The King's Man Read online

  “Probably not,” Louise said, sourly. “It wasn’t me.”

  I started to say something, but Caroline spoke over me. “We have to be sure,” she said. “I need to cast a truth spell on you.”

  Louise glared. “I have my rights.”

  “Actually, you don’t.” Caroline waved a hand south. “Magus Court has formally declared a state of emergency. All rights have been suspended for the duration of the crisis.”

  “Those bastards,” Louise said. Her face twisted in angry. “They can’t just ...”

  “Legally, they can.” Caroline looked expressionless. “The vote passed ninety-eight to zero.”

  “The system is rigged,” Louise insisted. I knew Sir Griffons would agree. “It wasn’t a fair vote ...”

  “Right now, that doesn’t matter either,” Caroline said. “Adam believes you’re innocent, but you’ve got him by the short and curlies. I don’t know that you’re innocent ... nor does our master. You have to prove your innocence now or we have to take you into custody, which might be a great deal safer than falling into Lord Dirac’s hands.”

  Louise said nothing for a long moment. “Cast your spell.”

  Caroline glanced at me. “Would you cast the spell?”

  I blinked, then realised Louise would probably be more comfortable if I cast the spell. Or perhaps not. She had every reason to think I’d betrayed her, even though I hadn’t. Not really. I’d certainly attended her rally under false pretences. I put the thought out of my head and wove the spell, making sure to do it properly. Caroline was watching. She’d know if I made a mistake. And she certainly wouldn’t give me the benefit of the doubt.

  The spell flared to life. “Tell us something true,” I said. “And then a lie.”

  “My name is Louise,” Louise said. “And I’m engaged to Akin Rubén.”

  The air around her turned red. I nodded. The spell was working. I’d been careful not to cast one that would encourage her to talk - whatever Lord Dirac said, I wasn’t prepared to put her rights aside so easily - but she wouldn’t be able to lie. Not to us. I glanced at the open door, tightening the privacy wards. I didn’t want her sister overhearing. It would be difficult to explain.

  “Louise,” Caroline said. “Did you carry out yesterday’s terrorist atrocity?”

  “No,” Louise said.

  Caroline nodded. “Did you order it? Or arrange for it to happen?”

  Louise scowled. “No.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d been sure she was innocent, but ... I could have been wrong. And that would have been disastrous. My career would have gone down the shitter before it had fairly begun.

  Caroline looked relieved too. “Do you know who carried it out?”

  “No,” Louise said.

  “Good,” I said. “I think we have the proof we need ...”

  “Wait.” Caroline shot me a sharp look, then returned her attention to Louise. “Do you ...?”

  I listened, impatiently, as Caroline asked question after question, varying the precise wording every time. I knew what she was getting at - Louise could hardly admit to carrying out an atrocity if she didn’t think the atrocity actually was one - but it was still annoying. I could tell Louise was getting angry, even though she answered each question as quickly as possible. I supposed that was another sign she was telling the truth. It took time to think of a lie, time to work out how to maintain it. But, in the end, Caroline sat back and cancelled the spell with a wave of her hand. Louise let out a sigh of relief. She must have been scared we’d ask her questions she didn’t dare answer.

  “Happy now?” Louise glared at me. “Are you convinced I didn’t do it?”

  “Yes.” I met her eyes. “And I’m sorry.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Louise said, in a tone that suggested she wasn’t remotely pleased. “You’re still a bastard.”

  “Far be it from me to disagree,” Caroline said.

  “And where the hell did he find you?” Louise demanded. “Tinian’s Finishing School?”

  Caroline’s eyes opened in mock astonishment. “However did you guess?”

  I cleared my throat. “Like I said, I’m sorry. And if things had been different, I ... I don’t know. But things are what they are and we had to ask those questions.”

  Louise scowled. “What now?”

  “We believe you didn’t do it,” Caroline said. “Do you know anyone who would?”

  “I don’t think so,” Louise said. “The movement cannot achieve its goals through violence.”

  “But you might have a splinter group that feels you can win if you turn violent,” Caroline pointed out. “Would that group report to you?”

  “No.” Louise shook her head. “The movement has always been very loose, very decentralised. The Working Men were always intended to serve as a political movement, you see. The founders knew the tribes couldn’t be relied upon to secure anything for the workers, so they devised the clubs. The clubs themselves are onions. The outer layers are pretty much what they say on the walls. People can go there, have a few drinks, make some friends ... the inner layers are more concerned with recruiting political activists. But the system was never designed to accept a single centralised leadership structure ...”

  Caroline cocked her head. “You’re not the leader?”

  “No,” Louise said. “I have influence, and respect, but no formal power.”

  I blinked. “How did you do it? I mean ...”

  “Being a little girl?” There was a hint of bitterness in Louise’s tone. “It wasn’t easy. It took me months to make any real headway. I had to convince them I was a working man - well, working woman. Too many of them saw me as a kid, at first. Thankfully” - she snapped her fingers, sparks of magic dancing over her palm - “they understood that a magician is a professional worker. And that I had the drive to succeed.”

  “Clever,” Caroline said. “How do you intend to win?”

  Louise met her eyes. “That’s a secret,” she said. “But suffice it to say my plans don’t include violence.”

  “But someone else might have their own ideas,” I said. “If you have a faction that does want to commit violence.”

  “It’s not impossible,” Louise admitted. It sounded as if admitting it was painful. “There are people who have lost their jobs, their homes, their hopes ... because Magus Court did something without thinking of the consequences. Or because it enacted legislation to clarify disputes that always went one way. But I’ve always made it clear that my faction will avoid violence.”

  “So while we’ve cleared you, we can’t clear the rest of your movement,” Caroline said.

  “Anyone who commits violence is not part of my movement,” Louise said. Her voice was very firm. “And that’s a fact.”

  “Is it?” Caroline smirked. I elbowed her, none too gently. “Have fun explaining that to Lord Dirac.”

  I held up a hand. “Louise? Who do you think is behind it?”

  “Who benefits?” Louise ran a hand through her hair. “We don’t. We look like monsters, terrorists. It does nothing for us, while it does a great deal to harm us. But I could easily see the Great Houses or Magus Court carrying out the atrocity themselves. They have secrets, big secrets. And they’re prepared to do anything to maintain their power.”

  “You can’t start throwing accusations like that about,” Caroline said.

  “Why not?” Louise gave her a savage smile. “You came here making them about us.”

  Her smile grew wider. “Where were you during the House War?”

  “I wasn’t here,” Caroline said. “And you know it.”

  I frowned. I’d been a first-year when the House War - the last House War - had turned violent. Hundreds of people had been killed as the Great Houses fought, hundreds of people who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Louise had a point. If the Great Houses were ready to resort to violence against their peers, they probably had even fewer qualms about turning on the poor. And Lord Dirac
... he’d moved with unseemly haste to get the population’s rights placed to one side. Was he the mastermind? Or was he merely playing his part in a plot masterminded by someone who remained in the shadows?

  Or I might be being paranoid, I thought. The atrocity might have been carried out by a splinter faction after all.

  Louise stood. “I know someone you two should meet,” she said, as she smoothed down her dress. “He knows quite a bit about the Great Houses.”

  I frowned. “Who?”

  “Come with me.” Louise grabbed her cloak and pulled it on, then led the way back downstairs. “You’ll see.”

  “Interesting,” Caroline muttered, as Louise spoke quickly to her sister. “Someone else you know?”

  “I don’t know,” I muttered back. Someone I should meet? Someone I hadn’t already met? I couldn’t think of any reasonable candidates. There weren’t many people Louise and I both knew who moved in and out of High Society. Akin was the only person who came to mind and he wasn’t likely to help the socialists. “I guess we’re about to find out.”

  “Yeah,” Caroline agreed. She sounded edgy, as if she felt out of place. “Let’s just hope it doesn’t bite us on the behind.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  We hadn’t been inside for more than an hour, by my estimate, but the streets felt decidedly less safe as we made our way deeper into Water Shallot. I could see City Guardsmen everywhere, standing in small groups as they guarded street corners or paced backs and forth as if they expected trouble at any moment. The locals didn’t look pleased to see them. Atrocity or no, it was only a matter of time before violence broke out. I doubted a lone guardsman would stay alive long enough to reach his peers if he was foolish enough to step away from them.

  Louise said nothing as we kept walking, leaving my thoughts a tangled mess. My cheek was still throbbing with pain, despite a couple of painkilling charms. She had every reason to be mad, to think I’d seduced her for evil purposes ... I shook my head, knowing it hadn’t been that way. I hadn’t planned on anything, let alone spending the night in her bed. She knew it, too. But ... I was pretty sure she didn’t want to believe it. People found it easier, somehow, to believe they’d been tricked or conned than they’d simply been the victim of a random and unfortunate turn of events.

  Caroline strode next to me, looking around with interest as we reached a set of dingy-looking houses. They’d probably been expensive, once upon a time, before they’d been sold to predatory landlords who’d subdivided them into tiny apartments and crammed tenants in until they couldn’t fit any more. Louise walked down the street until she reached the final house, then pressed her hand against the wooden door. There was a long pause - I sensed a low-power, but very elegant ward buzz around us - before the door clicked open. A pale-faced woman with almond eyes stood just inside, dropping a curtsey as we entered the hall. I was pretty sure she was half-caste, the child of a Hangchowese sailor and a local woman. I felt a twinge of sympathy. Her ancestors were unknown. It limited what she could do with her life.

  Even in Water Shallot, people still care about the little things, I thought, as the girl led us upstairs. It just isn’t fair.

  I frowned as I looked around. I’d been wrong. This house wasn’t subdivided into smaller apartment blocks. Indeed, there was a curious elegance about the old-style building that suggested it had once been more than a little expensive. I found it hard to believe, even as I ran my hands along a piece of detailed woodwork that had been melded into the wall. A painting of a blonde girl - around ten years old, I thought - hung on the upper landing. She looked oddly familiar, but I couldn’t place her. I’d never seen her in all my life.

  The servant opened an inner door, revealing a cosy sitting room. A man sat at a desk, holding a translucent sphere in one hand. I studied him, thoughtfully. He looked like everyone’s favourite uncle, with a balding head, a nice smile and a hint of plumpness under his elegant and outdated suit, but there was something in his beady eyes I didn’t like. He put the sphere in a drawer and sat upright, his eyes flickering from face to face. I felt as if I was looking at a snake, a snake that could be kind - or poisonous - depending on its whim.

  “Louise, my dear,” the man said. He had a very aristocratic accent. “It’s so good to see you again.”

  He glanced at the servant girl. “Four teas, if you please,” he said. “And bring a tray of those biscuits too.”

  The girl dropped a curtsey, then backed out. I felt my hackles rise. We were in the middle of Water Shallot, but the man was acting like he was an aristocrat ... no, he was an aristocrat. I couldn’t imagine anyone developing such an accent unless they’d spent years amongst the aristocracy. And yet, what was he doing in Water Shallot? Who the hell was he?

  Louise performed introductions. “Adam, Caroline, this is Malachi Rubén.”

  I blinked. Malachi Rubén had been kicked out of his family, if rumour was to be believed. Even I had heard about that. Malachi Rubén ... father of Penny, uncle to Akin and Francis ... I frowned, again, as I remembered the girl in the painting. No wonder she’d looked familiar. It was Penny. She’d probably sat for the painting a few years before she’d gone to Jude’s. The nasty part of my mind wondered how they’d convinced her to sit still for the painter. Had they bribed her? Or had they simply frozen her in place?

  “I’ve heard about you,” I said, carefully. I had no idea why Louise trusted him. Maybe she didn’t. She probably took everything he said with a grain of salt. “How many of the stories are true?”

  Malachi smiled. It didn’t touch his eyes. “It won’t surprise you to know the Great Houses slander their enemies mercilessly,” he said. “You can’t trust anything they say.”

  I nodded. “So ... what really happened and what are you doing here?”

  “Someone had to take the blame, after Francis died,” Malachi said. “Someone had to take the fall, so Carioca and Davys could emerge blameless and Carioca’s brat could be confirmed Heir Primus. And so, they kicked me out of North Shallot. They pay me a stipend to make sure I don’t go home.”

  “I see,” I said. I wasn’t sure I believed him. The Great Houses could be ruthless at times - there was nothing unbelievable about his story - but it would be hard to drive him out of North Shallot completely. There was no single authority that could tell him to go to hell and make it stick. “And what are you doing here?”

  “Writing my memoirs and providing help and advice to some people.” Malachi nodded to Louise. “I assume you didn’t come strictly for the pleasure of my company?”

  The servant girl returned, placing a kettle, a tray of cups and a plate of biscuits on the desk. Malachi dismissed her with a nod, then stood and poured the tea himself. I wasn’t sure if he’d been born an aristo or simply married into the aristocracy, but he had the manners down pat. I didn’t think Akin or Alana could have done it so well. He practically oozed charm as he passed cups to the girls. I muttered a charm to check my tea was safe to drink. It was.

  “Yesterday, there was a terrorist attack near Magus Court,” Louise said. She sipped her tea with surprising elegance. “We were wondering if you could shed any light on who might have carried out the attack.”

  “I see.” Malachi exchanged a look with Louise. “Magus Court is the most heavily protected place in the city, outside the Great Houses themselves. It would be difficult to get close to the walls without being detected.”

  “Unless one had inside help,” Louise growled. “Someone seems to be trying to frame us for the attack.”

  “It’s possible.” Malachi shrugged. “It’s also possible that someone could be trying to set off another House War.”

  I blinked. “Madness.”

  “And trying to frame the socialists is what?” Malachi smiled. Once again, it didn’t touch his eyes. “Politically speaking, anyone who wants to upend the balance of power has to act now or risk losing their last chance. There’s little hope of keeping House Rubén and House Aguirre from formalising thei
r partnership now.”

  “Because Caitlyn and Akin are due to get married,” I said. “What if they say no?”

  “She might.” Malachi took a sip of his tea. “The chatterboxes are speculating that the only reason she hasn’t had her season, not yet, is because she doesn’t intend to go through with the marriage. If her family knew that, they’d have a strong incentive to keep her a legal child for as long as possible. The marriage couldn’t go ahead, but the betrothal couldn’t be cancelled either. The legal fiction will remain” - he smiled, coldly - “fictional.”

  “Akin won’t be very pleased about that,” Louise pointed out.

  “Quite.” Malachi gave her an approving look. “But - in public, at least - Akin has always been a nice young man. He won’t try to pressure her or her family to set the date.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “So you think someone might have staged the attack as an excuse to seize control.”

  “It’s possible,” Malachi commented. “It’s also possible that someone else carried out the attack and Magus Court leapt to the wrong conclusion.”

  He met my eyes. “Magus Court is big, young man. It’s more than just the hundred members and their cronies. It’s quite possible there’s a faction within the court that wants to take control itself. They may have set out to provoke a crisis. Or ... the Great Houses are perfectly capable of being cunning in their own interests. They might have set out to start the crisis ...”

  “You don’t know,” I said, flatly.

  “No,” Malachi agreed. “But I do know that there are factions - and secret operatives - within the Great Houses. And Magus Court. You know Lord Dirac? How do you think he got the job?”

  Caroline cocked her head. I had the feeling she didn’t like Malachi any more than I did. “Tell us.”

  “The Great Houses are moving to constrain the currently dominant houses,” Malachi explained. “They don’t want to endure permanent submission. Creating a layer of investigators with immense powers, led by Lord Dirac, is their response. They intend to use the investigators to pry control out of their enemy’s hands. Really” - he looked pensive for a moment - “I’m surprised they haven’t already moved to take control of poor Caitlyn.”