The King's Man Read online

“Pretty much,” Archie said. “I nearly overachieved my way to getting expelled.”

  I blinked. “What did you do?”

  “I proved my teachers wrong,” Archie said. “It wasn’t a harmless little prank like murder, I’ll have you know. They wanted to expel me for it.”

  “Sounds about right,” I said. Teachers didn’t like being upstaged by students, particularly when their students made them look like idiots. “Are we all in this together?”

  “Maybe we’re competing,” Chance said. “How many slots are there for squires?”

  “Probably more than they have recruits ... princelings.” Caroline smiled at our questioning looks. “Think about it. Wouldn’t they recruit more than six candidates if they could? This room alone is designed to take twelve people. There might be others too. But they only have six princelings in our class.”

  “As far as we know,” Archie pointed out. “We might still be in competition.”

  “But we don’t know we are,” I disagreed. If it was anything like the Challenge, the rules might not be what we thought. “And even if we are, how do we win? Or lose?”

  “Good point,” Caroline agreed. “We’ll have to ask.”

  Chance blinked. “Ask?”

  “They didn’t tell us we couldn’t ask questions,” Caroline reminded him. “And I think we should know if we’re actually supposed to wage war on each other, instead of just trying to pass our exams.”

  I sighed, then shook my head and stepped into the bathroom. There was no privacy, not even basic concealment wards. I wondered if we were meant to sort out bathroom rotas for ourselves, then decided it probably didn’t matter. The odds were good we were going to be too busy - and too tired - to notice that we were sharing facilities with the opposite sex. I splashed water on my face, then headed back out. The bell rang a second later. We exchanged glances, then hurried to the dining hall. The chamber was immense, but there was only one table. I wondered, morbidly, where Sir Muldoon and the other instructors ate.

  “Take all you can, but eat all you take,” Sir Muldoon said. I jumped. I hadn’t seen him standing by the door. “And then we’ll be burning it off in a forced march around the lake.”

  “Yes, sir,” I managed.

  Sir Muldoon nodded as we took plates and sat down. “Do you have any questions?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jean said. “Are we really meant to share the barracks with the boys?”

  “Yes.” Sir Muldoon didn’t smile. “And you know what? You’re going to be working too hard to care.”

  I thought as much, I reminded myself, as I crammed scrambled eggs and bacon into my stomach. The food tasted slightly odd, as if it had been spiked with something. I knew there were potions for building muscle mass and endurance, but I’d always been discouraged from using them. They tended to be dangerous, if misused. I trusted Sir Muldoon and the Kingsmen knew what they were doing. They probably want to get us ready as quickly as possible.

  Sir Muldoon jumped to his feet as soon as we were finished. “Put the plates in the racks, then follow me,” he said. “We’re going on a forced march.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Archie said.

  “You’ll see,” Sir Muldoon said. I didn’t like the look of his smile. “You’ll see.”

  I shared a worried glance with Caroline as we jogged out of the hall and onto the estate. It was bigger than I’d realised, bigger than anything I’d seen in the city. Shallot was a big city, but even the richest aristo couldn’t afford a giant estate in the centre of town. Here ... land was relatively cheap. An aristo - or the king - could purchase hundreds of square miles for the cost of a small estate back home.

  And probably purchase the people who live on it too, I thought, sourly. The estate appeared to be empty, but I wasn’t so sure. The aristos can purchase people like cattle.

  “Pick up the pace,” Sir Muldoon shouted. He was old enough to be my father, but he seemed to be having no trouble leading the pack. “Don’t slip too far behind!”

  I gritted my teeth as my muscles started to ache. I’d played football and dodgeball back home, but they didn’t seem to have given me anything like enough endurance. I saw sweat on Caroline’s back as she ran past, shirt clinging to her skin. I was too tired to care as I forced myself on, wondering how an old man could stay ahead of us. Sir Muldoon was laughing. I didn’t understand. He seemed to be having the time of his life, urging us to run faster even as we stumbled over rocky outgrowths and patches of turf that threatened to send us sprawling to the ground. No matter how fast I ran, it wasn’t fast enough to suit him..

  I’d thought I’d known pain before. I was wrong.

  Chapter Six

  I won’t bore you with too many details of my training.

  The days simply blurred together as we were pushed to the limit - and beyond. Every day, we spent the mornings exercising - we ran, we fought, we played games that helped to develop our muscles and magic - and the afternoon learning more about the law, the cutting edge of magical development and everything else our instructors thought we needed before sending us out for yet more exercise. I couldn’t tell you what we did on any specific day. Our bodies ached as we sweated the weaknesses away, while our heads pounded as we stuffed them full of facts which we then had to use to solve puzzles. We were too tired to notice, every day, that we were sharing a barracks with two pretty girls ... and, I assume, the girls felt the same way too. We bonded over shared adversity as our instructors upped the pace. There was no time for anything else. I barely even had a moment to scratch out a note for my family.

  There was some competition, although less than I’d expected. Sir Muldoon gave a handful of tiny rewards for those of us who completed our tests first, none of which would have meant anything if we hadn’t been pushed right to the limit. He paired us up, searching for partnerships that could solve mysteries or survive brief but savage attacks from the shadows. I found myself working with Caroline, learning to rely on her even as she learnt to rely on me. It wasn’t easy - I’d always preferred to work alone - but there was no choice. A number of the puzzles they gave us couldn’t be solved without teamwork.

  “There’s a dead body in this room,” Sir Muldoon said, one afternoon. “I want you to figure out how he was killed.”

  I shivered as he opened the door. I’d seen enough tableaus by now to find them chilling, even if they were just very realistic fakes. The next one might not be fake, I’d been warned. They were all based on real cases ... I wished, as my eyes swept the room, that I’d spent more time studying true crime stories. The newspapers had made them all sensational as hell, with more action and adventure and drama than Sir Muldoon seemed to think existed in real life, but it might have given me a hint. But there was nothing. A single body sat in a chair, slumped over. A smashed glass of blood-red wine lay on the floor. I glanced at Caroline as the door closed behind us. Sir Muldoon wouldn’t open it again until we solved the problem.

  “You know, this could be anyone,” Caroline said. “Right?”

  I nodded, studying the body without touching it. The murder victim - it was terrifyingly realistic - wore a simple black suit, suggesting he was upper middle class. His hair was black shading to grey, cut short enough to suggest he wasn’t particularly vain. He probably wasn’t an aristo or someone with dreams of reaching such heights, not when he wasn’t aping their style. A lone Device of Power hung around his neck, scattering my spells. I examined it carefully, trying to determine what it did. It seemed to be designed to cancel smaller spells, making it impossible to hex or jinx the wearer as long as it stayed in contact with his skin.

  “Interesting,” Caroline said. “I imagine he was wearing it for protection.”

  “Probably,” I agreed. I slipped my gloves on and carefully removed the Device of Power. It was neatly designed, very professional. I didn’t know anyone who could do a better job. “It didn’t work though, did it?”

  “No.” Caroline cast a pair of detection spells. “It looks as if he was po
isoned.”

  “If he was paranoid enough to wear this” - I put the Device of Power on the table - “surely he would have thought to check anything he drank for poison?”

  “Maybe he made a mistake,” Caroline said. She tested the spilled wine. “The wine seems perfectly fine.”

  “Yeah.” I could imagine some of the sots from Water Shallot licking the liquid from the floor. The thought made my stomach churn. “Maybe he just drank too much and his heart gave out.”

  Caroline shot me an odd look. “You don’t like drinking?”

  “I’ve seen too many people drink themselves to death,” I told her. I’d joined in a few drinking contests at school, but Father would have killed me if I’d made a habit of it. “They end up in the gutter, begging for coin to buy a cheap bottle of rotgut.”

  I scowled as I paced the room, looking for clues. It was barren, save for the table, the chair and the dead body. I wondered if that was a clue. A drunkard would sell everything he had, just to get another bottle to make the pain go away for a while. But ... the victim didn’t look like a drunkard. He looked successful, within his sphere. I studied the body thoughtfully, trying to determine how it had been done. The Device of Power wouldn’t have been cheap. A man so paranoid would hardly have failed to check for poison. And that meant the murderer managed to sneak something through his defences.

  Think like a murderer, I told myself. How would you do it?

  I tossed a handful of possible scenarios around as I studied the body. It didn’t look to have been that strong, but magic made physical strength meaningless. The man could have been held down and forced to drink poison, yet there were no signs of a struggle. It looked as if he’d drunk the wine quite willingly. A spell, designed to mimic the effects of poison? I couldn’t see how the murderer had gotten it past the Device of Power. They would have had to remove it, which would have led to a fight ...

  It hit me in a moment of insight. “I think I know what happened,” I said, as I picked up the Device of Power and placed it next to the spilled wine. The liquid shimmered, ominously. I sensed magic fading back into the ether. “Someone cast a spell on the wine.”

  Caroline frowned. “What sort of spell?”

  “It wasn’t wine.” I cast a spell of my own, just to check. “It was poison, but someone transfigured it into wine. When it came within the Device’s field, it snapped back to poison and killed the victim.”

  “And then snapped back to wine, when it fell out of the field,” Caroline finished. “Brilliant, Adam.”

  I smiled at her. “Brilliant - and deadly.”

  The door opened. “Well done,” Sir Muldoon said, as he stepped into the room. “You solved the case.”

  Caroline straightened. “How much of this is real?”

  “It’s based on a real case, like I told you,” Sir Muldoon said, patiently. “It took us longer to figure out how it had been done, the first time. You cracked it faster than the original team.”

  I allowed myself a moment of pleasure. “Thank you, sir.”

  Sir Muldoon nodded. “You can get back to the others now,” he said. “And don’t talk about your mystery with them. They’ll have their own shot at the locked room murder before too long.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  The days went on and on. I found myself growing stronger and sharper than ever before, my brain honed with puzzle after puzzle that - I was told - had real-life applications. The teams were broken up, reformed and then broken up again, ensuring we all had a chance at taking the lead before we headed towards our exams. I discovered that I was better at taking orders from people I respected, something I hadn’t realised at Jude’s. But then, I’d never respected any of the sports masters at Jude’s. Francis had been a prat even before he fell off a tower and hit the ground.

  “Someone in this village is a spy,” Sir Muldoon informed us, one afternoon. He’d shoved hundreds of briefing notes at us over lunch. “Who is it? And why?”

  I felt my head start to hurt. There was so much data in the briefing notes that I was suffering from information overload. The village - a border town that kept changing hands so often the inhabitants probably paid taxes to both sides - was extensively detailed, from the headsman who was afraid of the sky falling on his head to an elderly gentleman who had a beautiful wife a scant couple of years older than myself. I guessed he was very wealthy as well as very old. Every last inhabitant was detailed, so completely that I couldn’t bear to look at the files. Who was out of place? They all looked to be precisely where they belonged.

  “There’s a bard who can’t sing,” Archie commented. “Maybe he’s the spy.”

  Jean snorted. “Just because he can’t sing?”

  “Yeah.” Archie laughed. “They kept making fun of his singing, so he got sour and started to spy on the villages for money. Or kicks. Or ...”

  I stroked my chin. I wasn’t so sure. People went sour easily - I’d seen it happen - but villagers, at least, didn’t turn to betrayal so quickly. They were part of a bigger community. I scanned the files, looking for the ones who stood out. Someone who felt excluded completely might turn into a spy, but ... there was no one. No girl who’d been isolated for daring to get pregnant out of wedlock, no boy who’d been badly injured and was nothing more than a burden ... nothing, as far as I could tell. And yet, Sir Muldoon was convinced there was a spy. I scowled. Of course there was a spy. I knew there was a spy. They’d put it in the training material.

  “It’s the teacher,” Caroline said. “This ... woman with the unpronounceable name.”

  Sir Muldoon lifted his eyebrows. “And your proof?”

  “No proof, not yet.” Caroline smiled. “You didn’t write spy into her dossier. But she’s an outsider. She might have entered the village ten years ago, but she’s still an outsider. She has no family connections to the villagers and no real hope of getting them. She’s the only person, as far as I can tell, who has no obligation to protect the villagers.”

  “I always knew teachers were traitors,” Archie muttered.

  “Really?” Sir Muldoon gave him a reproving look. “And what do you think we’re doing here?”

  “Training, sir,” Archie said. He gave a shit-eating grin. “Trainers are not teachers.”

  I rolled my eyes at Caroline as Sir Muldoon gave Archie push-ups. Lots of push-ups. I had a feeling he’d be making up new numbers soon. We’d all done so many, over the past few weeks, that we’d developed muscles on our muscles. Archie didn’t seem to mind. He was used to his smart mouth getting him in trouble.

  “Good thinking,” Sir Muldoon informed the rest of us. “The teacher is indeed the spy, planted there to keep an eye on the villagers.”

  “It seems a little pointless, sir,” Hector said. “Why would anyone bother?”

  “The village sits in the middle of the border,” Sir Muldoon reminded him. “An incident there could lead to outright war. We have to tread lightly.”

  “So does the other side, I assume,” Caroline put in.

  “Yes,” Sir Muldoon said. “But we have to assume they’ll push things as far as they’ll go.”

  He ordered us to put the paperwork away, then join him for another run around the hall. I was almost relieved. The puzzles were fun, but I always had the feeling I was on the verge of failing. I couldn’t understand how some people could be so bitter and twisted that they devised impossible plots, just to get their hands on their inheritance or take their revenge or ... something. It made me glad I wasn’t in line to inherit much of anything. If I’d wanted what little my family had, I’d have needed to murder my sister as well as my father ...

  I shuddered. There were people who’d done exactly that - and worse, far worse. I couldn’t wrap my head around some of the truly ghastly crimes. Perhaps that was why they’d gone unchallenged for so long. No one could force themselves to believe they’d actually taken place. Feeding someone love potion ... or compulsion potion ... or slamming a slave collar on their necks without p
ermission ... it was sickening. And some people had done even worse. I felt sick just thinking about it. I’d thought I was wise to the way of the world, but there had been limits to my imagination. And things I didn’t want to imagine.

  Two days later, we were invited into a previously-locked room and told to peer through a sheet of one-way glass.

  “The hell?” Caroline sounded shocked. “What is she doing here?”

  Archie nudged her. “You know her?”

  “No!” Caroline elbowed him. “But she’s clearly not in her right mind.”

  I peered through the glass. A young woman - a year or two older than me, I guessed - was sitting on a chair, her eyes curiously blurred. She was wearing a tight white dress that left nothing to the imagination, her dark hair falling in ringlets around a strikingly pale face. And ... she was smiling sloppily, as if she was deeply - madly - in love. I felt my stomach churn. The feelings weren’t real. They couldn’t be.

  “Watch,” Sir Muldoon ordered, curtly.

  The girl looked up as another woman entered the room, wearing a healer’s gown. She didn’t look interested, merely ... I wasn’t sure how she looked. Her face was so slack that it was hard to tell what she was thinking or feeling ... if she was thinking or feeling. The healer sat down next to her and touched her hand lightly. The girl snatched her hand away, as if the healer’s touch had burned her. I thought it seemed a bit of an extreme reaction.

  “Tell me about Cooper,” the healer said.

  The girl smiled in a manner I would have found arousing if it hadn’t been so disturbing. “Cooper is the most wonderful boy,” she said. Her dreamy tone chilled me to the bone. “He’s the sexiest, the loveliest, the cutest, the dreamiest, the handsomest, the most charming ...”

  Archie snickered. “Did she swallow a dictionary at some point?”

  “I can’t wait to give myself to him,” the girl continued. “I will be his and he will be mine and I will do anything for him and he will do anything for me and ...”

  Sir Muldoon tapped the glass. It went black.