I was so deep in my thoughts I almost walked into a detachment of four of the Guard before I even saw them.
Stupid, I told myself, but it was done by then. Their corporal looked at me with hard eyes.
‘You’re out late,’ he said.
That wasn’t a crime in itself, not yet, but I thought it might not be much longer before it became one.
‘Aye,’ I said. ‘What of it?’
‘You don’t sound like Dannsburg,’ he said. ‘Where are you from?’
‘The east,’ I said. ‘Ellinburg.’
‘Oh, yes? And why’s that, then? What are you doing here? No, don’t tell me. I think I’d better take you to the guardroom. You can explain yourself to the custody sergeant.’
I opened the Queen’s Warrant, and I held it up so all of them could see it.
‘I really don’t think you did,’ I said. ‘Your custody sergeant won’t want to see me, I assure you.’
The corporal visibly paled in the light of the lamp that hung from the wall above his head. He snapped to attention and saluted me, and his startled men did the same.
‘I . . . I’m sorry, sir,’ he stammered. ‘I didn’t know you.’
‘No, of course you didn’t,’ I said. ‘No one does. That’s how this works, Corporal. That’s the whole point.’
‘Sir.’
I put the warrant back in my pouch and I looked at him for a long moment, and I knew I was putting the fear of Our Lady into him. That was good. I held his gaze until he swallowed and looked away. I knew he was thinking of the house of law, and what he had no doubt heard was inside it. Whatever the rumours said, I would have bet good coin it wasn’t half as bad as the truth.
‘On your way,’ I said at last, and the guardsmen all but fled.
I stood under the lamp for a moment and took a slow breath.
Is that what you want, Tomas? To be part of this?
I had to allow that perhaps it was.
Respect, power, authority. Those are the levers that move me.
*
I walked for a long time, and I didn’t know where I was going until I was nearly there.
Ailsa’s house was much like the one I had in Ellinburg, although larger and set back from the street with walls around it. There were guards on the gates even at this hour, but I recognised Brandt from the time I had spent living there the previous year. He was the boss of her household guard, and he was attached to the Queen’s Men himself. Of course, he recognised me too.
If he was surprised to see me arrive on foot and not in a carriage or ahorse he had sense enough not to mention it, and that was wise of him.
‘Evening, sir,’ he said as I approached the gates, but he didn’t open them.
‘Is she in?’ I asked him.
Brandt’s eyes narrowed as he looked at me.
‘I wasn’t told to expect visitors,’ he said.
‘That’s because I’m not expected,’ I said.
‘It’s late.’
‘I’m her husband.’
I was, at that, not that it meant much any more.
If it had ever meant anything.
‘Sir,’ he had to say, and he opened the gate and let me through into the grounds of the house.
I gave him a nod, and one of the others escorted me to the front door, where he rang a bell to summon a footman.
‘A visitor for her ladyship,’ the guard said.
The footman’s eyes widened as he too obviously recognised me, although I didn’t recall his face.
‘Mr Piety,’ he said, and gave me a short bow.
‘It’s Sir Tomas, now,’ I corrected him.
‘My apologies, m’lord.’
He ushered me into the house and showed me across the hall to the drawing room, although I knew the way. I had lived in that house for the best part of six months, after all.
The footman opened the drawing room door and uttered a discreet cough.
‘Sir Tomas, ma’am,’ he said.
Ailsa looked up from her seat beside the fire, a hoop of embroidery in her hands and the lamp on the table beside her burning bright. Her lady’s maid was seated on a low stool at her feet. It was a different girl, I noticed, but then I had never learned the last one’s name anyway.
‘Hello, Tomas,’ she said, and if she was surprised to see me, her face gave nothing away. ‘Won’t you come in?’
‘My thanks,’ I said, feeling something of a fool.
I had no idea what I thought I was doing there. Ailsa was my wife in name only, I knew that, and I had no real right to be in her house.
‘Oh, sit down,’ she said. ‘You know where the brandy is, if you want one. Leave us, Tilly.’
I did want one. I waited for Ailsa’s maid to leave the room, then poured myself a glass and took a chair across from her. I sat staring into the amber spirit, not meeting her eyes. She worked at her embroidery in silence, giving me the time I needed to put my words in order. Her needle moved through the fabric that was stretched over her hoop, stitch after stitch after stitch.
‘What are we doing, Ailsa?’ I asked, eventually. I had to be careful here, I knew. Anything I said to her could and probably would make its way to Vogel’s ears. ‘Someone sent that assassin. Why are we still arresting our own people in our own city, when we should be worrying about the Skanians? We should be worrying about preventing a war we can’t win!’
Ailsa put her embroidery down in her lap and looked at me.
‘The house of law is capable of doing more than one thing at once, Tomas,’ she said. ‘The part that you and Konrad are doing is to ensure security in the city, and especially in the palace. If there was one assassin there could be another,
