Page 131 of Play of Shadows
‘But why?’ I murmured.
Just then, I caught sight of Beretto and Teo, garbed in Pierzi’s colours as they had been when playing his lieutenants in the previous acts, and at last I understood. ‘Pierzi’s retainers– the ones with the orchid emblems on their collars. They were spies for the Court of Flowers?’
Pretending to lose his footing, bending beneath my pressure on his blade, Monsegino gave the hint of a nod. ‘Ajelaine had attracted too much attention with her investigations into thenoble Houses. Pierzi began to hear rumblings of a plot against her, and when she refused to back down, he instead conceived an elaborate piece of stagecraft to deceive those engineering murder and mayhem between Pierzi and Corbier. It is this play within a play that you and I must now continue. . .’
Monsegino’s right foot hooked the back of my leg and sent me crashing down to the hard oak. My rapier fell from my hand, coming to rest a few inches out of reach. The duke stood over me, the tip of his all-too-real blade resting against my throat.
‘Yield, Corbier. Yield, and I may yet show you mercy.’
But before I could even think how to respond, Monsegino was shaking his head. ‘Nay, waste not your venom on me, you snake. Wriggle there on the ground and consider before you speak.’ The duke turned and gave a wide smile to the audience. ‘We have all night, after all!’
A surge of laughter rose from the crowds, even those who’d been cheering for me earlier. There was even greater delight from the Iron Orchids, who started jeering for the Violet Duke to prove himself at last.
‘We must go back one last time,’ Monsegino whispered through gritted teeth. ‘There is still a final secret left to unearth: what really happened to Ajelaine and the children?’ With a sudden bark of laughter, he shouted, ‘Was that a cough I heard, you red-eyed raven? Are you choking on your own feathers now?’
‘Mercy!’ I shouted, even as I made a show of surreptitiously reaching a hand out to the side for my rapier, signalling my intent to commit crass betrayal and earning me loud hisses from the crowds.
‘Good,’ Monsegino whispered, pretending not to notice. ‘Now, listen close: the moment the play is ended, the Orchids will attack. Your actors must make use of the chaos and confusion to give one of us the chance to make the truth known to all. Do you understand what I’m asking of you?’
I spared a glance for my fellow Knights of the Curtain. They’d sacrificed so much already in this mad cause. How could I ask them to now give their lives?
You won’t need to, Corbier informed me.They won’t wait for you to ask.
Holding back tears, I whispered, ‘Gods protect them, you’re right.’
The duke roared with laughter. ‘Really, Corbier? You? Praying to the gods? I doubt they will even notice your false prattling.’ Suddenly, Monsegino’s foot swung up as if I’d kicked it out from under him. I grabbed my rapier and, jumping to my feet, stabbed downwards, only just missing the duke’s heart before he rolled out of the way to shouts of excitement from the audience.
The stage now set, I relinquished control of my mind back to Corbier. As the courtyard filled with screaming crowds gave way to the muddy battlefield littered with blood-soaked soldiers, I realised that, no matter what followed, this would be the last time I visited Corbier’s past. . .
. . . for here was where the Red-Eyed Raven was destined to die.
Chapter 67
The Sacrifice
There was a moment, come and gone faster than the beat of a hummingbird’s wings, when the intricate machinations of this century-long plot to bring ruin to the Duchy of Pertine began to make sense to me. The complicated thrusts and parries, the bizarre demands for seemingly unrelated laws, the two rivals manipulated into a doomed and fatal duel and, most pernicious of all, the historical transformation of the daring and inquisitive Ajelaine into a demure object for them to fight over. . . Each became the movement of a game piece upon a board larger than this entire city. In another second, perhaps two, I might have found the answer to the ever-elusive question: who rules the Court of Flowers?
But time, which had been so malleable of late, now ticked inexorably down with the rhythmic thumping of the executioner’s boot heels upon the boards of the gallows as he approaches the soon-to-be-hanged man.
In the past, my jaw ached where Pierzi’s rapier hilt had struck Corbier. The two of us broke apart once again, sending the soldiers into a howling frenzy. Like the Iron Orchids in the present, they screamed for the inevitable conclusion: one man standing, the other dead.
Corbier and I had rarely agreed about much during our brief and bizarre relationship, but we both knew it had to be him.
Pierzi’s lieutenants, he said silently as he circled our opponent on the muddy ground.The smirking ones with the orchid emblems on their collars that I failed to notice in my own time. They must have learned of the boys’ eyes turning red and realised they were my offspring. It would have been a small matter to put pressure on Pierzi to prove his resolve by ending their lives.
Agreed.So Ajelaine persuaded Pierzi to go along with her plan of staging the deaths. She just needed to accelerate your conflict with Pierzi faster than the Court of Flowers had intended. Fortunately, by the time you arrived at her bedroom window, your sense of righteous outrage was already burning so hot that you were easily deceived.
But why?Corbier cried silently as he exchanged thrust and counter-thrust with Pierzi to the roars of the soldiers on either side.Why didn’t she tell me her plan? Why didn’t Pierzi tell me he was being blackmailed by his patrons?
I knew the answer, though I wasn’t sure about inflicting the truth on him.
What is it?he demanded.What are you holding back?
Ajelaine and the children’s deaths needed to be so convincing that Pierzi’s lieutenants would be worrying about your escape rather than examining the bodies. The prince needed them to go after you, which meant they had to believe you were in a mad fury. I’m afraid you’re just not that good an actor.
I caught Corbier’s silent chuckle.We must both pray that’s no longer true, then.
‘Well, you bloody-eyed raven?’ Pierzi demanded, making a fine show of stumbling and trying to regain his balance. ‘Shall we make an end of our feud once and for all?’
