“Fine,” said Blacktooth, who, to my surprise, turned to lead us around the wall of the castle, rather than back into the gendarmerie.
The duke’s castle was not the gleaming marble edifice with gobs of columns that I’d been led to expect from Greek etchings and pots, but a squat and sturdy fortress atop a plateau (the stone hill into which the dungeon and gendarmerie had been carved). Along the battlements stood a guard every two yards, and even as we passed through the halls a pair of guards stood outside every doorway—a heavy martial presence for a kingdom at peace. In the great hall—a soaring, well-windowed, Gothic chamber, built later than the thick outer walls and other buildings in the bailey—I saw the reason for so much military. Fighting men wearing the duke’s crest stood around the walls of the chamber and on the six balconies above, numbering perhaps fifty in all, but between each man-at-arms stood another warrior, a woman, and these soldiers, decked in leather, mail, and plate, as muscled and scarred as their male cohorts, were unarmed. Amazons. Hippolyta’s soldiers.
“We’ll have them daggers,” said Burke. “Just while you’re seeing the duke. You’ll get them back.”
What damage they thought a speck of a fool could do with throwing daggers when surrounded by a hundred soldiers, I could not figure, so I unstrapped the harness from under my jerkin and handed it to Burke.
“Only two? Where’s the other blade, fool?”
“Left it behind,” said I. “Needed the spot in the sheath for that bolt, there. Orders of Queen Hippolyta.” And indeed, the harness held only two of my knives, for in the third slot was snuggled the black bolt taken from the Puck’s ribs. Burke nodded as if he understood, not considering there might be an errant dagger wandering around his jail.
They led me past a dais upon which sat a simple throne, to a door at the back of the chamber. A guard thumped the shaft of his spear on the floor twice. Burke shoved me through the door into a vaulted antechamber containing a long wooden table, at the head of which stood a rather road-worn chap of perhaps sixty hard summers, wearing an extravagant robe trimmed in gold and a thin golden crown fitted over iron-gray curls: Theseus, Duke of Athens.
Blacktooth and Burke immediately took a knee and bowed their heads. The guards, spaced about the room, Amazon and Athenian alternating, a dozen in all, clicked their heels. Theseus sat, arms folded, as if waiting for something, then a tall old fellow in a silk robe and hat scampered out from behind an arras and unrolled a scroll.
“Egeus,” whispered Blacktooth.
“Lord high steward,” whispered Burke.
“Toady,” said I, sotto voce.
Egeus, his head thrown back as if trying to stanch a nosebleed, read from the scroll: “His Grace, Theseus, beloved High Duke of Athens, who defeated Sinis, the pine bender, vanquished Procrustes of the tortuous bed, dispatched the fire-breathing bull of Marathon, slew the Minotaur of the Cretan labyrinth, who defeated Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, and did bring her kingdom under the loving protection of Attica.”
“Well that’s a bubbly basin of bull bollocks,” said the puppet Jones.
There were various gasps from around the chamber, even from Blacktooth and Burke. One of the Amazons behind Theseus giggled, then caught herself and looked stern. A scribe, sitting by Theseus with quill and parchment, paused in his scratching as if considering whether he should write down puppet-speak.
I looked askance at Jones and shook him on his stick. “Beg pardon, Your Grace, the puppet’s been enchanted since yesterday.” It was I working Jones this time, because someone had to speak truth to power—and it was bollocks. The Theseus of legend, who had defeated the Minotaur, would have had to be a thousand years old now—but better the puppet lose his head than I, should Theseus prove less feeble than he appeared.
“The fool and pirate Pocket of Dog Snogging,” announced Burke, pushing me forward so I stood at the end of the table opposite Theseus.
“Enchanted?” asked Theseus.
“Aye,” said I. The scribe scribbled and looked up, distressed.
The duke said, “The captain of the watch tells me that Hippolyta gave you audience this morning. Of what did you speak?”
“This and that, Your Grace. It is not my place to say, but if you ask the lady, I trust she will tell you.”
“You will tell me. If you lie, your life is forfeit.”
I drove a quick, sharp boot heel into Blacktooth’s shin. “You said he just wanted to chat!” Burke made as if to restrain me and I smacked him sharply on the bottom on the spot where I’d sent a dagger a day before. He yowled and limped in a tight circle.
“Enough,” said the duke. “Answer me, fool.”
I shrugged. “Your lady wished to know if I knew who killed the Puck and if I had spoken to him before he was murdered.”
“Aha!” said the duke, as if he’d caught a pie thief in the kitchen.
“Aha!” repeated Blacktooth, dropping a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Do you prefer the fool hanged or broken on the rack, Your Eminents?”
“Or both,” added Burke, grabbing me by my bicep.
“We found him standing over the Puck, Your Disgrace,” said Blacktooth.
“Your Grace,” corrected Burke. “We encountered the fool on the previous day, as well, conspiring with a group of rude mechanicals, with no passport upon him, and would have arrested him on the spot, but he vanished.”
“Vanished?” Theseus seemed to lose his breath for a moment.
“Not even a puff of smoke,” said Blacktooth. “Just chucked a knife in Burke’s bum and vanished.”
“Did you kill the Puck?” asked the duke.
“Did you?” I replied.
“No, not that I—I sent the watch into the forest to find him.”
“To what end, if I may ask, Your Grace?”
“Well, I . . .” Theseus was not used to answering questions.
“Perhaps you were going to have the Puck entertain at your wedding, Your Grace,” said Egeus.
“Yes,” said Theseus. “That’s it—”
“Not that he was hammering your queen like a blacksmith setting rivets?” said Jones. I pounded the puppet on the table.
“Manners, you wooden-headed ninny,” said I. “Sorry, duke. Do go on.”
The great Greek hero Theseus fluttered his fingers like a flustered dowager feeling dog breath on her naughty bits. “Oh my, no,” said the duke. “My Hippolyta is a most chaste and modest lady.”
“She’s the queen of a race of bloody warrior women who keep men as pets, bonk them for offspring, then make coin purses from their scrotums.”
The tall, blond Amazon behind Theseus who had giggled earlier held up a small brown coin purse and grinned. I shuddered.
“Everyone out!” commanded the duke. “I would speak to this fool alone.”
The guards and watchmen headed for the door.
“Wait,” said the high steward. “Your Grace, the fool could be the assassin. Your safety.”
“Fine. You lot”—the duke waved to the cohort of guards behind his chair—“stay and see that I am not attacked by this flea turd of a fool.”
“Bit harsh,” said I.