*
I had been working in the library of Castle Aramor, maps strewn across the long table and two-centuries-old books on warfare in my hands. The Ducal Army would be here within hours and we had only a hundred and forty-four Greatcoats and a small troop of Royal Guardsmen, and the staff and residents of the castle. It wasn’t a lot to work with, but I had got a few ideas from the old books. I would have dearly loved weapons for countering sieges right then, but I was ready to make do without.
I heard someone come in and turned to see the King. He was casually dressed, in the gear we wore for practising swordwork.
‘I don’t suppose you’d reconsider?’ I asked him, still looking at the diagram of the castle on the table for a way to block the South Gate so that I wouldn’t have to divert troops there.
‘Kings don’t get to run, Falcio,’ he said.
I looked up at him. ‘Well, if you can’t ride fast, you fight hard.’
‘Not this time. The motto is “judge fair, ride fast, fight hard”, remember? “Fight hard” is the last option. Besides, there’s a reason why no King of Tristia has ever been allowed to maintain a private army. The soldiery has always been the Dukes’ protection against a tyrant taking absolute power.’
‘Then what—?’
‘You’re going to stand the men down, Falcio. I’m ordering you to stand the men down.’
‘But we can fight! I’ve thought it through and the Magisters are ready. If you’ll only go over these plans with me I can show you—’
‘Enough. I’m still King, for the next few hours, at any rate.’
‘But I’m telling you we can fight!’
He started to answer, but a coughing fit overtook him. It was coming on winter and he’d not slept in three days.
‘You can fight, Falcio,’ he said finally, ‘but you can’t win. And even if you could, every one of the Magisters would lose their lives.’
‘What kind of life will we have when the Dukes take us?’ I slammed my fist on one of my maps. ‘Where are the noble families, damn it? How many trips have you taken, “courting the lesser nobles”? Where are they now that we need them?’
‘It isn’t their job to throw their lives away on a war they can’t win, Falcio. Saints know what I’ve asked of them is more than they should have had to give in the first place.’
‘You’re talking in circles again when we should be preparing the Greatcoats!’
The King walked over to me and put a hand on the side of my face. People always seem to do that when they want me to shut up and do something I don’t want to do.
‘I’m going to tell you what to do now, Falcio. I’m going to give you the new plan. I’m your friend, but I’m your King first. You are going to surrender the castle to the Duke’s men, in exchange for safe passage and pardons for the Greatcoats.’
He was right; he was my King and my friend and I loved him, but I swear right then I almost hit him. I felt my fingernails pressing into my palms as I clenched my fists. I would have knocked him down, had it not been for the look in his eyes.
‘This is how I want it, Falcio, and this is how it will be. The Dukes will agree. They know the Magisters are fierce, and they won’t want to pay any more for this adventure than they absolutely have to.’
The thought of turning him over to the Dukes was unconscionable. It would mean the destruction of everything the Greatcoats stood for. We had truly believed we could bring law and justice and honour to the world, and now he was taking that from me. I felt sick, betrayed.
‘Fine, damn you, my liege,’ I said, pulling away from him. ‘But don’t ask me to give the order. Get Dara or someone else.’
The King leaned on the table. ‘It has to be you, Falcio.’
‘Why? Why by the Gods? Why would you make me be the one to give this order – this abomination – to the Greatcoats?’
His voice grew very quiet then as he said, ‘Because if you don’t give the order, no one will follow it.’
A few hours later, just before the Ducal Army’s vanguard arrived, I gave the Greatcoats the order, and they followed it.