‘Gentlemen, these women are whores. Ladies, these gentlemen are shy.’ She grinned to show she meant no harm, but one of the harder women took offence anyway.
‘Who you calling whore, bitch?’ she said.
Sauce smiled. ‘I was one, honey. I know the look.’
‘Really?’ the other woman said. ‘And now what are you?’
‘Now I’m a knight,’ Sauce said. Count Zac was making eyes at her, and she walked away.
Ser Jehan looked down into the deep brown eyes of his sudden new friend. ‘Is she really a knight?’ the girl asked.
‘She really is,’ Ser Jehan agreed. And then he was dancing.
The Red Knight and Zoe danced – on and on. Once they stopped when the Ordinaries came like an avenging army bearing ice – actual ice from the mountains. The Red Knight met them well across the floor, asked who had sent the ice, and then took her some, and watched her eat it.
And again, when the servants came with a bubbly purple wine, he swept her across the floor to see that she had the very first glass.
Everyone commented on how attentive he was.
Wilful Murder sat back and drank his fifteenth jack of cider. He glared at Cully. ‘Thin,’ he said.
Cully rolled his eyes. ‘Not hardly,’ he said. ‘It’s just – different. Sweeter?’ he asked the air.
‘Mark my words,’ Wilful said. ‘He’s going to march us all somewhere horrible in the morning. This whole party was nothing but a cover – we’re going after the false Duke.’
Cully made a face, and shook his head. ‘We won’t have ten men fit for service in the morning,’ he said.
‘Mark my words,’ Wilful said, and belched carefully.
The Red Knight escorted the mysterious Lady Zoe all the way to her door. If he noticed that six heavily scarred Nordikans shadowed them every step through the palace, he didn’t pay them any apparent heed. If he noticed his own Ser Alcaeus or his mother Lady Maria or a long train of Imperial ladies dressed as Ordinaries – all breathless and a few perhaps a little more than breathless – following them along the marbled corridors, he said nothing.
At the doors to the Imperial apartments, he bowed over her hand, not quite touching it with his lips.
She smiled. ‘I expected more boldness from the famous warrior,’ she said.
‘I’m only really bold when I’m paid,’ he said, pressing her hand. ‘Nor do I think that the audience is apt to the purpose,’ he said softly.
She looked into the gloom of the long corridor and gave a sudden start. ‘Ah,’ she said, and vanished into the Imperial apartments. He had a glimpse of serried ranks of maids waiting to take her clothes, and a whiff of perfume, and then the door was closed in his face.
A young shepherd boy stood and gawped at the guard post on the Thrake road. There were twenty of Duke Andronicus’s soldiers, a pair of armoured noblemen, and six Easterners with horn bows. The boy ate an apple and then led his sheep through the roadblock. He was dumb, and made a pantomime of it, and the men laughed gruffly, took two of his sheep for dinner, and promised to beat him if he made a fuss.
He shuffled off to stand on the next hillside, watching them.
A wagon rolled up to the post in the last light of the sun.
The shepherd boy reached into the grass and fetched out a javelin, and then another, and then a sword.
Just as the wagon – a butcher from the city – was clearing the roadblock there was the sound of hoof beats. The men at the roadblock sprang to arms, but it was all too fast, and they were captured or dead in a matter of moments.
The Easterners covering the roadblock, all hardbitten steppe men under a khan, didn’t fight. They ran north, having been mounted.
The shepherd boy and a dozen other men and women who’d passed the roadblock in the last two days fell on the Easterners and the wagon, taking two prisoners and killing the rest.
Daniel Favour trotted down the hill after cleaning his spear on the dead man’s cloak and taking his purse, to find Gelfred sitting on his horse on the road in the fading light.
Gelfred nodded. ‘Well done,’ he said.
Daniel grinned. ‘I thought they was going to beat me. And I was wondering how long I’d take it before I fought back.’ He shrugged.
Gelfred nodded. ‘I did some praying,’ he admitted.
‘You see the wagon that got through?’ Favour asked.
Gelfred nodded. ‘He had a pass. I’ll question him separately.’
Two hours later, the Duke sat with Alcaeus and Father Arnaud, playing music in the yard. A handful of diehards were still dancing, including a remarkably bedraggled Ser Jehan and a very young Morean girl.
‘Will you fall in love with her?’ the poet asked.
‘Are you asking the Red Knight or the Megas Ducas?’ the possessor of both titles asked.
‘Surely you are a man, with a man’s appetites and a man’s desires, and not a pair of empty titles and a suit of armour,’ Alcaeus said. ‘Christos, I’m drunk. Ignore me.’
Father Arnaud watched him like the conscience most of his men assumed he didn’t have. ‘Do you fine gentlemen know Et non est qui adjuvet, by any chance?’ he asked.
They played it, and then they all drank wine. People applauded.
‘She’s watching you from the Library,’ Father Arnaud said.
Ser Gavin appeared with a small drum. ‘If I play, am I allowed in the club?’ he asked.
‘A drum?’ his brother asked.
‘It looks easy enough.’ Gavin laughed.
‘Anyway, you don’t need an instrument to join. You need only be celibate,’ Alcaeus said.
Father Arnaud spat some of his wine. He drank a little more, wiped his chin, and shook his head.
‘Someone choose a song,’ the Captain said.
‘It’s your turn,’ Alcaeus insisted.
‘ “Tant Doucement”?’ asked the Captain.
‘Must we?’ asked the priest.
‘You don’t love her?’ Alcaeus asked.
‘Who, the princess?’ asked Gavin. ‘My brother is very particular. He probably has his heart set on-’
The elbow in his ribs was not brotherly, and he was unprepared for it. ‘What the fuck!’ he said in a distinctly unchivalrous and quite believably brotherly way.
‘My brother was going to say that I had my heart set on the priesthood, but they insisted that I love God, and there’s things I just can’t lie about,’ he said.
Father Arnaud looked away.
‘You are an evil bastard,’ Gavin said, and he laughed and slapped his brother on the back.
The Captain took a deep breath. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘I am.’ He turned on his heel and walked away.
The priest watched him.
‘We don’t know, either,’ Alcaeus said.
Gavin followed his brother into the stable, up the long ramp to the second storey, and his footsteps echoed hollowly on the wooden floor. His brother was standing with a horse, in near darkness.
‘Only the Emperor would have a two-storey stable,’ he said.
Silence.
‘I’m sorry, but you know, if you have to be all strong and long-suffering and commanderly, none of us will ever know exactly why you are sad or angry or whatever in the devil’s name you are.’ Gavin smiled. ‘And may I point out that whatever your troubles, you don’t bear the actual mark of the Wild on your body? I have scales. Every day. Mary saw them and she-’ Gavin paused. ‘Are you listening?’
Gabriel reached out in the darkness and embraced his brother, and they stood there for the count of ten.
‘Do you at least like her?’ Gavin asked.
‘No,’ Gabriel whispered. ‘As you so astutely noted, I like someone else. I need more music. Thanks for coming in after me.’
In the morning, Wilful Murder was the first man on parade, while the sun was still below the horizon. He farted repeatedly, he had a hard head, and he’d done his share of dancing, but he was ready – his horse’s feed bag was full, his armour polished, oiled, and stored, his heavy winter cloak rolled behind his saddle, ready to march anywhere.
An hour later, when no alarm bells had rung, he cursed and went back to bed. In the next rack, Bent was too smart to laugh aloud.