Prince of Fools (The Red Queen's War) (4 page)

No one spoke—I hadn’t a clue but was tempted to answer anyway just to hurry things along. I decided against it and the silence stretched until Rotus cleared his throat at last and asked, “Where?”

“Wrong.” Grandmother cocked her head. “The question was, ‘Why?’ Why is there a door into death? The answer is as important as anything you’ve heard today.” Her stare fell upon me and I quickly turned my attention to the state of my fingernails. “There is a door into death because we live in an age of myth. Our ancestors lived in a world of immutable laws. Times have changed. There is a door because there are tales of that door, because myths and legends have grown about it over centuries, because it is set in holy books, and because the stories of that door are told and retold. There is a door because in some way we wanted it, or expected it, or both. This is why. And this is why you must believe the tales that have been told today. The world is changing, moving beneath our feet. We are in a war, children of the Red March, though you may not see it yet, may not feel it. We are in a war against everything you can imagine and armed only with our desire to oppose it.”

Nonsense, of course. Red March’s only recent war was against Scorron, and even that had fallen into an uneasy truce this past year . . . Grandmother must have sensed she was losing even the most gullible of her audience and switched tactics.

“Rotus asked ‘where,’ but I know where the door is. And I know that it cannot be opened.” She stood from her throne again. “And what does a door demand?”

“A key?” Serah, ever eager to please.

“Yes. A key.” A smile for her protégée. “Such a key would be sought by many. A dangerous thing, but better we should own it than our enemies. I will have tasks for you all soon: quests for some, questions for others, new lessons for others still. Be sure to commit yourselves to these labours as to nothing before. In this you will serve me, you will serve yourselves, and most importantly—you will serve the empire.”

Exchanged glances, muttering, “Where was Red March in all that?” Martus perhaps.

“Enough!” Grandmother clapped her hands, releasing us. “Go. Scurry back to your empty luxuries and enjoy them while you can. Or—if my blood runs hot in you—consider these words and act on them. These are the end days. All our lives draw in towards a single point and time, not too many miles or years from this room. A point in history when the emperor will either save us or damn us. All we can do is buy him the time he needs—and the price must be paid in blood.”

At last! I hurried out amongst the others, catching up with Serah. “Well, that settles it! The old bat’s cracked. The emperor!” I laughed and flashed her my cavalry grin. “Even Grandmother isn’t old enough to have seen the last emperor.”

Serah fixed me with a look of disgust. “Did you listen to
anything
she said?” And off she strode, leaving me standing there, jostled by Martus and Darin as they passed by.

F
rom the throne room I sprinted down the grand corridor, turning left where all my family turned right. Armour, statuary, portraits, displays of fanned-out swords, all of them flashed past. My day boots pounded a hundred yards of staggeringly expensive woven rug, luxuriant silks patterned in the Indus style. I turned the corner at the far end, teetering on the edge of control, dodged two maids, and ran flat-out along the central corridor of the guest range, where scores of rooms were laid ready against the possibility of visiting nobility.

“Out the
fucking
way!” Some old retainer doddered from a doorway into my path. One of my father’s—Robbin, a grey old cripple always limping about the place getting underfoot. I swerved past him—Lord knows why we keep such hangers-on—and accelerated down the hallway.

Twice guardsmen startled from their alcoves, one even calling a challenge before deciding I was more ass than assassin. Two doors short of the corridor’s end I stopped and made an entrance to the Green Room, gambling that it would be unoccupied. The room, chambered in rustic style with a four-poster bed carved like spreading oaks, lay empty and shrouded in white linens. I passed the bed, wherein I’d once spent several pleasant nights in the company of a dusky contessa from the southernmost reaches of Roma, and threw back the shutters. Through the window, onto the balcony, vault the balustrade, and drop to the peaked roof of the royal stables, an edifice that would put to shame any mansion on the Kings Way.

Now, I know how to fall, but the drop from the stables roof would kill a Chinee acrobat, and so the speed with which I ran along the stone gutter was a careful balance between my desire not to fall to my death and my desire not to be stabbed to my death by Maeres Allus or one of his enforcers. The giant Norseman could bludgeon me a way out of debt altogether if I managed to secure his services and make the right wagers. Hell, if people saw what I saw in the man and wouldn’t give me good odds, then I could just slip him some bonewort and bet against him.

At the far end of the stables hall two Corinthian pillars supported ancient vines, or vice versa. Either way a good, or desperate, climber could make his way to ground there. I slid the last ten foot, bruised my heel, bit my tongue, and ran off towards the Battle Gate spitting blood.

I arrived there winded and had to bend double, palms on thighs, heaving in great lungfuls of air before I could assess the situation.

Two guards watched me with undisguised curiosity. An old soak commonly known as Double, and a youngster I didn’t recognize.

“Double!” I straightened up and raised a hand in greeting. “What dungeon are the queen’s prisoners being taken to?” It would be the war cells up in the Marsail keep. They might be slaves but you wouldn’t put the Norseman in with common stock. I asked anyway. It’s always good to open with an easy question to put your man at ease.

“Ain’t no cells for them lot.” Double made to spit, then thought better of it and swallowed noisily.

“Wh—?” She couldn’t be having them killed! It would be a criminal waste.

“They’s going free. Tha’s what I heard.” Double shook his head at the badness of the business, jowls wobbling. “Contaph’s coming up to process them.” He nodded out across the plaza and sure enough there was Contaph, layered in his official robes and beetling towards us with the sort of self-importance that only minor functionaries can muster. From the high latticed windows above the Battle Gate I could hear the distant clank of chains, drawing nearer.

“Damn it.” I glanced from door to subchamberlain and back again. “Hold them here, Double,” I told him. “Don’t tell them anything. Not a thing. I’ll see you right. Your friend too.” And with that I hurried off to intercept Ameral Contaph of House Mecer.

We met in the middle of the plaza where an ancient sundial spelled out the time with morning shadows. Already the flagstones were beginning to heat up and the day’s promise simmered above the rooftops. “Ameral!” I threw my hands wide as though he were an old friend.

“Prince Jalan.” He ducked his head as if seeking to take me from his sight. I could forgive him his suspicions; as a child I used to hide scorpions in his pockets.

“Those slaves that put on this morning’s entertainment in the throne room . . . what’s to become of them, Ameral?” I moved to intercept him while he tried to circumnavigate me, his order-scroll clutched tight in one pudgy fist.

“I’m to set them on a caravan for Port Ismuth with papers dissolving any indenture.” He stopped trying to get past me and sighed. “What is it that you want, Prince Jalan?”

“Only the Norseman.” I gave him a smile and a wink. “He’s too dangerous to just set free. That should have been obvious to everyone. In any event, Grandmother sent me to take charge of him.”

Contaph looked up at me, eyes narrow with distrust. “I’ve had no such instructions.”

I have, I must confess, a very honest face. Bluff and courageous, it’s been called. I’m easy to mistake for a hero, and with a little effort I can convince even the most cynical stranger of my sincerity. With people who know me, that trick becomes more difficult. Much more difficult.

“Walk with me.” I set a hand to his shoulder and steered him towards the Battle Gate. It’s good to steer a man in the direction he intended to go. It blurs the line between what he wants and what you want.

“In truth the Red Queen gave me a scroll with the order. A hasty scrawl on a scrap of parchment, really. And to my shame I’ve let it drop in my rush to get here.” I took my hand from his shoulder and unfastened the gold chain from around my wrist, a thing of heavy links set with a small ruby on both clasps. “It would be deeply embarrassing for me to have to return and admit the loss to my grandmother. A friend would understand such things.” I took to steering him again as if my only desire were for him to reach his destination safely. The chain I dangled before him. “You
are
my friend, aren’t you, Ameral?” Rather than drop the chain into a pocket of his robe and risk reminding him of scorpions, I pressed it into the midst of his sweaty palm and risked him realizing it was red glass and gold plated over lead, and thinly at that. Anything of true value I’d long since pawned against the interest on my debts.

“You’ll retrace your steps and find this document?” Contaph asked, pausing to stare at the chain in his hand. “And bring it for filing before sunset?”

“Assuredly.” I oozed sincerity. Any more and it would be dripping from me.

“He
is
dangerous, this Norseman.” Contaph nodded as if persuading himself. “A heathen with false gods. I was surprised, I must admit, to see freedom set against his name.”

“An oversight.” I nodded. “Now corrected.” Ahead of us Double appeared to be engaged in heated conversation through the view grille set into the Battle Gate’s subdoor. “You may allow the prisoners out,” I called to him. “We’re ready for them now!”

 • • • 

“Y
ou’re looking uncommonly pleased with yourself.” Darin strolled into the High Hall, a dining gallery named for its elevation rather than the height of its ceiling. I like to eat there for the view it offers, both out across the palace compound and, via slit windows, into the great entrance hall of my father’s house.

“Pheasant, pickled trout, hen’s eggs.” I gestured at the silver plates set before me on the long trestle. “What’s not to be pleased about? Help yourself.” Darin is self-righteous and overly curious about my doings, but not the royal pain in the arse that Martus is, so by dint of not being Martus he carries the title of “favourite brother.”

“The domo reports dishes keep going missing from the kitchens of late.” Darin took an egg and sat at the far end of the table with it.

“Curious.” That would be Jula, our sharp-eyed head cook, telling tales to the house domo, though how such whispers came to Darin’s ear . . . “I’d have a few of the scullions beaten. Soon put a stop to it.”

“On what evidence?” He salted the egg and bit deep.

“Evidence be damned! Bloody up a few of the menials, put the fear into the lot of them. That’ll put an end to it. That’s what Grandmother would do. Light fingers get broken, she’d say.” I went for honest outrage, using my own discomfort to colour my reactions. No more selling off the family silver for Jal, then . . . that line of credit had come to an end. Still, I had the Norseman safely stowed away in the Marsail keep. I could see the keep from where I sat, a slouching edifice of stone more ancient than any part of the palace, scarred and disfigured but stubbornly resisting the plans of a dozen former kings to tear it down. A ring of tiny windows, heavily barred, ran around its girth like a belt. Snorri ver Snagason would be looking up at one of those from the floor of his cell. I’d told them to give him red meat, rare and bloody. Fighters thrive on blood.

For the longest time I stared out the window, watching the keep and the vast landscape of the heavens behind it, a sky of white and blue, all in motion so that the keep seemed to move and the clouds stay still, making a ship of all that stone, ploughing on through white waves.

“What did you think of all that rubbish this morning?” I asked the question without expecting an answer, sure that Darin had taken his leave.

“I think if Grandmother is worried, we should be too,” Darin said.

“A door into death? Corpses? Necromancy?” I sucked and the flesh came easily off a pheasant’s bone. “Am I to fear this?” I tapped the bone to the table, looked away from the window, and grinned at him. “Is it going to pursue me for vengeance?” I made it walk.

“You heard those men—”

“Have
you
ever seen a dead man walk? Forget distant deserts and ice wastes. Here in Red March, has
anyone
ever seen such?”

Darin shrugged. “Grandmother says at least one unborn has entered the city. That’s something to be taken seriously.”

“A what?”

“Jesu! Did you really not listen to a word she said? She is the queen, you know. You’d do well to pay attention from time to time.”

“An unborn?” The term rang no bells. It didn’t even approach the belfry.

“Something born into death rather than life, remember?” Darin shook his head at my blank look. “Forget it! Just listen now. Father expects you at this opera of his tonight. No showing up late, or drunk, or both. No pretending nobody told you.”

“Opera? Dear God, why?” That was the last thing I needed. A bunch of fat and painted idiots wailing at me from a stage for several hours.

“Just be there. A cardinal is expected to finance such projects from time to time. And when he does, his family had better put in an appearance or the chattering classes will want to know why.”

I had opened my mouth to protest when it occurred to me that the DeVeer sisters would be among those chattering classes. Phenella Maitus too, the newly arrived and allegedly stunning daughter of Ortus Maitus, whose pockets ran so deep it might even be worth a marriage contract to reach into them. And of course if I could have Snorri make his debut in the pits before the show started, then I would likely find no end of aristocratic and mercantile purses opening in the opera intermissions to wager on this exciting new blood. If there’s one good thing to be said about opera, it’s that it makes a man appreciate all other forms of entertainment so much more. I closed my mouth and nodded. Darin left, still munching his egg.

The appetite had left me. I pushed the plate away. Idle fingers discovered my old locket beneath the folds of my cloak and I fished it out, tapping it against the table. A cheap enough thing of plate and glass, it clicked open to reveal Mother’s portrait. I snapped it shut again. She last saw me when I was seven; a flux took her. They call it a flux. It’s just the shits, really. You weaken, fever takes you, you die stinking. Not the way a princess is supposed to die, or a mother. I slipped the locket away unopened. Best she remember me as seven and not see me now.

 • • • 

B
efore leaving the palace I picked up my escort, the two elderly guardsmen allotted to the task of preserving my royal hide by my father’s generosity. With the pair in tow I swung by the Red Hall and collected a handful of my usual cronies. Roust and Lon Greyjar, cousins of the Prince of Arrow, sent to “further relations,” which seemed to entail eating all our best vittles and chasing chambermaids. Also Omar, seventh son of the Caliph of Liba and a fine fellow for gambling. I’d met him during my brief and inglorious spell at the Mathema, and he’d persuaded the caliph to send him to the continent to broaden his education! With Omar and the Greyjars I headed up to the guest range, that wing of the Inner Palace where more important dignitaries were housed and where Barras Jon’s father, the Vyene ambassador to court, kept a suite of rooms. We had a servant fetch out Barras and he came sharp enough, with Rollas, his companion-cum-bodyguard, trailing behind.

“What a perfect night to get drunk on!” Barras saluted me as he came down the steps. He always said it was a perfect night to get drunk.

“For that we’d need wine!” I spread my hands.

Barras stepped aside to reveal Rollas behind him carrying a large flask. “Big goings-on in court today.”

“A meeting of the clan,” I said. Barras never stopped fishing for court news. I had a hunch half of his allowance depended on feeding gossip to his father.

“The Lady Blue playing her games again?” He flung an arm around my shoulders and steered me towards the Common Gate. With Barras everything was a plot of nation against nation or worse, a conspiracy to undermine what peace remained in the Broken Empire.

“Damned if I know.” Now he mentioned it, there had been talk of the Lady Blue. Barras always insisted that my grandmother and this purported sorceress were fighting their own private war and had been for decades—if true, then to my mind it was a piss-poor excuse for one as I’d seen precious little sign of it. Tales about the Lady Blue seemed as doubtful as those about the handful of so-called magicians who seemed to haunt the western courts. Kelem, Corion, half a dozen others: charlatans the lot of them. Only the existence of Grandmother’s Silent Sister lent any credence at all to the rumours . . . “Last I heard our friend in blue was flitting from one Teuton court to the next. Probably been hung for a witch by now.”