I remembered the meeting of the governing council that I had attended, the beleaguered First Councillor Aleksander Lan Letskov, and the stern Councillor Markova and florid-faced Councillor Lan Drashkov, who were both obviously ours. I remembered how the council had reminded me of that travelling menagerie’s apes flinging their own shit at each other, and I wondered. Oh, how I wondered.
Was this Vogel putting me in a position of power to further the aims of the Queen’s Men, or simply trying to get rid of me?
No, if he wanted to get rid of me he would just have me disappeared, I knew that well enough. Although, could he? Like all the Queen’s Men, I ran my own operation like an independent crew and my security was top drawer. Anyone who wanted to stab me in my sleep would have to get through Beast and Bloody Anne and – most of all – Billy first, and I wasn’t sure even Cutter could have done that unaided.
The Queen’s Men were fucking gangsters and there was no other way to look at it, once you saw the truth of the thing. Our country was basically run by gangsters. That was a thing to understand. The governing council was a thin veneer of constitutional rule, to be sure, but we had no queen, our Prince Regent was also the head of the Queen’s Men, even if no one officially knew that, and the Princess Crown Royal was barking fucking mad.
Those were the times we lived in.
‘Aye,’ I could only say. ‘My thanks, Provost Marshal.’
I stood and offered him a stiff bow of respect that I actually felt, in that moment. Respect for the sheer audacity of getting away with it all, to be sure, but nonetheless respect should be paid where it’s due.
‘Of course, there will be policy decisions to be made, votes to be cast,’ Vogel said. ‘I’ll let you know your opinion when you need to have one. Do try to make an impression on your first day, though, won’t you, Tomas? They don’t have to like you, but they do have to remember you. Be outrageous, if you need to be, but make an impression. The city wall, I think. We owe the guild of masons a favour, and they will reciprocate in kind. The major guilds can be most appreciative of government contracts, after all.’
And there it went. There went the respect, straight out of the fucking door. He’d tell me my opinion, would he? He didn’t know me half as well as he thought he did if he thought that was ever going to happen, and there he lost me. But all the same, and much as I loathed to admit it, he made a good point there. The city walls were in a shocking state, and with war brewing that needed to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
‘Of course, sir,’ I said, and I’m not sure I managed to keep the bitterness out of my voice as much as I probably should have done.
Vogel met my eyes for one long, cold moment, then nodded. With that I was dismissed, and I left his office in the house of law and wandered down to the mess, where I found Ailsa deep in conversation with Konrad. They broke off when they saw me, and Ailsa rose to her feet and smiled in a way that left me feeling deeply confused for the rest of the day.
‘Husband,’ she said. ‘It is good to see you.’
‘My lady wife,’ I returned, and we embraced briefly and, on her side at least I am sure, entirely without passion.
‘I have business,’ Konrad said tactfully, and left us to it.
Alone together, Ailsa looked at me and raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow.
‘I had thought you would be away longer,’ she said.
I thought you were in disgrace, that was what she meant, but her words showed me that perhaps Vogel didn’t tell her everything after all.
‘The Old Man summoned me home,’ I said. ‘I’m on the governing council now, apparently.’
‘Oh, yes, of course, Yanakov’s seat. Yes, I remember Iagin saying something about that. Good luck.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just that you’re in for an awful lot of very long, very boring meetings. Watching Markova and Lan Drashkov bite chunks out of each other might keep you entertained for a while, I suppose, but that’s about the only thing that will.’
‘I had rather thought they were both ours,’ I said.
‘Oh, they are,’ Ailsa said, ‘but neither of them know that and they absolutely loathe each other. That was Iagin’s idea, that one. We feed each of them misinformation about the other and stir their hatred to a melting point when it suits us. That is usually enough to prevent the council from getting in our way by ever actually deciding anything we don’t want them to, or gods forbid acting on it if they do.’
I poured myself a brandy from one of the bottles on the cupboard, for all that it wasn’t yet noon.
‘Then why the fuck am I joining the council, if we already own most of them and we don’t want them doing anything anyway?’
‘Well, in part to prevent anyone awkward from winning Yanakov’s seat and spoiling things for us, of course,’ Ailsa said, ‘but beyond that I would have thought it was obvious, Brother Blade. Lord Vogel wants one of them killed, and sitting members of the governing council are notoriously difficult to get close to unless one is also a councillor. We might own the majority of the councillors but only in the sense of bribes and blackmail. None of them carry the warrant, save for you.’
Her use of my secret name within the Knights of the Rose Throne made me wince slightly, I have to allow, and for a moment I didn’t even really know why. Because it reminded me that such names existed, I realised then, and of what hers was.
Sister Deceit.
That was Ailsa,
