Ричард Морган - The Cold Commands

“Gil? Are you still in bed ? Didn’t you hear that row out there? How much did you have to drink?”

He unslotted the latch, opened the door a handbreadth, checked she was alone before he swung it wider.

“What the hell are you—” She saw Rakan, seated bare-chested on the side of the bed, bending to his boots. “Oh. Right.”

Ringil leaned on the door frame, kept her pointedly out in the hall. “Want to tell me what all the fuss is about?”

She grimaced. “Yeah. Dragonbane just took on a bunch of the City Guard, down at that mercenary joint by the Span.”

“The Good Luck Pony?”

“Pony Stringer’s Fortune—but they’re calling it the Lizard’s Head these days.”

“Oh, well that’s original.”

“Gil, it doesn’t fucking matter what the place is called. He killed two of the Guard right there, right in front of half the mercenaries in the city. Hurt another three pretty badly, one they reckon won’t live to see the sunrise.”

He could not prevent the smile from rising to his lips. “Told you.”

“Yeah, you told me.” Voice tight with anger. “Laugh it up, Gil. Meanwhile, the Guard Provost wants the King’s Reach deployed. Says he can’t afford to have the Guard’s authority flaunted in a place like that. It sends the wrong signal to all the wrong people. He’s up at the palace now, demanding the Emperor’s hand in the matter.”

“Ah, shit. ” Ringil banged his head back on the door frame, then wished fervently that he hadn’t. Closed his eyes against the waves of incipient hangover the blow had stirred. “And Jhiral’s going to cave in, right?”

Archeth cleared her throat, shot a warning look sidelong, past Ringil to the bed and the Throne Eternal captain who sat on it.

“He’s got the Ashant clan leaning on him already for King’s Reach intervention; now the head of his militia wakes him up in the middle of the night and tells him the exact same thing? What would you do?”

“Yeah,” said Ringil drearily. “Makes a soggy kind of sense, I guess.”

“It certainly does.”

Rakan appeared at his shoulder, still fastening his sword harness and jerkin. He swallowed, awkwardly. “I, uh. My lady. I must attend my Emperor. He may require—”

“Yeah, we’re all going,” Archeth said. She looked pointedly at Ringil’s unbuttoned shirt. “Just as soon as everyone’s ready to ride.”

WHICH GOT THEM TO THE PALACE A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER—A GUSTY, bandlit chase through the string of sleepy riverside hamlets where Yhelteth’s outskirts petered out upriver, then into the deserted nighttime streets of the city itself, at speeds you’d simply never manage with daytime traffic. Archeth, Ringil, Rakan, and the messenger squad who’d been sent to find them—six dark figures, cloaks flapping backward from their shoulders, and the drum of hooves at the gallop. All very dramatic , Ringil supposed sourly, tucking a stubborn corner of his shirt into his breeches while he held on to his mount with his thighs, if you happen to be out and about at this gods-forsaken hour and nothing better to do than gape openmouthed at the mysterious riders as they thunder past . Tales to tell your grandchildren, like something out of some marsh dweller myth. Last Ride of the Dark Company, the Messenger Before Dawn, the Fell News That Would Not Wait, so forth…

His head was killing him.

Hoiran curse you, Eg. If you had to take on the City Guard, couldn’t you at least have done it somewhere without witnesses?

They made the palace as dawn was breaking, storming up the hairpin rises of the approach causeway in the graying gloom. Cacophony of six sets of hooves on the Kiriath paving, profaning the early stillness. They reined in at the top behind a yell from the messenger chief.

“The King’s Messenger comes! Open!”

Yawning, shift-end guards came running from their boxes, shocked awake and fumbling halberds as they tried to assemble hard-bitten readiness from the shattered pieces of the night’s sleepy boredom. The messenger bellowed again.

“Open, fools! In the Emperor’s name!”

The gates hinged back, creaking. They rode on through. In the courtyard beyond, a high-ranking slave majordomo whose face Archeth knew scurried forward, arms folded into his robes. Stable slaves swarmed behind him.

“My lady. His Radiance awaits you in the Queen Consort Gardens.”

“Right.” She swung down off her horse and handed over the reins. Feeling a qualified relief now, because she doubted they’d have to face the Ashant family or the rest of the court just yet. Official meetings and grievances were generally dealt with in the throne hall. Elsewhere was for private council. She looked up at Ringil, who had not yet dismounted.

“Follow me,” she told him, switching to Naomic. “And don’t make this any harder than it has to be. Try to keep a civil tongue in your head. If you plan on hanging on to either, that is.”

Ringil sat his horse and grinned evilly down at her. “You wound me, my lady. Am I not of noble imperial blood on my mother’s side?”

“Fuck off, Gil. I’m serious.”

They tramped through the palace environs at a fast march. Long corridors and flagstone expanses of halls and courtyard. They passed slaves scrubbing floors and watering plants. The messenger chief took point, as ritual demanded, but behind him Archeth ushered Rakan into the lead. Most likely Jhiral would have a Throne Eternal guard with him, and they’d respond a lot better to a captain from their own ranks than they would to an armed, sleep-deprived, and hungover Ringil.

Though Rakan himself, hmm, well, now…

Given what she’d glimpsed in Ringil’s bedchamber, the young captain was not at all what she’d imagined him to be.

She shelved the thought. Enough else to worry about right now, don’t you think, Archidi .

Up broad, winding staircases, along colonnaded galleries, into the upper levels. The predicted Throne Eternal were there at the doors to the Queen Consort Gardens, two of them, resplendent in full honor guard rig. They saluted Rakan, and one of them led the party through the dusty, leaf-littered walkways to the balcony, where a lightweight trestle table had been hastily laid with silk cloth and a plethora of filled plates and bowls. Kitchen slaves stood in attendance—behind them more Throne Eternal. His Imperial Radiance Jhiral Khimran sat waiting in a wingback chair, chewing on a leg of roast chicken.

The chief messenger dropped to one knee before him.

“The Lady kir -Archeth,” he announced. “As sought. With her, I bring you Honor Captain Noyal Rakan. And, uhm, Lord Ringil Eskiath of the Glades House in Trelayne.”

He got up again, bowed and got out of the way. Jhiral surveyed the new arrivals without much enthusiasm. He was dressed and booted, which at this hour had to mean he hadn’t been to bed yet, and there was a slightly blurred look to his features that Archeth read as drink, or possibly flandrijn. He’d been experimenting with the drug recently, she knew, working it into his harem sessions.

“Eskiath,” he said, frowning. “Rings a bell. Should I know that name from somewhere?”

Ringil shrugged. “Your father gave me a medal, once.”

“Did he indeed?” Jhiral bit off more chicken, chewed, still frowning. “So you’re a war hero, then. And was I in attendance for this honor?”

Ringil met the Emperor’s eyes. His gaze glittered. “I don’t recall.”

Jhiral stiffened.

“Lord Ringil was instrumental in our victory at Ennishmin last year,” said Archeth hastily. “You’ll remember, I mentioned him to you.”

“Oh, yes.” But the Emperor was not mollified. He studied Ringil with narrow disdain. “Well, that must be it, then. Though, as I understood the tale, you went home at the end, sir knight of Trelayne, back to that miserable huddle of trading posts up north.”