‘The man was found with a bow, Lord Redwing. In Brithys. His local lord –’ he flings his arm out to point at the orange-haired man crouching in the gallery – ‘seemed inclined to leniency. I am therefore in attendance to ensure that justice is done.’
‘Siegfried.’ I walk towards him and the guards back away from me. ‘They’re just children. I know what the Decree says, but this is barbarous.’
He shakes his head. ‘The Decrees are what they are, Aderyn. And the flightless must know their place.’
Patrus nods in agreement.
I’m silenced. I don’t know exactly what I expected – that he would agree with me? That he would order a retrial? – but it wasn’t this.
Siegfried sighs. ‘Come, don’t look at me like that. I cannot undermine the operation of local justice, especially in the borderlands. People must know that the Decrees will be upheld, or we risk a descent into chaos.’
The smallest child moans, a wordless, terrified plea.
‘Please, my lord. At the very least, spare the wife and children. They are innocent. Their death serves no purpose.’ I step closer to him, gazing up into his face. ‘Siegfried, don’t make me beg.’
A pause. Then Siegfried entwines his fingers with mine. ‘Very well.’
‘Lord Redwing, I must protest –’ Patrus begins.
‘You really mustn’t, Your Grace. Not if you want to be welcome at court when I am king.’
Patrus, for once, is speechless.
Siegfried looks back at me. ‘I’ll spare the woman and children for your sake, Aderyn. I make you a gift of their lives.’ He turns to the guards. ‘Cut them free and get them out of here. Then dispatch the man.’
The guards hurry to carry out his commands. Within seconds the woman and her children are freed. She tries to go to her husband, but the guards drag her away, carrying the children after her. I can still hear her screaming his name when another guard thrusts a torch into the kindling piled up around the man’s legs, setting it alight.
Siegfried puts an arm around my shoulders. ‘We should leave. I would not have you witness this.’
I cover my ears and lean against him as we walk away. But it’s not enough to block out the woman’s howls of despair, or the dying man’s shrieks of pain.
Nine
We don’t stop until we are back at the lake outside the town. Siegfried has dismissed the guards who were trying to escort us. He hands me another vial of the potion and I drain it quickly, desperate to forget, at least for a little while, what I have just witnessed. Together we transform, and I follow Siegfried to the manor house he mentioned, down by the coast. It’s not a long journey; we’re soon at the landing platform, where a servant is waiting to hand us fresh robes. The building is of honey-coloured stone with large mullioned windows, a central tower and two wings stretching forward to enclose formal gardens. On the far side of the house the land falls away towards a beach of soft pink sand, and the sea beyond. Alone, we walk down to the entrance hall.
‘It’s a pleasant evening,’ Siegfried begins. ‘I’ll have supper served on the roof terrace, I think. We have some fine vineyards here which –’
‘How can you be thinking of food?’
He smiles. ‘Because it’s suppertime, Aderyn.’
‘But that poor man …’
‘He was a criminal.’
‘He was probably just trying to feed his family. And no one should die like that. My parents would never have allowed it to happen.’
A flicker of exasperation crosses Siegfried’s face, but he smiles again, and I wonder whether anything ever truly disturbs his self-control. ‘You may not remember your parents’ exact views on such matters. Are you so certain that nothing like that happens in Atratys? Have you visited every local landowner in your dominion and informed them how you wish the Decrees to be implemented?’
Of course I have not. I stay silent, but my stomach growls. My companion chuckles and tugs on a bell rope.
‘You’ll feel better after you’ve eaten. And tomorrow we must leave early and fly fast, so I recommend you take my advice and come to supper.’
I want to keep arguing with him, to slap him for his patronising self-assurance. But I am a guest in his house. So I clench my fingers into my fists and wait.
A gloved, solemn-faced serving woman enters the hall and curtsies to me.
‘This is Gytha,’ Siegfried tells me, before turning to the servant. ‘Show Her Grace to the East Room, make sure she has everything she needs, then bring her to the top of the tower when our food is ready.’
Gytha nods and leads me along candlelit corridors and down a flight of stairs. The East Room is pretty; the walls are covered with blue-sprigged wallpaper, and there’s a fire already burning in the tiled hearth. I sit on the window seat, hugging my knees, and look out to the horizon, where the sea and the sky are melting together into twilight. Gytha, still silent, lays out a change of clothing on the bed and fills a basin with hot, scented water. I wash, brush my hair and dress; the red gown is slightly off the shoulder and made of some soft, light fabric that clings. I wonder who in Siegfried’s family it once belonged to. I comb out my hair, then pick a book from the selection available and read until Gytha comes to get me.
She leads me up almost to the top of the central tower before indicating with a nod that I should climb the last flight of stairs alone. I emerge onto a crenellated roof terrace. There’s a table – already set with oil lamps and dishes of food – and silk-cushion-covered benches in place of chairs. It’s dark now, but the air is still balmy, reminding me how much further south we are here than in the Silver Citadel.
Siegfried is standing at one of the breaks in the wall. He goes to the table as I approach, pours some pale amber liquid into a silver goblet and hands it to me. ‘It’s a type of sparkling cordial that they make on the estate here. I think you’ll find it refreshing.’
I take a sip; citrus-sharp bubbles burst across my tongue. ‘Delicious. Thank you.’
He pulls out a bench for me to sit down and begins placing food on a plate. ‘I’ve dispensed with the servants this evening. These are all local specialities – I doubt you’ll have seen them before, so I’ll choose a selection for you, if you have no objection?’
Since he’s already setting the plate before me, his question seems somewhat irrelevant. I wait until he has served himself and has sat down before asking, ‘What did the alderman say? Did he have any information?’
‘Yes. Though he was not particularly willing to divulge it. Hedged it around with all sorts of qualifications: someone might have seen something, someone else might know a location and of course it’s been so many years since the last definitive contact … He left me wondering whether silence is being extorted from the local flightless population and perhaps bought from the local lord. I will have to send some of my people from L’Ammergeia to look into it.’
‘So there are survivors from the Raptor Wars?’
‘It seems as if that book you found is more reliable than I’d assumed.’
‘Shouldn’t we go after them?’ I try to push the heavy bench away from the table. ‘If they find out that we’re looking for them –’