Page 79 of Play of Shadows

The second gate was where our real problems began.

‘Our hosts don’t look pleased by our arrival,’ Rhyleis observed, glancing behind her at the heavy bars now imprisoning the three of us inside the courtyard. We’d been instructed to wait there until the guards at the second gates returned to either wave us inside or escort us to the beheading blocks beneath the massive statues of Death and Coin.

‘D’you suppose that line you wrote about “withered ducal sceptres left flaccid by spectres” might have been a bit. . . ungenerous?’ Beretto asked.

I agreed, although I’d lacked the courage to say anythingmyself, just handed the folded sheet of paper to the bleary-eyed chamberlain with instructions to put it into the hands of Duke Monsegino himself and no other. That was more than an hour ago, and I was starting to wonder if perhaps we’d pushed our luck too far.

Rhyleis shrugged. ‘Everyone’s a critic these—Oh, Hells.’

A dozen guards in pertine-blue tabards over hastily donned armour, spears in hand and crossbows strapped to their backs, were marching loudly down the passage towards the gate. They looked entirely displeased with us.

‘It’s all right,’ I told the others. ‘Unhappy guards is a good sign.’

My grandfather used to say that if a Greatcoat ever met a soldier whowasn’tgrinning at the prospect of beheading him, he’d know he’d left Tristian soil.

A large woman with short-cropped blonde hair was leading the troop. She was almost as big as Pink Mol, with a grimace twice as unfriendly. The moment she reached the gate, she stopped and held up a fist. The twelve soldiers behind her clanked to an immediate halt.

‘I am Captain Terine of the palace guard,’ she said bluntly.

‘Terine?’ Beretto asked. ‘Did your parents mean to name you after a meal of slow-cooked vegetables and meat, or after the silver bowl into which said repast is placed to cool?’

‘Not helping,’ I said.

‘I’m hungry. We never had supper.’

‘When I give the signal,’ Captain Terine began, ignoring our exchange, ‘the gate will rise. You will walk six paces forward and wait there as my soldiers take up position beside and behind you.’

And that way we’ll be neatly boxed in on all sides. I glanced back at the first gate, wondering if we might be fast enough to race across the courtyard and climb over before we were impaled by crossbow bolts.

‘Should you attempt to flee, you will be executed on the spot,’ Captain Terine informed us, catching my eye. I suppose I did have a reputation for panicked flight. ‘Attack me or any of my guards and you will be executed. Offer bribes, threats or insolence—’

‘Insolence?’ Rhyleis repeated incredulously. She stepped up to the bars separating us from the armoured giantess on the other side. ‘Know you this, Guardswoman– and I grant such courtesy only by the sense of charity tradition bids me to offer fools on starry nights– that I am a Bardatti Troubadour. Attempt to command me, menace me, cajole me or stare at my arse too long in a way I find displeasing, and I will compose a tune that will drive you mad with lust for the nearest barn animal. So great will your obsession be that not even these tin-plated fools behind you will be able to stop you from racing around the city naked in hot pursuit of the nearest goat or sheep, against whose buttocks you will rub yourself insensible while declaring your eternal love until your throat dries out and your voice cracks like old clay.’

‘If you’re still deciding which of the lovely women you’ve been consorting with lately to wed, brother,’ Beretto whispered, ‘may I suggest the Black Amaranth? A Dashini assassin seems the safest choice at this point.’

Captain Terine stared wide-eyed at the Bardatti, who stood barely as tall as her chest, apparently overawed by the detailed nature of the threat. ‘You are Bardatti? Truly?’

Rhyleis paused to give me an I-told-you-so glance before turning back to the captain. ‘I am.’

The captain raised an armoured fist and instructed her lieutenant, ‘Make sure to shoot the annoying little one first.’

Finally the guards found something to smile about.

The three of us stepped beneath the iron spikes as they were slowly raised, before advancing the requisite six steps towards the steel spearheads facing us. Our escort clanked into positionaround us, spears held parallel to the floor to keep us penned in.

The Captain gave a signal and the phalanx lurched forward like a siege-engine on rusted wheels.

You’d think by now I’d have grown accustomed to being threatened and ordered about, but saints, I was tired of bearing witness to indignity being heaped on injustice. Or maybe Archduke Corbier was whispering in my ear, bridling at being treated like a commoner.

The world is positively stuffed with arseholes, I thought.May all the gods keep me from becoming one of them.

The guards kept up their steady, rattling march through the palace’s gaudily decorated halls, affording plenty of time to admire the many, many works of art depicting the glory of Pertine made manifest through its glorious rulers.

All twelve soldiers came to a dead halt, stopping so suddenly that I stumbled headlong into the man in front of me. He turned his head an infinitesimal amount, just enough to convey both my utter irrelevance and the assurance of excessive violence should I touch him again.

Captain Terine banged three times in ceremonial fashion on the imposing set of double doors. A moment later, they opened smoothly, without so much as a creak, to reveal what I took to be the ducal throne room.

‘By his Grace’s command,’ the captain began, standing tall, and so broad in the shoulder that she blocked my view entirely, ‘I bring before you Master Beretto Bravi, a Knight of the Curtain.’

---