Mapping Winter

by Marta Randall

  The summer past, the Chancellor had imported a steam heating device from Tebec Province and installed the thing in his council chamber. It stood before the disgraced fireplace, an ornate iron monster rising a full seven feet from the parquetry floor and covered with brass and white enamel foolery, hissing and bubbling and threatening to erupt at any moment. Steam heaters, another example of the Smiths Guild’s industry, were new to the outer provinces. Adwyr made the most of his, running its decorated tentacles over the walls and floors and keeping it roaring and belching at all times. Kieve thought it ugly and unsafe, but conceded that the thing worked well. Adwyr’s council chamber, summer and winter, felt like a steam-heated anteroom to hell.

  A loud group pressed around the Chancellor’s table. Functionaries went among them taking names and listening to petitions. Kieve paused just inside the door, watching. Before Cadoc’s illness the petitioners came to the Lord, not to his fussy subordinate. She noted a woman in Bergdahl’s slate grey and yellow, and a man in the iron grey and red of Moel Province, and recognized some of the land-barons and courtiers attached to the castle itself. Servants scuttled through the press, balancing trays. A few apprentice Smiths carried wood into the tiny room beside this larger room, where Adwyr kept the firebox for his heater. She paused at the doorway of the smaller room until she caught the attendant Smith’s eye, then raised her brows. He shook his head almost imperceptibly and she turned away. No change in Cadoc, then. She pushed through the crowd to the front. A visitor grumbled but the Dalmorat people let her through without a word.

  Master Adwyr frowned before waving off the man in front of him and gesturing her forward. He pulled on his ribboned, white-streaked pigtail as she reported on the trip through the mountains and her delivery of the news of Cadoc’s coming death. When she finished she clasped her hands behind her back under the heavy folds of her cloak. The nape of her neck felt damp with sweat.

  “You took long enough,” Adwyr said after a small silence. A prissy, hateful man, Kieve thought him. Hiding his streak of vindictiveness behind the cloak of his master and far too cowardly to show it for itself. “Three weeks for four or five hamlets, and none of them far north.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “What happened to your eye?”

  “Ice,” she said.

  Adwyr scowled. “You were mapping. Without leave to spend the time.”

  Again she didn’t reply, but her fingers curled under her cloak.

  “Three weeks,” he said again, “and no storms to delay you. Three weeks.” His mouth puckered. “Are your accounts ready? No, of course not. They never are. I want them tomorrow, Rider. I am told that you bought a boy. You had no authorization to buy a boy.”

  “I needed none,” she said.

  He frowned, reaching for a paper on his table. “I have his authority,” he said, not looking at her. “All shall be as it has been, save that in Lord Cadoc’s absence it comes through me.”

  This made no sense unless Lord Cadoc was in a coma and she didn’t believe it.

  Adwyr said, “I will call for you if you are needed. Do you understand?” He gave his pigtail one last, fierce tug and tossed it over his shoulder. “He wants to see you. Anfri will take you there. If he’s asleep, wait.”

  Kieve bowed, her shoulders stiff, and followed Anfri. After the over-heated room, walking into the hallway felt like walking outside. She nudged the cloak open further, relishing coolness, while she put the anger in a room in her mind and slammed doors on it.

  Anfri paced before her, the perfect pleats of his tabard rising and settling with the movements of his long legs. The arms of Dalmorat glittered from the dark cloth, over the arms of the House Marubin. Even his hair looked pressed. She resisted the urge to smooth her own fraying braid.

  They followed the passageway behind the Great Hall and climbed the circular stairs of a tower. Old banners and tapestries depicting battles hung from the walls. The hunting trophies of the Lords of Dalmorat decorated the landings, a chronological progression beginning with Cadoc’s own at the bottom and ending, on the top landing, in a moldering collection of stuffed heads, spears, and rusted swords caked with spider webs, weapons too old and useless to attract Gadyn’s cupidity. These older trophies, rumor said, had once included the heads of human enemies, stuffed, mounted, and labeled in the thin script of the Scholars Guild. There were no functional weapons. She wondered whether Commander Ilach Shadi had locked them away before Gadyn could collect them. The swing and sway of Anfri’s tabard was almost hypnotic against the dark grey walls. Kieve’s eyes ached.

  On the last landing Anfri stopped so abruptly that she almost walked into him.

  “He wants you to know that he knows you have been mapping,” Anfri said. “And that you have done it without authorization. Most inappropriate. He has proof.”

  When she didn’t reply, he added, “You were not oathed to Lord Cadoc as a mapmaker, Rider. Master Adwyr remembers that.”

  Kieve said nothing. Cadoc had said he didn’t care if she mapped, so long as she also obeyed him.

  Anfri smirked. “And he wants you to know that the network is in his hands. Actively so. You understand?” His smile grew. “The Lady Isbael’s back. You don’t know her, do you?” He turned away.

  The topmost corridor looked hastily refurbished, cobwebs and dust swept clear. She paced between rows of shadeen in the red and grey and blue of their guild in Dalmorat, standing immobile in front of walls of discolored stone. A servant scurried by, soft felt slippers shuffling against the cold floors; otherwise the corridor was heavy with silence. Kieve wondered why Cadoc had been moved here from his sunny rooms near the Great Hall. Perhaps it was a tradition among Dalmorat’s dying lords. Perhaps the old tyrant, at the last, was afraid of assassination. Two Shadeen at the end of the corridor dipped their spears and put their hands out to open the heavy wooden doors.

  The antechamber smelled musty, the walls damp with disuse. A fire roared under a mantel carved with gargoyles and serpents. The windows were closed. Physicians stood in anxious consultation near the inner doors, a murmuring counterpoint to the voice of the fire. On the far side of the room a knot of seminarians prayed, clicking cymbals and ringing small bells to attract the attention of the gods. Cadoc was taking no chances: the seminarians wore the insignia of all three gods. A couple of them danced, shuffling from foot to foot in ragged circles; a few others slept, cymbals hanging from their fingers. Cadoc’s two personal seminarians sat with them, their chanting voices weaving together. They all looked exhausted. Benches and tables bore the detritus of the death watch, cups and plates holding half-consumed meals, scattered papers, a clutter of medical instruments and books, huddles of pillows and blankets. One bent servant moved through the mess, making vague gestures toward cleaning up. Asgaut, Cadoc’s personal physician, moved away from his colleagues and beckoned to her.

  “Adwyr sent you. Good. He sleeps and wakens—you’ll have to wait.” He said to Anfri, “We don’t need you here.”

  “My master instructed—”

  “Go.”

  Anfri left without bowing. Asgaut rubbed his lined cheeks with the heels of his hands. His eyes were red.

  “You don’t like him either,” Kieve said, surprising herself as much as the physician. Asgaut put his hands down and looked at her, the corners of his mouth pinched. “Why not?”

  “I don’t like waste,” he said. “Yours or his. Do you want me to look at that?”

  Kieve’s shoulders stiffened. “No. It’s healing.”

  Asgaut disappeared into the battalion of his colleagues. Kieve stared down the seminarians and squinted at the walls. The ancient tapestries showed the story of Death: his birth flaming from a volcano’s maw, her harrowing of the lands, his banishment, after innumerable sins, by the Father and Mother, and, last, her kingdom under the volcano, complete with the Wheels of Judgment and the Flail of Truth. Two of the tapestries were out of place. By tradition Death was shown as a figure of surpassing beauty, now male an
d now female, a cunning and irresistible seducer. Cherans called Death “the laughing god” because it made a mockery of human plans. A cheerful subject, Kieve thought, for such a room as this. Perhaps this, too, was tradition. She would ask Taryn when she saw him, when she had a chance. The name brought the memory of a face, hands, a body. Her fingers curled.

  She cleared the window’s embrasure of plates, cups, and a discarded winter cloak, hitched herself onto the cold stones, and stared outside. The servant brought her a mug of watered ale. She nodded her thanks and loosened the collar of her cloak. The physicians murmured and gestured; the seminarians mumbled and chanted and rang and clashed. The window faced Abermorat and the southern run of the Morat. Indistinct figures moved through the inner ward below. She cradled the mug in her palms, watching the smudge of barges and icerunners on the Water Road. It could have been any sunny day in any winter, and she shook away the feeling that she watched her world from some other time and place. Turning back to the dismal room, she sipped her ale and wished she were elsewhere.

  One of the inner doors opened and a page gestured. Asgaut entered and disappeared into a crowd of death watchers. The other physicians stood with their heads up, like dogs listening for a distant call. When the door opened again they and the seminarians started forward, but the page gestured them away and beckoned to Kieve. She put her mug on the windowsill and followed him into the inner chamber.

  The room was dense with heat and people and the murmur of hushed voices. Cadoc’s Guard lined the walls. Taryn, Isbael’s steward and a land-baron in his own right, nodded at her. The corners of his long mouth moved upward a little and Kieve met his eyes for a moment. The others, both familiar and strange, watched with suspicious curiosity as she followed the page through the edge of the crowd and into the empty half of the room. The only furniture was the bed, a few scattered tables, and the large, pale wooden cabinet that had squatted next to his bed in Cadoc’s old bedchamber, locked tight and full of ugly secrets.

  “All shall be as it has been,” Adwyr had said, “save that in Lord Cadoc’s absence, it comes through me.” The locked cabinet was proof that he lied.

  The page led her over the worn purple carpet toward the curtained bed. The smell of sweat and damp wool faded as the stench of illness increased. Wooden posts rose from the bed’s corners, carved with the figures of demons and nightmares. Endres stood at the foot of the bed. Nothing about him now seemed at all round or comfortable or friendly. Beside him stood Baron Rive, one of Cadoc’s cronies. He had his hands buried in his fur-lined sleeves and looked at Kieve from narrowed eyes. Asgaut waited near the pillows. The page bowed and retreated and Kieve came around to the head of the bed and dropped to one knee. Cadoc looked at her from the high mattress, pallid skin stretched over the broad bones of his face, black eyes sharp. He looked a thousand years old.

  “Kieve,” he said, his voice rough and dry.

  She rose. “My Lord.”

  His right hand lifted and dropped to the coverlet. “Do you like what you see?”

  “Yourself, Lord? No.”

  “You never have.” He coughed. Asgaut came forward, his hands open, and Cadoc waved him away. “Sick of your stink,” he muttered. “Give me that cup.”

  A silver goblet stood on the table by the bed. Kieve lifted it to give it to him, then had to sit on the bed and hold it to his lips as he drank. He stank as though his flesh was rotting on him. When he lay back she returned the goblet to its place and began to rise.

  “Stay,” he said, his eyes still closed. “You hate me. You should be happy.”

  “No, Lord. I take no joy in this.”

  He opened his eyes and grinned, teeth clenched. “My honest little bitch. Asgaut says I have the lump disease, eating inside me. My prick is lumps, Rider. I piss blood.”

  Kieve said nothing.

  “Bitch,” Cadoc said again. “Kept you here. You hate me honestly.”

  She touched the edge of her cloak. “Would you have released me if I flattered you?”

  Cadoc shook his head. Spittle gleamed at the corners of his mouth. Kieve dabbed him clean with the sheet. “Too good a Rider, little bitch,” he whispered. “You do as I tell you.”

  “I do as my guild instructs, Lord. I’ve done nothing for you against those rules.”

  “I’ve never forced you to,” he said. Kieve did not argue. His breath rasped. “Too good,” he repeated.

  “Master Adwyr,” she said after a moment. “He has told me that he has your authority, that I shall be ordered through him. He said that all is as it was, save that it comes through him.”

  “And you are too smart to believe him.”

  “My lord.” She resisted the urge to glance at the cabinet. “I am your Rider and may only be ordered by you. Save in extraordinary circumstances.”

  His sharp gaze held cruelty and amusement. “Which these are not? No, don’t answer. You shall be ordered by me. Until I can no longer order anything. Master Adwyr has my authority in much. But not, I think, in this.”

  She bowed her head. It was a favor. They both knew it.

  “Lift your face, little bitch,” Cadoc demanded, “What think you of my circus?”

  She put her hands against her thighs. “The succession, Lord? You should say your choice, before there is bloodshed. This... chaos does you no credit.”

  The old man grinned. “My confidential conscience. Should I listen to you?”

  “You never have, Lord.”

  Cadoc made a choking sound, a horrible remnant of his usual boisterous laugh, and patted Kieve’s knee. He gestured and she leaned toward him, holding her breath. “I can’t say my choice, oath-keeper. Anyone I pick won’t be confirmed. You know it, I know it, they know it.” He leaned back against his pillows, grinning still. “Well?”

  It made sense. Cadoc had spent years shaping Dalmorat to fit his hand: trade alliances, ferrets and network, allegiances forged through mutual interest or increasingly through fear. As his power grew, the autonomy of his land-barons decreased; Cadoc did not hesitate, when it served his needs, to confiscate lands under the most flimsy of pretexts and no one dared object for fear of being Taken. His chosen successor would not change the world Cadoc had made, and the land-barons, if free to choose themselves, would not support anyone pledged to keep that status quo. “It’s the truth, Lord.”

  “Heh. You’re a good Rider, Kieve. One of the best. And you’ll stay after I’m dead. You’ll stay for my son.”

  Kieve’s stomach went cold. “No, Lord.” She stood. “I’ll ride your death to Koerstadt and the guildmaster will send another in my place.”

  “You need not steeple the hands and swear,” the old man said. “Only pledge to oath to him, nothing more. Before the land-barons. It will confirm to them that you command the ferrets, as I command you.” He huffed with pleasure, his breath reeking. “They will have no choice then, but to support him. They will have no choice but to know he inherits all I have made. And when he takes the sword, he will reward you, and release you.”

  “My guild requires that I not swear falsely.”

  Cadoc coughed and glared at her. She gave him more water and wiped his lips, and he lay back on the pillows.

  “You’re oathed to obey me—”

  “Not beyond your death.”

  Cadoc’s eyes gleamed. “I’ll have you Taken. Tortured. Killed.”

  Kieve shook her head, feeling her braid work loose. “What use am I dead? My guild would object. You know enough not to displease the guild, but Gadyn doesn’t.”

  “Gadyn’s a fool, you think? And you hate him.”

  “Yes.”

  “He is my son!”

  “Of course,” Kieve said, as her stomach knotted tighter. “Who, my Lord, could doubt it?”

  His laugh became a fit of coughing. Asgaut, coming forward, brushed her aside. Endres smiled beneath the deep concealment of his beard. The death watchers behind him stared at Cadoc’s shaking body. His twisting had pushed back the coverlet and a
pale red stain spread over the robe at his crotch. The watchers murmured and she turned her head aside. The coughing subsided. Servants whipped away the stained bedding and replaced it and Asgaut came forward with a porcelain cup in his hands. Cadoc’s breath rasped.

  “Go now,” Asgaut said to her.

  “No.” Cadoc opened his eyes. “Away from me—get it away!” Asgaut retreated. Cadoc gestured at the silver goblet. Kieve bent over with it and he caught her hair, pulling her lower. His lips grazed her cheek. She couldn’t breathe for the stench.

  “Rider. You’ll pledge to my son. You’ll help my son.” He tugged her hair. “Not a game. The guild can’t touch a dead man. Or protect a dead Rider.” Releasing her, he turned his face away.

  She stood without moving for a moment, then stepped back from the bed and knelt and rose and walked toward the doors. Endres nodded as she passed. She pushed through the tall doors and stood in the center of the anteroom, fists curled under her cloak. The physicians and seminarians had gone in to attend Cadoc’s fit of coughing and the room was deserted. She stared at Death’s pale, beguiling eyes. Taryn came from the inner chamber and put his hand on her shoulder.

  “It’s not pretty,” Taryn said.

  “I’ve seen death before.”

  “Like this?”

  She didn’t answer. He raised his hand to touch her temple. “What’s wrong with your eye, Kieve? Has it been seen to?”

  “Yes.” His hand spread along the side of her face and she rested her cheek against it.

  “Dine with me,” he suggested.

  For a moment she let herself be tempted, then shook her head against his palm. “Tomorrow,” she said. “Ask me again tomorrow.” It had never felt possible, coming in from a ride directly to his arms.