So said the doctrine of the temple, anyway. To my mind if someone I cared about took their own life I would grieve for them the same, probably even more, than if they had died of disease or been murdered or fallen in battle, and there I had a point of difference with Our Lady’s doctrine.
If someone close to me took their life, I would always ask myself, should I have known? Should I have seen it coming, and done something to help, something to stop them? Would that even have been my right to do, if their minds were made up? Would that be in accordance with Our Lady’s plan for that person, or contrary to it? That was a theological question, I supposed, and priest though I may be I was hardly schooled in theology. The army hadn’t much cared about that, when they had needed a new priest to hear the confessions of their superstitious soldiers.
The point was that no one was mourning the Prince Regent, and that was quite obviously deliberate. He would have a state funeral, of course, but it would be nothing like the scale of that held in honour of the late queen. The sooner he was forgotten the better, in Vogel’s eyes. That message was plain enough, and in the court of Dannsburg woe betide any who failed to hear it.
That aside, the business of court continued almost as normal.
Almost.
The Princess Crown Royal sat on her throne staring into space in a drugged stupor as she always did, but instead of the Prince Regent sitting on the consort’s throne with Ailsa whispering in his ear, there sat Lord Vogel.
The Lord Chief Judiciar sat on the regent’s throne, in his rightful place by law. The Provost Marshal of the Queen’s Men, in his place taken through political manoeuvring and manipulation, misinformation and outright lies.
The new Prince Regent.
And no one whispered in his ear. No one at all.
Vogel ruled there in truth now, and there could be no more doubt about it.
Part Two
Chapter 36
Dannsburg looked a lot less grand as winter hit, and turned the skies to an ashen grey by day and a moonlit vista by night, robbed of the usual city streetlights due to the shortage of oil. Lamp oil came from Skania, where the great whales were hunted, and all trade with Skania was suspended now that their ships were banned from Varnburg’s docks. Prices were becoming astronomical, far too high for the city to pay just to light the streets. Even at the state funeral of Prince Wilhelm that I had been forced to sit through, there had been far fewer lamps in the Grand High Temple of All Gods than I had been expecting, much to the evident displeasure of the new Arch High Priest.
The trees that lined the wide avenues were leafless skeletal hands scratching at the heavens, and a bitter wind whipped through their branches and down the dark, fire-filled streets. Riots were rampant. The supporters of the house of magicians and the house of law clashed on an almost daily basis, and the City Guard were overwhelmed trying to keep the peace.
‘Lady’s sake, Tomas,’ Anne said as she slammed down another brandy and poured refills for us both. ‘What the fuck is going on?’
‘Change, Anne,’ I said, and I lifted my glass and looked at her through the dark amber spirit. ‘It happens. We usually don’t like it, but it happens all the same. Change is a constant we can’t stop, much as we might like to.’
We were sitting in my unofficial office at the back of the Bountiful Harvest that I had claimed as a Queen’s Man. I had recently given the innkeeper another five gold crowns, and asked for a rug to keep the chill off the wooden floor. A magnificent Alarian carpet had appeared with his compliments the very next day, so at least my feet were warm if nothing else.
Anne had the seat at my right hand, where she had always sat when she was my second in the Pious Men before I became governor of Ellinburg. The Pious Men were Anne’s now, so far as I was concerned, and I had made my peace with that. Not that I could afford to let her return to Ellinburg to lead them. Change, as I say. It’s something we all have to make our peace with, in time. It’s seldom pleasant and never easy, but it’s a fact of life and nothing to be done about that.
‘Change, aye, and not for the better. I had this from your aunt yesterday.’
She took a folded letter out of her pouch and passed it to me.
My esteemed big sister,
I hope this letter finds you well. There are new arrivals in Ellinburg, come from where you are now. Men in blue robes who call themselves magicians, although I have no idea if that is true or not. They bring a great deal of gold to our streets and that is a good thing, but they have taken a guildhall on Trader’s Row and posted guards outside, and no one knows what they do within. The people are uneasy. I thought you should know.
Your little sister,
Enaid
I nodded slowly. Jochan had already told me, in one of his reports. I didn’t show those to Anne, not wanting to share some of the more personal news Jochan told me about his life.
‘Doesn’t surprise me,’ I said. ‘With things how they are here, it’s only natural for the magicians to want to protect their knowledge and as many of their number as can slip out of Dannsburg. As the nearest major city, Ellinburg was the obvious place for them to go.’
‘I don’t want fucking magicians on my streets, in my city,’ Anne growled.
I pinched the bridge of my nose between finger and thumb in irritation.
‘They just call themselves that, Anne,’ I said.
