David Tallerman - Prince Thief

“This meeting is over,” he spat, and stormed from the stage.

Outside, the city was in chaos.

Roughly half the populace had chosen to stay at home, and were in the process of barricading those homes against any and every threat. Such was generally the case here in the wealthy South Bank, where some of the families had the sort of resources that could fend off even a royal army — for a while, at least.

The other portion of the city’s inhabitants had decided that the best place to be right now would be anywhere but Altapasaeda. These had bundled their possessions onto whatever modes of transport or beasts of burden came to hand — horses, donkeys, handcarts, their own or other people’s children — before heading swiftly for the nearest city gate.

Whichever exit they chose, they wouldn’t get far. Every gate was closed, and protected by a mixed squad of guardsmen and the irregular soldiers Estrada had brought here. Alvantes was calling it a temporary measure to keep both city and surrounding countryside from falling into further turmoil, but I couldn’t help wondering how temporary it would turn out to be. As the disastrous meeting had made abundantly clear, Altapasaeda had a short enough future ahead of it if its own populace weren’t willing to stay and defend it.

Just then, however, Alvantes seemed oblivious to anything but his own seething frustration. Where anyone got in his way he simply barged through, leaving horses whickering and men and women shouting in his wake. I followed a few paces behind, still unable to think of anywhere better I could be while the city was busy tearing itself apart, and Estrada struggled to keep pace with Alvantes.

She gave him five minutes, waiting until we were near the inner border of the South Bank district before she said, “You know they’re just afraid.”

Alvantes didn’t look back. “Of course they’re afraid. Cowards are always afraid.”

“Lunto-”

“What?” he said. “You think I’m being unfair?”

“I think there are bigger questions we have to face.”

“Because I think that what’s unfair is handing this city back to Castilio Mounteban when we’ve only just wrestled it out of his filthy grasp. What’s unfair is that he’s relaxing in comfort when he should be resting his neck on the block in Red Carnation Square. I think…” Alvantes finally caught himself, and the last of his anger came out in a sigh of bitter vexation. “I think you’re right as always, Marina… and I’m glad beyond measure that you’re here, if only to stop me doing something I might regret.”

Estrada reached to touch his arm, careful to choose the one that still had a hand attached to it. “I know how hard this is for you.”

Finally pausing to face her, Alvantes managed the weakest of smiles. “It’s hard for everyone. You must be worried about Muena Palaiya.”

“I doubt the King will stop to bother with one town,” she said. “It’s if Altapasaeda falls that they’ll have something to worry about. The best thing I can do for my people right now is to be here helping you.”

“Helping me? Only, it seems no one much cares what I think.” Much of the bitterness had returned to Alvantes’s voice. “They’d prefer to put their city in the hands of a self-serving crook.”

“ Bigger questions , Lunto. They think of you as part of the old order. Then, the minute you walk through the gates, they hear the King’s marching an army on their city. They’re going to have to learn to trust you. In the meantime-”

“Yes, I know. In the meantime, they want Mounteban. Good old honest Castilio Mounteban, the people’s hero. Well if they want him so badly, maybe they deserve him.”

Alvantes set off pacing again, and this time Estrada left him to it. She had her own reasons to despise Mounteban, just as I did — in her case, an amorous attempt that had gone far too far, in mine a deranged assassin sent after my life. In fact, it was arguable that we both had more reason to hate him than Alvantes did. Yet just then I felt remarkably unfazed by the prospect of having the man I’d risked so much to depose weasel his way back into power. Perhaps it was only the shock of discovering that my best efforts to do the right thing had led to nothing except disaster, but ever since the King’s message had arrived I’d found it hard to care about much of anything.

We’d barely passed the border of the South Bank, marked by an arch of twisted iron decked and twined with flowers, before our objective presented itself. Since his defeat, Mounteban had been confined to his rooms in the Dancing Cat, the inn he’d made his base of operations. It was a luxurious establishment, perched upon the edges of the rich Upper Market District and the mansion-filled South Bank. Until Mounteban had taken it over, the Cat had catered solely to wealthy patrons resting on their way home from an exhausting day’s shopping. The question of just what Mounteban had done with its original proprietor was one of the many left to hang before the more pressing business at hand.

There were two guardsmen on the main entrance, both of whom I recognised from Alvantes’s trusted inner circle. Inside, another sat at the bottom of the stairs, on one of the few chairs still intact. Most of the remaining furniture had been smashed to smithereens in the violence that had led up to Mounteban’s capture — a fight this man had seen his share of, if the bandage around his arm was anything to judge by. Lastly, at the head of the staircase stood waiting Sub-Captain Navare, former undercover agent in the Suburbs beyond the northern wall. Seeing Alvantes starting up the stairs, he threw a smart salute.

“Has he given you any trouble?” asked Alvantes, sounding almost hopeful. He had wanted to throw Mounteban in the dankest depths of the city prison, and only Estrada’s caution had kept him from doing it.

“Quiet as a temple rat,” replied Navare. “I think he’s been asleep.”

“Or else quietly prying off those planks we nailed across his window?”

“I put a man in the yard,” replied Navare, “looking out for precisely that. Not a word from him so far.”

Alvantes didn’t quite hide his disappointment. Brushing past Navare, he made to knock at the heavy panelled door, caught himself, and slammed it open instead.

Already doubting my part in this latest turn of events, I didn’t much feel like following after, but Estrada was close behind me, and I couldn’t think of a decent enough excuse to make my exit. I fell into step, entering the room a little cautiously, and edged into a corner so as to be well out of whatever came next.

The room was certainly luxurious, a wide and airy space with brilliantly white walls hung with tapestries and rich, patterned carpets on the floors. The furniture was all of dark wood, and more solid than that demolished by the ruckus in the taproom; the desk and broad bed might even have been sturdy enough to survive that violence.

However, I suspected the extravagance had been inherited from the inn’s true owner, for imprinted upon it were signs of an altogether more austere personality. The desk was literally buried in maps and other papers, with just enough arrangement to suggest the inklings of some order. The bed looked as if it hadn’t been made in weeks; the rugs were scuffed with countless boot prints. My sense was that Mounteban had chosen this location as a compromise, between what he was accustomed to and what he knew would be expected of a man who could run a place like Altapasaeda.

As for Mounteban himself, he certainly didn’t look like he’d been relaxing. Sat before the desk, he looked, in fact, like someone for whom sleep had become a distant memory. His eyes were shadowed, and despite his bulk and copious beard, his face looked drawn. He had flinched at Alvantes’s entrance, and now he stared up, with a bravado that didn’t quite hide the tension beneath it.