‘You stand there, and play your mother… and Saracen’ll be your father.’
Mosca wet her lips, took a breath, and began to speak. She pulled out rags of wedding words she had heard by listening through the thin marriage-house walls. She patched them with pompous-sounding phrases from her father’s books. She stitched the whole together with the scarlet thread of her own imagination.
In an alcove on the wall, a porcelain Leampho stood with one eye closed, as if winking to let Mosca know that he was on to her. The Cakes, on the other hand, snuffled her way through the ceremony, and at the end had to wipe her eyes with the shawl.
‘It must be a real wedding,’ she said at last, ‘or I wouldn’t be crying.’
Mosca put the cravat in her hand and left the Cakes to enjoy her tears.
Mosca retired to her trucklebed, where she lay in a state of happy sleeplessness for almost an hour, listening to the brook-like sounds of Saracen chuckling himself to sleep. It seemed that at last things were turning out as they should.
At the very moment when Mosca slipped into sleep, Tamarind was waiting for an audience with her brother. It was a peculiar and unsociable hour for an interview, but the Duke’s whims had become more irregular recently. Her face powder hid any sleepless circles around Tamarind’s eyes.
Most visitors to the Duke’s residence in the Western Spire found themselves trying to blink away double vision, and pinching the bridge of their nose to clear a headache. Every desk, every shelf, every chair, every stair, everything here had its twin. Tamarind, however, was accustomed to the obsessive symmetry, even the window-shaped alcoves painted with matching views in place of the recalcitrant countryside.
‘Beautiful Tammy!’
Resplendent in an emerald-green dressing gown, the Duke strode forward to take his sister’s hands in greeting. Like many of his line, Vocado Avourlace was a handsome man. When he had first arrived back to reclaim his family’s ancient rule over Mandelion, he had seemed the very picture of the hero come to usher in brighter times.
At first only Tamarind had noticed the awkward, disquieting way his expressions changed, as if a puppeteer were pulling wires to move his face muscles, and doing it rather badly. Nowadays she saw the fear in everybody’s eyes. Her brother was going out of tune like an old piano, and nobody would come to retune his strings. Dukes and kings may go mad at their leisure, for nobody has enough power to stop them.
‘Come and sit down, I have wonderful news.’
Tamarind seated herself.
‘Your good news, Vocado,’ she prompted him gently, with the same quiet, level tone she used for her pet crocodile. The Duke’s eyes were large and brown, but dull and lifeless. He blinked, and for a moment they became very bright, like pebbles licked over by a wave. After a second they dulled again, as if drying in the sun.
‘I thought I would never hear from Them again, after…’ A small palsy passed across the Duke’s face. He never spoke directly of his broken engagement to Queen Peri. ‘But They have forgiven me.’ Reverently, he drew out two identical letters with matching seals, and placed them on his lap. ‘Their Majesties…’ There was a world of awe, ache and longing in the whispered words.
‘That is wonderful, Vocado.’
‘You never believed They would forgive me, Tamarind,’ he added sharply.
‘Of course I did.’ Tamarind softly stood and moved around behind him so that he could not see her face. Her hands trembling slightly, she lifted his ornate, powdered wig from his head. She took an ivory comb from her hair and ran it through his brown hair, as carefully as if she was calming a dangerous beast. ‘What do the letters say?’
‘They say that I must find the master of the printing press that profanes their good name. And I shall. I shall make harpsichord keys out of his bones for Their Majesties to play when they come back to rule Mandelion. Little white keys for their little white fingers.’ The Duke twisted his head to look into Tamarind’s startled face. ‘I am joking, Tammy.’ He gave a sudden, disquieting smile. ‘You never seem to know when I am joking any more.’
It was true. Even Tamarind, who had spent her life trying to govern her brother, was finding him ever harder to predict or understand.
‘What else do they say?’
‘They advise me on how to know my enemies,’ he murmured, then looked at her suspiciously over his shoulder. ‘Why are you so keen to know? You have things on your mind, Tamarind. Some day I think I will open up your head to find out what they are.’ He stared at her for a few moments, then smiled to show that he was joking. Above the smile his eyes kept staring at her.
Tamarind’s gaze dropped to the letters on her brother’s lap. With satisfaction she noted the wax seal on each letter, the imprint of the Twin Queens’ insignia. It had cost her considerable trouble and expense to have the signet ring made secretly in the Capital, but she prayed the fruits would be worth it.
‘And… have they helped you know your enemies, Vocado?’
‘My mind will not settle.’ The Duke gently stroked the letters with his fingertips, as if the paper was living skin. ‘Sometimes when I have been reading these letters I look into the clouds for the face of my enemy, and I seem to see Aramai Goshawk staring back at me. But, Tamarind, what am I to do? This radical conspiracy must be crushed – I see their hand in everything – helping highwaymen escape, rousing my people to riot… My constables are useless. The Stationers too. Goshawk tells me that he has troops upstream who can be in Mandelion in two days if I give the word. Only the Locksmiths can help.’
‘That is not true.’ Tamarind circled her brother to stand before him, and dropped to her knees. ‘Goshawk is not your only choice. I can help. Off the coast a ship stands ready with troops from Jottland – awaiting word from me.’
‘The Watermen have sworn that they will not permit any troops to be brought along the waterways from the coasts, until the Succession is decided,’ the Duke answered dully.
‘You might distract them. If you gave them enough money, you might persuade them to go upstream and delay the Locksmiths’ ships and…’
‘Why do you wish to put me at odds with the Watermen, Tamarind?’ The Duke scowled, and Tamarind could sense the floor becoming quicksand beneath her feet. It was time to gamble all her gains, and she did so without a tremble.
‘You must listen to me, Vocado. The Locksmiths are playing you false. The Stationers have discovered the identity of the man running the radical conspiracy, the master of the villainous printing press. They have not arrested him because he is being protected. The Locksmiths are hiding him, Vocado.’
An ugly sickle curl was developing in the corners of the Duke’s mouth. The curl appeared when he was on the brink some cruel or violent act. It had appeared on the day of the fateful badminton match.
‘I can prove it.’ A frightened moth was a-flutter behind Lady Tamarind’s scar. She could not read her brother, or guess whether his current anger boded ill for Aramai Goshawk or for herself. ‘Put some men at my disposal, and I will prove it to you by tomorrow night. You… will want time to think about this, Vocado. I will leave you.’
She composed herself outside the door. Her scar throbbed so hard it numbed her cheek. In one instant she had staked everything – her influence over her brother, the fate of Mandelion, her own life. All now depended on the decision the Duke was about to make. Vocado Avourlace was alone with the voices that only he could hear. They murmured from twinned smiles in painting, tapestry and stained-glass window. The words that whispered from the newly arrived letters, however, spoke most clearly.
‘We have every faith that you will find the culprits,’ whispered the twin voices, ‘and when you do, arrest them without hesitation. The law is your lance and you may wield it as fiercely as you see fit in order to crush the evildoers…’