Chapter Four Vina
Chapter Four
Vina
What is a knight? On the Isle, we sing tales of chivalry and honor, love and duty.
But I think folk don’t talk enough about violence.
A knight’s an instrument of the State, and that instrument is used to enforce the status quo with violence.
If they were just signs of purity, of goodness, they wouldn’t need the big bloody swords, would they?
Source: Arguments for Republic, Pamphlet acquired at King’s Coffee House
Archivist’s Ruling: For retention as evidence of treason. Review in 5 years. Further investigation required.
The Palace of Westminster, like all of London, never truly slept. But it was late enough or early enough that there were only a handful of cleaners mopping the checkerboard floors. The candelabras and gas lamps were both dimmed, leaving the corridors shadow-stained.
Vina was still in her armor, and she clattered noisily through the halls, past the vine-wrought door of the House of Lords and the grand meeting hall of the House of Commons.
Since there was no point in trying for stealth, she whistled tunelessly as she walked.
Maybe making noise would cover her own nerves.
Her father’s office stood alone at the end of a corridor lined with paintings of important, bewigged men. She rapped smartly on the door, then without further ceremony, shoved it open.
“Vinny,” her father said. He pushed his glasses up his nose, blinking at her in surprise and dismay. “It’s the middle of the bloody night, what are you doing here?”
Her father’s office was oppressive, windowless and paneled in dark mahogany.
Her father was seated in his wingback armchair, official documents in small type arranged in a pile in front of him.
He grabbed a folder as she approached and unsubtly perched it on top of the mound of papers, concealing the writing from her.
“You sleep here whenever there’s a crisis,” Vina said, slouching back in the armchair opposite her father.
It was uncomfortable, more wood and springs than upholstery, and she knew he’d designed it that way intentionally so his political guests wouldn’t linger.
But Vina was nothing if not stubborn, and she contorted herself with all the deranged limberness of a cat, kicking one leg over the armrest and draping her elbow over the curved chair back.
“Give me the gossip. Has the Queen slept with another handsome courtier and upset the balance of power again?”
“You came to my office,” her father said slowly, “to ask for gossip.”
“So no one knows about her new love, then,” murmured Vina, just to rile him. “Interesting.”
“Lavinia,” her father said, through obviously gritted teeth.
“I’ve just finished a quest, Father,” she said. “But I heard some strange things, out at the Tower—do you know tales have been dying?”
He thinned his lips at her, which she took as a yes.
“Why are tales dying?” Vina asked.
“We don’t know,” he said, voice clipped. “What were you doing on a quest? You were expressly ordered to remain on State grounds.”
“Was I? I thought it was more guidance, you know. A suggestion.” She paused, relishing the twitch of his jaw.
Then said, “I was given a message for you. An archivist told me—tell Minister Morgan to look for the body of a fae woman, or the knight from the Merciless Maiden. They’ll have a circle carved on their brow. So here I am. Telling you.”
He exhaled; a slow, long noise.
“Poor lad,” he said finally. Another pause. “The archivists shouldn’t have spoken to you.”
Poor lad. It was Soren who’d died, then. The weight of that knowledge settled heavily in her chest.
Her father hadn’t expected Soren’s death, but he certainly wasn’t surprised by it.
“Is someone killing incarnates?”
“You should never have met the archivists,” said her father. “That isn’t work for your kind.”
“It’s knightly work.”
“It’s not incarnate work, and you’re only a knight by dint of your nature,” said her father. “You shouldn’t have known about this. You should have stayed where you were told to.”
“Shouldn’t I know if I’m in danger?” Vina asked. “If someone is murdering incarnates, then I am in danger, Father.”
He said nothing.
Of course he knew she was in danger. Silly of her to point it out, really.
It was clearly why she’d been ordered, in a terse missive left in her room in the royal barracks, to remain on State property: the Palace grounds, or governmental offices, or other boring buildings she had no interest in staying in.
Vina was used to being given instructions that made no real sense. What was logical about being bid to seek out questing beasts, or play riddles with elves, or save strange women from towers? Still, she should have questioned this order. Its very prosaicness should have raised her suspicions.
“You could have warned me,” she said quietly. “Perhaps then I’d have seen the point in staying cooped up.”
“There was no reason to worry you. Besides, the fewer who know, the better.” He drummed his fingers anxiously against his desk. “Soren was… It doesn’t matter. You’re in no danger if you stay in the royal barracks. I promise. Relax, Vinny.”
“Will Soren have a funeral? No, don’t tell me—I know he won’t.”
The death of an incarnate before their story was enacted was more than a scandal. It was a catastrophe. Parliament wouldn’t allow the truth to get out if they could avoid it. He’d have a secret funeral. Maybe even his parents wouldn’t be told.
“This killer,” said Vina, leaning forward in a way that made the chair groan alarmingly. “Are they being hunted? Who have you sent after them? Forgive me for saying so, but this sounds quite worrying, Father.”
“Quite worrying,” he repeated. “Perhaps. But you have nothing to worry about, Vinny. We have smart folk here who’ll sort this before you know it.”
Not soon enough to save Soren, thought Vina.
“What about the witch?” Vina asked.
“The witch?”
“My witch,” she clarified. “The witch to my knight. If this killer murders her, well.” A shrug. “There won’t be much point to me at all.”
“Don’t worry about the witch,” he said. “Trust me, and trust your government, Vinny. Leave this be now, there’s a girl.”
Vina huffed, closing her eyes and tipping her head back. Behind her eyes she saw flashes of the witch’s face. A dark, furious eye. Hair like a raven’s wing.
Parliament, the Lords, the Queen and Court, the Royal Archivists—she wouldn’t trust any of them to catch that woman, or save her.
They were already keeping secrets from one another.
If the right hand wasn’t talking to the left, there was no chance they’d be able to get two hands around an assassin’s throat.
“You look as tired as I feel,” her father said into the silence. “Forget about this. Go back to the barracks. Do whatever it is you like to do—have a drink with the boys. Raise a glass to Soren if you like; he was a good lad and he deserves to be remembered.”
“A drink sounds wonderful,” Vina said, opening her eyes and smiling. Then she uncoiled from the chair, cracking her neck. Her father winced. “I suppose it’s safe to visit you here, at least,” she said. “I’ll be back at some point to bother you, I’m sure.”
“As much as I appreciate your visits, I’m a very busy man, Vinny. It would ease my burden to know you’re safe and where you should be.” He cleared his throat. Adjusted his papers. “I’ll see you in a month anyway, of course. Laura’s birthday.”
“Of course,” Vina said agreeably. She wasn’t disappointed or hurt. What good would that do? “Try and get some rest, Father,” she said, and went out the door.
Maybe there was a time once when Vina and her father had been close, but Vina couldn’t remember it.
She and her father orbited each other like celestial bodies; he in the Palace of Westminster, and she in the barracks of the royal Palace, where the Queen’s chosen knights resided under the auspices of the royal Spymaster.
If she’d wanted to, Vina could have come here every day: walked the corridors with her father, and shared a meal with him in the private restaurant the ministers so loved, bonding over port and steak, or whatever those ministers liked to quaff.
But she didn’t go to him, and he didn’t ask for her. That was pretty reasonable, to Vina’s mind. It was hard to love an incarnate child destined to die, and hard to be worthy of love when you were destined to be the kind of scum that murdered the one you loved.
She swept out of the Palace of Westminster, under the cloak of night, and headed to the royal barracks.
A crisp white letter awaited her in her room, sealed with wax. More orders? A blistering written lecture for her waywardness? She broke the seal with her belt knife and opened it.
Her Majesty summons you.
Vina bit back a sigh. Before her eyes, the ink began to slide out of shape, seeping into rivulets.
She crumpled up the paper before the words had fully perished and tossed it onto her desk.
Her room in the royal barracks was an untidy jumble of papers and books, armor polish, oiling cloths, half-full bottles of liquor and half-drunk cups of tea.
One more addition to the mess wouldn’t be noticed.
She left her room and went toward the Palace proper.
Black as the night was, the Palace was blazing with light.
The Palace and its grounds were a maze. So many stories had shaped it that it was prone to fracturing into new shapes with every turn of the moon.
The only reliable way to navigate the grounds was to follow the light of the chandeliers and torches at every window.
Vina walked through the tessellated rose gardens and the avenues of topiary, eyes on the lights, grass and gravel noisy under her feet.
When the trees shifted, and the rose garden began to twist into new shapes, Vina mindfully avoided stomping through the sudden blockade of a flowerbed and worked her way around the garden’s edge.