*
‘There’s always hope,’ the King said, pushing the tiny package back to me. He’d been away on a trip to one of the great cities, ‘courting the nobles’, as he called them, as if it were all a grand joke he told himself for amusement. He wasn’t smiling now, though. ‘You shouldn’t have asked the apothecary to concoct this without my permission, Falcio, if for no other reason than that it smells absolutely foul.’
‘Would you have given permission?’ I asked.
He pushed me towards one of the great reading chairs in the library – we spent a great deal of time there during those early days. The King had no experience with war; he had never served in his father’s army, nor had he been part of Greggor’s administration, nor taken any part in the running of the country. Most of his adult life had been spent imprisoned, with no companionship but the books his mother had stolen for him. Through that mercy she had made him a strong believer in reading, and as a result, we spent hours in the royal library, searching out and reading books on war, on politics, on strategy.
‘No, Falcio, I would not have given you permission to create a means for my Greatcoats to commit suicide.’
‘If one of us is caught, if we know things—’
‘What things?’ the King asked.
‘Things – secret things. Damn it, you know what I mean!’
‘And you want to kill yourself before anyone can make you reveal those … things?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why not just tell them?’
‘Why not just—? Are you playing with me, your Majesty?’
The King smiled at me. He had a funny-looking smile for a monarch. Despite being better fed and haler than when I’d first met him, he still had that slightly idiotic-looking smile I remembered from the night in his chamber when I’d gone to kill him.
‘Falcio, why in the world would I want to lose one of my Magisters simply to keep a secret that, quite frankly, I’ll never know whether they revealed or not?’
‘So you want us to just tell them everything when we’re captured?’
‘Well, I’m sure you can offer a bit of token resistance – a sort of, “Secrets? What secrets?” type of thing … but really, why not? At least that way I’ll know that the secret’s out. At least that way there’s a chance I keep my Magister, who might later escape and bring back vital intelligence.’
‘Your Majesty, there’s something you’re not getting here—’
‘I’m sure you’ll enlighten me,’ he said drily.
‘If a Greatcoat is near capture, if he’s surrounded, he might be more inclined to surrender if he knows there’s a chance of saving his skin. No matter how brave or loyal the man, it’s a trade he might make.’
‘Whereas you’d prefer they fight to the death?’
‘You said there’s always hope. Well, there’s always hope if you keep fighting.’
The King smiled. ‘No, Falcio, there isn’t. There’s just always someone left to kill.’
‘That’s something, then, isn’t it?’
The King stood and refilled our wine goblets and we sat in silence for a few minutes, idly glancing at the pages of the open books that weighed down the large oak table.
‘You weren’t always a Greatcoat, Falcio,’ he said finally.
‘I wasn’t always in the Greatcoats, but I was always a Greatcoat in my heart,’ I corrected him.
He laughed. ‘Such a romantic! Such an optimist!’
‘It saved you from getting a sword in the belly, didn’t it?’
‘I rather think exhaustion combined with several crossbow bolts had something to do with that as well.’
‘You think I would’ve murdered you, then?’
He thought about it for a moment, then said, ‘No, not once you’d realised I wasn’t my father and I was still helpless as an underfed kitten. But if I’d been a little better fed, a little stronger …’
‘You think so little of me? You think I’d kill someone just because—?’
‘You’d kill someone just because they were bigger than you, Falcio, yes. If they were on the wrong side but they were scrawny, you’d find a way to – well, knock them out or some such thing. But if you’d seen me in that room that night, fit and full of health? Yes, I think you’d have killed me and gone off in search of the next closest heir to the throne until you found someone too weak to defend themselves.’
I didn’t like where this was going, so I picked up the wine goblet and took a drink. It was already empty, so I felt even more the fool.
‘Well then, good thing I found you first, isn’t it?’ I said, putting down the goblet.
The King reached over from his chair and squeezed my shoulder. ‘A very good thing. A miraculous thing. The best of all things,’ he said. ‘The Greatcoats are what’s going to make this country better, Falcio. They’re my dream. They’re my answer. I want them to live.’
‘Your answer to what?’
‘My answer to the fact that a man can be killed for no better reason than it pleases someone above him. My answer to the weakness that fact creates in a country, in a people. My answer to the fact that Avares and the other nations surrounding us will one day decide to come over the mountains – perhaps because they lack food or wealth, perhaps because they want more, perhaps because their clerics tell them that the Gods demand it – perhaps even for no better reason than that they have nothing better to do. Our nation is weakened by a system that breeds a visceral hatred so deep that most people would as soon see the world burn as stay as it is, but lack the will to try and change it.’
‘And that’s your job, is it, being the one at the top of the whole machine?’
‘Mine, yes, and yours. And Kest’s and Brasti’s and all the others, too. First we bring justice, then we bring change.’
‘Justice is a change,’ I said.
‘No, justice is just the start. It’s the thing that will make change possible.’
I thought about that for a moment. Then I said, ‘You forgot women.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘A woman can be killed for no better reason than it pleases someone above her, too.’
King Paelis sighed. ‘It always comes back to that, doesn’t it, Falcio? They murdered your wife, and each and every thing you do from that day forth will be because of that, won’t it?’
‘Is that so wrong a reason? To fight – to die, if need be?’
‘If it’s your reason then it can’t be so very wrong – it’s as good a reason for dying as any. It’s just not a very good reason for living.’
I didn’t want to answer. I loved the King, but sometimes he asked more than I was prepared to give. ‘It’ll have to do for now,’ I said finally. ‘And if you trust me in anything, trust me that one day a Greatcoat will be in a position where there is no better option than a quick death.’
The King pushed the tiny package back towards me. ‘Fine. You are my First Cantor and, if you really want a way for Magisters to kill themselves, I’ll talk to the Royal Apothecary myself.’
I relaxed a bit. ‘Maybe you can ask him to make it smell better, too. Perhaps a strawberry flavour?’
King Paelis slammed his fist on the table, and despite his small stature books went flying. ‘Don’t!’ he cried.
I was about to say, ‘Don’t what?’ but the fury on his face told me better.
He knew it, too. ‘Leave it be now, Falcio. You’ve said your piece and you’re getting your way – but don’t ever think you have persuaded me. Don’t ever think this was your reason winning out over my weakness. You’ve won.’ He coughed and wiped at his mouth. ‘Now leave it be. It’s been a long trip and I need a rest.’
A few weeks later a guard arrived bearing a wooden box. On top of the box was a note that said, Try not to get them mixed up. Inside the box were a hundred and forty-four small packages, each containing a square. I opened one, careful not to touch it with my bare skin. It smelled like strawberries, and I couldn’t imagine what that meant.