Several lordsguards were waiting at the end of the long corridor, in the depths of Clovenhall’s foundations. They escorted Darbish down a winding stairwell and around half a dozen corners. At last, he was shown to a door clad in ageing bronze and puckered with rivets. The lordsguards rang a bell, and waited. Darbish passed the time trying to ignore the sweat dripping down his nose.
There came the crunching of old mechanisms and the whining of bolts, and the door swung open with a moan. More lordsguards greeted him, and led him through yet another door, this time made of rich mahogany and laced with silver.
The drab brick walls of the cellars were left behind in the simple turn of its handle. The room that greeted him dripped with luxury and wealth. He could smell it in the varnished panelling, the lingering cigar smoke, and the earthy tang of green leather chairs. He could feel it in the carpet under his polished shoes. He could taste the gold in the air, and spy it in the rich cuts of clothing and shimmering jewellery of the dozen men and women now sat staring at him. A few even had the audacity to check pocket watches.
‘Prime Lord Dizali!’ Darbish began, and cursed himself inwardly. ‘I mean…’
Dizali’s face was already resembling thunder. Whatever moment Darbish had interrupted, it was clearly not a calm one. The Lord Protector sat with his fingers templed, elbows on the polished table, glaring about the room with narrowed eyes.
‘
Sit
, Darbish.’
Darbish did as he was told, sliding to an empty chair and clearing his throat politely.
‘My utmost apologies. The train from Dove is—’
‘None of our concern, Darbish. You are late, and we are deep in discussion. I suggest you silence yourself and try to catch up.’
‘Yes, Pr… Lord Protector.’
Damn this tongue
, he cursed. He surveyed the eleven haughty faces gathered around the huge triangular table; lords, ladies, dignitaries, and an admiral to boot. Most were of the Empire and the Benches. Only two were not. A Prussian ambassador, and a woman of Egyptia, wrapped in turquoise silks and red gold. One seat sat vacant, to the left of the Lord Protector.
Second Lord Longweather drummed his nails on the table. He still insisted on the despicable comb-over, and he had grown portlier in the time Darbish had been absent. ‘As I was saying before we were interrupted… The Queen should not be ignored. She still holds power with the people. Royalists, they call themselves, and they are not taking kindly to the steps we have taken. If they gather support, she could become more dangerous than ever.’
‘Hear, hear!’ Lady Sargen chimed in. Dizali shot her a look that would have withered a statue.
‘The question of the Queen is far from being ignored, my friends,’ Dizali snapped. ‘It is simply on hold. If you have not noticed, there is a war to be won.’
‘A war that you started,’ rumbled the Prussian ambassador.
There was a rustling of coat-tails on leather and a mumbling awkwardness.
‘Bah!’ said Dizali. ‘She began the war, Kiefel, by manoeuvring against Lincoln with that assassin of hers. War was inevitable in any case. The Rosiyans have been poised to claim the Ottoman Empire for years. If none of this had happened, they would have pounced by winter. The news of their “failed assassination attempt” only served to push them into an early attack.’
A young-faced lord spoke up. ‘I must congratulate you once again on using that failure to our advantage, Lord Protector,’ he said with a smile.
A glare was turned on him. ‘Perhaps if your lips were removed from my posterior, Oswalk, you might be able to contribute something more useful to the meeting.’
‘Yes, Lord.’
A balding lord at Darbish’s left spoke up. ‘You should not have trifled with her. She is the founder of this Order. Like all Europe’s royalty. She is dangerous.’
Dizali flashed teeth at him. ‘And what did she do with that privilege? She left it to rot, before handing it over to us like some grand gift. She turned her back on us, is what she did. Like all Europe’s royalty. But we have prevailed. We have brought this Order out of the shadows, back out into the light, stronger than ever! Or are you too crippled with worry to realise this?’
The man cleared his throat and bowed his head. ‘My apologies.’
Dizali looked around the table. ‘Please, do illustrate to me what it is that concerns you, friends, for I have many other matters that require my attention. The grumblings of our wondrous populace for example, or the stubbornness and endless lack of imagination that are the Emerald Benches.’
The Egyptian woman rose to her feet. ‘If our concerns do not hold your attention, Lord Dizali, then perhaps we should leave.’
Dizali held up a hand and took a moment to sigh. ‘My apologies, Neritis. Please go on.’ He crossed a leg and rested his head on his knuckles, as if he were about to endure some odious opera.
Neritis went on. ‘My Lord, it’s a fragile position. Branding the Queen as a traitor and a warmonger may have seen her removed from the throne, but it has also made the people nervous. That is why she gathers support even cooped up in her palace. Not to mention how nervous it has made the royalty and lampreys of Europe. Should the war not go our way, we may see an attack on our borders. On this very Order.’
‘Ambassador Darbish,’ Dizali spoke his name as though he were snapping a twig.
Lord Darbish sat up straighter. ‘Yes, my Lord?’
‘As you have just returned from Constantia, perhaps you can inform us of how our war is going?’
Darbish took to standing and cleared his throat once more. ‘Well, my Lords and Ladies, despite the early Rosiyan advance, our forces and defences have held strong. As have the Ottoman lines to the north, bolstered with our own troops and guns. The Turks see us as protectors. Saviours, even. They fight alongside our men and women in the trenches, you see—’
‘As well they should,’ growled the admiral.
‘—and they have treated me with the utmost kindness.’
‘We can see that.’ Dizali’s eyes flicked to Darbish’s belly, straining against the buttons of his Ottoman suit.
‘W…’ Darbish’s mouth flapped for a moment before he recovered his sentence. ‘And if we can fight them back beyond the Black Sea before winter, we shall be assured a victory.’
‘A short war is always the best sort of war,’ Longweather murmured. Darbish noticed his eyes slipping to meet Dizali’s. He had brokered enough peaces, and sat through far too many trade meetings to know when a game was being played. ‘Especially when supplies are short.’
‘Far too short,’ spat another lord, Traff.
Dizali rolled his eyes. ‘You forget that we now have the Hark estate at our disposal.’
‘Only if the deeds can be produced,’ the man ventured.
‘That is in hand. Good hands, I might add. Two of the Brothers Eighth, in fact. Not only that, but we still have another windfall coming our way. You forget the Serped estate.’
‘Have you had word from your man in America?’ said Longweather.
‘Pardon me,’ interjected Darbish, confused. ‘The Serped estate?’
Dizali took a moment to pick at something on the polished table. ‘It seems the Serped girl survived the fire.’
‘Calidae. I knew her well.’
‘As did we all, Darbish,’ Dizali snorted. ‘We have all met the girl on many an occasion. The last I heard from Gavisham, he was bringing her east and back to London.’
More glances. ‘And you think you can take her under your wing, as you failed to do with Tonmerion Hark?’ Sargen surmised.
‘“Failed” is a strong word, Lady Sargen,’ Dizali hissed. ‘And yes, that is what I plan to do.’
‘And when did you last hear from your man?’ Longweather asked again. Darbish fidgeted in his chair, inordinately sweaty.
‘Over two weeks ago,’ said Dizali. ‘I had expected to hear from him the day after the Bloodmoon.’
There was a collective humming as the men and women pondered. Darbish stared up at the ceiling, at the silver crest of their order. ‘They may simply be at sea, due any day now.’
‘Ever the optimist, Darbish,’ said Sargen. ‘But you may be right.’
‘Has there been any word from the pretender Lincoln?’ asked the admiral, idly picking at a thread of one of his many medals. ‘Any clue to his intentions?’
Dizali shook his head. ‘None, Caven.’
Admiral Caven raised his hands, bringing the conversation full circle. Victorious sat in the forefront of the Order’s minds. ‘Then we may be able to assume that he doesn’t hold the Empire responsible for its queen’s actions.’
‘Assumptions are not a currency I deal in, Admiral,’ said Dizali.
Longweather cut in. ‘If she were to spread rumours of her innocence, it could hurt us.’
Dizali got to his feet and folded his hands behind his back. There was no colour of anger in his cheeks; none of the usual narrowed, impatient eyes. To Darbish, the Lord Protector almost looked faintly amused, and the ambassador in him nodded knowingly. Dizali had played the busy man, exhausting all their complaints until he had them where he wanted. Darbish had performed the same trick himself once or twice.
‘This table will have its way,’ announced the Lord Protector. ‘Victorious will be given my full attention, and swiftly dealt with. It is time to take a step forward, not a step back, as we seem to be suggesting. Therefore if something must be done with her, then we shall put her in the Crucible. We have shown Europe’s royalty they can be deposed. It’s time we showed them what else we are capable of. She will rot there until we can throw her corpse in the river. The people will soon forget her, once she is behind iron bars and brick, rather than golden drapes.
Traff gasped. ‘The Orders will see that as heresy!’
‘Then let them! Are they our allies? No! And last time I checked, the Empire does not care much for its enemies’ opinions. The world is the prize we work for, my friends. You would do well to remember that!’ Dizali paced back and forth behind his chair. ‘This is the only path to take. If we release her, she will work her spells to turn the people against us. She will not rest until we are all hanging from a rope. In the Crucible, however, she will be alone, abandoned, and invisible. Are we agreed?’
The Order had realised they had been shepherded into a pen. Only Longweather and Caven nodded enthusiastically. There was further murmuring of agreement; some eager, some not so. Both faded to silence. Darbish felt a fresh sweat break out under his arms. It’s not every day you imprison a queen.
‘It is settled, then. I will deliver the sentence this very afternoon.’ Dizali thumped a fist on the tabletop. ‘Until we meet again.’ The attendants filed out in dutiful silence, as if they had been dismissed from a throne room rather than dispersing from a council.
Darbish waited for the room to empty before he too jumped to his feet. ‘My Lord? If you would like a full report, I—’
Dizali shook his head, busying himself with some papers. ‘That won’t be necessary, Darbish.’
‘But—’
‘That will be all.’
Darbish frowned but bowed all the same, and quietly shuffled towards the mahogany door. Before he could grasp the handle, it opened for him, almost bashing him in the face. He spluttered as Captain Rolick entered. ‘You again!’
‘Milord!’ Rolick swept past the red-faced Darbish to stand at Dizali’s side.
‘Outrageous!’ Darbish hissed. ‘I demand this man be—’
Dizali sliced off the end of his sentence with a glare. ‘Allowed to speak? As do I. Rolick?’
‘Lord Protector. I think you’ll be wanting your carriage.’ Rolick’s voice was low and careful.
‘And why is that, Captain?’
‘We’ve just had word of a new arrival in town. She happens to be standing on the steps of the Emerald House as we speak, asking for you.’
‘Who?’
‘One Calidae Serped, Milord.’
The smile that spread across Dizali’s face was positively wolfish, even for a lamprey. Darbish felt the sweat trickle once more.
BLOOD AND PROMISES
29th July, 1867
M
erion let the cacophony of the prison wash over him. The slamming gates and rattling of bars. The hollering of the drunk and detained. The barking of the officers and jailers and the thudding of their truncheons against the walls (or skin and bone, in some cases). He let it all flood into his ears to drown the boredom of waiting, eyes clamped shut and fingers interlocked, feigning sleep.
He was not alone in his cell; a few other miscreants shared the stark space. One was so drunk he could barely move, and lay slumped against the bars. Another paced incessantly like an old bear in a zoo, bunching the muscles of his jaw and cracking his big knuckles over and over. The last man was a skinny pole with shifty eyes which wandered over every inch of the cell. He tapped his fingers rhythmically on the lone bench—their only furniture—and whispered to himself. Out of his three cellmates, the skinny man bothered Merion the most. The quiet ones are always the dangerous ones; or so his father had told him. But after the wilds of the Endless Land, his definition of danger had been recalibrated.
So this is the first day back in London
. Stuck behind the bars of a stinking prison, deep below the cobbles of the glittering city. Merion resisted the urge to snort and settled for a smirk instead.
He was right where he wanted to be.
Through the barrage of background noise, Merion heard the sound he had been waiting to hear: footsteps drawing close, the jangling of heavy keys.
A constable appeared at the bars of the cell and surveyed its inhabitants with a grimace, moustache twitching with disdain. The big prisoner postured for a moment before being poked with a truncheon. ‘Get back, you! You’ll get your turn… Boy! Step up to the bars.’
‘Yes, sir!’ said Merion, eyes snapping open. He felt shifty eyes on his back, heard the snorts of his cellmates; a comment on his manners.
‘You try anything…’
‘I won’t.’
‘Yeah, as if I haven’t heard that before.’
‘I’m thirteen, sir.’
‘Yeah, and I’ve seen younger than you slit a throat.’
‘Charming.’
Merion waited as the constable found the right key from the mass of metal hanging from his belt. He slid the barred door back just wide enough for Merion to be hauled through.