‘You know bloody well who I am,’ I said. ‘How does the queen’s signature suit you?’
‘We haven’t got a fucking queen,’ he said.
That, to me, sounded like treasonous talk. Oh, isn’t it funny how definitions can twist to suit us at the time? He was absolutely right, of course, we didn’t have a fucking queen, but that was beside the point and a Queen’s Man was the last person who was likely to agree with his interpretation of the current political situation. And he worked in the house of law? No, I wasn’t putting up with that. Sometimes stupidity is a worse crime even than treason, and even less forgivable. I drew Remorse and levelled her at his throat.
‘I would be extremely careful, were I you, what I said next,’ I cautioned him. ‘If I may give you a little counsel – anything other than “Yes, Sir Tomas” would be very fucking unwise.’
I left the house of law twenty minutes later with a cart and enough explosives to start a war.
Chapter 38
I had the afternoon free, as I wasn’t due to see Sasura until the next day. I spent that afternoon very pleasantly, with Emil and Oliver and Beast. Just four friends out for a stroll through the quiet streets of a smart residential part of Dannsburg, in the vicinity of the archmagus Nikolai Reiter’s townhouse.
‘No guards, that I can see,’ Oliver murmured as we rounded the corner of the neat, iron railing-enclosed public garden in the centre of the square that the four-storey terraced house faced onto. ‘It’s well-to-do, aye, but quite modest by Dannsburg standards. Especially for an archmagus.’
It was, at that. The Reiters weren’t a wealthy family, after all. His cousin wouldn’t have been working as a fancy whore if they had been.
‘Aye,’ I said, after a moment. ‘It is.’
I had to admit I was having doubts, now that we were there. Nikolai Reiter had struck me as a decent enough man when I met with him at the house of magicians back in the spring, after the queen’s funeral. I had gone to the house of law to requisition explosives full of anger and righteous indignation, ready to blow up his entire house and everyone in it, but now that I was there looking at the modest, middle-class dwelling I wasn’t so sure. There was no saying the bomber had even been acting on Reiter’s instructions. It was just that he was the head of the house of magicians and the only still-living magician I had ever met, and so naturally I had hung the blame at his door. Had this been Absolom Greuv’s residence I wouldn’t have hesitated for a moment, but then of course Billy had already killed him in a public and really quite spectacular fashion. The more I thought about it, and about what I knew of Nikolai Reiter, the more I began to doubt myself.
I had been lashing out, acting like a fool and a berserker. I was thinking like my brother, I realised suddenly, and that gave me pause. That wasn’t my way. I was a businessman, first and foremost, and it seemed I needed to remind myself of that. A frontal assault wasn’t always the best way to achieve the objective; I had learned that much in the army even if Jochan hadn’t.
Before I knew it I was halfway to Reiter’s front door.
‘Boss!’ Emil hissed, but I waved him back and bade them wait for me.
I lifted the heavy brass knocker and rapped on the door.
A maid opened the door a moment later, and gave me a quizzical look. I was well dressed, as was my way in those days, but there was no mistaking Remorse and Mercy at my hips. The wearing of swords was still in fashion in Dannsburg, aye, but turning up uninvited at a gentleman’s door very much was not.
‘Good day, m’lord?’ she said, obviously unsure of my status.
‘I need to see the archmagus,’ I said. ‘Is he in?’
‘I . . . I would have to enquire, m’lord,’ the maid said. ‘Who should I say is calling?’
‘Sir Tomas,’ I said, and left it at that.
There was no need to show her the warrant. The learned magus would know who that was, if he was actually in, and if so he would admit me at once – and if he wasn’t, there was no need to put the fear into this poor maid for no fault of her own. Obviously one should have left a calling card, or received an invitation, but it was this or set off a bomb on his doorstep at midnight so I hoped he would forgive a minor breach of etiquette. If he genuinely wasn’t there then the maid would say so, and I would believe her. Reiter wasn’t a coward, I had established that at our first meeting. I respected him, for all that we currently stood on opposite sides of the matter.
She retreated into the hall and I waited politely on the doorstep, aware of my three men watching from where they lounged against the black iron railings that framed the garden at the centre of the square. I was glad to have them there, but by Our Lady they were obvious. There was no hiding Beast, that was for certain, and I could almost feel the archmagus’ neighbours twitching their curtains and wondering what manner of man had come calling on him. No gentleman, surely, would have friends who looked like those three.
The maid returned a couple of minutes later, and ushered me into a clean and well-polished if narrow hallway. She dipped me a curtsey and led me to a door that opened into Archmagus Reiter’s study.
He smiled at her as she held the door open for me.
‘Thank you, Tissia,’ he said. ‘Tea for my guest and myself, please.’
The door closed behind me.
‘Archmagus,’ I said.
‘Sir Tomas,’ he replied. ‘To what do I owe this most unexpected visit?’
Yes, I had made a