‘Where will my people be placed?’ asked the Red Knight.
‘The Athanatos barracks were built for a thousand soldiers, and are currently unoccupied. As their former occupants have made some unwise choices, the Imperial will is that they be given to you. Bedding may be a trifle tight-’
The Red Knight caught Sauce’s eye and indicated that he wanted her. He turned to Toby, already at his shoulder, and as his squire took his helmet and gauntlets and changed his sword, he sent Nell for Ser Gavin and Ser Michael and Ser Thomas.
‘You cannot keep the throne waiting!’ said the Captain of Ordinaries.
‘I am not keeping the throne waiting. I’m seeing to my soldiers as quickly as I can, while preparing myself to greet the throne, which I cannot do in full armour.’ He smiled as graciously as he could. ‘Sauce, see to it that the wagons are only unloaded into the Athanatos barracks. Barrack by mess group; men-at-arms are responsible for the behaviour of their mess.’ He saw John le Bailli. ‘John! Collect the wagoners and barrack them together – draught animals to the stables. Mag – Mag!’
The seamstress was as self-effacing as usual, although when she stepped forward she was striking in her red surcoat over a black travelling gown. Her hat was – pert.
‘My lord Duke,’ she said with a curtsey that had just the smallest hint of mockery.
The Captain of Ordinaries grew pale.
The Red Knight, despite the throbbing at his temples, had to laugh. ‘Mag, can you see to all the non-combatants? I’ve meant to appoint you corporal – will you accept the job?’
‘At a corporal’s pay?’ she asked quietly.
‘Of course,’ he said.
She smiled. ‘I’ll have Kaitlin as a lieutenant,’ she said.
‘Place them all together. Best behaviour all round.’
His soldiers saluted with their free hands, and Mag dropped another curtsy.
‘We have food for three days,’ John le Bailli said quietly to the Captain of Ordinaries.
The palace officer puffed out his cheeks in relief. He turned to another Ordinary, this one distinguished by a loop of white braid or rope on his right shoulder. ‘Are you following, Stephanos?’
The man saluted.
The Red Knight had light leather gloves on his hands, a small fur hat with a gold enamel brooch and a white ostrich plume on his head and the baton of his captaincy in his hand. He bowed to his officers. ‘Ser Gavin, Ser Thomas, Ser Jehan, Ser Milus, Ser Alcaeus – on me.’
Toby just got his ermine-trimmed cloak over his shoulders as he turned away and followed the Captain of the Ordinaries. The Captain’s leg harnesses littered the ground, but they were off, and the sabatons, and the arm-harnesses too, so that the Captain looked as if he might be wearing his breast and back by choice.
They passed together from the Outer Court to the Inner. The Red Knight turned to Darkhair. ‘My pardon, Captain. I needed to see to my men.’
Darkhair was not an old man. He grinned, and showed a mouth missing a great many teeth. He was the same size as Bad Tom – the two giants were already sizing each other up. He pointed with his axe – moving the three-pound head and five-foot haft like a child flicking a straw – and beckoned six men from the rightmost two files of the Nordikans.
‘Dismiss!’ he roared.
The whole body of Nordikans dissolved like salt into warm water and vanished into the torchlit darkness, pouring in through their barracks’ gate, which was six men wide. The Red Knight caught a glimpse of darkly carved wood, knot work, great gaping-mouthed dragons and running dogs and whitewash, and then he was past, and the six men in long chain cotes were swinging along, three on each side, every one of them the size of Tom or Ranald or the Gallish nobles.
‘I’m no captain,’ said Darkhair. He smiled again. ‘I’m acting Spatharios. That means-’
‘Sword bearer,’ chorused Ser Michael and the Red Knight together. They grinned at each other. Ser Jehan rolled his eyes.
‘There is no captain in the palace except the Captain of the Ordinaries,’ Darkhair went on. ‘The commander of the Nordikans is called – Jarl.’ He shrugged. ‘The Jarl was killed by the traitor.’
‘But of course, your men call you Captain,’ said the palace functionary. ‘I’m sure we can arrive at some mutually beneficial-’
The Red Knight smiled. ‘I’ll settle for Duke,’ he said.
Bad Tom grinned. ‘Duke it is, then.’
The throne was occupied by one very small, and very magnificent, young woman. She was dressed in purple and gold, and her hair was so wound about with pearls that it was almost impossible to determine what colour her hair might be. A veil of gold tissue hung over her face, and the vestments she wore must have rivalled the Red Knight’s armour for weight.
He walked down the purple carpet, painfully aware that his leather-soled shoes had grass stuck in them from the Field of Ares. The Imperial throne room was intended to strike barbarians dumb with wonder, and the Red Knight found it difficult to keep his gaze fixed on the princess. Over his head, the dome soared a hundred feet, with a round crystal window set exactly in the centre, through which distant stars glittered; the rest of the vault displayed a mosaic of the creation of the world, an hermetical artefact that moved as it retold the story.
Under the wonder of the dome was the Imperial throne, twice the height of a man in gleaming ivory and solid gold, with a single yellow-red cabochon ruby the size of a man’s fist set high over the canopy. It was hermetical, and it glowed from within, casting a rich golden light over the princess.
Sitting on a footstool by the throne – also of ivory – sat an older woman in midnight-blue robes embroidered with stars and moons and crosses. She had a pair of shears in her hand and appeared to be cutting a thread – an act that seemed bizarre amidst the incredible opulence.
The acting chamberlain raised his staff. ‘The Duke of Thrake!’ he called. ‘Megas Ducas of all the Imperial Armies, Admiral of the Fleets, Lord of the Mountains, the Red Knight.’
The Duke had been well briefed in his long walk through the palace – and, today, he was not interested in flouting etiquette. He made himself put one foot boldly in front of the other until he reached the edge of the throne, and then he went to one knee, sweeping his fur cap from his head, and then lay, full length, at the princess’s feet.
She might have been seen to smile, and extended one red-slippered foot.
He kissed her toe and then put his forehead back against the scarlet carpet. Even at this angle, with his head almost flat against the floor, he could see that the marble under the ivory throne was perfectly clean. Further back, among the hangings that partially covered a pagan mosaic by a small door, he could see the four paws of a cat.
He smiled to himself.
He lay on the thick carpet and felt the pain in his hip, the numbness creeping into the small of his back, the fatigue in his shoulders. It was, in fact, very comfortable at the foot of the throne.
Don’t say a word, he said to his annoying guest.
A mass of rattles, rustles, and clanks told him that his knights were throwing themselves to the floor as well. The cat started at the motion and put its head almost to the marble, looking under the throne to see if there was some threat to which it needed to attend.
‘We gather you have driven the traitor from the walls of my city and won a great victory,’ said the figure on the throne. ‘Accept the plaudits of the throne. We are most grateful. We would wish to meet you and your officers in private audience for further consultations.’
The Duke and his knights lay like effigies on the carpet. One did not speak to the throne during a full audience.
He smelled her perfume – a wonderful mixture of cedar and musk and lavender – as she rose to her feet. Slim, arched feet. He wondered if all the fuss about what kind of shoes the Emperor wore stemmed from the fact that his subjects spent so much of their time seeing him from ground level.