I realised Navare was staring at me expectantly. The heat in my cheeks deepened. Planning was one thing, taking part another, but being pushed into the role of leader was more than I'd ever bargained for.
Then again… it was my plan.
'All right,' I said, 'here's how we begin.'
Time was crucial. Darkness was one of the few things on our side, and we'd likely only have a single night before Mounteban concocted a scheme against the giants or shored up his defences.
Navare set out minutes later to summon our forces waiting at the barracks. We would need them in the morning, and a little extra manpower wouldn't hurt in the meantime. Soon after he'd left, Estrada announced her intention to speak with Saltlick and the giants.
'You should get some rest, Easie,' she told me.
The idea seemed preposterous. Then again, there was nothing I could do for the next few hours. I sat at the end of Navare's narrow cot bed and closed my eyes.
The next I knew, I was waking to the sound of pounding upon the door. I watched Alvantes cross to it, listen carefully and then draw it wide. Outside, Navare stood flanked by half a dozen figures in hooded travel cloaks. I vaguely recognised them from amongst the Altapasaedan guardsmen; as they strode inside, I caught flashes of the uniforms they wore beneath their cloaks. Tonight they'd be acting in their official capacity for the first time in weeks, and I suspected that fact meant a lot to them.
A few minutes later, the door nearly shivered off its hinges, with a crack like muffled thunder. My first thought was a battering ram; when the blow wasn't repeated, I realised the truth. Someone else was knocking, and only one person I knew could knock like that.
Alvantes opened the door to reveal Saltlick squatted on his haunches, with Estrada stood beside him.
'Ready,' Saltlick rumbled, as if concluding a conversation started long since.
Alvantes's only reply was a nod to his men. Together, they trooped into the night, Saltlick falling in behind.
Estrada slipped inside and drew a chair from the room's small table. We sat in tense silence — until the first sounds of banging and clattering began a few minutes later.
'It's started,' she said.
I nodded. 'No going back now,' I added — and wondered how true that was.
For my plan to work, it was vital Mounteban know the giants were coming. For all that there were similarities, invading Altapasaeda wasn't a sly housebreaking in the depths of the night. The last thing it required was discretion. Only when I'd fully accepted those facts had the last details swum into focus.
To anyone watching, the events taking place in the streets of the Suburbs over those next few hours would have looked much like the preparations for a war — a war of giant proportions. Estrada and I sat listening, far past the hope of sleep. I had a fair conception of what was going on outside. It had been my idea, after all. Still, just listening to the jarring shocks of noise from all around gouged at my nerves.
I remembered my first sight of Saltlick, hunched in shadow, a monstrous living sculpture carved from the fire- lit darkness. I remembered how I'd watched the giants fight at Moaradrid's behest, their colossal forms indistinct amidst the rain and the half-light of sunrise. Unless his agents were blind and deaf, Mounteban knew the giants were coming. I thought about how on edge he must be by now, desperately struggling to keep control over frightened minions — and I couldn't but smile.
My smile sagged. The night was almost done. It would be my turn soon enough.
Estrada must have caught my expression. 'You really don't have to do this, you know,' she said. 'Any one of Alvantes's men could go in your place.'
'I don't, do I?' Somewhere in the excitement of the last few hours, I'd managed to forget that simple fact.
A knock on the door nearly separated me from my skin. When Estrada opened it to reveal Alvantes and Navare, I wasn't sure if I should feel relieved. Was their arrival a reprieve or the last stick for my funeral pyre?
'The giants are ready,' Alvantes said. 'The remainder of the guard and the Irregulars have their orders. We're going to get into place now. Then it's up to you, Damasco.'
I barely suppressed a shudder. 'About that…'
I'd seen scorn for me so many times in Alvantes's eyes that I was astonished to realise it bothered me now. I'd certainly never felt the need to defend myself to him. Yet this time, I was actually frustrated when Estrada put in on my behalf, 'I was just telling Damasco that he doesn't have to do this.'
As Alvantes considered, he pointedly looked at Estrada rather than me. 'No. I suppose he doesn't.'
'If we're risking our lives,' she added, 'we should be sure we're doing it for the right reasons.'
Now it was Alvantes's turn to be defensive. 'This is the right thing to do.'
'We're all agreed on that. Still, it shouldn't be for revenge. Not anger either. And definitely not for some king who let his family squabbles get out of control.'
Well, I thought, that's all of Alvantes's motives out then. Then I registered those closing words. 'Family squabble?' I said.
'You know what I mean,' she replied. 'If it hadn't been for Moaradrid…'
'I understand how this is Moaradrid's fault. The invasion, turning the Castoval upside down, kidnapping the giants, I know all about that. And I'm hardly the King's greatest supporter; but I don't see how…'
Estrada's eyes widened. 'Wait. Damasco, are you really saying… you don't know, do you?'
'Unless you tell me what you're talking about,' I said, exasperated, 'how can I tell you what I do or don't know?'
'But what did you think it's all been about?'
'What what was about?'
The disbelief in Estrada's face came close to awe, as though she'd stumbled across a level of ignorance she could never have imagined. 'He was Panchessa's son, Easie.'
Alvantes's face clouded. 'It was never proved.'
'He was Panchessa's son,' she said. 'Everyone knew it.'
'Who was…'
'Panchessa was stupid and irresponsible. Instead of owning up to what he'd done, he let his mistake fester into a civil war. Damn it, Lunto, don't you dare defend a king who ordered your father's death!'
'How did you know…'
'Wait,' I bellowed. 'Wait, wait, wait! Are you saying Moaradrid… that the King… are you saying Moaradrid was Panchessa's son?'
Finally, both Estrada and Alvantes paid me a little of the attention they'd been reserving for each other. 'There were rumours,' said Alvantes, almost apologetically. Catching Estrada's eye, he added, 'And they were most likely true. In his youth, before he assumed the throne, Panchessa spent some time in the far north — and with a certain chieftain's daughter. He denied it later, of course, and the Court backed him to the hilt. But it turned out Moaradrid was one indiscretion that wouldn't be ignored.'
'Hold on… this is ridiculous! It makes no sense.'
Yet even as I said it, a part of my mind was busily cataloguing the ways in which it made perfect sense. Stray moments came back to me, cast in an entirely new light. I thought of Moaradrid calling Prince Panchetto brother when I first saw them together, how I'd mistaken it for irony — just as I'd misinterpreted Panchessa's careless mention of his sons. I thought of Moaradrid's barely pent-up rage at the King, which I'd taken for mere tyrannical craziness.
Well, he had been tyrannical and he'd certainly been crazy, but as the disowned bastard of a horse's testicle like Panchessa, I could see why he might have been a little righteously indignant. It was as if a distorted mirror had been held up to my image of the past few weeks, throwing it in strange new shapes, demanding I reconsider every small aspect to see what might have changed. Would I have made the same decisions? Would I have struggled so hard against Moaradrid if I'd known his true motives?
I couldn't think about it. Not now. Not when there were other questions a hundred times more immediate. Like… 'What about Mounteban?' I asked.
Caught off guard, Estrada asked, 'What do you mean?'
'I mean, is he related to the King? A distant cousin, maybe? An uncle on the mother's side?'
'Of course not.'
