Page 109 of Play of Shadows
The King’s Courtesy
‘Well, my boy,’ the old man on the other side of the bars started, leaning on his cane. His lined face split into a grin. ‘See what comes of ignoring your grandfather’s warnings about the perils of the stage?’
‘You never warned me of any such thing! In fact, wasn’t it you who sent me to drama school? Grandmother was dead set against it.’
‘Really? I remember it differently.’
I banged my forehead against the iron bars separating us. ‘You remembereverythingdifferently! That’s why no one ever believes your stories.’
My grandfather chuckled. He had a reedy, wheezing voice, but when he laughed, the rich, resonant baritone could fill a canyon.
‘What’s so funny?’ I asked.
The old man clanged the metal ferrule of his cane against the bars. ‘Seems to me that the problem here is far too many people believingyourstories.’
Shariza placed a hand on the sleeve of his worn leather greatcoat. ‘I’ll leave the two of you to catch up.’
‘What nonsense is this?’ Paedar demanded, covering her hand with his. ‘Abandoning me to my felonious grandson’s slandersbefore you’ve heard even one of my righteous tales? I am relying on you, fair maiden, to judge whether man or boy is the more charming storyteller.’
‘I fear, Master Chademantaigne, that your grandson is no boy, I am no maiden, and that my duties await.’
His grin reappeared as he winked at her. ‘And I daresay this would be a bad time to leave the duke without his finest protector.’
She gave him a wry smile in return. ‘Indeed, I’m informed he’s already been challenged to a duel he’d prefer not to fight.’
‘Then until we meet again, my dear.’ He released her hand at last, then offered her a bow so deep it belied his need for a stick. They hadn’t called him the King’s Courtesy for nothing.
After Shariza had left, Grandfather dragged over a stool and settled himself close to the bars. ‘I like that girl. Do tell me there’s a wedding in the offing.’
‘I’ve known her barely a week.’
He shrugged. ‘So what? I’m an old man, in case you hadn’t noticed, and your grandmother’s been gone a long time now. If I’m to meet a new wife before I meet my undertaker, I’ll need to seduce a large number of women to select the right one. Weddings are excellent occasions for such noble endeavours.’
‘So I’m to believe this concern for my own marital statusisn’tabout my failure to provide you with a permanently captive audience for your stories in the form of a brood of great-grandchildren?’
The old man waved the suggestion away. ‘Why would I care about that? Your decrepit grandfather just wants to get laid before he croaks.’
Despite the dire circumstances and the dim prospects for my future, my grandfather never failed to make me smile. I reached through the bars to clasp his hand. ‘I’m sorry it’s been so long since I came home, and even sorrier you had to find me in thisplace.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ he said, shaking my hand loose. ‘What mandoesn’twant his grandson’s mysterious paramour– by the way, that girl’s a delight, and utterly mad for you, but I suspect she might be a Dashini– where was I? Oh yes, to have her show up at his humble dwelling to inform him his grandson sits rotting in a dungeon beneath the Ducal Palace of Pertine?’
‘I really am sorr—’
‘Pah! Enough with your apologies, boy. Incarceration by the local duke is a badge of honour in our family. Lords and viscounts, margraves, margravinas and daminas– sooner or later they all want to lock us up for getting in their way. Why, if I told you how often I’d found your grandmother chained inside some Hellish cell awaiting a noose around her neck, you’d call me a liar.’
‘I call you that anyway, you old reprobate.’ I glanced at the sturdy iron bars between us. ‘But now that you mention it, how did you get Grandmother out so many times?’
‘Well, that’s the job, isn’t it? Sometimes I negotiated a deal, sometimes I bribed the guards. This one time, when she was stuck up north, I recruited a band of Avarean mercenaries and we blew up the prison. Ah, fun times.’ He reached into one of the greatcoat’s capacious pockets. ‘Most jailbreaks, though, simply involved one of these.’ He held up a polished iron key on a scarlet ribbon.
‘You have a key to the palace dungeon?’
He grinned. ‘Boy, I have keys to half the gaols in Tristia. Sometimes your grandmother and I would get arrested just so we could sneak in greenwax to make a mould of the locking mechanism. After all, you never know when you might need to make a speedy exit.’ He held the key up to the light. ‘But this one I got from his Grace upstairs.’
‘Duke Monseginogaveyou a key? He only just had meimprisoned two days ago! Why would he—?’ I shuddered to a halt as Shariza’s words a few minutes before resurfaced. ‘Grandfather, tell me you didn’t—’
He made a show of pursing his lips. ‘Well, you know, I’d begged an audience that I might plead your case, but the man was paying me barely any attention and his lackwit advisors kept droning on and on, some nonsense about “legal impediments” and “precedence” and all that rot. Can you imagine? Some needle-necked bureaucrat instructingmeon the law?’
‘So you challenged the Duke of Pertine to an honour duel? Grandfather, Monsegino’s hanging onto power by the barest thread. He might’ve had you killed on the spot. Besides, even I know there’s no legal requirement for a nobleman to accept the challenge of a commoner.’
