Django Wexler - The Shadow Throne

Jane was in charge, inasmuch as anyone was. At least, she could give orders, and most of the time they were obeyed. Min, the soft-spoken girl who’d organized cleaning rotas back at Jane’s headquarters, had set to arranging bands of fighting men with the same enthusiasm, with the rest of the Leatherbacks helping to round up work crews and get people pointed in the right direction. There had been a little bit of laughter at the expense of “Mad Jane’s Girls,” but it hadn’t lasted long.

“Well?” Jane said. “What’s the problem?”

Winter blinked. She hadn’t thought her worry showed in her face. “Why do you think there’s a problem?”

Jane laughed. “Come on. You have the exact same expression you did when you were trying to talk me out of throwing rotten eggs at Mistress Gormenthal, or stealing Cowlie’s underwear. I used to think of it as your ‘But, Jane!’ face. ‘But, Jane, we’ll get in trouble!’”

Winter forced a smile. “Far be it from me to be the killjoy.”

“But,” Jane prompted.

“But,” Winter said, “I think you’re not taking this seriously enough.”

Jane’s smile vanished. “Seriously? I just told them to start wrecking houses so we can get through that door. That isn’t serious?”

“The door isn’t the problem. If they fight-”

“They won’t,” Jane said. “If they were going to shoot, they would have done it at the wall. It doesn’t make any sense to start now, when they’re in a far worse position.”

“I’m not sure that they are in a worse position. If we have to fight our way into that thing, it’ll be a nightmare. If it comes to that, people are going to get killed. A lot of people.”

“We knew that this morning, and it didn’t stop us.”

“That was then. Now everyone’s acting like we’ve already won.”

Jane frowned, then looked carefully at Winter. “There’s something else you’re not telling me.”

Winter nodded, reluctantly.

“The Armsmen captain. It looked like you recognized him. Is that it?”

“His name is Marcus d’Ivoire,” Winter said. “He commanded my battalion in Khandar.”

“Did you know him well?” Jane leaned forward eagerly. “Do you think you could talk to him for us? If we could make him understand-”

“What?” Winter blinked. “No! No, you don’t understand. He doesn’t know about”-she gestured down at herself, dressed in trousers like Jane but still marginally feminine-“about me. I couldn’t talk to him without explaining what I was doing here.”

“Sorry.” Jane shook her head. “I got ahead of myself. Do you know him, though?”

“A little bit. More from hearsay than anything else. We weren’t friends.”

“What’s he like?”

“Tough. Not the most imaginative soldier, but stubborn. When he was fighting on the Tselika, he was ready to slug it out to the last man rather than give up the position he’d been ordered to hold. And he practically worships the colonel.”

“The colonel?”

“Count Mieran. The Minister of Justice.”

“Ah.” Jane looked speculatively at the door. “So you think he has something up his sleeve.”

“Not. . exactly. I just don’t think he’ll give up easily.”

“He gave up the wall, didn’t he?”

“He had the keep to fall back to. If we really push him into a corner. .”

Winter saw the door splinter in her mind’s eye, collapsing inward, cheering Leatherbacks rushing over the wreckage. And, inside, a makeshift barricade of furniture studded with musket barrels, dozens of muzzle flashes, the merry zip and zing of balls ricocheting from stone and the thwack when they found flesh. The blood, and the screams.

“You really think he’d do it?” Jane said.

“He obviously doesn’t want to, or he’d have done it at the wall,” Winter said, trying to clear the nightmare vision. “Tactically, you’re right-it would have been a better move. But if the colonel has ordered him to hold Danton, then at some point he’ll have to fight.”

“Damn.” Jane glared at the door. It was odd to think that there were men behind it, as remote as though they were on the moon, besieged and besiegers separated by only a few feet of solid oak and iron. “We’ll try to negotiate, once we have the ram ready. Maybe we can convince him to see reason. But you know we’re running out of time. Somebody up there ”-she jerked her head north, toward Ohnlei-“will have to do something eventually.”

“I know.” Winter let out a long breath. “There’s one bit of good news.”

“What’s that?”

“If Captain d’Ivoire is in charge in there, then Abby and the others are all right.”

Jane tried not to show it, but there was relief in her face. “You think so?”

“If they made it here in one piece, he’ll have made sure they stayed that way. The colonel once told me that when it comes to women, Captain d’Ivoire missed his calling as a knight-errant.”

Jane laughed out loud. “I suppose that is good news.”

If he is in charge. Winter bit her lip. There had been men in black coats as well as Armsmen green on the battlements.

This line of thought was interrupted by the arrival of a young woman wearing one of the aprons that served the Leatherbacks as impromptu uniforms. Winter didn’t recognize her from Jane’s councils-a number of the wives and daughters of the dockmen had invited themselves along on the march, following the example of Jane’s hellions. Jane, pragmatic as ever, had deputized them and put them to work.

“Sir-that is-ma’am-Jane!” The girl was doubled over and out of breath, hands gripping her thighs. “I’ve got-a-”

“Give it a moment,” Jane said.

“Yes, sir.” The attempt at military airs made Winter smile; she wondered if this girl had read some of the same books she had, before fleeing Mrs. Wilmore’s. When she’d gotten her breath back, the messenger straightened up. “There’s more people arriving in the street! Hundreds of them!”

Winter whistled. “I wouldn’t have thought there was anyone left in the Docks.”

“They’re not from the Docks,” the girl said. “Not our people. A lot of ’em look like nobs, though they don’t all dress like it. Viera said she thought they were from the University. They came down over Saint Hastoph Bridge.”

“Did they say what they wanted?” Jane said.

“They said they were here to help. A lot of ’em are talking about Danton.”

Danton. Winter knew Jane had never had much use for the demagogue, but he had a considerable following among the dockmen. And apparently on the Northside as well.

“Well,” Jane said, “I suppose we can always use more hands.” She glanced at Winter. “Maybe if we put a few respectable citizens in the front line, the Armsmen will be less likely to fire.”

“Beg your pardon, si-ma’am,” the girl interrupted, “but there were a bunch of them asking to see whoever was in charge here. One of ’em dressed real nice, too. I think he must be a count.”

“Well.” Jane straightened up, and a look passed between her and Winter. “We can’t keep nobility waiting, now, can we?”

RAESINIA

Alfred Peddoc sur Volmire had lost his reluctance about the march shortly after it began. It transpired that he had spent a couple of years at the War College before deciding a soldier’s career wasn’t for him, and that extensive martial training now apparently qualified him for leadership of what he persisted in referring to as “our campaign.” He’d even acquired a sword from somewhere, which he slashed through the air as he walked as if cutting his way through imaginary enemies.