Battle shock, it’s just battle shock. Breathe, damn you!
A door banged open in front of me.
‘Let him come forth,’ said a voice, and I recognised it as Vogel’s.
I was pushed stumbling into the room, and the door slammed shut behind me. There was utter silence other than my own ragged breathing and the pounding of my heart.
Breathe!
The darkness was total in the confines of the hood. I took another step, unsteady on my feet until I felt a hand on my arm. Something dug into the back of my wrist, the sharpness of a silver ring.
Sabine, I thought.
‘Sit him.’
I was turned around by thin, cold hands, then pushed into a chair. Hard wood met the arse of my britches with a slap that surprised me; the seat of the chair was higher than I would have expected, and once I was seated my feet barely touched the floor. It was purposefully designed to be disorientating, I realised, like everything else.
Metal scraped on metal, a harsh shriek in the dark.
‘You have the shears, Mother Ruin?’
‘Always, Father Secrets.’ That was Sabine’s voice, I was sure of it.
‘Speak unto those assembled of the purpose of the shears.’
‘Shears cut. Sever the ties, sever the bonds. Sever the flesh, should the word be denied.’ Hands grasped my shoulders suddenly, making me startle. ‘Sever the tongue, should secrets be told, pierce the eyes, should the word be denied.’
I swallowed.
Mummery, I told myself. It’s just some mummery in the name of tradition.
No doubt that was true. All the same I suddenly needed to piss very badly indeed, and I’ve no shame in admitting that.
‘And shall this one deny the word? I shall hear the counsel of the Knights of the Rose Throne. What say you, Mother Ruin?’
Again the scream of unoiled metal on metal, and in my mind I could see a pair of monstrous shears opening around the sides of my neck ready to snip off my head like the boggart with its long, twisted fingers.
That’s just in stories, stupid stories for children. The boggart isn’t real.
No, of course it wasn’t, but Vogel and Sabine and the rest of the Queen’s Men very much were, and in that moment I was utterly at their mercy.
There’s nothing to truly fear in it.
‘I think not, Father Secrets,’ she said. ‘Mother Ruin has looked into his eyes, and thought him faithful. I will stand by him.’
I remembered how Sabine had stared at me over her glass of wine like blood, and I wondered if that had been a part of this strange test. Perhaps she had some sort of second sight, like my Billy had. That was a horrifying thought.
It’s just mummery. Breathe, damn you!
‘Sister Deceit, what say you?’
‘He will not, Father Secrets.’ I startled as I realised that was Ailsa speaking. ‘I stand by him, as his wife within the family.’
‘Brother Betrayal, what say you?’
‘He will do his part,’ said Konrad. ‘I have seen him work, and I stand by him.’
‘Brother Truth?’
‘He’s all right by me,’ said Iagin. ‘I’ll stand.’
‘Sister Torment?’
‘I rather like him, actually,’ said Ilse. ‘I stand with him.’
‘Understand this, Sir Tomas.’ That was Vogel again, and now his voice was sharp with command. ‘When Mother Ruin cuts the ties that bind your hood she cuts all ties. You foreswear family and business and place and home and past and love, in service of the Rose Throne. Only one love remains, that which you have made within the family. Bow your head to Mother Ruin and accept your place as a Knight of the Rose Throne, or remain forever in the darkness. What say you?’
I would have bet a gold crown to a clipped copper that if I had refused him at that point, my ‘forever’ could have been measured in seconds.
‘Aye, Father Secrets,’ I said, getting a feel for the way this game was to be played. It really wasn’t so very different to the sort of gang rituals I was used to, and again that surprised me. ‘I bow my head.’
I leaned forward, and I felt a sharp tug at the back of my neck. Sabine’s shears, in truth far smaller than I had imagined them to be in my fear, cut through the ties at the back of my hood until she was able to lift it clear of my head.
Flickering torchlight lit the room from flaming sconces on the stone walls, making smoke drift above those gathered around the table. Torches make for shit lights, by and large, which is probably why someone invented lamps, but they’re nothing if not dramatic. Vogel sat at the table’s head, opposite me, and he wore a long black mask of stiffened leather shaped to make him look like the devil I had first thought him to be. Ailsa sat at his right hand and Iagin at his left, with Ilse beside him. Konrad was beside Ailsa, and both he and Ilse had a vacant chair beside them. Every one of the Queen’s Men was masked, although theirs were plain, smooth and faceless and somehow all the more horrifying for it. I was at the foot of the table in what was obviously Sabine’s rightful place.
‘Stand,’ she hissed in my ear, and I did as I was told.
The others remained seated but now all those blank, emotionless masks turned to face me. The silence stretched until I wanted
