‘Maybe you might encourage a few people to start talking about her,’ I said. ‘I want to get a feel for opinions.’
‘You won’t get an honest opinion in this city, boss,’ he said. ‘Whatever they might think of her, no one’s going to dare speak ill of their future queen, are they?’
I sighed. I supposed they wouldn’t, at that. Not in Dannsburg they wouldn’t.
I had to admit I couldn’t really blame them.
Chapter 14
I had never seen a state funeral before.
Half the city was draped in black for the occasion, and even the lowest commoner seemed to have found enough dark cloth to fashion a mourning armband at the very least. Even the route the funeral procession would take through the city had been hung with black banners. I was dressed all in black myself, and so was Ailsa beside me. As Queen’s Men we were among the most honoured mourners, already seated within the echoing vastness of the Grand High Temple of All Gods. It dwarfed Ellinburg’s Great Temple, looming on the far side of the castle hill near the north wall of the city. Iagin and Ilse were there as well, although seated apart from us so as not to draw attention to our group. As man and wife it was only natural for Ailsa and me to sit together, and I found that I was glad of that.
Lamps burned everywhere, in long lines along the top of each row of pews. When I married Ailsa in the Great Temple in Ellinburg the place had been full of candles, but that was for weddings. For the flame of love. Funerals meant lamps, to light the deceased’s way into the grey lands, and it seemed a queen’s funeral meant a very great number of lamps indeed.
Lord Vogel was there, of course, in the front row of pews beside the Prince Regent and the Princess Crown Royal. On his other side was the older man who had been with Ailsa at the trial of Lady Lan Delanov, and again I wondered who he was. I leaned close to Ailsa to murmur in her ear.
‘Who’s that beside the Old Man?’ I asked her.
‘First Councillor Aleksander Lan Letskov,’ she whispered back. ‘He’s the presiding head of the governing council.’
‘Is he with the family?’
‘No, absolutely not.’
‘I saw you with him, at the trial.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We like to keep him close, where we can see him.’
She turned away to make an end to the conversation, and I sighed and sat back to wait until the drummers took up their slow beat.
The heralds came first, looking incongruously colourful with the red and white royal arms on the tabards they wore over their mourning black. Behind them walked the assembled nobility, in full-length black mourning cloaks and hoods, and behind them came a procession of magicians with their midnight-blue robes crossed by black sashes. Behind those came more heralds carrying banners showing the royal arms, and then the funeral bier itself with its bearers flanked by martial knights with the scabbards of their heavy war swords wrapped in black silk, and then yet more heralds and knights to bring up the rear.
The queen had been dead for well over a month, and it seemed that the embalming had failed horribly. The corpse had been packed in a barrel of salt to preserve it, so Iagin had told me the previous day, but some moisture must have got into it somewhere. There had been no way the resulting mess could be seen if we expected anyone to believe the queen had only been dead for a few days, so the casket was closed and a wax effigy of Her Majesty had been fashioned and dressed and laid atop the embroidered purple velvet pall that covered the bier. I had never set eyes on the queen and I had no idea if it was a good likeness, but I hoped not. If it was, our late queen had not been a handsome woman.
The highest priests in the capital were officiating, and it seemed to me that they competed with one another to see who could give the longest and dullest eulogy possible. The afternoon wore on in grinding tedium as we sweltered in the heat of the lamps, until my patience was worn thin and my arse was numb on the wooden pew.
Then it happened.
Arch High Priest Rantanen was finally intoning the closing litany of the gods’ graces in his most solemn and ponderous voice when the Princess Crown Royal finally snapped.
The entire congregation were kneeling for this last litany, but suddenly the princess was on her feet and shrieking as she hurled hymnals and lamps and anything else she could reach at the wax effigy of her mother.
The Arch High Priest stammered to a stop as the first thrown lamp crashed onto the stone floor beneath the bier and exploded. I saw the Prince Regent reach up from his kneeling position to try and calm his daughter.
She punched him in the eye with the viciousness of a street urchin, sending him reeling back into Lord Vogel, then she snatched up another lamp and launched it at the bier with a deranged howl. It trailed a streamer of smoke behind it until it landed on the velvet pall that covered the casket, and broke.
That velvet was old and dry and dusty, and it began to burn as the flaming lamp oil spread across it. I heard a shocked gasp from those around me, all but drowned out by the princess’ continued screaming. Vogel was on his feet now, pushing the Prince Regent unceremoniously out of his way as he reached for the howling demon the princess had become.
‘Oh, my gods,’ Ailsa whispered.
I turned my eyes from Vogel’s attempts to restrain the
