“When we are done, we will leave your kingdom stronger, and your rule on surer ground,” de Vrailly said. “No king should have to be beholden to a rabble of fishmongers and labourers for his crown.”
De Rohan winced.
The King sighed. “Leave me,” he said.
“We shouldn’t go,” Master Pye said. “I know Ser Jean, and I know the King.”
Darkwood looked at Master Pye. “That’s close to treason.”
Master Pye looked bored. “I count the King as a friend. I ha’ known him since I fitted him for rings when he was going boar hunting-I don’t know. Thirty years? He’s a fine lance. The best, they say, in the west.” Master Pye leaned back-in full harness-and rested his lower back on the edge of his low chair. “He’s not so deft in counsel, and I speak no treason when I say he’s always had a tendency to do what the last loud voice bid him.”
“Which did us well eno’ when the Queen was the voice at his pillow,” Ailwin Darkwood said, fingering the massive chain of office he was wearing over his tightly fitted coat of plates.
“An’ now he’s being led by a pack of foreigners,” muttered Jasop Gross, alderman, under-sheriff, and Master Butcher. In despite of his name, he was thin and handsome for his fifty years. “Sweet Jesu, friends, we’re in a pickle.”
“There’s Jacks at work in the streets,” Ser Gerald said. “And where’s Tom Willoughby?”
“Where’s the Sheriff?” Master Gross asked. “They say he arrested the Queen and now he’s locked in with her.”
“I always said Tom Willoughby was a fool,” Ailwin Darkwood said. “And you gentlemen wouldn’t hear me.”
“I heard you,” said the only woman present. Anne Bates was the only woman in Alba to be head of a guild. She was the Master Silversmith for Harndon; she was an alderman. She was forty-five and iron-haired. The joints on her fingers were already heavy with arthritis, but her long nose and pointed chin and the perfection of the white linen of her wimple were more than just concessions to femininity. She raised her chin. “I heard you every time. He’s a fool. And now, instead of standing on custom, he’s arrested the Queen. Do you lot know where this Gold girl is?” She looked around. “The Galles want her badly.”
No one would meet her eye.
She snorted. “You’re keeping it secret? What a pack of fools. We hang together, friends, or we’ll all hang separately. I’m too old to plead my belly. Ser Gerald, what would you?”
Ser Gerald nodded. “I’d go. With Ailwin. And Master Pye.”
Pye shook his head. “My sense is that de Vrailly-or if he can’t stomach it, that oily rat de Rohan-will have our heads on spikes before we even see the King.”
Ser Gerald shook his head. “I can’t imagine the King-”
“He allowed his God-damned wife to be taken for adultery,” Master Pye said with emphasis that was reinforced by the fact that no man present had ever heard him use an oath before. “We’re nothing. Think on it, Gerald! Desiderata is in irons. That’s the power that de Vrailly and de Rohan wield.”
Anne Bates made a face. “I say it’s the new bishop.”
Pye shrugged. “Last fall-when they started coming after my yard-a Hoek merchant came to see me. He made threats. When he left, the Order had him followed. He went straight to de Rohan.” He looked around.
Random sat suddenly, as if his harness weighed too much. “What do we do?” he asked. “Turn Jack? Down with the King?”
Master Pye shook his head. “I don’t know what to do.”
Anne Bates looked at Ser Gerald. “I’ll go with you, Ser Gerald. A knight and a lady-hard cheese if the Galles are so dead to honour that they’ll put our heads on spikes after promising us a safe pass.”
Ser Gerald looked at the rest of them. “You say the King always goes with the last voice,” he said. “Let it be ours, then. I can shout pretty loud. Better than a Galle, I reckon.”
“You lose your temper, Gerald,” Master Pye said. “And if you do, you’re cooked. One word they can take as treason-remember that. In their eyes, the Queen’s a traitor. Anything you say about her is reversed for them.”
Random shrugged.
An hour later, having kissed his wife, he followed a dozen King’s Guardsmen into the mouth of Gold Square, which was lined with the richest men and women in the city.
Ser Gerald had no eyes for them. His eyes were on his escort of Royal Guardsmen. None of them wore the golden leopards on their shoulders-and three of them wore scarlet surcoats so ill fitting that they flapped in the breeze. The leader looked familiar.
He smiled at Ser Gerald.
Ser Gerald gave him a nervous smile back. He’d changed out of his harness and wore a fine black gown, proper attire for a man of his age, and good black hose; a chain, and his plaque belt and sword. “How long have you been in the Guard?” he asked the man.
The man was quite young. He shrugged. “Two days,” he allowed.
“You from Harndon?” Ser Gerald asked.
“No, ser knight,” the young guardsman said. “I’m from Hawkshead, west of Albinkirk.”
Ser Gerald stopped, struck by the coincidence. “I fought there last year, at Lissen Carak,” he said.
All three Guardsmen nodded. “We know,” said another, quietly.
“I’m not a rebel,” Ser Gerald said.
The leader of the Guardsmen spread his hands. He really looked familiar, but Ser Gerald couldn’t place him. “We know, Ser Gerald,” he said. “I have your safe conduct in my purse. We’ll take you to the King, and bring you back.” He looked around at the crowd of aldermen and senior masters who stood in Gold Square. “You have my word.”
His steady voice and the King’s livery did much to sway the crowd, and Ser Gerald walked up the hill-wearing a sword, and clearly not a prisoner. At the top of Cheapside, he met Anne Bates, wearing enough fur and gold to look like a duchess. He bowed, and she took his hand. Her escort was the same size as his own. All the Guardsmen seemed to know each other.
He kept trying to place the officer, who seemed very young for his role.
Nothing came to him as they walked through the quiet streets. Everything still reeked of smoke. All the bodies were gone, but there were buildings missing like rotted teeth in a beggar’s mouth, and people missing, too.
Random’s father-in-law, a past Master Stonemason, was dead, his head caved in by a poleaxe. So were many other men-and women-who counted for something in the squares of the city.
Past the scorched buildings and the scrubbed cobbles, he could see movements in the next street-Fleet Street. A heavy patrol of the Trained Band was moving parallel to the Royal Guard.
He couldn’t imagine Edmund and his mates attacking the Royal Guard, but their armoured presence made him feel calmer.
They went under the first portcullis of the outer ward, and left Edmund’s men behind.
The portcullis closed.
Even his Guardsmen looked startled.
Anne Bates, who was no kind of a flirt, clasped his hand.
Ser Gerald raised his chin, and walked on.
“Who’s the old woman pretending to be a lady?” de Rohan asked one of his men.
“No idea, my lord,” the man said.
“Find out,” de Rohan hissed.
No one came back to tell him, and the pair moved into the corridors of the palace.
De Rohan moved ahead of them, and arranged for the doors of the Royal Chamber to be closed.
He turned to de Vrailly. “The canaille sent Ser Gerald Random.”
De Vrailly looked at him with indifference. “So?” de Vrailly asked.
De Rohan forced himself to speak slowly. “I do not think Ser Gerald should be allowed to speak to the King.”
“Because in fact he is not guilty of treason?” de Vrailly snapped. “Because you are afraid of him?”
The word “afraid” was fraught with peril for a Galle. De Rohan flushed.
“It would be better if he did not reach the King,” de Rohan said.
De Vrailly shrugged. “Better for you, perhaps,” he said.