The Wheel of Osheim (The Red Queen's War 3)

“Alphons!” I spotted one of Father’s men in the host gathered before the front steps. “Alphons! Is Lady Micha safe? Lady Lisa?”

He shouted something but I only caught the word “double” before my captors forced me up the front steps along a narrow corridor of armoured knights. The great bronze doors opened a begrudging two feet, allowing us to file into the crowded entrance hall.

“Keep a tight hold on him.” And Paraito left us, presumably to file his report.

I stood there, sweaty, hurting, and above all furious. Every person crammed into the entrance hall appeared to be talking at once, the tide of conversation making only the slightest of dips when I was brought in. The antechamber held a dozen clusters of lords, the occasional lady, a few barons, an earl, even merchants plumped up in their most expensive finery, all talking at each other, some jovial, some worried, some heated. I saw Duchess Sansera wearing her age tonight, along with all her diamonds, Lord Gren, my old adversary in matters of gambling on both horses and men, looking more nervous here than he ever did at the pits, a score more highborn who might be expected to speak for me. A few glanced my way but the ropes on my wrists discouraged any from coming forward.

“We can’t just stand here!” I looked around at the four men detailed to guard me, a distinctly dowdy presence amid the silks and gold of the high and the mighty. “You saw what it’s like out there . . . You—”

“Cousin Jalan!” Hertet’s second-eldest son, Roland, came in through the main doors, spotting me immediately. Martus called him “the Chinless Wonder,” and to be fair the growing of a sort of beard to hide that fact, and siring the Red Queen’s first great grandson, did rank highest among his few notable achievements. “Father will want to see you!”

I met his watery blue eyes, he seemed oblivious to the fact I was under guard. I, managed a smile and nodded. “Lead on.” And with a swirl of his emerald cape, embroidered with the trefoils that Uncle Hertet had adopted for his branch of the Kendeth family tree, Cousin Roland led on.

“A moment, cousin!” I stopped Roland as we approached the doors to the great hall. “You know the DeVeers? Everyone does.” I didn’t give him pause to answer. “A necromancer has taken St. Agnes. I fear Lisa and Micha DeVeer may still be in the main house with my infant niece. It would be a great favour to me if you could dispatch a squad of men to ensure they have escaped and to bring them to safety if need be.”

“A necromancer?” Roland mangled the “r’s and left his mouth open in surprise. “In the palace?”

“In the church. At Roma Hall. A baby in peril!” I nodded and kept it simple. I hoped mention of the baby might stir him, as a father. “You could send some guardsmen.”

Roland blinked. “Most certainly.” He raised his hand and beckoned. “Sir Roger! Sir Roger!” A short knight in the shiniest armour I’d ever seen clanked awkwardly toward us. “Ladies in distress at Roma Hall, Sir Roger!” Roland made a “Woger” of each “Roger.”

“I shall attend to the matter, Prince Roland.” Roger, pockmarked and sporting a thick black moustache, gave a curt bow, all efficiency and purpose.

“Take a dozen men, Sir Roger.” All the advice I could offer as Roland continued toward the doors. “Good ones!”

Cousin Roland elbowed past the elite guardsmen at the entrance to his father’s court, four of them in the queen’s fire-bronze armour beneath her scarlet plumes. He set both hands to the towering oak panels and pushed into the great hall.

I hadn’t been into the great hall at Milano House since Roland’s wedding when I was thirteen. Father and his eldest brother had fallen out over some matter concerning the disciplining of the house-priest. It wasn’t really about the priest, of course—it was about who got to boss who around, as are most disputes among brothers. In any event, heavy words were lightly thrown and Father led his brood from the hall in high dudgeon, Martus forcibly detaching a slightly drunk young Prince Jalan from a pretty young bridesmaid whose name I forget.

In the subsequent decade the hall had changed beyond recognition. Dozens of bejewelled lanterns joined to cast a brilliant light across what was undeniably the most splendidly appointed room I’d ever laid eyes on. The tapestries behind Hertet’s mahogany throne were of gold-and-silver wire, the rugs of Indus silk, colours so vivid they assaulted the eye. Suits of gilt armour stood around the perimeter of the hall, intermixed with Grandmother’s guard, so immobile that it was hard to say at a glance which armour stood empty and which held men.