“The king has made court in Milano House.”
“But . . . that’s insane.” The palace was compromised and Hertet had set up as king in his old house? The Inner Palace had been the seat of kings for generations. Spells and wards layered the place thicker than any rugs or tapestries: it was a place of safety against dark magics. For all I knew any dead thing crossing its threshold would burn or turn to dust . . . or simply become the more traditional kind of corpse, cut free of the necromancer’s strings. I very much doubted Milano House enjoyed the same protections. Still, Uncle Hertet had been practising to be king beneath that roof for longer than I’d been alive. Perhaps he felt safest there. Perhaps the Red Queen’s throne scared him. It would me. Especially if my claim were premature . . .
Passing by Scribes’ Row I saw the wiry form of a mire-ghoul, stark against the moon, just for an instant as it crested the roof.
“There!” I twisted to free an arm and failed. “Up there, a ghoul!”
“Don’t see it.” Sub-captain Paraito glanced upward without breaking stride.
“Aren’t you at least going to send men to investigate?” I managed to shake off one of the guards. “Unhand me, you buffoon, my uncle is exactly who I want to see. I don’t have to be dragged there!”
“The king has ordered all men-at-arms to defend Milano House. Our patrols are to round up traitors and forewarn of any attack. We’re not to go chasing shadows.”
I shook my head and carried on walking. In all honesty the shadows would probably eat Paraito and his squad if they ventured into them.
I didn’t make another break for it until we passed within sight of Roma Hall. In one of the upper rooms a faint light escaped the shutters. I twisted free and took a stride. One more stride and I would have made it clear, but one of the wall guards, either by accident or design, got the haft of his spear tangled between my legs and I went down with two men piling on top of me.
They dragged me up, spitting grit from the flagstones.
“Bind the prisoner!” Sub-captain Paraito nodded to one of his squad.
“I wasn’t trying to escape, you idiot!” An echo of berserker rage rang through me and more guardsmen stepped in to help hold my arms. “Prince Darin’s wife and child are alone in Roma House with a necromancer.” I took a deep breath as they looped the rope about my hands. “I’ll remind you again. I’m a prince, and the marshal of this whole damn city! If you let my sister-in-law die . . . Wait! The necromancer! He’s a threat to Hertet—the king, I mean. It’s your duty to—”
“It’s my duty to enter the information in my report.” The sub-captain motioned his men on, and on they went, dragging me while I fought my bonds.
As we approached Milano House I saw a host of armoured men drawn up around its walls, torches burning in such profusion as to light the entire courtyard. I saw members of the palace guard, the throne-room elite, the wall guard, the grounds guard, the aristocratic remnants of the Red Lance, Long Spear, and Iron Hoof cavalries, prison guards from the Marsail keep, even house guards from the noble houses.
“Alphons!” I spotted one of Father’s men in the host gathered before the front steps. “Alphons! Is Lady Micha safe? Lady Lisa?”
He shouted something but I only caught the word “double” before my captors forced me up the front steps along a narrow corridor of armoured knights. The great bronze doors opened a begrudging two feet, allowing us to file into the crowded entrance hall.
“Keep a tight hold on him.” And Paraito left us, presumably to file his report.
I stood there, sweaty, hurting, and above all furious. Every person crammed into the entrance hall appeared to be talking at once, the tide of conversation making only the slightest of dips when I was brought in. The antechamber held a dozen clusters of lords, the occasional lady, a few barons, an earl, even merchants plumped up in their most expensive finery, all talking at each other, some jovial, some worried, some heated. I saw Duchess Sansera wearing her age tonight, along with all her diamonds, Lord Gren, my old adversary in matters of gambling on both horses and men, looking more nervous here than he ever did at the pits, a score more highborn who might be expected to speak for me. A few glanced my way but the ropes on my wrists discouraged any from coming forward.
“We can’t just stand here!” I looked around at the four men detailed to guard me, a distinctly dowdy presence amid the silks and gold of the high and the mighty. “You saw what it’s like out there . . . You—”
“Cousin Jalan!” Hertet’s second-eldest son, Roland, came in through the main doors, spotting me immediately. Martus called him “the Chinless Wonder,” and to be fair the growing of a sort of beard to hide that fact, and siring the Red Queen’s first great grandson, did rank highest among his few notable achievements. “Father will want to see you!”
I met his watery blue eyes, he seemed oblivious to the fact I was under guard. I, managed a smile and nodded. “Lead on.” And with a swirl of his emerald cape, embroidered with the trefoils that Uncle Hertet had adopted for his branch of the Kendeth family tree, Cousin Roland led on.
“A moment, cousin!” I stopped Roland as we approached the doors to the great hall. “You know the DeVeers? Everyone does.” I didn’t give him pause to answer. “A necromancer has taken St. Agnes. I fear Lisa and Micha DeVeer may still be in the main house with my infant niece. It would be a great favour to me if you could dispatch a squad of men to ensure they have escaped and to bring them to safety if need be.”
“A necromancer?” Roland mangled the “r’s and left his mouth open in surprise. “In the palace?”
“In the church. At Roma Hall. A baby in peril!” I nodded and kept it simple. I hoped mention of the baby might stir him, as a father. “You could send some guardsmen.”
Roland blinked. “Most certainly.” He raised his hand and beckoned. “Sir Roger! Sir Roger!” A short knight in the shiniest armour I’d ever seen clanked awkwardly toward us. “Ladies in distress at Roma Hall, Sir Roger!” Roland made a “Woger” of each “Roger.”
“I shall attend to the matter, Prince Roland.” Roger, pockmarked and sporting a thick black moustache, gave a curt bow, all efficiency and purpose.
“Take a dozen men, Sir Roger.” All the advice I could offer as Roland continued toward the doors. “Good ones!”
Cousin Roland elbowed past the elite guardsmen at the entrance to his father’s court, four of them in the queen’s fire-bronze armour beneath her scarlet plumes. He set both hands to the towering oak panels and pushed into the great hall.
I hadn’t been into the great hall at Milano House since Roland’s wedding when I was thirteen. Father and his eldest brother had fallen out over some matter concerning the disciplining of the house-priest. It wasn’t really about the priest, of course—it was about who got to boss who around, as are most disputes among brothers. In any event, heavy words were lightly thrown and Father led his brood from the hall in high dudgeon, Martus forcibly detaching a slightly drunk young Prince Jalan from a pretty young bridesmaid whose name I forget.