‘There’s a difference between killing a man in battle and murdering him in cold blood.’ My voice was firm – and no, the irony of my reply wasn’t lost on me.
The little smile on his face made me want to punch him. ‘You think this is funny?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said hastily, backing away, ‘it’s just that Duchess Patriana used to say that when a man kills, it is always “in battle” but when a woman kills, it’s always murder.’
His attempts at cleverness were intensely irritating – then an odd thought occurred to me: I wonder if this is how people feel around me? I ignored it.
‘Patriana killed your father, you know. Did she tell you that when she was filling your head with clever platitudes?’
‘I was nine years old when she and the Dukes overthrew my father.’
Nine years old. It had been six years since the King’s death, which would make Filian fifteen now, a year older than Aline. So was this true, or simply a carefully practised lie to establish his age for me, as he surely would do for the Dukes when he presented himself before them? If I ever gave him the chance.
I think the boy must have interpreted my scowl as a response to his casual mention of overthrowing his father. ‘It was a coup,’ he said quickly. ‘A change in government.’
‘Well, that does sound much nicer than conspiracy, insurrection and beheading, doesn’t it.’
Filian set down his sticks. ‘Have you read the histories of the Kings of Tristia?’
‘Several different versions – I used to read a chapter when I needed something boring enough to put me to sleep.’
‘You must never have got past the first few pages, then.’ He sounded surprised. ‘Every chapter ends in blood and violence – few monarchs ever died of natural causes.’
‘That doesn’t speak well of your future, then, does it?’
He took in a breath and stood a little straighter. ‘I am prepared to pay the price a King must pay when the time comes.’
I found his veneer of nobility both pretentious and cloying. ‘Did Patriana teach you that? One of her lectures on how to pretend to be a well-behaved little monarch?’
‘You mock her and me but she raised me in the ways of kingship.’
It was hard not to shudder at the thought of Patriana’s notion of raising a King. ‘Care to share some of her lessons with me? Or am I too lowborn to understand?’
He looked thoughtfully at the snowy ground for a moment. ‘When I was seven years old she brought me a puppy. He was a Sharpney. Have you ever seen one?’
I had, though at first I couldn’t remember where – then it came to me: Rijou, at the end of Ganath Kalila, the Blood Week. Mixer was his name; he’d belonged to that little tyrant Venger and his group of miscreants. Mixer had raced to grab one of my gold buttons from the ground at the Rock of Rijou. I chuckled: technically speaking, that dog was one of my jurors.
Filian mistook the cause of my laughter. ‘I know,’ he said ruefully, ‘it sounds utterly banal – a boy given a puppy to look after. But Duchess Patriana told me it was part of my training.’ He looked wistfully up at the sky. ‘Gazer.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘The pup. I called him Gazer – Stargazer – because I’d always find him outside the cottage at night staring up at the stars as though they were something he could chase.’ He sighed. ‘I loved that dog.’
I could guess where this story was going. In Avares they were reputed to give puppies or kittens to children to raise and love until the child was old enough to begin training as a warrior. ‘Is this the part where you tell me she made you slit the dog’s throat to prove how strong you were?’
Filian looked horrified. ‘No, of course not! She made me care for him – she said love and loyalty are one and the same, and to prove myself a man, I must prove that loyalty every day.’
‘Then what—?’
‘Sharpneys are good dogs, loyal to a fault. But they can be aggressive, go a bit mad sometimes. Gazer . . . well, he attacked a boy in the village . . .’ Filian’s voice dropped. ‘Nearly tore his arm off.’
‘What did Patriana do?’
Filian looked ashamed. ‘Nothing, at least at first. I lived with a servant, Mully, who pretended to be my father. Duchess Patriana always made sure I had plenty of money, so I had Mully pay the boy’s family. They kept it quiet.’ His look of shame deepened. ‘But Gazer got worse – not with me, but he hurt another child, and then another. I paid their families too, but then Duchess Patriana found out.’
‘What did she do?’
‘She asked me if I thought people’s lives could be bought for a few coins; how many more boys and girls should suffer before I did what needed to be done.’ He clenched his fists. ‘I yelled at her. I threw her own words back at her: “You said love and loyalty were the same thing, and that a man had to always be loyal!” but she told me, “And a King must ask himself if he is to judge himself by the standards of a man or by something more.” She said a King always had to ask what price others would pay for his love.’
‘You killed the dog.’
‘Trin offered to do it for me, but Gazer was my responsibility.’ Filian looked over at me. ‘Do you think that if my father had been in my place he would have done differently?’
‘I don’t know,’ I replied, but I was lying. Paelis would have looked for another way around the problem, even if it was doomed to fail. He had never been very good at sacrificing those he loved.
I wasn’t sure what to make of this little tale of sick dogs and hard decisions. If I closed my eyes and imagined Patriana, I saw a monster in woman’s form, capable – no, desirous – of succumbing to every conceivable act of cruelty.
And yet . . .
The men and women who’d left their villages in Hervor and Orison had told us she’d been good to them, she’d kept them safe and fed while the south never spared a second thought to their wellbeing . . .
‘She liked you, you know,’ Filian said, pulling me from my reverie.
‘She tortured me.’
‘She said you were the best man she’d ever known.’
‘Patriana? I think she must have been referring to a different Falcio val Mond.’
‘You can’t reconcile her different aspects, can you?’
‘Not really, no – if she admired me so much, maybe she shouldn’t have put quite so much effort into killing me.’
He bit his lip for a moment. ‘She liked you, but she didn’t admire you. She said you wanted to be a good man but you didn’t care what your goodness cost the country. Like all the Greatcoats. Sometimes rulers must be harsh, even . . . well, evil, I suppose, because sometimes that’s what the country needs.’
‘Spoken like a true noble,’ Brasti said, coming up behind us. He put the back of his hand on his forehead. ‘Oh woe is me, for the good of the country I must torture and kill a few more villagers today.’
Filian stared at me, trying to make me understand his point. ‘When Patriana was alive, her people were safe and prosperous. Now she is dead and those same families starve while you race around the country righting whichever wrongs please you.’