The company treasurer pushed his black cap back and tugged at his sleeves. ‘Oh! My lord Duke, another note from the Queen of Alba, accusing you of neglect in not replying to her invitation to the tournament.’
‘Addressed to?’ he asked.
‘The warrior styling himself the Red Knight,’ Nestor said, reading the outside of the scroll.
‘Return it as incorrectly addressed,’ said the Duke. ‘Be polite and inform her of my current title. Buy me some time.’
‘A set of reports from our riding officers among the Outwallers,’ Athanasios reported. He had a stack of flimsy sheets – obviously carried by Imperial messenger birds.
The Duke pounced. He took the papers and then looked at his Morean secretary. ‘Give the new Megas Ducas the briefest description of your contacts with the Outwallers,’ he said.
Athanasios nodded. ‘My lord, we have several dozen rangers, let us say, among the tribes and people outside the wall.’
‘That’s the Imperial wall? Or the whole length of the wall?’ the Duke asked sharply. ‘The Alban portion?’
Athanasios shrugged. ‘My lord, we are both intelligent men. I must ask for clearer instructions if I am to give you an explicit answer. As you can, I think, surmise from my hesitation.’
The Duke smiled. ‘If I thank you for your candour, which one of us is lying?’
The door opened, and Ser Michael could be seen, laughing silently, in the hall. Bent, on guard at the door, was grinning.
‘Michael! Would you care to return to being my apprentice? I feel the need to discuss some plans.’ The Duke smiled and took a sip of lukewarm wine.
Michael put a hand to his chest in feigned shock. ‘Discuss your plans? My lord, are you ill?’ He shook his head. ‘I’d be delighted. And I’d like to discuss a few things myself.’
‘Speak,’ said the Captain.
‘Do we have a chaplain on the way?’ he asked.
‘Any day. I have had two messages from the Grand Prior. I gather we’re getting a black sheep, to match our own plumage.’ He shrugged. ‘If I must have a priest I’ll take one of theirs, I suppose.’
‘Will you come to my wedding?’ Michael blurted. The two secretaries worked on, pretending to be furniture.
‘To the beauteous Kaitlin?’ the Duke grinned. ‘Absolutely. Where?’
‘Barracks’ chapel?’ Ser Michael asked hesitantly.
The Red Knight grinned. ‘Do I get to give her away?’ he asked with a leer.
Michael reacted like any young man – he glared, and their glances crossed like swords – but they both laughed.
‘And some shopping?’ asked the Captain. ‘Cloth of gold for the bride? Michael, your father is going to have a cow.’
‘Could you manage an advance against my pay?’ Ser Michael asked. It was odd to ask – the Captain seemed an ageless age, but not yet old enough to be his father and pay his bills. He felt awkward and his eyes kept flitting away from the Captain’s face.
‘And I should mention first that Kaitlin tells me some of the lads mislike your use of your new title,’ he added.
The Duke leaned back after motioning to Toby to pour wine. ‘When they win themselves dukedoms, they can sport the titles, too.’
‘Are you drunk?’ Michael asked.
The Captain poured himself a little more wine. ‘Perhaps,’ he said agreeably.
‘Sweet Jesus, my lord.’ Michael paused and looked at the Captain – really looked at him. He had dark circles under his eyes and the eyes looked old.
His Captain – his rock of certitude – looked afraid. Troubled. Angry.
‘What’s the matter?’ Michael asked.
The Captain looked at him – his eyes narrowed. ‘Nothing,’ he said, but his face worked as if the muscles by his jaw had an independent existence.
‘I’m dealing with it,’ he said.
‘So something is wrong,’ Michael said.
‘My breastplate is as scarred as an old pincushion and I don’t have time to visit an armourer,’ the Duke said. ‘That heads my list of problems. Oh – we have a city of three or four hundred thousand people but fewer than two thousand soldiers to police it and hold the walls; the population distrusts us, and there are so many spies in this palace that it is possible that every word I say to you goes straight to the former Duke, to Aeskepiles and to all of their various henchmen, grain prices are rising, the Etruscans want trading concessions to lift the blockade, I’ve had no letters from Alba in two weeks and the princess thinks I’m a tool, not a man or a knight.’ He sat back and drained his wine cup, and Toby came and took it from his hand. ‘On the positive side of the ledger, you’re getting married and that means a party, and by all that’s holy, our company needs a party.’
‘Could you stop calling yourself Duke?’ Ser Michael asked.
‘No,’ said the Duke. ‘We’re in Liviapolis, and this is the way they are. If I don’t live the role, no one will take me seriously.’ He looked at Michael. ‘You’re a thinking man, Michael – have you ever considered what victory and defeat actually are? They’re ideas, like justice. Different things to different men. Yes?’
‘I’m sure my tutor managed to mention this once or twice,’ Michael said. He fetched his own second cup of wine. Toby was rubbing oil into the shaft of the Duke’s beautiful ghiavarina, a long, heavy spear with flanges. What made this one unique was that the Captain had been given it by a dragon, and the shaft seemed to have been made from the wizard Harmodious’s staff.
The Duke laughed. ‘Mine, too. My point is that if we appear to be winning, we will win. If we appear to be losing, we will most certainly lose. That is the way, with men. I must be the Duke, in order to ensure obedience from Moreans and to encourage them to believe that I will lead them to victory.’
‘You’re not drunk after all,’ Ser Michael said.
The Duke leaned back, took the ghiavarina from Toby’s hands and shot to his feet. He thrust, rolled the weapon around in a long and elaborate butterfly cut and brought it back on guard – cut a candle in half, and then another. ‘I love this thing,’ he said.
Toby grinned.
‘It’s like the company,’ said the Captain. ‘It is so much fun to use that I want to use it. All the time, if possible.’ He grinned, and cut again, and sliced a bronze candlestick in two. ‘Shit,’ he muttered.
‘I take it back. You are drunk,’ Michael said. ‘Glorious Saint George, you just cut through an inch of bronze.’
The Duke leaned over and looked at the mirror-bright cut. ‘I did, too,’ he said. They grinned at each other, and the Duke cut the candlestick again, from the wrists-crossed guard of the window. The blade passed clean through the bronze again. Michael reached out to pick up the fallen piece and recoiled.
‘Hot,’ he said. ‘Can I try?’
He took the weapon, expecting to receive a shock or a prick of poison or some eldritch punishment, but there was none. He cut – and the blade clanged on the candlestick base. It went flying across the room, deeply dented.
‘It’s hermetical, at any rate,’ he said.
The Duke rolled his eyes. ‘Considering the source-’ he said. ‘Listen – I suppose I need a party too. Or perhaps a fight. Or both. I’m due to meet the Patriarch tomorrow – when we’re done there, let’s go into the bazaar and buy some things. Pretty things.’
Michael smiled. ‘Thanks, my lord,’ he said. ‘I agree about the fight, too.’ He nodded out the window. ‘The boys need a fight, too. Pretty soon they’ll start fighting each other.’
The Duke nodded. ‘You may get your wish. I’ve played a small hazard tonight.’ He shrugged. ‘Stay armed.’
Ser Milus shook his head. ‘The Cap’n is letting you three out on a pass? While the rest of us are locked in?’ He didn’t snarl, but Cully, the Captain’s own archer, stepped back. Like Bad Tom, Ser Milus was a force to be reckoned with, and it didn’t do to cross him.
It didn’t do to cross the Captain, either, so the three archers stood silent while Ser Milus looked them over and gave their passes to No Head, who sounded them out, his lips moving carefully. It was an entirely pro forma demonstration, as the Duke’s seal hung from their passes and it was unlikely to be a fake.