The Eve (3)
Why did none of the royal household realize that several hundred more people were taking part?
Because they didn't have a genius like me for a leader.
To be precise, though, it was thanks to the letter my father had sent. Only by cross-checking the two did I manage to figure it out. Without that letter, I wouldn't have known either.
And a few of them, no doubt—
Knew, and were pretending not to.
There would be people inside the palace who understood perfectly well what was happening and were pushing the wedding forward all the same. Internal collaborators, in other words.
Ask yourself what you do with several hundred extra bodies, and the answer is obvious. They weren't assembling for a group jump-rope session.
It was a coup.
It could have been something else, of course, but I doubted it. As someone currently preparing a coup of my own, I could smell a fellow professional a mile away.
Smuggling hundreds of people in as wedding attendants, drip by drip.
Brilliant. Whoever thought of it was talented. Part of me wanted to recruit them.
The real question was what I was going to do about it. I had a few options.
First: tell the Queen. She would handle the conspiracy herself. She was a capable woman, in her way.
Second: put it down myself. If I scrambled troops fast enough, I could probably stop it.
Third: join in. Stage a coup inside the chaos of their coup? A counter-coup, essentially.
It sounded entertaining enough.
Whether it would be profitable was another matter. Too many variables. The math refused to settle.
I thought it over, then decided. I would tell the Queen.
The risk wasn't worth the return. I already sat on the Supreme Council, at the apex of the bureaucracy. Why bother with a coup? Too much downside for too little gain.
I went to find her at once.
"Open the door. I must see Her Majesty."
"That is not permitted."
"What?"
A guard barred the corridor leading to the Queen's private palace.
"Her Majesty has instituted a new rule. With the wedding so near, no man is to be admitted."
"I am her husband."
"There can be no exceptions to the rule."
What in the world was this. I argued a few more times, but the guard was immovable.
I returned to my rooms and summoned the Butler.
"Her Majesty? She has been secluded like that since yesterday."
According to him, she had not left her chambers since this morning. Only the maids came and went; outsiders were forbidden. She had even abandoned the affairs of state.
"Why all of a sudden?"
"That, I am afraid, I do not know…"
Had she gotten cold feet? In a situation this urgent, it was terrible news.
For now, I would do what I could.
"Butler. Contact the fleet at anchor. Assemble an elite detachment—including the household guard—and bring them here."
"To the royal capital, Young Master?"
"Yes. Only enough not to raise suspicion."
"Understood, Young Master."
I needed troops ready on my own side, at least.
Passing word to the kingdom's people would have been wise as well—
If I knew whom I could trust.
I wasn't even one of them. If this coup was aimed at Queen Mary, the only person I could rely on right now was the Queen herself.
If I summoned someone else and said,
"Certain parties appear to be preparing a coup. See that the defenses are tightened,"
"Ah, yes, of course, Your Grace,"
—they might turn around and tighten the coup preparations instead. Leaked intelligence, they would claim.
Princess Elizabeth was no safer a confidant. Not that she was untrustworthy as a person—but in this situation she was.
If the kingdom's people rose up, what would their pretext be? Elizabeth's restoration, obviously. If I went to her and said,
"Princess. The kingdom's side is preparing a coup, I hear,"
she would almost certainly answer,
"What! Then this is no time to sit idle!"
"Exactly. We must shore up the defenses—"
"I have to go help them at once!"
That would be the result. So telling Elizabeth was out as well.
I would have to stop the coup with my own hands. Fortunately, I could fairly call myself a rebellion specialist. Not at starting them—at putting them down.
A brief résumé: one duchy rebellion suppressed, three shipboard mutinies put down.
The shipboard ones went something like this. Sometime during a stretch of piracy, a brilliant idea had struck me.
New recruits can't do the work properly, so why not set a probationary period and make them work for free?
A flawless notion. I implemented it at once. And a mutiny broke out at once.
"Unpaid labor? Are you serious? We have a right to our wages!"
"Calm yourselves. And it isn't entirely unpaid, is it? That is—you're being given the chance to learn the trade. That is compensation enough."
"Solidarity! Workers of the ship! Kill that man!"
A red tide rose on our deck, and I barely managed to crush it. Looking back, a four-and-a-half-year probationary period may have been a touch excessive.
There was another incident involving night differentials, but that was a story for another time. The point was that I had ample experience putting down revolts, and I knew what the heart of any such suppression really was.
Protect the key figures.
In this coup, securing Elizabeth and Queen Mary was everything. Fail at that, and the whole enterprise collapsed. Of the two, Queen Mary mattered more.
So all I had to do was protect Queen Mary.
Which brought me straight back to the problem: I couldn't get to her.
Just warning her that she was in danger would have made everything several times easier. And there was a further complication.
"Identity papers."
"Here."
"Pass!"
Even now, people from the kingdom's side were still arriving. Even if they weren't all gathered yet, a revolt could break out at any moment. Time was short.
What do I do?
Force my way past the guards? And if she got assassinated because of the hole I punched in the security?
My head was a mess.
Assassins could already be infiltrating even as I stood there—
Wait.
I had it.
Right. Walk a mile in their shoes, as they say. If assassins could slip in, so could I.
Tonight, I would steal into Mary's bedchamber. I took a mask and a dagger from the drawer.
Knights sometimes enter a state of perfect unity with their blade. In the middle of a fight, there comes a moment when the sword is you, and you are the sword.
I was there now.
I was the assassin, and the assassin was me—the state of perfect assassin-unity.
—Creak. Click.
I slipped quietly from my room and melted into the shadows behind the guards, killing every sound I could. From there I meant to make my way to the Queen's private palace.
It was not easy.
There are more guards than I expected.
A royal palace is still a royal palace; the security was tight. For someone who was not a professional assassin, it was rough going.
I wanted an easy path if I could find one. There had to be something.
Then a location caught my eye. The ceiling.
Of course. Assassins and ceilings go together.
I leapt lightly, caught a rafter, and swung myself up on top of it.
Perfect. Now to follow this to the private palace. I moved carefully along the beam.
"Hup—what the—"
And there, I ran into a thug. Black hood, a sword strapped across his back, clothes the color of midnight.
Another assassin.
He startled at the sight of me, then took in my hood and spoke.
"Nearly jumped out of my skin. Thought you were a guard. Where'd you come from?"
He struck up conversation as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Weren't assassins supposed to be the silent type? I answered anyway.
"Same as you. Just riding the rafters."
"Fair enough. That's the classic approach. Rough night, huh."
"Rough, nothing."
I kept my reply short and tried to keep moving. The last thing I needed was a scene. We were just about to pass each other when—
"Hold it. Stop right there."
He caught me by the arm.
"You son of a—who the hell are you?"
I quietly set my hand on the dagger inside my coat. If it came to it, I would have to take him down right here.
"Who about what?"
"Hah. The nerve on you. You—"
He pointed a finger at me. I swallowed. Should I stick him now?
"You're a rookie, aren't you? What are you even doing?"
"What?"
"You're headed for the Queen too, right?"
"…Yes."
"That's not the way. Unbelievable. What kind of greenhorn did they send me. Follow me."
I wasn't sure I should trust him, but the truth was I didn't know the route particularly well. I decided to follow.
And so a strange partnership began.
"That way you were going, the guards would have nabbed you. You should have done some recon."
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it. We look out for each other."
We crawled along the ceiling, trading quiet conversation. At this point, I figured I might as well dig for their objective.
"By the way—your target is the Queen's chambers too? Why?"
"Why do you think? Same as you. Seize or kill her if things go south."
"I see."
"You?"
"I was told… to kill her if necessary."
"Guess we're all the same."
"All? Are there more of us?"
"Probably? A few more in the hit squad, yeah. But you—"
His eyes sharpened all at once.
"You really don't know anything. How is that possible?"
Damn it. I had asked too freely, and the answers had come too easily.
"Be honest with me."
This time I was going to have to kill him for real—
"They never briefed you properly, did they. Hah. Pulling this because you're the new guy."
"…That's right. Discriminated against for being the rookie."
"The brass are all the same. Keep the new blood in the dark so they can hog the good stuff. How much did they offer you?"
I improvised.
"Ten gold coins."
"You're kidding. Ten gold for a job like this? They took you for a complete sucker."
He clapped me on the shoulder.
"Yeah. I was the same when I started. Don't sweat it too much. Once this is over, I'll go with you and we can settle up with them."
"Thanks. Really."
"Heh. For something this small?"
A strangely warm feeling settled in my chest. Trading small kindnesses back and forth, we reached the ceiling above the private palace.
And from that ceiling, I discovered a scene of pure madness.