The Immortal Prince Read online

  “Who?” Warlock asked curiously. “What important man?”

  “Declan Hawkes,” Goran called over his shoulder. “The King’s Spymaster his-self.”

  His announcement made, Goran headed back down the corridor, humming tunelessly, the flickering light and the smell of the corporal fading together with his shuffling footsteps, leaving Warlock alone in the blessed silence.

  So the King’s Spymaster is coming to visit the prisoners of Recidivists’ Row. Warlock sat on his pallet, scratching himself idly behind his ear, wondering what would bring someone as important as Declan Hawkes to a place like Lebec Prison.

  Then he glanced through the bars at the unconscious suzerain across the hall and thought he understood.

  Chapter 3

  The arrival of the King’s Spymaster was an occasion of note at Lebec Prison although certainly not a welcome one. Although he had no authority here in Lebec—at least not officially—he was the eyes and ears of the King of Glaeba and that made him a man to be cautious of.

  Looking down over the grim prison courtyard from the window of his office, the Warden watched his visitor dismounting in the drizzling rain. He chewed on his bottom lip as he tried to fathom the meaning of this most disturbing turn of events.

  Am I to be held personally responsible for a botched hanging?

  He had expected his report about the failed hanging to cause problems—an investigation, perhaps, maybe even a reprimand to keep the Caelish Ambassador happy—but not this.

  Not the King’s Spymaster on his very doorstep…

  Is Hawkes here to demand my resignation? Or worse?

  Sweat beaded the Warden’s brow. He’d heard rumours of men who’d never been seen again after crossing the King’s Spymaster. Just as he’d heard the other, even more disturbing rumours about this common-born son of a whore who’d been appointed spymaster five years ago—at barely twenty-five—when the previous spymaster, Daly Bridgeman, retired. Everyone thought the king had taken leave of his senses when the announcement was made. Whatever his origins, however he had managed to get himself appointed spymaster, nobody doubted Declan Hawkes’s ability to do what was required of him, ruthlessly, efficiently and without any qualms about removing anything or anybody he considered a threat to Glaeba’s sovereignty.

  The spymaster disappeared from view as he entered the building. Turning away from the rain-misted window, the Warden forced the last of his tea past the lump in his throat, put down the cup with a betraying rattle of china and glanced around his office one last time, just to make certain there was nothing there that might catch the spymaster’s eye. The Warden had no idea what might catch the eye of a man like Hawkes, but that was one of the things that made him so dangerous. You just never knew what he was really after.

  Although he was expecting it, the knock on his door—when it finally came a few minutes later—made him jump. He sat down and then abruptly stood up again, deciding to meet the man eye to eye, rather than be forced to look up at him. Even before he called permission to enter, the door began to open. The Warden had to force himself to resist the urge to mop the nervous sweat from his brow.

  “Master Hawkes! What an unexpected pleasure!”

  The spymaster eyed him curiously as he closed the door behind him. “I sent a message two days ago saying I was coming to Lebec, Warden. Didn’t you receive it?”

  Declan Hawkes proved to be even more daunting in person than his reputation suggested. He was taller than the Warden by almost a head, and his damp hair was dark, as were his eyes…eyes that seemed to take in everything with a single glance.

  “Well, yes…of course…”

  Hawkes shook off his rain-splattered oilskin cape, shaking the raindrops onto the Warden’s rug with little care for the damage he might be doing. “Then my arrival is hardly unexpected, is it?”

  The Warden didn’t know how to respond and Hawkes—curse his common-born hide—seemed happy to let the silence drag on for an uncomfortable length of time, waiting for a response.

  The Warden cracked first. “Er…won’t you have a seat, Master Hawkes?”

  “Thank you.”

  Afraid his knees might give way, the Warden sat himself down abruptly as Hawkes lowered his tall frame into the chair opposite the remarkably bare desk. The Warden had been here half the night making sure there wasn’t so much as a scrap of paper on the battered leather surface that Hawkes could catch a glimpse of.

  “I…er…I take it you’re here about the hanging?”

  “And to think, there’s a rumour getting about Herino that you’re not very bright,” Hawkes replied.

  The Warden’s eyes narrowed. He might have to put up with the King’s Spymaster, but he didn’t have to sit here and be insulted by him.

  “What do you want, Hawkes? I’m a busy man,” he demanded, dropping all pretence of cordiality.

  Hawkes’s dark eyes raked the empty desk and then he smiled. “Yes, I can see that. Why did you try to hang him?”

  “Pardon?”

  “You tried hanging this prisoner. I was under the impression beheading was the normal method of execution in Lebec.”

  “It is,” the Warden agreed. “But my executioner’s mother died a couple of weeks back. He’s gone back to Herino for her funeral and to sort out the family’s affairs. As I didn’t want to fall behind, I decided to proceed without him. Beheading is a fairly specialised skill, so we thought we’d hang the prisoners until he got back.”

  “I see.”

  “You’ll want to interview the prisoner, I suppose?” the Warden asked.

  “Eventually.”

  “Why eventually? Surely your first task is to find out how Lakesh managed such a trick?”

  “After I’ve eliminated the possibility that it wasn’t a trick.”

  The Warden smiled at the spymaster with all the condescension he could muster. “Just because you grew up in the slums with the Crasii, Master Hawkes, doesn’t mean you have to believe everything you heard down there, you know.”

  Declan Hawkes didn’t even seem to notice the Warden was insulting him. “I was referring to the possibility that one of your men was bought off by this Caelishman to botch the job, affording him a chance at a second trial.”

  “Impossible!”

  “You think he won’t get a second trial?”

  “I think no man of mine could be corrupted in such a manner.”

  “You’re probably right,” Hawkes agreed with a perfectly straight face. “I’m sure the professions of hangman and prison guard attract only the most righteous and upstanding sort of characters.”

  The Warden bristled at the spymaster’s implication. “Even if my men could be corrupted, they’d never allow themselves to be suborned by a Caelishman.”

  “You only hire patriots, too, I see.”

  This was getting too much. “I don’t have to sit here and put up with this!”

  “You’re right, Warden, you don’t,” Hawkes agreed. “So why don’t I wait here while you toddle off and find the hangman for me. I’ll interview him first. Then I’ll talk to the other guards in attendance at the hanging, the prison clerk and the guards Lakesh was dealing with on a daily basis prior to his miraculous escape from certain death.”

  “What about the prisoner? I would have thought the logical thing to do would be to speak to him first.”

  “Did you?” Hawkes let the question hang, as if he was waiting for the Warden to justify his position.

  The Warden pretended not to notice. “I can arrange for you to speak with him first.”

  “Given the injuries you claim he sustained in your report, I doubt he’s capable of speaking.”

  “He’s recovered.”

  For the first time, Hawkes actually looked surprised. “Recovered how?”

  “Other than a few fading bruises,” he replied with a shrug, “the man is completely healed. In fact, by the following morning, he was fine.”

  Hawkes leaned forward in his chair, a gesture he man
aged to make threatening without any effort at all. The Warden wished he knew how Hawkes did that. Given the calibre of the people a man in his position was forced to deal with on a daily basis, it would have been a useful trick to know.

  “You failed to mention this extraordinary recovery in your report.”

  “I didn’t think it was important.”

  Hawkes was silent for a disturbingly long time before he replied. “Perhaps I will speak to the prisoner first, after all.”

  The Warden smiled in triumph. It was a small but significant victory.

  “I’ll have you taken to him,” the Warden offered. And you can damn well interrogate him there, he added silently. If the King’s Spymaster thought he could just march in here and take over his office without so much as a by-your-leave, he had another thing coming.

  Disappointingly, Hawkes rose to his feet, as if he didn’t even notice the Warden had won this small but significant battle of wills. “I want to see him now.”

  “Of course,” the Warden agreed, ringing the small bell on his desk as he rose to his feet.

  A moment later the door opened. The guard looked at the Warden questioningly. “Sir?”

  “Escort Master Hawkes to the Row. He wants to speak to Kyle Lakesh.”

  “Thank you, Warden,” Hawkes replied, heading for the door.

  The Warden couldn’t resist one last dig. “When you’re done with him, perhaps you’d like to join me for tea?”

  Hawkes stared at him for a moment and then, inexplicably, he smiled. “For tea?”

  “It’s a civilised custom, among men of breeding,” he pointed out, with only the slightest emphasis on the word breeding.

  Hawkes bowed with a surprising amount of grace for one born so low. “Thank you, Warden, but I fear I’ll have to decline your…civilised offer. Once I’m done with this investigation I was planning to catch up with a few old friends while I’m here.”

  The Warden smiled. “Then far be it for me to keep you from your boyhood playmates, Master Hawkes. Of course, if you’d like to give me their names, I can check our register. I imagine a great many of your childhood friends finished up incarcerated in here for one crime or another.”

  Too lowborn to realise he was being insulted, Hawkes looked amused. “That might well be the case, Warden. Perhaps I should give you their names. There was one girl I was particularly close to when we were children…what was her name? Ah, that’s right. Arkady Morel. She’s married now. Did quite well for herself, they say. Perhaps you know of her?”

  His minor victory over this insufferable man suddenly tasted like ashes in his mouth. The Warden paled. “Yes, of course I know of her.”

  “Excellent! Then when I’m done here, I’ll give you the names of my other friends and you can send word if you find them. I’ll be staying at Lebec Palace. With my old friend. Arkady.”

  Hawkes let himself out of the office, leaving the rest of it unsaid.

  The Warden slumped down into his seat. Everybody in Lebec knew who Arkady Morel was. Tides, everybody in Glaeba knew it.

  Only she wasn’t Arkady Morel any longer. These days she was Lady Arkady Desean.

  The Duchess of Lebec.

  Chapter 4

  Dinner at Lebec Palace was always an occasion; the exquisite decor, the mouth-watering menu, the faultless service, the sparkling company and the manifest lies—all of it unparalleled in any other stately home in the whole of Glaeba.

  The hostess, Lady Desean, the Duchess of Lebec—Arkady to her closest friends, Doctor Desean to her colleagues at the university—presided over the dinner party with the ease and polish of long experience. With her high Glaeban cheekbones, rich dark hair and rare, sapphire-blue eyes, she was the jewel in Lebec’s crown, her husband’s prize trophy. It was an act, albeit a very good one. The Ice Duchess they called her. Arkady knew that, and didn’t care. She was very good at ignoring snide remarks and envious glances.

  High society in Glaeba was no place for the faint-hearted.

  The twenty diners who had gathered here in the long, high-ceilinged dining room this evening were Stellan’s friends, not hers, if “friends” was even the right word. Acquaintances, some of them; business and diplomatic associates, a few more. Others were here because they sought the Duke of Lebec’s favour. One or two, like Etienne Sorell, the poet sitting at the centre of the long table—charming the rings off old Lady Fardinger—was here because he could be relied on to provide the riveting conversation for which the Duke of Lebec’s dinner parties were so famous.

  A few places to Etienne’s right sat another regular guest: Lady Tilly Ponting, self-appointed clairvoyant to the rich and famous of Lebec. Larger than life, the Widow Ponting had a taste for bright, outrageous colours and was always good for a laugh. Rich enough to be considered eccentric rather than crazy, she was the sort of person who could fill an awkward silence with something inane and harmless. It made her priceless at a gathering such as this. She’d dyed her hair purple since they’d seen her last, too, and she’d offered to read everyone’s Tarot after dessert, which should keep the political discussions to a minimum—a brilliant idea given the volatility of Glaeban politics lately.

  Other guests, like the man sitting on Stellan’s right—flirting across the table with her husband’s niece, Kylia Debrell—were here for their own reasons and far more dangerous than Tilly. Arkady eyed him thoughtfully, while nodding absently in agreement with the woman on her right who was expounding loudly about the dire increase in the number of feral Crasii these days and how someone should do something about them. She sipped her wine and studied the young man through the forest of crystal and silverware separating the head from the foot of the table. Her husband’s dinner companion must have felt her gaze on him. He glanced up, raised his glass mockingly in her direction, and then returned his attention to Lady Debrell.

  Arkady frowned. Jaxyn Aranville. Lebec’s Kennel Master. Distant cousin to the Earl of Darra. Scoundrel. Gambler. Troublemaker. Darkly handsome and arrogantly aware of the fact. And Stellan’s lover, which made it impossible to be rid of him.

  It couldn’t last, Arkady knew. They never did. In that, she genuinely felt sorry for her husband. He was a gentle, forgiving man, but he was never going to be content because the one thing he wanted, he could never have.

  But he kept looking. In all the wrong people, to Arkady’s mind.

  Jaxyn was toying with him, Arkady suspected. Young Lord Aranville’s most recent lover before Stellan, if one believed the gossips, was a woman more than ten years his senior. If the looks he was giving Kylia Debrell were anything to go by, his next after Stellan Desean might well be a seventeen-year-old virgin. Not that her husband’s niece was objecting to his attention, Arkady noted darkly. Perhaps it had been a mistake to seat them so close, although she’d had little option in the matter given Kylia was Stellan’s heir, which meant protocol demanded she be seated at her uncle’s right hand. This dinner was supposedly in Kylia’s honour. The unexpected arrival of Stellan’s niece several days ago called for nothing less than a full state dinner to introduce her to society. Still, Arkady had thought a frivolous girl would offer no attraction to a man like Jaxyn Aranville.

  Then again, perhaps he’d guessed Arkady’s intentions and was flirting with the girl for exactly that reason.

  Jaxyn Aranville did things like that. It was how he amused himself.

  “Don’t you agree, your grace?”

  Arkady felt, rather than heard, distant thunder rumbling in the background—the remnant of another spring thunderstorm—as she returned her attention to the man on her left. He was a balding man in his late fifties, one of the few people around this table Arkady considered her friend rather than Stellan’s. An academic like herself, he was also working to uncover the lost history of Amyrantha, a thankless task that saw them scorned, as often as not, for their efforts. People didn’t want to know what lay in the past. Only what the future held.

  It’s what made Tilly Ponting and her wretche
d Tarot cards so damned popular at parties.

  “Forgive me, Andre. I’m afraid I was miles away.”

  “Doctor Fawk was just telling us we should pity the un-indentured Crasii,” Lady Jimison informed her through a mouthful of truffles, sounding quite scandalised by the notion. “I mean, have you been through the slums lately? The city outskirts are fairly crawling with the miserable, fleabitten creatures. They live like animals, copulate anywhere they please, treat the streets like a public toilet. They’re disgusting. I say they should all be rounded up and put down.”

  “A little drastic, don’t you think?” Arkady asked, trying to imagine Lady Jimison ever sullying her dainty satin slippers in the muddy streets of the Lebec City slums. “The Crasii living in our city slums—and every other city in Glaeba—are desperately poor, have no income, no accommodation or any of the other basic living requirements that indentured Crasii enjoy as a matter of course. They have almost no prospects for employment, and consequently, precious little hope. I know these people, my lady. They deserve our pity, not our enmity.”

  Lady Jimison frowned, but whether at her hostess’s radical suggestion, or the unsubtle reminder of her common-born background, Arkady couldn’t really be sure. She took a perverse pleasure in reminding snobs like Lady Jimison that her duchess had started life in those slums she so despised. And it certainly wasn’t fashionable to pity the Crasii. Hadn’t been fashionable for quite some time. Not since Harlie Palmerston published his Theory of Human Advancement about ten years ago, theorising that the Crasii were a failed offshoot of humanity and living proof of his conjecture that the human race had reached the top of the food chain because of its superior intelligence.

  Given the only other explanation about the existence of the Crasii until that point had been the quaint notion that the mythical Tide Lords had blended human and beast magically, to create a slave race to serve them, Palmerston’s theory had been welcomed with open arms by the scientific community of Glaeba. If the Ambassador of Caelum—who sat between Kylia and Etienne—was to be believed, the theory was well on its way to becoming accepted globally as the first logical and unified theory of human evolution. Of course, the science behind the theory meant little to the Lady Jimisons of this world. Bigots like her were just looking for an excuse to hate the Crasii.