The King's Man Read online

  I passed through the guardpost and hurried down towards the school. I’d skipped graduation- I’d been at Haddon Hall, I thought - and I’d assumed I’d never return, but now ... I shook my head, feeling oddly out of place as I approached the gatehouse. Skullion stood there, glowering. For a moment, I thought he’d known I was coming. It took me long seconds to realise he probably gave everyone the same treatment.

  “Yes?”

  I reminded myself, sharply, that Skullion could no longer intimidate me. “I’m here to see Magistra Loanda.”

  “Really?” Skullion looked as if he didn’t believe it. “A student comes back, unable to live in the outside world?”

  “No.” I controlled my anger with an effort. “I need to consult with Magistra Loanda.”

  Skullion pressed his fingers against his amulet. There was a long pause. I waited, knowing he was communing with the wards. I’d always suspected the tutors had ways to communicate they’d never discussed with us. I supposed they had no choice. They weren’t meant to supervise our every move, but they had to be ready to step in if someone did something really dangerous. The upperclassmen couldn’t be expected to do everything.

  “She’s in her lab,” Skullion said, without any detectable emotion. “She’ll be pleased to see you there.”

  He stepped to one side, allowing me to walk through the gates and up to the school. Jude’s looked as ramshackle as ever, a collection of buildings that had steadily merged into one giant mess, but I couldn’t help feeling as though I was coming home. I’d practically lived at Jude’s for the last seven years. I could have applied to join the tutoring staff, if I’d seen no other options. I’d just felt that would have been a waste of my talents. And I’d hated the thought of trying to teach twenty or so students at once.

  The corridors felt eerily empty as I made my way down to the potions' lab. A handful of servants were scrubbing the floors, carefully removing all traces of last year’s batch of potions disasters. I felt a stab of pity, mingled with bemusement. I’d washed the floor myself often enough during detention. Perhaps Magistra Loanda thought we students hadn’t done a good job. Or, more likely, she thought the floors needed to be properly scrubbed after term finished for the summer. I smiled as I peered into her private lab, seeing her sitting at a heavy wooden table. A cauldron of golden liquid was bubbling in front of her.

  “One moment,” Magistra Loanda said, without looking up. “I just have to put this on to simmer.”

  I took a chair and waited. Magistra Loanda looked like a stern old lady - she was easily the oldest tutor in the school - but no one ever took her lightly. We’d never been allowed to forget that it was a great honour to have her tutoring us in potions. There weren’t many people who matched her breadth of knowledge, let alone her skill. I was mildly surprised she wasn’t selling her talent to the highest bidder. Maybe she’d thought she wanted to be more than an aristo’s private brewer. Or ...

  “Adam.” Magistra Loanda fiddled with the cauldron, then stood and paced over to me. “I assume you’re not seeking a reference?”

  “No,” I said. I showed her my ring, then pulled the potions sample out of my pocket. “I was hoping for a consultation.”

  Magistra Loanda’s eyes narrowed. “Can I ask why?”

  “I need this potion identified,” I said. “And I need a countermeasure.”

  “I see.” Magistra Loanda said nothing for a long moment. I wondered, suddenly, just how much she’d been told. Tutors talked, but did they talk about me? “Let me have a look.”

  Her face darkened as she sniffed the sample, then drew an alchemical spellcaster from her pocket and cast a handful of spells. I watched, grimly, as she drew out smaller samples and poked at them for a few seconds, then dropped the remainder of the sample in an empty cauldron. I tensed, reminding myself it was all part of the procedure. We hadn’t been able to take a proper sample. There was a good chance the sample was contaminated.

  Magistra Loanda looked up at me. “Where did you get this?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” I said. “What is it?”

  “It wipes memories,” Magistra Loanda said, stiffly. “Every memory. A person who drank the potion would lose everything, up to and including the memory of how to live.”

  “You’ve seen this before,” I said.

  “There’s a girl in the asylum who’s somewhere around thirty years old,” Magistra Loanda said. “Mentally, she’s six. She took a dose of the potion and it wiped out her entire life. Her handlers have been trying to re-educate her, in the hopes it would bring back the lost memories, but so far they’ve failed completely. She’s a child in an adult’s body.”

  I cursed under my breath. “There’s no cure?”

  “None that we’ve been able to find.” Magistra Loanda studied the cauldron thoughtfully. “I kept abreast of the affair, after the House War. We never figured out who’d invented the potion. Stregheria Aguirre was not a Potions Mistress. We were pretty sure it wasn’t her who came up with the potion, but ...”

  She frowned, expressively. “I take it someone used the potion?”

  “Yes.” I told her as much as I dared about the assassin. “We need to find a way to get his memories back.”

  “I doubt you’ll succeed,” Magistra Loanda said. “I’ll play around with the sample you brought me, if you like, but I don’t think I’ll get anywhere. We never managed to work out how the potion actually works, let alone how to counter it. House Aguirre threw a lot of money and resources into it and drew a complete blank.”

  I scowled. “House Aguirre?”

  “Stregheria Aguirre certainly commissioned the potion,” Magistra Loanda said. “And she betrayed her entire house.”

  “I see,” I said. “And there’s nothing you can do?”

  “No,” Magistra Loanda said. “Those memories? There’s a very good chance they’re gone for good.”

  I shuddered. There were plenty of memory charms that stole memories, for reasons both good and bad, but almost all of them could be countered. I’d been taught how to look for missing memories during training, although we’d been warned not to try to bring them back without a proper mind healer in attendance. But this ... I felt a pang of sympathy for the assassin, even though he’d tried to kill me. His life had been utterly destroyed. I doubted anyone was going to waste time trying to rebuild his mind ... and, even if they did, the new personality wouldn’t be him.

  “I’ll play around with the sample, if you leave it with me,” Magistra Loanda said. “But otherwise ...”

  “Please,” I said. I needed answers, but I doubted I’d get them from her. “And if you could keep the sample to yourself, I’d be very grateful.”

  Magistra Loanda nodded. “Come back in a week,” she said. “But I really can’t promise anything.”

  I nodded, then pulled the tiny spellcaster out of my pocket. “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

  “It’s a focusing tool,” Magistra Loanda said. She took it, turned it over and over in her hand, then passed it back to me. “They’re used in specialised charms work. But this one is surprisingly small.”

  She shrugged. “It could have come from anywhere.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I owe you one.”

  I stood, bowed and made my way back out of the school, memories mocking me. I’d had some good times at Jude’s. Skullion nodded curtly to me as I passed the gatehouse and headed down the street, back to Water Shallot. The guardsmen made no attempt to bar my way as I crossed the bridge. Clearly, they were only concerned about people heading out of Water Shallot. I made a mental bet with myself that the bridges to North Shallot were sealed completely, then shrugged. Right now, it didn’t matter. It might keep things quiet if the guardsmen stayed on the other side of the river.

  But they won’t stay there for very long, I thought. Blood has been shed now.

  The streets beyond the bridges were quiet, but I could see men carrying weapons and readying themselves for a
fight. The vast majority of stores were closed, despite hungry people banging on their shutters and shouting for the storekeepers to open up. I was tempted to swing by my father’s shop and see if it was open, but I didn’t have time. Instead, I made my way down to the docks. I might just get some answers from Malachi Rubén. The only question was ... could his answers be trusted?

  “I need to speak to your master,” I said, when Malachi’s servant opened the door. “Please.”

  The girl nodded, then led me up the stairs and into Malachi’s chamber. I couldn’t help noticing that he’d doubled or tripled the wards protecting his house, as if he expected death and destruction to sweep over Water Shallot within the next few days. He might well be right. I was surprised he was still here. Whatever the terms of his banishment, they presumably didn’t include standing still and waiting to be murdered. He could easily have left the city if he wished.

  “Young Adam,” Malachi said. He sounded as if he’d expected me. I was fairly sure he hadn’t. “What can I do for you?”

  “Tell me about Stregheria Aguirre,” I said. “And what she did.”

  Malachi’s lips drew back in a savage smile. “How long do you have?”

  “Long enough,” I said. I had to get back to Caroline - we’d planned to meet for lunch - but I didn’t have a deadline. “What did she do?”

  “Stregheria Aguirre was a horrible woman who thought she should wield power,” Malachi said. “House Aguirre didn’t agree. She simply couldn’t be trusted, they said, to wield power responsibly. Power and authority passed down to Joaquin Aguirre, the High Magus, and Stregheria got sidelined. She didn’t like it.”

  “Charming,” I muttered.

  “Quite,” Malachi agreed. “She started plotting. She made contact with the Crown Prince, who’d also been denied power and authority, and made common cause with him. They were midway through their planning when they discovered Joaquin’s daughter had a rare, apparently unique, talent. She could make Objects of Power.”

  He smiled. “Stregheria had Caitlyn kidnapped, although no one knew it at the time. She badly underestimated the little girl and her friends. Caitlyn managed to escape and get back to the city. Undaunted, Stregheria and the Crown Prince put their plan into operation anyway. They triggered a House War and used it as an excuse to bring the Crown Prince’s troops into the city. Their intention was to take control, ship in more troops from North Cairnbulg and eventually march on Tintagel itself. King Rufus wouldn’t have any time to prepare a defence, particularly against Objects of Power, before his world came crashing down.”

  He shrugged. “The plan failed,” he said. “They didn’t manage to take control of Jude’s. Caitlyn broke free - again - and led the students to retake the school. You were there, were you not?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Caitlyn killed Stregheria, somehow. No two rumours agree on precisely what happened under the school. Akin killed the Crown Prince. The coup crumbled and most of the plotters were rounded up. Isabella” - his face twisted - “was sent into exile. And that was that.”

  I blinked. I’d heard the rumours, but ... I’d never really grasped the full scale of the plan. It had seemed unbelievable. And yet ...

  My stomach churned. I knew people who’d been killed in the House War. They hadn’t been aristos. They’d been ordinary people, unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when Stregheria made her bid for power. I believed it. Aristos didn’t care about commoners who were caught in the middle when they went to war. Stregheria had left hundreds of bodies in her wake. Most had never been formally remembered. Only their families had mourned.

  “And then what?” My voice was harsh. “What happened to the rest of the plotters?”

  “They were tried, convicted and ... punished,” Malachi said, evenly. “The aristocrats who’d backed the Crown Prince were either executed or sent into exile. King Rufus blamed the Crown Prince’s circle for leading him into treason. The Crown Princess was stripped of the custody of her son and ordered back to North Cairnbulg.”

  “And here?” I looked down at my hands. “What happened to her supporters?”

  “Most of them were executed,” Malachi said. “A couple committed suicide. Isabella was about the only one to escape severe consequences and that was only on account of her age. Her father” - his lips twisted - “found it convenient to blame everything on Stregheria. It wasn’t as if Stregheria was alive to argue.”

  “And so she got away with it,” I snarled.

  “Quite,” Malachi agreed.

  I met his eyes. “Did any of the plotters survive?”

  Malachi laughed, humourlessly. “If they did, they kept it very quiet. The Great Houses were in a murderous mood. Even now ... if anyone survived, no one knows it.”

  “So they could still be out there,” I mused. There was no way to be sure, but the memory-wiping potion couldn’t be a coincidence. “What are they doing?”

  “Probably keeping their heads down, while awaiting their opportunity to cause trouble,” Malachi said. “What else would you like to know?”

  I barely heard him. The pieces were finally fitting together. It was clear the plotters had the ability to build infernal devices. It was also clear they had a Potions Master or a Master Brewer on their team. And ... they had a handful of assassins and thugs under their command. And ... I shuddered. It was starting to make a certain kind of sense. Push for a state of emergency, trigger off a riot ... and take control in the chaos. If Malachi was right, Stregheria had pulled together an alliance of the discontented. They might have survived her death.

  And the memory-wipe potion ensured that anyone who was caught was unable to talk, I thought. There were charms - compulsion charms - that could ensure someone took the potion if there was no way out. If there was no cure ... I shivered. The plotters might have a cure. Or they might have lied and told their people that there was a cure ...

  “I know everything,” Malachi said. “What else would you like to know?”

  I snorted. “Who’s behind the plot?”

  “I wish I knew,” Malachi said. “I know practically everything.”

  He paused. “But if you want a guess ...”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Who?”

  “People don’t risk overturning the gameboard if they’re winning,” Malachi said. “And they don’t risk it - even if they’re losing - unless they expect the defeat to be fatal. That’s when they start trying to rewrite the rules. The people who stand to lose, when the Rubén-Aguirre alliance is formalised, are the people who are most likely to be behind the plot. Who loses out? Answer that question and you’ll have your plotters.”

  “I see,” I said. “And who does lose out?”

  Malachi bared his teeth. “Davys Rubén. Or Petal Rubén. Or ... there’s probably a bunch of people in House Aguirre who also stand to lose. Wouldn’t it be funny if they came up with a joint plan to bring the alliance crashing down before it was too late?”

  “You don’t know,” I said. Malachi had every reason to hate his family. His former family. And yet, did that make him wrong? I wished, for the first time in my life, that I’d spent more time studying the Great Houses. Knowing who was related to whom might have come in handy. “It could be anyone.”

  “It will be the losers.” Malachi shrugged. “Why rock the boat if you’re winning?”

  I nodded, coldly. It did make sense. The aristos wouldn’t hesitate to set off a war. They’d be certain of victory. Why not set off a war? They wouldn’t care about how many people got caught in the gears and mashed to a bloody pulp. They wouldn’t care about ... I shuddered, remembering Sir Muldoon’s horror stories. There was nothing romantic about war. I’d seen the last House War. This war was going to be worse.

  “Thank you for your time,” I said. “I’ll show myself out.”

  Malachi rang a bell. “My servant will show you out,” he said. “And good luck.”

  I eyed him, suspiciously. He wouldn’t have told me
anything that could be easily disproved. I was sure of it. But ... it was quite possible to say something completely misleading, without actually lying. Malachi had chosen his words very carefully. It was possible there might be a cell within House Rubén - or House Aguirre - that wanted to trigger a war and destroy the alliance. It was also possible the real plotters came from somewhere else.

  The serving girl led me downstairs. I looked around, wondering what was behind the closed doors. It could be anything ... Malachi might be living in Water Shallot, but it was clear he wasn’t short of funds. House Rubén paid him a stipend to stay away. I wondered what he’d really done, before he’d been kicked out. Perhaps I could ask Akin ...

  And you’d never be sure if you could trust his answer, I thought, as I stepped onto the streets. The door closed behind me with an audible thud, the wards slipping into place a second later. But that’s true of everyone these days, isn’t it?

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The streets felt even darker as I made my way from the docks, following one of the canals as it headed up to the inner warehouses and the river beyond. There were no barges traversing the murky water, no sailing boats or canoes making their way up and down the canal. It felt wrong, somehow. I shuddered as I realised what it meant for the locals. If the canals were shutting down, if the bargemen and dockyard workers were not being paid, it wouldn’t be long before they started to run out of money. Too many people lived on the edge for anyone’s peace of mind. They’d be heading to the pawnbrokers and the loan sharks before the week came to an end.

  I shivered as a cold wind blew across the canal, icy water splashing against my face. The idea of thousands of people becoming slaves to the loan sharks was bad enough, but it could be worse. A great deal worse. If food started to run out ... what then? Water Shallot didn’t produce its own food. Even the fish stayed away from the polluted waters. If people started to starve ... I looked at the grim tenement blocks, wondering how many people were already on the verge of starvation. My family had been well-off, by the standards of Water Shallot, and we’d run short of food once or twice. I shuddered to think how it could be - would be - worse for the poorest amongst us.