‘She did.’ His tone was flat, cold.
‘Yours is the wealthiest Duchy in the country. Your nobles are among the few who are – well, if not precisely loyal, at least sufficiently cowed not to risk crossing you. The other Dukes would be confident that you’d keep Aline from any excesses of common decency in her governing of the country. Most of all, you have the one characteristic I most desire in a spouse for her.’
‘Which is?’
I didn’t lock eyes with him, or put a hand on my rapier. I didn’t even take a step towards him. I knew I didn’t need to. ‘You know without a shadow of a doubt what I would do to any man who would lay an unwelcome hand on her.’
He stood there, staring at me – and then he burst out laughing. ‘That is quite the proposal you offer me, Falcio: the seething resentment of my allies, the outrage of my enemies and the promise of what I presume will be a most uncomfortable dismemberment should I ever displease my new bride.’
‘That’s about the size of it,’ I said. ‘Also, you’ll get to help save the country.’
He walked back to the glasses, picked up a clean one and filled it with wine. ‘I take it you haven’t discussed this with Aline?’
‘Not yet,’ I confessed.
‘So out of your endless love and respect for this girl, you’d push her into marriage with a man three times her age with a history of . . . shall we say, flexible ethical positions? I must confess, the sheer perversity of your willingness to abandon your values holds a certain appeal to me.’
Just so long as she becomes Queen, your Grace. I’ll figure out the rest later.
Jillard made short work of his wine, filled the glass a second time, then, moments later, a third. Something was wrong.
‘Your Grace, are you—?’
‘No,’ he said finally, the word coming out almost as a grunt.
‘No? You’d have more power than—’
‘Get out.’
Before I could even ask why, he threw the glass at me. I ducked in time and it shattered on the wall behind me. ‘Get the hells from my sight before I have you killed, Falcio!’
I started to leave, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking, ‘Why?’
‘Because there are some lines even I won’t cross, damn you!’
I could hear his guards massing outside, preparing to take me down, but still I couldn’t leave. ‘That’s rubbish! You’ve never shied away from anything that would increase your power and influence. You expect me to believe that somehow her youth stops you from this? Try something better, your Grace, because in a thousand years I can’t believe you’d—’
‘Tommer,’ he said, cutting me off. He reached for the bottle of wine, then stopped himself. ‘He would never forgive me.’
‘Tommer is dead,’ I said cruelly, my need outweighing any common decency left in me.
‘He is,’ Jillard said. ‘So why is it I see his face everywhere, Falcio? I can see him now, if I just close my eyes for a moment. Why does he look at me with such . . . hope, as if he expects me to live up to his example somehow?’ He shook his head, shame painted across his features. ‘I do not know what my dead son expects of me, Falcio, but it is surely not what you ask.’
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
The Summons
For the next two weeks I conceived a hundred new and ingenious schemes that would enable me to put Aline on the throne without requiring me to commit murder in the process. I failed, of course; for every political or legal machination I attempted, someone else – Hadiermo or Erris or some other damned noble or Gods-forsaken merchant managed to stop me.
Filian was kept well away from me, and I avoided anyone I cared about. I couldn’t stand the thought of them seeing who I was becoming.
The hells for it. Put the girl on the throne and fix the rest later. Those words had become a prayer I found myself repeating with more dedication and fervour than even the most zealous monk.
In the meantime, everything that could go wrong, did. We’d intended to bring the City Sages to Aramor quietly, but word of a second heir to the throne had spread – I was pretty sure Hadiermo and Erris had been responsible for that. They’d been busying themselves eliciting support with the usual mix of bribery, blackmail, subtle threats and promises; the two of them were apparently going to become very important people one day soon.
Too many people had taken sides for there to be a peaceful resolution to this. The City Sages would soon be assembled, and we would either have a united decision, which might settle matters in the wrong direction, or a disputed lineage, which would mean civil war.
Eventually someone tired of my attempts to subvert the machinery of royal succession and late one night six guardsmen showed up at my door. I’d heard them coming, of course, and had put on my coat and prepared my weapons, although I stopped in time when it occurred to me that there might be consequences for killing Aline’s personal guards.
‘She wants to see you,’ Antrim Thomas said, leaning in my doorway with his arms crossed over his chest, looking nothing like the soldiers standing rigidly to attention behind him.
‘You know you’re supposed to work for me, right?’
‘Really?’ he asked. ‘I heard you weren’t the First Cantor any more.’
I followed him out into the hallway. ‘Was there ever a time when my fellow Greatcoats actually respected me?’
Antrim chewed on that as the lot of us walked down the hall and towards the stairs leading up to Aline’s private chambers. ‘Probably not,’ he said after a while, then gave me a wry grin. ‘Mostly we just followed your orders because we were afraid Kest would kick the shit out of us if we didn’t.’
*
‘I should have you arrested,’ Aline said as she motioned for me to sit on a delicate gilded chair next to a small card table.
I looked over at Antrim and his guardsmen, standing just outside the door. ‘I’m fairly sure you already did, your Majesty, although no one’s yet mentioned any particular crime.’ I reached over and picked up a biscuit from the intricate arrangement on a silver tray. ‘What exactly am I charged with?’
‘Prostitution, I should think. Possibly slavery.’ She leaned back in her chair. The way she sipped from her teacup reminded me uncomfortably of Ossia. ‘Tell me, First Cantor, what would be the appropriate punishment for attempting to sell a fourteen-year-old girl to the Duke of Rijou?’
‘I wouldn’t have—’
‘Oh, don’t bother, Falcio. I knew you’d come up with something at least this stupid the moment you came back to the castle with my brother in tow. I suppose it’s my own fault for having asked you to help me choose a suitable husband in the first place. Why did Jillard refuse you, anyway?’
‘Tommer.’
That surprised her, and I saw her hand shake as she put the teacup down on the table. ‘I . . .’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have told you.’