The Fall of The Kings (Riverside) (31 page)

Something happened last night. Northern royalists in the wood.
At the bonfire, too. Finn’s friends. Finn started something, about
the kings. Don’t think he’s the leader, though. Who’d follow Finn?
If he didn’t have a brand, I mean. Anybody’d follow a Brand on
Last Night.

Nicholas laid the letter on his knee, took a sip of wine, picked up the cloth packet the letter had been attached to, and slit through the dirty folds with his paper-knife. Cloth and string fell apart to reveal a roughly-carved wooden oak leaf like the brooch Arlen had shown him, threaded on a leather thong.

He grinned down at this MidWinter’s gift with pure joy. “Thank you, Henry,” he murmured, and returned to the letter with renewed determination. He needed it. Henry Fremont had been neither calm nor sober when he’d written it.

I just got back. Want to get it all down before I forget.

Just what had really happened wasn’t very clear. Fremont mentioned running through the streets, chasing a Deer (with a capital “D”) into the woods, a bonfire, men dancing. Nicholas huffed impatiently and read on until, swearing, he reached for the bellpull and rang it as though it were Henry Fremont’s scrawny neck. He told the manservant who answered to take a chaise to an address in University Town, roust Henry Fremont out of his bed, if necessary, and bring him back within the hour.

When the servant had bowed himself out, Nicholas reread the passage that had caught his attention.

Theron Campion was the Deer. Lindley’s revenge for
Campion stealing St Cloud from him, I think. Not that Lindley
ever had a chance. He’s with Finn now anyway. But the point is,
Lindley and Finn said T.C. was the King, and T.C. ran, and we
chased him and when we caught him we passed him around the
circle and called him King and he did not object.

It wasn’t much. As it stood, it was little more than drunken babble, but it was definitely worth pursuing. Nicholas scribbled a note to Tielman, then crumpled it up and threw it on the fire. Time enough to consult Ned when he had more facts, and the time to think what they might mean. The names, though: Lindley and Finn and Campion. He ought to send those to Arlen, as a little MidWinter’s offering of his own.

What was taking so long? Where was the damn boy?

In spite of all the manservant’s best efforts, it was almost two hours before Henry Fremont was shown into Nicholas Galing’s study. A day’s rest hadn’t seemed to do his hangover much good. His long face was the greenish-white of a fish’s belly, his pointed nose was raw, and his deep-set eyes were watery and bloodshot. But he was shaven, neatly dressed, and tolerably in command of his senses. He glowered at Nicholas and said, “I’m sick as a dog, as I told your man when he woke me. He didn’t seem to think you cared.”

Nicholas gestured to a chair opposite his own. “On the contrary, my dear Fremont, I do care. Very much.”

Fremont’s air of sullen suspicion did not change, but he took the offered chair. “You want to ask me about the letter, I suppose. Well, I can’t tell you any more than I’ve written there. It was a very confusing night.”

“I’m sure it was,” Nicholas said dryly. “Let’s not worry about that right now, shall we? I’m interested in something that happened before Last Night.”

“Nothing happened before Last Night,” said Henry sullenly. “Nothing very interesting, anyway. You have my letters. Why ask me about them now? Shouldn’t you be out with the other nobles, eating apprentices and fucking apricots? Or is it the other way around?”

He really didn’t look well, Galing thought. He’d undoubtedly caught a cold cavorting in the wood, and served him right. Aloud, he said pleasantly, “You didn’t mention this in your earlier letters.” He handed Fremont a page with one sentence underscored. “What does this mean?”

Fremont squinted red-rimmed eyes at the page. “Plaguey cheap pen,” he muttered. “Can’t read my own . . . Ah— ‘revenge for Campion stealing St Cloud,’ is that what you mean? Seems clear enough to me. Lindley wanted St Cloud in the worst way, got his nose put out of joint when St Cloud took up with Campion instead. Naming Campion the Deer could have been his way of getting back at him. But that’s not the point I was trying to make. My point was. . . .”

“Yes, I know what your point was,” Galing interrupted him. “It’s an interesting one, and we’ll talk about it later. What I want to know about at the moment is this affair between Doctor Basil St Cloud and Lord Theron Campion. How long has it been going on?”

Fremont stared at him. “Who cares? It’s just two men in bed—that’s not politics, that’s gossip. You didn’t tell me you were interested in gossip.”

I can’t hit him, Galing reminded himself. He won’t tell me anything if I hit him. “Two men in bed is indeed politics,” he said patiently, “if one of them is a king-mad ancient historian and the other is a descendant of the last king’s sister.”

“Yes, of course he is.” Fremont grimaced. “I hadn’t thought it through.” He sneezed explosively and wiped his dripping nose on his sleeve. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a handkerchief?”

Galing rang for a handkerchief and a lemon toddy. While Fremont was using the former and absorbing the latter, Galing coaxed from him all he knew about Doctor Basil St Cloud’s liaison with Lord Theron Campion. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make Galing curious about young Campion’s politics.

In short order, he packed Fremont off in a chaise with blankets and a basket of food and wrote a polite note to Lord Arlen, containing what he thought Arlen should know about the events of Last Night. Then he flipped through the invitations for MidWinter festivities piled on his mantelpiece, selected the one that promised the greatest opportunities for unbridled gossip, hastily changed his clothes, and set off for Lord Davenant’s all-day card party.

When Galing emerged from Davenant House some hours later, he was the richer by two pressing invitations to intimate suppers, a respectable sum in gold, and a confusing portrait of Lord Theron Campion, heir to Tremontaine. According to the men at Lord Davenant’s, Theron Campion was without shame and easily offended, spoiled and generous, overeducated and ignorant, boorish and charming, unattainable and easy as a wink and a nod, a fribble and a philosopher. Not very conclusive.

The most fruitful conversation he’d had was over a hand of Constellations he’d played with the Lords Condell and Filisand and young Lord Clarence Randall. Galing himself had proposed the game as the four men stood eating steamed river clams from a huge silver bowl on a sideboard. He’d chosen his partners carefully. Filisand was the Raven Chancellor, Condell enjoyed a reputation for knowing all the best gossip, and Clarence—well, Lord Clarence was newly on the town, rich, and not very skilled at Constellations.

Galing introduced the topic of Theron Campion as Lord Filisand accepted a pack of cards from a servant and broke the seal between his thick, red fingers.

“Theron Campion?” Lord Condell pulled at the frill of lace edging the sleeves of his admirably tailored coat. He was a handsome man, all porcelain and gilt like a mantel clock, and every bit as alive to the time of day. “You’re not thinking of pursuing
him,
are you, my dear? Because, if you are, you might wish to reconsider. He’s lovely, I agree, but sadly unsteady.”

“What Condell’s trying to say, Galing,” said blunt Lord Filisand, shuffling the cards, “is that you don’t want to get mixed up with the Campions. Sadly unsteady! That’s very funny, Condell. They’re all mad as swordsmen—including the widow.”

“Lady Sophia isn’t a Campion; not by blood, anyway,” Lord Clarence pointed out. He was very young and eager, like a half-broken colt, and flush with the triumph of being asked to play Constellations in such exalted company.

Lord Filisand began to deal out the deck. “She’s mad anyway. What would you call a woman who presented herself at the Surgical Theatre not a month after her husband’s death, gravid as a sow, declaring that she was going to be a surgeon?”

“Courageous?” offered Lord Nicholas with deliberate provocation. “Determined?”

“Mad,” said Filisand firmly. He picked up his cards and pursed his full-lipped mouth over them. It made him look rather like a river-pike, if river-pikes wore yellow velvet.

“Unwise, certainly,” Condell temporized, “if Lady Sophia were a woman who cared what is said of her. As she is not, and was backed by the Duchess Tremontaine, laying siege to the College of Physic wasn’t an unreasonable way of getting what she wanted.”

“Sounds a redoubtable woman,” said Galing, sorting his hand. “And young Campion takes after her, you say?”

Lord Filisand snorted. “Takes after both parents; that’s the trouble. No morals. No shame. No sense of civic duty. Only time the old duke took his seat in Council was when he had some scheme to upset things. Whatever else you may say about the Duchess Katherine, she’s conscientious. And she’s discreet in her amours, if she has any. Unlike the old duke.”

Galing examined his hand. “And unlike his son?”

Lord Condell pouted thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t say Campion is indiscreet, precisely. I can’t actually furnish you with the names of any of his lovers. Except Ysaud, of course.”

Lord Filisand laid down the Sun. “I open, I think.”

Galing sat up straighter, a hound on the scent. “Land, I’d forgotten that bit of gossip. So Ysaud was really his mistress, was she?” He threw down the Hunter.

“More likely he was hers,” tittered Condell, covering the Hunter with a Comet.

Lord Filisand discarded a minor star and snapped, “Are we here to play or to gossip? Lord Condell takes the first constellation. Lord Nicholas, do you care to lead?”

Galing led the Six-pointed Crown and lost the constellation to Condell’s Eclipse, a tyro’s error. But his mind was not on the cards. As it happened, several years ago he’d had occasion to give Ysaud a commission—six small paintings to illustrate a favorite book. He’d discussed them with her, approved the sketches, visited once to check on her progress and been told that if he came again, she would paint over the canvases. There had been a lively argument, which he had let her win. He’d seen her only once more, when he’d gone to view the paintings. It was time, he thought, to see her again.

THAT NIGHT, ANTHONY LINDLEY AND ALARIC FINN slept curled together, naked in Finn’s narrow bed. There was a half-bottle of cheap wine on the floor beside them and a plate of crumbs and apple cores from their supper. The University Clock struck two as the rickety wooden stairs shook under the booted tread of six City Guards-men and the door groaned under the blows of their truncheons. Finn shouted for the unknown torturers to go away and buried his head under the pillow. A moment later, the cheap lock burst with a crack, and his tiny room was filled with the flare of a torch and large, unsmiling men who hauled him and the whimpering Lindley out of their nest, bundled them into their gowns, and dragged them, bare-foot, dazed, and shivering, out of the room, down the stairs, and into a boxlike carriage with straw on the floor and no windows.

The carriage drove to the Chop, where more Guards escorted the shaken, bewildered pair to a stone cell furnished with a straw pallet, a blanket, a bucket with a lid, and a tin ewer of water.

Time passed. Lindley shivered and clung to Finn, who had little comfort to offer him. At one point, the banded oak door opened and some clothes were tossed in. The boys dressed and waited some more. Lindley might even have dozed, exhausted by terror, with his head on Finn’s shoulder. And then there were guards again, and torchlight scorching their eyes, and a tall man with a deep, silky voice, saying, “So you are the young men who like to hunt deer on Last Night. Come and tell me all about it.”

THE SAME MORNING THAT SAW LINDLEY AND FINN IN the Chop saw a note from Katherine delivered to Riverside House requesting Theron’s immediate presence at Tremontaine House. Sophia read it, shook her head, and rang for Terence, who said woodenly that Lord Theron’s bed had not been slept in that night, but he’d no doubt return in time for the duchess’s sledding-party. Which he did, barely. He was still wearing the brocade he’d put on for Last Night, sadly ripped and soiled. He was unshaven, scratched, and glowingly happy from two nights and a day of perfect love.

The Campion butler, a retired swordsman named Sly Davy, had been standing by the door at Lord Theron’s private entrance, ready to open it as soon as he appeared. “Happy MidWinter!” Theron greeted him cheerfully.

Davy twisted his scarred face into a truly hideous scowl and muttered, “Maybe for some.” Since he was always full of dire warnings, Theron swept on past him with a grin.

But he stopped at the sight of his mother, who’d been waiting for him in the antechamber. She took in his appearance with tightened lips and lifted chin. When he saw how angry she was, his face fell. “Oh, dear. You didn’t know where I was. I should have sent a note, shouldn’t I?” When she didn’t respond, he tried a smile. “Just let me get cleaned up and changed, and I’ll do whatever penance you choose.”

“Bathe and shift your clothes you must,” Sophia said stiffly. “You are disgusting. It is not I who will punish you, however, but the duchess, who sent this morning and is waiting for you still.” She blinked, and Theron saw a tear slide by her nose. He held out his hand, and her uncharacteristic restraint dissolved.

“Pestilent boy!” she cried in her mother tongue. “Brother of goats! I’ve heard such things, I don’t know what to believe. What have you done? Katarina is furious, and I am ashamed of you, and of myself for being your mother.”