He was one of Hers, and no mistake.
He was one of us.
The first blow smashed Grachyev’s jaw, stunning him. The second fractured his eye socket. The third shattered it, forcing bone fragments into his eyeball. The fourth pulped it beyond saving. The eye fell out of the ruin of his skull, dangling from a twisted rope of gristle. Beast punched again and again until his head was black and unrecognisable. Grachyev flopped feebly on the bed, and blood ran from his ears as he mewled like a newborn.
Anne turned away, and she threw open the shutters and stood staring out of the window into the yard behind the inn while Beast worked. She was my conscience, because Lady only knew I didn’t have one of my own any more. I watched Beast work, and beside me Iagin did the same without flinching. We were cut from the same cloth, Iagin and me, I realised. I wondered where he had been in his war, and what he had seen there, and what he had done. I knew he would never, ever tell me.
Beast started on Grachyev’s body, caving ribs into organs until his breath came in bursts of bloody, dying froth.
He didn’t stop until his fists were red and dripping, and it was over.
That was how justice was done, in those times we lived in.
Chapter 29
In the house of law, it is hard to tell whether a person is crying and screaming with fear, or pain, or madness. Sometimes it’s all three at once. The first of the men I had arrested at the Spring of Mercy, the one who had been so sure that I must know who he was, had apparently been a member of the governing council and the closest political ally of the First Councillor.
He wasn’t any more, not since the night a week ago at the Spring of Mercy when he had disappeared.
Lord Vogel was well pleased with that.
‘Councillor Hristokov has been most informative,’ Vogel said to me in his office that evening. ‘He has given us a great deal of names, under Ilse’s questioning.’
I was sure he had. Under Ilse’s questioning he had probably given us the names of everyone he had ever fucking met, just to make her stop.
‘Aye,’ I said, for want of anything better to say.
‘Oh, I know, Tomas,’ Vogel said, and he smiled in a way that I couldn’t find it in me to trust. ‘You’re bored, aren’t you? Constant arrest warrants are a waste of your skills. Don’t worry, I’ll give them to Konrad. He likes nothing better than sending people down to the cells, and he likes it all the more when they are people he knows.’
Brother Betrayal, I thought.
‘Aye, well,’ I said. ‘I’m not like that.’
‘No, I know you’re not,’ Vogel said. ‘Each of my Queen’s Men have their own special skills, and I can make better use of you than this. You, Tomas, are justice walking; punisher and protector both. You are Brother Blade, after all, and your blade is double-edged.’
‘What do you have in mind?’
‘There’s a young boy of ten years,’ Vogel said. ‘A cousin of the royal house. He’s the son of the Grand Duke of Varnburg, who you may have met at court. The duke is the Prince Regent’s oldest friend and has lived in Dannsburg for many years, but the boy remains at home in the Sea Keep with his mother and a cadre of tutors and guards.’
I actually hadn’t met him, so far as I knew, but I remembered what Ailsa had told me of the Grand Duke of Varnburg. He was the queen’s cousin and next in the line of succession after the Princess Crown Royal. He is a . . . difficult man, she had said.
‘Sabine’s just come from Varnburg,’ I said, before I had time to think better of it.
Vogel looked at me for a long moment without speaking.
‘She has,’ he said at last.
I decided it was probably best to withhold any more opinions on that subject. All the same, I could see where this was going. Vogel wanted the boy as a hostage to encourage the duke to become somewhat less difficult, that was plain enough.
‘And you want this little boy kidnapped, do you?’ I asked, already dreading the answer.
‘Absolutely not,’ Vogel said, which was both a relief and something of a surprise. ‘Quite the opposite, in fact. I want him protected, Tomas. I want him protected at all costs, and brought here safely to the capital. Varnburg is too far north for comfort. The Skanian trade ships dock there, and who can tell when there may be assassins hidden among their crews? This little boy, you see, is next in the line of succession after our own beloved Princess Crown Royal.’
I frowned at that, thinking on what Ailsa had told me about the order of succession. ‘Surely that would be his father the Grand Duke, the queen’s own cousin?’
‘No. Well, yes, at this precise moment. Not by the time you return with the boy.’
I met Vogel’s soulless eyes, and I understood. This was a further consolidation of power, of undermining the prince’s support in the palace. The Grand Duke was the Prince Regent’s oldest friend, apparently, and right then that was a very unhealthy thing to be. With him and Hristokov both gone, First Councillor Lan Letskov and the Prince Regent would both be nothing but powerless figureheads, and Vogel’s newly united and loyal governing council could rule as they saw fit.
‘Go to Varnburg. Attend to the boy, tell him of his father’s sudden and tragic passing from an attack of the heart, and that he is Grand Duke now. You have a son yourself, you’ll know the right sort of thing to say. I’ve noticed that you are good with young people, Tomas, in a way that the majority of my Queen’s Men are not.’
I thought
