Clay had some idea why. “What’s the point of keeping you here?” he asked.
“She’s worried I’ll go off and father a legitimate heir. She said she’d kill me if I ever managed to get away, and now it looks like she wants me out of the picture for good. Remember that man in my room last night—the one you kicked when you came through the mirror? Well, that was one of her assassins. It wasn’t the first one she’s sent after me, and as sure as Hell is cold it won’t be the last if I stick around this place. I need to escape, and I need your help to do it. No way Lilith’ll find someone stupid enough to follow me into the Heartwyld.”
Moog beamed. “Wait, so does this mean you’ll come to Castia?”
“Of course I’ll come,” said Matrick. “You shits are the only real family I’ve got.”
There it is, thought Clay, that warm, fuzzy feeling again …
“The problem is getting away. It will have to be after the council, obviously.”
“We could use the mirror,” suggested Gabriel, but the king shook his head.
“Lilith had it confiscated. She claims it’s a threat to castle security. Which it is, I suppose. By the Unholy Dead, I’d forgot the thing was a portal at all, or I’d have jumped through it long ago.”
“So we can’t leave out the front gate,” Moog reasoned. “And doubtless she’ll have the rest under guard …”
“Believe it,” said the king.
“What about that bag of yours, Moog?” asked Gabriel. “You can fit anything in there, right? Matrick could hide inside and we could smuggle him out of the castle.”
The wizard shook his head. “It’s a vacuum.”
Gabe frowned. “A what?”
“A void. There’s no air. He wouldn’t survive longer than he could hold his breath. Trust me. I had a cat once that—” He broke off. “Just … no.”
“You could kidnap me,” Matrick suggested. “Disguise yourselves, knock me out, fight your way past the guards. We could leave a ransom note …”
“Lilith would assume it was us,” said Clay. “Also, I’d rather not kill anyone if we don’t have to.”
Their cups rattled as Moog slammed his hand on the table. “I have it!” he shouted. All eyes turned toward him. The wizard grinned and spared Clay a rueful wink. “It is risky, though.”
Chapter Twelve
The Council of Courts
It was something like four hundred years since the Company of Kings had defeated the last of the Heartwyld Hordes at Lindmoor and brought an end to the War of Reclamation, but the place still looked like a battlefield. Each spring the groundwater surged up and transformed it into a stinking fen. By summer’s end it had mostly dried out, save for a few fetid pools here and there, and the muddy ground was littered with dredged-up relics: shattered arms and rusted armour, the mould-sheathed bones of monsters great and small. It was bordered, distantly, by spruce forests east and west, farmlands to the north, and the broad, slow-flowing river to the south. Beyond the river, on a clear day like today, you could see the squat blue shadow of Matrick’s castle in Brycliffe.
At the centre of the broad peatland rose a grassy hillock known as the Isle of Wights. It was upon this rise (or so Matrick informed them as the king’s mounted entourage made its meandering way toward it) that Agar the Bald did battle with something called an Infernal, which, as Clay understood it, was akin to a champion among the Hordes of old. He’d never seen one except in paintings or tapestries, and though no two artists rendered an Infernal quite the same, they all tended to agree that it stood on a giant pile of corpses and looked like the worst, most terrifying monster imaginable.
“Agar managed to kill the demon,” Matrick explained, “but died of his wounds. His grandson, Agar the Beardless, went on to become the first king of Agria. Ever since then, whenever the five courts meet to discuss something of great importance, they meet right here on the Isle.”
Lilith, wrapped in an ermine-trimmed cloak and mounted on a brilliant white mare beside him, affected a loud and lasting yawn.
“Why isle?” asked Moog. “Looks like a hill to me.”
Matrick glanced over at his wife before answering. “In the spring this whole place floods—the isle’s the only dry spot for miles. And as for the rest of the name, Agar the Bald was buried beneath the hill, and each night the spirits of those who fell here at Lindmoor come to pay him homage.”
“Really?” Gabriel sounded skeptical.
“Really!” Matrick said proudly.
“Really …?” Moog stroked his chin, intrigued.
“Really?” snapped the queen. “I swear by the Summer Lord’s beard, I have laundry maids who talk less than you three.” She gestured at Clay with a white-gloved hand. “Kale, at least, knows when to keep his mouth shut.”
“It’s Clay, actually.”
Lilith pouted haughtily. “And you were doing so well.”
The hill was surrounded by a crowd of gawkers gathered in hope of laying eyes on a real live druin. They’d laid out blankets, unpacked picnic baskets, and were generally making a day of it. Someone was selling skewers of roasted chestnuts, and one enterprising woman was hawking what she referred to as “authentic druin dolls.” Moog bought one for five coppers, and the thing turned out to be little more than a stuffed sock puppet with buttons for eyes and a pair of flimsy cloth rabbit ears sewn on top. The wizard seemed pleased with his purchase nonetheless.
Upon reaching the Isle and climbing its gentle slope they found two delegations already waiting by the wind-scoured monument up top. The king’s retainers set about erecting an open-walled tent around a massive cedar table they’d hauled by wagon all the way from Brycliffe, while Matrick and his clutch of Agrian nobles mingled with their foreign guests.
The company from Phantra was entirely female. The Salt Queen’s kingdom was matriarchal: the sailors, soldiers, and laborers were commonly men, while women formed the core of the merchant class and held most of the senior positions in both the government and the military. Though their country was a fractious one—rival merchant houses rose and fell near as often as the tide—the easterners liked to remind the rest of Grandual that they had never lost a war against a neighbouring realm.
Their delegation was led by a young woman who introduced herself as Etna Doshi. She was short, stocky, and walked with the telltale Phantran swagger that was one-quarter useful for staying balanced on a ship’s deck and three-quarters cocky bravado. Her skin was sun bronzed, her face weathered as sailcloth, and her garish attire—bright scarves, draping sashes, an abundance of gaudy jewels—reminded Clay of the brigand “Lady” Jain, who had robbed them on the road to Conthas. She bound her black hair in a silver net adorned with sparkling sapphires and bright blue seashells. A puckered scar at the corner of her mouth made it look as though she were constantly sneering.
“Doshi?” Matrick asked as he clasped her hand. “Any relation to—”
“My mother,” she said before he could finish.
“Ah, splendid! How is that blind old bat?”
Etna seemed momentarily taken aback by the king’s frankness, but her scar-torn sneer stretched into a grin. “Still blind,” she said with a wink. “And still the finest Admiral in the Salt Queen’s illustrious navy.”
“Did she ever find that lost island she was always on about?”
“Antica, you mean?” Etna shook her head. “She’s still searching, the old fool, though I told her she’d have better luck finding an honest man in Low Tide.”
Matrick laughed, bracing his belly with a steadying hand. The rogue-turned-king had always felt right at home on the Phantran coast, where even the grandmothers could be charitably described as gutter-tongued swindlers. He’d gotten along especially well with Etna’s mother, who Matty used to claim had taught him everything he knew about ships and most of what he knew about women and knives.