I feel giddy with the success of my plan. When I was a child, sometimes Madoc would have to stop in the middle of a game of Nine Men’s Morris. The board would remain as it was, waiting for us to resume. All through the day and the night, I would imagine my moves and his countermoves until, when we sat down, we were no longer playing the original game. Most often what I failed to do was accurately anticipate his next moves. I had a great strategy for me, but not for the game I was in.
That’s how I feel now, walking into the camp. I am playing a game opposite Madoc, and while I can spin out plans and schemes, if I can’t accurately guess his, I am sunk.
I drop the kindling beside a fire. A blue-skinned woman with black teeth regards me for a moment and then goes back to her conversation with a goat-footed man. Dusting the bark from my clothes, I walk toward the largest tent. I keep my step light and my stride easy and even. When I find a patch of shadow, I use it to crawl under the edge of the cloth. For a moment, I lie there, half hidden on both sides and completely hidden on neither.
The inside of the main tent is lit with lanterns burning with green alchemical fire, tinting everything a sickly color. In every other way, however, the interior is lush. Carpets are layered, one over another. There are heavy wooden tables, chairs, and a bed piled with furs and brocade coverlets stitched with pomegranates.
But on the table, to my surprise, are paper cartons of food. The green-skinned pixie who was with Roiben at the coronation uses chopsticks to bring noodles to her mouth. He sits beside her, carefully breaking apart a fortune cookie.
“What does it say?” the girl asks. “How about ‘the trip you told your girlfriend would be fun ended in bloodshed, as usual.’”
“It says, ‘Your shoes will make you happy today,’” he tells her, voice dry, and passes the little slip across the table for her verification.
She glances down at his leather boots. He shrugs, a small smile touching his lips.
Then I’m dragged roughly out from my hiding place. I roll onto my back outside the tent to find a knight standing above me, her sword drawn. There is no one to blame but myself. I should have kept moving, should have found a way to hide myself inside the tent. I should not have stopped to listen to a conversation, no matter how surprising I found it.
“Get up,” the knight says. Dulcamara. Her face shows no recognition of me, however.
I stand, and she marches me into the tent, kicking me in the legs once we get there so I topple onto the rugs. I have cause to be thankful for their plushness. For a moment, I let myself lie there. She presses her boot against the small of my back as though I am some felled prey.
“I caught a spy,” she announces. “Shall I snap its neck?”
I could roll over and grab her ankle. That would throw her off balance for long enough that I could get up. If I twisted her leg and ran, I might be able to get away. At worst, I’d be on my feet, able to grab a weapon and fight her.
But I came here to have an audience with Lord Roiben, and now I have one. I stay still and let Dulcamara underestimate me.
Lord Roiben has come around from the table and bends over me, white hair falling around his face. Silver eyes regard me pitilessly. “And whose Court are you a part of?”
“The High King’s,” I say. “The true High King, Eldred, who was felled by his son.”
“I am not sure I believe you.” He surprises me both with the mildness of the statement and with the assumption that I am lying. “Come, sit with us and eat. I would hear more of your tale. Dulcamara, you may leave us.”
“You’re going to feed it?” she asks sulkily.
He does not answer her, and after a moment of stony silence, she seems to remember herself. With a bow, she leaves.
I go to the table. The pixie regards me with her inkdrop-black eyes, like Tatterfell’s. I notice the extra joint in her fingers as she reaches for an eggroll. “Go ahead,” she says. “There’s plenty. I used most of the hot mustard packets, though.”
Roiben waits, watching me.
“Mortal food,” I say, in what I hope is a neutral way.
“We live alongside mortals, do we not?” he asks me.
“I think she more than lives beside them,” the pixie objects, looking at me.
“Your pardon,” he says, and waits. I realize they really expect me to eat something. I spear a dumpling with a single chopstick and stuff it into my mouth. “It’s good.”
The pixie resumes eating noodles.
Roiben gestures to her. “This is Kaye. I imagine you know who I am since you snuck into my camp. What name might you go by?”
I am unused to such scrupulous politeness being afforded to me—he’s doing me the courtesy of not asking for my true name. “Jude,” I say, because names have no power over mortals. “And I came to see you because I can put someone other than Balekin on the throne, but I need your help to do it.”
“Someone better than Balekin or just someone?” he asks.
I frown, not sure how to answer that. “Someone who didn’t murder most of his family onstage. Isn’t that automatically better?”
The pixie—Kaye—snorts.
Lord Roiben looks down at his hand, on the wooden table, then back at me. I cannot read his grim face. “Balekin is no diplomat, but perhaps he can learn. He’s obviously ambitious, and he pulled off a brutal coup. Not everyone has the stomach for that.”
“I almost didn’t have the stomach to watch it,” Kaye says.
“He only sort of pulled it off,” I remind them. “And I didn’t think you liked him very much, given what you said at the coronation.”
A corner of Roiben’s mouth turns up. It is a gesture in miniature, barely noticeable. “I don’t. I think he’s a coward to kill his sisters and father in what appeared to be a fit of pique. And he hid behind his military, letting his general finish off the High King’s chosen heir. That bespeaks weakness, the kind that will inevitably be exploited.”
A cold chill of premonition shivers up my back. “What I need is someone to witness a coronation, someone with enough power that the witnessing will matter. You. It will happen at Balekin’s feast, tomorrow eve. If you’ll just allow it to happen and give your oath to the new High King—”
“No offense,” Kaye says, “but what do you have to do with any of this? Why do you care who gets the throne?”
“Because this is where I live,” I say. “This is where I grew up. Even if I hate it half the time, it’s mine.”
Lord Roiben nods slowly. “And you are not going to tell me who this candidate is nor how you’re going to get a crown on his head?”
“I’d rather not,” I say.
“I could get Dulcamara to hurt you until you begged to be allowed to tell me your secrets.” He says this mildly, just another fact, but it reminds me of just how horrific his reputation is. No amount of takeout Chinese food or politeness ought to make me forget exactly who and what I am dealing with.
“Wouldn’t that make you as much of a coward as Balekin?” I ask, trying to project the same confidence I did in the Court of Shadows, the same confidence I did with Cardan. I can’t let him see that I’m scared or, at least, not how scared I am.
We study each other for a long moment, the pixie watching us both. Finally, Lord Roiben lets out a long breath. “Probably more of a coward. Very well, Jude, kingmaker. We will gamble with you. Put the crown on a head other than Balekin’s and I will help you keep it there.” He pauses. “But you will do something for me.”