The King's Man Read online

  No proof, I reminded myself. There would be nothing to tie Zadornov to the thugs. I was sure of it. His narrative would insist the thugs had attacked us without orders, just to get a little revenge. And we’d have no grounds to interrogate him under truth spells.

  I caught her eye as we slipped out of the dockside and up into the more civilised part of Water Shallot. “What the hell did you do to him?”

  “The Alderman Curse.” Caroline puckered her lips at me. I couldn’t help flinching. “It’s a trick I learnt at school. If someone tries to steal a kiss ...”

  I grimaced. “No one ever told me about those spells.”

  “Probably for the best.” Caroline let out a long breath. “The boys who find out about them ... well, let’s just say they find out the hard way.”

  “You’ll have to teach my sisters,” I said. Water Shallot would be a great deal more civilised if every woman knew those spells. “They’d be happy to learn.”

  “You could probably reinvent it for yourself,” Caroline said. She winked at me. “It isn’t a hard spell to cast. It just requires concentration and focus.”

  “I see.” I considered it for a moment. It wasn’t easy to remain calm and focused when one was under attack. A woman who was being harassed might not be able to cast the spell, even when her virtue was at stake. But the mere threat should be enough to convince people not to press. “My sisters could probably master it with ease.”

  A thought struck me. “Where did you go to school? I never asked.”

  Caroline opened her mouth, then paused as we heard a sound from up ahead. It sounded like an angry crowd. We turned the corner and peered at Louise’s shop. The crowd was mustered at the far end of the road, shouting and screaming as the City Guardsmen - and Lord Dirac’s armsmen - searched the shop. Angry men came from all directions, carrying makeshift weapons; women were hurrying away, some dragging preteen children. It felt as if all hell was about to break loose.

  “The raids have started,” Caroline said. “I guess they know who Louise is now.”

  I nodded, curtly.

  Chapter Thirty

  “Stay back,” I muttered as the crowd grew larger and angrier. “We don’t want to get caught here.”

  “Teach your grandmother to suck eggs,” Caroline muttered back. We inched towards the rear, trying to keep our eyes on the store. “I know what I’m doing.”

  The crowd’s muttering grew louder as a middle-aged man and woman, their hands cuffed behind their backs, were escorted out of the store and shoved into a black carriage. Louise’s parents, I guessed. Her sister and a young boy I didn’t recognise were dragged out moments later, their hands cuffed too, and shoved into another carriage. I shuddered, feeling sick, as the guardsmen slammed the doors closed. The kids wouldn’t know anything about their older sister’s politics. They’d be held captive until the state of emergency came to an end, for nothing. Unless ... I winced as the guardsmen started to ransack the store. They might be used as leverage to force Louise to surrender herself.

  “Shame,” someone shouted. A shower of bricks and slates rained down on the guardsmen. “Shame!”

  “This way,” I snapped. The crowd was surging forward, pushing and shoving as it tried to get to the guardsmen. They’d have cast wards to seal off the store and protect themselves, but I doubted they could shield themselves completely. “Hurry!”

  The roar kept growing louder as we broke free and ran down the street. The other shops were slamming closed, iron shutters rattling into place. A handful of magicians were hastily casting spells to protect themselves and their property; others, without proper training in magic, were reliant on cold iron and good intentions. I saw a pair of men holding bludgeons, ready to fight if the mob overwhelmed their outer defences. They had no choice. The City Guard wouldn’t come to their rescue at the moment.

  “They didn’t catch Louise,” Caroline said. “Where do you think she is?”

  I shrugged. We didn’t know Louise hadn’t been caught. If the raid had snatched her up, she would have been whisked back to North Shallot quicker than ... well, anything. And yet, I had the feeling Caroline was right. The guardsmen wouldn’t bother to arrest Louise’s parents if they had an infinitely more valuable prisoner. Lord Dirac might have other ideas, but even he would have trouble compelling the guard to do more than the bare minimum if they’d thought they’d already won.

  A man, wearing a long brown cloak, caught my eye. There was nothing suspicious about him, yet ... I frowned, my instincts warning that he was somehow important. My eyes lingered, trying to see what had caught my attention. There was something oddly familiar in the way he moved ... no, she moved. I walked over to her, already knowing who was under the hood. There was no one else it could be.

  “Louise,” I said.

  Louise looked up at me, sharply. Her face was slightly blurred behind a charm. It would have fooled me if I hadn’t known her. “Did you bring them here?”

  “No,” I said. “We have to get off the streets.”

  “This way.” Louise headed down the street, without bothering to look back. “Come or not, as you please.”

  I exchanged glances with Caroline as we followed Louise through a maze of streets until we reached a small, backstreet pub. It looked rough. It was mid-afternoon and the regular drinkers were clearly already drunk. The bartender looked up, spotted Louise and nodded curtly as she led us up a flight of stairs and into a small meeting room. I checked around as she removed her cloak, her blonde hair damp. She looked as if she’d been through hell.

  “They raided the club again,” she said, as she dried her hair with a charm. “I was lucky to escape. And then ...”

  She sagged, slightly. “What’ll happen to my family?”

  Caroline cast a handful of privacy wards. “Do they know what you’ve been doing?”

  “Dad knows ... something,” Louise said. “The others, no.”

  “I guess they’ll be held until the state of emergency is lifted,” Caroline said. I had the feeling she was trying to be comforting. Under a state of emergency, suspects could be dispatched to Skullbreaker Island without trial. “Do they know about this place?”

  Louise shook her head. “No,” she said. “Only the most senior amongst us know about here.”

  I frowned, considering it. The pub was well-hidden, concealed within a maze of alleyways that would make it difficult for the guardsmen to reach the entrance without being spotted and attacked by the locals. By the time they got here, Louise and her associates could be on their way to South Shallot. And yet, I had my suspicions. Someone had clearly identified Louise. Someone ... I knew it hadn’t been me. Or Caroline. Did she have a spy in her movement?

  Probably, I thought. The Working Men predated Louise by decades. Someone could have been quietly watching the movement for Magus Court. Or someone else, upset by Louise’s rise to power, could have ratted her out. It wouldn’t be the first time someone turned traitor because they felt they’d been slighted in some way. And whoever betrayed her might be still on the prowl.

  “We were trying to track down the source of the infernal devices,” I said, sourly. “So far, we’ve drawn a blank.”

  “I didn’t do it,” Louise said. “I made some quiet enquires. If someone did ... they’re keeping very quiet about it.”

  “As is to be expected,” Caroline said, curtly. “What are you going to do now?”

  Louise frowned. “The runners should be on their way,” she said. “And they’ll tell us what’s going on.”

  She stood, produced an odd-looking spellcaster from her tunic and started to cast a series of complex privacy and obscurification charms. I watched with quiet admiration. Louise might lack the brilliance of some of our fellow students - our former fellows, I reminded myself - but she was skilful enough to adapt the charms to serve her needs. Anyone who entered without the right countercharms would have problems remembering anything they saw in the chamber, whoever they were. I’d never seen anything lik
e it, not outside a handful of demonstrations at school. Louise had definitely been taking lessons on the side.

  I stood by the wall and watched as a handful of runners came in, gave their reports and left. The news wasn’t good. A dozen clubs had been raided, the inhabitants either arrested or kicked out; the locals were responding by attacking guardsmen on the streets, driving them away from the guardposts or simply harassing them until they gave up and fled. The guardsmen had also raided over twenty homes and stores, most having no connection whatsoever to the socialists. I saw Louise frown as she put the picture together. It made no sense.

  Caroline nudged me. “What do you want to do now?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t know. We’d drawn a complete blank. I mulled over possibilities, but came up with nothing. If the Great Houses had built the infernal devices ... I scowled. It was starting to look as if someone had set out to create an excuse for declaring a state of emergency. If that was the case, they’d succeeded brilliantly. My fingers touched my ring. We should probably report to Sir Griffons, but what could we tell him? The only fact we’d established was that Louise was not responsible for the devices.

  “Stay here, for the moment,” I said. If someone had betrayed Louise, that person might be on his way already. “We might find a clue.”

  Caroline didn’t seem impressed. “Where else might someone find the components to make an infernal device?”

  “Jude’s, perhaps,” I said. The school had always been a little lax with expensive or dangerous potions ingredients. They were so wealthy they could afford to coat the entire school in dragon scales and never notice the cost. “If someone stole from the school ...”

  My voice trailed off. I doubted it was possible. Not easily, at least. Jude’s might be a ramshackle old building, but there were hundreds of protections lining the walls. The staff might turn a blind eye to upperclassmen scaling the walls at night, but that would change if they thought the upperclassmen were stealing supplies. I made a mental note to check on it, when we had a moment. There might be a way to get supplies out of the school if they were packed in a warded trunk.

  I rubbed my forehead as I watched the socialist leadership gather. They looked old, save for a couple of young men and Louise herself. I felt a twinge of contempt, mingled with pity. They were old enough to be Louise’s grandfathers, yet they’d accomplished nothing. She’d done more than they in less than four months. I looked from genial face to genial face, wondering which was the spy. It would probably the one I least suspected. My lips curved into a smile. That would be Louise.

  The leadership talked, and talked, and talked. Louise and the other youngsters seemed to have problems taking control of the conversation. The older socialists were talking about dogma and ideological issues that meant nothing to me, while Louise and her allies wanted to do something. I was starting to think I knew why the socialists had accomplished so little. My eyes moved from face to face, wondering if the oldsters had been bribed to bog the socialists down in ideological talk. If they were scrabbling over details that made no sense to the rest of us, it was no wonder the movement had never really taken off. What did a starving man care about dogma? Louise was practical enough to know better.

  And that makes her a target, I mused. Which one of you bastards is the spy?

  I shook my head, slowly, as the meeting finally came to an end. The real meat of the matter - apparently - hadn’t taken long at all. I wasn’t surprised. It was the idle chitter-chatter that wasted so much time. I wondered if they’d been trying to waste time. The people on the streets would turn away from the socialists if they refused to provide proper leadership.

  Louise watched them go, then stood and came to me. “We’re going to be carrying out a protest march,” she said. “We’re going to make it clear we won’t stand to be pushed around.”

  I frowned. “A protest march?”

  “Yeah.” Louise looked at me. “A march through Water Shallot, into South Shallot and then back again.”

  Caroline stiffened. “Is that wise?”

  Louise looked back at her, coldly. “Do you have a better idea?”

  She waved a hand at the wall. “We have rights, except those rights have been taken away! We have freedoms, except those freedoms have also been taken away. And if we just let it happen, without protest, we’ll lose them forever!”

  I swallowed. I knew she was right, but ... a protest march could easily turn into a bloody disaster. I could see a hundred ways the march could go wrong. And yet, Louise had to do something. The population outside was angry. Either that anger had to be steered into something productive or ... I shuddered. If the runners were right, guardsmen were already being attacked. The cycle of violence was going to keep on building up and up until something exploded. It might already have reached a savage denouement.

  “There’s a public ban on protests,” Caroline pointed out. “You’ll be greeted by force.”

  “A ban which is illegal, because we have no real representation in Magus Court.” The frustration in Louise’s voice made me wince. “What else are we supposed to go? Grin and bear it?”

  “I don’t know,” Caroline said. “But you could let us get on with finding the real terrorists?”

  Louise looked me in the eye. “Do you even know where to begin?”

  I shook my head. “No,” I said. “We could check the rest of your socialists under truth spells ...”

  “There’d be a riot,” Louise said. “Why?”

  “One of them is a traitor,” I said. “I really hope your obscurification charms hold.”

  Louise looked as if I’d just insulted her ancestors. “Those men kept the fire alive over the last few decades,” she said. “They’re above suspicion.”

  I exchanged glances with Caroline. Our instructors had drilled it into us, time and time again, that no one was above suspicion. The criminal might be the lowest of the low or ... he might be the highest of the high. There were monsters in all walks of life, people who had worked themselves into a position where others protected them or chose to overlook the warning signs because they were from good families or they prayed regularly or something - anything - else that could hide a monster. Louise couldn’t be sure her fellow leaders were trustworthy. Some people would sooner see the side lose than watch someone else lead it to victory.

  “You can’t be sure,” I said, bluntly. “How did the guardsmen know about you?”

  Louise’s lips twisted. “I always assumed the secret would get out, sooner or later, if it wasn’t already out. I’ve been making speeches for nearly a year!”

  “You started while you were in school?” I remembered, suddenly, just how many times she’d sneaked out after class. “That’s ... impressive.”

  “The Challenge convinced me that something had to be done,” Louise said. “I joined the socialists shortly afterwards.”

  I made a face. That added a new wrinkle. Magus Court might have known about Louise for months, but done nothing. I could see their point. Louise wasn’t the sort of person they would have expected to gain influence in the Working Men’s clubs. She was scholarly enough to be distracted, and ultimately neutralised, by ideological debate. And ... she hadn’t really accomplished anything, not yet. Magus Court might have decided to simply leave her alone until the infernal devices started exploding.

  “Interesting,” Caroline mused. She sounded impressed. “How do you intend to win?”

  “I have a plan,” Louise said. “But right now ... we have other problems.”

  “You do,” I agreed. “Do you trust your comrades?”

  “We’re not aristos,” Louise said. “We don’t backstab each other.”

  “Aristocrats are not the only people who knife their allies in the back.” Caroline sounded irked. “Can you look me in the eye and tell me the people here” - she waved a hand at the wall, indicating Water Shallot - “don’t backstab each other?”

  “That’s different,” Louise said, weakly.

  Carol
ine smirked. “No. It’s not.”

  I kept my thoughts to myself. Caroline had a point. Water Shallot would be a much nicer place to live if the strong didn’t prey on the weak. And yet, what betrayals there were came from utter desperation. The young betrayed the old, the poor betrayed the even poorer ... it wasn’t a game. I remembered the aristos gambling for absurdly high stakes or playing games with lives and shuddered. They couldn’t lose, whatever they did. They wouldn’t find themselves homeless, or enslaved, or at the mercy of a merciless creditor. They had no conception what life was like for the poor.

  “Wait a couple of days,” I said. “It might give us time to track down the terrorists.”

  Louise’s eyes narrowed. “It will take a couple of days to organise the march anyway,” she said. “And to get everything ready.”

  “Good.” I met her eyes. “We have to catch the terrorists before all hell breaks loose.”

  “Adam, all hell has already broken loose,” Louise said. She turned and went to the drinks' cabinet. “And we have to do something.”

  She poured herself a drink. “You want something?”

  “No, thank you,” I said. We were on duty. “Are you going to stay here?”

  “Probably.” Louise took a sip of her drink. “You’re welcome to stay, you know.”

  Caroline elbowed me. “We shouldn’t be staying here,” she said. “Unless you’ll let us run checks on your comrades.”

  I shot her a sharp look, but said nothing. It struck me as the smartest thing to do.

  “It’ll cause a riot,” Louise said. “I told you it’ll cause a riot.”

  “And without it, someone will betray you,” Caroline said. “Who can you trust?”

  Louise shrugged, then led the way through a concealed door and into a small bedroom. I admired the charms hiding the compartment, although the effect was somewhat spoilt by two midsized windows. Anyone who compared the exterior of the building to the interior would know there was a concealed room, unless the charms hid the windows as well as everything else. I suspected it wouldn’t work, if someone searched the building from top to bottom. The windows opened onto an alleyway, two floors below. I was oddly reassured to see homeless sleeping below us. They’d have fled if the guardsmen were bearing down on us.