Ruler of the Realm

Twenty-three

The Imperial Suite was spacious and luxurious and Blue hated it. The chairs were too large, the bed was too soft, the tapestries were too rich.

The memories were too painful.

Everything reminded her of her father. She kept thinking she could catch a hint of his smell, the sound of his movements. Once, in the night, she thought she heard the low gurgle of his laughter.

She could see the bloodstain on the carpet, even though the servants had scrubbed out every particle, then, at her insistence, replaced the floor covering completely. But tradition dictated the replacement was the same colour and pattern and the bloodstain was still there, spreading liquidly in her mind.

The Queen must live in the Imperial Suite: that was tradition too. But she needed to think. How could she be expected to think when she saw her father everywhere she turned? She had to get away.

On impulse she triggered the secret panel Comma discovered during the few days he played at being Emperor. It opened on to a passageway that had offered an emergency escape to Emperors down the generations. In the old days they’d been fleeing for their lives. She was running from a ghost. Blue stepped inside and the panel closed behind her.

The passageway emerged on the edge of the Imperial Island beside the broad sweep of the river. It was growing dark now and she sat on some rocks watching the lights come on across the city. Closer to hand, torchlit traffic was milling over Loman Bridge. There were tens of thousands of her subjects out there and she’d never felt so alone. A wrong decision could leave so many of them dead. What was she going to do? What was the right thing to do?

A large patch of moss slipped off the rock beside her and splatted on the ground with an audible thump. ‘Damn!’ it muttered crossly.

Blue was on her feet in an instant, one hand scrabbling in the folds of her dress for the lethal little stimlus she kept as her last line of defence. It was stupid, stupid, stupid not to have alerted the guards where she was going, but she still wasn’t accustomed to being Queen.

‘Is that you, Blue?’

She strained her eyes in the half-light. The voice was terribly familiar. ‘Flapwazzle?’ She blinked. ‘Flapwazzle?’

‘I cannot tell a lie,’ Flapwazzle said truthfully. He began to undulate across the ground towards her.

For some reason the burdens of State responsibility fell away and she felt a small bubble of delight welling in her stomach. ‘What are you doing out here?’

‘Gathering the omron.’ It was something endolgs did at sunset. Blue had never really understood it. Flapwazzle said, ‘When I was full, I fell asleep. Didn’t think I’d find you here. Or anybody, really.’

Her problems came flooding back. ‘I was trying to make up my mind about something.’

She thought he might ask her what – and wasn’t sure she could tell him – but he only said, ‘Must be tricky being Queen.’

It was almost funny. That was the very word for it – tricky. Not one of her courtiers or advisors would have used it, but that was the word exactly. For the first time in days she actually grinned.

‘That’s it, Flapwazzle. As tricky as it gets.’ How did you decide what your uncle was up to? Tricky. How did you choose between war and peace? Tricky.

A thought occurred to her and flared into a rising excitement. ‘Flapwazzle, would you do something for me?’ she blurted. She couldn’t order him – not that she would have anyway. Endolgs weren’t strictly speaking her subjects, which may have been why she hadn’t thought of something so obvious before.

‘Sure,’ Flapwazzle said at once.

Some of her initial excitement died, replaced at once by worry. ‘It could be dangerous.’

Flapwazzle had draped himself over one of her feet, keeping it so warm she wished he’d move on to the other one as well. ‘Danger is my middle name,’ he said. Then added quickly, ‘Just a metaphor, of course. Something I picked up somewhere. I don’t actually have a middle name and if I did it certainly wouldn’t be anything as pretentious as Danger.’ He wriggled slightly. Endolgs lacked the capacity to lie, so metaphors were difficult for them.

Blue said, ‘Would you pay a visit on my uncle?’

‘Lord Hairstreak?’

‘That uncle,’ Blue said sourly. ‘I want you to get close enough to use your truth-sense.’

‘He won’t like that,’ Flapwazzle said.

Which was the understatement of the century. Blue had started to feel guilty – this really was a dangerous assignment – but the more she talked, the more her idea felt like a solution to all her problems. And Flapwazzle could do it. In fact, Flapwazzle was the only endolg she could trust with the job. He’d already proven himself several times over.

She took a deep breath and told him everything.

‘You want me to find out if it’s a genuine offer?’ Flapwazzle asked.

Blue nodded. ‘Can you?’

‘If I can get close enough. I might have problems sneaking past his guards.’

‘I can get you into his mansion,’ Blue said, thinking furiously. She could make a State visit, except the formalities would put Hairstreak on his guard. If she turned up with her bodyguards, that might encourage him to increase his security precautions. But if she just turned up…

Blue liked the idea of just turning up. It was the sort of wild thing she used to do before becoming Queen. She’d have to put precautions in place, of course, do it by the book. She’d order a Countdown, the way the old Emperors did when there was a risk of war. And she’d carry her stimlus. Actually, no, she wouldn’t carry her stimlus – her uncle’s security spells would detect the weapon at once. Best to appear innocent and empty-handed. The Countdown would be all the security she’d need. But she had to find some way of hiding Flapwazzle.

‘He mustn’t know you’re with me. It’s important he doesn’t realise we’re checking him out.’

‘Besides which, he might kill me,’ Flapwazzle said.

Blue nodded. ‘Yes, he might.’ It was impossible to keep anything from an endolg.

But clearly this endolg was prepared to take the risk. ‘Whatever,’ he shrugged cheerfully. ‘When do we go?’

Now would be good, thought Blue. Once she instigated the Countdown and figured out a way of smuggling Flapwazzle.

As they walked together through the passage, Flapwazzle remarked conversationally, ‘You know when I was asleep back there? Before I fell off the rock?’

‘Yes,’ Blue nodded.

‘I was dreaming about Henry,’ Flapwazzle said. ‘He was in a lot of trouble.’

‘I do that sometimes,’ Blue told him.