Kosh was already on the upper tier, in huddled, whispered conversation with Matil in the shadow of a wide stone archway leading onto the gantry, long curtains curling at their feet in the reflected breeze. She barely acknowledged their presence when the seneschal led them out from the stairway, although the scowl that rode Matil’s features at her sight of Loveless was unmissable.
Chel caught up with Tarfel as he hovered uncertain, awaiting the Keeper’s arrival. ‘Tarf, was it true what Loveless said back there? About not being sure you want to challenge your brother?’
Guilt overrode the prince’s expression, his cheeks flushed, and he swallowed. ‘Ah, well, Vedren, if I were completely honest …’
‘Of course you can be honest with me, Tarf.’
‘… then I would say that, on some level, I have some doubts about our course of action.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well …’ he swallowed again, looked up at the rainbow-lit ceiling far above. ‘Am I fit to rule? I’ve tried to be decisive, assert myself, and that disaster at the Bridge House was the result. How can I challenge my brother for a kingdom I couldn’t summon the strength to master?’
‘One mistake, one accident, Tarf—’
‘I’ve sold the southern coast to a pack of reavers, pushed the free cities into chaos and insurrection, and come within a gnat’s chuff of surrendering dominion over the territories. Half the kingdom is in uproar while my brother chases after me with his armies, leaving ruin in his wake. Might it …’ He squinted, rubbed at one eye, and his voice dropped. ‘Might it not be simpler if we just let him win? Surely it would be a more peaceful outcome than what’s ahead?’
Chel moved himself into the prince’s eyeline, met his wavering, watery gaze. ‘We’re doing the right thing, highness. We do it because we must. You know Corvel won’t stop unless someone makes him. That someone is you.’
The prince nodded, a faint smile on his lips. ‘Yes, yes. Right you are, Vedren. The right thing. Thank you.’ He seemed to stand a little taller.
‘I’ll be with you all the way, Tarf. Father always said a problem shared is a problem halved.’
‘How true.’ The prince’s smile crinkled. ‘Reckon we could find forty or fifty thousand others to share this one with?’
A crack and groan from the gallery’s far end signalled the opening of the grand doors and the Keeper’s imminent arrival. Matil’s face lost all expression, and she stood tall and stiff, leaving Kosh gabbling to her chest. She had eyes only for her mother, as the Keeper swept into the room in a torrent of swishing silk, flanked by flunkies and censer-swinging ascetics.
Lemon was at the back of the assembly, looking uncomfortable. Chel joined her. ‘Loveless had plenty to say on this place,’ he murmured.
‘Aye, I was right, wasn’t I? There’s history there.’
‘What dark scheming do you think she was referring to?’
‘Aye, well, probably relating to the current political cloud in this here juncture, vis-a-vis succession.’
‘What?’
Lemon sighed in expansive disappointment, although Chel saw the corners of her mouth lift as she did so. ‘Her radiance, Exalted Hayal, has yet to name a successor for the Keeper-ship. Keeper-dom? Keeper-age. Hence a substantial volume of political jockeying for her favour.’ She indicated the assembled worthies who bowed and scraped at the Keeper’s approach.
‘Surely Matil is in line for succession? Is that not how it works here?’
‘Yes and no, wee bear. While she’s indeed currently on the hook for it, she’s more of a – what’s the word? – a place-holder.’
‘She’d refuse it, or something?’
‘Oh no, she won’t be offered, come the time of naming. Sounds like the old girl is just dragging the whole thing out for the spectacle, loves to see the body politic scrap and connive.’
Chel clicked his tongue. ‘Another succession drama looms? We’re getting to be connoisseurs.’
‘Aye, well, hardly a surprise, is it? You go round basing your systems of government on who fell out of whose bits, you’re going to come a cropper sooner or later. The whole notion’s inherently precarious. Now, if it’s good breeding you want, come the season in Clyden—’
‘You think Loveless is worried she’ll be dragged into it?’
They watched one long-moustached lord elbow another discreetly out of the way as the Keeper approached, then present an ostentatious bow as she passed.
‘Aye, I’d say so. Ach, I’ve no patience for more of this, wee bear. Catch me up later, I’m off to find some grub.’ With that she swaggered for the door.
The head seneschal bade the prince recline on a cushion-packed dais, while the Keeper arranged herself neatly opposite. The retinues stood behind their principals, hovering uneasy. Platters of fruit appeared before them, apricots, plums, pomegranates, and grapes, borne past by indifferent servants with fixed and dark expressions. A third space remained clear to the Keeper’s right, and she scanned the assembled group, looking for someone. Chel saw Loveless slide behind Foss and out of the old woman’s eyeline. The place remained empty. Matil was not invited to sit.
The Keeper did not eat, it seemed, but she stared hard at Tarfel until he caved in and picked up a plum to chew. It was far too juicy for polite consumption, and all present pretended to ignore the squirting dribbles of syrup that soon coated the prince’s hands and chin.
‘The message is delivered,’ the Keeper said. ‘The rabble at the Stop will now either depart, or be destroyed.’
‘Exalted Hayal,’ Tarfel said through a mouthful of plum, ‘I must once more impress caution – the forces that pursue us are of singular construction, an amalgam of church and crown, mercenary and fanatic. My brother is building armies for conquest, for empire. They have stolen the alchemy of the Norts, as our own alchemist can attest—’
From the corner came a quiet hiss: ‘Engineer!’
‘—and I’d not be surprised if half the folk on your doorstep weren’t victims of this latest aggression in one form or another.’
The Keeper watched, aloof, cold as marble. ‘Do you fear war, highness?’
‘Do I … Well, yes, I suppose I do. The provinces have suffered two decades of it, on and off. I think we could all do with some peace, eh?’ He offered a weak smile, but the Keeper made no acknowledgement. Instead, she nodded, once, as if marking off a task completed.
‘Indeed, a ruler should care for her people. What is a ruler, after all, but a custodian? Am I not the Keeper of my people, their lands and possessions?’
Tarfel paused, trying to judge the question’s rhetoricity. ‘You are,’ he said at length.
‘But you must not fear war, highness. War is the cleansing fire, scouring the dead wood, leaving the ground clear for fresh growth. It is a judgement on the righteous, on the worth of a kingdom, a people, a ruler.’
‘I’m not sure I—’
‘Highness, if you cannot win a war, then what can you offer your people?’
‘Isn’t there more to—’
‘Your father, Gods rest him, as example. His father, Gods rest him, had won the wars in the south, made himself king, but it was your father who made the lands his own. He saw what he wanted, what he needed, and what the kingdom needed with it. And he took it. He was not afraid of war.’
‘Exalted, what do you mean? What did he and the kingdom need?’
She paused to take a small sip of rosewater, and Chel noticed the slightest tremble in her hand. ‘Heirs, highness. Without succession, a ruler is … precarious. The people deserve clarity, expectation. Uncertainty breeds …’ She paused again. ‘Bad thinking.’
Tarfel said nothing, waiting for her to continue. The plum juice was a sticky glaze on his hand.
‘Your father ruled, but without successors, or prospects, even to his middle years. When the gods showed him his chance, he took it. He did what was necessary.’
‘Are you talking about …?’
‘Your mother, yes. She was already married to another, a lord of the eastern province, but when he saw her, he knew she was the answer. She was of Horvaun blood, like him – how else would you and your brother be such pale and golden lions? – and of fertile age. Your father and Vassad made a pact, and a day later the lord of the east was denounced as a heretic, his lands and titles forfeit. When he resisted, he was put down. Your father had no fear of war, and the kingdom was stronger for his actions.’
Tarfel was staring at the old woman, fibrous plum stone held immobile in one hand. ‘How do you know all this? Exalted.’
Her eyes were dark pools in the shade of the gallery. ‘Because I witnessed it. Arowan was party to the pact, if only as a neutral observer. We would not intervene, but would defend our lands with tenacity. That pact has held to this day, although it seems your brother has forgotten it.’
A skivvy signalled something from the gantry, and the old woman fussed herself to her feet, waving away the offers of assistance. Tarfel stared at the hollow cushions where she’d been sitting.
‘Wait, Exalted, wait. My mother,’ he said, voice tight, ‘was she content in her marriage? To the eastern lord? Was she happy to marry my father instead?’
The Keeper paused, two swishing steps toward the gantry. ‘I cannot speak for her thoughts, Gods rest her, but her suicide would suggest that she was not.’
Tarfel rocked in his seat, as if with a roll of muscular spasm. ‘My mother died in childbirth—’
‘Your mother died three summers after your birth, in a fall from her tower window. Surely you have some memory of her?’ Tarfel stared back, mute, blank. ‘I understand that this information was suppressed – her servants went to the tomb alongside her – but you must have heard rumours since? Mine were not the only spies in your father’s court.’ The Keeper shuffled on toward the gantry, leaving the prince stricken on the cushions, his eyes filling with tears.
‘You see?’ Chel heard Loveless mutter to Foss. ‘It was about sex. It’s always about sex.’ She turned to leave, and Foss went with her.
On the gantry, at the balustrade, stood an odd device, a long, wide tube of brass or burnished metal on a multi-legged stand, pointing out over the plateau toward the mountain pass. Kosh was on it immediately, inspecting, scrutinising. Matil was beside her, murmuring something of rock crystals and convex ground glass, before the Keeper swept her away with a fierce glance. She barked at the flunky beside the device, who responded with stammering unease.
‘Your brother’s army has refused our request to depart,’ the Keeper announced. Matil looked pained at the news. ‘They are, once again, demanding you, highness. Have you a wish to go to them?’
Tarfel stood, alone, in the archway, eyes red and stung with tears, hand still sticky with fruit juice. He shook his head.
The Keeper nodded, then barked another command at the flunkies. Matil took a step toward her mother, then stopped and turned away, shame-faced. Above them, signalling flags rolled from the tower, great splashes of coloured silk, bold and patterned. Red had primacy once more. Beyond the balustrade, over the lower buildings of the city, the walls, the gorge, the camp-stuffed plateau, Chel could make out the hazy tips of the fortress towers, their own signal flags bare specks against the sun-washed stone.
Chel sidled close to the prince, mindful of his fragility.
‘Don’t worry, Tarf,’ he said, ‘she might be old but she has no way of knowing—’
‘I remember her, Vedren.’ He was still holding the plum stone, turning it over and over in his palm. ‘I remember … love. Kindness. Sadness. A presence, golden and wonderful. Then a terrible absence. I remember it, but until now I had no measure, no means. I remember her.’ He looked up, meeting Chel’s gaze with fearful melancholy, a raw longing that made Chel’s soul ache. ‘What do I do? What can I do?’ He swallowed. ‘Does my brother know? Why did he never tell me? Am I so little a part of my family?’
Chel had nothing to offer. He opened and closed his mouth, chewed at his lip, and the prince’s gaze fell back to the plum stone. Chel’s joined it. In the distance came the sound of drums and discordant horns, fighting valiantly against the wind across the plateau.
The earth shook. Chel thought he heard a crack over the rush of the wind, a sound like something huge snapping in half. Another tremor followed, then another, a gentle rumble beneath their feet, the slightest rattle from the platters of fruit on the low table beyond the arch. Chel and Tarfel exchanged anxious looks, the prince’s pain forgotten, each turning to the balcony.
‘Could it be—’
‘Witchfire!’
Kosh was already at the rail, Matil at her side. ‘Smoke!’
The Keeper had not moved, although deep lines furrowed her paper-thin brow. She muttered something to an attendant, who fussed his way to Matil’s side and to the tubular device at the rail. Chel could see the smoke now, black and rising, and a wafting pale cloud that intertwined its base. It came from the pass.
‘What in hells—?’
On the plateau, awareness was spreading like flame. Chel could see the eddies of hurrying figures, little more than dark blurs through the haze, stripped of sound by the flap of the wind. Spurts of activity flared around the camps, small at first, then spreading outwards until a full-fledged stampede was in progress. The gleam of armour drew Chel’s attention to the ring of watchtowers before the gorge; the guards were abandoning their posts, making for the great bridge over the divide.
The Keeper barked again, and the flunky at the tube yelled something back over the growing murmurs on the gallery. Chel could hear bells tolling around the city, increasing in number, and felt a familiar sick panic swelling in his chest. This had happened too many times.
‘What’s happening?’ he called toward Kosh and Matil. Was that screaming from the plateau? ‘What’s he saying?’
The smoke was thick now, a dark column like a wedged shaft of night, around it a blooming yellowish fog, spreading out from the pass, clogging the neck of the plateau. Matil turned toward him, but her gaze was still toward the pass, toward the smog obscuring the fortress.
‘He can’t see the signals from the fort. The smoke and dust are too thick.’
Urgent bells were all around them now, panic had taken the city and its towers. The passage to the bridge was choked with fleeing guards and those escaping the camps, fighting to get across toward the sanctuary of the city.
Messengers appeared at the gallery’s arch, first a couple, then half a dozen, each panting and wide-eyed. They clamoured their indecipherable reports over each other, struggling to be heard. The Keeper remained unmoved, the lines on her face the ancient furrows of a petrified tree. Then she spoke a single command. From the hush that followed, Chel read shock on the faces of those present, then the messengers bolted, disappearing back into the darkness whence they’d come.
He and the prince turned back toward Matil and Kosh, eyes searching for explanation. Matil stood as stiff as her mother, one hand on the rail.
‘What—’
‘To close the city gates,’ she said.
Already the cries and bellows from beneath were reaching them, their passion and fury carrying them above the wind. Traffic on the bridge had stalled, with half the camps yet to reach it, struggling away from whatever lurked in the pass.
‘That’s madness! They’ll crush each other! You can’t just shut them out!’
‘The Keeper has spoken.’
The man at the tube yelled again, his eye pressed to its aperture.
‘Still I cannot see the signals,’ Matil translated automatically.
Chel squinted out toward the bleached bulk of the mountain pass. ‘The dust is clearing, even if the smoke lingers. Surely they’re visible now?’
The man yelled again, his voice ragged with hysteria.
‘I cannot see the signals. I cannot see the towers.
‘The towers are gone.
‘The fortress is gone.’
The balcony exploded in shouts as retainers and stewards blustered and screeched, while Matil stood very still at the rail. Chel felt numb, noticing only very distantly Kosh’s hand on the tall woman’s arm, the look of concern in her wide black eyes. He turned back toward Tarfel, whose ghostly pallor had returned, then in the midst of the chaos, from the corner of his eye he saw the Keeper falter. She took half a step to one side, staring at one of her hands in apparent disbelief, then her mouth began to droop in the most peculiar fashion. Despite the bedlam encircling her, Chel felt like he was the only person watching her as she wobbled on her feet, closed her eyes and collapsed to the stone.