‘No,’ Ailsa said. ‘She is the youngest of the queen’s ladies and also the lowest-placed in the aristocracy, and she has no friends among the others. Quite the opposite, in fact – she is too young and far too pretty for their liking, and not rich enough or sufficiently well bred to soften that blow. A shoulder to cry on and a sympathetic ear were all she needed from me.’
‘All she needed for you to get her to incriminate herself, you mean.’
‘I’ve heard enough to make me suspicious, yes,’ Ailsa said. ‘Ilse will get the rest for us, I have no doubt. Once we have the facts, the Prince Consort and the Princess Crown Royal will either be proven innocent, or . . . not. Either way, we will have our answers and can begin to restore order to the palace.’
This was what she was really here to say, I knew, not all that horseshit about a knighthood that I didn’t even want.
‘And if they’re not innocent, then what? The princess is the only fucking heir.’
‘The only direct heir,’ Ailsa corrected me. ‘Royal families tend to be large and complicated and I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say there is a clear next in line. The Grand Duke of Varnburg, the queen’s cousin. He is a . . . difficult man, but the succession will be assured either way.’
‘Well, that’s good,’ was the only thing I could say.
Ailsa was going to feed this poor young lady who thought her a friend to that horror under the house of law, that’s what she was telling me. I didn’t really want to think about that.
‘Yes, it is,’ Ailsa said. ‘Anyway, the point is, there’s to be a closed trial in four days’ time to hear her confession. The Lord Chief Judiciar will preside, of course, but we both have to be there. I thought you’d want to know, so you had time to get yourself some decent clothes made. Wear something formal.’
‘If she confesses,’ I said.
Ailsa’s smile was pitiless.
*
Of course she confessed.
I had been a fool to think she might not. Whether she was actually guilty was perhaps another matter, but I supposed that by then it was of no consequence one way or the other.
Those were the times we lived in.
Four days later I was seated in a small but formal courtroom in the house of law, wearing a new black coat with a stiff brocade collar over a doublet of dark-red silk. Even my boots were new, all of it made in great haste and therefore at enormous expense. Fat Luka was seated at my right hand in his own freshly made finery, fidgeting uncomfortably while we waited. It was very early in the morning, and I didn’t think he was quite awake yet.
I could see Ailsa on the other side of the half-empty room. She was seated next to an older man who I didn’t know, and I found myself intensely interested in finding out who he was. I had left the rest of my crew at the Bountiful Harvest, seeing no need for them to sit through this obvious mummery.
Lord Vogel was presiding, as Ailsa had said, in his official role as the Lord Chief Judiciar. The trial was closed, by which they meant secret, the queen’s death still not being public knowledge. That being the case, I could only assume that most of the people in the room were connected to the Queen’s Men in some way, although there were apparently also a number of higher-ranking members of the governing council there who I thought probably weren’t. At the very least, everyone in the room had to be privy to the knowledge of the queen’s death, so that meant they were important in some way, and more to the point, it meant they were trusted to keep the secret. As the small room was half empty I surmised that Lord Vogel trusted very few people, which didn’t surprise me at all. Iagin was there as well, but he seemed to be alone. Ilse hadn’t come, and I found I was glad about that. I didn’t want to see Ilse again, not if I could avoid it.
At the front of the courtroom was a small desk and an ornate oak throne on a raised dais, with two armoured guards waiting behind it. A clerk sat at the desk, a quill already in his hand and an open book on the surface in front of him. There was a bottle of ink and jar of sand set neatly to one side. In the middle of the room between the throne and the rows of seats we occupied was a plain wooden chair.
A liveried attendant stepped into the space between the dais and the empty chair, and she thumped the floor with the end of the long staff she carried.
‘Come to order,’ she said, her voice loud in the already silent room. ‘All rise for the Lord Chief Judiciar.’
We stood, and a door behind the dais opened.
Lord Vogel strode into the room. He wore a long black robe, and a curious little black hat that rested on his white hair. The attendant’s staff struck the floor again, and everyone bowed while Vogel took his seat on his throne of office.
‘Be seated,’ he said, his voice quiet but carrying well in the enclosed space.
I sat with the others, and my eyes found Ailsa’s across the room. Her face was expressionless, the face of the lioness, and I made myself keep mine the same way. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect here, but I had a suspicion it wasn’t going to be pleasant.
I was right about that.
Chapter 7
‘Bring in the accused,’ Lord Vogel ordered.
Ailsa had said that the Lady Lan Delanov was young and pretty, but neither of those things were evident now. The woman that was led into the court between two guards was bent like a crone, her bare, scabbed feet shuffling
