Once again, my love, I welcome you to this my chamber. Your nostrils flare, I see, at the scent of galbanum, and I own frankly that Floria spent this last night here. It must chafe you, I know, to serve her every day, and to see her happiness, and to know that she comes down that hidden passage most nights to see me.
Yet rewards have come. Am I not brave in my new ribbon, as a knight of the Order of the Red Horse? The order was established by King Emelin himself, and now I may lord over lesser knights—which is to say all of them, for the Red Horse has precedence over the other orders, and of course the knights-bachelors, too.
Floria has let slip that you shall be rewarded as well, though she has not said with what. I hope it may bring you joy.
Come, sit by me in the settee, and let me take your hand. Floria is all bustle now, putting the realm in order, and so must her ladies bustle along with her. I am sorry I have visited your chambers only thrice in the twelve days since your arrival, but I have been engaged in a task of great importance, and though it has driven me half-mad, I think I have finally seen it through.
To be brief, in my capacity as private secretary I have uncovered a nest of Edevane’s spies here in Selford. We have been following them for some time, and I think I now know them all.
This troupe of turncoats was led by a lawyer at the Tiltyard Moot, who was passing messages through a pawnshop on Chancellery Road, and thence to a ship-chandler in Innismore, who carried the treasonable correspondence to the captain of a crumster, who took dispatches to Bonille. They will all be in my net by midnight, all but the sea-captain, who I fear may have got away on the afternoon tide.
You tremble, mistress. I hope you have not a chill. Let me put my arm around you to warm you.
Yet still you shiver even in my arms. Have you perhaps something to say to me? No? Then I must be the one to speak.
Ay, you were followed from the moment you arrived in Selford. We noted everyone you spoke to. If I have uncovered that spider’s web of intelligencers, it is because you led me to them, and I was able to follow your dispatch from one hand to the next, and onto that swift crumster that even now follows the Saelle to the sea.
That message you sent is poison, and deadly not to me or Floria, but to Edevane. For I told you that our force would strike at Longfirth, and that Count de Cibel would surrender the place to us, and this was all a flat lie. Once that dispatch comes to Howel, the viceroy will replace a loyal servant, and perhaps cut off his head, and he will rush reinforcements over the Cordillerie to the city, and once marched over the Cordillerie they are not so easily recalled.
Nay, Floria’s army will land elsewhere. Where we have proven friends, who will open their gates and join our forces to theirs.
You wonder, I suppose, how I knew you to be a creature of Edevane’s. Floria and I both knew that Edevane would have a spy in Floria’s household, and that spy would likely be a corrupted servant. But two of Floria’s ladies also were suspect.
Marcella, first of all, for no one knew where she came from, or for certain who she was. And while she proved to be a treacherous, angry, and spiteful creature, she was no pawn of Edevane.
That left you. Floria had taken you into her household on the recommendation of her sister, but why would Berlauda, who hated all Clayborne’s faction, recommend the grand-niece of an attainted traitor? Only on the suggestion, I submit, of Lord Edevane
It was Floria, before I joined you on that journey to Loretto, who suggested that I get into your confidence.
But still there were doubts. True, you were always prompting me to treason, and urging plans to put Floria and myself in danger, but that might be put down to your ambition.
But we took no chances. You know that Floria and I met together, and that, for your own protection, you were not to be told the subject of our conversations. But when you and I met, out of my love for you I told you what was said between the princess and myself—and, now and then, I lied.
And that correspondence I stole from Floria’s study and delivered to Edevane, and which turned out to be letters writ to her when she was a child? She had placed those letters there deliberately, knowing I would take them, and that they could do her no harm.
But that still left your own status unresolved—we knew better than to trust you, but we knew not where your true loyalties lay. What finally betrayed you was your offer to negotiate Sir Basil’s bill for fourteen thousand royals. I knew full well that you, from a family of high-ranked peers, would have no relations in the Oberlin Fraters Bank. Such factors and speculators are far too common for you. So that money had to come from Edevane, and no doubt you took your share before passing it to me.
Edevane planned to have me and Floria arrested somewhere on the trip from Howel to Bretlynton Head, or even on my ship Sovereign. He would recover the money and have proof of treason. But it was not Marcella’s journey to Kellhurst that was intended to mislead, but your voyage to Bretlynton Head. Edevane would set his trap in the wrong place. Once you were safely away, Floria and I were away on horseback to Longfirth.
It was no accident that we met Able there, for though I told you the pinnace was about to sail, I had secretly sent instructions for it to wait for me. And Sovereign did not leave Bretlynton Head by accident, for that also happened on my orders.
I knew that my letters were being read, and that meant I could post false messages with the knowledge that they would be read by Edevane, while sending my real instructions by private messengers. My groom Oscar, for one, or Boatswain Lepalik, traveling as a guest of one of the barge-captains on the Dordelle.
Nor was it an accident that Able met Sovereign in the Sea of Duisland. They were meant to convoy together, along with my privateer Ostra, which missed the rendezvous but joined us in Selford later. All will form part of the fleet that will soon set out for the conquest of Bonille.
And are you as amused as I at the thought of Edevane frantically searching the islands of Lake Howel for the chests of silver that I told you were sunken there, and which he foolishly let slip from his possession and which he will desperately need to pay his own troops? For I never did such a witless thing. When the chests were carried into Rackheath House, they were met by officers of the Bank of Innismore, who counted the contents and carried them away to their own strong-room. Parkins, Edevane’s informer in my household, had been sent away on an errand to buy wine and was unaware of the transaction. I had the letter of credit in my doublet all the way to Selford, and as soon as I arrived here, I arranged to collect my fortune from the bank.
For you see, my poverty was a pretense. I sold my cargoes and my gems for good money, but I complained to you and to Edevane that I was without funds, all in hopes that you would cash Sir Basil’s bill, provide me with money to aid Floria’s cause, and thereby prove that you are false. And so it has all come about, just as I planned.
I have been accused of preening and vanity, but I think in this case the charge is justified.
Ah mistress, you are unsettled. You are pale, and your trembling has not ceased. Are you perhaps anticipating the crudities of the interrogators, the tall black candles of the Siege Royal, the grim hemp dangling from the scaffold?
I will save you all that. If you will look under the pillow to your left, you will find your passport and a little money. Two of the Yeoman Archers wait outside to take you to Innismore and a ship. There you will be held until Floria’s army departs, after which the ship will take you to sun-kissed Varcellos. You will be put ashore there, and after that you may go anywhere you like.
I do not necessarily recommend that you go to Howel. By the time you arrive, the capital may have fallen, and Edevane been put to flight, or in a cell at Murkdale Hags. And even if he still inhabits that snug little office, I do not know with what charity he will view an agent who has so completely failed.
I suppose I may be criticized for this mercy. They will call me sentimental. After all, you did your best to see me hanged.
Yet despite your treachery, I do not wish you dead, only out of my sight for all time. So let me rise and open the door, and introduce you to the sentries who will see you to your new lodging.