Vogel’s thin lips twitched at that.
‘And what exactly is it you suppose he said, Tomas?’
‘I have no idea,’ I said, ‘and I know it doesn’t matter in the slightest.’
‘Quite,’ Vogel said, and now his mouth formed the razorblade smile that I would forever associate with him.
‘What was the princess doing out there?’ Ailsa asked.
‘The gods only know,’ Vogel snapped at her. ‘It should have been you on that balcony with him, not the princess.’
‘We agreed to have no presence on the balcony,’ she said. ‘There’s only so far I can stretch my influence before people begin to question how I have risen so high when I am only a knight.’
‘Yes,’ Vogel said. ‘That’s quite the position you put us in, Ailsa, as you well know. We could have had you married to a duke by now, and then nobody would be questioning anything.’
Ailsa stiffened as though he had slapped her.
‘I did what had to be done at the time to achieve the objective.’
‘Oh, didn’t you just,’ Vogel said, and his cold eyes flickered towards Billy and me as he said it. ‘We adapt and move on, Ailsa, it’s what we do. As for what His Highness thought he was doing bringing the princess out there, I have no idea. He was very clearly told that this evening was about him, not his royal daughter. The child is not yet of age, after all, and of a delicate disposition, as you well know.’
I wondered what he meant by that, but right then didn’t seem like a good time to ask.
‘If I may, sir,’ I ventured, ‘I’m not sure why I’m here. What do you need from me?’
‘I want you to go and see the Prince Regent,’ Vogel said. ‘Talk to him, man to man. I would do it myself but he seems somewhat . . . reticent, shall we say, in my company. He needs some spine putting in him, Tomas, if he’s to be any sort of regent at all. You were a soldier, and a priest, you should know the right sort of thing to say. The boy can stay here with Ailsa and myself while you’re about it.’
That was that, then. I wasn’t happy about it, but Ailsa caught my eye and gave me a tiny nod to say that it was all right, or at least that I didn’t have a choice. Vogel’s orders weren’t to be questioned, I knew that much by now, and certainly not to his face.
‘Aye, sir,’ I had to say, and that was done.
*
A footman led me down another corridor to a door I recognised as the one that led to the Prince Regent’s private drawing room. Two guardsmen were stationed outside that door, and from inside the room I could hear someone sobbing.
The man was grieving for his dead wife, I reminded myself, but in truth it had been a month and more since the queen’s death. Surely, I thought then, the prince had had nothing to do but grieve while he was under house arrest during that time. It seemed to my mind that he should at least be beginning to get over it by then, but of course at that point in my life I hadn’t lost anyone I had truly loved since my ma died, and I had been very young then. Looking back on it, perhaps I was wrong. No, fuck it. I was wrong, and I will admit that now. I didn’t know it at the time, but grief can take years to work its way out. I didn’t know that then, but I would come to learn it through the pain and sorrow of the years that followed.
Anyway, once again I was struck with the thought that something within the palace wasn’t right. The footman knocked sharply on the door then opened it without waiting for an answer, and ushered me inside.
The Prince Regent was alone apart from four of the Palace Guard, the men standing like statues against the wall while he wept. He was sitting slumped in a chair with the jacket of his magnificent crimson dress uniform open over his undershirt, his medals hanging sad and dishevelled from his drooping lapels.
I cleared my throat, and he looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes.
‘Your Highness,’ I said. ‘My deepest sympathies for your loss.’
‘My loss,’ he repeated, his snot-choked voice sounding hollow. ‘Yes. Thank you, Father Tomas. Will you join me?’
He waved a limp hand at the silver tray on the table beside him that held three brandy bottles, each half empty, and a number of glasses.
‘Aye, my thanks,’ I said.
I walked towards the chair opposite him and stopped for a moment to regard the four guardsmen.
‘You know who I am?’ I asked them.
‘Yes, sir,’ their sergeant said.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘You’re dismissed. I wish to speak to the Prince Regent in private.’
‘Sir, we have our orders.’
I looked at him then, the way I might have looked at a business owner in the Stink who didn’t want to pay his taxes. That wasn’t the look of a Queen’s Man. That was the look of the devil Tomas Piety, and I knew it brooked no argument.
‘I’m giving you new orders,’ I said, and my voice dropped into the flat tone that promised harsh justice to come if it wasn’t obeyed. ‘Fuck off, the lot of you.’
They went, and that was wise of them.
‘What do you want, Tomas?’ the prince asked once we were finally alone.
‘Vogel sent me,’ I admitted, seeing no reason to lie to him about it. ‘You’re worried about the regency, aren’t you?’
‘The regency?’ His head lifted then and he looked at me, and for a moment I thought he was going to laugh. ‘Oh yes, Tomas, I’m terrified of sitting on a throne and being told what to do and say by your lady wife while living the most privileged life in the realm.
