The Seneschal took care of most of the everyday work, all the paperwork and day-to-day decision making. Richard helped where he could, mostly by forging his father’s signature. Everyone was very polite, inside the Court and out, pretending not to notice the King’s increasingly confused condition, but it couldn’t go on much longer. The moment Richard married Catherine, the pressure would be on to retire Rufus and place Richard on the throne. And that would be the end of Richard’s life, as he knew it.
He looked up suddenly, his brooding interrupted by raised voices outside in the corridor. He swore briefly and heaved himself out of the chair. No rest for the wicked, or those who might be wicked, given a chance. Typical bloody Castle . . . He slammed out the door and into the corridor and glared around. And there, heading straight for him, was the First Minister, head of the Forest Parliament. A crowd of not very civil servants surrounded him, trying desperately to get his attention, shouting in his ear, tugging at his clothes, and even trying to thrust papers into his hand. The First Minister ignored them all, his attention fixed on Prince Richard. He finally turned on his followers and drove them all away, with shouts and curses and the occasional blow when they didn’t leave fast enough for his liking. The civil servants fled, but only to regroup at the end of the corridor and wait for another chance. They stared sullenly at Prince Richard, who waved happily back at them. The First Minister planted himself in front of the Prince, drew himself up to his full height, and looked Prince Richard over. The Prince smiled sweetly at him.
Peregrine de Woodville was head of the party that currently dominated Parliament, and as King Rufus’ First Minister, he set general policy for the Forest Land. And used the King’s annual speeches to put a good face on it. Peregrine was a tall, thin, dry, and dusty presence who cut an aristocratic figure, and was more ostentatiously regal and overly fond of himself than any member of the Royal line, truth be told. He had a sharp, pinched face, with cold eyes and a mouth like a steel trap. He was fiercely intelligent, and never let anyone forget it. He dressed formally, but still fashionably, and never appeared in public with so much as an undone button, or an inch of lace cuff out of place. He finally deigned to nod briskly to Richard.
“Might I inquire where you’ve been these last few months, Prince Richard?”
“Yes,” said Richard.
“What?”
“Yes, you may inquire,” Richard said pleasantly.
“I know very well where you’ve been!” said Peregrine.
“Then why are you asking me?” said the Prince, in his most reasonable and deeply irritating voice.
“It’s not your job to go out and kill monsters! Your job is to look good in public, and smile and wave for the tourists! Not put your precious Royal life at risk! Leave heroic actions to all those muscular oafs from the Sorting Houses!”
“Couldn’t agree more,” said Richard.
“What?” said Peregrine.
“I’m the Prince. I don’t have to be brave. I have all sorts of perfectly good chaps to do that sort of thing for me.”
Peregrine de Woodville looked savagely at Prince Richard. It always drove him crazy when the Prince just stood there and agreed with him. Especially when Peregrine had a whole handful of unassailable arguments that proved he was right and the Prince was wrong—and then the Prince just took all the wind out of his sails by agreeing with him. So the First Minister couldn’t put the Prince down in public, the way he was entitled to. Which was, of course, why the Prince was doing it. Peregrine had a strong feeling that wasn’t playing the game.
“Princess Catherine of Redhart is on her way to the Forest Castle,” said the First Minister pointedly. “She’ll be here in the next forty-eight hours.”
“I know,” said Richard. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“No, you’re not!”
“I’m not?”
“I mean—” Peregrine stopped himself with an effort. If he lost his temper in public with the Prince, for no good reason, that meant the Prince had won. Peregrine drew in a sharp breath and leaned in close. “I will make your life a living hell once you are King, Richard.”
“Really?” murmured the Prince. “That’s just what I was thinking about you, Peregrine.”
The First Minister turned his back on the Prince and stalked away. The crowd of waiting civil servants immediately closed in around him again and departed along with him. Richard waved cheerfully after them. He turned to go the other way, and then stopped and sighed heavily as he saw the Seneschal heading straight for him. Without the King. Richard seriously considered taking to his heels and racing the Seneschal to the nearest side exit, but he had a feeling the Seneschal was in better shape than he was, just at the moment, and would probably win. So Richard stood his ground and waited for the Seneschal to join him, looking reproachfully at him all the while.
“You’ve lost him, haven’t you?” said Richard, before the Seneschal could say anything. “He’s seventy-six years old! How could you let him give you the slip? He was only with you for a few minutes . . .”
“Of course I haven’t lost him!” snapped the Seneschal. “I’ve just handed him over to the protocol department, because I finally remembered what it was I was going to say to you before I got distracted by all this pain in the arse about the Royal marriage.”
“Well, go on,” the Prince said pointedly. “I haven’t got all day.”
“I’ve had to make the decision to close another hundred rooms in the main Castle, your highness. We just can’t afford the cost of maintaining them. Which means that less than ten percent of the Castle rooms are now occupied, or properly utilised. And that includes the Armoury.” The Seneschal stopped, to look meaningfully at Richard. “You do know that certain elements in Parliament are pressing us to open up the Armoury to the public? To make it a tourist attraction, like the Cathedral?”
“That is not going to happen,” said Richard. “Not while I still have any say in the matter or breath in my body. There are far too many dangerous weapons, not to mention dangerous secrets, still stored in the Forest Armoury.”
“I know that, your highness,” said the Seneschal. “But knowledge of these things is on a strictly need-to-know basis, and the Royal line decided long ago that Parliament didn’t need to know. Because if they did, they’d wet themselves. So they honestly don’t understand why we won’t open up an armoury no one ever uses, and make some much-needed money from it.”
“You’d better keep your ear pressed firmly to the political ground,” said Richard, “and see which way the political wind’s blowing—and, yes, I am aware that I am mangling my metaphors. The point is, we need as much advance warning as possible, so that if necessary I can organise a complete clearing out of the more important items and put them somewhere safe.” He stopped and looked hard at the Seneschal. “Do we even have an inventory of what’s still in there?”
“Well, yes and no,” said the Seneschal. “We have a fairly complete record of everything we’re prepared to admit is in there, but as for the rest . . . I know the Armourer has been meaning to get around to a really complete list, any time now. But you know what he’s like . . .”
“Unfortunately, yes,” said the Prince. “He was the only suitable man for the job.”
“He’s crazy!”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“He was the only one who wanted it,” said the Seneschal. “Which should have put us on our guard at the time . . . I mean, yes, he’s certainly qualified, as a weapons-master and an historian. He knows all the legends of Forest Castle, including which ones are worth listening to, but . . . he’s crazy! He talks to fish!”
“That was just a phase! And let’s be honest—given the state of the Armoury these days, if he wasn’t crazy when he started, he would be by now. Given some of the things we keep locked up and chained down in there. Is that really what you wanted to talk to me about, Seneschal? I have some important ruminating to be getting on with.”
“Tha
t’s what comes of eating travel bread and wild roots in the Forest.”
“I am wearing a sword,” the Prince pointed out.
“There is still the matter of the Cathedral, your highness,” the Seneschal said quickly. “I know it’s been open to the tourists for decades now, but it is still supposed to hold its own fair share of secrets. Really quite dangerous and appalling secrets, according to some of the older and more worrying stories about exactly what Hawk and Fisher and the Walking Man found in there, when they investigated the Cathedral all those years ago. When the Cathedral was still Inverted, with Space itself turned upside down, so that the Cathedral plunged deep into the earth . . . And yes, I know I’m babbling just a bit, but that place has always scared the crap out of me. Personally, I can’t help thinking that we’d all have been better off if Hawk and Fisher had left it the way it was. It would be one less thing for us, and by us I mean me, to worry about!”
“You’re hyperventilating again, Seneschal,” said the Prince. “Do you want a paper bag to breathe into?”
“No,” said the Seneschal. “It doesn’t help.”
“The Cathedral has been very thoroughly searched and inspected, from top to bottom, ever since we got it back again,” said Richard in his best soothing voice. “It’s been checked out by clerical experts, weapons experts, half a dozen sorcerers, and at least one top-rank exorcist. And not one of them turned up anything to give us a sleepless night. The Cathedral doesn’t even need maintaining. It maintains itself.”
“Which is also very worrying if you think about it, so I try very hard not to,” said the Seneschal. “And I will admit we do make a pile of tourist money out of the Cathedral, thanks to sightseers, religious types, and any number of pilgrimages. But that wasn’t what I really wanted to talk to you about either! Dear God, my head is going round and round in circles and disappearing up its own . . . Ah! Yes! I remember!”
The Seneschal took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and then looked steadily at Prince Richard. “If you’re looking for something to keep you occupied, and your mind distracted, while keeping yourself well out of the First Minister’s way . . . allow me to offer you something that will quite definitely take your mind off the fast-approaching Princess Catherine. My people have just discovered a new room. Or, more accurately, a very old room that no one’s seen in years.”
“How many years?” said Richard.
“Or, to put it another way, a room that’s been there all along, but no one was able to see it. But it’s there now, right in front of everybody.”
“How long has this room been missing?” said Richard.
The Seneschal gave Richard his best official shrug. “A hundred years, maybe more, your highness. From around the time of the Demon War, perhaps . . .”
“I can see why you think it would interest me,” said Richard. “The question has to be, why has this room suddenly turned up now, after all these years?”
“A very good question, your highness. But I haven’t the time to find out, and I can’t spare any of my people to make a properly thorough investigation, so if you’d like to look into this . . .”
“Thank you, Seneschal,” said the Prince.
They both stopped and looked round sharply as one of the Seneschal’s people came rushing up to him and thrust a paper into his hand. The Seneschal looked it over quickly, said a very bad word, and paused only to give Richard the room’s location before charging off with his assistant, to do something useful and necessary to prevent the Castle from collapsing. Richard watched him go, and then went in search of the returned room.
• • •
In the end, he found it easily enough. And it did give him an excuse to go strutting purposefully through the packed crowds and hallways, clearly too busy to stop and talk with all the people who wanted to talk to him, congratulate him, and ask for things they weren’t entitled to. And probably shouldn’t be allowed to have, on general principles. Richard was getting just a bit tired of being hailed as the conquering hero, especially when he knew for a fact he hadn’t actually solved the problem. All he’d done was buy the people of Cooper’s Mill some time.
In the end, he just followed the general air of excitement. The newly discovered door was only half a dozen corridors along, and when Richard finally stopped before it, it didn’t look any different from any of the other doors up and down the long corridor. Until you looked closely. Dark, heavy wood, with large brass hinges, and a really solid-looking, old-fashioned lock. The kind of door you couldn’t hope to break down without a battering ram and a lot of effort. Which suggested the room beyond the door wasn’t going to be just any old room.
Half a dozen of the Seneschal’s people had gathered before the door, angrily disputing with one another. One was listening through the door with a stethoscope, one was trying to pick the lock and getting nowhere, and a third was being very loudly persuaded not to try out an oversized battleaxe he really shouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near.
Richard immediately recognised the one with the lock picks (which he knew for a fact she wasn’t supposed to have), so he sided with her against the others, and they soon got the message and fell reluctantly back. Jacqui Piper was a delightful young woman in a badly fitting set of men’s overalls, and not a lot on underneath. She specialised in opening locks that didn’t want to open, kicking in doors that were often left closed for a reason, and doing things to stubborn doors that the Prince wouldn’t do to a dead dog. Jacqui was pretty and petite, practical, experienced, and only just out of her teens. With a hell of a lot of attitude. Richard liked her because she didn’t take any shit from anyone, including him. She also always made a point of never been impressed by his Princeness, and Richard liked that because it was so very rare. Jacqui looked round as the Prince knelt beside her to study the lock.
“Finally!” she said, in her loud and somewhat squeaky voice. “Someone who might actually take this seriously! I told the Seneschal, and I told everyone else, that this door wasn’t here yesterday. I know this section of the Castle like I know the birthmark on my left tit, and I am telling you that this time yesterday, there was nothing here but some blank wall!” She stopped, to sniff loudly. “No one ever listens to me. Nice timing on the arrival, Princey; I’ve just run out of skeleton keys. So unless you’ve got a better idea, it’s time for the brute force and sudden violence.” She stopped to glare at one of her people. “And no, Jonathon, I am not letting you anywhere near this door with that axe. You know what happened last time.” She glanced at the Prince. “Given the sheer scale of magical protections I’m seeing crawling all over this door, the axe wouldn’t do him any good. Not that I give a damn. Jonathon’s always had shifty eyes and wandering hands.”
Richard moved in closer, to look the lock over carefully. And everyone else stepped even farther back, so they wouldn’t be hit by whatever he set off. Everyone except Jacqui. Who stayed right where she was, regarding the lock as though it had just said something about her mother. Richard tried the big brass door handle, and it turned easily in his grasp. Richard raised an eyebrow and looked at Jacqui, who seemed honestly shocked. They both straightened up and stood before the door. Richard turned the handle carefully, and the door opened before him, without even the sound of a lock disengaging. Jacqui make a loud disgusted noise. Richard pushed the door open a ways but made no move to enter. There was only darkness beyond the door.
“Okay, that’s . . . interesting,” said Jacqui, squeezing in tight beside Richard without actually pushing him to one side. “That door was quite definitely locked. We all tried it.”
“I think this door must have been keyed specially to only open to a member of the Royal line,” said Richard. “That kind of magic is a lost skill. Even my father’s private quarters don’t have a lock like that. You’d better stand back, Jacqui, while I go in and take a look.”
“Yeah, right!” said Jacqui. “Like that’s going to happen. Old rooms are my business! I live for mysteries . . . And for small
valuable objects I can pocket and sell on the quiet.”
Richard strode into the room, pushing the door wide open so light from the corridor could rush in and illuminate the space. Jacqui stuck close beside him, just far enough behind that she could use him as a shield if necessary. But the room looked like . . . just another room. Dusty and dirty, though surprisingly free of cobwebs. Heavy curtains stood pulled together over the only window, allowing just a narrow beam of morning light to fall through. Richard walked over to the curtains and pulled them open. Light spilled into the room, even as the heavy fabric in his hands all but fell apart. Richard threw the bits and pieces aside and rubbed his hands clean on his hips. He looked across at Jacqui, who had a large silver snuffbox in her hand and was clearly trying to decide whether she could fit it into any of her pockets. She caught him looking at her, and froze.
“Aren’t you needed somewhere else?” the Prince said sweetly.
“Almost certainly,” said Jacqui, putting the snuffbox down with an insouciant smile. She gave an I can always come back later when less fussy people are around shrug and headed for the door. “If you’re sure you won’t need me . . .”
“I can handle this,” said Richard.
“Of course you can,” said Jacqui. “You big strong manly Prince, you.” She grinned at him briefly. “Typical aristo, always wanting the good stuff for yourself.”
She was almost out the door when the Prince spoke her name, in a loud and purposeful voice. Jacqui sighed and produced half a dozen small but very expensive items from various places about her person. She slammed the door behind her as she left, hard enough to raise a cloud of dust across the room.
Left alone at last, Richard wandered slowly round the large room, taking it in. A fair-sized room, in fact, with heavy old-fashioned furniture, a room that clearly hadn’t been used in some time. Could it really date back to the Demon War? The room did have a cold feeling to it, a sort of presence . . . The light seemed strong enough now, pushing back the gloom. Richard felt a little better for that; the original dark of the room had upset him on some deep and almost primal level. As though he shouldn’t be here, didn’t belong here. He made his way carefully round the room, looking at everything closely and occasionally bumping into things. Until finally he noticed that most of the paintings on the walls showed scenes and battles from before the Demon War. So, over a hundred years old . . .