Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina(122)

“She fell from the sky like a comet,” said Maurizio, grinning roguishly. “Is Sir Cuthberte decent? In body, I mean. His mind is always in doubt.”

“These walls are quite thin, you know,” called a grumpy voice, only slightly muffled by the canvas. “And of course I am. I was up before all you laggards.”

“Good morning, Prince Lucian,” I said, my voice husky with exhaustion and disuse. “I need to speak with the Queen at once, and then I should like to sleep. I’ve been nocturnal for the past week; I’m up past my bedtime.”

The smiles around me had all evaporated; Kiggs and Maurizio exchanged a glance I couldn’t interpret. I was suddenly struck by the strangeness of Kiggs camping out with the knights. “What is it?” I said quietly. “What’s happened?”

Kiggs’s mouth puckered as if he tasted bitter bile. “I can’t take you to the Queen. She’s forbidden me to set foot in the city.”

“What?” I said. “I don’t understand.”

Kiggs shook his head, too angry to speak. Maurizio stepped in. “We arrived two weeks ago; Jannoula arrived three days before we did.”

I inhaled sharply, my heart sinking like a stone. “Saints’ dogs!”

“The guards at the gates had orders to seize her on sight, but she persuaded them not to, or so I’m told,” said Sir Maurizio. “Lars of Apsig, who was overseeing construction on the city walls, supposedly smuggled Jannoula into the palace.”

“She’s wormed her way into my home,” said Kiggs, worry written plainly in his eyes, “and has clearly influenced Selda—”

“We don’t know that yet,” said Maurizio.

“The worst of it,” said a portly old man with a drooping white mustache, opening the tent flap behind Kiggs, “is that Jannoula’s proclaimed herself a Saint, and instead of sensibly throwing her out on her ear, the city can’t seem to get enough of her.”

I met Sir Cuthberte’s sad gaze; he held the tent flap wider. “Come in, all of you. Seraphina hasn’t told her news yet. I suspect we’ll want to be sitting down.”





Sir Cuthberte Pettybone hobbled into the dim command tent and sat gingerly on a three-legged folding stool. Sir Maurizio motioned us toward places on the floor beside a large map covered in little figurines. The morning sun shone through tiny holes in the canvas ceiling.

“You’ll forgive an old man taking the only chair, Prince, Seraphina,” said Sir Cuthberte, rubbing his knees as if they ached. Besides his long white mustache, what hair he still possessed stuck out behind each ear like a pale, tufty bird’s nest. “It’s hardly courteous, but I am not as spry as I once was.”

“Liar,” said Sir Maurizio. “We know you’re saving it up for the dragons, going to kill them with courtesy.” Sir Cuthberte cough-laughed.

My eyes adjusted, and I noticed that the markers on the map weren’t figurines as such, but stones, clumps of sod, and a handful of broad beans. The map was a charcoal sketch on a blanket.

“The Old Ard are rocks. Our side—Goreddi and Loyalist, and the Ninysh, if they ever get here—are clods, which I thought apropos,” explained Maurizio, noticing where I gazed. “The beans are the Samsamese. Our scouts report that they’re coming from the south-southwest, and that they’re delicious in stew.”

Sir Cuthberte struggled with a smile under his mustache. “Forgive our squire, Seraphina. You recall what a dedicated nuisance he is.”

“That’s Sir Dedicated Nuisance now,” said Maurizio, sniffing in mock offense.

“The Samsamese look close,” I said. “How long until they get here?”

“They could be here in a week,” said Maurizio.

“And how long until the Loyalists feint south?” I asked. The map, for all that it was cartoonish and covered in clods, made this looming campaign feel suddenly real.

“General Zira’s current estimate, based on Comonot’s progress reports, is three weeks,” said Sir Maurizio. “He’s just taken Lab Six, if that means anything to anyone, and he wants to connect with more Loyalist enclaves before he enters the capital.”

I gaped at Maurizio. “So we could be fighting the Samsamese before the Old Ard even get here?”

“Could be,” he said. “We’re not entirely sure what the Regent thinks he’s doing.”

“When the Samsamese took Fort Oversea,” said Sir Cuthberte grimly, “I said to myself that Josef must be itching to fight dragons. I didn’t see how he was going to persuade the Ninysh and Goreddi dracomachists to cooperate with him.” From inside his tabard he untucked a silver chain holding a pendant in the shape of a dragon’s head. “You remember Sir Karal, my comradein-arms?”

“Of course,” I said. Karal had been imprisoned with Cuthberte when I’d interviewed them about a rogue dragon. He’d been much surlier than Cuthberte.

“You recall what a skeptical old nut he was. He never would have agreed to Samsamese treachery.” Cuthberte waved the dragon-head thnik. “I can speak to him with this. For a few days after our escape, he was plotting and scheming, looking for a way to free the lot of them from Samsamese tyranny. Then something happened.”

I had a terrible feeling I knew what it was.