The King's Man Read online

  Because they want to arrange partners for you and Bella before you reach adulthood and start having your own ideas, I wondered, or because they want to delay your other sister’s marriage as long as possible?

  I felt a twinge of sympathy. Alana had finished her schooling. It was rare beyond words for a child not to be raised to adulthood after they’d passed their exams, unless there was something seriously wrong with her. Alana had to feel the shame of still being treated as a child keenly, particularly as her friends started to make the jump into adulthood. I almost felt sorry for her.

  Saline appeared behind Alana. “Mind if I cut in?”

  Alana let go of my hands and hurried away before I could say anything. Saline grabbed hold and whirled me around the dance floor, grinning from ear to ear. I wondered if the prince had lost his attraction. He was still dancing, a glass of wine in one hand. I did my best to ignore him as Saline held me close. I was suddenly very short of breath. She was so close I could feel her breasts brush against my chest.

  “I have to thank you,” Saline said. Her lips brushed against my ears. “If you hadn’t come when you were called ...”

  “All part of the job,” I said. It wasn’t as if I’d done much of anything. Sir Griffons had done all the heavy lifting. “What are you going to do with yourself now?”

  “No idea.” Saline’s grin grew wider. “I might follow the prince to North Cairnbulg. Or I might go on holiday and never come back. Or I might join Louise and go into politics.”

  I blinked. “Louise has gone into politics?”

  “Yeah.” Saline looked pensive, just for a moment. “I thought she was going to invite you.”

  “... She didn’t.” I recalled her asking me out, back before I’d travelled north to Haddon Hall. Had she something in mind? “What’s she doing?”

  “I’ll ask her to drop you a note,” Saline said. “I’m sure she’ll be pleased to hear from you.”

  I wasn’t so sure. I was a Kingsman ... a squire, to be sure, but I still had duty and obligation. And ... I wondered, suddenly, what sort of politics Louise was doing. She didn’t have a powerful family, to push her into politics at the very highest level. Her parents were merchants. What was she doing?

  “We’ll see,” I said, doubtfully.

  Caroline appeared, looking angry. “Care for a dance?”

  Saline grinned. “Me or him?”

  “Him,” Caroline said.

  Saline curtseyed and let go of me. Caroline’s expression didn’t lighten as she took my hands and led me down the hall. I frowned, wondering what was bothering her. She didn’t look remotely happy.

  “A couple of young men had wandering hands,” she said. “I probably shouldn’t have hexed them.”

  “I don’t think anyone will care,” I told her. “You probably taught them a much-needed lesson.”

  “Yeah.” Caroline shrugged. “Did you learn anything interesting?”

  I frowned. “I don’t know,” I admitted. It looked as though the party was finally coming to an end. Sir Griffons, standing by the door, caught our eyes and nodded. “I might have.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “An interesting development,” Sir Griffons said, the following morning. “Do you think Lord Carioca Rubén ordered his son to talk to you?”

  I hesitated, unsure of myself. “I think so,” I said, finally. “But I don’t know.”

  “No one ever does,” Sir Griffons said. He’d forced me to go through everything Akin had said with a fine-toothed comb. “At that level, it’s hard to tell who’s responsible for what. The real movers and shakers never show their hand so easily.”

  Caroline had a different question. “Adam, do you trust Akin?”

  I hesitated. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Of all the aristos, Akin was - is - the most approachable. I think he was probably the most decent. He was the one who helped Saline, after all, when no one else could be bothered to do it. But I don’t know if any aristo can be trusted.”

  “You can trust them to put their interests first,” Sir Griffons said.

  “But they’re acting against their interests,” Caroline said. “Prince Jacob being here isn’t good for the Great Houses.”

  “True,” Sir Griffons agreed. “But kicking him out isn’t going to be good for them either. If Akin’s telling the truth, the Great Houses have decided to grit their collective teeth and wait the prince out. Sooner or later, he’ll run out of money and move on.”

  “Unless someone picks up his bills,” I pointed out. “He seemed to have quite a few supporters on the dance floor.”

  “I imagine anyone who does will feel the wrath of their peers.” Sir Griffons shrugged. “We’ll keep an eye on the situation, naturally, and inform our superiors of our conclusions.”

  Caroline frowned. “What will they do?”

  “That’s above your pay grade,” Sir Griffons said. “The two of you can do some sparring. I want to ...”

  The wards chimed. “Stay here,” Sir Griffons ordered. “No one would come here unless they needed us.”

  I glanced at Caroline as Sir Griffons headed to the door. “Maybe they want us to help evict the prince.”

  “Maybe,” Caroline said. “But they couldn’t turn a blind eye to us grabbing the bastard off the streets and plonking him on a boat back home.”

  I nodded, curtly. Prince Jacob was a nuisance. I could understand why the Great Houses wanted to be rid of him. Just by staying in the city, he was a diplomatic nightmare waiting to happen. But, at the same time, I could see why they couldn’t simply kick him out. They couldn’t afford to look weak. Akin had been right. Prince Jacob had placed the Great Houses in an impossible position.

  Sir Griffons returned, looking grim. “Grab your cloaks,” he ordered. “We have a case.”

  He snatched his cloak from the walls, donned it and hurried back to the door. We followed him, as quickly as we could. A carriage was already waiting, the driver looking impatient as we scrambled inside. He barely waited for us to close the door before he cracked the whip and the carriage rattled into life, heading out of the courtyard and down the street. It was mid-morning and the streets were already lined with people, but they scattered for the carriage. I didn’t blame them. I knew drivers had few qualms about lashing out with their whips if the crowd got in their way. And the bastards tended to be protected from most hexes. I’d found that out the hard way.

  “A child has been kidnapped,” Sir Griffons said, as we rattled down the road. “It may be political.”

  Caroline narrowed her eyes. “How do you know, sir?”

  “They called us in,” Sir Griffons said, easily. “There’s almost certainly more to the story than I was told.”

  I kept my thoughts to myself as we crossed the bridge into South Shallot and drove down a road towards the riverside. The buildings here were poorer, but still expensive compared to Water Shallot. The inhabitants looked as if they were desperately trying to keep up appearances, as if they were trying to make it clear they belonged. I felt a pang of sympathy as I saw a middle-aged woman sweeping the flagstones clear of dirt. The locals lived lives of silent desperation. If they lost their jobs, they would fall all the way back into poverty. It was practically a given that they didn’t own their homes.

  The carriage rattled into a courtyard and came to a halt. Sir Griffons opened the door, allowing us to jump down to the cobblestones. The building looked like one of the old post stations, where the mail would be delivered and sorted before being passed on to its final destination. Now ... I frowned as I read the sign on the door. WORD OF SHALLOT. I’d read the newspaper, back when I was in school. It had been too aristo for my tastes, even though the editor was solidly middle-class. I was pretty sure he was either someone’s client or trying to establish himself as a power-broker. But that didn’t matter now.

  “This way,” Sir Griffons said. The door opened as we approached. He held up his ring. “You summoned me?”

  “The editor summoned
you,” the doorman said. “If you’ll come with me ...”

  I looked around with interest as we made our way up a long flight of stairs. The building was larger than I’d realised and very oddly designed. I had the feeling they’d worked two or three buildings into one, something that was technically against the law unless someone either got special permission or splashed out one hell of a lot of money in bribes. The upper floors were crammed with printing presses, some powered by magic, some by hand. I frowned as we headed through a warded door. The editor and his family lived on top of their workshop, just like my family. It made me feel a little warmer towards them.

  “Your Grace.” The editor was a tired-looking man, his face pale with worry. He was so scared that he messed up the title. “Thank you for coming.”

  “You’re quite welcome,” Sir Griffons said. If he cared about being addressed by a superior title, he didn’t show it. “What happened?”

  A sob echoed down the hallway. The editor winced.

  “My wife,” he said. “She’s not in a good state. The healers prescribed potion, but she refuses to take it and ...”

  “I understand,” Sir Griffons said. “But I need to know what happened.”

  The editor turned and led us down the corridor. “Last night, we put Cathy to bed as normal, before we went to bed ourselves,” he said, as he opened a door. “This morning, we discovered she was missing. The wards were cracked open from the outside. Someone spirited her out of the window and ... and they took her. They took her!”

  I peered into the bedroom. It was larger than my bedroom, but not by much. A single bed, a wooden chest of drawers, a mirror ... it looked odd, as if Cathy was small for her age. Or maybe she was already on the verge of outgrowing her room. Nora had needed a new bed five years ago, I recalled. The bed wouldn’t be hard to expand. A skilled carpenter would have no trouble. Or maybe they’d just swap it for another one. The locals shared what little they had. It was the only way to survive.

  “She did that painting herself,” the editor said, pointing to a simple picture of a house surrounded by trees. “It was where she wanted to live, when she grew older.”

  “You’re talking about her as if she’s already dead,” Caroline commented. “Don’t you think she’s still alive?”

  “There’s been no ransom demand,” the editor said. “And I have enemies who won’t hesitate to kill my child ...”

  “Maybe,” Sir Griffons said. “Adam, what do you make of the hole in the wards?”

  I stepped forward, reaching out with my senses and feeling out the damage. The editor was right. The wards had been cracked from the outside, cracked so professionally that the alarms hadn’t sounded even when Cathy had been removed from the house. They’d practically cut her room out of the building, as if it was no longer protected by the ward network. I felt a flicker of sour admiration. The wardcracker was a professional. I couldn’t have done such a neat job myself.

  “Professional.” I peered outside. The window looked down on a dark alleyway. “I guess the kidnapper levitated himself up, cracked the wards and then yanked Cathy through the window. Probably transfigured her too, just to make sure she couldn’t scream. Dropped down to the ground and ran, leaving the wards in a mess. By now, he could be anywhere.”

  Sir Griffons nodded. “When do you think it took place?”

  I shook my head. There was no way to tell. Or was there? “Early morning,” I hazarded. If I knew something about such communities, it was that there were eyes and ears everywhere. “Everyone would be asleep. Even the vagabonds in the alleys would be asleep. There’d be no risk of being seen.”

  “There are no beggars here,” the editor said. “We don’t let them sleep here.”

  “Oh,” I said. I glanced at Sir Griffons. “What now?”

  Sir Griffons looked at the editor. “You’re absolutely positive there’s been no ransom demand? No demand for anything?”

  “No, My Lord,” the editor said. He sounded as if he was on the brink of despair. “If they wanted something, they’d have told me ... wouldn’t they?”

  “It’s only been a few hours,” Caroline said. “They might want to let you sweat first.”

  “Perhaps,” Sir Griffons said. “Is Cathy your only child?”

  “Yes, My Lord.”

  “Caroline, go visit the mother and collect a sample of her blood.” Sir Griffons produced a bleeder knife from his belt. “I’ll take a sample from her father. If she’s their only child, there shouldn’t be any false positives to confuse the search.”

  I blinked. “Sir ... wouldn’t they have hidden her behind solid wards?”

  “They might,” Sir Griffons agreed, curtly. “But we have to try.”

  The editor made no objection as Sir Griffons gently cut his skin, allowing a trickle of blood to drip onto a sheet of cloth. Caroline didn’t seem to be having such an easy time, judging by the screaming echoing down the corridor. Cathy’s mother seemed to believe Caroline was planning to murder her. The editor twitched, as if he wanted to run to his wife. Sir Griffons put out a hand to stop him.

  “Check the room,” Sir Griffons ordered. “See if we missed anything.”

  I nodded and started to search the room from top to bottom. It looked and felt very much like my sister’s room, when they’d both been younger. The clothes were clearly second or third-hand, save for a simple summer dress that Cathy probably wore to formal occasions. She couldn’t afford a new dress every day. There were a handful of notebooks, covered with childish scribbles. I was amused to see that she had a habit of writing notes about her schoolmates. She’d be in hot water if they ever found out. I guessed she intended to follow her father into the family trade.

  Cathy returned, blood on her knife. “I had to put her in a trance,” she said. “Sorry.”

  “No matter,” Sir Griffons said. He took the knife and mingled the two sets of blood together, then smeared them on a cloth. “Cathy should be the only one who shares blood from both her mother and father.”

  I frowned, feeling unsure of myself as Sir Griffons chanted a spell. I’d been warned that anything involving blood - and human waste - was borderline dark. Only a handful of blood-based spells and potions were legal and almost all of them came with severe restrictions on their use. Sir Griffons had authorisation to use whatever spells he thought necessary, I thought, but ... I put the thought aside. I wasn’t sure if I should call him on it or not. I didn’t know how he’d react.

  The cloth twisted, then shaped itself into an arrow pointing to the window. “Interesting,” Sir Griffons said. “There was no resistance at all.”

  “That’s a good thing, right?” Caroline peered through the window. “They’re not trying to hide her.”

  Sir Griffons didn’t look pleased. “Anyone who could break through the wards here without setting off a dozen alarms would know to hide her behind more wards of her own,” he said, coldly. “Either the kidnapper handed her over to an idiot or he’s trying to spoof us.”

  I followed the pointing arrow. It led to Water Shallot. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. There were so many places where everyone minded their own business that no one would give a damn if someone carried a kicking and screaming preteen into one of the crumbling buildings. I peered into the distance, trying to guess where Cathy might be hidden. It didn’t seem possible. It could be anywhere along a line that headed down to the docks and out to sea.

  There was a rattling sound downstairs. I heard grim-sounding men barking orders, followed by heavy footsteps. Sir Griffons let out an annoyed sound. I winced, even though it wasn’t directed at me. Whoever had arrived wasn’t someone Sir Griffons wanted to meet. I exchanged glances with Caroline as Sir Griffons plucked the arrow out of the air and passed it to me. I had the distinct feeling he didn’t want to show it to the newcomer.

  “Take a bearing, when you’re outside,” Sir Griffons instructed. “Then go somewhere else and take another bearing, so you can triangulate her exact location. And then” -
his eyes rested on us for a long moment - “go take a look. No heroics, unless there’s no other choice. Remember, we want her back alive.”

  I felt the arrow quivering in my hand as we were shown to the rear staircase and urged down onto the streets. A handful of black carriages waited outside, their drivers eying us suspiciously as we hurried down the streets. They didn’t look like City Guardsmen. There were no insignias on their sleeves, suggesting ... what? Armsmen would wear their master’s colours. There were no coats of arms on the carriages either. I put the thought out of my head as we crossed the bridge and headed into Water Shallot. The mysterious armsmen were Sir Griffons’ problem. We had a missing girl to find.

  Caroline nudged me as we strode past the Hiring Hall. “If you were hiding a kidnapped girl,” she said, “where would you go?”

  I considered it, then shrugged. There were just too many possibilities. And, for that matter, too many ways of hiding her. The kidnapper could have transfigured her into a shoe - or something equally innocuous - and left her lying around, secure in the knowledge no one would pay any attention to her. It would require a very careful search to find her. The spells wouldn’t last forever, unless he used a spellbinder, but it probably wouldn’t matter. They’d be making a ransom demand before too long. The arrow quivered in my hand as we slipped into an ally and recast the spell. Cathy looked to be hidden somewhere near the docks.

  “That way,” I said. I wished Sir Griffons was with us, even though he might have attracted more attention than I would have liked. “Try to pretend to be a local.”

  Caroline cast an illusion spell around herself. “How do I look?”

  “Very poor,” I said, approvingly. I cast a similar spell on myself. “Just remember, you’re poor but proud.”

  I kept one hand on the arrow as we headed down towards the docks. The streets grew quieter, save for women washing their clothes and a handful of little kids running around screaming. Their older siblings would be at school, their fathers probably on the boats or working on the docks. I spotted a handful of teenage girls, watched closely by their mothers or aunts. They’d have little freedom, at least until they got married. I felt a stab of sympathy for the poor girls. If my mother had lived, or if my father had been more of a traditionalist, my sisters might have been kept under such tight supervision too.