Novel 2. Royal Justice

— The openings could have been higher in such a luxurious house, — the black-skinned giant complained as he closed the door behind him. His gaze slid to the deadbolt paw, but Gotech wasn't interested in it.

— What's the matter? — Armando asked the black giant.

— Nothing bad, don't worry, — the giant smirked, taking off his cloak. — On the contrary. Just met some useful people... from across the border. You told me to let you know as soon as I found out something. So I did.

He looked over de Gorazzo's shoulder and bowed low, waving his right hand gallantly:

— Donna Vittoria! Pardon my intrusion.

— Good night, Don. It's nothing, don't apologize, — the owner of the house said calmly, descending the stairs at a leisurely pace. Luca waddled beside her. Donna was dressed in a blue-gold silk robe, tightly tied at the waist with a scarlet sash, but she did not braid her hair, and her straight red hair was scattered over her shoulders in disorder. Together with the round glasses on her nose, it gave her a special, cozy charm. — I suppose you're here to see Armando?

— Yes, Donna, but I'm happy to see you, too. — Gotech straightened up. — Besides, you are aware of the business I wish to discuss, and you can help me with advice.

— Then come to the refectory. We can talk there. — The necromancer gestured for Luka to take the cloak from the guest.

Although the red-haired donna lived alone in the mansion, her dining room was adorned with a large oval mahogany table that could seat a dozen people. As soon as she stepped over the threshold, the girl shrugged her shoulders, and golden magical stones glowed softly in the wall lamps. The necromancer took a soft chair at the head of the table and invited the men to sit closer. Gotech plopped down in the chair, which creaked under his weight, and placed his traveling bag on the floor. He said to the hostess:

— I found out something about the ghost Armando saw three months ago, in the cellars of the Hall of Executors.

— That...the girl in blue? — Donna Vittoria recalled, frowning.

— Yes. In a blue suit and silver armor. — The big man turned to de Gorazzo. — 'You were right when you thought her clothes were a military uniform. But we were all wrong when we looked for similar uniforms from the guards and palace guardians of the past. This uniform is modern. Just not Daert's. The girl you saw died a short time ago. And a long way from here.

— Did you recognize her? — Armando leaned forward, resting his elbows on the edge of the table.

— Yeah. Been talking to travelers and... merchants coming from other countries for the last month. — Gotech didn't say the word "smugglers" out loud in front of the court necromancer, but it was clear enough which merchants could make appointments after midnight. — Some of them had put me on the trail. And today, I got confirmation. Take a look.

He hooked his bag with the hook that replaced his left hand, flipped open the flap, pulled out an object that looked like a tea saucer, and placed it on the table. On closer inspection, the saucer turned out to be a portrait in a round wooden frame. Armando pulled it toward him. From the portrait the bailiff was looking at the same girl — black-haired, yellow-eyed, dark-skinned.

— Is it her? — Gotech inquired.

— She is. — De Gorazzo nodded without taking his eyes off her.

— Beautiful. Very, — Vittoria said, not at all elegantly or femininely stretching her neck to look at the stranger's portrait. — 'And the appearance... not ordinary. Who is it, don?

— Lady Yana. The personal guard of the current Duchess of Elvart, Christina the Second. — The giant leaned back in his chair and froze when it cracked. — 'I'm sorry, Donna... Lady Jana died a couple of years ago in Elvart, on the day of the Duchess's coronation. She was twenty-four years old. The circumstances of her death were rather vague — it was announced that the lady had fallen honorably in battle, defending her mistress from an assassin. She was buried ceremoniously, but in a closed coffin, so the rumors went ...

— But she is really dead, — Armando shook his head. — I've seen her as a ghost.

— There's no doubt about it, — Vittoria agreed.

— The question is, what is the ghost of an Elvartian guardswoman doing in Daert? — de Gorazzo turned the portrait over, and it began to seem to the bailiff that Lady Jana's yellow lynx eyes were catching his gaze. The bailiff shivered. It must be the setting. He would never get used to Vittoria's mansion.

— It's an interesting question, but I'm more concerned with something else. — The red-haired donna adjusted her glasses. — Ghosts are the essence of lost souls who are stuck in the world of the living, not realizing they are dead. They are fixated on repeating certain actions they performed while alive, and react aggressively to attempts to interfere with their routines. If a ghost realizes its condition, it immediately goes to the Creator's Gardens. Or wherever it deserves to go, to Hell, to the Final Army... When Armando met Lady Jana, she behaved....

— Sensible, — de Gorazzo muttered.

— And non-aggressive, — Vittoria added, taking the portrait from him. — So we have a ghost, appearing in a visible manifestation far from the place of its death, behaving in a meaningful and almost friendly manner.

— It's madness.

— In ancient times, when necromancers were not yet restricted by laws, they developed several rituals to keep a person's spirit alive after death, — the red-haired donna said slowly, twirling the portrait of the dead guardswoman in her hands. — Some rituals even allowed the soul that left the body to retain its memory and sober mind. There were two problems. First, the ritual had to be performed beforehand, on a person who was still alive. Second, the person had to be a volunteer. No magic could keep the soul, called by the Creator, if the soul itself did not want to stay. However, the necromancers of that time, who often had their own personal death cults, had no problem with fanatical volunteers.

— So.. — Armando wanted to swallow, but found his mouth dry.

— I've heard, — Vittoria interrupted him, — that the ritual of swearing in a personal guard includes some of those rituals. Not just in Elvart, everywhere the Imperial tradition of the personal guard has survived. So the oath of a guard could allow this Lady Yana to remain in the world of the living after death, fully preserving her memory and identity. Ironic. Necromancers have long been forbidden from dealing with human material, but our discoveries in this field are still used by others.

Donna raised her hand and clenched her fingers into a fist a couple times. Just then the door creaked open. Luca entered the room, opened one of the lockers, took out a bottle of wine with a yellowed label, put it on the table. He went back to the cabinet for glasses.

— Why do we need ghosts like that anyway? — Armando asked, giving the bald orangutan a glance. — I mean, a necromancer or... a monarch, if we're talking about the ghost of a guard?

— For different purposes. — The red-haired donna finally set the portrait aside. — But in general, they are of little use, and the rituals are complex and costly, so the practice has never been widespread. Some of the ancient necromancers used to experiment with ghost assistants. To the rulers, such a dead guardian might give some protection from otherworldly threats, albeit little. After all, they have been tried as spies. Not with much success. A ghost can penetrate a lot of things, but there will be problems with information transfer — the dead can't speak directly to the living, not even with gestures or inscriptions. No one knows why, but it's a known rule. The most you can get from a ghost, even one that has retained its identity, is a pointing gesture or a lengthy hint.

— So she was... spying? — Gotech raised his eyebrows. — A ghost is an Elvartian spy? In our dungeons?

— I said no such thing. But it is possible.

— Can you... summon her? — Armando rubbed his chin with his fingers, studiously ignoring Luca, who was arranging glasses of the finest glass. — Now that we know her name...

— The names of Guardsmen are always not real, — Vittoria said with a waggle of her chin. — Even they don't know the real ones; they're taken from their parents at an early age. And anyway, a dead soul isn't a demon to summon. I could set a trap if I knew where the ghost would appear next, lock it up temporarily, or block its way somewhere. But summoning it back to me, no, I couldn't do that. Or banish her to the next world, for that matter. She's here voluntarily.

— Then we've learned nothing, — Armando sighed. — It only made things more confusing.

A heavy silence hung over the table. The dead orangutan finished pouring the wine into glasses and went into the kitchen. Vittoria cradled her glass in her two palms, said to the men:

— Don't hurry with the wine, please. Luca will prepare a snack now. I taught him some great recipes.

Armando clenched his eyes and drank the wine, which was unexpectedly strong. When he opened his eyes, he found the mistress of the mansion staring at him, tapping the rim of her glass with her fingernail. He smiled guiltily:

— I'm sorry. I won't do it again.

— Your favorite phrase, — she muttered under her breath, still frowning. De Gorazzo just waved his hands and reached for the bottle the orangutan had left behind.

The doorbell rang in the hall.

The necromancer and the bailiffs flinched and exchanged puzzled glances. Luca came out of the kitchen, holding a huge meat cleaver in his paw.

— It's been a long time since I've had so many guests after midnight, — Donna Vittoria said. — Armando, are you expecting someone else?

— No. I wasn't even expecting Gotech today, — the young official stood up. — I'll go get it.

— Luca will show you out. — The girl pulled up the sleeves of her robe to her elbows and stretched her fingers.

— Uh-huh — de Gorazzo mumbled without much joy as he headed out of the refectory. Behind him he heard the uneven footsteps of a dead ape and the clang of a cleaver on the floor. Standing in front of the front door for the second time that night, the bailiff asked:

— Who's there?

— Hello, Don de Gorazzo. It's a good thing it's you. Could you open the door for me? — The female voice that answered Armando was surprisingly familiar to him. Shocked to the core, the bailiff hurriedly unlocked the latches, pulled the sash, stepped back, unable to believe his eyes. The woman who had been waiting patiently outside threw back the hood of her black cloak.

— Your Majesty! — Armando dropped to his knee and bowed his head.

— Stand up, Don, and allow me to enter, — Octavia the Ninth smiled as she crossed the threshold. De Gorazzo jumped up and stood aside. With a foolish expression on his face he asked:

— Are you alone?

— Of course not, Don. But the guards won't come in, so you can close the door.

Armando, still at a complete loss, obeyed. In the meantime, the mistress of the mansion came out of the refectory. When Vittoria saw the queen standing in the middle of the hall, she curtsied gracefully, lifting the halves of her robe as if she were wearing a ball gown. Luca, too, made a comical courtly bow.

— Forgive my late intrusion, Donna, — Octavia said, carelessly throwing off her cloak and pulling off her thin gloves. Beneath the cloak was the familiar black and gold hunting suit. — Alas, it was important for me to catch you and your friends together, so I chose this moment on purpose.

— It is a great honor to receive you here, Your Majesty. — The necromancer raised her head, and mischievous wit flickered in her green eyes. — Besides, you wouldn't have bothered me in any case. I'm often awake at night. I have to do my own research at some point, and I'm on duty during the day. May I invite you to the table?

— That would be very helpful, — the girl in black nodded.

The dead bald orangutan, who accepted the queen's cloak and gloves, made even less of an impression on Octavia than on Gotech. A moment later, the young queen was sitting at the table across from the mistress of the house, playing with the wine in her glass.

— My servant was just frying sausage when you arrived — Donna Vittoria said. Unlike the silent men, the necromancer held herself quite freely in the queen's presence. It was as if she had been planning a midnight reception for the monarch for a long time.

— I'd love to appreciate his cooking. — Octavia, clearly out of pure politeness, tasted the wine and set the glass aside. — But let's not put off talking business. I have little time, alas. The night is short and there is much to do.

— They must be very important, if Your Majesty is dealing with them personally, — the red-haired donna said politely, finally taking control of the conversation.

— I understand how it looks. — The black-haired girl smiled a little embarrassed. — But things are really important, and I have only a handful of loyal people. No, not really. There are plenty of loyal people. It's just that I was taught from childhood to always take the most important and the most difficult things on myself.

— A commendable quality for a ruler, — the necromancer said, not very sincerely.

— A terrible quality for a ruler, — Octavia sighed. — But I was never trained to be queen.

— Your Majesty?

— You didn't know? It's no secret, though it's not exactly publicized. Why do you think I was raised apart from my family, in the castle of an old knight-guard? — The queen leaned back in her chair and put her palm to her chest, as if introducing herself. — Sixth in the line, fourth daughter, no chance to sit on the throne. I was meant for a different purpose. I was to be the perfect bodyguard for my own brothers. A strange idea of my father's. But that's how it turned out. I was trained to protect, not rule. I wear the crown instead of those I was supposed to protect. Because that's the way it is. Nobody else to do it but me.

— You're very good at it, Your Majesty, — the red-haired donna assured her.

— I want to believe it, but... — Octavia touched the rim of her glass with her fingertips. — You're aware of the situation in the country, aren't you? The west of the kingdom is about to go up in flames. The uprising of the local barons is inevitable, and all attempts to prevent it have only added fuel to the fire. Probably in two or three weeks the ringleaders will come out in the open and announce their demands — to recognize me as an impostor, to reconvene the Council, to elect a new king. Tonight I ordered the marshals to begin assembling the royal troops near the capital. But I can't trust them either — only two are definitely on my side. The third, Count de Boloni, supports the Duke, and the fourth, old Don de Crazo, hates us both. The Duke because he's an outsider, me because he thinks a woman has no place on the throne. The Dragon Knights have taken a neutral position. Neither clan supports the troublemakers, but I won't ask for their help. Besides, the Duke of Veronne himself is planning to join the campaign against the rebels with his personal squad. I can't refuse him, which means I'll have to watch the rear at all times.