I knew that, and I needed the Pious Men to understand it too.
I gave Sam a pat on the arm and walked over to the bar. Hari looked astonished to see me too, but he was possessed of slightly more wit than Sam was and he simply nodded a greeting.
‘Mr Piety,’ he said, the brandy bottle already in his hand. ‘Usual?’
‘Aye,’ I said, ‘although you can call me Tomas now. Sir Tomas, if you’re feeling formal, although I couldn’t give a fuck either way. I’m not your boss any more.’
‘You’re a knight?’ Hari blurted, and immediately looked like he wished he hadn’t. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like it couldn’t happen and that. Just a surprise, if you know what I mean.’
‘Oh, I do, Hari,’ I said, and I picked up my glass of brandy and stared into it. ‘It is very definitely a surprise.’
I swallowed the brandy in one long gulp and put the glass back down on the bar for Hari to fill again. My brother still hadn’t noticed me. I had to speak to him, I supposed, but in a way I wasn’t sure that I wanted to. Our relationship had become what you might call strained before I went to Dannsburg, and I wasn’t sure if Cutter even still lived. He had done back in the spring, when I said my farewells, but injuries like that can have a lasting ill-effect. I supposed he must do, as Jochan would surely have said something in his letters if not, but then again, you could never be sure. Some things can be too painful to commit to paper, I of all people should know that. If Cutter had gone to the grey lands while I was away then I doubted that Jochan would have any love left for me in his heart. He had his wife and child, aye, but I knew his heart truly belonged to his Yoseph. My brother was a complicated and conflicted man.
A few minutes later Sam came over and touched my shoulder.
‘She’ll see you, boss,’ he said. ‘Mr Piety, I mean.’
‘Call me Tomas,’ I said, and clapped him on the shoulder to tell him that all was well between us.
Sam was a good lad, if a little slow of wit. I followed him back to the corner table that had always been where I had held my court, and I gave Bloody Anne a nod.
‘Mind if I join you?’ I asked.
‘For the Lady’s sake, Tomas,’ Anne said, and kicked a chair out from under the table for me to sit on. ‘This is ridiculous. You’re the fucking king here, and you’re doing me honour when I’m no cunt’s idea of a princess.’
‘No, Anne, I’m not,’ I said as I sat down opposite her. ‘I told all the Pious Men that I took the warrant, and then I became the fucking city governor, and then I left the city for the best part of a year. I’m not their king any more, and I don’t have the time to be. I passed the crown to you, so see that you wear it well. What did my aunt have to say for herself ? What’s the lay of things in the city?’
Anne blew out her cheeks as she sighed, making her scar writhe across her face. ‘Well enough, to be fair, apart from the fucking magicians turning up, although they don’t seem to be actually bothering anyone, from what Enaid tells me,’ she said. ‘The peace with the new Northern Sons has held, by and large, and it seems that business has been good. She’s had to break a few heads to keep it that way, aye, but you know your aunt.’
I did at that. Aunt Enaid had probably been more terrifying as head of the Pious Men than Anne herself, but she wasn’t the sort of leader I wanted running the crew long-term. I had stepped back, aye, but I had also become a Queen’s Man. We controlled our assets strategically with a view to their potential future deployment, the same way Iagin had controlled Grachyev’s crew. The same way Ailsa had controlled me, in the beginning. Our Lady help me, I was truly becoming one of those people.
I thought of a moment in some possible future where I gave Anne the Queen’s Warrant, as Ailsa had to me, and I felt my hands tremble on the table. No, I thought. As Our Lady was my witness, I would never do that to my best friend.
I promised myself again, I would never do that to Anne.
It might sound grand, I know, to those who have never experienced such a thing. Ailsa had told me once that the Queen’s Warrant was an official license to do absolutely anything, with the full and unconditional backing and funding of the crown. It meant you were above the law, that you were utterly untouchable.
Aye, it meant that.
It also meant you were at Lord Vogel’s beck and call, night and day, obliged to do whatever he said, however fucking hideous it might be. It meant you fed people to the horror beneath the house of law who called herself Ilse. It meant hangings, and disappearances, and knives in the dark. It meant riots and lynchings on the streets of Dannsburg, because they suited Lord Vogel’s agenda. It meant a Prince Regent found swinging from a chandelier with shit-stained britches, and a devil on the regent’s throne holding the leash of an insane witch-queen.
No, no, I would never involve Anne in that more than I already had. That wasn’t something you did to someone you loved. Ailsa had done it to me, aye, and
