He took in a deep breath and grinned. ‘Must be all this fresh sea air. Well, that and the gentle rolling of the ship. It’s like being rocked in a cradle – I swear I’ve slept like a baby this entire journey.’
I thought about taking a swing at him but I was too close to the edge and there was a decent chance that I would miss and end up falling over the side.
‘Saint Anlas-who-remembers-the-world,’ a voice swore from above us in the rigging, and the three of us looked up to see Chalmers nestled among the ropes on the crossbeam of the mizenmast.
‘Anlas is definitely one of the dead ones,’ Brasti pointed out. ‘We saw the body.’
‘How long have you been up there?’ I asked her.
She didn’t reply, or even acknowledge that she’d heard me; she looked at once spellbound and horrified, and only then did I remember that Aramor had been her childhood home.
‘I . . . I haven’t been back since the King died.’ Her voice sounded very small. ‘How could . . . how could it all just come down like that?’
‘A God,’ Kest answered simply.
Her eyes found mine. ‘And you killed him?’
‘It’s not like he didn’t have help, you know,’ Brasti said, irritated.
The sailors started bustling in that carefully orchestrated chaos which involves them doing whatever it is sailors do in preparation for landing a ship – rolling up sails and dropping anchors, or something along those lines. I watched the crew for a while until I noticed Brasti in the periphery of my vision alternating between stretching his arms up high and then folding over at the waist to reach for the tops of his boots.
‘What in all the hells are you doing?’ I asked.
He stood back up and began lifting one knee at a time, hugging first one to his chest, then setting his foot back down on the deck and repeating with the other. ‘Limbering up, of course.’
‘I can see that. The question is why?’
‘We’re going to be docking in a few minutes. Assuming the stablemaster hasn’t sold our horses, we’ll be riding up to Castle Aramor within the hour.’
‘A fifteen-minute ride on horseback requires limbering up?’ Kest asked.
Brasti rolled his shoulders. ‘No, stupid, but then we’ll be back at the castle.’
‘And?’
‘When have we ever come home without ending up in a huge bloody fight?’ He stretched one arm, then the other, across his chest. ‘No point pulling a muscle in the process.’
Oddly, he turned out to be right.
*
If there’s anything more depressing than returning to a once-magnificent castle that’s now reduced to ruins, it is surely to find the guards refusing you entry.
‘Explain it to me again,’ I said.
‘Told you: nobody enters the castle after dark.’ The guardsman gestured with his spear to rows of tents set up on the field behind us. ‘Go and sleep it off and come back in the morning to see if the Captain will clear your credentials.’
‘Sleep it off?’ I asked. ‘What in all the hells is that supposed to mean?’
‘He thinks you’re drunk,’ Kest explained.
The guard smirked. ‘Yeah, on account of the way you keep stumbling around – you know, like a drunk.’
Sadly, he had a point. Turns out, spending time on boats plays havoc with your sense of balance once you get back on dry land, and it really was all I could do to stay on my feet. Brasti and Chalmers looked equally unstable. Kest, of course, stood as straight as the iron gateposts. I would have asked how that was possible, but the prospect of a lecture on the various techniques for countering the effects of recent sea travel was almost as unpleasant as the thought of being forced to wait outside in a tent, like someone come to beg for food.
Bloody castle guardsmen. Even when King Paelis was alive and the Greatcoats were going in and out of this damned fortress on a daily basis, they still acted as if we were unwelcome guests come to steal the silverware. And if that wasn’t enough, only two of the soldiers barring our way wore the faded purple livery of Aramor. The other two wore yellow.
‘What in the name of—?’ I paused and turned to Kest.
‘Eloria-whose-screams-draw-blood?’ he offered.
‘Which one’s she?’
‘According to the Bardatti, she’s the new Saint of Torture.’
‘That works.’
I spoke to the one in purple with a Sargent’s insignia on his collar. ‘Why in the name of Saint Eloria-whose . . . whatever he said . . . are soldiers of Luth standing guard outside Castle Aramor?’
‘Pastien, Ducal Protector of Luth, is within on a diplomatic visit,’ the younger of the two said proudly, as if this revelation should send me genuflecting at the mere mention of that glorious name. ‘By order of the Ducal Council, we have permission to establish a perimeter to ensure his safety.’
Through tight lips the Aramor Sargent said, ‘I’m afraid my . . . colleague . . . is correct.’
‘We have a right to defend our Lord,’ the second soldier in yellow insisted, brandishing his crossbow to emphasise his point. Then he smirked. ‘Besides, wouldn’t want to risk the heir to the throne being assassinated by intruders now, would we?’
I took a deep breath and counted very slowly as I let it out, giving peaceful, reasoned debate the chance to prevail. ‘Listen, you blithering idiot: we’re the Greatcoats – we’re the ones who protect the heir!’
The Sargent coughed. ‘Well, actually, sir, the last time someone came dressed as a Greatcoat, they did try to kill her.’
‘That was completely different,’ I said.
It wasn’t, of course. It was only a few months back that a man wearing Harden Vitale’s greatcoat had insinuated himself into the castle and nearly managed to slit Aline’s throat before Mateo Tiller had stopped him.
The second Luth guard, sensing their imminent victory, then made the mistake of pointing at Chalmers. ‘Look, that one’s not even wearing a proper greatcoat.’
‘Oh, that’s it,’ she said, trying to push past me.
‘Don’t,’ I warned. ‘It won’t get us anywhere.’
I glanced back at the rows of tents behind us. No doubt someone would come along shortly, offering to charge us an exorbitant fee for using one, but at this hour, everyone we needed to see would already be asleep anyway. ‘Fine,’ I said at last. ‘We’ll sleep outside tonight, but I damned well better see someone ready to let us in at first light.’
The guards looked relieved, and Chalmers looked as if I’d just sacrificed one more great and important principle on the altar of expediency. Kest went off to deal with the horses, leaving Brasti to stand next to me looking oddly confused.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘I can’t believe I wasted all that time stretching.’
‘Not everything ends in a fight, Brasti.’
He shook his head. ‘The whole world’s stopped making sense, Falcio.’
I clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You’ll get over it.’
We turned and started towards the tents when the sounds of muffled shouts reached us and without a word I ran back to the castle gate to find the Sargent opening the door to the castle. ‘What in hells is going on in there?’ he demanded of the guard inside.