where they live like foxes.’ He sighed. ‘I am surprised she spoke even to you, cat-servant. She must have considered you instrumental.’
‘I think she did. She wanted Razi to learn about the Bloody Machine. I think she thought the discovery would undo the King.’
Coriolanus huffed sleepily. ‘She was wrong. It is the machines’ suppression that has undone him.’ His eyes were growing heavy. ‘You have grown very like your father,’ he murmured. ‘With your fur and eyes, you would both have made handsome cats, had you not been unlucky enough to have been born otherwise.’
‘My father is dead, Cori.’
The cat shrugged, drifting now back into sleep. ‘It will happen to us all,’ he sighed.
‘Cori?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Why is the King suppressing the machines?’
‘Oh, human reasons, for human things . . . how is a sensible cat to understand?’
Alberon came and sat quietly on the cot. Wynter continued to stroke the sleeping cat and would not look up.
‘You must think me unbearably hard,’ said Alberon.
She did not reply.
Alberon reached and touched Cori’s head, just once, then withdrew his hand. ‘Thank you for the letters, Wyn. They meant so much to me all these years.’
She glanced up at him in surprise. ‘You received them? You . . . you never replied.’
He chuckled grimly. ‘What had I to write of? Blood and death and betrayal? The imminent destruction of Father’s wonderful dream? You know I have no art with words, Wyn. I would not have been able to lie, and what would the truth have done for you? Your letters were always so happy, filled with such happy things. I couldn’t bear to hurt that. I couldn’t bear to let you know just how bad everything was.’
Happy? Was Alberon serious? Wynter had poured her heart and soul into those letters. All those miserable years, how could Alberon have ever thought she was happy?
‘What . . . what did I write of that was so happy?’
Alberon smiled, a genuine smile this time. ‘Oh you know – all your adventures! Your father’s wonderful inventions. The way he smooth-talked all those vile Northlander toadies. Everything. I especially liked when you wrote down your memories of home. I used to love when the messengers came from the North. Those little pages of sunshine arriving in the middle . . . in the middle of what we had become. I would read them and think, This is what we’re struggling for. This is why we must prevail. You have kept me going, Wyn. I read something of yours every day. Look!’ He reached past her, shifted Marguerite’s papers aside, lifted something. ‘See?’ He handed it to her.
Wynter unfolded it with an unsteady hand. The parchment was creased and tattered, the stain from the wax seal still visible at the edge. It was one of her shorter notes, and she remembered clearly the day she had written it. It had been a particularly hard day – the end of a long week of mass trials in the Shirkens’ castle. They had burned the convicted in batches of ten. Wynter remembered writing this letter with shaking hands, her ears filled with screaming, her window filled with smoke. Until now, she had recalled only that awfulness; the actual contents of the letter had not been part of her memory. Her writing shocked her; how legible and steady it was.
My Dearest Brother,
How much I miss you! I was thinking today of the time we stole the cakes from the Moroccan ambassador’s birthday feast. Do you recall? We were dressed up stiff as coffin mummies in our brocades; still you managed to pilfer seven jam tarts and an entire cinnamon cake. The stains they left on your pockets! You said cake always tasted better eaten beneath the table, and so we sat surrounded by legs, stuffing our little faces while a discreet panic consumed the staff! Razi (of course) was the one to find us. I recall his brief grin as he peered beneath the cloth, then his voice – it was pure Razi – ‘Father, I am certain they are not here. I have searched every inch and there’s naught below but Mama’s little dog.’ Oh! I am laughing aloud now.
Tell me you recollect this!
Alberon’s quiet voice brought her back to the tent and he took the letter, folding it and putting it away again. ‘I have kept them all, you know. I have most of them back at the palace, in my trunk. Safe in my room.’