The King's Man Read online

  “You’ll be visiting all sorts of places,” Sir Muldoon said, dryly. “Believe me, you’re going to be fitting into all of them.”

  “I still don’t understand why I have to wear a suit,” I protested. “It’s obvious I haven’t worn one in ... like, ever.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Sir Muldoon assured me. “Now, in what order do you use the cutlery?”

  I groaned. “From the outside in, at a formal dinner,” I said. “There should be a set for each course. Asking for replacements is a sign of lousy upbringing.”

  “Quite,” Sir Muldoon agreed.

  I did my best to pay attention as he launched into a long lecture covering the symbolism of using the right cutlery for the right occasion. It made no sense. Father was relatively wealthy, for someone born and bred in Water Shallot, and he couldn’t afford hundreds of sets of cutlery. He’d have had a heart attack if I or my sisters suggested it. I tried to imagine how much it would cost to buy so much just for my small family, and scowled. It would cost more than we’d make in a decade.

  “It makes no sense,” I complained to Caroline. “The aristos are mad.”

  “If you belong, you know the rules,” Caroline pointed out. “It’s astonishing how much you can get away with if you don’t look out of place.”

  I nodded, sourly. We’d studied the case notes. Some of the greatest con artists in history had pretended to be aristocrats, without making even a single slip until they’d completed their plans and slipped back into the shadows. High Society didn’t seem to like talking about how it had been fooled, even though it had happened dozens of times. I found it rather amusing. Alana might talk about how blood tells, but ... blood didn’t seem to be any more talkative than water. And if an aristo couldn’t tell the difference between another aristo and a commoner aping his betters, was there any difference at all?

  The thought made me smile as we were ordered upstairs into one of the training rooms that had been - until now - firmly locked. I looked around with interest as Caroline and I stepped through the door, spotting a heavy wooden desk and a young woman sitting behind it. She looked harmless, although I knew - by now - that was meaningless. The Kingsmen had taught me that some very dangerous people looked utterly harmless, until the time came to lower the boom. She looked bland, wearing an outfit that made her look more like a secretary than a secret agent. I reached out with my magic and sensed nothing. She was masking very well.

  “Greetings,” the woman said. The door banged closed behind us. “Look at this ...”

  She moved her hand in a complicated gesture. Green light flashed. I felt my will drain away. I could hear her speaking, but the words seemed muffled. I knew, at some level, that something was dreadfully wrong, yet ... I couldn’t force myself to care. It felt like a dream, or a nightmare. I’d heard stories of people who were hag-ridden in the depth of the night and were never the same afterwards. But ... I just couldn’t force myself to care.

  The trance snapped. I started, feeling my senses reel. Beside me, Caroline swayed. She would have hit the ground if I hadn’t put a hand on her shoulder. What had she done to us? I glared at her, sitting behind her desk. My head was starting to pound, but ... it felt like a ghostly headache. It felt as if it wasn’t really there.

  I found my voice. “What did you do to us?”

  “This.” The woman’s voice was very cold. “Chicken.”

  I felt my entire body jerk, then start to hop around like a chicken. Horror flowed through me as I clucked and squawked helplessly, flapping my hands as if they were wings. Caroline did the same, eyes wide as her body betrayed her. I’d faced compulsion spells before, but this ... I struggled, desperately, to stop my treacherous body, but nothing worked. Whatever she’d done to us, it made the little spells I’d learnt as a student seem weak and ineffectual. They could be brushed off by someone with a very strong will.

  “Stop,” the woman said. I sagged in relief as I felt the compulsion vanish. “I trust you learnt an interesting lesson?”

  “Who are you?” Caroline demanded. She sounded badly shaken. “And what gives you the right to ...?”

  “To answer your first question, I am Lady Grey,” the woman said. “And to answer the second, it’s part of your training.”

  She motioned to a pair of chairs, pressed against the far wall. “Take a seat,” she said. “We’re going to be quite busy here.”

  I gritted my teeth as I chose a chair and sat down. “Why did you ...?”

  “So you would take this seriously,” Lady Grey said, without giving me a chance to finish the question. “Many people choose to overlook the more subtle compulsion and dominance spells, even though they’re incredibly dangerous. They don’t realise how easy it can be for someone to worm their way into their mind - or how easily their perceptions can be warped, once there’s a hole in their defences. Making you two act like chickens is harmless, compared to some of the other tricks people can play. It isn’t impossible for someone to find their mind so full of holes that they have almost no free will of their own.”

  “Shit,” I said.

  “Quite.” Lady Grey eyed me severely. “You will be authorised to use such spells yourself, if you feel it necessary. Should you use the spells without good cause, you risk spending the rest of your life in exile - or worse. The mere existence of such spells is not common knowledge. You will have to weigh the risk of using them against the dangers of not using them. And the risk of being thrown to the wolves by your superiors in order to prevent a greater disaster.”

  “Like General Dyer,” Caroline said.

  I scowled. General Dyer had opened fire on rioting crowds, ten years ago. He’d claimed, at the time, that he’d restored order. But he’d killed upwards of ninety people and the public had demanded his head. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Dyer had been a shithead, but it had been clear - when I’d studied the records - that he’d been denied the right to a fair trial in the haste to disavow him. The wrong thing for the right reasons? Or the right thing for the wrong reasons? I honestly wasn’t sure.

  “Correct,” Lady Grey said. “There are strict rules for using such spells. If you break them, you will be in some trouble even if you are found to be completely justified. Do you understand me?”

  “A little too well,” I muttered.

  “Good.” Lady Grey smiled and raised her hand. “Let’s try that again, shall we?”

  I hastily gathered my mental defences as she cast the spell. My shields shivered, then shattered under her pounding. I felt her mind press into mine, reading my thoughts and scanning my memories. A surge of shame shot through me as I forced her back out, cursing her as savagely as I knew how. She didn’t seem displeased as she nodded to me, then turned her attention to Caroline. I watched, terrified, as Caroline’s defences weakened and broke in front of Lady Grey. She could have done a lot worse to us than make us cluck like chickens.

  “This is how you cast the spell,” Lady Grey said, an hour later. “Do not practice without both prior permission and supervision.”

  I studied the spellform, feeling sick as I realised just how simple it truly was. The compulsion spells I’d seen at school were a lot more complicated. It made me wonder if they’d been kept deliberately complicated, just to make it harder for students to master. But this spell ... I cast it on Caroline, time and time again, before she cast it on me. It grew easier to resist, as we practiced. And yet ...

  “We’ll continue this tomorrow,” Lady Grey said. “Sir Muldoon will be lecturing you over dinner.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “Can I draw a headache potion?”

  “If you need one,” Lady Grey said. “It’s never a good idea to leave a headache unattended.”

  Caroline caught her eye as she dismissed us. “How many people know these spells exist?”

  “Too many,” Lady Grey said. “Us, the Great Houses ... they keep being reinvented, even when we try to keep them out of the textbooks. And you’ll be learning how to watch for p
eople who’ve been influenced by magic over the next few days too.”

  I collected a headache potion from the healer, then made my way down to the dining hall. The food seemed to have gotten better over the last week, although we were kept so busy it was hard to be sure. It was certainly hard to eat while listening to the evening lecture, covering a wide range of subjects from healing magic to history and current affairs. I wasn’t sure how many of the subjects were actually important, but I didn’t dare ignore them. We had to be getting close to our exams.

  Caroline had the same thought. “How long have we been here?”

  I shrugged. “Years?”

  “I think it’s been around two months,” Caroline said. She smiled at my questing look. “I’ve ... bled twice, as far as I can tell.”

  I nodded, stiffly. I knew the facts of life. I’d grown up with two sisters. I just didn’t want to think about them.

  “Today, we will be considering the intricacies of truth spells,” Sir Muldoon informed us. I filled my plate with food, then sat down as the instructor continued to talk. We knew from experience that he wouldn’t repeat himself. “There are two different classes of truth spells, one that merely makes it impossible to speak a lie and one that actually compels the victim to speak. The latter category is actually forbidden without a court order, although someone can volunteer to waive their rights and have the spell cast on them to prove their innocence.”

  He paused. “Why would the former category be less effective?”

  Caroline stuck up a hand. “Because the victim can choose his words to give a truthful, but misleading impression.”

  “Correct, in part,” Sir Muldoon agreed. “It’s also worth noting that the victim may genuinely believe he’s telling the truth, even though he’s clearly not. It isn’t uncommon for one person, in a dispute over sexual consent, to believe he had consent while his partner - equally truthfully - believes that consent was withdrawn. They would both pass the truth spell test, even though they would both believe the other was either mistaken or lying.”

  He paused. “You have to be careful, even when the truth spell is firmly in place, to watch what you ask. Experienced interrogators tend to triangulate around the subject, asking the same question in several different ways to limit the risk of being misled. A couple of murderers nearly escaped justice because we thought we were looking for a single murderer, not two murderers with two separate victims. We asked each of them if they killed both victims and - of course - they answered no. Perfectly truthfully, yet totally misleading.”

  I rubbed my forehead as the lecture went on and on. It was growing harder to think these days, as if I was reaching my limits. I couldn’t face the thought of stuffing more facts and figures into my brain, of trying to pull all the spells into a coherent whole ... I tried to think of a way to get my hands on some memory-enhancement potion, but nothing came to mind. Sir Muldoon had warned us that such tricks wouldn’t just be useless, they’d be actively harmful. I believed him. He’d shown us enough ways to tell if someone was under the influence that I knew there was no hope of getting anything past him.

  Caroline is doing well, I thought, as I surveyed the room. She was, too. I had the feeling she had reserves of bloody-mindedness and gritty determination the rest of us lacked. But the rest of us ...

  My headache grew worse, despite the potion. Hector and Archie looked grim, as if they were nursing headaches too. Jean’s face was blank. Chance looked ready to jump out the window, something they’d actually taught us to do safely. I wondered what Sir Muldoon would do if we went to him in a body and told him we needed a break, then sighed as I realised he’d consider us quitters. I felt my muscles starting to hurt too, a grim reminder that I’d lost the last bout in the training circle. Archie had struck me a mighty blow and nearly caved in my ribs.

  “The only easy day was yesterday,” Sir Muldoon said. I felt a flash of naked hatred. Ancients! I was getting sick of hearing that ... that saying. “Tomorrow is another day.”

  He cleared his throat. “Next week, you’ll hit the qualifying exams. Should you pass, you’ll be raised to squires. Should you fail” - he gave us a completely sweet, completely fake, smile - “try not to fail. Please.”

  Caroline caught my arm. “This is it!”

  I felt a flush of excitement, mingled with fear. We’d been pressed so hard, over the past few weeks, that I couldn’t imagine anything worse. And yet, I knew it could be worse. I was sure of it. Sir Muldoon’s horror stories had grown even more gruesome. We’d probably have to fight a dragon stark naked or pretend to be an invited guest at the aristo ball. I’d sooner have faced the dragon. At least it would probably have killed me quickly.

  “You’ll make it,” Caroline said, reassuringly. She grinned at me. “We’ll all make it.”

  “Yeah.” I tried to sound confident, though I was nothing of the sort. It had taken me longer than it should have to realise that the tests had been steadily growing harder. I’d felt as if I was making no progress at all. “And then the real pain begins.”

  “Not really.” Sir Muldoon had overheard me. “If you pass the exams, we’ll know we can rely on you. We won’t press you that hard.”

  “We’ll be pressing ourselves, sir,” Caroline guessed. “Right?”

  “Yes.” Sir Muldoon smiled. “If you’re not self-motivated by now, you won’t be self-motivated at all.”

  I mulled it over as we were dismissed. Sir Muldoon no longer escorted us back to the barracks, now that we were experienced enough to understand that we needed as much sleep as possible, but we headed back to the bunks anyway. Was I motivated? It was growing harder and harder to remember my life before Haddon Hall. Did I really have a father and two sisters? Or was my family the one surrounding me now? I glanced at Caroline. She glanced back. She seemed as tired as I felt.

  “Do you think they’ll give us some leave, afterwards?” I met her eyes. It was surprisingly easy to ask her out, unlike the girls I’d known back home. “We could go home and see our families. Or visit somewhere new.”

  “I have no idea,” Caroline said. She shot me a wistful look. “My family probably doesn’t want to see me again. But it would be nice to go somewhere new.”

  I blinked. “They don’t?”

  “Yeah.” Caroline didn’t seem inclined to talk about it. “We can go see your family, if you like.”

  “Just get through the exams first,” Hector advised. He nodded to Archie, who winked. “They’ll probably make you take them again if you fail. Or retake the entire course from the start.”

  “Or boot you out completely,” Jean said. She stripped and clambered into her bunk. “What will they do with us if we fail?”

  I shrugged. “We’d better not fail,” I said. “It might be the end.”

  Chapter Ten

  I lay on the wooden floor, feeling terrible.

  The last week - the exams - were a blurred nightmare. I felt as if I’d drunk myself senseless, then walked into a dockside pub and issued an open challenge to a fight. My body felt as if I’d been beaten black and blue, with no patch of skin left untouched by my invisible opponents. I wanted to move, to get off the floor, but I couldn’t muster the energy. It no longer mattered if I passed the exams or not. I just wanted to lie still and die.

  “Drink this,” a quiet voice said. I recoiled as I felt a gourd pressed against my lips. “Please.”

  I forced myself to drink. The potion tasted awful, as always, but it was soothing. I breathed a prayer of thanks as it banished the pain and calmed my thoughts. I rolled over and sat up, looking around as Lady Grey fed the potion to the other recruits. Caroline lay next to me, looking as bad as I felt. Her hair was strewn around, as if she no longer had the energy to cast a grooming charm; her tunic was tattered and torn, as if she’d come off the worst in a dispute with a lion. I imagined she no longer cared about her appearance. I was pretty sure I was no longer at my best either.

  Lady Grey helped me to my feet, then gave me anoth
er drink. “When you’re ready, you and Caroline have an appointment through there,” she said, indicating a door. It glowed ominously. “Good luck.”

  I stared blearily after her as she gave Caroline a drink. Had we passed? Or failed? I couldn’t swear to anything, not any longer. Hector and Archie snored loudly, unable to stay awake. I wondered if they’d failed too. There would be a certain kind of freedom in knowing one had lost, I supposed. They could go home or shuffle sideways, if they wished. I wondered, suddenly, what had happened to Jean and Chance. They hadn’t made it back.

  Caroline stumbled to her feet. “I suppose we’d better get it over with,” she said, coughing loudly. I coughed too, feeling like a fifty-cigar-a-day man. “Coming?”

  “Yeah.” I took a long breath, trying to ignore my aching lungs. Father had never let me smoke. Now, I understood why. “Let’s go hear the bad news.”

  The door opened into a whole new room. Sir Muldoon stood beside a desk, with another man standing beside him. He was taller than Sir Muldoon, wearing silver armour studded with carved runes and crests I didn’t recognise. His beard was strikingly red. He looked at me for a long moment, then turned his gaze to Caroline. We managed to look back, somehow. His gaze was warm, but very sharp.

  “Congratulations,” Sir Muldoon said. “You passed.”

  I blinked. “We passed?”

  “Yes.” Sir Muldoon seemed oddly amused at our astonishment. “You passed. Congratulations. Again.”

  Caroline laughed. “I told you we’d make it.”

  “I never doubted it for a moment,” I lied.

  Sir Muldoon nodded, no longer amused. “You two are both squires now,” he said. He took a small pouch from his belt and opened it to reveal a pair of silver rings. “Take these rings and put them on, gingerly. Once they bond with you, they won’t work for anyone else.”