Prince of Fools (The Red Queen's War 1)

By the time I’d washed and dressed, the day had entered stage east, cocks crowed, people with jobs to do bustled about them, and below the Tall Castle Crath City shook itself awake. A timid tapping turned me from my contemplation at the window.

“What?”

“It’s S-Stann, Your Majesty.” A pause. “Did you need a dresser or should I—”

“Go get my Viking and bring him here. We’ll take breakfast where they serve the best stuff.”

He scampered away, the sounds of his retreat fading. I sat on the bed and pulled out my locket. A patchwork thing now, each gem I’d sold leaving an empty socket to stare at me in blind accusation. It seemed fitting. Justice is blind. Love is blind. Another gem would buy me back to Vermillion in the comfort of a fine carriage. One more would buy wine and company at every stop. Two more sockets to watch my passage, to watch me leave a friend in a pauper’s grave and return to the shallows. I wondered if Baraqel saw my soul when he looked at me. Did it look like this? Bartered away, a little each day, buying a coward’s path through the margins of life?

“Still,” I told myself. “Better a long ignoble life of shallow pleasures than a short stab at heroism, ending with a short stab. And just because one man plays another doesn’t always mean that it’s not the right direction for both of them.” I thought of the cold North, and the horror-laden stories Snorri told of it, and shivered.

“Jal!” Snorri filled the doorway and his grin filled his face. “You look worse after a night alone in silk sheets than after a night at the Angel wrestling with your friend who likes to bite.” Behind him Stann hovered in the corridor, trying to find a way past.

I stood up. “Come on. We’ll let the boy find us some breakfast.”

The two of us trailed Stann, matching his jog with an easy stride. “Food can be brought to your rooms, my lords.” He said it over his shoulder, catching his breath.

“I like to mingle,” I said. “And I’m a royal highness to you, boy. He’s a . . . hauldr. The correct address for one of that station is ‘Oi you.’”

“Yes, Your Royal Highness.”

“Better.”

Another corridor, another turn, and we came through an arch into a sizable hall boasting three long tables. Men ate at two of the tables, guests by the look of them, or figures of some rank within the castle. None of them royalty but not common folk. Stann indicated the unoccupied table. “Your Royal Highness.” He eyed Snorri up, biting his lip, hopping from one foot to the other in his indecision, doubting now that the Norseman’s rank warranted a place at any of the tables.

“Snorri will eat with me,” I said. “Special dispensation.”

Stann breathed a sigh of relief and showed us to our chairs.

“I’ll have eggs, scrambled with a pinch of salt, a pinch of black pepper, and then a fish. Kipper, mackerel, something smoked. The Viking will probably have a pig, lightly killed.”

“Bacon.” Snorri nodded. “And bread. The blacker the better. And beer.”

The boy ran off, repeating his orders as fast as he could.

Snorri leaned back in his chair and yawned mightily.

“How did you sleep?” I asked.

He grinned and gave me an appraising look. “I had strange dreams.”

“How strange?”

“I dream of Loki’s daughter each night. If a dream makes Aslaug’s appearances seem ordinary, then you can imagine it to be very strange.”

“Try me.”

“A small man covered in scribble spent the night trying to convince me to kill you this morning. At least most of the night . . . until Aslaug ate him.”

“Ah.”

We sat in silence for a minute, until a serving man arrived with two flagons of small beer and a loaf of bread.

“So?” I asked, more than a little tense. A long knife lay between us, next to the bread.

“I decided against it.” Snorri reached out and broke the loaf in half.

“Good.” I relaxed with a sigh.

“Better to wait until we’re out of the castle, then do it.” He chomped down on the bread to hide his grin. “And you? How’d you sleep?”

“About the same,” I said, but Snorri had lost interest, his gaze drawn to the doorway.

I turned to see a young woman approaching: tall, slender but not weak, not a conventional beauty but she had something about her that filled me with unconventional thoughts. I watched her advance with sure steps. High cheekbones, expressive lips, dark red curls frothing down around her shoulders. I stood, ready with my bow. Snorri kept his seat.