Shiballe tried to have the other Knights arrest Parrick, or Sir Jairn as he was calling himself these days, and that put us at a bit of a standoff at first. But most of these men had served with “Sir Jairn,” and it turned out he made a terrific Knight-Captain: he’d led the fight in dozens of border skirmishes from the front, risking his own life right alongside his fellow Knights.
And Shiballe was clearly loathed; he was reviled as a conniving manipulator who plotted intrigues in the shadows, leaving others to fight and bleed for his machinations. Furthermore, Knights believe wholeheartedly in the chain of command—I’m pretty sure it’s bred into them with their mothers’ milk—and Shiballe, despite his dark influence at court, was in no way part of that chain.
In the end Parrick surrendered himself to his Knight-Sergeant, Sir Coratisimo, who agreed with him that it would be better to settle any questions of imprisonment and execution at the palace, once the Duke had had a chance hear these revelations. Parrick was nominally under arrest, but despite Shiballe’s protestations, no one put handcuffs on him.
“It’s a fucking mess, First Cantor,” Parrick said as we walked along the wide marble hallways of the Ducal Palace. “We’ve had reports of problems all around the duchy, even beyond the borders. There are internal complications, too: our Knight-Commander left yesterday with two hundred Knights, apparently to patrol the eastern border.”
“What’s going on at the eastern border?”
“Nothing—as far as I can tell, he left against the Duke’s orders. I know it’s unbelievable, but I’m beginning to suspect that there’s some kind of mutiny going on.”
“What about the north?” I asked. “Has Trin broken through?”
“Duchess Trin has her army stationed in southern Domaris, but she’s still getting hammered in sneak attacks by what’s left of Duke Hadiermo’s forces,” he told us with a grin. “The Duke’s men have formed up in smaller squads and now they’re using really inventive ways to kill off as many of Trin’s men as they can—who would ever have thought that Duke Hadiermo had a mind for tactics? I always thought he was a bit of an idiot.”
But the Tailor had expected Hadiermo’s forces to crumble . . . “I doubt he was responsible,” I said after a moment. “The Tailor’s Greatcoats are likely leading those squads now.”
Parrick frowned. “I’ve heard noises about the Tailor having assembled new Greatcoats. What are they like?”
“Like her,” I said, pointing to Dariana. “Excellent fighters with no conscience whatsoever.”
Dariana smiled. “Now, Falcio, people are going to think you like me if you keep flattering me like this.”
Parrick looked at her. “Not sure how I feel about new Greatcoats. Did the Tailor think there was something wrong with the rest of us?”
“Only that you proved to be completely useless,” Dariana replied. “And given you’ve apparently spent the last five years protecting one of the men who killed your King that, I think, is a bit on the generous side.”
Parrick looked stricken, and I knew it was more than simply having failed the King—after all, we were all guilty of that. But talking to him now, as if he hadn’t stood by and done nothing when—
But no, I wasn’t ready to deal with that yet. “Parrick, what exactly did King Paelis tell you—what was his last order?”
Parrick had trouble meeting my eyes—not that I blamed him; after all, the King had ordered him to keep his final mission a secret, just like he had the rest of us.
“Come on,” I said. “There’s not much point in keeping secrets now.”
“That’s just it, though,” Parrick said. “All he told me was that I should join the Knights of Rijou and guard the Duke’s life—that was it; he didn’t give me any more information than that. And he made me swear to do it, no matter what. I . . . I nearly broke my promise, Falcio, when I saw you here . . . and then, when the Duke went to Pulnam with five hundred men, he ordered me to stay here and keep the peace—otherwise I’m not sure what I would have done.”
“Leave it for now,” I said.
“We’re here.” He pointed at the entrance to the throne room of Rijou. “I hope you have a damned good reason for being here and forcing me to break cover, because I’m fairly sure I’m going to be executed for infiltrating the Ducal Knights of Rijou.”
“As a matter of fact, I do have an excellent reason,” I said. “I’m here to warn Duke Jillard that someone’s planning to assassinate him.”
Parrick stopped dead and looked at me as if I’d just walked into a ballroom completely naked. “Falcio—” He took a deep breath before adding, “Saints, that’s all you’ve got? Someone’s already tried to kill the Duke—we caught the bastard three days ago.”
I looked at the twenty Knights surrounding us and the smirking Shiballe behind them, then into the throne room of the man who’d sworn to see me dead and who now had no reason whatsoever to keep me alive.
Jillard, Duke of Rijou, wasn’t handsome so much as well groomed. Like most wealthy nobles he could afford to keep himself fit, dress in the latest fashions, and remain impeccably coifed. Thanks to a sharp barber and the finest imported oils his black hair and short beard were always well groomed, and today he sported a rich purple robe brocaded with silver and gold. He sat on the throne of Rijou, towering above us as if he were waiting to pass judgment. I suppose he was.
“Well, now that I have you, Falcio val Mond, what shall I do with you?” He played with a gaudy red and gold ring, turning it around and around on his finger, an odd, almost anxious mannerism for a man who could have us killed with a single gesture. “You never come alone, do you? You always bring complications to my door.” He leaned forward and peered at Valiana. “And I see you’ve brought the girl Patriana tried to pass off as my daughter. You look rather plain in that tatty coat, my dear. Shall I have Shiballe bring you a nice dress?”
Valiana gave a slight curtsey. “I’m more comfortable as I am, your Grace.”
“You might find that coat rather confining in the near future,” Jillard said.
Parrick spoke up before I could. “Your Grace, I beg you, listen to Falcio; he’s—”
“Silence, Sir Jairn—or, no, it’s—what? Parrick? Well, whoever you are, you have saved my life, and on more than one occasion, but now I am forced to wonder to what purpose. There is breath instead of blood in your lungs only because I haven’t yet decided whether to behead you as a traitor or hang you as a spy.”
“With all due respect, your Grace,” I said, “I don’t see how you could accuse Parrick of being a spy.”
“No? Shiballe tells me he’s been skulking about under the guise of a Knight here in my home for nearly five years.”
“Yes, your Grace, but in fairness, the King was dead before Parrick arrived, so there wasn’t anyone for him to be spying for, if you see what I mean.”
“And you believe that now is the time to show off your debating skills?” Jillard smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. And yet underneath his smug expression I could have sworn I saw a slight twitch: a tiny flash of discomfort, maybe even fear.
Shiballe rose. “Your Grace, I will summon my personal guards and deal with this traitor.”
“Kneel,” the Duke said. “I think I like you better on your knees right now, Shiballe. I’m not entirely sure what I pay you for but I would have thought it included being able to figure out that one of my Knight-Captains is actually a Trattari.”
The overstuffed worm immediately dropped to the ground, which pleased me.
“Now you,” the Duke said, his eyes on Parrick. “You were one of my best Knights—at least until an hour ago. But despite what you’ve done for me in the past, why should I trust you now that I know you’re a traitor?”
A shadow crossed Parrick’s face. “Was I a traitor when I saved your life three years ago, when the ambassador from Avares tried to stick a knife in your throat? Was I a traitor when I kept you from falling to your death in that canyon when your horse broke its leg?” Parrick turned to look at me, his face sick with guilt. “Was I a traitor when I stood by and watched as you—?”
Jillard rose suddenly from his throne. “And all the while doing it under the orders of a dead tyrant and never out of loyalty to me!”
The memories of my last stay in Rijou sparked a sudden anger in me, and only Kest’s hand on my arm kept me from drawing my rapiers. How could Parrick have served a man like Jillard? How could he have stood by him every day as he carried out one capricious atrocity after another? Why would King Paelis ever have given Parrick such an order? And how could he ever have followed it?
And yet, I realized, Parrick’s actions are exactly what’s going to save us now.
“Your Grace,” I said, “I believe I can give you an overwhelming reason to trust Parrick.”
The Duke sat back down, his eyes still on Parrick. “Really? You think that you of all people can convince me of this Trattari’s loyalty?”
I chose my next words very carefully. “When I was last here in the palace, you sent me to your dungeons. You had your men beat me. You let Patriana . . . you let her do things to me, and to Aline.” I turned to Parrick, feeling almost guilty for what I was about to say. Almost. “You were here that whole time—when the Duke’s men dragged me here in chains, when they took me down to his dungeons and tortured me: you were right here, in this palace.”
Parrick’s face was ashen. “Saints, Falcio, I’m sorry. I know you must despise me, and I don’t blame you. But you have to believe me: the King made me swear . . . he made me swear that no matter what I saw, no matter what the Duke did . . . Falcio I would never—”
I cut him off with a look. I wasn’t ready to forgive, not yet. “If this man was going to betray you, Duke Jillard, surely he would have done it then?”
Jillard swirled the wine inside his goblet as if he were trying to shake the answer loose. “I suppose that’s true,” he said at last. “In the end I was betrayed by a great number of people, including my own torturer.” Jillard leaned over to me. “We caught him the next day, you know.”
“He had nothing to do with my escape,” I said, too quickly to be convincing.
“He unlocked the door and let you out!” the Duke pointed out. “He admitted as much, and then he proceeded to repeat the King’s Laws, over, and over, and over—and not one of which he got correct, I should add. He said all this to my face, and proudly, too. Of course, he was a little less proud once we got him on the rack.”
“He called out your name a great deal toward the end,” Shiballe said from behind me, as if sensing an opportunity to get back into the Duke’s good graces. “I imagine many others have done the same over the years.”
“Falcio,” Kest warned.
“I’m fine,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely fine, for my hand had apparently drifted rather close to the hilt of one of my rapiers again. “You’re a fool, your Grace, to play at these petty games of revenge while the country falls to pieces around you.”
“My torturer betrayed me,” Jillard said, slamming his fist down on the arm of this throne. He quickly regained his composure as his gaze drifted to Parrick. “But not you: you could have freed this Trattari had you so chosen—in fact, it would have been surprisingly easy to do so without being caught.”
Parrick looked like he was going to be sick.
“Very well,” he said at last, still turning the ring around and around on his finger, “I will grant that I have some small cause to trust Parrick. But you, Falcio val Mond: why should I believe you? You conceded my freedom after my men failed me in Pulnam, but that was nothing more than a necessary political maneuver on your part. It doesn’t put us on the same side.”
I’d been waiting for this. I looked back at my Greatcoats, old and new, hoping I wasn’t about to condemn them to be buried beneath the heavy stone floors of Jillard’s palace. “I’m not on your side, your Grace—how could I be? You’re a monster. You ordered the murder of the Tiaren family and countless others, and mostly for spurious reasons. You sent every kind of killer you could after me—and worse, after the King’s heir. Even when you lost the Ganath Kalila you tried to break your own laws to end Aline’s life. You’re a snake, Duke Jillard, and I have every intention of seeing your head severed from your body.”
The Duke looked ever so slightly unsettled. “Well then, that simplifies things—”
“But not now, and not today. Your death would be the final straw, the one that would break the back of this country. If whoever killed Duke Isault and Duke Roset gets to you, then civil war—and your darling daughter Trin—will drive us all into whichever of the thousand hells she has planned for us.”
Jillard gave a laugh, and this time it actually sounded genuine. “Trin? That’s what’s brought you to your knees in front of me? You baffle me, Trattari, really you do. Trin has her mother’s armies and some small portion of her cunning, and she will no doubt amuse herself running around the North playing commander.” He leaned forward on his throne and added silkily, “but should she dare to bring her men across Rijou’s border, then my soldiers will show her the courtesy I should have shown her unlamented mother long ago.”
“You speak boldly for a man who just lost his Knight-Commander and two hundred of his Knights, your Grace,” Kest said. Sounding genuinely curious, he asked, “So now who will lead the charge for your soldiers when Trin’s forces come calling?”
“Dealing with petty betrayal is the price of my position.” He leaned back and waved a hand absently in the air. “Besides, you have solved the problem for me, you and your fellow Trattari.”
“How so?” I asked.
“Didn’t one of your own Greatcoats—Dara, I believe—didn’t she murder the Duke of Aramor? Isault never liked my idea of sharing troops to guard the borders, but this new Ducal Protector of theirs—Sir Shuran? He will need my support if he hopes to hold off the nobles who are even now plotting to break Aramor into little chunks just large enough for them to rule. In fact, I’ve already sent envoys to negotiate for a thousand of Shuran’s best Knights.”
Jillard’s arrogant tone lacked conviction; his gloating was hiding something underneath. “You seem to have thought of everything,” I said. “So why are you so frightened, your Grace?”
“Frightened? You think I’m frightened, Trattari?” He laughed. “Frightened of what—an assassin? My Knights, including Sir Jairn—forgive me, of course I mean Greatcoat Parrick, here—have already caught the assassin. Of course, I will admit it is a little mortifying to see my relationship with the Dashini has dwindled somewhat since I sent two of them to their deaths chasing you.”
I turned to Parrick. “You captured a Dashini assassin? Alive? How?”
“With a great deal of luck, and the lives of ten Knights. It was the weight of the dead bodies—all of them in full armor—piling on top of him that held him down long enough for me to knock him out.” At my skeptical expression, he added, “I drove the pommel of my sword into his skull.”
“And you’ve got him down in your dungeon, right now?”
“Of course,” Shiballe said. “Which is where you shall soon—”
I’ve got you, you arrogant bastard.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Jillard asked.
The fact that he’d even asked the question let me know I was right. “If the assassin’s been captured and everything is fine, then why didn’t you arrest us on the spot? Why go through this whole charade? I think it’s because you are afraid, your Grace. I think you know there’s another attack coming.”
Jillard stepped down from his throne and glanced at Shiballe before turning to face me. “Then why don’t you tell me how these assassins plan to kill me when this one failed? Look around you, Falcio val Mond. I rule the most heavily armed city in the world. We stand inside a palace that could hold off an army. Five thousand men could lay siege outside my gates and they would get nothing for it but empty bellies.”
He was right, of course. Of all the Dukes in Tristia, Jillard would be the hardest to kill. But if the plan was to drive the country into chaos, then Jillard had to be the next target, and if someone wanted him dead, they wouldn’t stop at sending one assassin. All the way from Garniol I’d been asking myself how the killers would get to him, and there was still only one answer that made any sense to me. “Your son,” I said. “Tommer. They’ll find a way to kidnap him and then they’ll force you to come for him, and when you do, they’ll kill you.”
The Duke’s face was suddenly very, very still and now I could feel the tension emanating from him. And there was something else there too: despair.
He’s hiding something—it’s already happened.
“And Tommer,” the Duke said, and now I could hear how forced was his flippancy. “In your hypothetical kidnapping, what will happen to him once I’m forced to give myself up?”
I thought about Isault’s family: his wife, his two sons, and a little girl who painted pictures of puppies hoping her father would give her one as a present. “I’m sorry, your Grace. They’ll kill him, too. If I’m right—I know you may not want to believe me—”
“I believe you,” Jillard said, his voice only a little above a whisper. “I believe all of it.” His shoulders sank and the air whooshed out of him all at once. It was as if I were watching a performer as he came off the stage, too exhausted to remain in character anymore.
“They’ve already taken Tommer, haven’t they?”
Again Jillard shared a look with Shiballe, and then he turned back to me. “Yes, damn you. The reason I believe you—the only reason you’re not already hanging from the apple tree outside my chambers—is that two days ago my son, the only person I love in this world, was kidnapped.”
Parrick’s face turned so red I thought he might attack Jillard then and there. “Why weren’t the Knights told?” he demanded. “We should be searching for him! He’s an eleven-year-old boy, damn it! He can’t—”
“You weren’t told,” Jillard said, “because we know exactly where he is.”
“Where?” Parrick asked. “I’ll get my men—”
“At this very moment Tommer sits fifty feet below us, and the assassin’s blade is at his throat, ready to open his neck.”
“He’s here?” I asked. “In your own dungeons? But how—?”
“Tommer said he wanted to see a Dashini assassin for himself. He’d heard the stories—of course it would be a great adventure to him, to see one in the flesh. And of course, I refused him. There are only two keys to the lower dungeon: one is held by the watch-guard and the other is in a secure case in my personal chambers. Tommer snuck in and stole my key.”
“What about his personal Knights?” Parrick sounded furious. “Surely they should have been with him at all times—?”
“They were. He convinced them to accompany him—to protect him. He’s a good boy, but he’s not always obedient.” The Duke’s voice dropped and I realized he was hurting badly. Despite my dislike for Jillard, I believed Tommer really was the one person he truly cared for.
I also remembered what the boy’s disobedience had cost Bal Armidor, the troubadour whom he had loved—was he really so callous that he would risk the lives of his Knights, knowing the cost of his father’s displeasure?
“Those damned fools!” Parrick said. “I’ll beat them to within an inch of their lives when I—” He looked at Jillard, then at me and then at the floor as he suddenly realized how strange his outburst was, given his own particular situation.
“I believe they are already aware of their error,” Jillard said.
“So what happened?” I asked.
“The assassin overpowered the Knights, my torturers, and the other guards in the lower dungeon. From the smell down there it would appear he’s killed a fair number of them. Once a day he sends a rather damned Sir Toujean to pass on his demands. Sir Toujean is not able to remain with us as he has a very long rope tied around his neck.”
“And what are the demands?”
“I should have said ‘demand’, singular: he wishes me to present myself to him.”
“That’s it? When?”
“At a time of my convenience.” Jillard looked stricken. “He said that Tommer would . . . he said my son would last a number of days yet.”
“Why haven’t you had your forces break into the lower dungeon?”
“Because, Trattari, quite apart from the fact that the assassin has promised to kill Tommer if I try, we actually can’t get in. I believe I told you the last time I had the pleasure of your company that this palace is the most secure building in all of Tristia. Its dungeons are . . . extensive. The walls are solid stone, five feet thick, and the only door, two feet of reinforced iron, is supported by rods set deep into the stone above and below. There are only two keys, both of which are now in the hands of the assassin. The lower dungeon was designed to be inescapable. It appears that we made it impregnable as well.”