Ricard snorted. “Damned gunsmiths don’t want to unionize.”
“Can’t blame them,” Adamat said. “They already produce half the weapons used in all the Nine. They’re not worried about competition.”
“And it’d be the whole world if they unionized! Organization is key. Bah,” Ricard said. “What we’re really excited about is the canal going over the Charwood Pile and through Deliv. When that’s finished, we’ll have a direct route to the ocean from Adro, and there will be no limit on our production capabilities. Adro will finally have a shipping lane to the ocean.” He suddenly made a face. “But dear me, it’s rude to talk about my fortunes like this…” Ricard trailed off awkwardly.
Adamat waved dismissively. “You speak of my failed business? Think nothing of it. It was a gamble to begin with, and I bet the wrong way. I could blame it on the price of paper, or the stalwart competition…”
“Or the exploding printing press.”
“Or that,” Adamat said. “But I’ve still got my family and my friends, so I’m a rich man.”
“How is Faye?” Ricard asked.
“Quite well,” Adamat said. “She’s staying out in the country until things have stabilized a little more here in the capital. I’ve been thinking of having her remain until the war’s over, in fact.”
Ricard nodded. “War is the pit.”
A young man with scrawny arms and old, cast-off clothing entered the room with a bottle of wine and a pair of crystal wineglasses.
“I said two, damn you!” Ricard said.
The young man seemed unperturbed by Ricard’s shouting. “There was only one left.” He let the platter drop on Ricard’s desk with a clang and beat a hasty retreat, dodging a cuff from Ricard’s fist.
“Impossible to find good help,” Ricard said, steadying the wobbling bottle of wine.
“Indeed.”
Ricard poured the wine. The goblets were dirty, but the wine was chilled. They drank two glasses each before exchanging another word.
“You know why I’m here?” Adamat asked.
“Yes,” Ricard said. “Ask your questions; I’m no fop to take offense. You’ve got a job to do.”
This would be a relief, Adamat decided. He leaned forward. “Do you have any reason to see Field Marshal Tamas dead?”
Ricard scratched his beard. “I suppose. He’s been grumbling lately that he wants to see a reduction in the size of the union. Says we’re gaining too much power, too fast.” He spread his hands. “If he decides to put a cap on our manpower, or to tax our earnings heavily, it could cause a big problem for the Warriors.”
“Big enough to have him killed?”
“Certainly. But one has to weigh the benefits and risks. Tamas is tolerant of the unions—he supports their existence, despite our being outlawed for almost a thousand years now. Manhouch only allowed me to set up the Warriors because of the exorbitant taxes he planned on getting from us. We were able to dodge enough of them to make it cost-effective for us to exist.”
“If you could exist under Manhouch, why did you support the coup?”
“A number of Manhouch’s accountants were taking a closer look at our books. They realized they weren’t getting nearly as much in taxes as they’d planned, and his advisers were encouraging him to have us disbanded entirely. The nobility hated us. They hate having to pay workers more, even if it means higher production. Even if Manhouch hadn’t had us disbanded, the Accords put Adro under Kez colonial law—which would have found me and the rest of the union bosses in prison or worse, and the Warriors disbanded anyways, our property confiscated.”
“You said there would be risks for you, in having Tamas killed?” Adamat said.
“Mostly questions. I don’t have a lot of friends in the council. Lady Winceslav tolerates me. The reeve hates me because my accountants are almost as good as his and the Diocel has excommunicated me twice. Prime Lektor thinks I’m a fool, and the Proprietor—well, the Proprietor enjoys the bribes the union pays him. If Tamas were killed, that would leave me with only two supporters on the council, both of whom could turn on me.”
Adamat took a sip of his wine. It may be that one already has, he thought, remembering what Lady Winceslav had said.
“Word has it you sent a delegation to Ipille.”
Ricard sat back. “Who told you that?”
“You know better than to ask me that.”
“Bah. You and your sources. I forget sometimes that you seem to know everything. Even things done in the deepest of secrecy.”
“So you did?”
Ricard shrugged. “Of course. Not even Tamas knows. Not that I’m hiding anything,” he said quickly, throwing up a hand.
“Why the secrecy if you aren’t hiding anything?” Adamat found himself on edge. Old friend or not, if Ricard was dealing behind Tamas’s back, friendship was cheap currency.
“I told you we might make a million members?”
“Yes.”
“Well, imagine if that could be ten million. Or a hundred million?”
“You’re talking every working man in all the Nine.”
Ricard nodded solemnly. “The Warriors sent a small delegation to Ipille. Nothing so underhanded as trying to sell out Adro, mind you. Simply a letter of intent that the Warriors want to spread outside Adro throughout the whole Nine. It’s well known the Kez outnumber us, but they don’t have anything to match our industry. We offered a number of small incentives if they let us start a chapter house in one of their cities.”
“I see,” Adamat said. He examined the inside of his wineglass. He understood perfectly why Ricard had done it in secrecy. With the war on, Tamas would not want even an inkling of anyone helping the Kez. And the Kez would have much to gain from the unions. Kez was primarily an agricultural country. They had yet to embrace industry, not the way Adro did, so they were behind in technology and production despite their immense population. If the Warriors spread to Kez, their knowledge of Adran manufacturing would spread with them. As Ricard said, the Kez could not match Adran industry. Yet.
“Have you received an answer?”
Ricard made a face. He looked around his desk, then on the shelves, and finally found what he was looking for underneath a crust of half-eaten bread. He tossed a paper into Adamat’s lap.
It bore the royal seal of King Ipille of Kez. Adamat ran his eyes across the contents.
“They rejected you.”
“With venom,” Ricard said. “My men were thrown from the palace by their belts. The Kez are fools. Idiots. They remain in the last century, while the rest of the world already looks to the next. Damned nobles.”
Adamat considered this. This lead was gone, anyway. Unless there were further negotiations going on beneath the surface—such a thing wasn’t unheard of. Adamat would dig deeper if need be. Ricard was not such a good friend that Adamat wouldn’t see whether his story held water.
Ricard drained the last of the wine straight from the bottle. He set it down on the desk on its side and spun it. “Maies left me last month, right after the coup.”
Maies was his sixth wife in twenty years. Adamat couldn’t help but wonder what he’d done this time.
“Are you all right?”
Ricard’s eyes were on the spinning bottle. “Doing fine. An office near the dockyards has its perks. I found a pair of twins…” He held his hands out in front of his chest. “I could introduce you—”
Adamat cut him off. “I’m a happily married man—and I want it to stay that way.” Ricard wasn’t the type of man to share. Adamat couldn’t even be sure what kind of an offer that was. “What do you think of the other councillors?” Adamat asked, changing the subject.
“Personally?”
“I don’t care if you like them. I care if you think one of them would plot against Tamas.”
“Charlemund,” Ricard said without hesitation. “That man’s a cave lion in the henhouse.” He shook his head. “You’ve heard stories about his villa, right? A pleasure villa fo
r the high and mighty just outside of the city.”
“Rumors,” Adamat said. “Nothing more.”
“Oh, they’re true,” Ricard said. “Makes me blush, and I’m no innocent virgin. Any man with appetites like that has designs for the country. Mark my words.”
“Do you have any proof? Any solid suspicions?”
“No. Of course not. He’s a dangerous man. The Church already speaks out against the Warriors. Says we’re going against Kresimir’s will by not rolling over and letting the nobility work us to death for nothing. I’m not putting my nose in that.”
“What about Ondraus?” Adamat said.
Ricard became very still. “Watch that one,” he said. “He’s more than he seems.”
An odd warning from Ricard.
“Well, let me know if you get any evidence to convict the arch-diocel,” Adamat said, picking up his hat.
Ricard put his finger in the air. “Wait,” he said. “I just remembered something. There were rumors a few years back that Charlemund was involved in some kind of a cult.” He put his hand to his head. “I can’t for the life of me think of the name.”
“A cult,” Adamat said good-naturedly. Ricard was reaching. He obviously didn’t like the man. “Let me know if you remember. I’ll need access to your books, and to any property the union owns down by the docks.”
“Hmph,” Ricard said. “You’ll need an army to wade through all of that.”
“Still…”
“Oh, you’re welcome to it. I’ll spread the word around with my boys that you’re not to be bothered and that your questions are to be answered.”
Adamat and SouSmith spent the rest of the day and much of the next walking the docks and warehouses. Nearly everyone in that district belonged to the Warriors of Labor, so Adamat asked a lot of questions. As he suspected, though, they took him nowhere. He wound up speaking to well over three hundred people. There had been suspicions and half-truths and lies and fingers pointed, but it all turned in on itself in a great big circle. Ricard had been right—it would take an army to sort through all of it.
The only thing he could confirm was that Kez agents had been coming into the country through these docks, over the Adsea. He dropped by Tamas’s military headquarters at the end of the second day and left a list of names and ships for Tamas’s soldiers to check out, but went home with nothing further in the search for Tamas’s traitor.
He knew his work may have helped avert another assassination attempt, but he couldn’t help but feel he was putting his hands into murky, shark-filled waters. He was but one man, and Tamas’s enemies could strike from anywhere and at any time.
CHAPTER
22
The pealing of the Watch bell brought Taniel out of a restless sleep and had him on his feet in moments. He snatched his rifle from beside his bed and sprinted for the door. Ka-poel began to stir from her cot in the corner of the room, and then Taniel was out and down the stairs.
The officers’ mess was empty. Taniel ran past the rows of tables, their chairs set upside down on top of them, and came out into the street.
He only paused there to pull on his shirt and adjust his rifle kit. Boots came on next, and by the time he was up, men and women poured from the rest of the buildings on the street. Taniel joined the flow of those heading toward the southern wall of the bastion.
“You heard the alarm?” Fesnik asked, dropping in beside Taniel. He’d taken a liking to Taniel in the two weeks since he’d come down off the mountain with Bo. Taniel couldn’t imagine why. He’d cracked one of the man’s teeth when he put a pistol in his mouth all those weeks ago.
Taniel rolled his eyes. Of course he heard it. Half of Adro heard it, and the damned bells were still going. “Yeah,” he said.
“Think it’s the big push?”
“Don’t know.”
The young Watcher looked far too excited for the prospect. They’d had nothing but potshots at the Kez soldiers since fire was first exchanged. The Kez army had simply lain out on the fields, readying itself for… something… out of range of artillery. Their Privileged had stayed completely out of sight—a fact that irked Taniel—though he’d had his share of shots at Wardens. Killing one of them in a single shot, though, took more luck than skill.
Taniel fell into a spot on the bulwark and got comfortable. He snorted a pinch of powder to sweep away the last of his sleep and squinted into the morning sun.
“They’ve got the sun with them,” Taniel said.
“Bastards,” Fesnik grunted.
Taniel said, “We’ve always known they’d attack in the morning. Their advantage will turn against them in the afternoon, when they’re looking up the mountain to make a shot.”
The sun had barely begun peeking out from the distant hills. The morning air was chilly despite summer’s onset. The snow had disappeared from the lower parts of Pike’s skirt and the road up the southern side would be soggy—it’d be trampled to a mud-covered slide when Kez troops began their ascent. Taniel wondered at the Kez strategy.
The bells fell away from the town behind them. Quiet came, save for a few nervous whispers and the rattle of gear. Cannons were loaded, muskets readied. Men and heavy guns lined the entire bulwark with just enough room between them to work. Taniel did not envy the enemy.
“By Kresimir,” Fesnik said, squinting. “They’ve got enough troops to throw men and bullets at us until the end of times.”
“They’re welcome to try,” said a Watcher woman on Taniel’s right. He thought he recognized the voice and took a glance. It was Katerine, one of Bo’s women. She was a serious woman, not Bo’s type at all, tall and thin with raven hair and a severe voice. He gave her a nod. She responded in kind.
Taniel took a little more powder and tried to search the plains below for some kind of movement. Being a powder mage didn’t reduce the glare of the morning sun. He felt a tug on his sleeve. Ka-poel stood beside him and pointed down the slope.
Taniel tried to follow her finger, searching the hillside and the plains below. Then he saw it. Down near Mopenhague. The town had long been abandoned in favor of a headquarters farther back. Not anymore. A tower had been erected during the night. It stood three stories high, made of wooden beams and sitting upon a sled, with a full team of oxen ready to pull it.
Taniel felt his heart jump. “A Privileged Tower,” he said. He opened his third eye to find out for certain. A glow surrounded the tower in the Else, thick enough to blot out individual auras.
“It’s just a pile of sticks,” Fesnik said. “One good shot from a big gun and it’s splinters.”
Ka-poel snorted. Taniel didn’t think she’d ever seen a Privileged Tower, but she could definitely sense the sorcery around the thing.
Katerine seemed worried. She gave Taniel an uncertain look.
“Don’t get your hopes up on that,” Taniel said. “Privileged Towers are more a bundle of sorcery than sticks.” He gave the thing a once-over. His third eye found a field of colors below, a thousand pastels all smeared together and mixed up. The tower glowed like a thousand torches. Looking at it gave him a headache. He closed his third eye. “They’ve been weaving wards into that thing for the last few weeks. I don’t think one of these has been built for a long time. It takes an entire royal cabal, and when it’s finished…”
“OK, but what the pit does it do?” Fesnik asked. Taniel gave the young Watcher a glance. Fesnik’s musket barrel wavered.
“It’ll protect the soldiers as they come up the hill,” Taniel said. “And the Privileged riding it.”
“I still can’t see the thing,” Fesnik said, shielding his eyes.
“You will soon enough.” Taniel lifted his rifle and spun about. “Any idea where Bo is?”
Fesnik shook his head.
“With Gavril,” Katerine said. “Above the gate.”
The largest of the bulwarks was above the southeast gate. It stuck out from the main wall, looming over the side of the mountain with twenty cannon and artillery pi
eces. Taniel found Gavril right out on the point of the bulwark, his eyes shaded against the sun, leaning out as if waiting for a bullet to strike him. Bo stood a few paces back, frowning at the hillside below.
“Privileged Tower,” Taniel said.
“I know. I’ve been wondering what they’re up to. Thought they were waiting for more men.” He grunted and tugged at his collar. “I wasn’t expecting this.”
“I’ve never seen one before,” Taniel said. “Just heard stories.”
“I’d be surprised if you had. The last one made was oh, two hundred and fifteen years ago. A siege of a shah’s palace in Gurla by Kez forces. Allied with Adro, no less.” He snorted. “The Adran and Kez royal cabals worked together to build three Privileged Towers. Won them the battle, and the war.”
“Why’d they need them?” Taniel asked.
Bo gave him a long look. “Because the shah’s palace was guarded by a Gurlish god.”
Taniel felt a chill in his chest. It wasn’t caused by the wind. “You’re joking. A god?”
“Royal cabal secrets, my friend,” Bo said, tapping the side of his nose. “A young god. Young and naïve.” Bo’s voice was wistful.
“Not a story you’ll hear in the history books,” Gavril added. He climbed down from the bulwark and faced them, placing a looking glass back in his pocket. He wore the assorted furs of a mountain man with brown leather boots and a matching vest that barely fit across his chest. The vest was old and faded, and Taniel could practically smell the dust from it, as if it had been sitting in the back of a closet or bottom of a chest. On the left breast it had an emblem of the Mountainwatch—three triangles, a bigger one with a halo flanked by two smaller ones. A Watchmaster’s vest.
Gavril, the town drunk, was the Watchmaster. It still boggled Taniel’s mind.
“What do you think?” Bo said, nodding over the edge of the bulwark.
“I don’t like it.” Gavril rubbed at the stubble on his chin. He’d shaved off his beard since he took over as Watchmaster. It grew back in quickly, and he only bothered to shave every few days. “A Privileged Tower means they’ve got the whole cabal down there.”
The Powder Mage Trilogy: Promise of Blood, The Crimson Campaign, The Autumn Republic Page 29