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Anne was still asleep, curled up in a chair, clutching an empty wine bottle, robe hanging open. Broderick was sober, and he hadn’t been able to sleep. He’d spent the whole night pacing from one end of her apartment to the other. Things had gone from bad to worse over the last few days, and he wished he could seek forgetfulness in alcohol the way Anne did. But he had to face reality.
First, the Immani had decided they would continue to support Edwin. Then the Sahasran and Odelandic ambassadors had said the same thing. Maybe Lukas would be able to convince his cousin, King Galt, to back Broderick’s claim, but then again, maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe Galt would decide it was more important for Annenstruk to keep good relations with the other nations of the Trahernian region.
As for the Gemot, it was still in adjournment. The chancellor was stringing things out for as long as possible, using different procedural tricks and establishing “working committees” to study the claims of each possible king individually. He was doing it to help his niece, the queen, of course, but Broderick now believed the chancellor was doing him a favor. He didn’t know whether enough nobles remained in the city to achieve a quorum. More and more of the invitations to Anne’s and Muriel’s parties came back unopened, and there were rumors in the marketplace of more troops on the move now, in Newshire and Keelshire and Trahernshire.
It wasn’t just the nobles who were leaving. Caedmon Aldred disappeared for days at a time. Normally that would have been cause for joy in Broderick’s opinion, but one of Colonel Rath’s scouts had spotted the famous hillichmagnar riding in the countryside to the northwest, in the direction of Stansted. When Broderick had asked Lady Jorunn about Aldred’s travels, her ladyship had gotten a bit evasive, and he had a bad feeling Aldred was offering his services to the Sigors.
Finster’s Book might promise that the “Black Eagle” would rise, but if that was true, Broderick was curious to know how it would happen. Again and again, from foreign diplomats and Myrcian nobles alike, he heard the same refrain: “As long as Edwin is still alive, it’s very difficult to support you.”
As long as Edwin was alive.
Frightening, how quickly he’d been driven to this extremity. Only a few days earlier, he’d thought this was merely a precaution, a backup plan in case everything went wrong. But now everything was going wrong, and he had no reason to think things would get better anytime soon. He had run out of safer options.
He left Anne’s parlor and went downstairs to his own apartment, where he unlocked a small wooden chest and drew out a thin, needle-like dagger and a bottle of oily green liquid. He slipped them both into his pockets and woke Squire Kevin.
“I need you to go find Sir William Aitken. Tell him to come up here to the castle at noon and meet me in the upper cellars, down where the pumps and the boilers and the water tanks are. He’ll know the spot.”
Kevin rubbed his eyes and yawned, but he was a good squire, and he obeyed without asking any of the obvious questions, like, “What should I tell him if he asks me what it’s about?” or “Have you gone mad, sir?”
Broderick didn’t think he’d gone mad, but then again, madmen never did. He remembered visiting mad Queen Merewyn in her final captivity, and she had been mercifully unaware of the fact that she had killed her own son, or that Broderick had been the one who had manipulated her into doing it. Maybe that was happening to him now—he was losing his grip on reality. There would be a certain poetic justice in that. Still, he couldn’t think of anything else he could do.
When Kevin was gone, Broderick went to his own bed and tried to sleep, but he kept thinking about the Gemot and all the ways everything could get worse for him. So he went to his office in the barracks and re-read all the reports from Rath’s spies and scouts. This didn’t improve his mood, but at least he felt he was doing something productive with his morning.
Just before noon, he went back to the palace. After checking that no one was watching, he opened a small hidden door under the southeast grand staircase and slipped into the servants’ corridors. He still remembered the day he’d discovered all these hidden floors and stairways as a boy. The palace staff used them all the time, of course, but many of the residents had no idea they were here. As he headed down into the cellars, he wondered idly if young Edwin had ever found them, or used them to sneak about the place, the way he had. Probably not. The boy wasn’t very bright, to be honest.
On reaching the upper cellars, he made his way past the storerooms and into the central chamber, right under the Palm Court, where all the great machinery was located that kept the palace working. Few people ever saw these rooms, but to those who knew about them, they were far more marvelous than the Palm Court or the great glass dome or the four soaring towers. There were cooling tanks and boilers and vast reservoirs and pumps here, built hundreds of years before by Caedmon Aldred and Faustinus and the other hillichmagnars.
The system churned and chugged away, day and night, keeping the air warm and moist in the Palm Court, but cool and dry in the library. It powered the four thundering waterfalls and the fountain, but it also siphoned the condensation from the dome in tiny pipes barely larger than a pencil, bringing the water back down through the walls to the tanks, where it started its journey all over again. Every apartment in the palace had hot baths on demand—all one had to do was open the right valve. And people who lived here came to accept that as normal without bothering to wonder how it happened. In the hottest part of the summer, the palace stayed cool thanks to the machinery here, and in the coldest days of winter, the rooms stayed warm.
Most residents didn’t even know the fireplaces in their rooms were superfluous—an affectation some early chancellor had insisted upon because his tiny mind couldn’t comprehend the beauty of what the sorcerers had built here.
Broderick loved the place.
In the very center, between the huge storage tanks, amid clouds of steam and streaming condensation, stood the main pump tower, all gleaming brass and polished steel. And that was where Broderick found William. They had met here before, once or twice, because the sound of the pump—a reverberating, clockwork thumping—made eavesdropping absolutely impossible.
William stepped out of the deeper shadows in that disconcerting way of his, and bowed. “You asked to see me, my lord.”
“Yes. You probably know the last few days have been rather trying for me. It seems the Immani—and pretty much everyone else—refuse to even consider recognizing me as king as long as Edwin is alive.”
“Is that so, my lord? Most unfortunate.”
“In two days my wife will be having another of her parties. I will see to it that Rath removes his guards from around the royal apartments.” Broderick took out the knife and the little bottle of poison. “Concentrated aconite and yew extract,” he said, handing them to William.
He didn’t bother explaining how the thick liquid should be spread on the slim point of the dagger, or how it only needed the barest pinprick in the skin. It would have been condescending to lecture a master craftsman about the tools of his own trade.
William slipped the sheathed dagger into his belt and held the poison up to the dull light of the safety lamps, frowning at it. “And what exactly did you want me to do with this, sir?”
“There’s an obstacle in my way. I wish to have that obstacle removed.”
“Sir?”
Broderick crossed his arms. “Are you really going to make me spell this out?”
“I think it would be best, sir. It would be unfortunate if I mistook your exact intentions.”
“I want you to kill Edwin Sigor.”
William stared at him, his long, rodent face growing longer, and then he said, “He’s an 8-year-old boy, my lord.”
“He’s an 8-year-old boy who’s sitting on my throne. Blast it all, William, I don’t have time for you to suddenly develop a conscience. The Sigors have run their course. Another weak king will be a disaster for this country. You know what has to be done. Now go do it.”
For a few seconds longer, William stood there, eyes going from Broderick to the poison and back again. Then he pocketed the vial and bowed. “Very good, my lord.” He turned on his heel and vanished into the steam and shadows again.
“Of all the damned nonsense,” fumed Broderick, as he went back up the servants’ stairs. Any fool could see Edwin needed to go. But for William Aitken, of all people, to balk at doing it was absurd. The man had no room to be self-righteous. He’d done far worse things than this, and with much less cause. How utterly ridiculous. Broderick wasn’t simply annoyed. He was ashamed for the man, the same as if William had pissed himself in public or admitted a fondness for farm animals.
Ah well. At least he had agreed to do it. But this had better not be the start of a trend. Different tools for different jobs, and if one tool stopped working right, it would have to be replaced.
When Broderick got back up to the ground floor, he headed through the Palm Court, intending to go over to the barracks and talk to Colonel Rath about the guard assignments for Friday. He was stopped, however, when his wife called out to him, and he went over to find Muriel seated by one of the waterfalls with Princess Elwyn, of all people. They weren’t actually becoming friends now, were they? Muriel certainly had taken the girl under her wing.
No, on second thought, friendship might be a bit much to ask. As he got closer, he saw that both women were angry.
“Our daughter-to-be,” said Muriel, “is experiencing second thoughts.”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it,” grumbled Elwyn. “But I’m not going to lie about what’s going on.”
It took him a few exasperating minutes, but he eventually got the story out of them. Apparently they had had lunch with the Bishop of Formacaster—the man who would be performing the wedding—and Elwyn had let slip that she didn’t feel even the slightest affection toward Young Broderick. This had shocked the cleric, and he had counseled her to “do some serious thinking before committing to an irreversible course.”
Broderick rubbed his eyes. Was it his fate to be surrounded by fools today? “Elwyn, my dear cousin, you don’t have to love my son. You just have to pretend you do for a few days.”
She crossed her arms. “Really? And then it’s all over, is it? What about the rest of my life?”
“The rest of your life is your own,” said Muriel, throwing up her hands. “Or at least most of it will be. Look at me and Broderick.”
Elwyn looked revolted. “You mean you want me to cheat on your son?”
Broderick sat down on the girl’s other side. “That’s up to you. As I told both our children when they were old enough to understand sex, I only expect them to avoid causing a scandal and to make sure they don’t bring any bastards into the world.”
“Yes, we’ve got quite enough of those already,” muttered Elwyn.
He ignored the insult, though he would remember it later, stored away with all the other insolence he’d been forced to put up with from this girl.
“Produce an heir,” he said, “and then you can do whatever you want. You can do whatever you want now, for all I care, provided you’re discreet about it.”
Elwyn’s face turned an even deeper shade of red, her eyes fell, and she kneaded her hands together nervously. Interesting. Had he hit upon a secret there? Did the girl already have a lover? He would have to find out, though that could wait for another day.
Eventually, in a quiet voice, she said, “What do I get in return for doing this?”
“You’ll be queen someday,” said Muriel. “I should think that was obvious.”
“No, I mean what about my family?” said Elwyn, her voice stronger now. “What happens to them the day after the wedding? I think it’s time we were completely clear about this.”
“There will be plenty of opportunities later to—” Muriel started to say.
But Broderick interrupted her, looking Elwyn straight in the eye. “They will be permitted to go into retirement in the countryside. The Summer Palace, perhaps. Or one of your family’s estates in Newshire. I will even allow Rohesia to choose.”
“And they’ll be safe? My brother will be safe?”
“Absolutely. You have my word.”