Tyrant's Throne (Greatcoats #4)
Sebastien de Castell
CHAPTER ONE
The Wedding Play
A trial is a performance, no different than a stage play or a -wedding. The script may be dramatic or dull, the players captivating or hesitant, the spectators enraptured or bored, but by the time the curtain falls, everyone gets up to leave knowing that the conclusion was never really in doubt. The trick, of course, is figuring out the ending before it’s too late.
*
‘I don’t suppose any of you gutless rat-faced canker-blossoms would like to surrender?’ The young woman in the travel-worn leather coat was armed with nothing but a foul tongue and a broken cutlass that she swung in wide, desperate arcs as more than a dozen guardsmen closed in on her. Step by step they drove her back with the points of their castle-forged swords, until she was forced to duck behind the yardarm of the main mast.
‘We can’t see!’ a nobleman called out from his seat at one of the tables set at the rear of the wedding barge’s vast deck.
‘This isn’t a play, you fools!’ she shouted back. ‘I’m a Greatcoat! A Magister of Tristia, here to enforce a lawful verdict – and just to be quite clear, these swords being waved at me? They’re not props – these men are going to kill me!’
‘She doesn’t look like a proper Greatcoat to me,’ Lady Rochlan observed to the man in livery refilling her wine goblet. ‘Her coat is far too shabby – and that hair! Honestly, it looks as if she cuts it herself.’
‘And without the benefit of scissors, it would appear, my Lady,’ the servant added.
Lady Rochlan smiled, then asked, ‘Are you quite all right, young man? You look a trifle seasick.’
‘Quite all right, I assure you, my Lady. I merely . . . Pardon me.’
The servant ran to the back of the barge just in time to vomit over the side and into the calm river waters below, drawing chuckles from nearby guests who wondered aloud how anyone could be seasick without even being at sea.
Still backing away from her pursuers, the Greatcoat growled in frustration. ‘Step aside!’ she commanded the guardsmen. ‘By the laws set forth by King Paelis and reconsecrated by his heir, Aline the First, withdraw, or face me one by one in the duelling circle where I’ll gladly teach you the first rule of the sword.’ The threatening tone she had adopted was sadly undermined both by her obvious youth and by the way her blade trembled in her hand.
The guardsmen maintained their slow, patient approach, and even the seasick servant shuffling behind them in search of more wine for the guests could sense their excitement. The chance to kill a Greatcoat, to be forever remembered as one of those few who’d brought one of the legendary sword-wielding magistrates to a bloody end? That was enough to make any man reckless. But these were Guardsmen of the March of Barsat, disciplined soldiers one and all, and so they awaited their master’s order to strike with the forbearance of Saints.
A soft laugh broke through the tension. Evidalle, Margrave of Barsat, began speaking in tones so light they might have been the opening notes of a love song. ‘I believe, my Lady Greatcoat – how does one address a female magistrate, anyway? “Mistress Greatcoat”? Or perhaps “Madam Greatcoat”?’
She shook back a lock of reddish-brown hair that was threatening to fall into her eyes. ‘My name is Chalmers, also called the King’s Question.’
‘Chalmers? Odd name for a girl.’ Evidalle furrowed his smooth brow. ‘And did Paelis really refer to you as “the King’s Question”? I wonder, was his query perhaps, “If I were to dress a homely waif in man’s clothes and hand her a rusted blade, would she really be any worse than the rest of my tatter-cloaks?”’ The Margrave laughed heartily at his own joke. Like a pebble dropped in the middle of a pool, his mirth spread in waves, first to the guardsmen encircling the Greatcoat and then beyond, to the guests in their finery seated at their white and gold tables beneath the long ribbons of silver silk hung from the masts to celebrate the Margrave’s nuptials.
As if on cue, a beautiful Bardatti at the very front of the barge struck an opening chord on her guitar and led the three violinists beside her into a jaunty tune fit for the occasion. The guests – Lords, Daminas, Viscounts and other minor nobles, smiled and whispered conspiratorially to their companions as they luxuriated in the shade offered by the stiff white parasols held at careful angles against the afternoon sun by impeccably turned-out servants. Each noble had brought a Knight from their personal guard, both for protection and decoration, their livery proudly displaying their house colours and sigils as they stood at attention, stiff and silent as statues. Now even they began to laugh at the scene playing out before them.
The attending clerics, instantly recognisable by the robes of red or green or pale blue they wore to mark whichever God had, in theory at least, chosen them, smiled knowingly to each other – all save one, standing inconspicuously behind the others, his arms folded within his sleeves, wearing the grey rough-spun robes of an unchosen monk.
Only the servants kept their silence as they scurried between nobles and their Knights to bring plates of roast pig and poultry prepared by a small army of cooks working spits dripping hissing grease onto the flames below. One of the cooks’ assistants, apparently oblivious to the anxiety of his fellows, sliced morsels off the chickens turning on one of the spits and popped them into his mouth as he watched the events unfolding.
As the laughter settled down, the guardsmen’s eyes returned to the Greatcoat, anticipating the signal to strike – but the Margrave’s performance was only just beginning. ‘I believe, my dear “King’s Question”, that your unfortunate appellation may be to blame for your current predicament. You see, when the High Cleric of Baern asks whether the Gods or Saints have any cause to bar a marriage, it’s actually considered quite impolite to speak up.’
‘The Gods are dead,’ Chalmers said, ‘and so are the Saints, from what I’ve heard, and this wedding of yours is nothing more than a sham.’ She gestured at Lady Cestina, who stood silently by Evidalle, her eyes downcast, as they had been throughout the ceremony. ‘You had her true husband killed so you could marry her, and even now your soldiers hold her mother and father, beaten and bloody, prisoners in their own keep!’
The specificity of the accusations drew uncomfortable titters from the guests, some of whom were no longer entirely certain that what was taking place was the promised wedding play that usually accompanied a nobleman’s nuptials.