Prince Thief

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It had been one thing to know that an army was camped on the city’s doorstep, that nothing but stones and mortar separated me from thousands of bloodthirsty enemies. It was another thing entirely to see that horde with my own eyes.

The Suburbs had been evacuated days before: at first according to personal discretion, as its inhabitants came to realise that being between the King and the city had the potential to be bad for their health; then later, in the case of those too foolhardy or desperate to reach the obvious conclusion, with the encouragement of Mounteban’s soldiers. Some refugees had been allowed into the city, on the condition that they earned their keep by aiding in its defence. Others had decamped for who knew where, fleeing into the hills, or across the river in their shabby rowboats and coracles.

By the time the King had arrived, there would have been no one left but a few stragglers and strays: the mad, the lost and the severely unlucky. I didn’t want to think about what might have happened to them — for the Suburbs as I’d known it was no more.

Faced with the question of how to camp an army in the middle of a slum, the King and his generals had come to the obvious conclusion: use what they could and obliterate whatever they couldn’t. The buildings nearest the walls had been left alone, for they provided good cover. Beyond the reach of bowshot, however, the flimsy structures were simply gone, as though some monumental storm had swept through and carried its debris with it.

At first we’d marched through the remnants of the Suburbs, and aside from the sentries watching our passage from each shadowed doorway and alley, it had almost been possible to pretend the place was as it always had been. Then we came to the end of a crooked street between ramshackle walls and, abrupt as if a line had been carved into the ground, the remnants of the Suburbs ended and the camp of our enemy began.

Beyond that point, there was nothing to see but tents and fighting men. Everyone had come out to see the ambassadors of their foes, and to mock, perhaps, at how paltry our strength was; or else, more likely, the King’s first gambit was to show us how hopelessly outmatched we were, how badly a failure at the discussion table would cost us. For entering the enemy’s territory was like stepping into a sea: no sooner had the last of our number passed the edge of the camp then their lines closed around us and we were submerged.

Those around me, however, were showing no signs of fear: not Estrada, not Malekrin, and certainly not Alvantes or Mounteban. It was as though they were unaware of the hostile soldiery clustered so close to either side. And I was surprised to find that there was something infectious about their bravery; that despite my terror I was keeping my head up, my eyes fixed stubbornly ahead.

It helped that our destination was both clear and magnificent; it almost made it easy to focus upon that instead of the walls of meat and metal hemming us in. The King’s tent, dominating the centre of the camp, could only be described as palatial. It was impossible to conceive that it had been brought here and erected; for though its walls were of cloth, it looked as though it could only have been constructed through the months-long labour of architects and builders. It had wings. It had towers. Pennants flew from a dozen poles. Many a lord or lady in the South Bank would have traded their mansion for it without a second thought.

There were six guards on the entrance, an outstretched pavilion itself as large as a good-sized cottage, and as we approached they hoisted their pikes to their shoulders, in what might as easily have been a threat or a salute. “You’ll leave your escort here,” one said, “and your weapons too.”

We’d been expecting that, of course, and no one commented as they piled their swords, Alvantes, Estrada and Mounteban going first and then their followers in a long line afterwards — no one, that was, until it came to the turn of Kalyxis and her bodyguards. The beauty of the short, curved scabbard at her hip, all set with ebony and polished bone, did nothing to make me think that the blade within wasn’t sharp as any razor. Her men’s weapons were plainer and larger, altogether less subtle instruments; but not one of them made any move to discard their armaments with the others.

“I trust you’ll be disarming also?” Kalyxis asked the sentry who’d give the order.

Though he scowled at her convincingly, I could tell he was thrown by the question. “We are protecting his highness King Panchessa.”

“I am a queen of Shoan,” Kalyxis replied, “and these men are my protectors.”

“I have my orders,” the sentry told her. He clearly didn’t like the way she was looking at him, for his eyes kept trying to dart from under her gaze. “No one goes before his highness armed.”

“My men have their orders also. It’s their duty to keep me safe.”

The sentry’s calm was rapidly disintegrating; I didn’t like to think what might have happened if Alvantes hadn’t stepped between them. “Kalyxis, give up your weapon now or my men will escort you back to the city,” he said roughly. “This meeting is for the sake of Altapasaeda and you’re here on my sufferance.”

Kalyxis gave Alvantes a smile that would have frozen fire. “Your sufferance?” she asked.

But Alvantes wasn’t as easily cowed as the sentry. “Precisely,” he said. “So choose quickly.”

The smile twisted a fraction. “Of course,” Kalyxis said. “I was merely seeking clarification.”

She drew her short scimitar, held it long enough that its wicked edge caught the morning light, and then dropped it upon the pile. Her men unstrapped both scabbards and swords, as everyone else had done, and added them to the summit of the heap.

By then the sentry had recovered his composure. He pulled on a silken cord hanging near to his hand, and via some hidden mechanism the nearer flap of the entrance furled up. Stepping in first he said, “This way,” as if this really was a palace and without his guidance we might have blundered off in the wrong direction.

Though no one seemed to have noticed I had it, I dropped my knife belt onto the weapons pile anyway, before slipping into line. The party that followed the sentry was significantly smaller than the one that had just traversed the Pasaedan camp, for Alvantes and Mounteban had both signalled their escorts to wait outside as instructed; it surprised me not at all that only Kalyxis had chosen to keep her personal guard with her. For my part, I stayed close to Malekrin; he might be the notorious Bastard Prince, son of Moaradrid and grandson of the formidable woman pacing before us, but I couldn’t help feeling that he was almost as out of place there as I was.

We passed through two rooms: first the entrance, decorated with shields and armour mounted upon frames, and then a sort of conference hall, with long tables and shelves lined with neatly piled scrolls. It took an effort of concentration to remember that I was still inside a tent, and that tent lay within what had been the Altapasaedan suburbs less than a week ago. The third room dwarfed the first two — but it wasn’t that that made me stare. Rather, it was the shock of familiarity. For the space we’d arrived in was clearly modelled on the audience chamber from the palace in Pasaeda, where I’d first encountered Panchessa. It was hexagonal, with curtained apertures in every wall, and though the central plinth from its sister-room in the Ans Pasaedan capital was missing, there was a throne — perhaps even the same throne, and my mind boggled at the thought of how it might have been dragged all the way here.

On the throne sat King Panchessa. If I’d been hoping he’d look pleased to see us, I was disappointed.

Everyone around me was falling to their knees, so I followed suit. Expecting a hard earth floor, I was startled when my forehead met a giving surface. With my view reduced to ground level, I saw that every speck of dirt had been hidden beneath luxuriant rugs, each as lovely as any I’d seen. You could say what you liked about Panchessa, but the man knew how to travel in style.

Then Panchessa said, in a voice both deeper and harsher than I remembered, “Rise all, and face your king.”

Grateful to stop staring at the mazy design of red and gold beneath my nose, I stumbled to my feet. Malekrin and I were over on the right side of the gathering, and Panchessa was facing ahead, to where Alvantes, Estrada, Mounteban and Kalyxis stood close together. While his attention was elsewhere, I studied the King’s face for signs of the sickness Gailus had spoken of. Might it be that traits I’d taken for evidence of bad character the first time I’d encountered Panchessa were in fact the symptoms of a more transient corruption? Could it be that the reason his deep-set eyes glittered so unnervingly, that his thick lips were set so grimly above his bloated chin, was that he wrestled with torments his position forced him always to hide?

Or perhaps both were true. Perhaps the King was a cruel, selfish man whose flaws were aggravated now by distemper eating at him from the inside. That was what my instinct told me, that and to not trust Panchessa — for I was certain beyond doubt that whatever he’d said, whatever agreement had been made, we were in dreadful danger. A man like him might have good intentions one moment, might even intend peace, but he could be relied on for exactly as long as it took some stab of pain or whim of vindictiveness to change his mind.

While I’d studied him, Panchessa’s own gaze had been roving over the assembly beside me. Abruptly, as if we’d arrived in the middle of a conversation, he said, “Some of you I know,” (and I couldn’t but notice how his eyes snared on Kalyxis,) “and some of you are unfamiliar to me. But all of you are my citizens, under my law. Thus it follows that by raising your hands against me, all of you are traitors. The city of Altapasaeda is mine and you have barred its doors to me.”

Only then did I wonder if our delegation had decided in advance just who would do the talking — for it occurred to me, far too late, that the wrong choice of speaker would doom us all. I was relieved when it was Estrada who stepped forward and not Alvantes or Mounteban. “Your highness,” she said, “there’s been a terrible misunderstanding here.”

“A king does not misunderstand,” said Panchessa. Now that I knew he was Moaradrid’s father, the similarities between them were unmistakeable; and it was hard to say whether Panchessa’s aloof indifference was less daunting than his son’s barely checked madness had been.

Before Estrada could reply, to my horror, Mounteban had pushed forward. “What the lady Estrada means to say is that the only traitor here is me. I was the one who dared to think that Altapasaeda could stand alone. It was Mayor Estrada and Captain Alvantes who stood against me, and in your name rather than their own. They have shown me how wrong I was, so if my death is the price of peace, I willingly accept it. I brought this crisis on Altapasaeda. Let me be the one to end it.”

“No!” Estrada clutched Mounteban’s arm, hard enough to turn him towards her. “Absolutely not, Castilio. Your highness, Castilio Mounteban has no right to speak for our party, or to make offers without consulting us.”

My attention had been so taken up with Panchessa that I’d hardly noticed there were other figures standing in the shadows behind him. I’d taken them for guards, and it was only when a familiar voice burst from the gloom that I realised how mistaken I’d been. “Rights? Offers? Is this how you dare speak to your king?”

It was Ludovoco — who I’d last seen as we fled the palace, who had felt the need to deliver the King’s declaration of war with his own hands all those days ago. And it was only then, seeing how very close he stood behind Panchessa’s shoulder, exactly as he had at the royal court in Pasaeda, that it occurred to me to wonder what part one militant commander of the Crown Guard might have played in the events of recent weeks.

Could Ludovoco have taken the notion of defending the Crown a leap too far? Or have forgotten his duties altogether in favour of a personal agenda? If Panchessa was ill, unstable, distressed by the death of one son and by the other raising an army against him, it wouldn’t have been difficult to manipulate him.

As the toll of Ludovoco’s words died away, I recognised someone else amongst the shadowed figures who I now realised must be the King’s generals and advisors. Near Ludovoco stood Ondeges, captain of Altapasaeda’s Palace Guard — and unlike Ludovoco, he didn’t look happy to be there. In fact, he seemed every bit as discomforted by his colleague’s words as Mounteban and Estrada did. I thought of what Gailus had said, that Ondeges had been our advocate in the royal camp, and seeing the anxiety in his face I could readily believe it.

But it was Ludovoco who stood at the King’s side. It was Ludovoco who had the gall to pronounce in his place. And even as I thought it, Panchessa raised a hand to silence his errant commander — but that was all he did. Ludovoco had dared to speak on behalf of his king, and his punishment was not flogging but hand-waving.

“Castilio Mounteban,” Panchessa said, “we have heard of you. A felon with notions of grandeur.”

I’d never known Mounteban to let an insult go, not from anyone. Yet it was with perfect serenity that he replied, “Just so, your highness. Whatever has happened in Altapasaeda, whatever has been done, it was my crime, committed for my own ends. Being a simple thief, I thought I could steal a city from under a king’s nose and get away with it.”

Had Mounteban really just described himself as a simple thief? It was like hearing a mountain lion claim to be a toothless old mouser. What was his angle here? I couldn’t believe that Mounteban would do anything without one, but I was struggling to see what he imagined he could gain here.

“And now,” said Panchessa, “with my armies at the gates, you see the error of your ways?”

“Exactly,” said Mounteban. “I was a fool.”

To Mounteban’s and my surprise both, Panchessa stood up then, started with slow steps to cross the space between them. Was it my imagination or did he limp a little? He was dressed in a heavy robe, but within its loose, concealing folds I felt sure he was carrying his weight wrongly.

Panchessa stopped halfway, just far enough away that Mounteban couldn’t possibly reach him before Ludovoco or someone else from the King’s faction intervened. “A fool?” he said. “Is that what you are, Castilio Mounteban? Or, better yet, tell me this: do you also take me for an imbecile?”

Mounteban flinched as if stung. “I don’t understand, your highness.”

“I saw how you looked at the woman there,” said Panchessa, pointing towards Estrada. “I saw it from the moment you entered this room. Do you think you’re the first man to try and throw his life away over love?”

Mounteban’s face purpled. His obsession with Estrada was old news to me, but I’d never heard it phrased quite so bluntly. For a moment, I thought he really would try to charge the King and strangle him with his bare hands. Ludovoco, tensed in the background, already had his sword half free of its scabbard.

Perhaps Mounteban really might have lunged then; maybe Ludovoco would have cut him down just on the off-chance. I never got to find out. For there came a sound from my left that froze both of them in place. I couldn’t identify it first, except to say that it was chilling as the blackest winter’s night, knife-sharp, and from its first note it made me shudder down to my boots.

I realised, finally, what I was hearing. Kalyxis was laughing.

All eyes were on her now, and Panchessa’s in particular were snagged upon her face as though by invisible chains. Kalyxis’s laughter choked away to nothing, like poison bubbling into a drain. “Love?” she said. “What could you possibly understand of love?”

“Kalyxis,” said Panchessa, pronouncing the word as if it were the name of some particularly malignant disease, “you have no part in these proceedings; you were allowed here because I wish to talk with your grandson. If you dare to speak before your king, it had best be with good reason.”

Kalyxis offered him the peculiar smile that I’d come to associate with her, the one that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the slit lips of a snake. “Oh, you’re right,” she said, “I care nothing for Altapasaeda, nothing for your petty squabbling. Let me tell you, Panchessa, before these gathered witnesses, why I’m here.”

She paused — and it struck me, as it should have from the first note of that terrible laughter, that whatever she was about to say, it meant trouble for every one of us.

As usual, my ability to spot approaching danger was only exceeded by my knack for underestimating it.

“Panchessa,” Kalyxis said, “when I was a young girl, freshly married to a man of good and upstanding birth, you came to my land and you raped me.”

The room went silent — deathly silent, as though all the air had been sucked from it. Certainly, I found I could no longer breathe at all. Panchessa took a step towards Kalyxis, another — and from the shadows at the back of the chamber, I heard a soft hiss, as Ludovoco’s sword finally left its scabbard.

Mounteban, realising himself caught now between Panchessa and Kalyxis and his own anger suddenly irrelevant to the proceedings, hurriedly stepped aside. Kalyxis moved to fill the gap and glared at Panchessa defiantly. She was almost his equal in height, but seeing them so close together she seemed taller, as though her presence detracted from his.

“It was no rape,” said Panchessa darkly.

Kalyxis paid him not the slightest notice. “By the time I realised I was with child,” she continued, “it was too late. I begged the wise-woman of my husband’s tribe to help me, but it had gone too far. The herbs she gave me made me sick for a week, but in the end my belly was still swelling. I couldn’t hide the truth from my husband anymore; he spat on me, called me a whore and sent me back to my own tribe. So my child was born there… born a bastard. I named him Moaradrid, which means ‘birthed in hate’ in the old tongue of Shoan.” Kalyxis’s smile had vanished as she spoke; now it returned, more pitiless than ever: “I’m sure you’ve heard the name,” she said.

Even from a distance, I could see that Panchessa was shaking; faint tremors ran up his arms and legs. Was it anger? Was it palsy? His fingers twitched spasmodically, perhaps imagining themselves around Kalyxis’s throat. “You birthed a mad dog,” he said. “Or if he wasn’t born mad, you made him that way, spitting your venom in his ear.”

“My son was a good and a brave man, who fought to free his land from tyranny. But he was born from bad blood, under bad stars. It should be you dead now and not him.”

“If he’d been any true son of mine,” Panchessa said, “I would be dead, and he’d be sitting on my throne… not feeding fish with his marrow at the bottom of the sea.”

For the first time I could see that something had barbed beneath Kalyxis’s surface calm. There’d been hate in her face from the moment she’d set eyes on Panchessa, but it had been controlled, like a serpent kept in a basket. Now it was free, and in control of every muscle of her face. “You wish to negotiate, do you, King Panchessa? Well, here are my conditions. You’ll declare the land of Shoan a free territory, to be ruled by its own people, and never again pillaged under the name of taxation. And you’ll agree for this boy, Malekrin, who is your grandson and the blood of your blood, to rule in your stead when the time comes.”

It was Panchessa’s turn to laugh then — though the sound was every bit as far from humour as Kalyxis’s acid cackle had been. “You’re as mad as your damned son was. What makes you dream you can make demands of me?”

“The fact,” said Kalyxis, “that without an order from me, the fleet of Shoanish warriors that have navigated their way around the Castovalian mountains, who are presently sailing up the Mar Paraedra and will soon be occupying your great capital while your army wastes its time here, will never let you enter Pasaeda again.”

The fleet. How could I have forgotten the fleet? How many boats had chased us from that barren Pasaedan shore; how many men? Under normal circumstances, I couldn’t believe they numbered enough to take so vast and well-defended a city as Pasaeda. If its defences were severely depleted by the King’s hurried march south, however…

“You lie,” said Panchessa. “I don’t know what you hope to achieve, but you lie.”

“Oh, don’t take my word. I’m sure a messenger will be along presently. And you saw it, didn’t you?” asked Kalyxis, rounding upon Estrada. “You had the good fortune to witness the glory of Shoan.”

Estrada’s pursed lips told me she recognised a question with no right answer. “There were ships,” she agreed. “They chased us from a beach off the coast of Pasaeda.”

For all Panchessa turned the full force of his rage on her, Estrada might as well have admitted to single-handedly building the Shoanish fleet. “So you knew about this all along, did you?” he roared.

“That’s ridiculous! We didn’t… I mean, we thought…”

Alvantes put his hand on Estrada’s arm. “We’d assumed that Kalyxis’s forces were waiting at anchor,” he said. “We believed she’d come here to recover her grandson.”

“Ah yes,” said Panchessa. “The boy.” I realised just too late that his gaze was about to turn in our direction, so that his first sight was of me trying discreetly to cower behind Malekrin. I supposed I should count myself fortunate that, amidst all the dire rhetoric and decades-long vendettas, my past indiscretions were suddenly looking very insignificant. “The boy,” Panchessa repeated. “The skinny little abortion who thinks he should be king.”

I couldn’t see Malekrin’s face of course, so I had no idea how well he was holding up before the contempt in his new-met grandfather’s eyes; but his voice was steady as he replied, “King Panchessa, I have no interest in your or any other throne.”

“No?” Panchessa chuckled, a horrible, rattling sound.

“No,” said Malekrin. “My grandmother doesn’t speak for me.”

“Malekrin…” Kalyxis’s tone was rich with threat. However, when Panchessa held up a hand to quiet her, I was amazed that she did in fact drop silent.

“Whatever my grandmother has said,” continued Malekrin, “whatever she’s done, it has nothing to do with Altapasaeda. Whatever mistakes their leaders may have made, they have nothing to do with the people of Altapasaeda. That’s all I came to say. I have no quarrel with you. Neither do the men and women behind those walls. Can’t they be left in peace?”

Panchessa nodded thoughtfully. “An interesting idea, boy.” For one ever so brief moment, I wondered if Malekrin might really have got through to him. Then Panchessa said, “Remind me, what is it they call you?”

“My name is Malekrin, sire.”

“No. Not that. The other name.”

Malekrin tensed. “I’ve heard they call me the Bastard Prince.”

“And tell me this, bastard,” said Panchessa, “what makes you dare to dictate to me?”

Finally, Malekrin faltered. “I came…” he began. “I just wanted…”

Fortunately, hiding behind Malekrin had placed my mouth close to his ear. “Let it go,” I hissed. “Let it go!”

The half-finished words in Malekrin’s mouth dissolved to nothing, but I was certain it was too late, that Malekrin had just damned himself to unspeakable tortures, and me along with him…

However, Panchessa merely returned his attention to the others, seeming in an instant to forget Malekrin and their entire conversation. “This meeting is over,” he said. “You should never have brought that… woman here. Because I’m a man of my word, I’ll give you time enough to leave my camp, but once you’re inside the walls of Altapasaeda, my armies will pick them apart brick by brick. Do you hear me? Fight hard, Castovalians. Because when we meet again, your deaths will not be quick.”

Estrada and Alvantes led the way. I wanted to scream at them to hurry. Didn’t they see how every eye was trained on us, how every Pasaedan hand hung close to a sword hilt or held an arrow ready to be nocked? That I kept my mouth firmly closed had nothing to do with faith in Alvantes or Estrada; it was simply the certainty that all of our lives hung on a knife’s edge just then, that any noise would shatter the fragile armistice. Even our footsteps sounded too weighty.

Yet we were moving. The remnants of the Suburbs were drawing closer. Once we reached them, we had a chance. If we made a run for it in those close streets, maybe one man in ten might make it as far as the gates — and a thief of some small competence could surely find a shadowed cranny to hide himself in.

From all around, however, there came a sense of unrest, and though it seemed impossible that the Pasaedans could know what had taken place between us and their king, I was sure they were pressing nearer. Perhaps it was only that, like a dog held back from a bone, they saw what they wanted and were frustrated not to get it.

Nevertheless, we were still moving — still approaching the verge of the camp. So long as nothing stopped us, so long as nothing went…

I should have known I’d never finish the thought. For ahead of me, Kalyxis had come to a halt, had turned around, and her two bodyguards were looking nervously after her, hands already hovering near swords. I thought again about running. Maybe whatever was about to happen would be distraction enough for me to make it to that wretched line of shanties. But the Pasaedans were poised ready to close the gap; we were already trapped. I turned instead.

There, approaching rapidly, was Panchessa, ringed by half a dozen of his guards — who looked as though they’d willingly have dragged him back inside his tent like some errant child. Panchessa was pacing towards us in their midst and they were hurrying to keep up, whilst striving to maintain a fitting distance from the common soldiery nearby.

When Panchessa was nearly upon us, one of the guards finally snapped, and hurled himself in his king’s path. He probably thought it would be the last thing he ever did, but Panchessa barely seemed to notice. I doubted he was aware of anything, just then — anything except for Kalyxis. His eyes bored into her remorselessly.

“I never raped you, woman,” said Panchessa. His voice was a rasp, yet it carried as well as any crow’s caw. “I barely even had to ask you. It wasn’t enough for you to be the wife of a lord amongst savages. You dreamed of being a queen.”

Kalyxis took a step towards him. I thought there was something almost longing in the way she did it. It was like the motion of a lover kept apart from their paramour for too long, or a warrior ready at last to confront their ancient foe — or perhaps it was both at once. “You are a pig of a man,” Kalyxis said, “and I will spit on your corpse if it’s the last thing I do.”

She said it softly, almost affectionately — but so very clearly. I had no doubt that those words had reached to every corner of the camp.

I heard the first sword rasp from its scabbard.

But I couldn’t say where it had come from, their side or ours, because in an instant the sound was everywhere, and the ring of metal scraping free from metal was all I could hear.