Kydona Read online

  Chapter 3

  They called it the Blind Chamber, because that is what justice is supposed to be: blind, benevolent. The palace’s forgotten architect had taken to that theme with enthusiasm. The chamber was circular, representing the equality of all men before the law. The overlarge windows cast about the light of wisdom no matter the time of day. The imposing columns lining the walls were the bulwark of law that kept chaos and anarchy at bay. On the vast bronze doors shone Elessa’s Wings, a reminder of her mercy and all-encompassing forgiveness—and on the marble-tiled floor, a mural of Ancel’s fist, a reminder that mercy can go only so far.

  Right now, Marcus wished God’s Aspects would show enough mercy to bring the ceiling down on his head.

  The plaintiffs had been at it for what seemed like hours with their damned bickering. Two men stood on the floor before the Hearing Council: one, a pale vintner, and the other, a hook-nosed trader.

  “Defective bottles!” the vintner cried, pointing an accusing finger. “You knew they would break!”

  “A completely baseless accusation!” shouted the trader.

  “Says the man who referred me to the bottler!”

  “Sir, did you in fact know,” Grand Hearer Jerome de Isnell demanded, “that your associate’s bottles were of inferior quality?” Isnell was a giant of a man—in the sideways sense of the word. Though the hearers’ bench concealed most of his bulk, his spotted jowls quivered with each syllable he spoke, and his drooping cheeks gave him a permanent frown. For Marcus, he was an easy man to dislike. For anyone standing before the bench, an easy man to fear.

  The trader feigned indignity. “I do not see what this has to do with me. My purview is the transport of goods, not the—”

  “Sir, answer the question!” barked the grand hearer.

  “I suspected.” He muttered it, but the stone room amplified the reply. The murmurs of the nine other hearers—which, with Marcus and Isnell, made eleven votes in all—smacked of relief rather than concern.

  Sensing the end was at last near, Isnell shifted his enormity forward in his seat. “And you failed to notify your client that his wine bottles were inadequate? Bottles from a man you recommended?”

  “I did not know for sure that the bottles would shatter, merely—”

  Isnell’s glare of spent patience shut the man up.

  “I did not inform him.”

  “Then surely you took additional precautions to ensure the security of the defective bottles?”

  The trader glowered. “I packed the crates with hay. I tied them down in the wagons. I do not know what else one would expect me to do.”

  The vintner snorted. “Run an honest business, perhaps?”

  “Silence!” Isnell’s great chest rose, fell for a moment. His narrow eyes flickered back and forth between the two men. “Very well. I am prepared to render judgment.” His eyes flicked left, right at the other hearers, his gaze lingering distastefully on Marcus. “Does the assembly agree that evidence is sufficient to decide a verdict?”

  “Aye,” Marcus chorused with the rest, tiredly.

  “The grand hearer’s opinion is thus…” The scribe hunched in his little partition of the bench renewed his efforts; the sound of quill scratching parchment intensified. “Gerard Bucknell’s demand for recompense from Horace Renigan is carried. It is deemed that Mr. Renigan violated the mutually-signed contract which promised safe delivery of Mr. Bucknell’s goods. By encouraging Mr. Bucknell to purchase inferior bottles from his associate, Mr. Renigan willfully endangered Mr. Bucknell’s merchandise, thus annulling the contract. It is this grand hearer’s opinion that Mr. Renigan compensate Mr. Bucknell—in full—for the price of shipping, the price of the bottles, and the anticipated profit gained by sale of any wine lost in transit.”

  By now, the trader was quite paler than his erstwhile associate. He had aimed to win a few more coins with his dishonest venture—just like every other already-rich bastard who had tramped through this court today—but had come out quite a bit poorer than before.

  “In addition…”

  A moan of dismay rose in the trader’s throat.

  Isnell spoke over him, “In addition, this court holds Mr. Renigan in contempt for his failure to speak truthfully and submit proper evidence—a failure which cost the court an inordinate amount of valuable time. Mr. Renigan will therefore deduct ten percent from the gross sum owed Mr. Bucknell and pay it to the Royal Treasury.”

  The vintner’s face fell at that; the trader paid his opponent a sneer of lingering defiance.

  “Does this court agree with the grand hearer’s opinion?”

  Again, a chorus of ayes. As Marcus gave his, the trader met his eye, desperate—but Marcus gazed back evenly. After half an afternoon of watching this bastard pulling parchment after parchment out of his fine coat—just to cite some new regulation to hide behind—sympathy was hard in coming.

  “Majority reached!” announced Isnell, banging his gavel. “Sirs, I bid you a good day.”

  The trader whirled and strode from the chamber—quickly enough that his shoulders brushed the gilded doors’ edges as they ground open. The vintner bowed, then took his leave.

  The doors shut with a loud thud. Suddenly, the eleven hearers were alive again—stretching, chatting, calling for wine.

  “How many more, Weston?” Marcus asked the servant behind him. He had reflexively memorized the man’s name at the start of the proceedings.

  “Just the one, my lord prince,” said Weston, offering a waterskin.

  Marcus accepted it gratefully. One more hearing, and he was free. He found himself wondering if his mother had enjoyed this duty any less than he did. Almost definitely, he decided. It was a meritless task, this—an entire day spent listening to men trying to cheat each other out of their money. Had he paid any attention at all, Marcus may have been treated to an onerous lesson on tax law, contract terminology, technicalities of every conceivable kind.

  As it was, it was all he could do not to draw his sword and leap onto it. That perseverance alone deserved a medal.

  Apart from the sheer boredom, this whole thing chaffed at his dignity. Crown prince, heir to Elessia’s throne—and his power to judge these bastards was diluted to just one vote out of eleven. Bad enough for a prince; for a queen, it must have been humiliating.

  “One more,” he muttered. Until next week. Already he itched for the practice courts. Swordplay was infinitely simpler than bureaucracy. When he was king, he would have a legion of quill-pushing administrators to worry over this for him.

  And his noble peers would be forced to acknowledge his presence. His fellow hearers had been pretending not to notice him all day.

  Three booming knocks sounded from the doors. “To order,” Jerome de Isnell called. The chamber quickly settled down, the nobles eager to be finished with their day. Marcus handed the waterskin back to Weston with a weary smile and turned back to the floor.

  “Enter!”

  The doors cracked, then opened at the behest of two straining guards, pushing with all their might. Behind them walked a sneering, pointed-faced man whose blue tunic and silver gorget marked him out as a chief constable. From a poorer quarter, judging by his blade’s worn grip.

  That, and the shackled man stumbling along in his wake. He was gaunt, though his ill-fitting clothes suggested that he had shrunk dramatically. Obviously he had not seen the light of day for some time—pale, filthy, uncut hair and nails. Yet for all the misery of his appearance, his eyes made their way defiantly and methodically from the guards, to each hearer, to Isnell… to Marcus, who frowned, wondering what had brought a man of obvious character so low.

  “My lords,” greeted the constable with a tip of his plumed hat. He came to a halt before the grand hearer, bowed deeply.

  “Your names and business.” Isnell sounded even more bored than before.

  “Roger Constable,” the sneering man replied, “and my prisoner, Jebril Carpenter. We come on grounds of appeal.”


  “Appeal of…?”

  “Execution, my lord. This one is due to hang on the morrow.” The hearers may have murmured on learning that a vintner had been cheated out of his money, but no one seemed overly concerned that this shabby man with a common name would soon be dead. More than one was staring longingly at the door.

  “On which grounds?”

  “Theft of the king’s property.”

  For the first time, the condemned man spoke. “Of bread,” he hissed.

  The constable immediately whirled and backhanded him across the cheek. “Be silent, convict!” he yelled as the smack echoed. “You speak when you’re given permission!” He bowed again to the benches. “Apologies, my lords.”

  But Marcus was standing. “You will not strike that man again,” he growled. “This is a court of law, not a dungeon.”

  “That,” Isnell snapped, “is sufficient, my lord prince. I thank you for your concern.” Though his thanks sounded more like a curse. “Mr. Constable, this man has no one to speak in his defense?”

  Marcus felt his temper rising as he dropped into his chair. Isnell allowed a man to be struck in his supposedly-esteemed court, yet refused to give him the courtesy of addressing him directly?

  “But for himself, no, my lord. He refuses to be represented. Wanted to refuse the appeal, too, but it’s the law.” True enough—all condemned men were entitled to a final appeal, voluntary or not.

  “Very well.” At last, Isnell turned his attention to the convict. “Mr. Carpenter. Do you have any evidence of your innocence?”

  The constable cleared his throat. “With respect, my lord, there’s no need to trouble with evidence. I have here,” he produced a folded parchment, “a confession, signed by this man. His guilt is beyond refute.”

  Marcus looked incredulously between the constable and the grand hearer. He wanted to speak up, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe that this was truly happening.

  Isnell seemed to have no qualms. He thumbed his gavel impatiently. “It seems then that this proceeding is one of mere protocol. So, Mr. Carpenter, you are entitled to a last word. You may speak.” He raised his brows, waiting, but the man just stood there and stared back with contempt smoldering in his eyes. After a while, Isnell sighed. “I am prepared to render judgment. Does the assembly agree—”

  “No!” Marcus shot to his feet, drawing miffed looks from the rest of the hearers.

  Lord Isnell was no exception. “The court,” he pronounced with incredible disdain, “recognizes the honorable Lord Prince Pilars.” A few of the old men smirked, but Marcus couldn’t have cared much less, given the events of the past three minutes.

  “Mr. Carpenter, if you would, state your crime.”

  The convict clenched his jaw, as if to bite back futility. “I stole the king’s bread.”

  Marcus snorted, though his humor could not have been more forced. “Hang a man for stealing bread! Well surely this is a special case. You must deserve it somehow. So what, did you sneak into this palace and snatch the bread off the king’s table?”

  “No, m’lord.”

  “Where from, then?”

  “The dole wagon. I lifted out the dole wagon.”

  An elderly hearer peered down the row at Marcus. “Theft from the dole is theft from the king. It’s bought with royal gold, after all. This man’s guilt is beyond questioning.”

  “Beyond—” Marcus scrubbed his jaw in aggravation. “Beyond question? Is this not a dole we speak of? Bread gets doled from the wagons, it isn’t sold. Are we truly weighing the merit of hanging a man, for taking something freely given?”

  A number of hearers exchanged looks. “My lord, are you unaware of the Grain Exchange Tax’s extension?” one inquired. “A tax that we must levy on those who benefit from the dole, so as to prevent our government from bankrupting itself.”

  “Tax? Since when?”

  “Approved but a fortnight past, in this very chamber.”

  Marcus stared incredulously. Barely more than a fortnight ago, his mother had been alive. She had bought bread with coin from her own pocket, given it to the people from her own hands. Then she died, and men like these had undone her deeds before her corpse had even cooled.

  He must have stared for a while, because the grand hearer cleared his throat and asked, “Have you any more questions?”

  “Yes.” He turned back to the convict. “Carpenter, that is your profession?”

  “It was my father’s name, sir.” He had seen salvation glimmering. Now that fragile promise was fading, and the desperation was clear in his cracking voice, even if his face was too filthy to show it. “I have no profession.”

  “But your scars, the ones there on your arms, and that one on your face—were you not in the war?”

  “I was, yes, m’lord.”

  “You have a veteran’s pension, then!” The hearing council’s patience was thinning. They shifted and glared, but Marcus ignored them.

  “A pittance, m’lord. Enough only to pay my rent.”

  “So you must choose between a roof over your head and a meal in your belly?”

  “No, my family’s!”

  The grand hearer had been restless for some time, but at last he could bear it no longer. “My lord prince! This man is proven guilty! These questions are of no consequence! Our duty is not to question why the laws are broken, only to carry out the law when it is!”

  “What about your duty as an Elessian, man?! If Elessa herself sat in this chamber beside you, would she not have asked these same questions?”

  “Blasphemy!” squeaked a hearer. “He dares compare himself to blessed Elessa!”

  Marcus shouted down to the convict, “Mr. Carpenter, who depends on your pension for their food and shelter?”

  “My wife!” he bellowed back, fighting to be heard over the rising clamor. “And two young daughters!”

  Marcus bolted to his feet, straight as a lance, and rammed a fist down on the bench sill. The chamber was shocked into stillness. “Damn you, this man hangs tomorrow! At least hear him for a moment longer!” He inhaled, exhaled slowly. “Mr. Carpenter, at long last, why did you steal the king’s bread from the dole wagon?”

  The man looked him in the eye. That hollow gaze was back. This was the end, they both knew it. There wasn’t a blessed thing either of them could do to change it. But Jebril Carpenter swallowed, clenched his jaw, and intoned in a voice barely audible, “My daughters, they always cried. Wasn’t bad in the day when they had stuff to do, but then at night, they felt the hunger. I tried to find honest work. What work is there to be had in a city? Old man like me?” He shook his head sorrowfully. “I couldn’t feed my daughters. Then one night… they didn’t cry anymore. They knew it wouldn’t do them any good.” He stared at the floor and nearly whispered, “I did what any father must.”

  For the longest time, the Blind Chamber was silent. Still as Queen Geneva’s tomb.

  Marcus moved first. He stepped to the aisle, then down to the tiled floor, followed by ten pairs of noble eyes. He stood before the manacled prisoner. He nodded once—a soldier’s nod. “Forgive me.”

  Carpenter blinked, nodded back. Then he looked past Marcus, past the men about to condemn him—ready to meet his fate, cruel though it was.

  Marcus faced his peers. He had felt hatred before—for the Glats, for Jaspar, for himself even—but never as keenly as this. Death was too good for the lot of these men. “Blessed Elessa once said, ‘From virtue is born law.’ May those words live forever, my lords.” He met each man’s eyes in turn. Few could hold his gaze. “I name this man innocent of these charges. God damn any of you who say otherwise.”

  He spun on his heel, a picture of military precision and resolution, and strode for the chamber doors. Elessa’s wings shone, then split in two as the doors blundered apart.

  “Does the court acknowledge the aforementioned verdict of innocence?”

  “Nay.” “Nay.” “Nay.”

  †††

  Four d
ays later, the harvest was in at last, and everyone was celebrating in earnest. The farmers and their families had abandoned the villages to flood into Ancellon. They packed the taverns and inns, pouring out into the streets along with their revelry. Most city folk were joining in, but as always, there were a few clever heads with an eye for profit. There were stands lining every street, selling bread, sweets, trinkets, and of course, drink.

  “Oy Marcus, you want mead?” Vernon was bouncing along beside Marcus, grinning with utter delight as he took it all in. “No problem, right there! How about ale? Right over there, sir! Rum? Wine? Shit on it, vodka? All the way from golden Kydona, just for you and me!”

  “The stuff makes for a nasty wakeup, if you ask me. Tell you what, drink up and I’ll laugh at you tomorrow.”

  “Pfft, you laughing? That’d be a first!”

  Marcus settled for a smile. He glanced back to make sure the guards were still with him; they were, all three of them, gently pushing their way through the throng, never more than a stone’s throw from their charge. There was Gail, a veteran since age seventeen, whose score of campaigns had utterly erased his sense of humor. A few paces behind him was Kelly, instantly recognizable from the ugly cleft bisecting his orange-haired scalp—a remnant of an encounter with a barbarian carl. An encounter he had won, dazed and half-conscious though he was. Somewhere else in the crowd, Blaxley was prowling about. He was young, but despite two years together, Marcus had yet to find another word to describe him—save nondescript. Perfect for Blaxley’s purposes, though; he was an artist with a bow, and in general, a sneaky son of a whore.

  Marcus was more than happy to have men like these protecting his back, after the antics he had pulled three days ago.

  The mob seemed to agree. Actually it was all they were talking about. As Marcus passed a knot of commoners, he heard one say, “Wish I’d been there, alright! I stopped going to hangings ages ago, they’re such a damned bore. Executioner pulls the lever and—crack—all done!”

  “Well this hanging was something to see, let me tell you—”

  A third interrupted, “It wasn’t a hanging, you idiot.”

  “Well no, not after the prince had something to say about it. The hangman’s face must have been some kind of sight, under that hood, that is! The nobles in the stands, they were red as plums, hah!”

  “Plums are purple, dolt.”

  Marcus shuffled by, fighting back a smirk. It was a lucky thing that he had dressed down for tonight. Apart from the Pilars crest on his ring, he could be any merchant’s son. Still, Vernon was doing little to help his cover.

  He had dug up a cap with a single point jutting out over his forehead, and a white feather plume sticking out from the top. It was yesteryear’s fashion at best—practically a relic. “You really ought to play this up,” he said, meticulously smoothing the feather as he glanced back at the gossipers. “You wouldn’t have to walk anywhere, they’d just carry you about.”

  Marcus smiled. “Aye, but where would that leave you?”

  “Well true, but how about this: the girls! You’d be swamped with them!” He spun on the spot to eye a pretty common girl. She smiled back but kept walking. “Wow,” he mouthed.

  “I suppose you didn’t notice the babe on her hip.”

  “The what?” Vernon looked back but she was gone. “You must be joking.”

  Shrugging, Marcus replied, “They’re all married, by our age. Even the ugly ones.”

  For a moment, his friend looked thoughtful—which was a rarity, for him. Then he said, “Mums are good. Easy to get. Keen on pleasing, too.”

  A weaker man would have thrown up, but not Marcus.

  Fortunately, there was plenty to distract him from Vernon’s forwardness. Everyone was in an eager rush. They trod on Marcus’s toes, bumped him about, not bothering with apologies. Off to his right, a pair of acrobats somersaulted over each other’s heads in turn before nimbly climbing a set of tall poles, using only their arms. There were tents selling cakes, pies, skewered vegetables and meats. Lads lined up at game tents, trying to win prizes for the girls they were with. A group of minstrels spun a lively tune from atop a stage, one strumming furiously at a lute, one pounding a great sheepskin drum, and one blowing red-faced into a pipe. In front of the stage, couples young and old danced along with no semblance of order.

  “Mums or not, Court can suck mine!” Vernon bellowed into Marcus’s ear. “Common people know a party!”

  “Let’s get a drink!” Marcus mimed back.

  That turned out to be tougher than expected. Half the tents seemed to have a keg of ale inside but when they tried to buy a drink, the gypsy girl behind the counter gave them an impatient look. “Cups?” she half-asked, half-demanded.

  “We had to bring our own?”

  They then had to pay her an exorbitant price for two clay mugs, then pay again to have them filled.

  “Damned gypsies!” muttered a soured Vernon. “They’ll squeeze every coin out of you some way or another.”

  “Drink it off. A few coppers won’t kill you.”

  “Aye, says the man who didn’t buy off two courtesans the other week!”

  “Oh, what, and you’re saying you didn’t enjoy it? Come on.” The next hour or so, they spent in search of cheaper thrills. But those turned out to be impossible to find. They settled into a crowd watching the acrobats, which kept them entertained for a good while. When the act ended, though, the acrobat family went around with baskets, demanding coin and harrying anyone without it until they paid up. Gail, ever suspicious, almost intervened, but Marcus waved him off and dropped some coins in the acrobat’s cap.

  The players’ comedy ended the same way, even though the performance wasn’t even amateur by noble standards. While Marcus was standing in line for more ale afterward, a gypsy lad bumped rudely into him and started off without an apology. Marcus was cleverer than the pickpocket gave him credit for, though, and he let go of the lad’s collar only once his purse was firmly in hand again.

  Further they wandered. A young couple kissed with near-indecent loudness in an obscenely narrow alley. A lad, not seven years old, tottered around drunkenly, spilling ale from a tankard that he could have bought just as easily as stolen. A wiry old man wandered past Marcus, grinning with confusion at everyone he saw, his wits eroded by age and drink.

  Common people. Their accents grated on the crown prince’s ears. Their musk—a medley of sweat, dirt, and shit—filled his nose. Everywhere he looked, he saw rotten teeth, filthy hands, greasy hair.

  It would be so easy to despise them all, just like his peers did.

  Only he refused to. He could see what his mother had, too. Fathers carrying toddlers on their shoulders, staring down anyone who jostled them. Mothers breaking up cakes for their children, saving the last and least of it for themselves—often none at all. Bodies, hardened, unaccustomed to leisure. Rough clothes, homespun. They took what little they were given and made the most of it, without complaint.

  His mother had given them all she could, but they had never asked for it.

  That was a trait the nobility had lost, jaded as they were. A trait Marcus could admire, even aspire to.

  And they were still talking about the same thing. “Never seen a thing like it in all my days!” an old man croaked to his fellows as they lounged on a street corner. “There’s that poor fellow on the stage, got this great big noose ‘round his neck—”

  “Took it like a man, he did,” added another.

  “Aye, aye. I look over on the stands where all the nobles are. There’s a few dozen of ‘em, looking bored out of their skulls—”

  “Like to pretend the world’s beneath ‘em!”

  “Aye, aye, but the prince was different. He might’ve been chewing on a lump of shit, from the look on his face. Anyways, I bows my head with everyone else to pray, when the priest says his last bit for the man’s soul. But when I look up, prince is gone!”

  “Lost his stomach, did he?”

 
“You know this story, Ben!”

  “Why’s you telling it then?”

  “‘Cause I am, that’s why! So I think nothing of it, right? I look back at the stage. The chief constable does his little bit, asks the dead man if he’s got any last words. Usually they start weeping or they beg for mercy or something but this one just clamps down, doesn’t move a muscle. So the constable gives his nod, the executioner walks up to the lever with that sick swagger they’ve always got, but then he stops—’cause the prince is up on stage with him!”

  The old men grinned and leaned in, not wanting to miss the climax. “Tell it, Herb! What’s he do?” Even Marcus stopped to listen in, though a bit further down the road.

  “Well, everyone’s pointing and staring, making noise like you’d never believe! Noble folk look fit to burst, they’re so red!” The old man cackled and wiped his mouth, grinning. “The prince pretends none of this is happening. He walks up to the convict, stands there for a moment—I’m thinking he said something to the man, not sure what—but then he draws his sword all of a sudden, and everyone gasps, ‘cause it looks like he’s about to run the man through!

  “But then instead, he swings this sword and cuts right through the rope. He swung it so hard, it stuck straight in the pole. Everyone shuts up. Couldn’t believe it! Even the convict stands there, his mouth’s all hanging open. The prince leaves his sword quivering in the pole and walks up to the edge of the stage, and he says real loud, ‘The Aspects never hanged a man for taking bread!’”

  “No, no Herb, he said, ‘Neither Ancel nor Elessa would suffer a man to hang for stealing bread, and neither will I.’”

  Looking impatient, Herb continued, “Well it doesn’t matter what he said, it’s what he did, isn’t it? He sat on the Hearing Council a few days ago, and word is, he said the man was innocent back then. Council votes to hang him anyway, so young Pilars decides to go his own way.”

  “Damned fool,” muttered another, who until now had been silent.

  His friends looked at him. “What’re you talking about? He was right, wasn’t he? Ancel himself would have set that man free.”

  “Ain’t disagreeing on that count. But the nobles aren’t happy, that’s for sure. Young Pilars is a dead man.”

  “They wouldn’t dare!”

  “They would, though. Why you think they were gonna hang that man? You think they give a damn about some missing bread? No. They’re just showing us who’s the boss. Tightening our reins. They’ve got us right where they want us, and the prince is setting himself against them. Mark my words: he won’t live out the month.”

  The other two exchanged dark looks, and Marcus, feeling troubled but not at all surprised, quietly moved on.

  “S’alright, mate,” Vernon said, as low as he could over the sounds of gaiety. “They even try it, they’ve got to go through me.”

  “Right.”

  “Always the doubter,” he sighed. “Well, inevitable though your death may be, you’re still having a better day than them.”

  Marcus followed his friend’s finger to a trio of young women in expensive-looking dresses, all huddled on a street corner around a fourth. She hunched on the dirty curb, sobbing into her hands. Her friends were smoothing her hair and patting her back soothingly. A pair of hired guardsmen hovered uncertainly nearby with their thumbs tucked into their belt loops.

  “They look in charge,” Marcus said sarcastically.

  “I’m guessing the girl just hit her period,” Vernon remarked.

  “I’m sure,” said Marcus, squinting. He nudged a fellow observer. “What’s happened?”

  The man gave a noncommittal shrug, but another man behind him put in, “Someone lifted the lady’s purse. Damned gypsies.”

  “What makes you think it was a gypsy?”

  “Who else would it be?”

  Marcus thought about pointing out that not all gypsies were thieves and not all thieves were gypsies, but he thought better of it. He nodded to Vernon and pushed his way out of the miniature ring of spectators. He held three fingers in the air, and half a moment later, Gail was at scowling at his side.

  “Trouble?” the aging guard grunted.

  “Gail, I need to catch a thief. How do I go about it?”

  “Lost your purse, did you?”

  “No.”

  Gail’s mouth acquired a slight twist at that, but it vanished quickly. “What kind of thief? Cutpurse? Pickpocket? Mugger?” It had always been Marcus’s favorite quality among bodyguards—once you had their loyalty, they never questioned, just obeyed.

  “Whichever would go after that young lady back there.” He jabbed a thumb behind his head.

  Gail raised his chin to look over Marcus’s shoulder. “Pickpocket then.” He opened his purse and retrieved a dozen silver coins, which he shoved into Marcus’s hand. “Once I’m gone, toss these.”

  Marcus had an eyebrow raised as he closed his fist. In a few seconds, Gail was nowhere to be seen.

  “Toss those? They’re silver halves!” Vernon said, astonished.

  “The man knows what he’s doing.”

  “Well alright…” His best mate bit down on his knuckles and watched him tentatively.

  Marcus gave his guard a moment longer, then flung the coins onto the cobblestones. They hit home with that unmistakable, enticing ring of recently-lost money. The sound wasn’t lost on the people around. Immediately, people were scrambling to the spot, falling over each other in their haste to get half a silver richer. Vernon made an agonized, high-pitched whine around his fist. Marcus looked on with some combination of amusement, disgust and pity. Others were gathering around in a tight ring, laughing and cheering at the new spectacle. They jostled each other for space and squeezed Marcus and Vernon together so tight they could barely breathe.

  “Do you realize what you’ve done?” Vernon cried into his ear. “That might’ve bought me a minute or so with Kaelyn,” he added, mournfully.

  Marcus laughed guiltily. He shouted back, “Don’t trouble yourself, you’d need a lot more than that.” It was a lie, sort of. He’d been fucking her for weeks now, free of charge.

  The rabble crawled about desperately for a few moments, like feral dogs around a carcass, until they realized there was nothing left. Gradually they dispersed, leaving a disappointed circle of spectators to leave in turn.

  Marcus drew a grateful breath of somewhat-fresh air. He glanced around. “Right…” Gail was nowhere to be seen.

  “Here we are,” came Gail’s gruff voice from behind him. He was holding up a small gypsy lad by the collar. “This the one?” The lad snarled, kicking his bare feet in the air.

  Marcus stared, perplexed, while Vernon hunched, giggling uncontrollably.

  “Oh my God, this is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen! Gail, can you just swing him around a bit for me? Shit, I can’t breathe…”

  Ignoring his friend, Marcus asked, “How’d you find him?”

  Gail shrugged. “They look for distractions. Make a spectacle and they’ll come creeping. This one,” he raised the lad a mite higher, “I saw him bump three people before I got him. See?” He upended the lad and furiously shook him by the knees; purses and loose change dropped onto the street. The boy gibbered in panic.

  By this point, Vernon was on his knees, alternating between laughing and choking. “Help…” he squeaked.

  “Man, get yourself together. Gail, fine work.” Marcus stooped and retrieved an embroidered leather purse with a golden clasp—just the kind of thing a noble girl would carry about. He left the rest where it lay.

  Gail nodded curtly before vanishing once more.

  The girls were in the same place as before. The situation was nearly the same, only the one with the missing purse had added some hysterics to her sobbing. No point lying about it: Marcus had earlier considered an approach, but now chivalry of the quiet sort seemed prudent. With a quick glance, he located an old-ish woman with a few toddlers in tow—and since grandmothers tended to be more honest than
most, he approached her instead.

  “Pardon, my lady…”

  She looked surprised but gratified. “Can I help you, sir?”

  “This is hers,” he said, offering the purse and nodding toward the hapless girl on the curb.

  The woman smiled. “Well aren’t you a sweet young man. Put in a good word for you too, shall I?”

  Marcus smiled politely. “That won’t be necessary.” Bidding her a good night, he made his retreat.

  Vernon waited by a beer stand, as promised. “So?” he demanded.

  “So what? Where’s my pint?”

  Vernon slid it over, and as Marcus drank deep, he persisted, “That’s the opening? ‘Oh, look, I got your purse back, I’m a hero and you’re a dumbass for losing it in the first place, now love me’?”

  Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he replied, “It wasn’t an opening. I was just… it seemed like something a better man would do. I don’t know.”

  For a moment, his friend sat there frozen, except for his working jaw. Then he spun on his stool to face the bar, and stuffed his nose in his beer. Just as suddenly, he was in Marcus’s face again. “What-in-the-God-damned-fuck-is-wrong-with-you?” He punctuated each syllable with a furious wave of his arms, spilling beer all over the place, and on Marcus. “Why, oh why, are you interested in being a better man?”

  Marcus fought to keep his face straight. Because I’m fucking the only girl you feel anything for. And because I keep on doing it just because I can, and she thinks she’s in love. “My mother had this saying.” He watched Vernon’s expression fall away. It made him feel well enough to go on, “Knowing the right thing to do is not enough. The test of virtue is acting on that knowledge.” He drank again. “She did so much good in her life… now she’s gone. It’s my turn. Understand?”

  Vernon frowned intensely. “You know, I had a perfectly good point there, and you had to pull that shit.” He sighed, rubbed his nose. “Who ever said you can’t follow up on a good deed with a dirty one? Not so bad, long as she’s willing…”

  “Ever heard of altruism?”

  “Alright, what about the rest of it? The coin you left all over the street for anyone to pick up?”

  “Nothing much I can do about that.”

  Vernon rolled his eyes. “Not very good at this altruism stuff, are you?”

  Marcus had to agree on that count, but he wasn’t about to say so. Instead, he drank some more. The suds rolled soothingly down his throat and fizzled gently in his gut. A belch started making its way up—

  And a youthful female voice began tentatively from behind him, “I beg your pardon…”

  He fought it back down and turned as coolly as he could, staring through watering eyes. A young woman—about twenty, he supposed—looked back at him. She was all shyness—hazel eyes flickering, throat working, hands clasped on her belly. All in all, she was lovely—not the sort of face a poet would write an epic ballad about, but still.

  She was well aware of his scrutiny. “Um…” She nervously tucked a stray lock of light brown hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry, but that woman over there tells me you’re the one who found my friend’s purse.”

  Behind her, the grandmother winked at Marcus.

  Marcus met the girl’s eyes again. She blushed. “I had a part in it. What of it?”

  “Well… she’d like to thank you.” His reply wasn’t instantly forthcoming; her blush deepened and she blurted, “You don’t have to come over. I’m sorry… I’ll go…”

  He laughed. “Why do you keep saying you’re sorry?”

  “I’m sorry, it’s a habit.” She realized her mistake and giggled anxiously. “They just sent me over here alone, and I thought you would be older but you’re not, and now there’s two of you staring at me…”

  Beside him, Vernon hastily pretended to order another pint.

  Marcus glanced her over, this time a bit more surreptitiously. Nice dress; the colors didn’t much matter to him, but the strong show of cleavage did, and she’d been careful to display an enticingly narrow waist. The prince decided he was charmed. “Alright then.” He unhurriedly stood. “I’ll come along. That is, if you don’t mind that I bring my friend as well.”

  The girl looked entertained. “Oh, I’m sure no one will complain.” She started off, with the two not far behind.

  “You, sir, are a good man,” whispered Vernon, patting Marcus’s shoulder.

  He wished it so, but wishing never accomplished much.

  The girl had three friends waiting. It took only a moment for Marcus to decide he didn’t like them. They were sitting impatiently in the same spot as before, fussing for no apparent reason, glaring knife-sharp at anyone who dared step near. All too typical of girls who thought they were pretty. “There you are!” It was the one who’d been crying before—he could tell by the tear streaks marring her powdered cheeks, and the tight-curled blonde hair that had gone astray from its bun. “My God, Jacquelyn, it’s been forever!”

  “Really,” agreed another, a brunette, while the large third girl wrinkled her nose.

  Jacquelyn stopped short, fiercely red again, and stammered an apology. Marcus couldn’t understand why she bothered. He and Vernon hovered in the background and exchanged a look.

  The blonde girl noticed them at last. She issued an ear-splitting squeal, which nearly made him wince. “Oh God oh God oh God,” she breathed, hopping up and down and fanning herself. “You… you!”

  “Me,” agreed Marcus.

  “Me too,” added Vernon, quiet-like.

  The other two caught on, or at least pretended to. They stared at Marcus with bulging eyes until the blonde remembered to curtsy, which they mimed. For her part, Jacquelyn glanced between them with obvious confusion. “I don’t understand.”

  “Oh, when’s the last time you understood anything? It’s the prince!” The blonde dispensed with her snappishness to beam at him. “Lord Prince Marcus Audric de Pilars rescued my purse! I can’t thank you enough, your highness!”

  He waved with a forced smile. “It was nothing.”

  “But you found my purse!”

  “Little trouble on my part. Very least I could do. Really.” He wished to God he had dispensed with chivalry and let the purse stay stolen. But then, wishing never accomplished much. “Well, ladies, it was a true pleasure, I ought to be on my way—”

  “Please!” the blonde cried. “You only just got here! You must stay!”

  Jacquelyn said in a low voice, “He wants to go. We should let him.”

  Ignoring her, the blonde stepped up and wrapped an arm around Marcus’s. “It’s not every day that I meet a prince. I’m beside myself, you understand. I’m sure we all are.” She shot a glare at her supposed friend, who managed to return it, albeit briefly. The other two fluttered their eyelashes at him.

  He faked a smile. It wasn’t hard to be charming when a gaggle of women were practically falling over themselves to get at him. Nothing he said could be wrong. He was the king-to-be. All he had to do was be reasonable, and he could have any one of these girls in his bed by night’s end. He was no stranger to connivers; he’d been playing along with them for years.

  Only now, he just wished they would shut up and let him talk to the girl he was actually interested in.

  Just for that chance, he kept the smile on.

  By midnight, he, Vernon, and their newest gaggle of young ladies were a few notches above tipsy. The noise of the festival was louder, if anything, but it no longer grated on Marcus’s ears. He heard his heart pulsing, felt the alcohol pounding through his veins, warming his skin and brightening the lights around him. He had the blonde girl, Celyn, clutching his left elbow and Jacquelyn hanging onto his right. Vernon had the other pair of girls and couldn’t have been happier about it. The six of them waddled along drunkenly, laughing at and chatting about nothing in particular.

  “Oy look, a band!” cried Vernon. He skipped toward the stage with the two girls in tow, bellowing the entirely wrong lyrics.


  Celyn let Marcus go to follow after, shrieking with drunken excitement. “Come on!”

  “Go ahead, I’ll rest a moment.” Celyn went, but Marcus hung onto Jacquelyn.

  Her smile had a naughty twist to it when she was drunk. “You don’t look that tired.”

  “Just between us, I needed a break from your friends.”

  “What, not me?”

  “I meant to send you after them but somehow you got stuck on my arm.”

  She laughed. Charming girls was easy; charming drunk girls was like smashing a wingless fly with a sledgehammer. “No, you held me back.”

  He grinned. “Might be I wanted to ask you something.”

  The smile stretched wider. “Alright.”

  “Well first off, I never learned your family name—”

  “Duchesne. Jacquelyn Duchesne.”

  “Sounds Isennese.”

  “Yes! My father is from there. My mother… well she doesn’t know where she’s from. The courtesans took her in off the streets, when she was an orphan. But I grew up in Isenne. I only moved here last year.”

  She talked more when she was drunk. A lot more. It didn’t bother him; it spared him a good amount of small talk. “So your father is noble born?”

  “Well…” Jacquelyn said, hesitant, “we’ve a Writ. My grandfather bought it before I was born.”

  “New nobility, eh?” The royal coffers had been near empty toward the end of King Basil’s reign—Marcus’s grandfather—and in an attempt to fill them again, he had started granting noble status—more like selling it. Likely, the Duchesnes had once been the richest family in a hamlet called Chesny. An ample donation to the Royal Treasury had earned them what birth could not: a noble de. “Your grandfather was a rich man.” Ten-thousand golden strikes rich, at the least.

  Her hazel eyes were wide. “You’re not going to stop talking to me, are you?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “They make fun of me for it,” she said quietly, glancing at the other girls. Vernon was somehow succeeding in dancing with all three at once, prancing from partner to partner as fast as the eyes could follow.

  Marcus made a disbelieving noise. “And you still pretend they’re your friends?”

  “At least they bother talking to me. No one else does.”

  He could hardly stand the loneliness in her voice. It made him realize how lucky he was—to be able to pick his friends and enemies at will, rather than be forced to let them pick him. It was good to be the prince. Others were not as lucky. “Well the crown prince is talking to you. Aren’t I?”

  That perked her up slightly. “I’m so happy you are. Tonight stank before you came in.”

  “Couldn’t agree more.”

  It was quiet between them for a few moments. Marcus watched the band playing. The lively tune had ended, replaced by a slower beat. Vernon and the others were starting to make their way back, looking miffed that the band had spoiled their fun.

  “Great,” Marcus sighed. “You don’t care if I tell Celyn to go fuck herself when she sits on my lap, do you?”

  Jacquelyn covered her smile with her hands and shook her head.

  “Another thing. Do you have anything to do tomorrow morning?”

  There was that astonished look again. A slow smile crept onto her face. “Nothing in particular…”

  “I had riding in mind. Tomorrow morning is the review of the battlements. I’m presiding over it. I might let you come along—if you’ve got a horse, that is. Not the kind of thing I can just loan out.”

  That smile was enormous now. He didn’t think he’d ever seen a woman so delighted. “Yes!” She squeaked, bouncing on her toes and kneading her hands. “Oooh, you’ve just made my night, you don’t even know!”

  He started laughing. “I think I do.”

  Vernon and the others got there just then. “What in the hell are the both of you laughing at?”

  They shook their heads, grinning.

  Celyn looked at her two friends, obviously annoyed. Turning to Marcus, she accused, “I thought you were resting.”

  He thought about it, looked her in the eye, and said, “Go fuck yourself, Celyn.”