The Court of Ghosts - 9. Fludding

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Watfield – An Evening’s Feast at Old Hall – The Golden Cockle – ‘At this very hour’ – A Master’s Celebration

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Watfield, The Highburghs, Kingdom of Morland

27^th of Autumn, 801

There now, in the Highburghs, Edward Bardshaw felt an old pull. Remembrances of a childhood (almost) lost to time. It began with lilting notes of gull-song, then moved to that distant yet distinct rumble of heavy waves crashing against beaches and shores, until the salt taste lingering in the air finally touched his tongue. And then he looked to his right from their cliffside vantage point and beheld a wide blue expanse he had not seen in over a decade.

The Mandelsea.

Shimmering blue waters stretching out from chalky Morish cliffs and pebble beaches to a distant unknown. Merchant ships idled into the horizon. Gulls wheeled the skies. To a dockside boy, like the ones Ed once caroused with, the river was as good as the sea, it may as well have been. ‘And yet, if they could see this…’

Somewhere beyond that sapphire panorama floated the Isle of Gead. He was as close to home as he had ever been since leaving it. ‘What a simple thing it would be,’ thought Edward, ‘to simply hop a ship and set sail for home.’ Perhaps he would someday. He turned then to Fran, wondering if he felt the same thing and even moved to ask him, but the younger man was too distracted by the impending spectacle ahead of them at the top of the ridge.

They, along with the rest of the procession, sat atop their saddles with restless anticipation. King Oswald and Queen Annalena broke from the column and galloped ahead to the top of the ridge in the accompaniment of ten standard-bearing Bannerets of the Bloom, flags flocking in the sea winds. There they waited. And waited. And waited. And then, perhaps as much as an hour later, a second series of pennants rose up slowly beyond the ridge – six wind-beaten flags bearing the sigil of House Vox, a silver spear clutched in the fangs of a black wolf, which was in itself a variant of the old royal sigil of House Wulfsson, a golden spear clutched in the fangs of a grey wolf. The conceit was not unintentional for as was famously known, House Vox and the now extinct House Wulfsson shared ancient blood ties.

And then came the Earl of Harcaster.

The invitation to parley was accepted, but to behold him then, one would have thought he came for war. The aging lord trotted forth in glimmering steel armour atop his black and yellow surcoat; his plate helm feathered, his breastplate and pauldrons embossed with wolf heads, his thin leather reins fixed between the metal-leather digits of his gauntlets, his patterned greaves curled about the barded ribs of his black-maned destrier. His six standard-bearers sat their saddles similarly armoured, though far younger, including his son and heir, the flame-bearded Gerard Vox.

It was customary for a subject to climb down from his horse and kneel upon introduction to their king. Harcaster, either out of obstinacy or old age, did neither. And the Earl was old these days. A man of four-and-sixty years, one of the few living veterans of the Long Sea War, grey-bearded and crown-balding.

King Oswald and the Earl of Harcaster broke away from their accompaniments and met in the middle. There were no embraces, no kisses, no acts of deference or friendship. Words were exchanged. The Earl, raising his voice, removed his helm and pointed an armoured finger downhill at the Queen Dowager, Emma of Wuffolk, who sneered back with equal malice beneath the jittering pearls and rubies of her studded gable. Next to her sat the Duke of Greyford, that porridge-faced bastard, and next to him sat his fat raving molossus the Earl of Huxton. They both looked furious. Ed liked that look on them.

Whatever words were said (it was too far away for Edward or Fran to hear) The King and Earl then galloped westward down the gentle slope to the wind-swept grassland of Watfield, where Harcaster’s 200-strong retinue of retainers, guards, and attendants awaited them. The Queen followed, as did the standard bearers and then so too did the court.

Roschewald coaxed his horse along, riding ahead of the Wallish Delegation to chat with Ser Symon Shakestone, whilst Ed nudged his horse closer to Fran. Edward’s sweetling had been quiet that morn, not his usual self by any measure. He wondered if his ill mood at the feast yestereve might have upset him. And he asked as much. Fran offered him a weak smile in return. “I am not angry with you.”

“Are you certain?”

“Just tired is all,” said Fran. “I just want this all to be over with.”

Ed thought back to that ‘change of circumstance’ Fran once alluded to at Manse de Foy. He smiled. “One day we shall disappear into some quiet corner of this country to live out our lives together in peace and comfort. How does that sound?”

Fran turned to him, earnestly. “Like fucking heaven.”

“Then it’s like you said, Fran. We need only be patient. Come on. Let’s not fall behind.”

Edward coaxed his mare forward, and Fran followed, as did the halberdiers. The King’s court flowed from the cliffside down the slope into Watfield where it slowly merged with the smaller retinue brought to bear by the Earl of Harcaster. The two columns then marched together along those grassy fields toward the port town of Fludding, now not more than half a mile’s distance from them.

Edward eyed the newcomers, northerners all, hardscrabble and ruddy, an array of redheads and blondes, the men tall and stout, the women lean and ribald. None were dressed as abundantly as their southern counterparts. And at once Edward felt a tension between the two groups. The wounds were ancient and ran deep, all the way back to the Morish Civil War, some 246 years ago, when the Lowburghs and Midburghs backed the insurgent House Oswyke, and the Highburghs (and Gead) held fast to the soon-to-be-extinguished House Wulfsson.

It was odd, Edward felt, seeing that tension when he himself, a northerner, had lived half his life in the south. To the northern courtiers and attendants throwing him those dirty looks he was little better than a southerner. He almost wanted to protest their scorn, to bleat foolishly, ‘I am one of you!’ as he watched them watch him. And then, oh so suddenly, Edward’s breath caught in his very throat as he spotted a very familiar face amongst that cynical northern throng.

Ed’s eyes broke wide. “By the stars and saints above…”

“What’s wrong?” Asked Fran. “What is it?”

Ed threw a hand into the air. “HARRY! HARRY!”

A freckled blonde boy, sharp-eyed and ahorse amidst the throng of Harcaster’s retinue, peaked at the shout of his name. He surveyed the crowds then spotted the hand raised high into the air to draw his attention and gawped with stunned delight at the two young men he found there, smiling back at him.

Harry Grover.

“Ed?” He blinked away tears. “Fran?!”

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Fludding, The Highburghs, Kingdom of Morland

27^th of Autumn, 801

The court dined at Old Hall that night. It was the residence of Lord Gainscroft; a huge, fortified manor constructed near the town outskirts by his great-grandfather before him. Like Clemence Palace its grounds were large enough to house the court, but in consideration of Harcaster’s retinue, further extensions were made to the larger building, to the extent that Francis Gray no longer recognized it. It was not his first visit to Fludding, after all.

They arrived in the town at noontide, as was meant, and dispersed around the manor grounds in search of their respective apartments and chambers. Edward stood guard by Gustave and himself as chests of paperwork and clothing were ferried into their respective bedchambers. Once their goods were away and settled, the Wallish Ambassador had Edward liaise with Lord Gainscroft’s castellan about suitable lodgings for the halberdiers – a converted stable near the rear wall – whilst he took Fran to the ports to meet with some of the Wallish guildsmen operating there. Having had Fran send letters ahead they were well aware of his coming, and a guildhall had been prepared for him.

Gustave and Fran sat to patterned plates of cut cheese, ham slices, beer bread and Wallish white as the ambassador’s countrymen regaled them both with tales of their plight. “We are in for evil times here,” one said. “The Morish no longer have stomach enough for us.”

“My eldest boy was beaten in the road,” said another. “Beaten by a pack of Morish dogs calling him ‘alien’ and ‘foreigner’ and ‘randy dandy’. He can no longer see in his left eye nor hear in his left ear! This the doctors cannot fix! What is to be done?”

They had other concerns. The rising cost of food. The Guard Tax they were being forced to pay despite their alienness. Arrearages of pay from the local wharfinger for off-the-books porting work. But mostly they were fearful of the mood amongst the northern Morish – although Odoism was growing in popularity in the north, the inverse was true for their tolerance of foreigners, Wallish and Imperial alike. Radical mendicants took to street corners and promenades calling on the Earl of Harcaster and young King Oswald to take a ‘tighter grip’ of the alien threat to the nation. Wallish girls unaccompanied by their fathers or brothers were being systematically robbed of their virtue by dockside gangs of the workless poor. A mob of Morishmen had even hanged an Imperial exile without trial after he was accused of stealing some of his old master’s tools.

“I have already spoken with the king about these matters, but I will do so again to stress the import of action,” said Gustave. “For now, Fran will draw up your list of concerns. Take heed but take heart, Oswald is a level-headed young man.”

When they returned to Old Hall for the feast that evening, everything was arranged for Lord Gainscroft’s guests in a staggering display of sumptuousness. In the banqueting lodge four enormously long tables (all large enough to seat fifty men, either side) were drawn together into a wide quadrangle big enough to surround a small-two step stage for their recreation.

As nobles and dignitaries and honoured guests slowly took their seats, a distinguished troupe of petticoated jugglers, fire-breathers, and sword-swallowers entertained them. All the while liveried footmen brought out ewer after ewer of fine wines and ales as well as platters of grapes, olives, cheese wheels, boiled ham slices, finger cakes, and candied walnuts.

Music was provided by a band of performers led by Blackthumb Aba; flautists, lutenists, drummists, harpists, and songstresses all. The whole hall was bathed in low light by dozens of burning sconces and brass candelabras lit with hundreds of flickering candles. All three of the chamber’s hearths were up and roaring, its ceilings decorated with gilt banners and leavy garlands, the hardwood floors covered by crimson rugs and velveteen carpets. Latticed windows lined the eastward wall granting a view of the cloistered gardens not two floors below.

The guards stood watch at the surrounding walls, Edward included, and as before he looked uncomfortable around the surfeit of food strewn about the hall, but less so than before, now that another lost Geadish soul suddenly washed up alive. Harry Fucking Grover, the horsemaster’s adopted son and apprentice, one of their best friends as boys. Ever the trickster, ever the japer. ‘He could make a dead man smile,’ Lady Gray once said.

Fran and Edward rode with him to Fludding and bombarded him with questions along the way – how did you survive? Where did you go? How are you now? Where are you now? Have you a master or mistress? – but Harry refused to speak with them ‘in such company’ and asked them to visit with him in a local tavern once the banquet was over.

Fran looked across the hall again and watched Edward stand quietly by the windows alongside the Bannerets of the Bloom, trembling at the lip trying to keep that ecstatic smile off his face. It warmed Fran’s heart.

And then Gustave took his seat next to him and the boy’s blood ran cold. The Wallish Ambassador took up his carving fork and fetched helpings of cheese, pork, and bread onto his plate. A passing attendant poured him more wine. Fran avoided his eye. Gustave had sobered somewhat since his outburst at Fort Caelish, but by the hour Fran found it harder to tolerate him.

That night, however, Gustave’s blood was down, and his interests lay elsewhere.

Blackthumb Aba was something of a curiosity at court, this dark-skinned soul of Sandsea birth who washed up at the shores of the Gasque Kingdom from the flotsam of a courier’s wreck. He was found, it was said, by a famous troupe of travelling mummers who trained him up in their arts to entertain commoners. He was often the highlight of their acts, him and the dwarven jugglers playing out ribald mockeries of fallen Gasqueri kings and ignoble lords. Others found him horrifying, a blight upon their soil and conscience, muttering saintly benedictions to themselves to ward off the ill-luck of his black skin. And eventually, somehow, he found his way into the household of the Comte de Léon with nothing but his lute and his story-teller’s tongue. From there word of him spread from court to court along the threads of hearsay, requests for his services scuttling back, and so now he wandered the continent entertaining the nobles and their entourages.

When the musicians stopped for an interlude Gustave took his moment and called the musician over, lifting his plate as if to gesture, ‘here, come and eat’. The foreign bard smiled, tweaked his beard, then whispered some passing jape into the ear of one of his trumpeters before sauntering over.

Blackthumb Aba was tall and lean, fitted well to its lined leather jerkin and hose, his paned sleeves striped in green and gold. He spoke a perfect Morish sullied only by his thick Gasqueri accent, yet the depth of his voice gave the concoction of the two a powerful resonance. Every smouldering syllable hit the ear like a seduction. Lady Cecily’s sparkling eyes had not left his sight since Clemence Palace, but the Blackthumb had wisely kept his distance, lest her lord father the Earl of Huxton separate his head from its shoulders.

He cast a convincingly deferential smile at the pair of them, doffing his flamingo-feathered cap, his annoyance at the summoning well-masked, though Fran saw through it. Servants oft understood each other in these circumstances.

“Enchanted,” said Aba, joining them by an empty seat on the opposite side of the table.

Gustave lifted an ewer. “Wine, master?”

He raised a hand against it. “Saints no, I could not be persuaded.”

“Saints? Interesting. Is our pantheon worshipped in your region of the world?”

Aba cut a toothy grin, stroking his forked beard. “I dare say excellency, they were worshipped in my ‘region of the world’ long before they were in yours.”

Gustave pulled that patronizing grin he wore whenever he spoiled for a battle of wits. “Our colleges are in some debate about that matter, I hear. It is far from a settled issue.”

There was a certain dance to dealing with a social superior. Fran had only ever seen the servant’s side, him having been so young when his nobility was taken from him. But the travelling musician was an old hand at the game.

Aba simply smiled. “Forgive me but the interlude will not last at this pace, how can I help you?”

A counter smirk. “I would like you to play for me. I pay well, my hours are fair, my services would match whatever Ser Robert offered. What do you say?”

“Forgive me, excellency, but once you play for kings you do not stoop to ambassadors. Strausholm will be my next stop, I think. Not Wallenstadt. But good morrow to you, as they say.”

He stood and left.

Gustave’s smile drooped into a snarl. His clenched fist sat restlessly atop the oaken table. “Hmph. Troglodyte.”

Fran watched Blackthumb Aba walk away from his master, back to his friends at the podium. ‘If only it were that simple for me,’ thought he.

It was then that much of the clamour died down. Across the banqueting hall to the main doors two royal trumpeters blared their horns. Servants pulled away from the tables, musicians held aside their instruments, and one by one each of the seniormost guests were announced upon entry. The Duke and Duchess of Greyford, the Queen Dowager, the Earl of Harcaster, and finally, their Majesties the King and Queen of Morland.

All were seated to the head table. King Oswald took seniority. Queen Annalena, the Queen Dowager, and the Duke and Duchess sat to his right. Lord Gainscroft, the Earl of Harcaster, and Harcaster’s son Gerard Vox sat to his right. A young cupbearer quickly ferried over an ewer of Morish white to enrich their silverwork goblets before scuttling away.

Lord Gainscroft then stood, smiling brightly before his guests with cup upraised. “My Lords and Ladies! Welcome to Old Hall! This manor has been the pride of my house for over a century, and I am honoured to host you all here. My King? Might I propose a toast? To your honourable and most serene personage, to our inordinately gracious and charming queen, and to the promising young heir that swells within her!”

Smiling, Annalena cupped her corseted belly.

“To our King, Queen, and Heir!” He cried.

“TO OUR KING, QUEEN, AND HEIR!” Cried back his honoured guests. All drained a sip of their cups – all except Harcaster. And then stood King Oswald.

“My thanks to you all,” said he. “On this my first progression I have been shown tremendous love and affection from good Morishmen and women of all quarters. This pleases me greatly. And may I extend my thanks to his lordship the Earl of Harcaster? I pray our talks are fruitful and that all ancient enmities may finally be buried.”

Harcaster frowned.

“To Lord Gainscroft,” he continued. “Your hospitality has been exceptional and your holdfast a delight to me. By the blessings of the saints may you continue to prosper.”

Gainscroft smiled graciously, hand to breast.

“To my lady wife,” King Oswald turned to Queen Annalena as she lovingly cradled her womb. “With you have I known such happiness and love as only the saints could grant. In your name and that of the son you shall no doubt bear me, I swear to construct a realm where all can know such joy, where no belly shall go empty nor any head unroofed. For I can think of no better way to honour a queen of your greatness, but to build a kingdom that is truly worthy of her.”

The Queen smiled and muttered something in her native Imperial before leaning up to bless her lord husband’s cheek with the sweetest of kisses before returning to her seat.

A round of applause.

“And…” The King’s voice then lowered. “To you, the Queen Dowager, my Lord Mother, I say this. I-”

A silverware cup punted from the King’s table and clattered against the crimson carpeting below, splashing its contents. Harcaster’s cup. King Oswald stopped. The nobles stopped. All eyes turned to the old Earl as the old Earl, armour gone but surcoat retained, launched out of his chair casting furious eyes at the Queen Dowager, Emma of Wuffolk, and her lord brother, the Duke of Greyford. A tense silence overran the hall.

Then cups and cutlery tremored as a pair of war-grizzled hands slapped the table. Harcaster, grey-bearded and growling, broke his silence. “This court is little changed, I see. Ever ready to the flourish of pleasantry, never ready to sink its teeth into the meat of a matter.”

The King’s eyes flared.

“My Lord Earl,” interjected Greyford, “If your king could be permitted to complete his remarks?”

Harcaster glowered down the length of the table at the Duke as if struck across the face. “Why? More pleasentries? To string a garland of compliments about your lord sister’s turkey-fleshed neck?”

Sniggers.

Fran, alarmed and amused in equal measure, watched the Queen Dowager flush with rage and indignation. “You will mind your tongue, Harcaster…” spat Lady Emma. “Lest you lose it…”

“Your threats are well-heeded,” Harcaster spat back. “My sweet daughter fell prey to them once, did she not?”

The room plunged back into tense silence as that dark accusation cut through the smothered chortles and snickers.

The assembled lords and ladies looked away awkwardly as the shadow of the One-Year Queen fell upon them. Fran looked to Edward (equally as shocked and amused) before glancing at King Oswald, standing there dumbfounded, cup in hand, shaking, yet with fear or anger or humiliation Fran could not say. But he could say this – in this he saw plain the second blunder of King Oswald’s short regnancy.

The Queen Dowager should never have been allowed to come north with him.

“Your sweet daughter?” spat Lady Emma, enraged blood rushing to her powdered cheeks. “Your sweet daughter?! Katheresa Vox was a wanton adulterer, a bedder of her own guardsman, a sallow strumpet, a harlot, a traitor!”

“DAMN YOU AND YOUR LIES!” Bellowed Harcaster.

“Enough!” Yelled the King. “Both of you, enough!”

His hundreds of guests, performers and attendants watched upon tenterhooks as the Earl of Harcaster and the Queen Dowager spewed forth the venom of over twenty years of long simmering animosity. Only the King’s anger could quell it. Silence fell upon the hall again – until a rough shuffle of wooden chair legs against the floor as Harcaster tore away from the table, storming off through the entranceway in a burning rage. Gerard Vox, his magnanimous red-haired son, directed profuse apologies to King Oswald for his father’s evil temper and quickly followed after him to quell it.

Whispers and mutterings abounded.

The Queen Dowager, Emma of Wuffolk, shook with outrage and humiliation within her highbacked seat. Her lord brother and daughter-in-law cupped either of her hands to calm her. The Duchess of Greyford bid the cupbearer fetch her more wine.

“All of you, eat.” Bade Oswald. “Mayhaps my Lord Earl will re-join us once his… passions have cooled.”

A clatter of cups, plates, cutlery, whispers, coughs, and girlish giggles followed. Ser Robert gestured for Blackthumb Aba and the minstrel troupe to resume the music. Servants and valets stepped out of the shadows to fetch food, fill cups, and tidy spills, gossiping amongst each other once out of noble earshot. This would be the talk of town by tomorrow evening.

Once the feast resumed Fran turned to Gustave. He held his stomach. “Lord, I think the cheese has not agreed with me. May I leave?”

Gustave looked lost in his own world, gnawing at a hank of black bread, perhaps weighing out how this outburst might complicate Fran’s standing – and thus his own – in the coming talks. Or perhaps he was still affronted by Blackthumb Aba’s refusal to perform for him. Either way he was distracted enough to allow it without protest.

“Might Master Bardshaw accompany me?” Asked Fran.

Gustave waved a hand in dismissal. “Fine.”

The clerk gave his master a gracious nod then stood up and drew away from the table as the clamour of the feast quickly resumed. Fran eyed Ed and mouthed the word ‘follow’ as he made his way towards the exit.

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The Golden Cockle, Fludding, Kingdom of Morland

27^th of Autumn, 801

It was an hour or so after the Earl of Harcaster’s outburst at Old Hall that Edward Bardshaw and his life’s love Francis Gray found themselves across town in an establishment of a tone and tenor altogether very different from that of Lord Gainscroft’s manor.

‘Meet me at the Golden Cockle,’ Harry had asked during the King’s surprisingly muted entry at the town gates. Edward had an arse of a time finding it. Fludding’s puddled laneways were circular and inconsistently sized, some narrow enough only a child could squeeze through them and other wide enough to fit two whole wagons side by side; the hallmarks of an old town birthed without the aid of a city planner.

After stumbling blind through the alleys and wards, old fishbones crunching beneath their shoes, Fran wisely asked a passer-by for direction. A boneworker.

“By the docks,” he said, pointing in a direction opposite where they were going, his marrow-stained awls rattling from his belt. “Keep going straight after the marketplace then turn east at the wharfinger’s offices. You can’t miss it.”

The boys thanked him and followed his directions all the way to Fludding’s cobbled portside promenade. It was littered with empty barrels and abandoned rope, with seamen sat atop iron bollards as they burned their pipes. Distant ship bells clanged with the cold northern winds of the Mandelsea.

They found The Golden Cockle where the boneworker said it would be, a dozen windows down from the wharfinger’s offices, and made their way inside a spirited haunt far flung from royal auspices.

Nearly a hundred men crammed into the tavern, arm to arm and shoulder to shoulder around beer-soaked beechwood tables riddled with ale flagons, playing cards, dice cups, and plate after plate of empty oyster shells. Pipe smoke wafted to the rafters; rafters mounted with swinging lanterns to assist the wall-hung torches in the provision of light. An aged yet spry tavernmaster waved his arms behind the serving counter, directing his partially clothed serving girls – platters in hand – from table to table. One false step and out popped the breasts from their bodices and WHEEEEEEEY would their patrons holler. And there were soldiers amongst those patrons, not of the royal progress but of Harcaster’s retinue, singing festively vulgar songs about the cutpurse Duke of Greyford and his barren-bellied wife, about their ‘howling wraith’ of a Queen Dowager, and of their brave Red Princess sent by the saints to smite them both.

And that was when Edward noticed the décor. Everywhere he looked were banners bearing the sigil of House Vox, or sculptures carved in the image of the One-Year Queen, or little effigies bearing the Duke’s sigil stabbed with needles, or tattoos of the bolded letter “E” inked into grizzled shoulders and hairy wrists – “E” for Edith. Some of them sang…

ODO, ST. ODO, OH SOON TO BE

ODO, ST. ODO, HOW WE NEED THEE!

THE SHEPHERDS WILL KNOW

WHEN WE STOP THE SIMONY!

AND WROTHSBY WILL KNOW

WHEN WE HANG HIM FROM A TREE!

This was not the south.

Harry Grover stood up, bright-eyed and jubilant (perhaps a little tipsy too) and waved them over from the tavern’s only empty table – reserved just for them. Edward picked his way through the crowded hall, Fran in tow, then dragged Harry into his arms, chuckling. In different surrounds a tear might’ve slipped his eyes.

“Thank the saints you’re alive,” said Ed. “And no worse for wear, let me look at you! You look strong!”

Harry, smirking, eyed Edward from plate to boot. “And you look like a fucking Wallishman! But it’s good to see you both too, praise be. Let’s sit.”

A serving girl brought them each a flagon of pale ale with a brass platter of buttered bread and peppered swordfish steaks for the sharing. First came the big question. And it was Fran who did the honours.

“How did you survive the siege?” Asked the clerk. “We thought you died in the bombardment…”

Harry’s pale cheeks bounced as he ate. He popped another steak slice into his mouth then washed it down with a sup of ale before he spoke. “Closest thing to a war I’ve ever seen. But the short story is I got out before the guns fired. Berron… my father, he… he put me in women’s linens and sent me off with the maids and babes. The Imperials promised to give us safe passage out of Stoneport, and they kept their word, I’ll give them that. Then they sent us off on a boat for the mainland. The Red Princess intercepted our ship off the coast, questioned us, then took us home with her as she sailed back – a girl of six-and-ten commanding her own men. I’d never seen anything like it. And there was nothing left for me on Gead, so… I decided to join her. Served as her master of the horse for a time but that was boring, and you know me, always a lad to get his fingers dirty. Now I serve as her fastest messenger and scout. Hotfoot, they call me.”

Fran blinked. “That letter from Edith to Roschewald… you delivered it?”

“Aye. I knew that bastard Greyford warded you to him. ‘Lost Lord’, they’re calling you now, ain’t they? I’d hoped to see you in Dragonspur, but…”

“And me?” Said Ed.

Harry smiled. “You, Ed Bardshaw, I had no sodding idea you were still alive, if I did, I would’ve ridden south years ago. I only heard your name from some of the southerners who fled north after Stillingford was executed. And I’m sorry for that by the way. We all are. There was strength of feeling for Stillingford here in the north. We mourned him. We grieve him still.”

It warmed Edward’s heart to hear that.

“What is happening up here?” Fran eyed the patrons.

Harry took another swig of ale and wiped his lips. “People are angry, Fran. They’re overburdened by that fucking Guard Tax, and Greyford’s second helping for the year is almost due. With Harcaster side-lined at court they’ve got no representation, and all the revenue that came from Gead has been lost to the de la Mores. Thanks to Greyford’s embargo the price of wheat and grain are sky-fucking-high, and there’s talk of Wrothsby restarting his Sacred Inquest and bringing it here to the Highburghs.”

“Damn near the entire court is feasting with Gainscroft not a mile from here!” Fran’s voice dropped to a whisper. It was instinctive. One always had to be careful with their words in Dragonspur. But here… “What if word of this gets back to the Duke?”

Harry smirked. “This ain’t the south, Fran. People here don’t scare easy.”

“And the King?”

A frown. “That boy ain’t no king to me. He stood idly by as the Earl of Wrothsby put good men and women to the flame in Greatminster, he had Stillingford and William Rothwell killed on bunk charges, saints above, he’s wedded to a fucking Imperial! A half-breed heir to the highest seat in our land, how long before the old tyrant of Strausholm starts claiming our country as his own? Fuck the king.”

Edward paused, taken aback. You did not hear a phrase like fuck the king on an ordinary day. “So, you’ve truly thrown in with Edith the Exile?”

“You don’t understand, Ed.” Hotfoot Harry leaned forward, as if drawing them both deeper into the conversation. “Edith is our last best chance at a better Morland. All that talk of Queen Katheresa bedding Fran’s uncle, it’s all horseshit.”

“How do you know?”

Another grin. “Because there was a charter signed around the time Edith was conceived – a charter signed in Gead by both Lord Gray and his brother. Summer, 774.”

“That’s not proof,” said Ed.

“But it is evidence,” said Harry. “Evidence that was never put before jurors at the trials. And why? Because Greyford fabricated the whole sodding story to tear Katheresa from the throne and install his sister Emma as queen, just as they always planned!”

Fran kept his voice low. “Saints a-fucking-bove, Harry, do you realize what you are implying?”

“I’m not ‘implying’ anything, I’m saying it clear with a full fucking throat. The Red Princess is legitimate.”

The clerk shook his head in disbelief. “The mere utterance of that could get you hanged for treason…!”

Harry grabbed his throat with both hands and choked himself, coughing and spluttering, eyes rolling into the back of his skull and rocking himself in his seat until he let himself go with a cheeky smirk. “See? Me neck’s still here, unhung, unchoked and gorgeous, just like it’s always been.”

Fran bit his lip. “You weren’t funny when we were boys, and you aren’t funny now.”

Harry pointed at his mouth. “Liar. I see ya hiding that little smile, you can’t fool me, Fran.”

Edward didn’t bother to hide his. “Same old Harry. But he isn’t wrong, my friend. Those are dangerous words you just spoke. Even if Edith is legitimate, as a male Oswald has the stronger claim. We can’t look to nobles to save us, none of them have our best interests at heart.”

The Hotfoot receded into his chair with a long and knowing smile. “You wouldn’t think that of her if you met her. Come west with me to Ravensborough, both of you. See the truth of my words for yourselves.”

Edward watched Fran eye the windows. The moon was high, and truth be told he looked restless with all this talk of Edith the Exile. “We have to get back to Old Hall, we cannot be gone too long.”

“Fair enough,” said Harry, holding up his hands. “Take some time to think it over if you need it, but not too much. The negotiations won’t take long.”

Edward thought back to the indignant shouting match between Harcaster and the Queen Dowager. “Are you so certain?”

“Aye. Unfortunately. Beneath all his bluster the Earl of Harcaster is a good man. He might bark, but he will bend, and he’ll bend because he has no choice.”

“Why?”

Harry’s smile broke. “Because our crops are failing.”

**********

Old Hall, Fludding, Kingdom of Morland

27^th of Autumn, 801

They returned to Old Hall, Fran and Edward, by the town’s many darkened laneways and nooks. The moon was at its peak making it difficult to pass without the torchlight of the main road to see by, but darkness was a cloak, and beneath its secluding folds the Geadish boys found each other’s hand, fingers interlinked, walking together in silence. A blissful silence of comfort – even in those ugly streets of rain-soaked cobbles and piss-stench back alleys.

Edward stopped when Fran stopped and the latter placed himself inside the former’s arms, palms flattened against breastplate, head nuzzled kittenishly into the taller man’s neck. A gloved hand reached up and cradled Fran’s head.

“Are you alright?” Asked Ed.

“Just keep me here a moment,” said Fran.

‘Before we have to go back and pretend,’ thought he. Back to all the pretention and lies, back to all the scheming and politicking. Back to Gustave and all his evils. Just once before donning the mask of falsehood and returning himself to that court of ghosts, Fran wanted a single moment of truth for himself. The younger boy tilted back by the shoulders. Ed took him by his cheeks. And they kissed in the darkness. Soft and sweet. The simplest of raptures.

‘I want this man,’ thought Fran. ‘With all my heart and soul.’

There was a life with Edward waiting patiently for him at the end of all this. Fran saw it plain in his mind’s eye. A beautiful country manse at the scenic fringes of some hillside village at his burghal seat of Thormont. He and Ed waking to each other every morning with servants to attend all their needs, the brothers Lothar and Luther safe and comfortable in their own apartments. Mornings for business, afternoons for hunting, evenings for healthy suppers, nights for their carnal pleasure. A life entirely for themselves away from court and its intrigues, away from fraught borders and religious persecution.

Gead was gone with the de la Mores, for now. Until such time as Fran had enough power and influence to wrest it back there was no returning to the way things were, but if nothing else, in Thormont something new could be built… and fate could finally begin to atone for the happiness it robbed from them ten years ago.

‘This is not forever,’ thought the clerk. ‘All we have to do is be patient.’

Ed beamed down at Fran, as Fran stroked his little thumbs through Ed’s trim blonde beard. “Much as I might want to, we cannot stay here all night.”

“I know. I know. If only for a moment.”

Ed’s smile dampened. “You’re thinking about Harry’s offer?”

Perhaps he wasn’t, not at that moment, but he had been. Tensions between the north and south were nothing new, Morish history was damn near defined by it, from Edwulf’s conquests all the way to the civil war. But the tenor was new. The growing Odoism was new. And the star of Edith the Exile was rising. If not for the Earl of Harcaster and his reluctant loyalty to the crown, what then? How much worse would it all be?

Fran sighed. “Harry is our dear old friend, and his survival lightens my heart. But he and Edith play a dangerous game. There is a reason Stillingford did not cleave to her. I do not wish for us to be swallowed up in whatever maelstrom she presently plots. We must keep our distance.”

Edward frowned slightly, as if unconvinced.

“Promise me, Ed. Promise me you won’t countenance this.”

The swordsman paused. Thought for a moment. He smiled. And then took Fran by the cheeks and pressed their lips together to set the smaller man’s heart aflutter. And then he spoke. “…I promise. I finally have you, after a decade bereft. And you are too much to lose.”

If they were abed, warm and safe, Fran would’ve made love to him on the spot.

Instead, he settled for another kiss.

They had to be quick after that. Old Hall lay at the top of a cobbled slope a quarter mile’s distance from them (by Ed’s estimation). Together they raced through the backstreets to make up for lost time, bounding over broken carts and piss-soaked gutters beneath a cloudless moonlit sky until they finally reached the guarded iron gates of Lord Gainscroft’s manorial palace.

And there was Gustave, waiting for them in his silken black bed robes. Two Bannerets of The Bloom stood beside him, glinting glaives in one hand, burning lanterns in the other.

Fran shivered – and not with cold. “Master, I…”

“Where have you been?” He seethed. “You told me you felt ill and yet you crawl in at all hours from town?”

Edward – visibly – supressed his frown. “Excellency, forgive him. A local boy spoke of a remedy woman by the docks selling vulneries and such. We went to purchase one of her herbal draughts and as you can see it has greatly helped.”

Gustave didn’t even acknowledge him. “We will speak of this later. For now, you will accompany these men.”

Fran eyed the Bannerets. “…Why?”

The second of the pair stepped forth. “Master Gray? You have been summoned to the King’s apartments. You will come at once.”

*

The Bannerets of the Bloom stood at Fran’s shoulders like a brace of pauldrons. Their pace was brisk, if not hurried, breastplates and swords rattling noisily as they escorted him along the sigiled crimson carpeting towards King Oswald’s quarters at the end of the hall. It was a scrolled door that barred their way, lacquered to a shine, and traced with gold paint. One of the Bannerets set his knuckles to it, calling for entry, and a cold voice shouted back for them to enter – Greyford’s voice.

The doors parted. Fran stepped forth into a splendour of gilt portraitures, plush divans, stained-glass windows, and tasselled curtains. Kindling smouldered in the hearth. It could have been Lord Gainscroft’s chambers in a more ordinary time, or a special dwelling set aside for guests of note. Either way it befitted a king. And there Fran found that king, glowering and exasperated, seated upon a mahogany throne studded with silver rivets and cushioned with silk. To his right stood his Lord Uncle, the Duke of Greyford, cold and stark as always; and to his left his Lady Mother, the Queen Dowager, Emma of Wuffolk, little recovered from the Earl of Harcaster’s prior outrages. Off in the corner of the room slept Pincher, the royal capuchin himself, limp and snoring at the bottom of his elevated cage.

Refreshments of marchpane, walnuts, and candied roses sat to a sheeted table alongside a golden ewer half-drunk of its Imperial red. There were three drained goblets too. They had been at this for a while.

Fran removed his feathered cap and bowed. “Your Majesty,” he said. “Your Grace. Your Majesty.”

Greyford waved away the Bannerets. The ornate door clicked shut.

“Master Gray. Please forgive the hour,” said King Oswald, gesturing for him to rise.

Fran did so. “No hour is too late or early, if it please you, Your Majesty. How may I serve?”

“I fear there is a task only you can fulfil.”

Greyford sneered. “Must we persist with this? This farse? Harcaster did not agree to meet with us to parley, he meant to humiliate your Lady Mother before the whole court!”

Oswald rolled his eyes as if hearing another variation of the same protest for the umpteenth time of the night. Then the Queen Dowager reached for his hand and implored him to listen to her brother. “Harcaster spoke to me as if I were some common roadside trollop! How can he go unpunished when he insulted me so? When he hurled such vile accusations at us? How?”

Fran retreated into himself. It was like watching his parents argue of affairs when he was a boy. He looked away.

“Oh, what would you have me do, mother?” Her son snatched his hand back. “Drag him to the nearest post for a flogging? We came upcountry not to quarrel, but to settle these quarrels, as I still mean to do. Both of you – out. I wish to speak with Master Gray alone.”

A hurt glance trembled beneath the gable hood of the Queen Dowager. Yet her womb’s majestic fruit (or so a certain poet would someday put it) did not flinch. Not one inch. Greyford growled beneath his breath with forceful exasperation but did not question the command. There was no point, and he had no leave. Instead, he bowed, cut a brief and polite ‘Your Majesty’ from the gaps of his gritted teeth, then held out his arm for his Lady Sister to take, which she did – reluctantly. And then the Duke escorted his sister out… but not before throwing his newfound little espial a knowing glare. You will advocate for us it seemed to say.

The door clicked shut a second time.

Oswald sighed, tiredly, slumping against an armrest with his face in his fingers. He wore his exhaustion plain even in all that gold and silken finery. “I can only apologize for that little spectacle. It has been a long day.”

A nod.

The King gestured to the table of treats by his informal throne. “Come along. Avail yourself.”

He was not hungry after his dinner of ale and swordfish steaks. But it was rude to refuse a sovereign’s kindness. Francis thanked his king for his hospitality then placed a few of the candied rose petals inside his mouth. They were delicious to be sure. The King’s bakers and cooks were either Gasqueri in origin or Gasqueri in their training, preparers of some of the finest culinary delights in the world. No less than what was necessary for the King of Morland.

“Good?”

Fran nodded with a bouncing cheek.

“Wonderful. Wash it down with some wine and pour me one too.”

The clerk did as he was bid, poured two full cups of Imperial red, gave one to the king and kept one for himself. They drank together in toast.

And then it hit him, like the slap of an angry father.

He, Francis Gray, was sitting to wine and sweets with the King of Morland. Not even his lord father had had the honour. Ten long years ago Fran was cast out of these shores for the damp and snow of Wallenheim and now look at him.

Now look at him.

The Fiend’s victorious sniggers echoed in Fran’s ears.

King Oswald quaffed his cup with a few gulps. “I was a boy of eight when my father died, around the time you lost yours, I hear. They made me king. But it did not feel like the divine providence my Lord Wrothsby said it was. Sometimes it felt like a gaol or a curse. Sometimes I wished I was nothing more than some frolicking little potboy free to ride and to hunt and to marry as I pleased.”

‘Potboys aren’t as free as you believe,’ thought Fran. “Did you really, Your Majesty?”

“Indeed,” And he giggled at the memory, the wine finally taking its toll perhaps. “Kingship is a liminal space, Master Gray. It is to be constantly surrounded and always alone. It can sometimes be… a baleful state. And I did resent it.”

Fran watched quietly as King Oswald traversed into a realm of nascent memory. “Ser Robert always asked me, ‘What sort of king do you want to be, Your Majesty? A king revered like Edwulf I, or a king reviled like Gadwulf II?’ And I remember thinking – ‘Why should I care? When can my lessons end so I may ride my horse and play with Pincher?’ I was such a silly boy. And then…”

This time the King poured himself more wine, too lost in his thoughts to wait for Fran to finish his own.

“And then my people, led by the traitor lord, Ammon mac Garrach, ran wild at the Greyford Manse. Furious men chanting my name in reverence and cursing my Lord Uncle’s in kind. I was there that day; did you know that? Few do. How long ago was that now? Four years? Saints be.”

He swallowed another cup in a few gulps.

“Ah! That was when I realized the depth of anger in my kingdom, Master Gray. That was when I realized the importance of my ancient birth-right. A king is the father of his realm… as the saints ordain us to be. Father, shepherd, and protector. That is why… these bridges that my Lord Uncle and Lady Mother have burned must be mended, for if I do not mend them, my realm will suffer.”

There was no error in his word, it occurred to Fran. A blitheness, perhaps. A vagary in intent, maybe. But there was also an earnestness. A haughty honesty. A sense of responsibility. And then Fran thought of Edward’s beloved master, Theopold Stillingford, and the King’s refusal to show empathy to him. He thought of the King’s subtle undermining of the Duke and his side-lining of the Queen Dowager at court.

King Oswald was made of two edges – a warmth and a coldness of equal measure.

As the wine worked its devices Fran watched him ease back into his throne, empty goblet dangling from a loose grasp, words slowly slurring. “I will not repeat the mistakes of my forebears by neglecting the north. My Lord Earl must return to court. My sister and her rabble-rousing must be curtailed. Our…”

The King paused.

A blink.

Fran paused too. ‘…Did he just…?’

“Edith,” he muttered. “Edith, I meant to say. Edith must be curtailed…”

The clerk busied himself with the marchpane, trying a few (delicious) then fetching his king a fresh cup of Imperial red and offering it up to him. Oswald waved it away and called for water instead.

“It has been a wet and unkind summer, Master Gray. And if… the harvest is so poor in the Midburghs… I can only imagine the worst… for the Highburghs. Hunger will only compound unrest. Do you understand, master? My nation will bleed unless I act. But now Lord Harcaster refuses to speak to me until my Lady Mother apologizes, which my Lady Mother refuses to do.”

“The Earl is a proud man, Your Majesty.”

Oswald looked away. “Pridefulness is a millstone. But Harcaster is loyal. If he recognises my candour, if he sees the necessity, I believe he will agree. So, if he refuses to see me, I shall send you.”

“At this hour, Your Majesty?”

“At this very hour, Master Gray,” said Oswald. He removed a sealed document from his robes and passed it to the older boy. “Take him this. Tell him that in addition to the Lord Admiralty I am prepared to grant Edith all the ancestral holdings confiscated from her mother. Tell him that I ask only for his return to court and a renewed pledge of obeisance. And tell him… tell him I am sorry that it took so long.”

*

“He is sorry it took so long?” Harcaster harrumphed. “His Majesty’s sorrows ring hollow.”

In his great wisdom, or perhaps by fortuitous providence, Lord Gainscroft had assigned rooms to his liege lord in a tower 100 yards opposite the King’s. Had they been any closer, had his lordship seen fit to place King Oswald and the Earl of Harcaster in the same tower, the former would have heard the latter now, steaming and billowing his rage through gritted teeth. His son, the strapping flame-beard Gerard, allowed Fran in and excused himself from his father’s rages. ‘To free you both to talk,’ he had said, oh so smoothly. But what he meant to say was now you’ll have to deal with him.

Fran knelt before the earl, head bowed, then rose at his utterance. “My Lord? I will warrant you that up to now the King’s methods have been unorthodox, but I do not believe he toys with you in this. I believe that these proposals have been extended to you in a spirit of magnanimousness.”

A sneer. “You studied law, didn’t you?”

“Lord?”

“You have a lawman’s tone about you. And a lawman’s tongue to boot. ‘Magnanimousness’. What a pointless word.” Harcaster polished off a mug of ale. “You should know I do not care for lawyers. Too slippery. Too eel-like. Speak to me as you would your liege lord.”

Fran smiled. “You have not been that for ten long years, my lord.”

“Yes. Thanks to the de la Mores,” Harcaster slumped into another of Gainscroft’s high-backed mahogany chairs. “Your father was a good man. A loyal man. As was his brother, my ward. I never once believed in any impropriety between your uncle and my daughter. And yet…”

‘And yet the Greyfords orchestrated their deaths regardless,’ thought Fran. For a moment and a fraction of one Fran wondered what his father Lord Gray might make of him working to the Duke’s interest after everything he had done to destroy their name – but the thought was a painful one and Fran put it aside. “We can only move forward, my lord.”

A grunt. “Fie. A wound unheeded goes unhealed. The King speaks of council seats, of the realm, of his sorrows. What of Katheresa and her attainted name? Will he legislate to remove that dishonour? Of course not! Not for fear of compromising his own standing or alienating that skeletal cunt he calls a mother.”

Fran flushed. “Lord, I-”

“And the Duke,” Harcaster’s teeth gnashed. “Do you know that from first I saw him at Watfield, I had half a mind to shove my pike down his throat and roast him over a spit? And now the King expects me to sit to the treaty table with him? To break bread with the black-hearted scoundrels that authored my daughter’s demise? And he talks to me about FUCKING SORROW?!”

A gloved fist smashed through the wooden table nearest his seat, pulverising it to fragments and splinters. A rope of blood trickled down from his glove’s slashed leather – and yet the grey-chopped Harcaster continued on as if kitten-tickled. “His Majesty should not speak of things he is too young to feel.”

“My lord, let me fetch you some dressings…”

“Oh.” The Earl held up his bleeding hand. “Oh this? Stop your fussing, it’s barely a scratch. You young men of this era, unbloodied. Perhaps a war might do your generation some good, a few cracked ribs and some scar tissue to stiffen your backs! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Ah!”

Fran paused, half-smiling, unsure if his ears had heard a jape or not.

The Earl of Harcaster caught his breath, sobered, tore off his shorn leather glove then flagged Fran for a spool of dressing tucked away in his luggage. The clerk fetched it and brought it forth.

“Humph,” The old soldier let the boy wrap his small wound, smiling to himself. “When I was a boy, my father once told me – you cannot become a man until you kill one. I’ve killed many men in my time. Mine own son, Gerard, he’s fought in the lists, unhorsed men twice his size, won tourneys, he’s as fine a warrior as I could hope to raise. And he’s known nothing but peace.”

“Lord?”

Harcaster’s eyes glassed over as his mind took him to memories Fran could only assume were unpleasant. Memories of the Long Sea War perhaps. “May St. Thunos forgive me, but… I hope peace is all my boy ever knows.”

Fran took that as a cue. “Mayhap this proposal can ensure that.”

“…And out comes the lawyer,” said Harcaster. “Very well, make the King’s case.”

He collected himself. “I can only speak to what you’ve just read, My Lord Earl. The King wishes you back at court. In return for a public show of obeisance, you would be installed as Lord Admiral of the Morish fleet, granting you control of the nation’s navy and a seat amongst the Masters of the Realm-”

“And all but cement his supremacy with the tiebreaking vote?”

“In such circumstance as called for it, yes. His Majesty also promises to restore to Edith all ancestral lands and titles seized from her late mother. The Highburghs would once again have a legislative seat at the table, and its people a voice in the governance of state. Morland would be whole again.”

“Well pitched,” said Harcaster. “But I sense a caveat your lawyerly tongue omitted. Something about Edith perhaps.”

Fran moved to speak but the Earl beat him to it.

“Utter no denials, boy. I will not swallow them, and you have no need of them. I only ask you one thing as the son of a man I trusted with my very life – is the King earnest?”

If the Earl of Harcaster had no need for denials, then at that question Francis Gray had no need for lies. Even better. He would speak his true thoughts. “King Oswald is stubborn, less aware than he believes himself to be, and his desire to be loved is not entirely unselfish, I think. But he is earnest. He does want what is best for his realm and its subjects. At his core he wants the same thing you want for your son. Peace.”

“And the Greyfords?” Asked Harcaster.

Fran thought back to the King’s chambers, and that little drunken admission he made. ‘My sister and her rabble-rousing’. That was no mere slip of the tongue. “It is only for obligation’s sake that the Duke and Queen Dowager joined His Majesty on this progress. Make no mistake he is at odds with them. They have been empowered in this realm for a decade and do not take easily to Oswald’s primacy. He needs ready guidance against them. Who better than you?”

The aged soldier’s brow furrowed with thought. ‘There’s the opening,’ thought Fran. “If you cede the ground to them, my lord, they will do all in their power to keep the King under their thumb and nothing will improve. The realm needs you to be the counterweight to their excesses. It needs you to be the King’s right hand. And when Greyford is effectively side-lined, perhaps His Majesty could be persuaded to table a posthumous exoneration for your lady daughter?”

That was an overstep, but an intentional one. It was not for Fran to propose something of that magnitude, but it was only a suggestion, not an offer. Nor was the idea so outlandish. King Oswald was well-established in his throne and Queen Annalena was quick with child, his claim was secure. There was no threat in lifting the shroud of dishonour from Katheresa’s name.

Harcaster mused.

It was not a small thing that Fran asked of this rough-made man of war. Setting aside his enmities with the Greyfords must have felt akin to turning his back upon his late daughter’s memory – a feeling Fran understood all too well. But Harcaster was not an uncaring man, as Harry Grover once alluded to. He, like Oswald, had only one chink in his armour. He loved his people. He would not foment war for the sake of foolish personal pride. He would not sow his soil with the bones of the starving northern dead by refusing a seat at the highest table in the realm, not in the wake of this bad harvest. And he would not let his hatred of the Greyfords sully his sparkling honour. Not by a long shot.

It was as Harry said. Harcaster would bend because he had no choice. But it was also as the King said. If he sees the necessity…

The Earl smiled, almost ruefully, but genuinely. “You lawyers and your silver tongues. Humph. Very well then. Go back to the King and tell him this. Tell him I can agree to his terms if he can agree to mine. Tell him the Highburghs expect restitution for the loss of Gead. Tell him that Odoists must be free to worship as they please north of the Shepwoods, and tell him…”

“Lord?”

Harcaster exhaled, wry smile above deflated shoulders. “Tell him that while I may offer him my renewed obeisance… I can make no such promises for my granddaughter. Edith is not one to be controlled or corralled. She takes orders from no one. Not even me.”

**********

Old Hall, Fludding, Kingdom of Morland

27^th of Autumn, 801

The mannequin was made of ironwood. It had no legs nor arms nor feet – only a two-foot-high torso bringing it up to the average man’s height by a metal pole in the ground. Straw-stuffed leather armour padded up its ‘chest’ and ‘shoulders’. Edward Bardshaw swung his hickory training sword into it, blow after blow, welt after welt, until the sweat flew from his brow and his muscles ached.

Edward staggered back, wiped his face, caught his breath, resumed the drill. The hour was late and most of the men were asleep in the stable-barracks. He required sleep of his own but not without the training; it would rest him better and if nothing else it cleared his thoughts.

The training grounds of Old Hall were a foreboding place at night. Howling northern winds swirled up dust clouds at its sparring pit, whistling through oaken weapon racks, rattling the swords, flails, and bills. Its mannequins jittered in the shadows. With the torches squelched there was little light to see by, only the stars and moonlight, all else was plunged into shadow from barracks to wall to manor.

Perhaps that was why Edward did not see the figure lurking at the entranceway to the grounds, watching him subtly, eyes fixed at his every swing and step. And then the shadowy figure advanced upon him with soundless footsteps, Edward unawares, right until its voice called out to him – “Master Bardshaw.”

Eyes flashing, Edward swung backwards, hickory sword whipping through the air, a gloved hand catching it inches from an open throat.

“You?” The swordsman threw down his practice weapon, breathing heavily. “What the hell do you mean skulking up at me like that?”

The cloaked figure lowered his hood to reveal himself, his colourless eyes set inside an expressionless face of bone white skin. Ed knew him. His name was Lothar, one of Roschewald’s valets, the one he hadn’t seen since the Wallenheim Delegation first landed in Dragonspur. The ambassador introduced the two at Bretherwood Manor, explaining that Lothar was ‘away on business’ for much of the summer and now returned to his service. Fran was friendly with him.

‘He was my best friend all those cold years in Wallenheim,’ he’d said of him. ‘He might unsettle you at first, but you will warm to him, I am sure of it.’

But Edward did not know what to make of Lothar. There was an air about the boy that he misliked. At first, he was no mere valet, not judging by that brace of curved daggers he walked around with. ‘And away on business doing what?’ Secrecy clung to Lothar like a veil, wispy and translucent, but palpable. Ed mistrusted it. Almost as much as he mistrusted Roschewald. And it only compounded his desire to get Fran away from these people.

“Lothar, yes? What do you want with me?”

His face was still as a corpse. Neither smile nor frown. Ed watched it turn towards the towers of Old Hall, tall black silhouettes looming over the training pit and barracks. “Do you notice how the palace lights remain lit?”

“Now that you say so,” The King’s apartments were in the central tower and its torches yet burned, even at this late hour. “…Why? What’s the significance?”

Lothar’s colourless eyes returned to Ed. “Word will spread tomorrow but hear it from me now. Fran has gotten the Earl of Harcaster to agree to the King’s terms.”

Ed smiled to himself. ‘Of course he did.’

“Tomorrow he will make a public showing of obeisance and celebratory games will be held at Watfield. After that the court will make its return to Dragonspur for Harcaster to be installed as Lord Admiral. Then King Oswald and the Masters of the Realm will convene to vote on Gustave’s trade proposals. Even if Marquess de la More sides with Greyford’s faction, the King has the tiebreaking vote. A bill will pass. Perhaps even both.”

‘How does he know all this?’ Thought Ed. “That is good news, is it not? Everything the Wallenheim Delegation has worked towards?”

“It is everything Fran has worked towards,” said Lothar. “None of this was possible without him.”

“Well, I’m the last person you need to sing Fran’s praises to. I’ve never doubted him.”

Lothar continued on as if Edward hadn’t even spoken. “Fran is not like other people. He is like me. Moreso even than he realizes. He and I are prepared to do whatever is necessary to achieve our aims.”

Ed clutched a fist. “What are you toying at?”

“Gustave will take this as a great victory for himself,” said the valet. His booted foot shifted slightly, and Ed heard the daggers beneath his cloak shake. “His own clerk bringing an end to a 26-year long feud, the King of Morland indebted to him, his trade proposals all but accepted, and a new web of courtly contacts formed to further enrich House Roschewald. But it is not Gustave’s victory. It is Francis Gray’s victory.”

Lothar fixed Ed with a hard glare.

“So, imagine for a moment if word spread that Francis Gray had taken it upon himself to make merry with seditionists and Odoists at some ramshackle portside tavern? What would that do to his standing?”

‘…He was following us…?!’ Thought Edward.

“Fran has great plans, master, which every day he achieves little by little. And you, I fear, are a dangerous distraction that could cost him everything.”

That was the last. Rough hands snatched the little sneak by his leather collar and dragged him forth, Edward sneering through his teeth, “What do you mean by that?! Who are you to Fran, eh?! Answer me!”

Lothar, flat-faced and utterly un-frightened, glared back at Edward’s fury, nonplussed.

“I am his right hand. I am his friend and confidant and nothing more. And I…” He pulled a key from his cloak. “…I am not the one you should worry about.”

Ed eyed the key.

“It’s to Gustave’s rooms. Take it. Go and see for yourself how my master celebrates his victory. And later, when you get the chance, ask Fran what happened to Wolfrick.”

Edward Bardshaw, infuriated, could not say what stopped him from asking further questions – what kept him from pressing that leathered ghoul into the dirt and demanding answers. All his instincts were aflame, and all his instincts told him: this man Lothar is no liar.

Ed snatched the key and shoved Lothar out of his way. He stormed off out of the training pit toward the manor, shoving open its arched doors and bounding down the corridor. Sneering portraiture of Lords Gainscroft past eyed him rancorously as he stormed down their ancient hallways towards the apartments designated for the Wallenheim Delegation. Everything was a blur around him as Edward counted down the doors until he came to Roschewald’s.

Locked from within.

And then he heard it, lightly at first, the grunts and groans of a Wallishman in heat, the fleshy slap of flesh against flesh, the scrape of wooden bed legs against a wooden floorboard, the soft tussle of tousled bed linens.

And then he thought, ‘What business is it of mine who he beds?’ and moved to go, ashamed of himself for entertaining whatever stupid game that man Lothar thought he was playing. And then he heard something else. A whimper behind the door, from a voice lighter than Roschewald’s, of a tenor that struck Edward’s ears with blood-chilling familiarity.

And then it hit him. All the puzzle pieces came tumbling into place. All the secrecy and hidden looks. The two of them constantly at each other’s side and working out of each other’s rooms. The domineering possessiveness that went so far beyond what a master needed of a clerk…

Ed shivered.

‘No,’ he thought. ‘No, no, no, it cannot be, it would not be, this is not happening…’

He slipped outside of himself. He knew not his thoughts or his reasoning, he did not even feel himself slotting the key into the lock and twisting it open, surreptitiously, still with the lingering hope that his fears were misplaced.

The room was dark. The hearth was doused. Only a handful of candles were lit to see by, strewn around the postered bed. The bed where Francis Gray now laid, face down, naked and sweating, moaning coarsely as his master Gustavius von Roschewald ploughed him from the rear.

“Ugh!” To the tune of every thrust and slap he cried, toes curling. “Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!”

Edward froze in place, eyes peeled back, hand at the key, as something broke inside him. Something hopeful. Something loving. Something keeping him alive. It fell and cracked and shattered, cutting him in half and hollowing him out by the core. A hand clutched a chest. A throat wheezed. Tears sparkled in disbelieving eyes. Feet slowly shuffled back, away from the door, away from a broken dream, back into a pale darkness speckled only by the amber wisps of taunting candlelight.