The Megas Ducas was meant to be last to arrive, and he waited outside the gates of the hippodrome with his retinue of squires and pages; Toby and Nell and Nicholas Ganfroy, his trumpeter, with Ser Jehan leading and his banner carried by Ser Milus, who was a marshal for the day and not jousting. He was dressed from head to toe in scarlet wool and deerskin, with a hat of scarlet leather lined in fox fur and sporting three enormous red plumes. His knight’s belt was around his hips, and he wore a small white scrap of cloth pinned to his shoulder with a brooch of rubies and emeralds. At his side was a sword that all but breathed of potential and had a perfection of form that showed even through its red scabbard. The hilt was gilded steel, the grip wired in gold over scarlet deerskin, the pommel enamelled.
There was a great press of people around the gate – at least a thousand men and women, shouting his name. He leaned down from his great horse and kissed a baby – the first time he’d ever done such a thing, and he was rewarded with a warm wet feeling on his hands and a smell, and the mother beamed at him.
Toby handed him a towel and he wiped his hands and grinned at the mother, and then she was lost in the crowd.
The gates began to open, and the wall of sound hit him like a fist. If he had thought that a thousand people packed into the alley by the gate was a huge crowd, what waited for him at the end of the tunnel was twenty times as big, and he reeled as if an enemy had struck him with a lance.
But he got the smile back on his face. At his feet, Long Paw was gently but firmly pushing the crowd back, away from the tunnel into the hippodrome. A few young men and a trickle of older ones squeezed past into the tunnel ahead of the company archers and they flattened themselves against the walls of the tunnel and shouted his style, their cries ringing metallically in the confines of the half-bowshot-long tunnel.
He waved to the crowd trapped outside and made his horse rear a little, and they applauded and he rode into the tunnel. A young man ran alongside his horse, waving, until he tripped on something in the tunnel, and he fell with a shout.
The Red Knight looked down to see what had happened to him. There was a blinding flare of light, something struck him in the chest, and everything went dark.
The Megas Ducas entered the hippodrome last, and he rode in through the Imperial tunnel by the Great Gate very slowly, with great sheets of sound belting across the arena as the city crowd roared for him. But something was wrong – he was very stiff in the saddle, and Nell, the Duke’s page, could be seen to turn her horse in the gate and gallop for the palace.
Ser Michael was summoned. He watched a tight knot of the Duke’s household push into the Duke’s private pavilion, which wasn’t what should have happened. He made a sign to Ser Gavin, the captain of the ‘Outlander’ team, and ran for the Duke’s tent.
Inside, he found Toby kneeling by three stools all placed together. Wilful Murder was white as parchment, and Ser Jehan and Nicholas Ganfroy leaning over-
‘What’s happened?’ Ser Michael asked.
The Duke lay across the stools. He had a lot of blood coming out of him. He was talking, but the voice didn’t sound like his own. There was blood everywhere, and Father Arnaud seemed to be covered in the stuff. He was mumbling – probably in prayer – and his face looked grey.
‘Summon a magister,’ the Duke barked. He didn’t sound himself. ‘A tough one. No – get me that boy. Mortirmir. If he’s here.’
Ser Michael knew a crisis when he saw one. He didn’t ask. He turned and ran for the defenders’ pavilion.
‘Messire Mortirmir!’ Ser Michael called as he barged in. Twenty men were being armed by forty squires and pages in a cacophony of steel plates and a bewilderment of lost lace-points. Wicker hampers lay open on the sand, and only a few lucky men – and Ser Alison – had stools on which to sit.
Morgan Mortirmir had his leg harnesses on. And he had no squire.
He came willingly enough. ‘What’s this about?’ he asked, and then he paled. ‘Shit – it’s not the roof?’ he asked.
Ser Michael towed him by the elbow out onto the sands, where they received a smattering of applause – Mortirmir was the first armoured man to emerge. The crowd wanted to see some fighting.
Ser Michael was still trying to parse what he’d seen and heard. It seemed to him that the voice that had barked orders hadn’t been the Duke’s. He’d sounded very much like Harmodius.
Mortirmir was pushed through the knot of men to the foot of the bed made of stools. The Megas Ducas lay on it, covered in blood – his face was crusted in it and his linen shirt was scarlet.
‘Jesu Christi!’ Mortirmir muttered. ‘I’m no healer.’
Shut up and let me in.
Mortirmir might have reacted differently if not for the week he’d just had. He opened his palace and in strode a tall man in dark blue velvet.
All the time in the world, now, lad. Is this all you have for memory?
Who the fuck are you? asked Mortirmir, now terrified. He’d let a stranger into his palace. He was, in effect, naked.
Yes, that was foolish of you. Sorry, lad. I’m going to wear you like a shirt for a few hours. You will be supremely tired at the end and – bah. Stop wriggling. Your panic is understandable but a waste of my effort.
Sweet Jesu, you are young. And supple. What a pleasure – there.
Even as Mortirmir attempted to fight the intruder – with no effect whatsoever – the man was using his body. He could feel himself kneel by the Duke’s corpse. He could see his arms move.
Most horrible of all, he watched as his memory palace dissolved.
Really, most young people try and build something that is dashing and romantic and far too fucking complicated. The man in blue velvet sketched rapidly with a wand of gold. The gold – its gleam, and its aethereal presence – calmed Mortirmir. The legions of evil didn’t wield gold.
You play chess, eh, boy? the old man asked. The floor under their feet suddenly became black and white parquetry – eight squares by eight.
Mortirmir fought the urge to vomit. Nothing so utterly disconcerting had ever happened to him. Even his mind was not his own. His inner vision – in the aethereal – was in the control of this horrible old-
Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Harmodius.
You’re dead!
Hmm. Not exactly. STOP WRIGGLING. There.
Mortirmir’s memory palace was suddenly entirely rebuilt as a garden with a giant marble chess floor in the middle. Every leaf on every wild rose bush was more vivid than anything had been in his former palace.
I’ve never been there – sir – I can’t-
Harmodius laughed. No one has ever been here. I made it up. I’m a little busy, lad. Shut up, please?
Chess pieces began to move.
The white queen’s head rotated and a line of pure green light shot out of it, touched the golden knob atop the king’s head, and turned into a rainbow of colours so vivid they were like a fever dream and Mortirmir wanted to give them new names. The colours focused on a crystal in Harmodius’s hand – an artificiality that Mortirmir could never have contrived. The old man nodded.
You are full of power, aren’t you, boy? I’m not sure I’ve ever had access to this much of the raw stuff. He flashed a smile of pure greed. You really are lucky I have other plans, because this body would suit my needs very well. And how your professors would love to have me as a student! He laughed nastily. Worry not. In fact, I suspect I’ll prove to be your benefactor.