That evening, the King listened to music with his Etruscan Queen. After the music, he went to this private solar with his Horse and was entertained with the news of the world. Finally, he was laughing as he liked. All was well with the world.
‘Did I miss a meeting of the military council? he asked suddenly.
Abblemont nodded. ‘Yes, my liege.’
‘Bah – that foolishness of the Queen’s – that I had to see her new wardrobe. Was anything important discussed?’ the King asked.
‘No,’ Abblemont said. ‘No, Your Grace.’
N’gara Castle – Bill Redmede
‘We’re losing them,’ Nat Tyler said. He was sitting in the Great Hall, watching the irk musicians play fairy tunes. Two hundred men and women watched, faces rapt.
Redmede had thought the same thing a hundred times. And he thought it of himself, because Bess’s hand lay comfortably in his under cover of the table.
‘If we’re still in this fight, we need to leave,’ Tyler spat. He glared at Redmede. ‘Or are you sorcelled too?’
Redmede sat up straighter, like a schoolboy accused by a teacher. But Bess shook her head.
‘We ain’t sorcelled, Nat Tyler. This is as close to heaven as mortal men ever get. A little work and a lot o’ play. An’ such play!’ She shook her head. ‘What’s it for? I never been so happy as the last days. Not ever. Not even—’ She paused, and a cloud passed over her face. ‘Not even as a girl.’
Nat stood up. ‘I’m for leavin’,’ he said. ‘I’m healed. I don’t want to sit in a dream. I want to kill the King and make men free.’
Redmede sat back. ‘Nat,’ he said.
‘What?’ the older man asked. ‘I’m still true, even if you ain’t.’
Redmede shook his head. ‘Winter is falling out there,’ he said.
Bess looked at both of them.
Tyler leaned forward. ‘If you said you was coming with me, the rest of ’em would come.’
Redmede heard the faery music as if it was playing inside his head, and he looked at the art on the walls – the spidery tracery that defied his human eyes on the tapestries, the rich layers of colour in the felt hangings – and he sighed. ‘Give me a day or two to think,’ he said.
And then some days passed.
He shared a little house with Bess, and she was all he wanted. They played games, and they guarded sheep, and they made love. The other Jacks became friends – sometimes they gathered at each other’s little houses for a meal, and sometimes, they sat in the Great Hall.
Parties of Outwallers came and went, and sometimes they brought women. The Jacks had had few women. Now they had a few more – or rather, perhaps there were fewer Jacks.
One frosty afternoon, Redmede went out to gather wood. The men’s iron axes and strong muscles made them the premier gatherers of wood in the whole community, and they had gradually taken the chore upon themselves, in the irkish way – the best at any task took it, and taught it.
Redmede was a canny firewood gatherer – skilful and lazy, too. He liked to find one tree – preferably a good, big maple, dead and still standing, or dead and newly fallen, before its upper branches could rot on the ground. He liked to wander with his axe on his shoulder, enjoying the dusting of snow, the cold on his almost bare arms, the smell of the woods.
And he wore his sword, because this was, truly, the Wild of children’s stories. The hastenoch walked these marshes; the great rock trolls prowled the hills to the south, and boglins tunnelled where they didn’t run, while great beaver built six-feet-high dams that lasted a hundred years, and herds of bison moved in the clearings, watched by Guardians, the daemons of the woods. They, too, came and visited the Faery Knight. Redmede was growing more used to them. But he suspected that if he met one in the woods, alone, he would be prey, and not friend.
So he walked with pleasure, but warily. And despite his wariness, Tapio Haltija took him unawares, as he stood in silence contemplating the ruin of a great oak.
‘Ssso. Man.’ The irk was his own height, and moved without a sound.
Redmede nodded pleasantly. ‘Ser Tapio,’ he said.
The Faery Knight looked at the fallen oak. ‘Thisss issss how we will all end,’ he sang. ‘No matter how many wintersss we passs firssssst.’
Redmede nodded.
‘Man, I have many guessstsss coming.’ Ser Tapio met his eyes, and the irk’s eyes were a fathomless dark blue like a summer night lit by stars, with no whites.
Redmede never found it easy to communicate with the irk. The other creature’s mind did not work like a man’s. ‘What guests?’ he asked.
‘Alliesss,’ Tapio said. ‘The cold in the air is the firsst bite of war.’
Redmede was startled by the turn of conversation, but then, talking to the lord of the irks was never easy. ‘War?’ he asked. ‘What war? Against the King?’
The Faery Knight shrugged – a very human gesture. ‘I care nothing for any king of men,’ he said. His voice sounded like a dozen stringed instruments playing together in harmony. ‘I consssider a war with a rival. I consssult thossse who I sssee asss alliesss.’
Redmede broke off gazing at the irk and looked back at his fallen oak. ‘Am I an ally?’ he asked.
The irk’s smile was hard for a man to get used to. It meant something different among irks, and it involved a great many teeth. Tapio further complicated communications by using his smile both the irk way – as aggression – and the human way, for pleasure.
‘That isss for you to tell me, man.’
The next day brought a retinue of Wardens – or Guardians, or daemons, depending on your point of view. They had tall red plumes, which Bill knew to be natural and not worn as decorations, although the magnificent gold and silver and lead and bronze and tin inlay in their beaks was all craft. Redmede watched two young daemons receive their first inlays by a pair of irk craftsmen who worked with their hands and magic alike. A year before he’d have fled. Now he watched in fascination.
The next day, Nat Tyler caught him by the shoulder as he entered the worm’s nest of corridors of the great central keep.
‘I’m gone,’ he said. ‘You comin’?’
Redmede took a deep breath. ‘Nat – I kept you alive,’ he said. ‘I dragged your weary arse out of the battle, and I carried you out here – most of the way. Now I want a winter off.’
Tyler shook his head. ‘Man and women are being worked to death by lords in Jarsay,’ he said. ‘The fuckin’ Church will celebrate Christmas on the backs of the poor. Outwallers will be hunted like vermin. You want a rest.’ He leaned in close. ‘You’ve found a lord, just like your turncoat brother.’
‘Nat, will it kill us to be happy for a while, and rest? Listen to music? Lady Tamlin nursed you herself – do you owe her nothing for that?’ He had no trouble meeting Tyler’s eyes, which he found slightly mad.
He had the oddest feeling, because they’d switched roles. He had always been the driven one, the committed one.
‘Mayhap you need a girl,’ he assayed.
‘Jarsay is in flames and Alba is on the verge of civil war, you fool! This is our time. The nobles are fighting each other.’ Tyler was shouting, and irks paused to look at them, or drew back against the walls. A blue-crested daemon was framed against the snow outside.
Redmede’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you say?’ he asked.
Tyler shrugged. ‘Nothing. Come or don’t. The cause is bigger than you, Bill Redmede. Stay here and rot.’ He avoided Redmede’s attempt to restrain him and pushed past.
Redmede turned to catch him and found himself face to snout with the elegantly inlaid beak and tall blue crest of Mogon, the Queen of the western daemons. He knew her. Not well, but they had been—
alliesss.
The thought slipped into his head.
‘Mogon,’ he said. She smelled like burning soap, and filled the tunnel from side to side. She had to crouch to fit.
‘Jack,’ she said. ‘Not your true name, I will guess.’
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He stood his ground. ‘I’m Bill Redmede, daemon,’ he said, fighting an urge to turn and flee. All the daemons projected a sort of wave front of fear – as did many of the other Wild creatures, but the daemons were the most powerful in every way. Even at rest, in a quiet hold, surrounded by other creatures, she emanated menace.
She made an effort – the blue feathers on her crest went flat. ‘Why must your little men require me to pretend to be dominated?’ she asked.
Her beak had surprisingly little effect on her speech.
He found himself released from terror. He forced himself to speak. ‘Are you an ally? Of Tapio?’
She sighed and stretched herself in the confined corridor. ‘We’ll see, Master Redmede. May I say: it is a pleasure to find a former ally here?’
‘I am only a guest,’ he spat. ‘I lead no men,’ he added. ‘But the men I brought here remember you. You left us to die, at Lissen.’
‘Really?’ she asked. ‘My brother sent me to warn the Outwallers. Were you not warned? We are a chivalrous people.’ The stench of burned soap increased.
‘Chivalrous? Lady, a hundred of my Jacks died for nothing when you turned tail and ran.’ People – irks, men, even a winged faery – were gathering to watch them.
‘Ran?’ she breathed. ‘You insult my brood.’
Redmede realised that her gold-inlaid beak was less than a finger’s width from his nose. He was angry enough that he didn’t care.
‘Your brood is alive to be insulted,’ Redmede said.
The crest on her head sprang erect, and the wavefront of terror crashed around him. He stepped back – a faery vanished with a pop and most of the men in the corridor flinched as she raised a heavy forefoot and flexed the vicious talons that could slice through maille.
‘You say words that would end in your death outside the sanctity of this hold,’ Mogon barked. ‘But I will explain, Master Redmede. Let is not be said that Mogon Fairweather of the Bluecrest People was ever less than fair, even to vermin and men. My brother hated Thorn. He distrusted him. And when he found that we had been posted – and I mean no offence, but speak simple truth – had been posted with only the weakest of allies, he assumed we’d been sent to die.’
Redmede released the breath he’d held through her whole speech. He ducked his head clumsily – the best he could manage of a bow. ‘Lady Mogon, you exceed me in courtesy,’ he growled. ‘I am but man, and vermin. But I love my people as you love yours, and to see them die in defeat fair turned my stomach. Perhaps you are right. I have no time for Thorn and his schemes. But . . . well perhaps if you had charged into the flank of the King’s men, we’d have carried the day. And killed the King.’
Mogon nodded. ‘Mayhap. But killing the King of Alba is worth nothing to me. Not worth the life of one Warden. Every year, there are fewer of us.’
He could feel the heat coming off her, and the stench of burning soap filled the air.
‘But I can feel the loss of your people.’ She, too, inclined her head. ‘I hope we may again be allies. We should not be held to blame for refusing to serve Thorn.’
Redmede tried to keep his knees from shaking. ‘I am just a man,’ he said, offering nothing.
Her hard black eyes glittered in her round sockets. He found it difficult to meet both eyes at once.
‘All the other men and the females, they will follow you when the war comes.’ Mogon nodded again. ‘We will talk again.’
Redmede took another breath. ‘Aye, like enough, lady.’
Ticondaga Castle – Ghause
The closer she grew to the decisive moment with the Queen’s unborn baby, the more concerned Lady Ghause grew with Richard Plangere.
Her unease had begun the day she found his spy-moth fluttering in her casting chamber, but the gradual infestation of the castle with moths – minute, pale silver moths – made her angry.
But anger, for Ghause, was power. And while she had no way to strike back at Plangere – whose power she could feel like a distant lamp in a cold room – she had many weapons in her arsenal. She used her favourite.
Her body.
It had seldom failed her since her breasts budded. Had Plangere been a woman, she would have had to use other wiles, but in his case . . .
She danced naked, throwing gouts of power into the aether. She walked about her chambers naked. She stroked her flanks, ran hands over her own breasts and between her thighs, stretched, bobbed, stripped and dressed. Moths gathered in veritable clouds, and while she made violent love to her husband or teased a groom, she postured for Plangere, while thinking, You always were a fool. Look at me, and devour me, and you’ll never see what I’m doing.
The moths made her laugh – he was always so proud of his toys.
In a space in the cellars, heavily defended by runes and sigils and her own workings and some ancient webs too complicated even for her, she killed moths with various techniques until she perfected a method of killing them that was efficient and absolute, because a single survivor would mean the end of her plan. And she moved her great working there. The floor of her tower room was a web of silver and alum chalk, while the floor of her cellar sanctum had only a simple pentagram and ten words in High Archaic.
Then she built another spell – simple to power, labyrinthine in is complexity. It was a layered illusion.
Of her.
Naked.
She watched it critically, several times. She’d only get one chance at this. She made different versions.
She’d cast her curse on the Queen’s foetus, Plangere would come to watch, and she’d ensnare him. Or not. He was very strong. Either way, he’d know to keep his distance.
She was eating honey cakes and stretching – there were moths aplenty – when Aneas came to the door and informed her that the Earl needed her.
Her son stayed to lace her kirtle and pull her velvet gown lined in ermine over her head. She twirled a few times – for herself – and put her feet into slippers with wool felt soles.
‘What does your pater want, sweeting?’ she asked Aneas.
He shrugged. ‘He’s planning a war,’ he said. ‘He’s going to take me with him.’
She climbed out of the cellars and walked along the corridor that was lined with cells. The Earl inclined more to outright murder than to cruel confinement, and the only men in the cells were a soldier taken for rape, a second taken for theft, and a woman accused of killing another woman. Ghause peered into each cell.
The woman had power. She hadn’t noted that before.
She followed Aneas up the guard’s stair, smiled lasciviously at the two men on duty, received the attention which was her due, and passed up a second flight of stone steps to the yard.
Aneas’s weapons’ tutor was waiting in the yard with two saddled warhorses, a great deal of kit, and a small train of servants. She smiled at him.
‘Ser Henri!’ she said, and waved.
He dismounted and knelt. ‘My lady,’ he said, in his attractive Etruscan accent. ‘How may your most humble servant indicate his devotion?’
‘Oh, you will turn my head, you flatterer!’ she cooed. ‘Please – take my son out to the tiltyard and make him a great knight. I can ask no more.’
Ser Henri had the good grace to appear disappointed. ‘No one I can kill for you, Madonna?’
‘I have my husband for that,’ she said. ‘Aneas, pay heed to your tutors.’ She swept past, and crossed the yard on the cobbles – some considerable distance, and there was the bite of snow in the air. But when she passed the kitchen she smelled new-baked bread. She paused and inhaled deeply, and grinned like a girl. She went into the kitchen and stole a new loaf, because when she was tempted, she succumbed, and she entered the Great Hall from the kitchens, chewing bread.
The Earl was surrounded by soldiers – a dozen of his officers. She knew them all, in a vague way – much the same way she knew all his horses, even when she didn’t know their names. He loved to make war, and he did it with flare and with cunni
ng, but she thought he did it for his own entertainment and all the talk of goals and strategy were just so many rationalisations for a boy who wanted to hit things.
‘Ghause, my beauty. You said something about this sorcerer.’ The Earl was the kind of man who had little interest in sorcery. Sometimes she suspected that he didn’t believe in the power of the hermetical. It was an absurd position, but he was always surprised – surprised in a way she didn’t like – when she displayed her powers.
Sorcery in others he liked even less. And understood not at all. She suspected he thought it was all tricks – like a montebank’s show at a carnival.
She smiled. ‘You mean Thorn?’ she asked. Every moth in the hall rose from their rest and fluttered towards the high clerestory windows.
Some of the soldiers paled, and two of them made horn signs with their fingers.
The Earl shrugged. ‘Richard Plangere. That’s who you said he was.’
She nodded. ‘He was. I don’t think he is any more.’
The Earl sat back and scratched a dog’s head. ‘I just received a year’s worth of reports, sweeting. Your sorcerer, whoever he is – is getting reckless. He’s raising armies and playing power with the Outwallers.’
One of his soldiers – Edward? Edmund? She couldn’t remember – drank off his wine and set his cup on the big trestle table with a click. ‘My lord, with respect, he’ll be a tough nut. The Outwallers are clearly terrified of him.’
The Earl crossed his legs. ‘That island. Can we flush him out and take it?’
Ghause shook her head. ‘I don’t recommend it. He’s taken a place of power. He’ll be very strong there.’
‘Why – is it well defended?’ her husband asked. ‘I never heard of a stone castle further north than this one.’
In some ways, he was quite brilliant. With the hermetical, it was as if he was wilfully blind. ‘He has much power, my lord,’ she said deferentially.
The Earl threw up his hands. ‘I’ve faced the Wild all my life, love! He’ll have beasts and boggles and some lightning, I have nae doubt. I’ll have a fleet and trebuchets.’