Django Wexler - The Shadow Throne

It had been nearly a hundred years since royal troops had entered the city, following a tradition upheld through the reign of four kings. The last time, when Farus IV had marched his triumphant legions across the Old Ford, had been the beginning of a civil war and the Great Purge. Every one of the carefully tended family trees in the room had branches that had been pruned during those tumultuous years, great-uncles and cousins who had died on one side or the other, or were simply caught in between. And there were more ancient families that had been extinguished by the vengeful king for their insurrection, including four of the five great ducal lines dating back before the time of Karis.

All but Orlanko’s, who’d chosen the right side. One by one, every face in the room turned to him. The Last Duke cleared his throat.

“Do you think,” he said carefully, “troops could arrive in time?”

Torahn nodded emphatically. “I smelled something in the wind when all this started, so I sent to the camp at Midvale to be ready to march on three hours’ notice. That’s a good forty miles from here, but the post can get there in a day’s ride. There’s a good road all the way. If I put a messenger on a horse within the hour, we can have eight hundred cuirassiers here by tomorrow evening, and six thousand infantry a day or two after that. Three at most, if the damned rain keeps up.”

Ihannes caught Orlanko’s gaze. “Eight hundred heavy horses would go a long way toward assuring His Supremely Honorable Majesty that the Vordanai Crown intends to do what is necessary to safeguard Borelgai interests.”

There were mutterings of assent from the courtiers.

“It would be a momentous step,” Orlanko said. “But if the sacrifice of our brave captain of Armsmen has accomplished nothing else, it has alerted us to the gravity of the situation. And yet. .” He paused, as though consulting a mental document. “Only the king or a regent can order the Royal Army into action, I seem to recall?”

“If the king could speak,” Torahn said, “he would tell us not to let the particulars of the law bind us at such a crucial moment.”

“On the contrary,” Orlanko said. “It is at such moments the niceties must be precisely observed, lest any hint of illegality taint our actions. Remember, my lord, we will be judged by history.”

Another silence. Orlanko scrupulously did not look at Rackhil Grieg, who had been briefed at length in the Cobweb for just this moment. He would heal, eventually, but the duke trusted he would not forget again where his interest lay. And, indeed, he spoke up right on cue.

“The answer seems simple enough, my lords,” Grieg said. “The king is incapacitated, and the princess has taken to her rooms. The Cabinet must propose a regent for the duration of the emergency. I nominate His Grace the duke.”

Torahn shot Grieg a sharp look, then turned slowly to Orlanko. “A regency?”

“It honestly had not occurred to me,” Orlanko drawled. “But if the Cabinet requires it, I shall of course be pleased to serve in that capacity, until the king recovers from his illness, or-”

“The king is dead,” came a voice from the back of the room, among the crowd of courtiers.

Amid the sudden explosion of whispering, a wedge of green uniforms became visible, pushing their way through the crowd. Orlanko got to his feet, though with his small stature this did not assist him much.

“What’s going on?” he said, loud enough to be heard over the growing babble. “Who’s that?”

“Make way,” bawled an Armsmen sergeant. “Make way for the Minister of Justice!”

Vhalnich. Orlanko forced a smile onto his face and sat back down. Damn him. I should have been warned. Concordat spies were in place all over Ohnlei, with instructions to report his movements, but apparently the man had evaded them somehow. His own Mierantai guard had established a cordon around his residence, and the backcountry soldiers had proven to be both competent and irritatingly unbribable.

Inside the flying wedge of Armsmen, Vhalnich walked beside another man, stoop-shouldered and fragile-looking. Orlanko’s breath caught as he recognized Doctor-Professor Indergast. How the hell did he get out of the king’s bedchamber?

“My lord Mieran,” Orlanko said aloud. “I’m glad you could join us.”

“I’m sorry to be late,” Vhalnich said. “As you can imagine, the Ministry is in a bit of an uproar.”

“And you have brought us the good doctor-professor,” Orlanko said. “Who, I’m sure-”

“What you said about the king,” Torahn snapped, interrupting. “Is it true?”

Indergast bowed his head, and the room went quiet as he spoke, everyone straining to hear the quavering words.

“It is. My lords, Your Grace, I regret to say that my skills have failed His Majesty in his last trial. I was able to remove the diseased mass, but the loss of blood and other strains overcame him. He is with the Savior now, until the end of time.”

“I see,” Orlanko said. He matched gazes with Vhalnich, whose wide gray eyes reflected the duke’s spectacle-obscured stare. “The nation will mourn.”

“It does not change the point at hand,” said Torahn.

“Which is?” Vhalnich said, settling into his chair after helping the doctor-professor to a stool.

“We must have troops to put down the riots,” the Minister of War said. “For that, we require a regent. The Minister of Finance has proposed His Grace the duke. Do you have any objection?”

“I am confused,” Vhalnich said. “The king is dead, but we now have a queen, who is of age to rule in her own right. What need for a regent?”

“The princess,” Orlanko said, “that is, the princess who was, and the queen who is, is clearly overcome by grief and the terrors of the moment. She has confined herself to her room these past three days. In time, perhaps, she will grow into her responsibilities, but for the moment-”

Vhalnich cut him off with a wave. The queue of courtiers was parting, of their own accord this time, like the bow wave preceding a ship. Leather creaked and silk rustled as they bowed.

Damn, damn, damn Vhalnich! He planned this from the start. Orlanko, no stranger to political theater, recognized the hand of an expert. None of it should have been possible, of course. If the princess left her rooms, I should have been alerted immediately. But he’d clearly underestimated Vhalnich’s influence.

The duke forced a grave expression onto his face and sat calmly as a quartet of Noreldrai Grays trooped into the room and took up stations beside the door. For now, he had to ride out this farce.

Raesinia seemed even smaller and frailer than usual, swaddled in a tissue of gray silk and black lace, with fringes of pearls that clacked rhythmically as she walked. She was doing her best to look the queen, but her young appearance betrayed her.

He suppressed a smile. Go ahead and put on your play. Let’s not forget who has the upper hand here. The people of Vordan would not long tolerate a queen who had made congress with a demon, and it would not be hard to arrange a public demonstration, should it become necessary.

“Orlanko,” she said, with a nod. “Ministers. Honored guests. It is painful that we must interrupt this time of mourning with affairs of state, but the crisis will brook no delay.”

“Indeed, Your Majesty.” Orlanko inclined his head. “We were just discussing what measures to take. Count Torahn had offered the army’s assistance in suppressing the rebellion.”

“No.” The single word rang out clearly, and a silence fell across the whispering courtiers.

Count Torahn cleared his throat. “With all due respect, Your Majesty, I believe there is no other way to restore order.”