The Red Knight – the Duke of Thrake, now – inclined his head. ‘Majesty, your palace is riddled with spies and traitors, and I intend to be very careful to whom I disclose my plans.’
The princess frowned. ‘I agree that my palace has spies. Palaces generally do. But those in this room can be trusted. We are only twelve people.’
‘Jesus only had twelve,’ the Duke said. ‘Look how that came out.’
The Moreans had less experience of blasphemy than Albans, and they gasped. The princess looked physically pained.
The Duke shrugged. ‘At any rate,’ he said. ‘I intend to win over the Academy and build you a fleet. Since both of these will require a great deal of public action, there’s no sense in hiding my intentions.’
She pursed her lips. ‘The Academy is loyal,’ she said. It was the first sign she’d shown of hesitation.
The Duke paused. ‘The Academy has enough hermetical firepower to overthrow the Emperor and the church together, if that’s what they wanted. They allowed the Magister Militum to turn against your father. I suspect that they are unhappy with something.’
The princess looked away. ‘I have no money for a fleet.’
Her new Megas Ducas nodded. ‘I will borrow the money to build a fleet,’ he said.
Lady Maria spoke for the first time. ‘The Etruscans will burn your new fleet on the stocks.’
Bad Tom grunted. ‘Let ’em try,’ he said. He was never at his best without sleep – this morning, he looked like a black boar made into a man, with the hair at his brow curling up like a satyr’s horns.
Lady Maria leaned forward, interested. ‘I had assumed we would buy the Etruscans aid with trading privileges. It has worked before – offer Genua concessions, or Venike, and play them against each other like barbarian tribes.’
‘When you are yourself strong, you can afford to make concessions,’ the Duke said. ‘With a fleet to back your Imperial will, you can dictate your terms to the Etruscans. Right now, they are blockading your ports, shutting out your primary sources of Imperial revenue.’ He shrugged. ‘Besides, we will need a fleet to raid the traitor’s lands, as you call him, and to trade with Alba.’
‘We have no trade with Alba,’ said the princess. She paused, and for the first time, her hands fidgeted. ‘I suppose we have a little.’
The acting chamberlain spoke up hesitantly. ‘We do have trade, Majesty – over the mountains to Albinkirk. Only a trickle, I’m sure.’
‘And that cut off by the Wild,’ said the Duke. ‘Alba is richer and more vigorous than your father or grandfather imagined, Majesty. I, too, am a scholar, at times. And I have a friend who is a great merchant. I enquired at length before coming here. Your silks – some of the finest brocades in the world, made within the walls of this city – travel all the way to Venike before they come back to Harndon, which is just a few hundred leagues along the coast.’ He smiled. ‘And there are other things we share. The fur trade.’
‘A few bolts of brocade will not save the Imperial revenues,’ said the princess. ‘And the furs come from the north – Thrake lies between us and our border revenues. We will not see any furs this season.’
‘Will we not?’ the Duke asked.
Lady Mary put a hand on her mistress’s arm.
‘This is the whole of your plan?’ asked the Imperial princess.
‘No, Majesty. This is the very tip of my spear, and will itself serve to cloak my other activities.’ The Duke smiled. ‘If you’d rather, I suppose I can gather my bucellarii and ride away.’
She sighed. ‘You are the very barbarian mercenary I imagined. Your manners are better, and you speak the High Archaic, but your arrogance is staggering.’
‘Majesty, your arrogant barbarian mercenary would not have a plan to restore the Imperial revenues while maintaining the quality and numbers of the Imperial Army. For fifty generations, your forefathers have squandered their inheritance and purchased foreign soldiers to protect them and maintain the rump of their Empire – and now you think I am arrogant?’ The Duke met her eye squarely. ‘You should get out of this palace, Majesty, and see what the rest of the world is like.’
‘And you imagine that you can save me?’ she asked.
‘I believe I can defeat the traitor and rescue your father,’ he answered.
‘You failed today,’ she countered.
Lady Mary put her hand on the princess’s arm again, but Princess Irene brushed it off.
The Duke nodded. ‘It didn’t help that the traitor knew I was coming, and had already placed his right flank nearest the gate,’ he said. ‘Nor was I warned that he had a most puissant mage waiting to cut my men’s bowstrings and fire the grass. Mmm? Majesty?’
She nodded. ‘I am not responsible for these things,’ she said.
The Duke shrugged. ‘To me and my men, you are entirely responsible. You are the Captain of your Empire.’ He met her eyes.
The princess had the look of a young man trapped in an alley by footpads. Brave enough to fight it out. But aware of the inevitable outcome. She rose. ‘You accuse me, for your failure, my lord Duke? Or you imagine that I betrayed you?’
He shook his head. ‘Let us deal with political realities, and not accusations. If you can rule – if you can hold the palace and the city – I can defeat the old Duke and the Etruscans. If you wish to be rid of me – let me stress this, Your Grace – you have only to bid me go.’ He met her, eye to eye. ‘There is no need to assassinate me.’
They looked at each other long enough to become lovers. The look stretched on and on, neither blinking.
Lady Maria stood. ‘The princess will withdraw. We thank you for your efforts on our behalf, my lord Duke. In future, you must use a little less familiarity in dealing with the Imperial presence. Princess Irene is not used to so much confrontation and finds it irreverent and confusing.’
The newly minted Duke stood straight, his hip screaming at him now and joined by an unsealy chorus of bruises, abrasions and pure fatigue. He ignored the polyphony of pain and knelt, took a handful of her hem as she swept by and kissed it.
The princess blushed. ‘You think me ungrateful,’ she said. ‘You find me defenceless, with a traitor at the gate. This Empire has been the bulwark of civilisation for more than a thousand years, and I fear-’ her hand toyed with the diamond cross at her throat ‘-I fear to be the cause of its fall.’
He smiled into her gown. ‘A knight can make a tolerable gate keeper,’ he said. ‘You are not defenceless. There is no chance that the traitor will take this city. Let us build on that.’
She smiled, reached down – cautiously – and touched his hand. Then she glided away.
Lady Maria paused in the doorway. Ser Alcaeus bowed deeply and kissed her hand. She smiled. ‘You have done brilliantly,’ she said to him. Then she turned to the Red Knight. ‘The patents of your appointments are being drawn up even now. I love the boldness of the idea of building a fleet.’ She shrugged. ‘I simply cannot imagine it succeeding.’
Everyone bowed, and the Imperial party swept away, leaving only the Captain of Ordinaries. He turned to the Duke. ‘She touched you!’ he breathed.
The Duke ignored the man. ‘Leave him, Tom,’ he said, without turning around.
Tom lowered his arms and spat at the Captain of Ordinaries’ feet. ‘Your turn is coming, dog,’ he said.
The man turned white and grabbed the cross at his breast. ‘I’m innocent!’ As soon as the Albans were gone, he turned to his lieutentant and murmured, ‘Barbarians.’
Bad Tom appeared in the Captain’s doorway. ‘You two fucking, or can anyone come in?’
Sauce was leaning over the writing desk, shaping the word omega with her mouth, tongue in her teeth. The Duke was holding her hand as it drove the sharp stylus into the wax.
Toby fled.