Page 135 of Play of Shadows

Ajelaine began counting off on her fingers. ‘Decrees demanding the imprisonment of the homeless breed resentment and distrust. The brutal targeting of immigrants prevents the growth of shared knowledge and understanding. The spread of imported liquors and pleasure drugs sows addiction and despair. Allowing girls and boys to be forced into prostitutionchanges the way we view all our children. Banning heretical art—’

‘—stops us from questioning what we’re doing to ourselves,’ I finished. Anger was rising, a rage that would have made Corbier himself pale.

Ajelaine opened her hand with a flourish, as if completing a magic trick, revealing a small pile of grey dust like the ashes of one long dead.

‘Saints save us,’ I breathed. ‘There is no Court of Flowers, is there? That’s why we’ve never been able to find them in my time. They’ve been gone for decades. . .’

Ajelaine blew on the little pile in her hand, sending the dust into the breeze like the ashes of the dead.

When she looked back at me, I saw the tears of frustration in her eyes. ‘This is the genius of our enemy, Damelas. They didn’t invade us– they didn’t need to. Instead, they designed a scheme so finely crafted that they needed to send only a few agents to our shores to set it in motion. What we call the Court of Flowers isn’t a cabal of men and women, it’s a machine with springs and gears forged from our own venal ways: a masterpiece of hidden hierarchies and endless intrigues perfectly aligned to the weaknesses already present in our society. Damelas, our own nobles are unwittingly financing the war that is destroying us from within. The Court is like. . . like an enemy army in whichweare the foot soldiers, armed with weapons we turn against ourselves: rumour, gossip, prejudice, blackmail, brutality– and above all else,secrecy. The clockwork of conspiracies begun in my time continues into your own, because new members recruit themselves, never realising the cruel, destructive, elegant truth at the centre of it all. . .’

The image of Ajelaine began to shift and shimmer. . . Beretto was shaking me, calling me to return, yelling that everything was going to the seven Hells. I could hear more shouting, fromCaptain Terine and her guards, trying to hold back the flood of Iron Orchids, and terrified citizens about to swarm the stage. My city was about to fall, but not to the outside enemy we’d been searching for all this time.

I felt chilled to the bone as I whispered, ‘Weare the Court of Flowers.’

Chapter 70

Surrender

I returned to the stage to find myself staring at the backs of my fellow Knights of the Curtain, who had massed around me in a final valiant attempt to protect me, this time from the panicking crowds rushing towards the stage. I kept expecting to hear Corbier’s sardonic whisper deriding the futile valour of players and stagehands who didn’t know when they were beaten, but the Red-Eyed Raven was gone, leaving me without his counsel– or his skills.

Out in the courtyard, Captain Terine and her soldiers were fighting a losing battle, fending off the central column of three times as many Iron Orchids, even as another large party of armed thugs herded the confused and terrified citizens of Jereste like cattle towards us.

‘Madness,’ Abastrini said.

Ornella, standing at his side, brandishing a shield from the battlefield scene, disagreed. ‘Not madness, chaos.Controlledchaos. It’s to ensure the duke can’t escape.’

When I looked around for the duke, I found him lying in a heap next to me, mumbling incoherently as he struggled to rise.

‘What’s wrong with him?’ Shariza asked, kneeling beside us.

I smoothed Monsegino’s sweat-soaked hair from his forehead.‘He ventured too deeply into Pierzi’s memories. This was his first time and he wasn’t ready for the repercussions.’

‘Rally the army,’ Monsegino commanded, wild, unfocused eyes turning to me suddenly. ‘My people cannot fight alone– we must have warriors, trained soldiers—’

‘Dukes don’t have their own armies, you fucking moron,’ Teo spat, wiping away the blood oozing from a cut on his forehead where a rock had struck him. Ignoring Shariza’s warning glare, he jabbed a finger out at the courtyard where soldiers owing fealty to the great Houses had assembled to protect their lords, leaving their sovereign to his own devices. ‘Should’ve kissed a few more noble arses before you sat yours on the throne, I reckon.’

Under normal circumstances, Teo would have just earned himself a beating, followed by a month in the cell I’d only recently vacated. But the duke’s mind was still stumbling between our world and the past.

‘We must have warriors,’ he repeated in a daze. ‘Mount Cruxia– they are gathered at Mount Cruxia.’

I reached down to help him to his feet. ‘Your Grace, Mount Cruxia has been a graveyard for a hundred years. You have to let go of Pierzi’s past. Focus on where you are now, here in the courtyard, bef—’

I was cut off by the crash of another charge. The rampaging column of Iron Orchids had nearly breached Captain Terine’s more disciplined shield wall, driving dozens of innocents onto the swords of the ducal guards, losing their lives for no better purpose than to wear down the defenders.

‘Don’t suppose you learned something wonderfully useful in the past?’ Rhyleis asked as she and Beretto lifted painted wooden kite shields over the duke’s head to protect him. ‘Perhaps the identity of whichever bastard among that rabble the duke’s favourite Dashini needs to kill to induce the rest to laydown arms and surrender?’

I could hear the thread of hopefulness in the Troubadour’s cynical question, which only made the truth more heartbreaking.

‘They have no leader,’ I said sadly. ‘The Court of Flowers is nothing more than. . .’

Saint Ebron-who-steals-breath– how am I supposed to explain in moments what took Ajelaine two decades to uncover?

‘The Court of Flowers is like a play with no director,’ I said at last. ‘The parts have been so cleverly written that each actor thinks their lines make them the hero, and they go on repeating the same scenes of intrigue and revenge over and over, believing this to be their time, even though the script they follow was composed by a playwright long dead.’

Beretto’s eyes widened as he made sense of my words. His thick red beard was glistening with sweat. ‘Well, that makes this a fucking depressing end to our own play, then.’

The company kept glancing back at me, all those furtive expressions betraying both their fear of impending death and their determination to face it bravely.

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