Iaeth let out a long, “Ah-h-h-h.”
Rat gazed with furrowed brow from one to the other. “I don’t get it.”
Iaeth smiled at him. “What she is saying is, the Nyidris are lying.”
Rat rolled up his eyes. “That, I could have told you at the outset. I had to live with them for years. They lie to everyone, and to each other, so much that if any of ‘em said the sun was out at midday, I’d think it was time to ring the nightwatch.”
Iaeth said, “Ah. You are that Rat, the former stepson! The cowardly, bullying, untrustworthy, grasping stepson.”
Rat’s lips twisted. “That’s me. Though I think that damn well fits Ryu.” He jerked his chin at Lineas. “I’ve got some travel bread left over from our trip south. Digger, fetch it.”
The first runner reached into a saddle bag and pulled out a tightly wrapped cloth. Lineas took it gladly, though she could feel even through the wrapping how dried and stale the bread was. She’d have to saw pieces off. But at least it would be filling.
Iaeth turned to Rat. “You and I will exchange information, yes?”
“You know where I am.” He held out his hands to either side.
With that, Iaeth and Lineas slipped out into the frigid night under stars as bright and cold as ice.
Rat could not go back to sleep.
Remembering what the Sartoran woman had said about watchers roaming the ground at night, he snuffed his candle, then sat in the dark, fighting the urge to go find Ryu and choke the plan out of him. If it had been only Ryu, it would be worth it.
But he’d learned early that all three Nyidris had a way of drawing people after them. Ryu in particular liked violence, as long as he dealt it, and he had violent friends.
Demeos was harder to describe. That is, he was still a shit, but like Rat’s father had said once, he’d been made into one. When they were all boys, Rat remembered distinctly how eagerly Demeos had asked about the academy—he’d liked riding hard, playing hard, dancing hard. Until the jarlan said firmly that he was to go to Sartor for his education.
Looking back, Rat wondered if Demeos might have been different if he’d gone to the academy. At his age, he would have been in that group with Manther Yvanavayir and the rest—hard riders all, excellent shots, but decent people. They dealt with violence because you did in the army, but they didn’t go looking for it the way Ryu did.
As the sun blued the curtains, he shifted away from useless might-have-beens to the present. What to do?
Connar had to be briefed, that was first. And...in a way that didn’t draw attention.
“Jugears.”
His second runner came from the tiny room adjacent.
“Get me a crock of beer.”
Jugears’ eyes widened. “Beer?”
“It’s a ruse,” Rat said, and when Jugears grinned, he added, “One our lives depend on.”
The smile vanished. Jugears remembered the conversation, and tapped his chest before going out. Rat said, “Digger, go loiter outside Connar-Laef’s quarters. As soon as you see lights, come get me. And Digger, unbutton your coat. Take out your horsetail. Look like you just got out of bed.”
Digger pulled out his hair clasp as he walked out, brown hair straggling nastily down over his shoulders.
Jugears appeared a short time later, saying, “Digger’s right on my heels.”
“Good.” Rat took the crock and splashed the beer over himself. He’d already loosened his hair and coat. Then he walked out sashless, feeling weirdly naked, though he wore shirt and trousers under his coat. It was all in what you were used to, he thought.
Connar was just coming out of his cottage, probably heading for the baths they’d been assigned—which Rat expected was ordinarily for the servants. That was fine. Water was water. He knew from his earliest memories all the little covert insults of Perideth hierarchy, and didn’t care about any of them.
He took up the crock by one of its handles, and started out. At first he put in a couple of good sways and stumbles, but he saw Connar begin to move fast. This was going to be the hardest part.
He increased his step to a stumbling run. When Connar saw him, he stopped, brows rising, then his mouth tightened into a line. Rat remembered that today was supposed to be the first day they’d return to discipline and routine.
Before Connar could speak, Rat flung his arm around Connar’s neck, which caused beer to splash over them both, and muttered into Connar’s ear, “Go with it.”
Connar stiffened, but didn’t resist as Rat propelled him back inside his cottage and kicked the door shut. Fish gazed in astonishment, his arms filled with laundry.
Rat said, “Keep the shutters closed. We need to talk, and without listening ears.”
He launched straight into an account of the night’s interview. Connar resented the sharp pang behind his ribs on hearing Lineas’ name. He hadn’t even known she was here.
Unaware of Connar’s falter in attention, Rat spoke on. “...so I can see them wanting to humiliate us before they run an assassination.”
“Wait.” Connar’s reverie broke on the word assassination. “If this is really a plot to get rid of us, why the festival with the princess and all? Why didn’t we meet an ambush?”
“We almost did,” Rat reminded him. “At the crossroads village. But I’ll wager anything that this is a backup plan. Cooked up between Ryu and Artolei. It’s the sort of thing they would think up. Ryu likes to kneecap you if he can. Make you helpless so he can play longer, especially in front of others. Lavais always went in for long plans, ones that she could deny plausibly. And having all these other nobles around, so it really seems like a festival gathering, would give her an excuse to count herself among ‘em, even though she knows exactly what’s happening. Especially if they’re still trying to win over this princess.”
Connar’s eyes narrowed, his lips a white line.
Rat went on, “All these nobles they invited, they’ve been seeing us swilling and swiving—for us it’s liberty. I’m sure they were told this is us all the time. And if they’re being sent off with that in mind, they’ll believe whatever they’re told after we’re dead.”
“But what’s the use of it, if we’re supposed to be dead anyway?”
“Because all those nobles, and the people they govern, will believe the worst that the Nyidris say of us. If they believe we’re bloodthirsty corrupt villains, they’ll rise against the king when the Nyidris tell them to, and when Lavais declares herself the new queen, well, her double taxes will be a relief after the four-times tenth that apparently the Nyidris have been forcing people to pay in the king’s name.”
“But the king has to....” Connar paused. “Wouldn’t he know?”
Rat turned up his palms. “Not sure. Especially if the tax guild down here is in Lavais’s pocket. But here’s what worries me. The king, if he thinks all the people rose, he won’t want to send the army in to slaughter civs in their own homes. It’s different if an army attacks Marlovans. Like at Ku Halir. Right?”
Connar said slowly, “Right. Right. All those years ago, Da couldn’t go to war against the north to bring them back, because he had no army and no treasury. But afterwards, he had both, and he still let it go. Noddy and I saw that much when we were up at Larkadhe, trade back and forth over the Andahi Pass. But two separate kingdoms.” His eyes narrowed. “So what you and this Sartoran spy think is that Lavais Nyidri is going for that, at the price of our lives?”
“Oh, I think our lives are Ryu’s idea of fun. If she gets the populace roused up, whether we’re here or not, she can try to break away from the kingdom. But it’s a lot easier, is my guess, if there’s an enemy that they can all hate together.”
Connar considered that. “And so we’re back to people being robbed of their winter stores, and the Nyidris blaming us.” He hit his chest.
“That seems to be it. But it’s all guesses on top of what Lineas and this Sartoran spy have overheard. And of course what we’re seeing here.”
“Lineas. Where is she?”
“Didn’t I say? I figured you’d want someone who could get past Ryu’s killers making a grass run for my Noth relations at Cassad. Whatever happens, I figure, seeing them coming up the road might balance things out a little.”
Lineas on a grass run? Connar wanted to laugh, to scoff. To regret. He said somewhat more forcefully than needed, “That would have been my first order. Good idea sending her out under cover of night.” And when Rat acknowledged with a flip of his fingers and a slightly questioning glance, “When do you think they’ll act? When they’ve sent the rest of the nobles out, so it’s just us, their personal guards, and this army of carters waiting in some village somewhere?”
Rat said, “What I think is, as soon as the Nyidris leave, we better expect action. They won’t want their hands dirty in the eyes of their nobles. Artolei thinks he’s in command, but I’ll wager my best war horse he’s being set up to take the blame if it fails.”
“And some sort of outland title if he wins. Right.” Connar turned his head. “Fish!”
The first runner appeared silently. “Fetch Jethren. No. Find out where he is—while getting breakfast. I’ll go to him. Rat has the right idea. We’re going to ride along with the swilling and swiving. I don’t want us going back to drill under their eyes while they assess our strengths.”
Rat grunted in agreement.
“Let them think we’re drunk day and night. But I want the word spread, you to captains, captains to riding captains, and from man to man: roust and whoop all you want, but no one is to get drunk, not any more. Spill it if you have to, when no one is around. We’re going to establish our own watches, while running our own ruse while we learn the terrain. I don’t even know how many buildings are here, much less how to defend ourselves among them. Until we have our own plan, everyone weapons-ready. But doggo.”
Rat smacked his fist to his chest and walked out, coat skirts flapping, leaving behind the smell of stale beer.
When Seonrei woke, Iaeth was waiting for her, the marks under her eyes indicating a sleepless night.
“Oh, good,” Seonrei said. “Maybe you can explain why the sled journey to the frozen falls was cancelled? Are the locals really concerned about a blizzard? Something is amiss, I sense it, though our hosts just keep smiling and pressing the spiced wine on us at every turn.”
“I made a very interesting acquaintance last night,” Iaeth said.
“That gorgeous prince?”
“No. But I met one of the other captains....” And Iaeth delivered a summary of the encounter with Lineas, then with Rat Noth, followed by her journey with Lineas through the servants’ area at the back of the walled manor—the opposite side of the manor from where the Marlovans had been housed.
“I stayed and watched her make her way down the hundreds of steps to the bottom of the cliffs,” Iaeth added. “Which is the only way to keep out of sight, though it’s icy and dangerous.”
Seonrei listened with surprise, then horror. “And so...the Marlovans are housed directly against the cliffs?”
“Yes. That whole area back of the garden, where the artisans used to live. The Marlovans are effectively cornered, unless they really do have flying horses. Which, by the way, are all at the stables at the other end. So they have to go through the main house, and past all the Nyidris’ people, to get to them.”
Seonrei brooded as she stared at her rapidly cooling breakfast tray.
“Lavais made them sound not just uncouth, but criminal,” she finally said. “It was easy enough to assume that, much as I have come to dislike her, I figured they must be far worse. The wars, the taxes. No art. No music. No refinement....” Her lips twisted. “When I laid eyes on that Prince Connar...ah, my only excuse—and I know well it is a weak one—is that beauty has a power of its own, altering everything around it. Lavais had made him sound scarcely human. When I saw him I wondered if they had lied about everything, but that very first night he sat there in the next chair to me without a thing to say. That could be excused, but more difficult is how very bored he looked during the concert.”
Iaeth snorted. “Not everyone indifferent to music is wicked. And not everyone who loves it can be exalted over others.”
“Do I not know it well? Demeos, I have seen, does love it, and yet he still looks at me to see how to respond.”
“That is arguably courtship.”
“Which is another road paved with falsity, but it is far off my current path.”
Iaeth put her hands together and bowed her apology—not without a hint of mockery.
Seonrei ignored both. “The worst was, I could smell human and horse sweat from those three or four paces away. Prince Connar didn’t even think to bathe, much less change to garments suitable for such a gathering.”
“He wasn’t offered the chance,” Iaeth reminded her. “Brought straight off the road to the banquet, and then to the listening hall.”
“I perceive now that it was calculated, but the Marlovans themselves certainly haven’t helped improve their reputation any.” She picked up a porcelain cup, then set it down again. “My mind keeps snagging on all these irrelevant details, but what it all really means is, we’re about to see a revolution, are we not?”
Iaeth said seriously, “Yes.”
Seonrei pursed her lips. “If we insist on leaving, will that precipitate bloody events?”
“I don’t know. It’s all guesswork right now,” Iaeth reminded her. “But I’m going to find out.”
Seonrei sighed. “If it comes to it, we all have transfer tokens. But to return by magic would be a failure on my part...it wouldn’t speak well to my desire to work for peace through diplomacy, would it?”
Iaeth stated neutrally, “I promised the queen your safety would be my first concern.”
“I know that. Why do you think I keep wearing this thing?” She tapped the graceful golden coronet around her brow. “Besides as a reminder to Lavais Nyidri of our respective ranks,” she added sourly. “Magic transfer is two words away, so permit me to remind you that my safety can be left to me to judge, for now. I desire you to make information your first concern.”
“It shall be done,” Iaeth said, and at the sound of someone approaching, she exited through another door.
Seonrei moved through next few days with heightened awareness. The urge to single out the Marlovans for her questions had to be resisted; she was aware more than ever of living in the quiet eye of a storm not of her own making. When she moved, the storm moved around her, tightening as more Nyidri servants pressed in, asking what she needed, warning her of the threat of weather. She couldn’t fault them. They were doing what they were told, and maybe even believed it was right, given the astounding fabric of lies Lavais Nyidri apparently had been weaving for years.
Instead, Seonrei pretended nothing was amiss as she obsessively counted guests, something she had never troubled with before, and—definitely finding fewer—ruminated on mad plans and governing.
She was not the only one feeling isolated. Fish had listened while Rat related Lineas’s report. He’d caught at a brief reference to a bucket and wash rag, which enabled Lineas to become effectively invisible to the upper levels of society, if not to the other servants.
Fish armed himself with a bucket and sponge, then did his best to map the complicated manor, having to keep everything in his head until he returned to Connar’s quarters to sketch it out. Struggling with that threw him back to his earliest days as a young runner in training among the royal runners. His resentment had long since faded when he saw how very hard they worked. Sometimes he even admitted to himself (though he never would to them) that it was a relief he’d been booted out. But one likes to make those decisions oneself, he thought as he roamed the building, sloshing bucket in hand. And in any case, their relentless training making maps would certainly have been useful now.
Connar burned with anticipation. He had a righteous cause. His nerves were entirely bound up in worrying about when
to strike. Every pair of waiting eyes that turned to him in mute question was a reminder that the wrong decision could be disaster.
Keth Jethren also burned with anticipation; the violence that had shaped him had become the tool he loved most, making him strong and skilled enough to take his rightful place at the true king’s side.
Iaeth continued to listen, to count, and to watch, aware that she was seeing only the surface.
They all existed in isolation, ostensibly royally entertained (or serving those being royally entertained) while the days moved at the pace of melting ice...until the frozen cataract broke.
NINE
Ryu’s tension had wound up so tight he couldn’t sleep, and when alone with his family, he paced back and forth, obsessively reviewing every aspect of his plan. It was working! He had the enemy right there under his control, deliciously oblivious, while outside the gates his army waited impatiently, desperate to get at them.
The last element of his plan was still unresolved, which frustrated him extremely: to detach the Marlovans from their weapons. He’d detached them from their horses right at the outset, though he couldn’t remove the horses completely—they balked, kicked, whinnied and made so much commotion when his servants had tried to take them that he and Artolei had had to abandon that plan. They didn’t dare raise the Marlovan servants’ suspicions.
Besides, the horses would be useless to the Marlovans now that they were locked in behind the gates.
The weapons were the main problem. He’d assumed he could send servants around to collect them in covered carts while their owners were drunk and elsewhere, but he reckoned without the runners, who guarded their masters’ weapons with the care they guarded their own lives. Ryu had issued various orders to try to separate one from the other, to meet with a stone wall of silence. He was afraid to push too hard, lest that soulsucking Rat figure out what was going on. It was a miracle that he hadn’t, but then from the smell of him, he’d been drinking day and night since their arrival.
“We’ll have to bring in more supplies for our rabble,” Artolei reported to Ryu late one night. “They’ve just about run out.”
Time of Daughters II Page 61