*
I found the Ducal Protector of Luth standing naked on his bed, pressed against the wall behind him, his arms stretched out wide. His eyes were shining with terror as he tried very hard not to look at the small woman standing on her tip-toes in front of him and whispering in his ear, the very sharp blade of a poignard held to his genitals.
‘You’re late, Falcio,’ Darriana said. ‘You can have him when I’m done.’
‘Please,’ Pastien pleaded with me, quickly deciding I was the lesser of two evils, ‘make her stop!’
‘I sympathise, my Lord, I really do.’ I thought about that for a moment, then corrected myself. ‘Actually, no, I don’t at all, you feckless piece of dung.’
Darriana whispered something else into his ear and I saw her blade move just a hair.
His eyes widened. ‘Saint Laina-who—’
‘Wrong choice of Saint in this particular situation,’ Darri warned. ‘Also, Laina-who-whores-for-Gods is one of the dead ones.’
‘Please,’ Pastien whispered, ‘I’ll do anything.’
‘Oh, don’t trouble yourself,’ she said. ‘I’ll take care of the hard parts.’
‘Darriana?’ I said casually.
‘Yes, Falcio?’
‘What if – and I’m not trying to interfere in your personal affairs here – but what if the Ducal Protector were to swear to us that he would go round and personally tell the truth to every single person he’s impugned Valiana’s name to and promise to never do it again?’
‘He can still do that with just the one testicle, can’t he?’ she asked.
‘In theory,’ I conceded, ‘but I suspect that would require a certain period of convalescence and I’m sure we’d all rather this was wrapped up quickly.’
Darri looked up into Pastien’s eyes. ‘Is that true, my Lord? Would it really be that much more difficult to make up for your little . . . mistake . . . if you had only one testicle?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, looking miserable enough that I almost believed him, ‘I was scared, all right? I hadn’t expected . . . I just thought, she always seemed so demure and then when she—’
‘Go ahead,’ Darriana said, ‘don’t be shy: tell us what horrible crime the slut committed upon your person.’
‘I didn’t know what to do! Like a fool, I ran, and then all of a sudden I was in the hallway, standing there with guardsmen who don’t respect me and my nobles coming out of their rooms, already laughing at me – I knew they’d use it against me.’ He looked at me. ‘Falcio, you know how hard it is, trying to keep my nobles from conspiring against me—’
‘Indeed – and imagine how hard it would be if you were a young woman,’ I said, ‘one whom everyone knew to be of common blood and who was, according to someone – oh yes, that would be the Ducal Protector of Luth – a madwoman.’
He hung his head. ‘I know. I’m sorry – I’ll do whatever must be done to make up for this, I swear.’
I let his oath hang in the air for a while before I said, ‘Darriana?’
She glanced back at me with that look in her eyes that most days just means she thinks I’m a gullible fool but one of these days will mean she’s about to try and kill me. ‘Are you going to give me the “I’m the First Cantor of the Greatcoats” speech?’
‘Only if you don’t let him go now.’
She sighed theatrically, then said to Pastien, ‘It’s very important you don’t move now.’
‘What? Why?’
Suddenly her blade whipped up and out and an instant later it was back in the sheath at her side. Pastien had gone completely white. He didn’t dare to look down, but gingerly let his right hand feel around his private parts to make sure everything was still attached.
‘I’m thirsty,’ Darriana said, punching me in the shoulder far harder than was necessary. ‘You owe me a drink.’
*
Finding alcohol proved to be more difficult than either of us had anticipated: apparently neither wine nor ale flow from magical spigots embedded into castle walls. Imagine this: someone has to actually grow stuff – things like grapes and wheat – and then spend weeks working some sort of alchemical miracle to make them drinkable.
As we searched high and low, Darri told me about the Dashini’s own favoured drink. It sounded like more of a poison to me, but what else would one expect from the Dashini? Its effects included hallucinations and a powerful urge to commit suicide. I’d spent much of the last fifteen years experiencing both those phenomena and had never needed alcohol to achieve them. Darriana didn’t appear to find that funny. I’d noticed she only normally laughed when someone had embarrassed themselves horribly – or if a great deal of blood was involved.
It was strangely awkward, wandering the ruined halls of Aramor with Darri. We had never spent much private time together before, and I doubt either of us had any particular desire to do so now, but our need to find alcohol had become a kind of holy quest. We would not rest until we had our drink.
Eventually I remembered that the King had had a small collection of bottles he’d received from foreign dignitaries, kept in a cabinet in the fifth tower – and it just so happened that part of the fifth tower was still standing. Anxiously, I counted the remaining boarded-up windows. The good news was that I reckoned that particular room was still there. The bad news was the tower stairs had fallen when the Blacksmith’s God had wreaked his wrath upon the castle, which meant there was no safe way to get there.
I took this as a sign we should look elsewhere. Darriana took it as a challenge.
‘Come on, old man,’ she called from her perch several feet above me on the outside of the tower. She claimed it would be easier and safer to climb from the outside; I suspect she just thought it would be funny if I fell. ‘Weren’t the Greatcoats supposed to be good at sneaking in and out of places? Castles, palaces, pig-pens, that sort of thing?’
‘You’re thinking of the Dashini,’ I replied, clinging to a narrow ledge. It says something about my vanity that I’d allowed her to convince me to climb a second time in one night. I had a nasty moment when I groped for my climbing spikes and came up empty, only then remembering I’d changed pockets after sharpening the metal spikes and replacing the leather straps used to tie them to our palms in these situations, figuring it would be easier to grab them in a hurry from the back. Without them, I’m quite sure I’d have fallen when the stone crumbled beneath my boot.
‘I could come down and carry you if you want,’ Darriana offered.