‘It can,’ Morn countered, making his way up the hill along a path pounded into the snow. ‘I promise you, all of you, every detail has been considered.’
Kest shook his head. ‘Even a single Duchy isn’t ruled by one Duke; the territory is simply too big, the administration too complex – we have Margraves and Viscounts, Lords and Daminas . . . even a country made up solely of Orison and Hervor would need more Greatcoats than we have at Aramor.’
Morn stopped at the top of the hill and turned back to face us. ‘I know.’ Then he smiled and gestured for me to join him. ‘Come.’
I walked up the few remaining yards to stand with him at the summit of the small hill and looked past him to the other side. The sun was high up overhead and the glare off the snow was blinding me. All I could make out at first was a sea of brown and black.
Coats, I realised. Not fur, not armour. Coats.
I’d been fooled before, in Rijou, by the so-called ‘new Greatcoats’, and later by the Tailor with her Unblooded Dashini – but this was no trick, no deception. As my vision cleared I began to make out faces of people I knew: Quillata, her long dark hair wild as always, the scar across her cheek new, but unable to hide her smirk. I remembered the day I’d met her: the King’s Sail. Next to her stood Ran, the King’s Silence – one of the original twelve like Quillata, and next to him, Judian, the King’s Hammer. Face after face, almost all of them familiar to me, every one of them a spark in my heart. How long had I been searching, hoping, even praying that I would see them again – and here they were.
‘I told you I was going to give you everything you ever wanted, Falcio,’ Morn said, his voice filled with more pride than the Gods should ever allow one man. ‘The Greatcoats are here.’
CHAPTER THIRTY
The First Cantor
I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. All I could do was stand there and watch them, the sight of their faces washing over me like the tide.
I should be happy, I thought. I should be running down to them, shouting their names, making stupid comments about how beaten up and downtrodden they all look. I should be punching them in the arms, demanding to know why they hadn’t heeded my call to come to Aramor, instead joining up with a loud-mouthed fop like Morn and coming up with this preposterous plan to save the world without me.
Quillata, Ran, Old Tobb, Shana: the men and women who’d joined us in those early days when it had been just me and the King. And others, too: Jakin, whom Kest had recruited. Murielle de Vierre – I couldn’t remember who’d brought her in, but I could still picture the look on her face when Paelis had asked her to take the oath and become the King’s Thorn.
Saints, but I loved them all.
So why was I just standing there, silent, frozen in the snow?
Was it the thick fur cloaks I only now noticed hanging off the shoulders of their coats like an admission that the things we believed kept us safe in our own land were insufficient in this harsh northern country? Was it the way they were looking back at me, not smirking or smiling, not overjoyed to see us, but rather, cautious . . . reserved . . . waiting, I realised suddenly. They’re waiting to see what I do.
‘I count forty-two,’ Kest said. There was something unusual in his voice. Fear? No. Dismay.
Why dismay?
It was only when I looked in his eyes and saw something of myself reflected there that I began to come to my senses. I remembered the one question every magistrate asks of themselves every time a case comes before them, whenever there’s a possibility of using the verdict to shape the world not by the law, but by their own vision of justice. The King used to ask this question sometimes when the two of us got particularly drunk and I’d start going on yet again about venal noblemen and how much better someone like me might do in the top job.
What do you call a judge sitting on a throne? he always demanded, and he always answered his own question: A fucking tyrant, that’s what.
‘Don’t, Falcio,’ Morn said, staring at me, although I hadn’t yet said a word. ‘It doesn’t have to be this way. That little girl you admire so much can still hold onto the south if you want – but Hervor and Orison will be ours: the beginning of something new, something untainted.’
The beginning. I wondered if Morn even understood the implication of what he’d just said.
The Magdan, I reminded myself then. Stop thinking of him as Morn and instead call him the Magdan.
‘Falcio, look around you. This isn’t a trick. These are our fellow Greatcoats. Our friends.’
Our friends.
How long had I been searching for them? How many times had I laid my head on my pillow, unable to fall asleep as I worked out which backwater town or village I’d missed, which damned corner of the country I had failed to search? All these months I wondered why even the Bardatti couldn’t find them.
The answer was simple: they hadn’t wanted to be found.
The Greatcoats weren’t lost. They were here.
‘You look sad, Falcio,’ said the man who had once been Morn, not sounding the least bit sympathetic.
‘I am sad,’ I admitted, my eyes still on the Greatcoats waiting for us below. Had the Magdan told them when to wait there, and for how long, just so he could build up to this moment?
Let them see it, I thought. Let them see the disgust on my face and hear the heartache in my voice.
‘Damn you, Falcio,’ the Magdan said, already walking over to join the others. ‘This isn’t logic or idealism whispering in your ear, it’s just your damned stubbornness.’
I ignored him and turned to look at Kest and Brasti, suddenly terrified by the possibility that they might be wavering as I had been. My heartache eased, if only by a fraction, to see the pain that they felt too – the absolute certainty that what the Magdan proposed wasn’t some grand plan to solve the world’s problems or create a wondrous nation founded on justice rather than power.
This was the death of my King’s dream, plain and simple.
I looked down at our fellow Greatcoats. I think they must have known all along that we wouldn’t go along with this – that’s why he brought us here, far away from Mateo and Antrim and the few who’d come to Aramor, the few who still honoured the King’s memory.
‘You’re making a mistake, Falcio,’ the Magdan said, standing with the others now. He spread his arms wide, a generous King offering to embrace his lowly subject. ‘We should be celebrating. The Greatcoats are reunited.’
‘Did they teach you magic when you came here?’ Brasti asked.
‘Magic is considered a sometimes necessary but largely cowardly pursuit in Avares,’ he replied. ‘Normally only those born with deformities study it. So no, Brasti, I’m not a wizard. Why would you ask?’
Brasti looked out at the other Greatcoats. ‘Too bad. I was hoping maybe all you fucking cowards were under some kind of spell.’