Chalmer’s indignation awoke some of my own, though I quickly tamped it down. Put Aline on the throne. Worry about the rest of it later.
Duchess Ossia took notice of Chalmers for the first time. ‘Who is this child you’ve brought before me, Falcio?’
‘I am Chalmers, called the King’s Question, and I can bloody well answer for myself.’ She turned a scathing glance at me. ‘Seriously, do you people have any idea how often you talk as if no one else is in the room?’
Ossia opened her mouth to reply, but then she paused and leaned forward to peer at Chalmers. ‘I know you, girl.’
‘I very much doubt that, your Grace. I rarely travel in company such as yours.’
The Duchess’ eyes narrowed. ‘The stores at Castle Aramor – you were always scampering about the skirts of that old woman, the quartermaster. What was her name again?’
Chalmers looked surprised. ‘Zagdunsky, your Grace.’
‘I remember now. I consulted with her extensively some years ago, when I was considering the administration of my own palace.’
‘You tried to hire the King’s own quartermaster away from him?’ Brasti asked.
‘Indeed – and I made a generous offer too, but as I recall, we caught a certain red-faced little hellion spying on our conversation who was apparently unhappy at the possibility of being removed from the home of the Greatcoats. She made a great fuss about it, until Zagdunsky assured me she couldn’t leave her current post.’
Chalmers looked pale. ‘That was more than ten years ago – I was just a child! How could you possibly recognise me?’
Ossia smiled. ‘A woman of noble birth rarely survives to old age in this country unless she soon learns to see more deeply and remember far longer than her enemies do.’ She rose from her throne and stood in front of Chalmers, examining her as if she were a painting. ‘I remember that look, too,’ – she raised a finger – ‘there, in the eyes. You have gained in years, but not in wisdom, I see.’ Ossia turned to me. ‘You will leave the girl in my care, Falcio. Perhaps there is still time for me to train her to—’
‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible,’ Chalmers said.
‘Oh? And why not?’
‘Well, for one thing, I don’t like you.’ Chalmers set her sights on me. ‘For another, he doesn’t get to tell me what to do.’
The Duchess apparently found that amusing. ‘How trying it must be, First Cantor, to have those beneath you so stubbornly refuse to follow your orders.’ She pinched the lapel of Chalmer’s coat between thumb and finger. ‘Though it appears you’ve forgotten to give her a proper coat.’
‘It’s complicated,’ I started.
The Duchess turned her glare on me. ‘You’re a bloody fool, First Cantor. So desperate to reunite your lost magistrates that even once you knew – you knew – that this child wasn’t a proper Greatcoat, still you broke cover to rescue her, with no regard for the—’
‘Tell me I’m not a Greatcoat again, your Grace,’ Chalmers said, pulling away from the Duchess, ‘tell me twice more for luck – and then go back to your palace and retrieve that hunting bow of yours. I’ll meet you in the circle at your convenience, you sour old—’
‘Ha!’ Brasti chortled. ‘She sounds just like you, Falcio.’
‘Shut up,’ Chalmers and I said at once.
Duchess Ossia took her teacup and lifted it up in a mock toast. ‘And so ends Tristia, once the very pinnacle of culture and civilisation, dissipating in misery while the great Falcio val Mond rushes across the land in search of anyone in a long coat who happens to share his fanatical devotion to a dead King’s dream.’
I’d long ago come to the conclusion that one of the duties of the First Cantor of the Greatcoats is to subject oneself to the mockery and insults of the nobility in the interests of keeping the peace, but the memory of Vois Calan and the women struggling to keep their families and their villages alive clashed violently with the obscenely opulent setting in which I was now being told off.
‘Perhaps, your Grace, the country would be doing better if the Dukes were to devote more of their wealth to taking care of their people and less to—’
Ossia laughed. ‘Is that what you think? That the country falters because of my tent? No, First Cantor, if you want to see the treasury of Baern at work, go back to Aramor and ask that pitiful handful of soldiers Valiana has managed to assemble to show you the swords and crossbows we’ve sent. Examine the tools and forges the crafters are using in their desperate attempts to rebuild the castle. Go to the infirmaries and look closely at all the medicines in the crates marked with my seal.’
‘I didn’t—’
‘Didn’t what? You didn’t know that Baern was the only Duchy paying its taxes to the Crown these past months? Why should you? You’ve been far too busy chasing rumours of lost Greatcoats to worry about the cost of holding a country together. But tell me, First Cantor, how long do you think I’ll be able to continue after I lose control of my own Duchy?’ She looked at all of us. ‘Don’t you understand, you fools? I’m hanging on by a thread here – and what good will it do to put Aline on the throne if her closest allies lose all power to support her?’
Chalmers looked aghast, the fierceness draining out of her. ‘Oh, Gods . . . it’s my fault – I was the one who fell for Evidalle’s trap. If I hadn’t gone to that wedding, the rest of you wouldn’t have had to save me. None of this would have happened if only I’d—’
‘Don’t torment yourself, child,’ Ossia said, reaching out a hand and holding her chin, just like Cestina had. ‘Had you not taken the Margrave’s bait, some other fool in a long coat would have done so, and Falcio val Mond, being what he is, would have leaped to their aid just as he did yours.’
‘And what would you have me do instead?’ I asked quietly.
I hadn’t meant the question as a signal of my surrender, but Duchess Ossia took it so. ‘The Ducal Council meets in ten days’ time, Falcio, to vote once and for all on whether or not to put Aline on the throne.’
‘What choice do they have?’ Brasti asked, looking at me. ‘Aline’s the heir, so it’s her or—’
‘Secession,’ Kest replied. He was watching Duchess Ossia closely. ‘That’s what you’ve been avoiding saying outright all this time, isn’t it, your Grace? That’s why you’re so concerned with the minor nobles rebelling, why your fellow Dukes have been slow to pay their taxes.’
She nodded. ‘Tristia wasn’t always one nation; it began as separate city states, each with its own sovereignty, its own laws.’ She took a long sip from her tea. ‘Dukes were called Princes in those days. That has an appealing ring, don’t you think?’