and he exuded charm and grace and, somehow, rightness.
“Some men deserve equality,” King Licio drawled as his guards outside bestowed a certain form of equality on the men who’d jumped Petri. “And some don’t, don’t you think?” He opened a small compartment in the carriage; inside tinkled crystal glasses and a fine decanter of brandy. He sloshed a generous measure into a glass and handed it to Petri.
“Petri Egimont, isn’t it? Duke of Elona, or that’s who you were born to be. I often wondered why you threw that away to join Bakar. Why would anyone do that?”
Petri didn’t answer for the moment – couldn’t, and not just because his mouth was swollen. He took a swig of the brandy, found it to be better than any he’d had, ever, and took another gulp to steady his hands.
Licio looked at him, and Petri couldn’t help but notice the difference between him and Bakar, remembering not for the first time how Bakar’s eyes had begun to jump around the room when no one was there, how his hands shook and he often couldn’t quite get a grip on his words. How when he did speak the words would sometimes come out garbled nonsense before he gathered himself.
“There are some who don’t deserve equality,” Licio said, his voice low and soothing. “You know it, I know you do. And what equality does Bakar espouse just lately? My guards will take those men to the Shrive, and maybe Bakar will set them free in the morning on a whim because the crime wasn’t great, because they are just poor men, and even poor men deserve something. But what about you? Don’t you deserve justice for what they did to you? Don’t you deserve the equality in justice he reserves for others? Bakar keeps some men and women in the Shrive for years, murderers and the like, and yes, that is what they deserve. But take a trip down to the lower levels. Find the men and women there just because they didn’t agree with Bakar, because they refuse to believe in his Clockwork God. Is that equality? Or even justice?”
The carriage jerked into motion.
“What do you want?” Petri asked, because it seemed clear to him that the king wanted something, though what help a lowly clerk like him could give he had no idea.
Licio leaned back as though suddenly relieved and took a sip of brandy. “Oh, the same things as you, Petri, the same things as you, even if you don’t know it yet. Our fathers were terrible men, that’s true, but that doesn’t make us terrible men, does it? Not as terrible as who replaced our fathers, the greedy little clockers without any propriety, any honour to fall back on. No sense of history, of building things to live on after them. All out for themselves, for here and now and never mind the future.”
Petri’s head was swimming. He couldn’t be sure if it was the knock on the head, the brandy on top of the wine or whether what Licio was saying was stirring something inside. Things were wrong, he knew that; he’d known for a while even if he’d not admitted it to himself. But what Licio was hinting at… He felt excited and sick with guilt at the same time.
“Just a little thing to start,” Licio said into these thoughts. “That’s all I want. Just a little look into what has gone so badly wrong. Now, what do you know about that little tit Vocho?”
Chapter Twenty-two
It took every scrap of courage Kacha had to go into the water that surged dark and cold under the Shrive. She put it off as long as she could, dragging out the papers that were her only proof, the only hint even that something was wrong. The guards had taken her weapons but left almost everything else, including a pouch of oiled leather she used for keeping tinder dry when they travelled or at the farm. That gave her a pang. Always her and Vocho. Always, no matter where they went, what they did. He might be as unreliable as the wind, but he always had her back in a fight. All she could rely on, even when she couldn’t.
She’d light the fire and see to the horses as he made up stupid stories to get her laughing while he skinned a rabbit or mended a harness. He was always there, and she’d hated that pretty much her whole life until now,