I followed Heamus up the freezing servants’ stairs wishing I’d worn more than a thin jerkin, skirts and a tabard. When I left the stairs and entered the blessed floors, where fires roared and carpets absorbed my steps, I moved from one world to another.
“What do you know about General Bryan, Girton?” said Heamus.
“He is the king’s chief military adviser—” Heamus nodded “—his cousin and commander of his armies.”
“Good. Remember those things when you meet him.” He ruffled my hair like a friendly uncle. “Truthfully though,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper, “Bryan is a fool but Doran needed his side of the family’s money and loyalty so do not take anything Bryan says too seriously. I also hope you brought a couple of small twigs.”
“Twigs?” I replied, puzzled.
“Aye.” He grinned and used his fingers to widen his eyes. “To keep your eyelids open. If Bryan ap Mennix ever won a victory it was by boring his enemies to death.” He laughed, a wheezing laugh full of mischief. It was difficult to imagine him strapping someone into a blood gibbet or leading the desolate into the sourlands to bleed their lives away for a few paces more of fertile land. “Well,” he added, “you’d best be on your way. Soonest done, soonest over.” I wondered how often those words had been followed by the bite of a blade into a neck.
“Yes.” I started to walk away.
“Oh, Girton.” The way he called my name was almost too casual. It was often the way when people had an important question to ask but did not want you to know it was important to them. They would bring it up last, as if it was only an afterthought.
“Yes, Heamus?”
“You have become friends with Drusl?”
“Yes.” I almost stuttered over the word and felt the warmth of blood rising to my cheeks.
“Good, good,” he said. “Be kind to her, Girton. She is one of mine.”
“Yours?” My smile started to fall away. Did this old man have some sort of harem?
He laughed again, but this time the humour was forced and the twinkle in his eyes was missing. “Not in that way, boy. Every twicemonth I do the rounds of the waycastles that guard our roads. And well … you know how it is out there. Life is hard and there are many orphans. Those I can take off the roads and find work for in the castle, I do.” A hedging’s touch crossed his face, a shadow of pain. “To redress the balance, see.”
“I will be kind to her,” I said. I meant it with every part of me.
“Good, good. Well—” he ushered me away with a hand “—don’t be late. I’ll make sure that Kyril and his friends are kept busy for the rest of the afternoon.”
Regretfully, Heamus was right. Bryan ap Mennix was dull. His quarters were more like a meeting room for troops or a museum than a place someone lived in. I entered to find him standing at parade rest with his back to me while he stared out the window at the keepyard wall. He made me wait three hundred my-masters before he turned. When he did he had the florid face and walnut nose of a drunk. Dead gods, the man loved the sound of his own voice. He lectured me interminably. First, and at great length and in unneeded detail, he lectured me on the responsibilities of my wholly imaginary father. Then he lectured me on being late and the importance of good timekeeping in young men. Next he lectured me on military tactics—about which he knew very little. And finally he lectured me on etiquette—about which he knew very much.
If he was only acting the part of a know-nothing blowhard then he was the best actor I had ever met.
Daana ap Dhyrrin, Tomas’ grandfather and my next meeting, was another beast entirely. The king’s adviser was so old his body had started to betray him and he burned scented logs in his fire, to try and cover the smell of sickness and age which clung to the soft furnishings filling his room. He sat in a chair, sumptuously stuffed and covered in thick red fabric that looked like flesh, and stared into the fire. When he stood to welcome me I saw some disease of the bones had bent his back so he had to fight to look forward rather than at the floor.
In a corner of the room stood his golden cloak with the fire-lizard cages built in and the accompanying conical hat. It was constructed around a clever framework which ran on wheels and had a bar inside for him to lean on—or maybe he used it to straighten himself, as I was sure he had been taller at the feast. I imagine that the pain of forcing his spine straight must be excruciating and made a mental note that, although his body may be frail, it held a mind that must be as determined and strong as any in the castle. Maybe more so.
“Admiring my cloak of office, eh?” He stood, then coughed, which bent him double. “Throw more logs on the fire for me, Girton ap Gwynr. The lizards like the heat.” The animals squawked when he gestured to them. “And I. Yes, my dears, I like the heat too.” His face had been fleshy once and now skin hung from his bones and wobbled when he moved, looking like the wattles on a fighting lizard. I wondered if he had the disease that ate away a body from inside. If so he hid the pain well. “The cloak is impressive but it is an unwieldy thing. Doran likes me to wear it, but that will not matter much longer.” His eyes clouded over but whether he looked into the future or the past I do not know. “I suspect the new king will have little time for such uncomfortable formalities as my cloak.” He opened a cage and fed a tidbit to one of the squawking lizards
“Aydor does not like the traditions?”
“Aydor.” An uncomfortable silence grew as he stared into the fire. “Aye, I am sure King Aydor will let many traditions fail, given the chance.”
“Change is inevitable.”
“Change is the curse of time, boy.” He suddenly sounded stronger, angrier. “And yet sometimes it need not be a curse.” He let the air out from his lungs in one long sigh, as if expelling the anger that had suddenly filled him, then he became still, like an animal waiting in ambush. I waited for his next breath and, when it did not come immediately, worried he had died and if he had how would I explain it to Queen Adran? Then his shoulders heaved and he turned to me, his watery eyes searching my face. “What do you think of Aydor?”
“I have not talked with him much.”
“Ha!” His laugh was a whipcrack that made me flinch. “‘Not talked with him much.’ Very diplomatic young man. Very diplomatic indeed. I am not diplomatic. I am too old for diplomacy. I can see through you, boy.” Fear ran through me. “You do not like him. You need not lie about it. No one likes him. He is a deeply unpleasant young man—spoilt. A pig of a boy.”
I breathed again.
“You do not need to be liked to be a king,” I said.
The old man nodded. “No, you need not. You need to be respected to be a king or, even better, you need to be feared.” He moved nearer to the open cage and the fire-lizard hopped out to sit on his stooped shoulder.