The healer didn’t address Fie, instead directing her report to the woman across the room. Now that Fie could see her plain, it was clear the master-general did not need the mammoth in order to loom. Draga hadn’t bothered changing out of her dusty leather armor; the only concession she’d made was a discarded helmet, which was leaving a rim of sweat on the parchment scattered across the desk. Fie saw the family resemblance between her and Jasimir at once: same dark gold skin, same sharp jaw, same lean build.
Where Jasimir fidgeted in a chair before the master-general, however, his aunt all but lounged against the desk, the picture of ease. “Good work, Corporal Lakima.” Draga nodded to the healer, who saluted and posted herself at the door.
She’d dealt with Fie’s wounds faster and more painlessly than Tavin ever had. He’d been right about being a middling healer after all. Fie sat up and stretched out her sore leg. “Where are we?”
“Inside Trikovoi,” Draga answered. “The fort’s commander has generously lent us his office. Corporal, please arrange for food and water to be sent up. The children look rather peaked.”
“I can escort you to a location more … suitable for the master-general,” Corporal Lakima said with the kind of delicacy that suggested the commander’s office had not been lent so much as commandeered.
Draga glanced at her, something metallic tinkling in her gray-streaked black hair. Her smile showed a few too many teeth. “I find this office suits me, corporal. I’d hate to refuse the commander’s generosity. Oh, and if you would? Send wine, too.”
Once the door shut, Draga shed the smile like a winter coat. “You two reek of questions, among other things. Yes, Taverin got the message-hawk through. Half the north’s league markers are staffed by Markahns, so don’t look so impressed.”
Taverin sza Markahn. Bastard or not, Tavin’s name had been good for something after all. Fie swallowed.
Draga’s voice roughened. “The Hawks who took his message said he appeared to be injured at the time, which tells me he was still pretending to be the prince. Clearly that didn’t last long enough. I can’t tell you if he’s still alive, but Tatterhelm would be a fool to throw away any of his bargaining chips. Scouts are sweeping the mountains nearby to see if we can pin down his location as we speak.”
“What of Father?” Jasimir asked.
Draga looked as if she’d stepped in dung. “What of him?”
“Is he … Has Rhusana…?”
“Ah. No.” Draga leaned back. “For better or worse, he’s still on the throne.”
A knock at the door interrupted them. Draga straightened, and Fie saw that the tinkling came from finger-length steel feathers dangling from a tight knot of dark hair at the back of her head. Hawk custom. One for each battle won. Draga wore more than Fie could count. “Enter.”
A cadet near about Jasimir’s age walked in, bearing a platter of fresh panbread, soft goat cheese, figs, and smoked meats. A second cadet followed with one sweating pitcher of water and another of rich red wine. They both snuck fleeting, sidelong glances at Fie and Jasimir. One’s lip twitched into a curl before flattening out.
Fie almost laughed out loud. Between the prince’s grime, his ragged clothes, and his lost topknot, the cadets had taken him for a Crow.
Draga cleared her throat. “Give my gratitude to the commander,” she said pointedly. After the door shut she rolled her eyes. “Prissy little things. Eat up, I’m certain you’re famished.”
Draga poured two brass goblets of water and handed them to Jasimir and Fie, then poured herself wine. “So. Highness. The last time I heard from Taverin, Rhusana had just arranged to have ground glass dumped in your wine, because I suppose that harridan needed a hobby. He mentioned you might be paying a visit to your auntie soon. Then the next thing I know, a Phoenix has conveniently died of the plague for the first time in five hundred years, and just as conveniently, so has Taverin sza Markahn.”
“I didn’t know he was in contact with you.” Jasimir’s knuckles tightened on his goblet, though he’d schooled his face into granite.
“Markahns. We’re dirty gossips to the bone.” She grinned that toothy, sharp grin again, and Fie suddenly kenned where Tavin had learned to make the slightest gesture look lethal. “As my blood, my protection is yours, and as my prince, my loyalty is yours. But if you’ve got more in mind than taking up residence in the Marovar, you’d best lay it out for me.”
“Tavin’s original plan was to claim I survived the plague through the strength of Ambra’s bloodline,” Jasimir elaborated. “I’d return to the capital with the regional governors rallied behind me. The lord-governor of the Fan said he’d aid us, but we walked straight into Rhusana’s ambush.”
“So you came to me instead.” Draga eyed her goblet and sighed. “Only Taverin would come up with a scheme that ludicrous in the first place. I’m going to need more wine.” She tipped the glass at Fie. “And you, Lady Merciful. I can’t believe you shepherded the boys across the whole wretched nation out of the goodness and charity in your heart. I also can’t help noticing you’re missing your flock.”
“Tatterhelm took my kin hostage in Cheparok.” Fie sipped her water, a show of ease as deliberate as Draga’s choice of stolen offices. “I’m here because Rhusana allied herself with the Oleander Gentry.”
“Can’t say I’m surprised,” Draga muttered into her wine.
“So I swore the prince to a Covenant oath,” Fie said.
Draga winced and took a swig of wine.
“We’d get him to his allies, and in exchange, the Crows will be guarded against Oleanders. By Hawks.”
Draga spat out her wine.
“What?” she demanded. “What kind of—never mind. Forget Taverin’s scheme, that is the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard and will ever hear again, in this lifetime or the next.”
“The ludicrous thing is that it hasn’t happened sooner,” Jasimir said. “I’ve seen Oleander rides with my own eyes. And I’ve seen how the rest of the country thinks they can treat Crows because there are no repercussions. It’s going to end.”
Draga’s brow furrowed. “Let me be plain with you, Highness. You need the cooperation of the Hawks. You won’t get it, not when you’re asking them to roll shells with the Sinner’s Plague.”
“Is the plague the problem, or is it the Crows?” Jasimir met her gaze steady and hard.
“I won’t pretend that’s not part of it,” Draga returned.
“They need to get over it,” Jasimir replied. “I’m not asking the Hawks to take any risk Tavin and I didn’t take, and survive, ourselves. If you want to look at it as a general, we’re preventing a takeover of the throne. I have to look at it as a king. The Crows are my people. Our people. They’re part of Sabor. It’s long past time to act like it.”
Draga gave him a long, heavy look and poured herself more wine. “You’re right. But it’s not enough to just be right. I know my Hawks. You force this on them, and they’ll turn on you. The answer is no.”
Fie dropped her goblet with a clang of brass. Water spilled across the floor, flashing peach from the reflected sundown.
She hadn’t heard right. Tavin had said Draga was loyal, that she’d follow royal commands. And the prince—
“He swore an oath,” she said, furious. “And my end’s kept.”
Jasimir’s hands balled to fists. “Fie’s right. I made a vow to the Covenant.”
“That’s not how it works,” Draga interrupted, iron in her voice. “I could swear to the Covenant that I’ll leap mountains in a minute, but that won’t mean I can. Did you explicitly promise you’d assign Hawks to guard the Crows?”
Jasimir blinked. “I … I said I’d ensure the Crows’ protection as king.”
“And I asked for Hawks,” Fie added.
“That doesn’t sound like you’re sworn to give them anything of the sort, then.” Draga frowned at the desk, hunting for a place to set her goblet down, but found none. “Once the hostages are recovered, I’ll parade you
back to Dumosa. While I’m there, I can personally encourage Rhusana to retire quietly to some country manor before I find a lawful way to send her to her choice of hells. After that, we can discuss more … reasonable measures to keep your oath.”
Fie laughed out loud this time, burying her face in her hands. Of course the Hawks would turn their backs, even on their own prince. They’d break every code they had to keep from helping Crows.
All she’d done, all she’d lost, all she’d borne to bring the prince down her road … it wasn’t enough. The next laugh came out a half sob. “You should have left me to Tatterhelm.”
A hand braced her shoulder—Jasimir. His voice hardened. “What if I’m not asking, master-general?”
Draga tossed aside her empty goblet. Then she drew herself up to her full height, steel feathers whispering a warning. “Your mother taught you the Hawk code, Highness. What comes first?”
Jasimir licked his lips. “‘I will serve my nation and the throne—’”
“Correct. ‘I will serve my nation.’” Draga folded her arms. “Before I serve the throne. I agree that the Oleanders pose a significant threat, but I don’t consider alienating allies good for my nation. And that is what I serve first.”
Every Phoenix tooth in Fie’s string wanted to burn Trikovoi to the ground. She knotted her hands to keep them still. If the Hawks thought her teeth a threat, they’d take them, too.
Jasimir sent Fie a look that said, This isn’t over.
Fie wished she could believe it. She might yet get her kin back, but without the master-general, the oath lay hollow as a skin-ghast.
“Tomorrow, we’ll work on rescuing the hostages.” A shadow crossed Draga’s face and vanished. “You two will be quartered in adjacent private rooms. I’ll arrange for baths and meals to be provided. Open the door only if you hear four knocks, understand?”
The last comment ought to have been aimed at the prince. Instead, the master-general’s steely gaze pointed at Fie.
Of course. Draga didn’t trust her own troops to guard Crows on the road. Why would a fortress be any different?
“Aye,” Fie said, matching her stare, steel for bitter steel. She’d get Tavin and her kin back. She’d stop the queen. But the fight for the oath—for Crows to walk more than a murderous road—was nowhere near over. “I understand.”
* * *
Fie was not sure what to make of the bed.
In her sixteen short years, Fie had slept indoors, outdoors, on sun-warmed dust, in shady tree boughs, on the tiles of shrine floors, through sweltering heat and relentless rains and sometimes creeping frost. She’d slept on mountain and plain and in city and marsh.
But she had never slept in a fortress. The room itself was peculiar enough: plain stone walls lined with heavy tapestry, more diamond-shaped windows barred against intruders and the moonless dark, a cold brazier, oil lamps dangling in the corners. Fie had been surprised to find both her swords left in a plain rack. Then she kenned why: the Hawks had decided they didn’t pose any true threat in the hands of a Crow.
A puddle glossed the floor where a copper tub had waited for her alongside a change of clothing and an array of soaps and ointments. Stone-faced cadets had borne the tub away after she’d scrubbed off the smoke and road dust, and they’d returned with a finer dinner than she could conquer. Even now, a lukewarm skin dried over leftover chunks of goat and squash swimming in a rich cream sauce. Draga had even sent them with a small bowl of salt, a thoughtful touch that Fie despised.
But she still wasn’t wholly sure of the bed.
The mattress seemed to be stuffed with down and straw, resting on a net of hempen rope. A soft sheepskin spread out over more woolen blankets, a luxury Fie found excessive until the temperature plunged after sundown.
It was all so soft. Too soft. And quiet.
She ought to be on watch. She ought to be counting her teeth. She ought to be eyeing what lurked in the dark, wrapped in a stolen pelt, trying not to think of Tavin or Pa or Wretch or her ma.
She ought to be doing something, anything to bring them back.
Instead she lay under a suffocating heap of blankets, weighty and near sick on lordling grub, leagues and leagues from sleep.
Her gut ached with more than a heavy dinner. Aye, she’d done it. She’d brought the prince to safety. She’d kept her end of the oath. And she’d be able to save them—Tavin, her kin, the king. Draga would see to that.
But her caste …
She knew in her bones that when Pa had sent her over the bridge, when Tavin had cast himself into the ravine, neither of them had done it to settle for Oleanders riding only by night.
Maybe in a year, or two, or five, Jasimir would sit on the throne, and he’d craft some law to banish the Oleanders, and the Hunting Castes and the Splendid Castes could call it good enough. And the Oleanders would carry on like always, the Crows would die like always, and like always, the law would not weep for Crows.
Somewhere beyond the window, in the chill of Marovar night, a Hawk at watch began to hum.
Enough.
She could make use of her time finding a way out of this damn stone maze for when the Hawks’ charity inevitably ran dry. She rolled from her bed, reached for her sandals, then thought of the nail scratches she’d left in the stone floor and pulled on sheepskin slippers instead.
Fie kept one blanket wrapped about her shoulders as she slipped into the hallway, away from the nagging hymn. Oil lamps marked the turns in the corridor, and more windows let in whispers of the first night of Crow Moon.
For a moment she stilled. Crow Moon. The final moon of the Saborian year.
All across Sabor, Crows would be gathered at one of their greater shrines—in Little Witness’s watchtower, the groves of Gen-Mara, the ruined temple of Dena Wrathful. If not there, then any haven shrine. If they couldn’t find a shrine, they would find a crossroads. There would be ceremonies: new witches hailed, new chiefs declared, an empty pyre for faces newly missing. Wedding vows for those who wanted to swear them. Bands cobbled together from stragglers and survivors.
A proper Crow would be with her people tonight. A proper chief-to-be would line up with the other trainees, wearing wreaths of magnolias, and wait. One by one, the old chiefs would cut their own strings of teeth, tie them round the throats of the new, and hand off their broken blades. Magnolia crowns would be cast to the pyre, and then …
Then, if Fie were a proper Crow still, she would have been a true chief.
A watch-hymn drifted through the window. Fie fled.
A Sparrow tooth slipped her past the guards tossing shells at hall’s end. The farther she went, the more she lost herself in the craft of Trikovoi, mammoth ivory rails wrought in angular pattern-knots, a fine-carved snow lion grasping a bundle of lit juniper incense in its marble jaws, mahogany columns and rafters carved for purpose, not pomp.
Tavin had only said his mother rode mammoths in the Marovar, not which fortress she rode for. Was that why he’d been so adamant to come to Trikovoi—he’d hoped to find her here? Had she been watching, waiting when Fie and the prince staggered into the road, only to find no sign of her son?
Or was she asleep in some other cold stone fortress, unaware that Tavin lived only as long as Tatterhelm allowed?
Fie’s gut knotted. She ought to be claiming her own from the skinwitches. She ought to be burning her magnolia crown on a pyre. She ought to be able to stop thinking of Tavin, even for a moment.
Instead, she hunted for her way out.
Then, as she passed the entrance of another grand hall, something snagged her eye: a figure that belonged behind ranks of soldiers.
She let the Sparrow tooth go and slid into the hall. Jasimir glanced up and raised his eyebrows at her, unsurprised.
“How did you get past the guards?” Fie whispered as she walked over.
“Practice.” Jasimir shrugged. “Sometimes I’d need to attend a state dinner or the like, but we’d get wind of some potential threat. Tav took my pla
ce, but I usually snuck out anyway. Mother only caught me the first few times.”
He gave a strained smile, and with a start, Fie saw what had drawn him into this hall: a fine painting over his shoulder. Two women, nigh identical in their armor, their flinty stares, even the hands resting on their saber hilts. Twin Talons.
Fie stepped closer, studying the portrait. After a moment she pointed to the figure on the right. “That’s your mother?”
He nodded.
She could see it, now that she’d met Draga. Jasindra’s dark eyes sparked nearer to gray than gold, like Jasimir’s; Draga’s nose arched in a way neither her sister’s nor her nephew’s did; all three shared a narrow jaw and lanky build. But Jasimir’s sharp-cut mouth and broad cheekbones had come from the king to be sure.
Something curled in the back of Fie’s skull, like she hunted a word she’d forgot. She frowned.
“I think Mother would have liked you,” Jasimir said.
Fie’s frown went taut. “Cousin, I don’t think her road and mine ever could have crossed unless she caught the plague.”
His face fell a little. “I … I suppose that’s true.”
Fie stepped back, looking about the hall. More portraits hung on the walls: simple, familiar, lavish, stern. Dynasties of Hawks. Most, oddly, had a cat somewhere in the painting—a ball of striped fur on a background balcony, a shadow on a wall, a pair of eyes in the grass. A small tabby sat betwixt Draga and Jasindra, the picture of fluffy disdain. “Why the cats?”
“Legend says a Markahn helped Ambra tame the first tiger she rode to war. Cats are something like a patron of the clan.” Jasimir grimaced. “There’s a reason Rhusana wanted to pay you with a stray tabby for taking two dead Markahns.”
“Let me guess,” Fie drawled. “Same reason she drags that tiger pelt by the tail.” Jasimir nodded. “Is that why you saved Barf?”
“I saved her because I could.” Jasimir pursed his lips. “I keep thinking about that Crane arbiter, the one who almost let Barf out. How do you get squeamish over burning a cat to death when you’re there to do worse to people?”
The Merciful Crow Page 28