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The look on the Duke of Leornian’s face had been priceless. Broderick leaned back in the creaking old chair and smiled as he thought of it. Caedmon Aldred had been virtually speechless, too, which probably hadn’t happened in centuries.
Ah, it had been a thing of beauty—the Lord Chancellor himself, Rohesia’s own uncle, making the motion for a Gemot. How could anyone object? Broderick and Lukas hadn’t even had to say a single word. They had just sat there, not daring to look at each other’s eyes for fear they would burst out laughing, and then had raised their hands to join in the landslide vote.
But that was all in the past now. It had been a brilliant victory, but it was only a first step. A tiny step, really. Broderick yawned, rubbed his eyes, and went back to studying the ledgers. An astonishing amount of money was required to keep a few thousand men patrolling the streets of a city. Broderick was the captain general, and he had commanded armies for years, and even so, it never ceased to amaze him how much it cost.
The truth was he didn’t have the money. So he had spent the morning in his office at the guard barracks writing IOUs—solemnly worded promises that the Myrcian crown would pay people eventually. The letters weren’t a complete lie. Broderick figured in a week or two he would go see Baron Quigley, the Lord High Treasurer, and wring some money out of him. Or even better, he would send William to deal with the man. But that couldn’t go on forever. It was simple math. The city had to be opened up, if only so the king’s government could start collecting tolls and taxes again.
He called in Kevin Halifax, his elder squire, and told him to go find Colonel Rath. “We’re going to need to make some changes,” Broderick said.
Kevin bowed and sprinted eagerly off. He was the son and heir of the Duke of Haydonshire, and he was a good boy. Not particularly bright or imaginative, but those weren’t qualities a man needed in a squire, anyway.
Not even half a minute later, Kevin was back, wearing a bemused grin. “My lord, Colonel Rath is already here. He says he needs to speak to you.”
“Show him in,” Broderick said. He had a sinking feeling, like he was about to sign a lot more IOUs.
But Rath wasn’t there to beg for money. He had one of his cavalry scouts with him, a former highwayman with the dreadful name of Ned Slorcus, who could have given William Aitken lessons in looking shifty and sinister.
“You’ll want to hear this, my lord,” said Rath. “Ned here was up north by Hamstowe, where he was, um...soliciting contributions to the crown. Anyway, well, tell his lordship what you saw, Ned.”
“An army, my lord. Well, not an army quite yet. But armed men making camp, and a lot of them.”
Broderick set down his quill. “Whose men?”
“Some of them are from Wislicshire, my lord. A few are from Newshire, with the banner of the Earl of Wellenham. And there’s all those fellows who serve the Earl of Stansted and should have gone home, but didn’t. But most of them have the arms of the queen’s brother, the Earl of Hyrne.”
“How many are there?” Broderick asked.
“I counted four companies. Say, about five hundred men. But more are arriving all the time, apparently. And, my lord, they’re all talking about you.”
“About me? Why?”
“They’re saying this Gemot is a trick by you to undermine the queen, my lord. They say they’re going to march on Formacaster if you replace her as regent.” Ned Slorcus bobbed his head. “Sorry, my lord, but that’s what they’re saying.”
Broderick let out a burst of laughter and punched the air. Holy Finster, was the Earl of Hyrne really so stupid? He couldn’t have given Broderick a better present if he had tried. Gathering a private army, threatening to attack the capital—those were acts of treason!
He dug in his pocket and found a half-Sovereign, which he gave to Ned Slorcus, who seemed amazed at such good fortune. Then he called Kevin back in, along with Stanley Ostensen, his other squire, who was considerably smarter than Kevin. He had Slorcus repeat his story, and then said, “I want you to go up and down Hafoc Street, boys. I want everyone who’s anyone to know the Earl of Hyrne and the Earl of Wellenham are gathering men up by Hamstowe.”
Kevin twisted his hands together. “Just that, my lord? Nothing else?”
“Well, don’t drop it on their heads like a brick, Kevin,” said Broderick. “Try to work it into the conversation naturally.” Then he pointed to Slorcus. “You. I want you to take that money and hit every tavern, inn, and wine shop in the city. Tell everyone there, too.”
“With pleasure, my lord,” said Slorcus, licking his lips greedily.
Broderick gave the news a few hours to spread around the city, and then he went down to Hafoc Street himself, where he paid a visit to Ralph Kinnaird, the Bishop of Leornian.
His grace was in his garden, planting tulip bulbs, and they sat together on the edge of a little fountain with a bucket of potting soil between them. “I suppose you’ve heard the rumors,” Broderick ventured.
The bishop had, and he was properly shocked. “I don’t know what the world is coming to,” he said sadly.
“You know...,” Broderick looked at him from the corner of his eye, “they say one of the leaders is the Earl of Wellenham.”
The bishop was a very smart man, and he caught the allusion instantly. Almost forty years earlier, a previous Earl of Wellenham named Fransis Sigor, and his lover, the Queen of Myrcia, had tried to overthrow Broderick’s father, King Ethelred. The rebellion had failed, Fransis had been executed, and Queen Merewyn had spent most of the rest of her life locked in a tower. But even in death, Fransis had changed the course of Myrcian history. And he’d inadvertently changed the course of Broderick’s life, too. Fransis was a member of the Sigor dynasty, like the king, and after the attempted coup, Ethelred had never really trusted his Sigor relations again. Which was how Broderick had ended up on the privy council and gotten the job of captain general.
More to the immediate point, the earldom of Wellenham—the courtesy title for the heir to the Duchy of Newshire—had become a byword for treason for a generation of Myrcians. It was almost too perfect that the current earl’s men were among those gathering around Hamstowe. Broderick would have gladly paid them to do it, if they hadn’t already been doing it themselves. And in real gold, too—not IOUs.
“The Earl of Wellenham,” sighed the bishop. “Not again. I hate to say it, but I don’t think a lot of the nobles respect our new king. Or his regent.”
“What we need,” said Broderick, “is someone the nobles fear.”
“Like you, for instance.” The bishop turned and trailed a mud-stained hand in the water of his fountain. “Don’t tell anyone I said this, or I’ll deny it, but I’ve always thought it’s a damned shame you couldn’t inherit the throne.”
Broderick had long known the bishop felt that way, which was the main reason he was here and had campaigned for the man to get his current position. “Oh, Earstien knows I don’t want the crown,” he laughed. Then, letting his smile fade, he said, “We wouldn’t have to do it for real, you know.”
“Do what for real?”
“Look, as I say, I don’t want to be king. But if people thought I might be—if people thought the captain general of Myrcia was going to be king—then they’d get in line pretty quick, don’t you think? The threat of it would be enough.”
“But for the threat to be credible, you’d have to have a legitimate claim,” said the bishop.
There was silence for a minute. Broderick didn’t dare speak. He was waiting for the bishop to get there on his own. And sure enough, his grace’s brow furrowed, and then he spoke again.
“It’s never been very common, you know, but in Annenstruk there was once an old legal procedure that allowed a son to be retroactively legitimized, even when both his parents were dead.”
“Ah, yes. I remember hearing about that. I’d quite forgotten.” He hadn’t forgotten at all. Years earlier, back before Edgar had remarried and produced an heir, there had been some brief discussion of the idea, thanks to a monograph written by three legal scholars at the university, who had been quietly rewarded by Broderick for their efforts.
“We’d need an official ruling of canon law stating that we could do that for you. And if we did—not that we’ll do it for real, as you say—but if we did, that would make you the king.”
“But who could issue such a ruling?” Broderick said, in his most innocent tones.
The bishop grinned. “Well, I do happen to be the head of the Leafa Church, you know.”
Early the following morning, an emergency session of the privy council was called to discuss the troops gathering at Hamstowe. The Earl of Hyrne denied everything, which was possibly the stupidest thing he could have done. By now there were independent reports about the army camps from people other than Ned Slorcus, and the earl’s repeated denials made him look more guilty. There was a quick and heavily lopsided vote to condemn “private armies and treasonous plots,” and then the Bishop of Leornian produced his legal opinion about legitimizing Broderick.
The Earl of Hyrne and the Earl of Stansted, who were already furious over losing the previous vote, exploded with rage. Which, again, was a very stupid thing to do. The Lord Chancellor shouted for order, and Caedmon Aldred looked as if he was ready to cast a spell to separate people if swords were drawn.
“This is a coup!” screamed the Earl of Hyrne, pointing a shaking finger at Broderick. “You’re trying to overthrow the king!”
Broderick didn’t say a word. He let the bishop talk, and his grace did an excellent job of selling what he thought was a ruse. Glowering at Hyrne, he said that clearly some noblemen didn’t properly respect the young king, and if they didn’t listen to reason, there might be a new king who could make them listen.
The Earl of Stansted quieted down a bit after that, but the Earl of Hyrne jumped to his feet and stormed out of the council chamber, calling over his shoulder, “The queen regent can make and unmake councilors, you know. There are going to be some fucking changes around here!”
Broderick shook his head sadly, and joined most of the other councilors in deploring such rude and ungentlemanly behavior. “I honestly don’t want to be king,” he assured everyone.
“I hope not,” said Lord Aldred, drumming his fingers on the table. “The last thing we need, Lord Gramiren, is a civil war.”
“I heartily agree,” said Broderick.
The meeting ended soon thereafter, and Broderick took Lukas aside. “We’ve got more work to do. Come upstairs with me.”
The earl’s threat to have them removed from the council was as good as a declaration of war, as far as Broderick was concerned. They got some ink and scratch parchment, and they went to work on a letter. Lukas wasn’t even slightly surprised when Broderick told him what it would be about. In fact, he laughed, slapping his knee and saying, “You know, if it were true, I would like the woman more.”
They went through three drafts before they hit on the proper wording, but the letter still didn’t look quite right. Lukas spotted the problem: “It’s obviously your handwriting. And even if someone didn’t know how you write, it still looks like a man wrote it.”
Muriel was out—probably having one of her little meetings with Pedr Byrne—so Broderick and Lukas went upstairs to Anne Meriwether’s room. “We have a favor to ask you,” Broderick said.
She gave him a wicked little grin and looked them both up and down with undisguised interest. “I’m entirely at your disposal, gentlemen. All of me, or any part of me you want.”
“Not today, my dear,” said Lukas, chuckling. “What we need from you is your hand. Your fine, delicate lady’s hand.”
They showed her the letter, and she spent several minutes reading it over, frowning intently. She spent long enough, in fact, that Lukas started to look nervous, no doubt wondering if she would have an attack of conscience. But Broderick knew his girl better than that.
Anne set the letter aside. “If this is supposed to be from Lady Follerberg,” she said, “then clearly neither of you knew her very well. This doesn’t sound like her at all.”
“Oh?” said Broderick. “How so?”
“The vocabulary is all wrong. She never would have said things like, ‘I can no longer equivocate,’ or used a term like ‘questionable associations.’ She was a lot more direct.” Anne’s expression turned wistful. “She was a lot of fun, actually.”
“Feel free to rewrite it if you think you can do better,” said Lukas.
“Oh, I can,” she said, “and I will. Fetch me a quill and some ink, your grace.”