The Fall of The Kings (Riverside) (24 page)

SOME FEW HOURS LATER, A TALL, SKINNY FIGURE LIKE A fence-post in a gown could be seen trudging through the Middle City, stopping from time to time to ask directions of a shopkeeper. His hair was plaited into a long rat’s tail secured with black thread, his face was pink around the purple glory of his bruised cheek, and his eyes were as clear as Bet’s infallible hangover cure could make them. His linen was clean, his suit brushed, and his gown sponged and pressed by the soft-hearted laundress who lived across the landing. He had no very clear idea of where he was going or what was going to happen when he got there, but at least he no longer wished he were dead, and that was something.

The address on Fulsom Street was not a shop or a lodging, as Henry had expected, but a largish private house, with steps climbing up to the door and a polished brass knocker shaped like a dragon’s head. His curiosity roused, Henry rattled it, and was answered almost immediately by a poker-faced individual who could only have been a manservant. Feeling rather out of his depth, Henry thrust the card at the manservant and said, “Don’t say your master isn’t at home. He’s expecting me.”

The manservant stood aside to let him enter a narrow vestibule papered in cherry and white stripes. “As it happens, sir,” he said woodenly, “Master Tielman is
not
at home. But he has directed me to show you into the library, should you care to wait.”

Henry, haughtily, did care to wait. He was led to a cozy room lined with open cases, offered brandy, which he declined, and left with Tielman’s books. When Tielman came into the room some time later, he found Henry sitting cross-legged on the hearth with a pile of books beside him and a folio volume open on his lap.

“Is that Rafael on birds you have there or
The Lineage of
the Noble Houses
?” Tielman inquired pleasantly.

Henry jerked violently upright and glared malevolently at his host. “Do you always creep into rooms without warning,” he snarled, “or is it just poor students you try to catch touching your precious books? You shouldn’t have had me wait in the library if you didn’t want me to read them.”

Tielman held up his hands. “Not guilty, I swear it. They’re here to be read. I’m glad you found something to your taste.” He sat in a well-loved armchair and cocked his feet on the settle. “Stay there if you like, and finish what you were reading. I’ve asked Fedders to bring in chocolate and some bread and cheese. Unless you’d prefer beer?”

Nonplussed, Henry said he’d take the chocolate, and sat fidgeting on the hearth rug pretending to follow out the bloodlines of the House of Tremontaine until the manservant came in with a large tray, which he laid on a table at his master’s elbow before withdrawing.

Edward Tielman picked up a large block of chocolate with silver tongs and began to grate. “Milk or cream?” he asked.

Henry shuddered. “Water,” he said. “And sugar.”

“Of course.” Tielman whisked a steaming stream into one cup, ladled three spoons of sugar into it, and held it out to the lanky student.

“Look,” said Henry, ignoring the cup. “You want something from me. You must. Nobody invites a stranger to his house, last seen pissed as a newt, and feeds him chocolate and bread and cheese without having a reason for it. You don’t even know my name.”

“It’s Henry Fremont,” said Tielman promptly. “And you’re perfectly right, I do want something from you. Are you going to take this cup or not?”

Henry hesitated, closed
The Lineage of the Noble Houses,
and took the chocolate from Tielman’s hand. Then he accepted a hunk of bread and cheese, and before he knew it, he was sprawling among the books he’d pulled from the shelves, his gown discarded in the heat of the fire, drinking chocolate and disputing the historical roots of the City Council. He’d all but forgotten that this was something other than a social afternoon when the library door opened and Fedders said, “Lord Nicholas Galing, sir.”

Henry jerked upright so suddenly that he knocked over his cup, which was blessedly empty. By the time he’d righted it, Lord Nicholas had shaken his host’s hand and was standing over Henry like a hound over a rat, waiting to see if he’d bite.

“This is Henry Fremont, Galing,” said Tielman. “He’s at the University, studying with Doctor Basil St Cloud of History. Master Fremont, my friend Lord Nicholas Galing.”

Fremont glared up at the young lord. He had an overwhelming impression of richness: rich clothes, rich brown hair richly curling over his forehead and the nape of his neck, a generous mouth, richly colored. About St Cloud’s age, Henry guessed, but the clothes and the calculating expression made him seem older. Typical bloody noble, popping in without warning, expecting to be toadied to. Except it wasn’t without warning—Tielman must have set it up. “I’m supposed to jump to my feet, I suppose, and say I’m pleased to meet you and have you any boots I could lick? Well, I’m not, and I’m very comfortable where I am, and I don’t like the taste of boots.”

Galing turned to Tielman with his brows raised. Tielman laughed.

“He’s bright, he’s observant, he has an excellent memory, his politics are impeccable, and he has a strong, if somewhat unsubtle, sense of right and wrong. He is also unbelievably rude.”

“That would explain the colorful cheek,” said Galing as Fremont goggled at Tielman. “Couldn’t you have found someone with a little more address?”

“He’s better off without that,” said Tielman. “We were having chocolate, Galing. Would you like some?” Galing nodded. “More chocolate, Master Fremont?”

Between rage and curiosity, Fremont could think of nothing to say but, “I don’t like being played with.” The words did not adequately express his feelings, but he gritted them out with all the venom at his disposal.

Lord Nicholas settled himself in a cushioned chair across the fire and said, “We’re not playing, I promise you that. I need your help. You are in a position not only to refuse, but to tell everyone you know that I’ve asked, thereby effectively disarming me. I can’t afford to play with you—you’re in the position of strength here.”

While Fremont was digesting this speech, Tielman made two cups of chocolate with scalded milk, spiked them with peppermint liquor, handed one to Galing, and settled down to see what would happen next.

“What if it’s something I don’t want to do?” Fremont said at last.

“Then I’ll just have to ask for your word that you won’t talk about it,” Galing answered.

“You’d trust my word?” Fremont asked incredulously. “I’m a potter’s son, you know.”

“And I’m a steward’s son,” said Tielman, “for whatever that’s worth. You were talking last night like a man whose sense of honor has been outraged, suggesting that you do in fact have a sense of honor. Which no one wishes to outrage further.”

“In my experience,” Galing added helpfully, “potters and stewards are far more truthful than nobles.”

A log fell into coals, sending up a spume of sparks. Tielman took a fresh log from the basket, threw it on the fire, and moved it into place with the poker.

Feeling at a disadvantage, Fremont retrieved his gown, got to his feet, and shrugged the black folds around him. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll listen to your proposal, and if I don’t like it, I’ll promise, on my honor, not to talk about it. I don’t want any more chocolate, though.”

“Barley water’s what you need after last night,” said Tielman wisely. “I’ll ring for it.”

Fremont found a very hard chair some way from the fire and occupied it in silence until the barley water arrived. He drank it down and said, “Tell me.”

Galing and Tielman exchanged a glance; Tielman raised his cup to Galing and smiled. “Your deal, Galing, I believe?”

“I’ve promised Master Fremont not to play with him, Edward,” Galing said easily. “I wouldn’t want my word to weigh less than his.” He leaned his elbows on his knees, cupped his chocolate in both hands, and studied the dimpled surface. “I’ll be as frank with you as I can,” he said. “I need an agent in the University.”

“An agent? You mean a spy?”

“I mean someone who can observe without being observed, who can ask questions without occasioning comment, who has a good mind and a good memory. Spy,” he said thoughtfully, “is a nasty word, but I suppose it’s accurate. Let’s say I need a spy, then.”

Henry thought this over. “Fuck you,” he said deliberately.

Galing cast a cold eye over Henry’s bony form. “I’d rather you didn’t,” he said. “Edward, are you
sure
he’s the right one?”

“I’m sure,” said Tielman firmly. “Listen, Fremont, it’s like this. There’s been trouble in the Northern provinces—nothing very big, nothing very particular: rumors of secret meetings, deer guts left on a noble’s doorstep, farmers making dire predictions, that sort of thing. Lord Nicholas wouldn’t have thought it worthy of notice if a Northerner had not presented a petition at City Sessions, demanding that the kings be reinstated.”

“Even that,” said Galing, “would not be significant, had he not killed himself.”

“So he couldn’t tell what he knew,” Henry murmured, interested in spite of himself.

“Very likely,” said Galing. “He was wearing a pin carved like an oak leaf in his hat, like a badge. And he came from the North. We did learn that much.”

This was history coming to life with a vengeance. “Did you torture him?” Henry asked.

Galing shot him a look of disgust. “No. We did not torture him. He was very proud of being a Northerner.”

“Like Finn and his friends,” Henry said, light dawning. “You want me to see whether the Northerners at University are connected with this trouble you’re talking about, and whether they’re planning any trouble down here of their own.”

Tielman smiled. “I told you he was bright,” he said to Galing.

“You did. And he is. But that’s not the whole story. You’re a student of ancient history?”

Henry frowned, defensive at once. “What of it?”

Galing closed his eyes briefly. “What do you study in ancient history?”

“You’re playing with me again,” Henry warned angrily, and then he saw where this was leading. “You think,” he said slowly, “that the Northerners are plotting to restore the monarchy, and that such a plot might be likely to show up among the ancient historians, or”—he corrected himself— “that the plotters would find adherents there. But they’d be fools to attach themselves to Doctor St Cloud, you know. His lectures are the first place anyone would look.”

“You don’t say,” Galing drawled. “Tell me more of this Doctor St Cloud. Do you have reason to suspect that he yearns for the kings to come again?”

Fremont wasn’t willing, despite his spleen, to go that far, but he did admit that Doctor St Cloud was king-mad. “He said the nobles were fools to separate the kings and the wizards. As long as the wizards kept them in line, the kings were fine. Why, Anselm the Wise was one of the greatest thinkers of his age. Of course, he signed those laws limiting the wizards’ powers, but it’s clear he was influenced by Tremontaine. . . .” He caught Tielman’s amused look, flushed and muttered, “Well, you see the kind of thing he tells us.”

“I do, indeed,” Galing said with suspect sympathy. “We must keep an eye on this Doctor St Cloud. And the Northerners. So. Will you do it?”

Henry hesitated.

“We’d pay you for your trouble, of course,” Galing said.

Henry glared at him. “I thought you weren’t going to outrage my honor. I don’t want your money.” Yet he knew he could use it, if Galing insisted, with the rent overdue and his only warm jacket full of holes. And it wasn’t as if he’d be doing any harm, not if Doctor St Cloud was innocent. Innocent! Why, he was dallying with the King-Killer’s own great-great-grand-something! No sedition there. Whatever Henry thought of St Cloud’s morals, he was sure that the magister had no more notion of current politics than a baby—he certainly wasn’t politicking for the Horn Chair with any degree of sense. No, Henry decided, there was nothing for these men to find out about Basil St Cloud except dates and theories. He might even prove the young doctor blameless of royalist plotting.

Henry Fremont took a deep breath. “What, exactly, would I have to do?”

book II

MIDWINTER

chapter I