Knight's Shadow (53 page)

Several people started to rise, but it was my turn to slam my fist on the table. I’d been wanting to do that for ages; shame I hadn’t realised it was going to hurt quite so much. Ah well. ‘You’ve had your way with this country long enough. Since the King’s death, you have taxed the common folk beyond measure. You have allowed the trade routes to fall into disrepair until bandits have become richer than merchants. You have plotted and intrigued and poisoned everything the King tried to build.’

‘That,’ Jillard said, ‘is how you see it.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘that’s how you see it – all of you. You know that what I’m saying is true. The King might have offended you with his laws, but he also gave you certainty. He gave you reliable trade and safe borders.’

‘He gave us the Greatcoats, too, coming in and interfering in our own lands,’ Meillard said.

‘Yes, he did: and for nearly a decade we travelled the long roads and heard cases in every town in the country. And tell me’ – I looked around the table – ‘how many uprisings did you have in those years? How many times did the common folk try to assassinate you?’

‘So that’s what this is about?’ Jillard asked. ‘You want us to reinstate the Greatcoats?’

‘Give us a year,’ I said, ‘one year to set this country back to rights. One year to show people that there is still some measure of justice and fairness in the world.’

‘And then?’ Jillard asked.

‘And then you can go back to plotting each other’s deaths if you like. You can refuse us entry to your duchies after that. You can go back to trying to kill us. But I don’t think you will. I think you and your families and above all your people are sick and tired of watching decay and corruption reign over Tristia.

‘Give me one year. I’ll give you a country.’

There was silence in the room for a few minutes, but then Meillard shook his head. ‘I don’t see how any of that is going to work, not without a monarch on the throne. I don’t dispute your skill or your courage, but there are very few Trattari left. We can’t continue like this. We need a monarch.’

Jillard turned to Meillard. ‘Are you mad? You want to put this
child
on the throne?’

Meillard shrugged. ‘She’s the King’s daughter. I don’t see how we can find a way around that.’

‘She knows
nothing
!’ Jillard went on. ‘She’s a little girl with no training and no experience – and you want to make her Queen now? While we’re trying to rebuild the country? What happens the moment she finds it all too overwhelming? Who will her councillors be? What happens when someone suggests she have us all assassinated? She approved the plan to have us murdered! Rijou would sooner have no monarch on the throne.’

‘You did have her family killed,’ Brasti pointed out.

‘And you tried really quite hard to have her murdered as well,’ Kest added.

Meillard looked tired. ‘I . . . The Duke of Rijou has a point. I can’t see how this untrained child is going to hold the throne for a week, never mind a year. It takes resolve to rule a kingdom. It takes breeding and experience.’

His words were firm and final, but I saw something in his eyes, and when I looked around at the other Dukes I saw it echoed, again and again: fear, and need.

They need the Greatcoats
, I realised. If I tell them Aline must take the throne, they’ll do it – they’ll threaten and they’ll complain, but in the end even Jillard will say yes because the Dukes need us and because, if nothing else, Aline has the
breeding
they care so much about.

That word,
breeding
, stuck in the pit of my stomach.
That’s all this whole country cares about: which family you were born into
. I despised every person seated around that table because, whether friend or foe, they all thought life should be dictated by bloodlines – and was my King any different? After all, he expected me to put his daughter on the throne.

Aline was watching me, and though she sat still and upright on her chair, her eyes were full of quiet terror, just as they had been ever since this had begun. Meillard was right: she wouldn’t last a week on the throne. She had tried to be brave, but trying wasn’t enough, not for Tristia.

‘Well?’ Meillard asked, breaking my train of thought. ‘Are you still demanding that we put this child on the throne?’

I thought back to all those moments, trapped in the paralysis brought on by the neatha, with my King standing there in front of me.
You will betray her
. It was only then that I realised he’d never said it angrily, only with certainty.

‘No,’ I said at last, ‘Aline can’t take the throne today.’

Chaos ensued as a number of the Dukes immediately assumed I was going to try to take the throne for myself. Even Valiana, standing next to me, put her hand on the hilt of her sword, ready to fight to the death to protect Aline, and I smiled because she had proved me right. I looked over to Aline and saw tears of confusion in her eyes.
I’m sorry, sweetheart. Maybe you’ll thank me for this; maybe you’ll curse me.

I held up a hand for quiet. ‘You say it takes breeding to rule a country. I say it takes courage: courage and compassion and the willingness to sacrifice. Your Graces, you were going to appoint a Realm’s Protector – someone to run the Kingdom, to give time to select a new monarch. So do that: appoint a Realm’s Protector while Aline learns the ways of a monarch – and you have time to satisfy yourselves that she has no homicidal tendencies towards you.’

That shut them up them for a few seconds. It was Meillard who spoke first. ‘It’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard. We do it in the duchies when the heir is too young to rule.’

‘And who would this Realm’s Protector be?’ Jillard asked. ‘You, Falcio val Mond? Will you now finally reveal your purpose? Would you see yourself—?’

‘Not me.’

‘Thank the Saints,’ Brasti said.

I pointed to Valiana. ‘Her.’

Several voices began objecting at once.

Jillard, oddly, was silent.

Meillard signalled for silence. ‘The
peasant
? You’d put a peasant in command of the country?’

‘Not so long ago the lot of you planned to make her Queen,’ I said.

‘We thought she had noble blood,’ Meillard said, his voice full of self-righteous anger. ‘That bitch Patriana lied to us.’

‘Of course she did,’ I said, ‘and what a surprise that must have been to you all! But it doesn’t change the fact that for eighteen years Valiana was raised to rule. She’s learned the laws, both King’s and Ducal Laws. She’s learned protocol, and the ways of the court – and she’s learned them from all of you.’

Almost everyone in the room began to shout their objections all at once, not just Dukes, but their noble retainers, calling Valiana – and me too – some very unpleasant names. Hadiermo went so far as to suggest that he would lead the northern duchies in secession from Tristia, though that ended quickly enough when Ossia pointed out that Trin would likely have something to say about that.

Finally Jillard raised a hand for quiet. His eyes found Valiana’s. ‘If we do as the Trattari asks – if we name you Realm’s Protector for the next year – would you hold to the agreements made here today and swear no retribution against the Ducal Concord? Would you set aside all past . . . disagreements?’

Some of the other Dukes began to renew their objections, but Jillard shouted, ‘Silence!’ so loudly that the plates and goblets rattled. Once the hubbub had quietened, he said, ‘Let us play no more games. We all know we need someone on the throne and it can’t be any of us. Who better than her? When my son’s life was in danger she . . .’

He paused, and just for a moment I saw the man who had screamed in terror over Tommer’s life down in the black pit of Rijou’s dungeons.

‘This girl stood and fought for my son. Would any of you have done that for me? Would you—?’

‘So now you’ve gone all soft because someone threatened your boy? Rijou doesn’t lead the Concord,’ Hadiermo shouted.

Meillard stood. ‘But I do.’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘I never held with that nonsense the rest of you had cooking to put a puppet on the throne, but you did it anyway. Now we need someone who knows how the country works and understands all of it – the good
and
the bad.’ He turned back to Valiana. ‘Come on, girl, speak. Do you want to be the Realm’s Protector or not?’

Valiana stood shakily. ‘I . . . no, your Grace. I do not want to rule, nor do I wish to hold the throne in any way.’

‘Good,’ Meillard said. ‘Then you’re perfect for the job.’

That wasn’t the end of all the yelling and shouting, not by a long shot, and I was surprised at how quickly all of their precious protocol slipped away. But in the end Meillard and Jillard prevailed.

Valiana walked from the table to kneel before Aline. ‘I swore an oath to you,’ she said. ‘I swore to protect you, no matter what.’

Aline nodded. The tears had stopped and now she just looked tired – too tired for such a young soul.

‘I . . . things will be different if I do this,’ Valiana said. ‘I won’t take the role unless you agree to it, but if you do, things will be different between us. I will have to put the country’s needs ahead of your own.’

Aline remained silent.

Valiana took one of Aline’s hands in hers. ‘You have to say it: you have to release me from my oath, or I won’t do it.’

‘This is foolish,’ Duke Hadiermo complained.

‘There are worse things than a ruler who holds to their oaths,’ Meillard replied.

Aline stood up and placed her hand on Valiana’s head. ‘I am Aline, daughter of Paelis. I am heir to the throne of Tristia and I release you from your oath, Valiana val Mond of the Greatcoats.’

And just like that, I had betrayed the last command of the King whom I loved more than the world itself.

Epilogue

I stood staring through the iron bars at the Tailor, who was sitting on a stool in the very centre of her cell. ‘You asked to see me, and here I am.’

The King never liked prisons much, having spent a good deal of his life locked in one, so he’d seen to it that the cells beneath Castle Aramor were only partially underground, and had light coming from small windows – too high above the floor for prisoners to reach, but angled so they could still see the sky during the day.

‘I see they found you appropriate accommodations,’ I added.

‘It suits me well enough,’ she said. Then she smiled. ‘Besides, it’s only temporary.’

‘I doubt you’ll find your way out of this. An awful lot of people died because of you.’

‘People would have died anyway. I think things turned out as well as we could have hoped. They never would have accepted a proper Queen on the throne unless they absolutely had to. They never would have allowed you and your Greatcoats to take control, not unless there was something far more dangerous to fear – and I gave them that, Falcio. I gave them a glimpse of civil war and chaos. I showed them an army of assassins who made their worst fears of the Greatcoats nothing more dangerous than soft rain on a warm summer night.’

‘You turned into a monster as bad – no, worse – than Patriana.’

‘No, I became exactly what the world needed me to be, nothing more – and nothing less.’ Then she reached out a hand and took my jaw. ‘Just as you have, Falcio.’

I pushed her hand away. ‘I stayed true to my oaths.’

‘Oaths.’ She spat the word. ‘And where did this great oath come from? It came from the death of your wife, from a long, dark journey that began in blood and ended with steel. Your
oath
, Falcio val Mond, First Cantor of the Greatcoats, came from every evil thing that has ever been done to you. The world required a man of valour and so it gave you pain and misery to turn you into what it needed.’ She smiled then and reached out for me once more, but I stepped back. ‘And it needed courage and decency. The world needed a hero, and you were the clay it moulded for that purpose.’

‘It’s too bad Nehra isn’t here,’ I said. ‘She might know the proper word for whatever it is you’ve become. You and I are through,’ I said as I began to walk away.

‘You were dying.’

I stopped. I had known she might say what she was about to and I had promised myself I would leave before she took the chance, and yet I stayed – if only because profound irony deserves an audience.

‘The neatha was killing you,’ the Tailor continued. ‘Nothing I nor any healer could have done would have stopped it from reaching your heart. What the Dashini did to you – it burned out the poison. It saved your life.’

I turned and did my very best to look surprised. ‘And you knew this?’

I don’t know if she fell for my performance or merely tolerated it for the sake of her own act of self-deception.

‘I suspected. I’ve told you before, boy: life is pain. What the Unblooded inflicted on you . . . I cannot begin to imagine – but I do know that without it you would surely be dead.’

I smiled grimly, unable to keep up the pretence any longer. ‘So really, you only betrayed me to the Dashini so that you could save my life.’

Her expression remained as hard and impassive as ever.

‘In that case, next time, Tailor, I would consider it an enormous favour if you would just let me die.’

She snorted. ‘Really? You still think I care about your pride? Or your pain? I told you – I told you
over and over
: there is
nothing
I won’t do to protect Aline.
Nothing
. Everything I did, I did to put her on the throne.’

‘You brought mayhem and murder to all of our lives.’

‘Aye. I did, and I’ll do it again, if needs be. I’ll see this country turned into a river of blood if that’s what it takes. Aline will be Queen.’

I knew what I wanted to say, but I hesitated. I imagined Saint Birgid, whispering in my ear:
I’ve called out to you, always when the victory was won but before the final blow was struck
. I did believe in mercy, in compassion – now more than ever, I believed it was vital.

But there is also
justice,
Birgid. And besides, I’m no fucking Saint.

‘Your son would hate you for what you’ve become,’ I said.

At first, I thought the Tailor would grow angry and rage at me, or maybe she might even break down and cry, but she didn’t, of course. She said only, ‘Of course he would hate me for what I’ve done, Falcio. In a thousand years he could never forgive me for all of this, even in the name of putting his daughter on the throne. That’s why you and I loved him so much, isn’t it?’

*

Later that night six of us stood upon the ramparts of Castle Aramor under stars so bright I could almost trick myself into believing I was on one of the Southern Islands. Strangely, the two people who would most have understood what I felt weren’t with us. Aline was in a room in the castle, safe from harm, though not safe from her own fears.
Not yet, but soon
, I promised her. And Ethalia was staying with her until she fell asleep. Aline had trouble looking at me now, though I couldn’t say whether it was from guilt over agreeing to the Tailor’s plan or out of a deep sense of betrayal that I had failed to make her Queen.

‘I could do with being King, you know?’ Brasti said, one foot on the low stone rampart, looking out over the countryside as if it belonged to him.

‘You’d make a terrible King,’ Kest said. His arm had been re-bandaged at the point where I’d cut off his hand. It no longer showed that bloom of red.

‘Doesn’t that hurt?’ Brasti asked.

‘It’s agony,’ Kest replied. ‘It feels as if it’s still being sawed through, very, very slowly.’

‘Then why aren’t you . . . you know . . .?’

‘What?’

‘Screaming!’ Brasti shouted. ‘Or crying. Or moaning or . . . anything that human beings do when they’ve had their hand cut off!’

Kest looked at him for a moment, the faint smile on his face somewhere between bemused and genuinely curious. ‘Would that help?’

Brasti threw up his hands. ‘You’re hopeless.’

Valiana started laughing, and so did Nehra, who brought out her guitar and began to play a soft melody that went well with the bright stars. I turned to Dariana, who was standing a little way apart from us.

‘What are you doing over there?’ I asked.

She turned to me. ‘What? Nehra said I had to be here, and here I am.’

‘If you stood any further away you’d fall off the castle.’

‘I’m not one of you,’ she said. ‘I never have been.’

‘And how’s that been working out for you?’ Brasti asked.

She looked at him and for a moment, her eyes narrowed, but then a smirk appeared on her lips. ‘You do realise that I only slept with you because I was planning on cutting off your balls afterwards and keeping them as trophies, don’t you?’

‘Dariana, if you really want to hurt me, all you need to do is have sex with me again. Frankly, cutting off my balls would be more merciful.’

‘Enough,’ I said. ‘Some of us have had painfully close brushes with such things recently.’

Brasti looked horrified. ‘Hells, Falcio, I’m sorry – I didn’t mean—’

‘It’s time,’ Nehra interrupted.

‘Time for what?’ I asked. ‘Are you going to tell us why we all had to come up here? It’s damned cold.’

‘Perhaps you should have worn your coat,’ Kest said, and though none of the others noticed it, there was a note of sadness mixed with resignation in his voice.

I hadn’t worn my coat because earlier that night I’d found the old wooden chest that the King had taken our coats from, the day he’d given them to us. Mine was inside it now, and the lid was closed. I was done. I’d served my King as well as any peasant boy from Pertine could ever have been expected to do, and when I left the ramparts later that night, I would go downstairs to my room and find Ethalia, who would be waiting for me. She would stand in front of me and smile that smile of hers and she would ask me one final time to leave this place behind. She would tell me once more about a particular small island off the coast of Baern that had no Dukes, nor Knights nor Greatcoats, for that matter. She would ask me to come with her.

I would say yes.

Nehra’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. ‘There’s a story that will be told in the coming days and years. I intend to get it right.’

Brasti grinned. ‘Well, it all started with a young poacher: a brave and hardy soul, born to humble beginnings but destined for—’

‘I don’t mean the story of what happened,’ Nehra said, ‘and I especially don’t want your version of it. I mean the story that comes after.’

‘I don’t—’

Valiana spoke up. ‘I think I understand.’

Nehra smiled, then she looked at me. ‘You see, Falcio? There’s at least one thing in this world you got right.’

‘I’m not sure I had much to do with it.’

‘Still the fool, then.’ She turned back to Valiana. ‘Go on, Realm’s Protector. You might as well begin.’

Valiana pulled her shoulders back.

Saints
, I thought,
I used to think she looked like one of those princesses rescued by heroes and woven into tapestries. But she doesn’t any more
. She’s
the hero.

‘The Dukes aren’t done with their schemes,’ she said. ‘They’ve got a year in which to find some new treachery which will enable them to take power – Jillard, Hadiermo, all of them: they’ve still got money and influence. And then there’s Trin – she won’t stop, not ever. She’ll bide her time, lick her wounds for a bit and then, slowly but surely, she’ll start making plans again. She thinks she knows me – they all do. They think I’m still the same vain, foolish child who smiled prettily and knew how to curtsey at all the right times. They’ll all believe they can destroy Aline, because they think they’re so much more cunning than I am.’ She turned to the rest of us. ‘
They
don’t know me at all.’

I thought I should say something next, but before I could, Brasti leapt up onto the rampart. ‘There are still Knights out there,’ he said, ‘men in armour who think their warped sense of honour means the Gods and the Saints are on their side and that puts them above the law. I mean to prove them wrong.’

‘The Gods
are
on their side,’ Kest said, ‘or they seem to be, at least.’

I smiled. ‘You planning on duelling more Saints? Didn’t you notice how that turned out last time?’

‘No,’ Kest said, ‘I thought I might try my hand at a God next time.’

And then I saw he was smiling too.

‘No!’ Brasti said. ‘Absolutely fucking not.’

‘What’s the matter?’ Kest asked innocently.

Brasti jumped down from the rampart and held out an accusatory finger. ‘You are
not
going to become a God before I’ve even made Saint! I’m sick of doing all the real work while the two of you become legends! Did anyone happen to notice that it was
me
who killed off a thousand charging Knights? Saint Zaghev-who-sings-for-tears! There is no fucking justice in this world.’

Kest, Valiana and I started laughing, and after a moment even Brasti couldn’t hold onto his righteous indignation and joined us. I loved the feeling of being surrounded by these strange, brave men and women, but I also knew I had to tell them.

‘I’ve got something to say,’ Dariana said. ‘I mean, if it’s all right.’

We waited for her to speak, but she remained silent and after a moment Nehra looked at me and mouthed the word ‘idiot’.

Fine
, I thought. ‘You were meant to be here,’ I said firmly. ‘I’m not sure I’ll ever understand why or how, but I know you belong here. With us.’

Valiana walked over and embraced her. ‘Say what you need to say.’

Dari took in a deep breath before gently pushing Valiana back. ‘I hated the Dashini. They were scary, sadistic monsters and they— Well, I hated them so much I became just like them.’

‘You’re free now.’

‘I know that, but . . . There was something, I don’t know – the old man, the one you met at the monastery? – he talked of a time when the Dashini were, well, not
good
, exactly, but
necessary
: that there were times when someone who committed a crime was too powerful to be stopped any other way. There was something
right
about the Dashini once, something that got corrupted.’ She turned to the rest of us. ‘I mean, what does happen if a Lord or a Duke or, hells, even a King becomes so powerful they can’t be stopped? Trin’s even got magic none of us have seen before.’

‘Are you really saying—?’

‘Yes, I think I am. Someone has to find out what the Dashini used to be – what they were
meant
to be, and maybe . . . maybe put that back somehow. I’m sorry . . . I know you’d all rather I put on a pretty dress and start acting like some virtuous maiden—’

Brasti laughed out loud at that. ‘For all the Gods’ sakes,’ he begged, ‘
please
, don’t put on a pretty dress and start acting like a virtuous maiden! The world’s seen quite enough chaos already.’

She smiled, and it was the first time I’d seen her do it without it being just a smirk. ‘On that score, you don’t need to worry, Brasti Goodbow.’

I wanted to stay in that moment forever, but Nehra’s tune on the guitar, repeating over and over, told me she was still waiting for me to speak.

I was only just beginning to understand how much I loved them, and what I had to say would break these wild and idealistic hearts. I was going to cut the last thread binding us all together.
I won’t give up Ethalia – I can’t refuse her again.

‘I’m not . . . I need to . . . hells. I do have something to say, damn it, though I don’t think you’re going to—’

‘Promise me you’re going to tell this story differently than Falcio does,’ Brasti begged Nehra.

‘Shut up,’ she said. ‘This is where it begins.’

I felt a touch at my arm. I’d been so lost in my own thoughts I hadn’t heard anyone approach. I turned and Ethalia was there, her face close to mine.
She’s meant for moonlight
, I thought. Unfortunately, what I said was, ‘You look nice in the dark.’