“Yes, My Lady,” the young man said. Emily guessed he’d worked for the aristocracy in some capacity. He certainly had the manners down pat. “If you’ll come with me...”
Chapter Thirteen
THE STREETS SEEMED TO COME ALIVE as they walked away from the house and up towards the royal palace. It sat next to a brooding castle, the battlements bristling with armed soldiers. Emily could see men, wearing brilliant yellow sashes, drilling the new recruits in everything from route marches to gunpowder weapons. The instructors looked like veterans, probably soldiers from the previous war who’d been demobilized as soon as it became clear the necromantic threat was gone. Emily suspected Crown Prince Dater was cursing his father’s penny-pinching ways right now. The demobilizing hadn’t just dumped hundreds of men into the job market, it had also thrown trained and experienced men to the rebels. One good NCO, Sergeant Harkin had insisted years ago, was worth a dozen aristocratic fops. Emily was inclined to think he was right.
Her escort kept looking at her, as if he couldn’t quite believe it was her. Emily was torn between amusement and annoyance. It wasn’t as if she was a rock star. She’d never really been comfortable with her fame, particularly not with the legends that made her out to be an insane combination of a dozen different heroes and heroines of book and screen. It was easy enough to walk through the streets unmolested - no one believed the young woman on the streets was the Emily - but she was uneasily aware she didn’t live up to the legend. She didn’t arm-wrestle necromancers, she didn’t produce miracles upon demand and she certainly didn’t have a small army of would-be suitors pounding down her door and trying to marry her. The young man had probably been told she breathed fire and would turn him into a toad if he put a single foot wrong. And there was nothing she could do to make him feel any better.
She kept her face under tight control as she was led into the palace grounds. The walls were broken in a dozen places, the trees beyond cut down and left on the ground. Hundreds of soldiers drilled on the grass, tearing it apart as they marched up and down. The palace itself was largely intact, but hundreds of windows had been patched with wooden boards. She guessed it had been looted before the rebel leadership had managed to take control. She wondered, idly, what had happened to the royal family’s possessions. They’d had to leave everything behind when they’d had to move into the castle, then try to escape the city itself.
Althorn met her at the door. “Emily,” he said. He glanced past her, at her escort. “Thank you. That will be all.”
The escort started to bow, remembered he didn’t need to, and touched the brim of his cap instead before turning and hurrying away. Emily watched him go, wishing she’d found the words to talk to him. Perhaps he’d have been more open if he’d been talking to Silent. The maid was a social equal, not... someone so far above him there was simply no point of comparison. She turned to nod to Althorn, who was watching her thoughtfully. It nearly made her flush again.
“He’s a smart lad,” Althorn said. “He used to work here, did you know?”
“No,” Emily said. She’d guessed, but she hadn’t known. “What happened here?”
“The palace fell quickly,” Althorn said. “The royalists fled as soon as the people began to rise.”
Emily kept her mouth shut and her eyes open as they walked into the palace. It had been thoroughly looted, although not as extensively as she’d expected. A handful of paintings remained on the wall, a dozen pieces of furniture remained in their place... she frowned as she saw the smashed remains of a piece of machinery, something that puzzled her until she realized it was a piano. She winced, even though she’d never had any talent for playing music. A genuine handcrafted piano would be worth hundreds, perhaps thousands, of gold crowns. And it had been smashed beyond repair.
“This used to be part of the king’s chambers,” Althorn said, as he led her into a side room. “Now, it belongs to the People.”
Emily nodded. A small group of people were waiting for her, sitting around a long wooden table. It looked so crude she was sure the original table had been smashed and then hastily replaced. She put the thought aside for later contemplation as the party - the rebel leadership, she realized suddenly - stood to greet her. They looked surprisingly welcoming. She found it hard to remember, all of a sudden, that she was meant to remain neutral.
Althorn performed the introductions. Emily listened, trying desperately to keep every name straight in her mind. Scribe Bajingan - a pudgy man who looked vaguely Oriental - was the rebel secretary. He looked warm and friendly, but Emily wasn’t so sure. The scribes had never liked her, with reason. She remembered that Joseph Stalin had been the Communist Party’s general secretary. He’d even kept the title after becoming undisputed ruler of the Soviet Union. Beside him sat Jair, Son of No One. Althorn explained he’d been fathered by an aristocrat who’d given his mother a great deal of money to stay out of his life. Jair was tall and thin, with dark eyes that suggested bottomless fury and resentment. Emily had the feeling he didn’t like her much.
Aiden, a broadsheet writer, was a decidedly odd person. He dressed like a fop, in commoner clothes; he wore a wide-brimmed hat decked with a flower, something that would have landed him in very real trouble if he’d done it in front of the king. His clothes were loose enough to allow him to move easily, yet... Emily’s eyes narrowed. There was something odd about him, something that bothered her. He sat next to Storm, a magician
