coach coming over the bridge, and the others ran after him like a wheeling flock of starlings.

“Newspapers,” Faro said bitterly. “Why they bother to print them is beyond me. Does anyone actually read the things?”

“You ought to be kinder,” Ben said. “Most of them are on our side, after all.”

“So they claim. I think they’re just a pack of cowards.”

Raesinia opened the Hanged Man’s paper. A quarter of the sheet was a woodcut cartoon, entitled “Life at Ohnlei.” On one side a Hamveltai doctor-recognizable as such by a ridiculously tiny short-brimmed hat-worked on a crowned, bedridden figure amid flying sprays of blood. At a table in the foreground was the instantly identifiable Duke Orlanko, short and round with huge spectacles, sitting in front of a plate of tiny, starved corpses with protruding ribs. He had one of them on his fork, inspecting it distastefully. Beside him stood Rackhil Grieg, angular and vulpine, with the caption HAVE TWO, YOUR GRACE. THEY’RE SO SMALL THESE DAYS.

In the background a rotund Borelgai with a fat drunkard’s nose and a bristly beard had his pants around his ankles and was having his way with a weeping young woman in a circlet, who Raesinia supposed was meant to represent herself. It was not, she thought, a very good likeness. She passed the paper to Ben without comment, and he showed it to Faro.

“I’m not sure I’d call that cowardice,” Ben said.

“It’s easy enough to talk big when you’re hiding in some basement and paying kids to sell this drivel in the streets,” Faro said. “That’s the kind of person who takes one smart step to the rear when the time comes to actually do something.”

“Orlanko has sent publishers to the Vendre before,” Ben said.

“When one of them does something so stupid he can’t pretend to ignore it,” Faro said. “The Last Duke is no fool. The easiest way to get people to pay attention to someone is to lock him up.”

It’s true, Raesinia reflected. Orlanko was no fool. He only drags people off to the Vendre to make a statement. If one of these papers made him angry, there would just be an. . accident. Late night, wet bricks, another body floating in the river. Or else-and this was the possibility that gnawed at her-a man would go out for a walk and never come back. He’d end up in the Vendre, all right, but not in a tower cell where anybody would ever see him again. The dungeons under Vordan’s most notorious prison were rumored to be both noisome and extensive. The thought of Concordat thugs in black leather cloaks turning up at the Blue Mask and dragging them away-dragging Cora away-made it hard for Raesinia to affect Ben’s casual confidence, or Faro’s studied nonchalance.

“Ben,” she said, interrupting their argument, “what was it you wanted us to see?”

“Oh! This way.” He pointed. “I only hope they’re in the same place.”

They walked along the grid, two streets down and one street over. Ben gently guided Sarton whenever they made a turn, since the medical student had become absorbed in his new reading material. Finally, they reached a place where two large streets crossed and made a little square, in the center of which a flat-bedded wagon had been parked to make an impromptu stage. It was surrounded by a crowd, mostly Newtowners in their ragged cotton trousers and coarse brown linen. There was a man on the stage in a black evening coat and three-cornered hat, cutting a dashing if somewhat antiquated figure. The people in the front rank of the crowd were shouting something at him, but Raesinia couldn’t make it out from her position at the rear.

“So, what are we looking at?” said Faro.

Ben pointed. A sign on the edge of the stage read BARON DE BORNAIS’ POTENT CURE-ALL, followed by a lot of smaller type listing the many afflictions this product was supposed to address. Faro followed Ben’s gaze and rolled his eyes.

“Something wrong with you that you haven’t told us about?” Faro said. “I think you might as well drink bathwater and call it a magic potion.”

“Forget the potion,” Ben said. “Listen to the sales pitch.”

“It doesn’t look like anything much so far,” Faro said. “I hope you aren’t suggesting we invest in this fellow. No offense, old buddy, but you should leave the market games to Cora-”

A murmur rippled through the crowd, followed by a respectful silence as the man on the stage-presumably de Bornais-began to speak. This in itself was odd, since in Raesinia’s experience it was not in the nature of a crowd of Vordanai to listen quietly to anyone who wasn’t actually a priest. De Bornais’ presentation seemed to be pandering of a quite ordinary sort, which made it hard to explain the rapt attention.

“Ben. .,” she said.

“Wait,” Ben said. “This isn’t it, not yet.”

“-how many of you are sick?” de Bornais said. There was a wave of muttering from the crowd. “How many of you are afflicted? How many of you have the doctors given up on? How many of you can’t afford to even visit the damned bloodsuckers?”

This last drew a louder rumble than the others, and de Bornais went with the theme. “I’m taking an awful risk coming here, ladies and gentlemen. They don’t want you to hear about this, oh no. All those Borel cutters and the fancy robes up at the University”-he mimed a swishing, effeminate gait-“they would just about shit their britches if they heard about me. Might want to shut me up, I wouldn’t wonder. Because what I have here. .” He paused, smiled, revealing a glittering gold tooth. “But I don’t expect you to take my word for it.”

The crowd let out a collective sigh. De Bornais bowed and stepped aside as another man climbed up from behind the stage. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a shock of wild black hair and an enormous bristling beard. He was dressed in leather trousers and a vest that hung open to the waist, making it obvious that he was well muscled and apparently in rude health.

“My name,” he said, “is Danton Aurenne. And I was not always the man you see before you.”

Raesinia blinked. He had a fine, carrying voice, but it was more than that. It cracked like a whip across the crowd, commanding attention, locking every eye to his face.

He spoke at some length, starting with his childhood on the streets of Newtown, his mother’s struggles, and his diseased and generally malformed state at young adulthood, with particular attention paid to the more horrifying symptoms. From there he recounted his near starvation, unfit for one job after another, finally washing up in a church hostel for the dying. Where, of course, he met de Bornais, and his amazing tonic-

It was an absurd story. Ridiculous. It wasn’t even a masterpiece of the spoken word; it sounded as though it had been written by someone with only a middling command of Vordanai and very little imagination. And yet-and yet-

The words didn’t seem to matter. The rolling power of that voice put the audience into a trance by the force of its delivery alone. Every man, woman, and child in the crowd was rapt. Raesinia found that she could barely even remember what had been said, moments after he’d said it. All that mattered was the plight of poor Danton, and his rescue by the astonishing philanthropy of the brilliant de Bornais, and the fact that she was being invited, exhorted to purchase a vial of this miracle elixir at the incredible price of only one eagle and fifty pence. It was practically giving away the secrets of life, which only showed you the kind of person de Bornais was.

She felt something inside her twitch. The binding perked up, very slightly, one predator raising an eyebrow at the sight of another stalking quietly across the plains.

Raesinia blinked.

“Good, isn’t he?” said Ben, grinning.

“God Almighty.” Faro shook his head, as though he felt drunk. “What the hell was that?”

“He’s got his symptoms all m. . m. . mixed up,” said Sarton. He’d looked up from his pamphlet only when Danton started talking. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if he had an early case of the red wind. In childhood-”

Ben cut him off. “You see why I brought you here, right?”

“Just because the man can sell snake oil,” Faro said, shaking off the effects, “doesn’t mean he’s going to be any use to us.”

Raesinia shook her head. She was still watching the stage, where de Bornais had reappeared with a crate full of glass vials. Coins were flying out of the crowd and landing on the stage with a noise like hail.

“Do you see the girl at the edge of the stage?” she said quietly. “The one with the twisted leg.”

“Nervasia,” Sarton said. “Caused b. . b. . by deficiencies in the diet in infancy.”

“She’s lived with that her whole life,” Raesinia said, watching the hobbling, wretched creature. “This morning she knew as well as you do that she’d live with it until the day she died. Now she’s ready to hand over what is probably her life savings.”

“In exchange for a vial of sugar and river water,” Faro said.

“She’s not buying an elixir,” Raesinia said. “She’s buying hope.” She took a deep breath and glanced at Ben. “And a man who can sell hope to a girl like that can sell anything to anyone.”

Ben was nodding. Faro frowned.

“Come on,” Raesinia said. “I think we need to have a chat with him.”

They waited on the edge of the square until de Bornais had sold every last vial. At that point he, Danton, and two porters left the square, de Bornais promising that he would return the next day to help those who hadn’t been close enough to the front of the line.

“He does this every day,” Ben said. “Sometimes it’s the same people in the crowd.”

“I guess they think that twice the dose will do twice the good,” Faro said.

“Do you know where he goes afterward?” Raesinia asked Ben.

“There’s a tavern around the corner. Last time I was here he spent a while in there.”

“Right.”

There was no sign marking the tavern, but none was really necessary. Even so early in the day, there was a steady stream of customers headed for the door, coming off odd-hours shifts or just slaking a midday thirst. Raesinia followed Ben through the swinging door into a gloomy, smoke-filled space. It was on the ground floor of one of the old apartment blocks, and looked as though it had originally been an apartment itself. The proprietors had knocked out the internal walls, boarded up most of the windows, and set up shop behind a wooden board balanced on a set of barrels. The tables were a mix of battered, scavenged furniture and knocked-together substitutes, and small crates served for chairs.

Unlike the Blue Mask and its fellows, who wore their disreputability like a costume for a masked ball, this place was honestly, solidly disreputable. Really, Raesinia thought, it didn’t even rise to that level, since that would imply that it had a reputation. It was just one anonymous boarded-up apartment among many, where men traded small change for temporary oblivion. She’d visited Dockside taverns after shift change, full of drunken shouting workers spoiling for a fight, but there was none of that sense of danger here. The people around the makeshift tables just looked tired.

De Bornais and Danton sat at a table in the corner, with the two porters at another nearby. A few faces looked up to regard Raesinia and the others, but without much interest. Only the proprietor, a rat-faced man with a long mustache, took any extended notice. Raesinia stepped out of the doorway and beckoned her companions close.

“I need to get this Danton alone for a few minutes,” she said. “Can we detach de Bornais?”

“I could engage him in a discussion on the m. . m. . merits of his treatment,” Sarton offered. “But-”

“He’s more likely to run from a real doctor than talk to one,” Faro said. “Swindlers like him live in fear of someone turning up and demanding answers.”

Raesinia thought for a moment. “All right, here’s the story. Faro, you’re the young son of some merchant, and Ben is your manservant. You’ve heard from belowstairs about this elixir, and now the master’s taken sick, so you want to secure a supply. Buy him a few drinks and imply you’re willing to make a pretty substantial contribution.”

“Got it,” said Ben, then sighed. “Why do I always end up as the manservant?”

“Because you don’t know how to dress properly,” said Faro, shooting his cuffs and inspecting them for lint. “Come on. Just follow my lead.”

“What are you g. . g. . going to say to Danton?” Sarton said, as the two of them sauntered over to the table.

“First we need to find out what de Bornais gives him. Is that story of his genuine, or is he just a paid shill?”

The lingering power of Danton’s oration insisted that the story was true-it had to be true; how could anything so obviously heartfelt not be true? — but the cynical part of Raesinia’s mind suspected the latter. She kept her eye on Danton as Faro oiled up and engaged de Bornais in conversation. Faro’s talent as an actor was considerable-it was one of the reasons they’d brought him in to their little conspiracy-and his warm handshake and extravagant gestures fit his role as a gullible young man from the moneyed class perfectly. De Bornais seemed to be taking it in, but Danton showed little interest in anything but the pint of beer in front of him. Bits of froth were clinging to his ferocious side whiskers.

“There we go,” Raesinia muttered, as de Bornais got to his feet. Faro took him by the arm and steered him in the direction of the bar, leaving Danton alone at the table. “You keep watch from here. If Faro looks like he’s losing his grip on de Bornais, warn me.”

Sarton ducked his head, obviously pleased to have been given a position of responsibility. Raesinia left him by the door and headed for Danton. A few eyes followed her. In her University-tomboy getup, she didn’t look particularly feminine, but women of any kind seemed to be a rarity here. Raesinia ignored the gazes and sat down on the crate de Bornais had vacated. She’d timed her arrival for just after Danton reached the bottom of his pint, and he looked up from it to find her smiling at him.

“Can I buy you another one of those?” she said.

Danton blinked, looking down at the empty mug, then back up at her.

“Another beer,” she repeated, wondering how much he’d already had to drink. “More.”

“More,” Danton agreed happily. Raesinia waved at the sour-faced proprietor, who set to filling another mug from a barrel on the bar.

“I listened to your speech,” Raesinia said. “We were all very impressed. Is it a true story?”

“’S a story,” Danton said. Up close, his voice had the same quiet rumble, but it lacked the authority he’d displayed on the stage. “I’m supposed to tell it. Jack gave it to me.”

“Jack-you mean de Bornais?” His face was uncomprehending, and she tried again. “The man who sells the medicine?”

This time he nodded. “Yes. Jack. He’s a good fellow, Jack.” This last had an odd singsong rhythm, as though he were repeating something he’d heard many times. “He shows me what to do.”

“How much does he pay you?”

“You shouldn’t worry about the money.” This, also, sounded like a pat phrase. “Jack takes care of everything.”

Raesinia paused, rapidly reassessing her position.

“Does Jack,” she said slowly, “tell you what to say? When you’re out on the stage, I mean, talking to everybody.”

Danton dipped his head. “Mmm-hmm. He told me a story, and I tell it to people. It’s good to share stories.”

Raesinia stared at him. What the hell are we dealing with here? Danton wasn’t just drunk-he seemed almost feebleminded. If she hadn’t seen him speaking to the crowd herself, she wouldn’t have believed he was capable of anything of the sort. So he’s-what? Some kind of idiot savant? She watched him grab the new mug of beer in both hands and take a long drink. But if he can repeat whatever someone tells him. .

A plan was just beginning to form when a heavy hand descended on her shoulder. She looked up into the thickset face of one of de Bornais’ porters, whose eyes widened in comical surprise.

“’Ey,” he said. “You’re a girl.”

She twisted to face him, brushing his hand aside. “What about it?”

De Bornais himself arrived, sidestepping Faro and hurrying to the table. He yanked the beer out of Danton’s hand and slapped him, hard, like a mother smacking a squalling toddler. Danton blinked, his eyes beginning to water.

“You know you’re not supposed to talk to anybody,” de Bornais said. “I’ve told you a hundred times. Say it. What are you supposed to do?”

“Drink m’ beer,” Danton mumbled. “Not talk to anybody.”

“Right.” He spun to face Raesinia, who had wormed free of the porter. “And what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I thought-” Raesinia began, but de Bornais waved her into silence, glaring at the porter standing beside her.

“Sorry, boss,” the big man said. “I didn’t catch what she was up to.”

“All I want-” Raesinia tried again.

“I know what you want,” de Bornais said. “The same thing they all want. They want to tell my friend a sob story and get a free dose, because he’s too good-natured to know any better. It’s a good thing he has someone to look out for him-that’s all I have to say. If I left him alone this city would pick him clean in an hour.” He nodded to the porter. “Get her out of here.”

Faro had drifted over behind Raesinia, hand hovering near the hilt of his ridiculous dress sword. Ben followed, looking uncomfortable. The second porter, sensing trouble, left the bar and took position flanking de Bornais, while the unfortunate proprietor cringed behind his bar.

“All I want,” Raesinia repeated, “is a few moments of your time. I have a proposal for you.”

“My time is valuable, miss.”

Raesinia could see Faro bridling at de Bornais’ sneering tone, and she put up a hand to restrain him. Her other hand dug in her pocket and came out with a new-milled fifty-eagle gold piece. The smooth gold winked in the tavern lamps as she flipped it to de Bornais, who picked it out of the air and held it in front of his eyes as though he didn’t believe what he was seeing. The gold represented enough money to buy the entire contents of the bar several times over.

She raised an eyebrow. “How much of your time will that buy me?”

De Bornais’ eyes narrowed.

The closest thing to privacy the tavern offered was the tavern-keeper’s bedroom, a miserable space crammed behind a door in the back barely big enough for a straw mattress and a chest of drawers. Raesinia had slipped him an eagle to let them use it, and de Bornais’ two porters stood an uneasy watch outside, opposite Faro, Ben, and Sarton.

“All right,” de Bornais said. “This had better be good.”

“We saw Danton’s speech outside,” Raesinia said. “My friends and I were very impressed.”

“Of course you were. He’s a damned genius.”

“I was curious about the. . terms of his employment.”

De Bornais smiled nastily. “Oh, I see where this is going. You’re not the first to come sniffing around, you know.”

Raesinia did her best to give a carefree shrug. “It’s only natural. When a man has a talent like that, it seems to me he could charge whatever he liked.”

“Maybe. But you talked to him, didn’t you? Danton’s. . special. A bit touched.” De Bornais put on an unconvincingly sad expression. “I take care of him, you see? He’s practically a brother to me. I knew his mam, and when she was dying, she asked me, ‘Jack, please take care of our Danton, because you know he can’t do anything for himself.’ I make sure he’s okay, and he helps out however he can.”

“Yes, I saw how well you take care of him,” Raesinia deadpanned.

De Bornais had the decency to blush, rubbing his knuckles. “I don’t like having to do that. But like I said, he’s a bit touched. It’s the only way to get him to understand sometimes. He doesn’t blame me.”

“You don’t pay him?”

“He wouldn’t know what to do with it.” De Bornais patted the pocket where he’d tucked her coin, and gave a nasty smile. “So it’s no good, you offering him money. He’s got everything he needs, and he does whatever I tell him.”

“If that’s the case,” she said, “perhaps we could come to some kind of arrangement.”

“Don’t be stupid,” de Bornais said. “You were there today, weren’t you? Then you saw the kind of money I’m making.”

“But not for long, I’ll bet,” Raesinia said. “You must move around a lot.”

“Of course.” He gave a sickly grin. “Have to spread the good news.”

And stay out of the way of angry customers, Raesinia thought.

“What if you were to let us. . hire Danton, and we guaranteed your income? Think of it as a vacation.”

He chuckled. “I don’t think you appreciate the kind of money we’re dealing with here-”

He stopped as she undid the first two buttons on her overshirt and reached down past her collar. In an inner pocket, held tight against her side, there was a sheaf of documents, and after a moment’s thought she selected one of these and withdrew it. It was a folded sheet of thick, expensive paper, startlingly white in the gloom, and she snapped it open in front of de Bornais.

“Can you read, Baron?” By his eyes, she saw that he could. “Good. This is a draft on the Second Pennysworth Bank for ten thousand eagles, payable to the bearer with my signature. Do you think that would be sufficient?”

“I. .” He looked from the bill to her face and back.

“Is the choice of institution not to your liking?” Raesinia patted her pocket. “I have others.”

“No.” De Bornais’ voice was a croak. “No. That will be. . fine.”

–

De Bornais emerged from the back room, all smiles, waving the anxious porters away. Raesinia followed, catching Ben’s eye, and nodded. They followed de Bornais to Danton’s table, where the big man was at work on a third mug of beer.

“Hello, Jack!” Danton said, suds frosting his wild beard. “You want a drink?”

“Er, no, thanks. Not right now.” De Bornais looked nervous. “Listen, Danton. You like stories, right?”

“I like stories!”

“This young lady”-he gestured at Raesinia-“has some stories she wants you to tell. Do you think you could help her out?”

Danton nodded vigorously, then hesitated. “What about you, Jack? Don’t you need my help?”

“It’s all right. I’ve got to go on a. . trip. Just for a while. But she’s going to take care of you in the meantime, and you do whatever you can to help her, you understand?”

“All right.” Danton took another pull from his beer, apparently unconcerned.

Raesinia stepped forward and extended her hand. “It’s good to meet you, Danton. I’m Raesinia.”

Danton stared at her hand for a moment, as though unsure what to do with it. Then his face split in a huge grin. “Just like the princess!”

“Right,” she said, as they shook hands. “Just like her.”

“So you bought him?” Cora said.

“I didn’t buy him.” Raesinia had been fighting a queasy feeling all afternoon that this was exactly what she had done, like some Murnskai lord trading field workers for coach horses. She had her justifications all ready. “He needs someone to care for him. We’re just taking over that task for a while so he can work for us. After everything’s finished, we can send him wherever he wants.”

“I see,” said Cora. “So you rented him.”

Raesinia nodded sheepishly. “If you like.”

“For ten thousand eagles.” The teenager’s eyes glowed, as they always did when she was talking about money.

“We can afford it,” Raesinia said defensively.

“It’s not a matter of being able to afford it,” Cora said. “I’m just wondering what it is this man brings to the cause that’s worth the price of a decent-sized town house.”

“You didn’t hear him.”

They looked down at the object of their conversation, who looked back at them with guileless blue eyes. Raesinia had spent the afternoon in slow, careful conversation with him before bringing him to meet the others in the back room of the Blue Mask. Danton himself had proven to be amiable, willing, and uninterested in anything but the prospect of beer and food. Currently he was working his way through a pint of the Blue Mask’s best with the same enjoyment he’d shown drinking the slop from the nameless Newtown bar. Around him were gathered all the members of the little conspiracy: Raesinia, Cora, Faro, Ben, Sarton, and Maurisk.

“Well?” Cora said. “Let’s hear him, then.”

“Yes,” Maurisk said, briefly pausing in his pacing beside the window. “Let’s.” His sharp tone made it clear what he thought of this entire enterprise.

“We may need some time to get ready,” Ben said. “He’ll need some coaching, obviously. And-”

“No,” Raesinia interrupted. “He won’t. Danton?”

“Hmm?” He looked up from his beer and smiled. “Yes, Princess?”

Faro raised an eyebrow. “Princess?”

“Because of the name,” Raesinia said, trying to sound amused. “Danton, do you remember the story I told you this afternoon?”

“I do. I like stories.”

Maurisk snorted and stalked back to the window.

Raesinia ignored him. “Do you think you could tell that one to everyone right now?”

“Of course!”

He set his glass carefully on the floor and got out of his chair. Standing, he made for a somewhat intimidating figure, almost as big as Ben, with wild, unkempt hair and ragged clothes Raesinia hadn’t had time to replace. His face went slack, eyes slightly unfocused, and Raesinia held her breath.

Then he began:

Where are you, thief? Step into the light, sir

Like an honest highwayman, show yourself

And I’ll spit into your skull, match my sword

Against your scythe, and show you the power

Of a man wronged, and sworn to black revenge. .

It was Illian’s Act Two speech from The Wreck, the darling of every would-be actor and dramatist, a tirade against Death that built to a roaring, frenzied crescendo. Raesinia had heard it before, probably a hundred times, often from men reputed to be among the finest actors of the age. But it seemed to her that no command performance at the palace had ever matched this one. She could feel Illian’s rage, the crawling frustration of revenge denied, marooned on a deserted island while the murderer of his true love sailed away to a hero’s reward. Danton himself seemed to vanish, subsumed by this creature of anger and hatred, a wild tiger thrashing helplessly against the bars of its cage until it was bloody with the effort.

Her breath came out in a hiss, unnoticed, only to catch again when he came to the climax. Illian, despairing, hurled himself from the promontory, all the while daring Death to lay a skeletal finger on him. Raesinia could feel the air rushing all around her, and the shocking cold of the final impact.

“From this world, or from the next, I will have-”

Danton stopped. Illian hits the water; the lights go down; the curtain falls. Intermission while they change the sets for Act Three. Raesinia let out a long, shaky breath. Danton smiled at her, flopped back into his chair, and reached for his beer.

“Brass balls of the fucking Beast,” Maurisk swore.

“I’m inclined to agree,” Faro said. “How long did it take to teach him that?”

“No longer than it took him to say it,” Raesinia said. “He can’t read, but if you start telling him a story, he remembers everything. He had it word-perfect, first try, and it was”-she shivered-“like that.”

Cora was huddled in her chair. Sarton was staring at Danton, unblinking, and Ben at Raesinia with something like admiration. There was a long silence.

“So,” Faro said, “is he a wizard? A demon? That can’t be natural. How does he know how to say it?”

Maurisk snorted again. “Don’t start that Sworn Church nonsense-”

“I don’t care if he is,” Raesinia said, cutting off the argument. “Sorcerer, demon, whatever you can think of. We need him. He can be the symbol we’ve been looking for.” Besides, she thought, I’m not exactly in a position to look down on a little magical assistance. She wondered if Danton’s binding had been forced on him, as hers had been, and felt a pang of sympathy for the man.

“Maybe,” Maurisk said. Something new had entered his voice. He was seeing the possibilities.

“We’ll need somewhere for him to stay,” Raesinia said.

“I can find something,” Faro said, staring.

“Good.” Raesinia hesitated. “Do you think you could also. . clean him up a bit?”

“He does have a certain lunatic-beggar charm, doesn’t he?” Faro smiled. “I’ll take care of it.”

Raesinia turned. “Ben, you find us a venue. Somewhere not too public, not yet. And with plenty of ways out in case something goes badly wrong. Maurisk, Sarton, you’re in charge of the text. You’re writing for the masses, so go easy on the classical allusions, and remember that not everyone knows Rights of Man by heart.”

Cora looked up. Her eyes were red, and her cheeks streaked with tears, but she was grinning now. “Can I sell tickets? We’d make a fortune.”

“We already have a fortune.”

“Another fortune.” The girl shrugged. “All right. Maybe later.”

–

By the time they broke up, it had gone three in the morning. The air was still as damp and warm as a laundry, and the street was scarcely better than inside. The members of the conspiracy left one at a time, going their separate ways, except for Faro, Cora, Raesinia, and Danton.

“All right,” Raesinia said to Danton. “I’d like you to go with Faro. He’ll find you somewhere to sleep, and make sure you get plenty to eat as well. Please do what he says until I get back.”

Danton nodded amiably, wobbling a bit. He’d put away an astonishing amount of beer over the course of the evening. “Sure. Okay, Princess.”

Raesinia winced inwardly. She’d told him to stop calling her that, but the admonition had gone through his mind like lead shot through custard, without leaving much of an impression. “All right. Faro, you’re going to be okay?”

“No problem.” He smiled and sauntered out, with Danton following like an obedient puppy.

Raesinia turned to Cora. The teenager had washed her face, but her eyes were still red.

“Are you all right?”

Cora gave a vigorous nod. “Fine. It was just that speech. I’d never heard anything so. .” She shook her head. “Do you really think it’s magic?”

“I have no idea, and I don’t care if it is.” Raesinia smiled. “Have you never seen The Wreck? We’ll have to take you sometime. Leonard Vinschaft is doing Illian at the Royal now, and I’ve heard he’s amazing.”

Even as she said it, Raesinia wondered if she would get any pleasure out of the show. After all, how could another rendition compare to Danton’s?

Good God. She stared after him for a minute while Cora put on her coat. He’s a weapon, isn’t he? A bomb that we’re going to set and prime, light the fuse, and hope we’ve found the right place to stand. .

The two of them left the room and said their good-byes in front of the Mask. Raesinia waited until Cora had turned the corner, then said, “When I tell you what happened to me today, you’re not going to believe it.”

Sothe materialized out of the shadows. She’d traded her maid outfit for her working blacks, drab and almost invisible in the darkness, bunched tight to her body with leather cords so that no hanging fabric would betray her with a whisper.

“There’s news from the palace,” Sothe said.

Raesinia’s breath caught in her throat. “My father?” Too soon, it’s too soon. We’re not ready! Those were her first thoughts, followed promptly by a crushing wave of guilt. My father is dying, and all I care about is-

“No,” Sothe said. “Vhalnich has arrived.”

“Already?” Raesinia frowned. “I thought he wasn’t expected for another few weeks at least.”

“Apparently he left his command and made a faster crossing.”

“How is the Cobweb?”

“Buzzing.”

Raesinia smiled in the darkness.