'The first is for Blackbird. She needs somewhere safe and secure to live while she is pregnant. Somewhere with trees.'
'It is done,' said Kimlesh. 'What else?'
'For my daughter, Alex. If she comes into her power then I want her to have a place in the courts, whatever her nature turns out to be.'
'If she is wraithkin, then it is not within our power to grant,' said the Ogre woman, Barthia.
'Aside from that, then. Will you take her?'
'We will,' agreed Barthia.
'That leaves the third,' said Kimlesh. 'Three is the trick of it. What will you have?'
'And now we come to the rendering of quit rents in respect of two petty sergeantries held directly of the crown, one for the Forge in Tweezers Lane, just south of St Clement Danes, and the other for the wasteland known as the Moors, in the county of Shropshire, formerly the county of Salop. The quit rent for the former is six horse shoes and sixty-one nails.'
'I have them here, my lord,' said the Comptroller, indicating the items laid out on the black and white chequered cloth of the Exchequer.
'Will you count them out?'
With exaggerated care, the Comptroller lifted each horseshoe in turn, the huge size of them making his hands look small. He showed each of them to the assembled court.
'There are six, my lord, and the nails are here. Ten, twenty… ' He laid bundles of nails, each tied in a bundle with blue ribbon, on the squares of black and white draped over the bench. 'Thirty, forty, fifty, sixty and…' He patted his pockets absently, then more urgently.
There was a tense moment, but then he smiled and produced the final nail, the one Ben had pried from Niall's lacerated fingers and returned to Claire along with the knives.
'Sixty-one nails, my lord.'
'Good number!' called the Queen's Remembrancer in response and cracked his gavel down hard on the bench.
'And the knives? Do they meet the test?'
This was her part and her stomach clenched as she went to retrieve the Dead Knife from its place. She picked it out of the box carefully, reminded of what had happened when Niall had held it. Reassuringly it kept the same dull sheen she had always known. She walked forward and placed the knife, edge up, against the bench.
The Comptroller walked forward, a length of green hazel twig, one year's growth in length, in his hand. They exchanged a nervous smile. There had been the time when a bumptious upstart from the City had usurped the Comptroller's place and decided to test the knives himself. Neither knife had broken the rod, despite strenuous effort on his part. The Remembrancer of the time had been forced to fine the Highsmiths for non-payment, and they had not been happy.
He held the rod on either side of the knife and pressed down. The rod bent over the edge but it did not break. The Dead Knife had done its job.
She turned back to where the box for the knives was placed and replaced the Dead Knife, retrieving the newly forged Quick Knife in its place. The broad leaf of the blade was dark metal, but the edge shone bright where Ben had sharpened it. She stepped forward again, holding the knife up momentarily for effect, and then placed it edge up on the bench.
Now came the moment of truth. This was the test. If the knife was remade then it would cut through the hazel rod and the barrier would be sealed. If not…
She looked around at the ranked faces in the benches craning to see. None of them realised how much would change if the knife failed the test.
The Comptroller stepped forward again with the rod. As he held the rod out, she realised his hand was shaking, very slightly. He couldn't possibly know the significance of this, could he? She looked up into his face and saw uncertainty there, and then he grinned.
He pressed the rod down on the knife dramatically and stumbled forward slightly as the knife cleaved through the rod as if it wasn't there. He'd pressed much harder than he needed to and his chin came unexpectedly close to the burnished edge. Claire whipped the knife away, concerned he would be cut. Her concern was not so much for the Comptroller but for the knife. Lord only knew what would happen if they got blood on it.
Regaining his composure, the Comptroller turned and held the two pieces of the rod high for all to see.
'The knives have passed the test, my Lord.'
'Good service!' intoned the Remembrancer, banging his gavel down again. 'That concludes the rendering of the quit rents.' He smiled broadly at the assembly.
Claire carefully turned and replaced the knife next to its twin in the wooden case. She closed the lid and fixed the catch and then let out a long sigh. There had been no clap of thunder, no peal of bells, but she'd felt the knife in her hand after it had split the hazel rod. The tingle of power that shivered through it was all the confirmation she needed.
It was done.
'The third thing.' I took a deep breath and released it slowly, then I told them. 'I would have you know that if you take my life, here and now, then by the end of the week there will be notices posted all over Covent Garden, Leicester Square and random parts of central London describing the nature and reason for my death. They will detail the nature of the ceremony, the schism with the Seventh Court, the purpose of the two knives, the horseshoes and the sixty-first nail, and the fact that you have had me killed to prevent the knowledge from being discovered.'
There was silence.
'I beg your pardon?' said Kimlesh.
'I think you heard me well enough.'
'How?' said Barthia. 'How can you achieve this? You'll be dead.'
'The Queen's Remembrancer, who is also a High Court Judge, issued a court order this morning. Notices have been lodged with a number of London solicitors and are held in trust pending my disappearance. I don't know all the details, for no single person does, but if I do not present myself before the Queen's Remembrancer before the week is out then they have instructions to assume I am dead and enact the court order. The notices will be posted by agents throughout the city. Special arrangements have been made to make sure Marshdock gets one of the first notices printed. By the end of the week, everyone, Fey and human, will know what you did.'
'This is an outrage!' shouted Krane.
'So is killing me to keep a secret.'
A sound built slowly. It rumbled and bubbled up around us until it was near deafening. I realised, finally, that the ogre was laughing. By the time she had subsided and we could hear ourselves think, the realisation of what I had done had come home to them all.
'This is impossible duress,' said Krane. 'If we let him go then he could tell them anyway.'
'If we don't let him go then they will certainly find out,' said Kimlesh. 'He's sending it to Marshdock of all people. You know what that means.'
'I say kill him now and clean up the mess as we find it,' said Krane.
'You're letting your heart rule your head, Krane,' said Teoth. 'This has been carefully constructed. I am impressed.' He nodded to me and folded his arms, regarding me with new interest.
'I still say we cannot allow him to leave without an oath to seal his lips.'
'Then I will give you one,' I said. 'Which of you will accept it?'
They looked at each other. 'We cannot,' said Kimlesh. 'You don't understand.'
'Then you'll just have to take my word for it,' I told them.
'We cannot do that either,' said Yonna. 'It is too sensitive. It would leave you unprotected if someone were to try and pry it from you. There are those who would do so if they knew, and fragments of this may yet slip back from other sources.'
'It would suit the wraithkin lord's purposes to see us squirm,' Barthia agreed.
'You don't know what you've done,' said Yonna.
'I think I've saved my own skin,' I told her.
'Only for the moment. There are others who will not give you the clean death that we would have.'
'I'll deal with that when it happens,' I told her.
