Nothing rose to the surface. ‘Would you do me the kindness to take this news to the palace?’ asked Kronmir, displaying a deliberate patience, like a parent with a child.
‘An hour won’t hurt the cause. I never get a chance to speak to you, and yet you are at the heart of our organisation in the city.’ The mage leaned forward. ‘Is there anything you need?’
Kronmir thought for a moment. If he was frustrated at the magister’s delay, he hid it well. ‘I wonder if you could make me some small devices,’ he asked.
Aeskepiles shrugged. ‘Most men exaggerate the capabilities of hermetical devices,’ he said. ‘And I don’t make fire-starters. What would you like?’
‘I’d like to have the ability to warn an agent. Something like a ring or a pendant that would buzz, or grow warm or cold. Preferably something that would be utterly inconspicuous.’
Aeskepiles drank more cider. ‘Warn them for what purpose?’
‘So that they could escape. You must know that one of my best messengers was taken. I lost only one agent, but in the process of warning the others I was very exposed.’
Kronmir said this with such flat disinterest that the mage had to say the words again in his head to understand their import. ‘We wouldn’t want you to be captured,’ Aeskepiles agreed.
‘That would be most – unpleasant. For me, and for your cause.’ Kronmir drank more wine. ‘The capture of either of my principal agents would be just as disastrous.’
‘How much do they know?’ the mage asked.
Kronmir made an odd face. ‘Excuse me?’ he asked.
‘I mean, if they are too well informed, ought we just to be rid of them?’ asked the hermeticist.
‘Is this how you see the world?’ Kronmir asked. ‘These are people who have served the Duke well.’
Aeskepiles shrugged. ‘Of course.’
Kronmir rose. ‘I find it odd that I – the spy, the hired killer – care more about the people we use than you or Demetrius do, the noble supporters of a noble cause.’ Kronmir’s delivery continued to be so flat that it was possible he was speaking ironically, and the mage chose to take him that way.
He laughed. ‘Be that as it may, I will make you these devices. That is well within my art. And I ask you again – do you hold the Red Knight’s life in your hand?’
Kronmir didn’t smile. His cold eyes, like the eyes of falcon or a lizard, bored into the hermeticist’s eyes, and for a moment Aeskepiles felt a shudder of revulsion.
‘Yes,’ said the spy.
‘No possibility of error – your agent is that sure he can get close to the usurper?’ Aeskepiles asked.
Kronmir looked at him. ‘There is always the possibility of error,’ he said. ‘We don’t call this the game of kings for nothing.’
‘Your agent is reliable?’ asked Aeskepiles.
Kronmir leaned back. ‘You are not as far advanced in the confidence of the Duke as I would have expected, Master Mage. I will not tell you any more.’ He looked away. ‘The Duke needs this information.’
Aeskepiles risked some of his stature with the rebels and shook his head. ‘Damn it, Kronmir, I’m not the enemy. I just want to know if there’s any chance of winning this thing. I had good reason to betray the Emperor. My agenda is not advanced at all by a failed rebellion.’
Kronmir’s face finally registered an emotion – surprise. He leaned forward again. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘That was honest, Master Mage. For my part, I can provide you no assurances. I am a mere mercenary, hired under contract. I have some history with the Duke, and was willing to work on this project under certain conditions.’ He shrugged. ‘It is of little moment to me who is Emperor.’
Aeskepiles spread his hands in frustration. ‘I thought that you were deep in the councils of the Duke!’ he said.
Kronmir rose, and threw his cloak around his shoulders. ‘If I were, I wouldn’t admit it to you. And if I were not, I wouldn’t admit it to you. So I must demur, and say nothing at all. Good day, Master Magister.’ He took a step away from the table and then, with a swirl of his cloak, reappeared by the sorcerer’s side.
‘How are your relations with the Academy?’ he asked suddenly.
Aeskepiles raised an eyebrow. ‘Much like yours with the Duke,’ he said. ‘And with the same codicil.’
Kronmir laughed. Aeskepiles thought it might have been the first time he heard the spy laugh.
‘I had that coming,’ the spy admitted. ‘The message?’
‘Immediately, spy.’
Kronmir bowed, and was gone.
Aeskepiles spent far too much time getting the snow off his hood while incompetent servants fussed over his boots.
‘Damn your eyes,’ he snarled at a maid. ‘I need to see Duke Andronicus.’
The major-domo of the Lonika Palace bowed deeply. ‘Magister, the grand Duke is with the Despot in the Room of Embassies.’
The Palace of Lonika mirrored the Great Palace of Liviapolis in any number of ways – it had magnificent mosaic ceilings, gilt pillars, rooms full of furniture inlaid in ivory and bone and precious gems. But it was all on a far more human scale – the palace itself was the size of a Harndon guild hall, and there were only a hundred servants. Moreover, the relative wealth of the Dukes of Thrake and the smaller scale of the palace meant that the hypocausts worked, the floors were heated, the flues of the Alban-style inside chimneys were clear and warmth trickled even into outside halls, while the main rooms on the three main floors were positively pleasant.
The palace major-domo led the magister up two grand staircases to the Great Hall, which was dark – but warmer than the world outside. They moved silently across the warm marble floors. In the silence, Aeskepiles could actually hear the sound of distant fires roaring in the cellar furnaces.
They crossed the marble floor, passed through a low, arched corridor, and the major-domo knocked at a small inlaid door. A beautiful young man opened it and bowed deeply.
Aeskepiles entered a wood-panelled room – every panel was itself an inlaid trompe l’oeil, a picture of the same panel open to reveal helmets and sextants and paint brushes and daggers and scrolls – a masculine fantasy of the ideal collection, rendered in fine woods and ivory and gilt. It was, indeed, a facsimile of the Imperial study in the Palace of Blacharnae.
Aeskepiles thought it a remarkable piece of vulgarity and, because he hated it, it drew his eye every time he entered the room.
Duke Andronicus and his golden son sat at a magnificent table in northern cherry, mammoth ivory and gold, on ivory stools. They were playing chess, a set of pieces carved by an artist from Umroth ivory and the rare black bone of the non-dead.
‘Aeskepiles!’ said Andronicus with an enthusiasm that came across as patently false. A life of palace political life had robbed the Duke of normal human reactions – it was very difficult to determine what he thought about anything.
Demetrius, who had been kept away from court, scowled contemptuously at the mage. He didn’t hide his feelings.
‘We’re playing chess,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you respect our privacy and return at a mutually convenient time?’ The words were polite, but the intent was anything but.
Hating Demetrius was a city-wide hobby, and one that Aeskepiles disdained. ‘My lord, I would not interrupt, but that I have two pieces of news. The first is that I fear for the loyalty of the spy, Kronmir.’
Andronicus shrugged. ‘He’s his own man, I agree. But that was part of our arrangement. He has brought some remarkable tools to the table.’
Aeskepiles settled at the table. ‘He claims he can kill the Red Knight at any time, but he will not discuss his methods or the source of this message.’
Duke Andronicus caught sight of the message tube in palace colours and he reached for it.
‘I feel sometimes that I am not in your confidence, my lord Duke, despite being one of the engines of our shared rebellion. And despite having placed the Emperor in your hands.’ Aeskepiles plucked the message cylinder out of the Duke’s hands and placed it high above them with a whisper and a thought. ‘I, too, am an ally of convenience, my lord Duke, and I do not feel that my convenience has been consulted very often. I have certain goals. I would like to know the state of play.’