Igniting Darkness (Courting Darkness Duology #2) - Robin LaFevers Page 0,73

had seen the cathedral only once before, and it seemed even more impressive now with its tall spires reaching toward the heavens for what seemed like miles.

“We going to stand here like rocks in a stream?” Tassin barely spared the cathedral a glance.

“Never realized how much I hated crowds,” Jaspar muttered.

“I prefer the mud,” Andry said. “It smelled better.”

People lined both sides of the street, sitting in the gutters and hanging from windows and ledges. A wooden platform had been built near the cathedral—a stage of sorts, with a tall mechanical contrivance nearby. “We can sit at the base of that tower and see the entire square.” Even better, the legs would offer some cover if Maraud needed to hide his face.

Nearly two hours later, a roar started up on the bridge. Maraud hopped up and climbed a few feet on the wooden tower. The banners on the bridge were unfurling, and voices cheered. His heart beat faster. The carefully banked ember that lurked deep in his belly flared to life, and his jaw tightened with anticipation.

“They’re coming,” he called down to the others.

Valine shielded her eyes and looked up at him. “Aren’t you worried Cassel will spot you?”

“He’s too arrogant to pay attention to the crowd. And if he does, I have this.” He thumped the wooden beam he was clinging to.

Valine nudged his boot with her elbow and pointed to his right. “He might not bother with the crowd, but will he stop to watch the play?”

Maraud looked to the right of the platform, where costumed players scrambled in a flurry of last-minute preparations. He half expected to see Rollo or Jacquette grinning at him, but these men were town fathers and guild members rather than mummers. “We won’t be onstage.”

The crowd around the cathedral erupted in a deafening cheer. The procession had arrived. Serving as the queen’s honor guard, officers of the city and members of parliament rode their mounts as if they were royalty and not she, but the crowd’s noise was so loud he couldn’t even hear their horses’ hooves on the cobbles. Across the square, an older woman collapsed dramatically into the arms of her friends.

Maraud cocked an eyebrow at Valine and leaned in close so she could hear. “You going to faint when you see her?”

She shoved her elbow into his ribs so hard that he grunted. By the time he was upright again, the queen’s litter had rounded the corner. Maraud studied her escort, searching out the big ones with a military bearing.

Maraud saw General Cassel the moment he emerged in the square, as if his need for justice was so great that it could sniff the man out like a hound.

Jaspar nudged his shoulder. Maraud nodded without taking his eyes from the general. He hadn’t changed. Still the same ugly, arrogant bastard. Still surveying the world around him as if he were a wolf trying to decide which sheep to eat next. No, not a wolf. They killed only out of need. Cassel was more like one of the big hunting cats that chose quarry just to maim and torture for their own amusement.

The memory of the general’s face, his arm as it swung toward Ives flashed brightly. Found you, you great big hairy bastard. I’m coming for you.

The tower he was leaning against began to rumble—so close and deep that he felt it in his gut—as great gears and chains began to move within it. He leapt back, head tilted upward. A man dressed as Peace began descending from the sky—as if from heaven itself. On the stage below waited a man dressed as War. The crowd watched in awed silence. Once low enough that he could leap from the contrivance onto the stage, Peace seized War by the throat and drove a sword through his heart, killing him on the spot.

The crowd roared its approval, and the queen smiled prettily. Maraud was the only one not smiling. He was too busy planning the moment when he could do the same to Cassel.

As the actors playing France and Brittany embraced, trumpets blared and the crowd in the square erupted into renewed cheers. Even the queen—his queen—clapped her hands in delight.

When the cheering finally subsided, she waved once more, then the procession moved across the square to the palace. The crowd surged forward, nearly cutting her off from her own attendants, who followed along behind her. Close to twenty ladies in waiting rode behind the queen’s litter, their brightly colored gowns