‘Tell her yourself, you unshaven, smelly excuse for a magistrate!’
I tried to say something clever in reply, but her hair was covering my mouth, the scent of it filling my nostrils with reminders that not everything in the world reeked of sweat and grime. Aline might be small for her age but her arms gripped me tightly, and I hugged her back just as hard, falling to my knees from the sheer joy of holding her.
‘Aline!’ someone called, followed by hurried footsteps, and I shook away enough of Aline’s hair to look up at the woman standing before me. Gods, but I wanted to grow more arms so I could hold her, too – mind you, I wasn’t quite sure if she’d knock me down for trying. She probably hadn’t yet forgiven me for my interference with Pastien.
‘It’s a fine thing that you’re back, Falcio,’ Valiana said, shaking her head at Aline. ‘The heir to the throne has been so focused on your return that she’s been quite useless at running what’s left of her country.’
‘You would speak to your future Queen in such a fashion?’ Aline asked, letting go of me. ‘You think I can’t keep affairs of state in mind even while keeping an eye out for . . . for . . .’
I leaned back to see what was wrong and found her staring past me at the others. I understood then what had caught her attention: that she had seen what no one else had.
I rose to my feet and quickly said, ‘This is Filian, a carpenter’s boy we saved from brigands on the road. He doesn’t speak much—’
Aline silenced me with a shake of her head and walked past me to stare up at Filian.
I’d kept the boy from shaving, reckoning whatever straggly hair he could grow might undermine the similarities to his father, and I’d made sure he had a good coat of grime on him too. Somehow, Aline saw past all that. I suppose it was down to the hours she’d spent staring at portraits of her father and at her own sharp features in the mirror, trying to find traces of him in her own face.
There wasn’t even a shred of doubt in her voice when she said, her voice quiet enough to elude the guards but loud enough for us to hear, ‘Hello, Brother. Welcome to Aramor.’
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The United Front
I had lied to Filian, back in forest when he’d asked if I’d read the histories of the Kings and Queens of Tristia. In fact, Paelis had an entire section of his private library dedicated to books on the rise and fall of monarchs. He’d bring me there sometimes, on nights when I’d just returned from one of my judicial circuits, and do his best to drown me in free wine and extended lectures on the fragile nature of royal lines and the events that led to their creation and destruction. The wine helped a lot. At the end of the evening, he’d offer me one or two of the books – gracious of him, given their rarity and value – and I, for my part, would thank him profusely and then walk over to his fencing and duelling collection and take one of those instead.
In retrospect, I probably should have chosen to wade through those ponderous tomes on monarchical disputes. If nothing else, one of the books might have warned me about the many unpleasant meetings I was in for.
‘By the Gods themselves,’ Meillard, Duke of Pertine, swore, pacing around the council room table at such speed that I wondered whether the carpeting or his heart would give out first, ‘have you lost your mind?’
Since Pertine was the land of my birth, I owed this particular Duke some small measure of deference, and since it was the only honest answer anyway, I replied, ‘I’m not entirely sure, your Grace.’
I thought this was a polite response, but apparently I was wrong. ‘Disrespectful dog!’ shouted Hadiermo, the Iron Duke of Domaris, rising from his seat and nearly colliding with Meillard, who was on his fifteenth circuit of the table. Hadiermo, as was his practice at such times, reached behind him so that the two retainers who carried his massive two-handed greatsword could make a show of preparing it for him.
‘Sit down, Hadiermo,’ Ossia, Duchess of Baern, said, quietly sipping her tea as if nothing of any consequence was going on around her. That made me feel genuinely uncomfortable. The more Ossia acts as if everything is fine, the worse things usually are.
Pastien, Ducal Protector of Luth, and Erris, Duke of Pulnam, stared at me as if they were waiting for me to confess this was all a terrible joke. Worse was Duke Jillard, who simply shook his head, as if I’d somehow disappointed him.
None of that mattered to me, though. What did I care whether the Dukes disapproved of the choice I’d made, or how they chose to express their condemnation? It was Valiana who broke my heart. She looked stricken, almost lost. The others appeared to be waiting for her to either endorse or refute my actions, but she did neither, instead turning to the current heir as she said, ‘Falcio had no choice.’
Hadiermo was still on his feet, one hand on the hilt of the greatsword his retainers were struggling to hold upright. ‘He should have killed the damned whelp – hells, he could have simply left him in Avares and let the barbarians do it for us.’
Until that moment Aline had been silent, letting the others posture as they made their displeasure known. Now she rose and locked eyes with the Iron Duke of Domaris. ‘Falcio val Mond is the First Cantor of Tristia’s magistrates: his responsibility is to the laws of this country, your Grace, not to this council’s whims or my convenience. What would you have had him do?’
It was Jillard who answered, saying quietly, ‘What he’s always done. Kill those he deems a threat to your father’s dream and find some suitable legal justification for it later.’ The Duke of Rijou turned his gaze on me. ‘You do realise, don’t you, Falcio, that if you’d fallen asleep in the snows of Avares and died there, you would have done your dead King the greatest possible service?’
Actually, that thought had occurred to me.
‘Enough!’ Aline said, a dangerous edge to her tone. ‘We are a nation of laws, your Graces. If we have learned nothing from facing the Blacksmith’s God it is surely that we cannot set that aspect of ourselves aside. Circumstances have brought us to difficult times, true, but now we must all rise to meet the challenge. We must—’