I nodded.
‘Aye,’ I said. ‘Broke in and murdered the doctor. About a week ago, give or take.’
Beast grunted, but he didn’t look like he much cared one way or the other. I dare say he didn’t, at that, but right then I had other things on my mind. I could feel the blood drain from my face as I thought about it.
Doctor Almanov, the Princess Crown Royal’s personal physician, had been dead for more than a week. So who had been administering the princess’ medication in that time? Who had been making sure she stayed drugged for the last week?
The answer, of course, was no one.
No one at all.
I’m glad they’re drugging her. Don’t let them stop. Please, Papa, don’t ever let them stop.
Oh gods.
She was due on the balcony any minute – she could already be up there by now, for all I knew.
‘With me,’ I said, and I shouldered past him and ran down the stairs. ‘Now!’
I ran out of the front door and straight into six of the City Guard with weapons levelled.
‘You’re under arrest,’ their sergeant said.
I simply did not have time to fuck around.
‘Queen’s Man,’ I snarled at him, and Beast came out of the door behind me and punched him in the face at a full run, knocking him to the ground to land the message. I hastily untied my horse from the street’s public hitching rail and climbed into the saddle, and only then did I think to show the warrant to the rest of the charging guardsmen. The sight of it stopped them in their tracks as though they had been poleaxed. ‘Secure that house, on the order of the crown.’
I turned my horse and dug my heels in as Beast rode up beside me. I turned to look at him.
‘Did you ever ride in a charge, Beast?’ I asked him.
He frowned at me.
‘Aye, once, at Abingon,’ he admitted. ‘Nearly shat myself with the fear, but I did it.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Do it again.’
I kicked my horse into a ruthless gallop, and after a moment I heard Beast pounding along behind me.
There wasn’t a moment to spare and I knew it.
Chapter 51
We hurtled down the wide mall that led to the palace at the pace of a full cavalry charge. On any normal day someone would probably have been killed, but with half the city packed into the parade ground before the palace the streets were mercifully empty.
By the time we were a hundred yards from the gates I could tell we were too late. She was on the balcony already, a tiny child doll in a magnificent dress of martial crimson and patriotic white. It seemed the time for public mourning was finally over.
Now it was a time for war.
War, and the nation’s end.
The parade ground in front of the palace was full to overflowing, and I could see there would be no getting in through that crowd.
‘This way!’ I shouted, and wrenched my horse around and into the road that led past the barracks of the Palace Guard and up to the side entrance to the palace. The poor beast was nearly spent, bloody at the bit and lather on her flanks, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I may be no cavalry officer but I can ride well enough when I have to. Beast was no more than an average horseman at best, though, and his poor mount was carrying a lot more weight than mine was. He was falling further and further behind with every stride, but I couldn’t worry about that now. He would catch up with me or he wouldn’t, and if he didn’t then I would just have to do without him and those were the simple facts of it.
I reached the gatehouse with the Queen’s Warrant already open in my hand, and barely slowed to a canter as I bore down on the shocked guardsmen who hurled the gates wide open before me in obvious confusion.
‘The man behind me is with me,’ I shouted as I passed them, but I didn’t know if they caught my words and I didn’t have time to care one way or the other.
I reached the stable yard at last and threw my reins to a groom before hastily dismounting. My poor horse was completely blown. I felt bad for what I had put her through, but she was a palace horse and we all served the crown, in our own way.
‘Look after her,’ I said, and hurried into the palace through the stable gate.
A startled footman snapped to attention when he saw me.
‘Ailsa,’ I said, still breathless from the effort of my insane, headlong charge. ‘Now.’
He took my meaning and led me hurriedly through the palace, up stairs and down corridors and through passages until I found myself being shown into somewhere I had never been before, a formal drawing room with tall windows that led out onto the royal balcony at the front of the palace. Ailsa was there, with Vogel and Iagin. She turned to look at me with a worried expression on her face.
I shook my head, and she winced in understanding.
I could hear the princess’ words coming in through the open glass doors.
‘. . . my mother’s memory, in this most difficult time of looming war,’ she was saying, and I recognised Iagin’s phrasing in her prepared speech. ‘Know that the Rose Throne stands resolute, a rock in the tempest that no foreign aggression will ever assail.’
Perhaps we had got away with it. Perhaps she didn’t need her medication as much as the house of law thought she did.
‘She’s on script,’ Iagin said approvingly.
‘So far,’ Vogel replied.
‘She’s off her medication,’ I said. ‘For a week at least.’
Iagin stared at me, a frown of concern crossing his face. Vogel didn’t even react, not so much as a blink.
‘We will fight them, as we fought in the south and were
