The man in the blue cloak tip-toed down the street, creeping closer to the gatehouse. Behind him shuffled half a dozen figures, carrying with them a faint scent of preservatives as their cold bodies trod forward in cloth-wrapped boots. One was quite well-preserved, dressed as a butler; the second and third less so, showing stitches, patches, and shiny spots where resin had been applied too thickly. The last three were entirely skeletal, cloth tied tightly around their limbs to muffle the sound of their movements, their exposed hands showing signs of wear from long use.
If the old duke had approved harvests of his outlying villages, or even just allowed the nobles to hunt regularly, the man would have been able to afford to keep half a dozen fashionably well-preserved servants, but as matters stood in York, he’d had to borrow these. When Richard becomes duke, though – everything will be easier, the man thought to himself. He hissed a magically-charged order and the six figures crouched as one, each grabbing the portcullis in their hands.
Not another word, said a crisp voice inside the man’s head. Bootham Bar stays sealed. Involuntarily, the man in the blue cloak turned, his mouth shut. A pair of wolfhounds stared back. Between them stood a man whose shoulders were of a height with the shoulders of the hounds. Behind the short man and the hounds were perhaps half a dozen men and women in mismatched clothing and piecework armor.
The man in the blue cloak strained silently against the commanding voice speaking inside his head, itching to weave a spell but unable to move his fingers. His muscles refused to respond to the commands of his own mind, obeying only the forceful mental presence of the short man.
Forced to stand and stare silently, the man in the blue cloak did not see the sap that descended on the back of his head from a seventh figure. Robbed of consciousness, he could not see the strange woman with the exotic foreign features and glossy black hair set the zombies on fire; could not hear the alarm bells ringing to wake the city; and could not watch the sun rise.
The man in the blue cloak woke from his unconscious stupor when his lung was pierced by an arrow – ironically, one that had been loosed by his allies outside of the city. As he screamed in pain, he became aware that he was tied to a lamppost, the magelight still shining in spite of the daylight; nobody had shuttered it.
He could also see men and hear the shouts and screams of war. One broken-limbed body was pierced through with three arrows, the distinctive feather in its helmet proclaiming the fallen man’s identity as the captain of York’s city guard. The radius of splattered blood surrounding the body suggested the captain had fallen from the top of the gatehouse.
Next to the body, a man sat astride a horse with a skirt of mail showing under his breastplate – tall, lean, handsome, piercing blue eyes and neatly trimmed beard visible through the open visor of his bassinet as he shouted. “Our allies fight now outside these walls! We sally forth!” The man raised his lance high.
Two other men on horseback echoed his cry, along with two mounted city guards and many others on foot. A few retainers; many more city guardsmen; and town militia. Slowly, the portcullis creaked open, and the blue-cloaked man felt a vague sense of completion as he remembered he was to open the gate.
The man in the blue cloak watched as the man with the piercing blue eyes shattered the helmeted skull of an armored skeleton. He could see several dozen more. The Lancastrians came through with their promise of assistance, he thought to himself fuzzily. No way Richard could have bolstered his forces with that many military skeletons otherwise.
Behind the cloaked man’s back, his hands tugged at the ropes that held him fast to the lamppost. No, a harsh voice growled. A wolfhound stepped into view, looking right into his eyes as it growled at him, a harsh voice sounding in his head. No move hands. Stay.
The man whose cloak was steadily turning from blue to red in a spreading splotch around an arrow jerked back against the lamppost, his breath rasping and gurgling. Through slowly dimming vision, he saw a silver figure on the top of the gatehouse. Is that the old duke returned? Has all of this been some cruel trick, played by a capricious old noble who faked his own death?
The body in the blue cloak slumped in a slowly growing pool of blood, its last question unanswered. It did not hear the people of York cheer for a formerly reclusive young nobleman standing on the top of the gatehouse. It did not see him descend from the gatehouse to join the battle. It did not see Richard fall, and with him the hopes once held by a man in a blue cloak.
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Avery leaned against a merlon and watched the sun set. His silver skin gleamed with orange highlights from the setting sun, and his pupils were narrowed to vertical slits against the glare. The orange light masked the bloody evidence of the battle that stained the earth. The bodies had been gathered and burned or buried, the heroes of the battle feted, and his cousin Richard laid to rest along with said cousin’s questionable claim to the title of Duke of York.
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“It's unfortunate it had to come to this, but I'm glad it's finally over,” Avery said. He felt like he needed to soak in ice water for a week to clean the stench of battle off his skin.
“I've read Duchess Jennifer's early diaries.” Aunt Maude stood beside him, shaking her head sternly. “The old duke thought it was all over when he became the Silver Duke – that he could sit back and relax. The hard part was just starting. Richard may be dead and his supporters defeated, but you have a duchy to run and the old duke let a lot of things slide in the last half of his second century. The new wizard collegium has been getting out of hand. Then there are the industrialists from London. And –”
Avery held up a hand and groaned. “Enough. Can't I just rest for a little while before I get to the work of governing? Perhaps another week or two? I haven’t even had my coronation yet. Or word from London." Even as the words slipped out of his mouth, he recognized how much he sounded like a child being scolded by his mother. He was duke, now; he couldn’t afford to fall back into letting his aunt make decisions for him.
Maude shook her head. A loose iron-gray lock of hair fell over her face, and she tucked it back behind a gently pointed ear. “You have too much to do, and the longer you wait, the more things will slip in all the wrong directions on their own.” She stared back at the man who had been like a son to her for the better part of ten years.
“To start with, I should appoint a new seneschal,” Avery said. “Lucas is loyal, but he’s senile half the time, and even if he weren’t, he can hardly make it up and down the stairs of the inner keep anymore.”
Maude nodded. “Lucas should have been replaced thirty years ago, along with half of the castle staff. The old duke liked familiar things too much. Understandable, at his age; he’s seen generations of servants pass away. You need someone who has both the title and the force of will to act as your agent, put the castle in order, and shrink the list of ducal duties that need attending to.”
"You could be my seneschal," Avery offered. “Nobody else knows the castle as well as you do, and you know quite well what I need to do.”
"No,” Maude said. “I’ll help you as I have, but you need a young man, one who knows his way around the battlefield. Ideally, not so young as to raise questions about his competence, but not an old person like me. If I became your seneschal, people would assume I’m really running the show in York. Enough of them will already, knowing that I raised you. And the position of seneschal isn’t the only one you need to fill. You'll also need a new master of hounds.”
“But… James isn't old," Avery said, surprised by the sudden turn in the conversation. “And I need him. His loyalty and competence are beyond question.” Without James and the unlikely allies he’d dug up, Richard’s attack would have come as a surprise, coming through an open gatehouse right into the city. They would have reached the castle bailey unopposed, at a minimum.
“Yes. James is loyal and competent, and he’s one of your best allies, but Richard didn't leave behind an heir,” Maude said. “You need someone from the same branch of the family to take over Richard’s lands. And his castle, which is well-fortified and halfway to Lancaster. It needs to be someone who won't work with the Lancastrians and someone who deserves it. James fits the bill. He’s been hinting about wanting a place of his own and you owe both him and his new wife a serious debt of gratitude. Granting him the richest barony in the duchy is fitting.”
Avery nodded silent assent. When Maude put it that way, it was hard to gainsay her. “Richard wasn’t the only one to rise up against me,” he said. “I’ll need to look into the inheritance and management of several of the family estates. With treason, I have cause to interrupt the usual lines of inheritance.”
“Yes.” Maude paused before adding slowly, almost reluctantly. “And there’s also your father’s estate, it’s been vacant for too long, held empty for when you reached a suitable age. You’ll be busy with York and your father left no other heirs, so his old manor would make a good gift to a landless knight or a baronet. And speaking of heirs, you need to get married as soon as possible.”
Avery frowned. He pointed at his arm, letting the silver skin glimmer in the light of the setting sun. The vertical slits of his pupils contracted. “Surely, since I take so much after the old duke, I can expect to live a good long while. At least, now that half of the family isn't trying to kill me. Can't the difficult task of finding a woman willing to marry me wait until after I've dealt with the city, the collegium, the estates, the castle staff, and whatever else is on this long list of ducal duties?”
Maude chuckled. “Avery, there are only fourteen duchies in England. Two are held by duchesses. The Duke of Gloucester is seventy-three years old and only likes boys. At least four of the others are vampires, and not a single one of the other living dukes is unmarried or under the age of fifty. You're the most eligible bachelor in the country. In the whole Empire of Great Britain, even.”
Avery snorted, waving a taloned hand in front of his golden eyes. “I'm also a freak. After I hit my growth spurt and this happened, Isolde started calling me Metalface. The girls stayed well away.”
Maude shook her head. “You underestimate yourself. The old duke had plenty of admirers, and you do as well. Girls are just more subtle about such things. Usually, that is. Some of them are about to get a lot less subtle.” She sighed heavily, rubbing her temples between thumb and forefinger. “And there are other reasons you need to move quickly, but I’m getting a headache. We'll talk more about this later. The women will be swarming you soon enough.”
Avery shook his head in disbelief. Maude was like a mother to him, and mothers were always supposed to call their sons handsome. “Nonsense.”
Maude sighed. “I’m trying to warn you, boy.” She shook her head, correcting herself. “I’m trying to warn you, Your Grace.” The formal address lingered, an announcement of a subtly widened gap between the two of them. “Just don't let any of them get you alone. They may seem silly and charming, harmless enough, but trust me, there’s a world of harm to be had in dealing with young women incautiously.”