Breathe, just breathe . . .
At last Vogel stood, his chair scraping on the bare stone floor as he shoved it away. Sabine was still behind me and I couldn’t see her, but I wasn’t prepared to bet she didn’t have a weapon of some sort held very close to my back.
‘Mother Ruin and those of the family here gathered have spoken for you, and sworn to stand with you,’ Vogel said. ‘You will repeat the words of the Royal Oath after me, and it shall bind you forevermore, heart and soul and life and death, to the service of the Rose Throne. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Father Secrets,’ I said.
Vogel spoke the words of the oath then, and I repeated them after him.
‘I, Sir Tomas of Ellinburg, do solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that I will serve Our Sovereign Lady Her Majesty the Queen or her regent in the office of a Knight of the Rose Throne, without favour or affection, malice or ill will; and that I will foreswear all past ties of family or business or home, save those made within the embrace of the Knights of the Rose Throne; that I will to the full extent of the power vested in me cause the peace to be kept and preserved, and prevent all offences against the person and properties of Her Majesty and those of the Rose Throne; and that I will to the best of my skill and knowledge discharge all the duties thereof faithfully according to law and the word of the Provost Marshal. So do I swear.’
‘So does he swear before the family,’ murmured the assembled Queen’s Men, ‘and may the word never be denied.’
‘So do you swear before Mother Ruin,’ Sabine said from behind me, ‘and may the word never be denied.’
‘So do you swear before Father Secrets,’ said Vogel, ‘and may the word never be denied.’
He looked up at me then, and I could feel the razor of his smile opening behind his mask.
‘Choose a seat at the table,’ he said.
The only two vacant seats were beside Konrad and Ilse. I took the one beside Ilse, as much so as I didn’t have to look at her as anything else.
‘Good choice,’ she murmured as I sat, and I wondered what that meant.
Vogel reached up then and removed his mask, and the others began to do the same. I chanced a look at Sabine, and saw that her mask was a mirror image of the one Vogel himself had worn, her devil no less hideous than his own.
‘Welcome to the family,’ she said.
She placed her mask on the table and took her place at its foot, in a normal chair now and not the strange high seat I had been pushed into. Now she sat in the seat that was forever vacant at Vogel’s dinner table, the hostess’ seat, the place reserved for the matriarch of a household. She might not be Provost Marshal any more, but she quite clearly stood higher than any of the rest of them save Vogel himself. The rest of us, I corrected myself. I was a Queen’s Man in truth now, and I knew there could never be any going back on that. It was widely known that the only way to leave the service of the Queen’s Men was in death.
‘It just remains to give you a name,’ Ailsa said.
Vogel looked at me for a long moment, then showed me the razor edge of his smile once more.
‘Brother Blade,’ he said.
Chapter 22
‘I haven’t been so fucking scared since we tried to undermine the walls at Abingon,’ I confessed to Anne, and threw back another brandy.
‘What was it like?’
I looked at her, and shook my head.
‘Get knighted and take the oath and you’ll find out,’ I said, and immediately regretted it. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you, Bloody Anne. It’s a private thing, a family thing. You understand that, don’t you?’
‘Aye,’ she said. ‘I can respect that.’
I nodded and poured her another brandy, emptying the bottle. We were alone in the private dining room of the Bountiful Harvest, Fat Luka and Rosie having both retired some hours before. Billy was with Ailsa, and I still wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but the lad had been so pleased to be invited to her house for supper that again I hadn’t been able to find it in me to refuse him.
Sister Deceit.
No, I wouldn’t believe that. If she didn’t want to see him then she could easily have avoided it, and she had nothing to gain from it save his company.
All the same, there was reason to the names we had. I had seen that well enough.
Ailsa was the false face, the one who worked behind her veils of gold and lace. Konrad, who had sent his own sister to the cells, and Our Lady only knew who else before her, was Brother Betrayal. That made sense enough. Iagin, the one who sold our stories on the streets with his smiles and promises, was Brother Truth, for the truth we wanted people to hear, and Sister Torment for the torturer spoke for itself. Vogel was Father Secrets for all the things he heard and kept to himself, and I the soldier was now Brother Blade.
Mother Ruin, though, that I struggled with. There was a tale behind that name, I was sure, although I doubted I would ever hear what it was.
‘Did they hurt you?’
I blinked, Anne’s voice disturbing my thoughts.
‘No, no, not really. They just frightened the piss out of me. It’s part of it, I suppose, the same way I cut Desh’s hand while you lot all glared at him like death come calling and waited to see if he’d blink. To see if the man will back down, show fear, any of the things we don’t want. It’s not really much different.’
‘Don’t you think it should be?’
I shrugged, and reached for another bottle.
‘I don’t know, Bloody Anne. The
