“What turned the Dead King’s eyes this way?” Garyus asked.
Not wanting to say that I had done it I said nothing. Though to be fair Martus’s report indicated that the dead had been stirring within our walls for some while and I had only just returned.
“The Lady Blue steers the Dead King,” Garyus answered for me.
“And why—”
“Alica says our time is running out, and fast. She says that the troubles in Vermillion are to distract her, to keep her here. The true danger lies in not stopping the Lady Blue. The Wheel of Osheim is still turning . . . how long remains to us is unclear, but if the Lady Blue is left unchecked to keep pushing it then the last of our days will run through our fingers so quickly that even ancients like me will have to worry.”
“So it truly is a whole army, a whole war, just to kill one woman?”
“Sometimes that’s what it takes . . .”
I came to my father’s chambers also without knowing why. To learn more about his mother’s war was the excuse that had led me there, but the Red Queen would rather share her plans with her court jester—if she had one—than Reymond Kendeth.
I knocked at his bedchamber and a maid opened the door. I didn’t note which maid. The figure in the bed held my gaze, hunched in upon himself in the gloom, his form picked out only here and there where the daylight found a slit in his blinds.
The maid closed the door behind her as she left.
I stood, feeling like a child again, lost for words. The place smelled of sour wine, musty neglect, sickness, and sorrow. “Father.”
He raised his head. He looked old. Balding, greying, flesh sunken about his bones, an unhealthy glitter in his eyes. “My son.”
The cardinal called everyone “my son.” A hundred dusty sermons crowded in on me—all the times when I’d wanted a father not a cleric, all those times since Mother died when I’d wanted the man she’d seen in him—for arranged or not she wasn’t one to have given herself to a man she felt no respect or appreciation for.
“My son?” he repeated, a thickness in his voice. Drunk again.
The reason I’d come escaped me and I turned to go.
“Jalan.”
I turned back. “So you recognize me.”
He smiled—a weak thing, part grimace. “I do. But you’ve changed, boy. Grown. I thought at first you were your brother . . . but I couldn’t tell which. You’ve both of them in you.”
“Well, if you’re just going to insult me . . .” In truth I knew it to be a compliment, the Darin part anyway. Perhaps the Martus part. Martus was at least brave, if little else.
“We—” He coughed and hugged his chest. “I’ve been a poor—”
“Father?”
“I was going to say cardinal. But I have been a poor father too. I’ve no excuses, Jalan. It was a betrayal of your mother. My weakness . . . the world sweeps along so fast and the easiest paths are . . . easiest.” He sagged.
“You’re drunk.” Though that was hardly a judgment I could wield against anyone. We didn’t talk like this, ever. Very drunk. “You should sleep.” I didn’t want his mawkish apologies, forgotten within a day. I couldn’t look at him without distaste—though what part of that was just the fear that I looked into a mirror and saw myself old, I couldn’t say. I wanted . . . I wanted that things had been different . . . I saw him from the other side of Mother’s death now. Snorri had done that for me—shown me how a husband’s grief can cut down even the biggest of men. I wished he hadn’t shown me—it was easy to hate Father, understanding him just made me sad.
“We should . . . spend some time, talk, do whatever it—” Another cough. “Whatever it is we’re supposed to do. My mother . . . well, you know her, she wasn’t so good at that part of things. I always said I’d do better. But when Nia died . . .”
“You’re drunk,” I told him, finding my throat tight. I went to the door, opened it. Somehow I couldn’t just leave—the words wouldn’t go with me, I had to leave them in the room. “When you’re better. We’ll talk then. Get drunk together, properly. Cardinal and son.”
Two days later the Red Queen led the Army of the South out of Vermillion, their columns ten thousand strong marching down the broad avenues of the Piatzo toward Victory Gate. Grandmother was astride a vast red stallion, her platemail gothic and enamelled in crimson as if she’d been freshly dipped in blood. I’d witnessed the Red Queen earning her name and had little doubt that she would soon be wearing a more practical armour and still be prepared to personally drench it in the real thing if need be. She paid the crowd no heed, her stare fixed on the tomorrows ahead. Her hair, rust and iron, scraped back beneath a circle of gold. A more scary old woman I’d yet to see—and I’d seen a few.
Behind the queen came the remnants of our once-proud cavalry, dropping a goodly tonnage of dung for the footmen to trudge through. Start as you mean to go on, I say.
I stood beside Martus, and on my other side, Darin, returned from his love nest in the country. He’d brought Micha back with him to Roma Hall, apparently with a baby, though all I saw was a basket hung with silver chains and loaded with lace. Darin kept threatening to introduce me to my new niece, but so far I’d avoided the meeting. I’m not partial to babies. They tend to vomit on me, or failing that, to vent from the other end.
“Hurrah . . . a parade . . .” The autumn sun beat down on us while we cheered and waved from the royal stand. The watching crowds had been issued with bright flags, the colours of the South, and many waved the Red March standard, divided diagonally, red above for the blood spilled on the march, black below for the hearts of our enemy. Martus bemoaned the state of the cavalry and the fact he’d been left behind. Darin observed that winter in Slov could be an ugly thing and he hoped the troops were equipped for it.
“They’ll be back in a month, you fool.” Martus offered us both a look of scorn as if I’d had something to do with the suggestion.
“Experience teaches that armies often get bogged down—no matter how dry the weather,” Darin said.
“Experience? What experience have you had, little brother?” A full Martus sneer now.
“History,” Darin said. “You can find it in books.”
“Pah. All history has taught us is we don’t learn from history.”
I let their argument flow over me and watched the infantry march by, spears across their shoulders, shields on their arms. Veterans or not few of them looked older than Martus and some looked younger than me.
Ten thousand men seemed a small force to challenge the might of Slov, though to be fair an army of well-trained and well-equipped regulars like the South can send five times its number of peasant conscripts running for their fields. Given Grandmother’s objective ten thousand seemed sufficient. Enough for a thrust, enough to secure the target area, and enough, when the Lady Blue was brought to ruin, to fight a retreat to defensible borders.
I wished them joy of it. My main priority remained unchanged. The pursuit of leisure—by definition a languid sort of a chase. I wanted to relax back into Vermillion and my newfound financial freedom, free from the threat of Maeres Allus and all those tiresome debts.
“Prince Jalan.” One of Grandmother’s elite guardsmen stood beside me, gleaming irritatingly. “The steward requires your presence.”
“The steward?” I glanced round at Martus and Darin who gave exaggerated shrugs, as interested as me in the answer.
The guard answered by pointing to the Victory Gate and raising his finger. There on the wall, directly above the gate, a palanquin, ornate and curtained, two teams of four men at the carrying bars to either side, guardsmen flanking them. Grandmother’s own.