The heat of the burning effigy combined with the fire already raging on the floor beneath the bier set the coffin alight between them. I could hear someone yelling for water, someone else for sand, but in the Grand High Temple there were neither. Some fool tore down a banner and attempted to smother the fire, which resulted in both the banner and his clothes catching alight as well.
Lord Vogel had the Princess Crown Royal in his arms now, holding her tight as she kicked and flailed and screamed. Again the Prince Regent tried to intervene, and his daughter kicked him in the face hard enough to bring bright blood from his nose. Behind us people were streaming out of the temple as the flames began to spread with astonishing speed, licking up the altar cloth and threatening to engulf the rest of the heraldry that hung perilously close to the blaze.
The coffin was fully burning now, and I could smell the rotted meat stench of the queen cooking inside it. The look on Ailsa’s face told me that she could too. Vogel and five of the Palace Guard bundled the princess away from the fire and towards the great doors, the Prince Regent hurrying behind them with a silk pocket square clutched to his bloody nose. At the last moment the princess managed to twist her head away from the smothering hand Vogel had been holding over her mouth.
‘Burn!’ she shrieked, loud enough for everyone in the congregation to hear her words. ‘Burn, you witch!’
There was fucking uproar.
Shouted protestations, denials, horror. I heard the word witch far more times than could possibly be good.
‘We should leave,’ Ailsa said, and I found that I couldn’t agree more.
I had never seen a state funeral before, and I never expected to see another one.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was wrong about that.
*
Vogel’s rage was apocalyptic, as might have been expected.
He stalked the length of the Prince Regent’s drawing room, his hands clasped tightly behind his back and his white hair in uncharacteristic disarray. Ailsa and I were both there, and Iagin and the Prince Regent himself. The Princess Crown Royal had been confined to her rooms and restrained by four burly nuns until her doctor could be summoned to administer enough poppy wine to put her to sleep.
All pretence of hiding it was over now.
There was quite obviously something very wrong with the Princess Crown Royal.
‘What,’ Vogel snarled through gritted teeth, ‘the fuck am I supposed to do with this?’
‘My Lord Judiciar,’ the Prince Regent began, ‘my daughter is prone to . . . outbursts. Fits, you might say. She—’
‘I know that!’ Vogel roared at him. ‘She set her own mother’s coffin on fire. She called our beloved queen a witch in the plain hearing of everyone in this city who fucking matters! Why was she there, you cretin? Your one fucking job is to keep her calm and away from stressful situations. First the balcony, and now this? You stupid cunt! You didn’t think her own mother’s funeral might be fucking stressful ?’
I had never seen Lord Vogel lose his temper before. I wouldn’t have believed him capable of it, in fact, but I suppose everyone has a limit to their patience. Vogel had quite obviously reached his.
‘I . . . yes, Lord Vogel,’ the prince whispered.
This Prince Regent, this man who was king in all but name, was plainly terrified of the Provost Marshal. He knew where the power in the room truly lay, there could be no doubt about that. Vogel took a deep breath and calmed himself.
‘Who controls the princess’ medication?’ he demanded.
‘Her what?’ the prince said, looking confused.
‘Her chief tutor, a Master Edric Nyman,’ Ailsa said.
Vogel just nodded. ‘Arrest him. I want to know if he is simply incompetent or if someone bribed him to allow this to happen, and if so I want to know who that was. Tell Ilse to find out. Either way, we don’t need to see him again.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Ailsa said.
‘You’ve been drugging my daughter?’ the prince blustered, and I thought he looked genuinely appalled at the notion.
‘Yes, we have been for years,’ Ailsa said. ‘It appears we haven’t been drugging her quite enough.’
I shook my head and said nothing.
‘The princess was overcome with grief for her beloved mother,’ Iagin said, obviously thinking out loud the same way Ailsa did sometimes. ‘She’s young, and has never known loss or hardship in her life. The queen’s sudden and unexpected death hit her hard. Young girls are so fragile at that age, after all. The fire was an accident, an overturned lamp. I’m sure we can find someone to blame for that easily enough. Most of the people who actually saw it will listen when we tell them what really happened, and we can deal with any dissenting voices afterwards. I’ll take care of it.’
Vogel just nodded. ‘Good,’ he said.
‘There’s Lan Letskov,’ Ailsa said. ‘He won’t let us tell him what he saw, you know he won’t.’
‘He won’t talk, though,’ Iagin said.
‘Perhaps not, but he will know and he will remember.’
‘We can’t remove him, not yet,’ Vogel said. ‘It’s too soon. Subtlety, Ailsa, always.’
I saw an unmistakable curl of distaste cross her lips before she smoothed her expression.
‘You’ll want me to see him,’ she said, and I could hear a note of resignation in her voice.
‘You know very well that he thinks he’s in love with you.’
That startled me, but I forced myself to hold my peace.
‘Yes, well,’ Ailsa said, and turned away.
My weapons are gold and lace, and paints and powders.
Ailsa had told me that, once, but I didn’t think I’d ever really understood quite what she meant until that moment.
‘Give him a chance to accept our side of things,’ Vogel went on. ‘If he won’t,
