*
Despite my prejudice against the place, Rijou is really a very beautiful city at twilight, if you can forget where you are for just a moment.
The Clerk of the Gate had sent word for one of the Duke’s advisors, and a man named Shiballe arrived to escort us into the city. Shiballe was overfed and too well dressed for a messenger, but it wasn’t really my problem at this point. The worst he could do would be to assassinate Valiana, which might not be such a bad thing.
When Shiballe kissed her hand, the Lady looked at me and smiled as if this was all a grand joke she’d played on me personally, as if I should somehow be stunned senseless by her cleverness. That itself would have been enough to make me dislike her, not to mention the fact that her mother was the bitch who helped kill my King. But for some reason what offended me most was watching Trin humble herself, walking three feet behind her mistress, as docile as a lamb off to be sheared. If we did decide to go back on every vow we’d ever taken and kill Valiana, we’d have to kill Feltock first – that wouldn’t be such a hard thing to do; the man was a soldier and he’d made his own bed. Trin would die too, though, before letting anyone touch Valiana, and that was just a shame. When Shiballe kissed Trin’s hand she looked as if a horse had just shat on it, which only served to make me like her more.
The Lady stopped for refreshment with Shiballe. Feltock and Brasti stood guard while Kest and I were sent to scout the rest of the way. I took the opportunity to enjoy the city between sunset and moonrise: twilight in Rijou is quite possibly the only time when, for reasons only the Saints know, the nobles of the city don’t feel the same need to murder their fellow citizens. Unfortunately, we weren’t fellow citizens.
‘We have to do this, Falcio,’ Kest said for the hundredth time. He rarely repeats himself because he eventually just does whatever it is he thinks needs doing and deals with the consequences later, so I had to assume he wasn’t trying to change my mind so much as ease me towards the inevitable conclusion. ‘You know this is what they’ve been planning while we’ve been fumbling around the country,’ he went on. ‘To set up a new monarchy – one completely controlled by the Dukes, so they never have to fear the rise of a new King like Paelis.’
‘The Dukes run everything as it is,’ I said. ‘So what’s the difference?’
‘The difference is that their rule will be entrenched across the entire country, not just in their individual Duchies any more.’
‘Look around,’ I said. ‘The world has become as corrupt and oppressive as any of us could ever have imagined.’
‘Yes, and if we let them sit this girl on the throne it will get much worse. As bad as they are right now, the Dukes still shy away from actively breaking King’s Law. They know it would put them in jeopardy if a strong, decent Duke comes to power or, Saints hope, a new King rises. But if we let them get away with this then the most self-serving, oppressive rule in our history will become law. King’s Law, Falcio.’
‘If it goes that way then we’ll fight, won’t we? And we’ll win – we always win in the end.’
‘Don’t make Brasti right about you,’ Kest said. ‘You know as well as I do that there aren’t that many of us left. We were a hundred and forty-four at our peak and now we’re fair game for anyone with a blade. I doubt there are still fifty Greatcoats left. And who knows what most of them have turned into? I can beat anyone with a sword, Falcio, but I can’t beat ten men with pistols. The old rules won’t work for us. We can win the fight, but I don’t think we can win fair.’
I stopped my horse for a moment. ‘You want to pass judgement before she’s even committed a crime. The King never would have allowed that. It would have destroyed him. It would destroy us.’
‘What about Tremondi?’ he asked.
‘Tremondi? What’s she got to do with him?’
Kest sighed. ‘You really haven’t figured it out?’
‘Pretend I haven’t.’
Kest pointed at the carriage. ‘We know Tremondi was having an affair with the woman who killed him. Who fits the old pervert’s tastes? Valiana does. Who benefits by his death? She does. Who, when we appeared at the market in Solat, managed to find a way to both keep us on a short leash and to ensure the rest of the caravan guards hated us? It was her, with that challenge she put you up to.’
‘Which you made me accept,’ I said.
‘Nothing gets by you, Falcio, except for the bloody obvious. Almost as soon as we left the caravan, once we were away from the city and anyone who might have believed our story, Lynniac and his Knights show up – and what does she do? She makes us fight them barehanded.’
‘She could have just let them take us.’
‘No – too much chance we might’ve escaped on the road. This way she’d know for sure we were dead. It’s her, Falcio. She’s the one who killed Tremondi. If it wasn’t for the aeltheca she hit us with, we’d be able to identify her. But it’s likely that she kept hidden from us as long as necessary to make sure any partial recollection we might have had would be well and truly gone by the time we saw her.’
I had nothing to counter with. Everything Kest said made perfect sense. We’d probably convicted men on lesser proof – Saints know the Dukes would have convicted us on less. But we were supposed to be different. We were supposed to be better.
‘It’s all right, Falcio,’ Kest said quietly. ‘I know you can’t do it. I’m not asking you to.’
‘Do what? Commit murder?’
‘Set things right. But I’ll do it. I can do this by myself, when the time is right, when we can be sure. But for the sake of our friendship, don’t try to stop me when it happens.’
I stared at him. ‘What kind of friendship will we have then?’
‘The same kind we had before we became Greatcoats. I know you loved the King, Falcio. I did too. But they killed him. They can’t kill his dream, too.’
No, I thought as I pushed my horse forward, they can’t. We’re doing that ourselves.
*
Half an hour later I signalled a stop to the carriage. A group of men in black uniforms were surrounding a large mansion. They had pikes in hand and were blocking the windows and doors with great slabs of stone that were arriving on ox-carts. There was also a wagon filled with casks.
I motioned to Feltock to come forward and asked, ‘Do you have any idea what’s going on?’
‘You’ve seen what a war looks like, haven’t you?’ said the captain.
I ignored him and dismounted. I walked over to the man driving the wagon with the casks. Two of his fellows stood in front of me with short-swords in hand, but I called out to him, ‘What’s going on here?’
‘What do you think is going on, man? Come midnight it’ll be the first day of Ganath Kalila, so keep to your own affairs if you don’t want to find yourself on the wrong side.’
That was strange. It almost sounded as if the man had said ‘Ganath Kalila’. But of course that couldn’t be possible, because if it turned out we were here during Ganath Kalila I would simply have to concede that at this very moment a thousand virgin brides were cursing my name …
‘Sorry,’ I said to the man, ‘I think I misunderstood. I thought you might have said—’
The two men with short-swords pushed me back.
Feltock came after me and Kest followed, a hand on the grip of his own sword.
‘What’d he say?’ Feltock asked.
‘Ganath Kalila,’ I replied. ‘The Blood Week. We’ve come here just when the Duke has called the Blood Week.’