The ambassadors had further reported Lord Rahl a man of seeming integrity, a man of great conviction, a man committed to peace and the freedom of those who joined with him.
He was also a man who demanded their surrender into the growing D'Haran Empire, and demanded it immediately.
Men like that tended to be unreasonable. A man like that could be no end of trouble.
Dalton brought out a shirt and held it up to show Teresa. She nodded her approval. He stripped to the waist and slipped his arms into the crisp, clean shirt, savoring the fresh aroma.
"Stein brings Emperor Jagang's offer of a place for us in his new world order. We will hear what he has to say."
If Stein was any indication, the Imperial Order understood the nuances of power. Unlike all indications from Aydindril,
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they were willing to negotiate a number of points important to Dalton and the Minister.
"And the Directors? What have they to say about our fate?"
Dalton grunted his discontent. "The Directors committed to the old ways, to the so-called freedom of the people of the Midlands, dwindle in number all the time. The Directors insisting we stay with the rest of the Midlands-join with Lord Rahl-are becoming isolated voices. People are tired of hearing their outdated notions and uninspired morals."
Teresa set down her brush. Worry creased her brow. "Will we have war, Dalton? With whom will we side? Will we be thrown into war, then?"
Dalton laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "The war is going to be a long, bloody struggle. I have no interest in being dragged into it, or having our people dragged into it. I'll do what I must to protect Anderith."
Much hinged on which side held the upper hand. There was no point in joining the losing side.
"If need be, we can unleash the Dominie Dirtch. No army, not Lord Rahl's, not Emperor Jagang's, can stand against such a weapon. But, it would be best, before the fact, to join the side offering the best terms and prospects."
She clasped his hand. "But this Lord Rahl is a wizard. You said he was gifted. There is no telling what a wizard might do."
"That might be a reason to join with him. But the Imperial Order has vowed to eliminate magic. Perhaps they have ways of countering his ability."
"But if Lord Rahl is a wizard, that would be fearsome magic-like the Dominie Dirtch. He might unleash his power against us if we fail to surrender to him."
He patted her hand before going back to his dressing. "Don't worry, Tess. I'll not let Anderith fall to ashes. And as I said, the Order claims they will end magic. If true, then a wizard wouldn't hold any threat over us. We will just have to see what Stein has to say."
He didn't know how the Imperial Order could end magic.
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Magic, after all, had been around as long as the world. Maybe what the Order really meant was that they intended to eliminate those who were gifted. That would not be a novel idea and to Dalton's mind had a chance of success.
There were those who already advocated putting to the torch all the gifted. Anderith held several of the more radical leaders in chains, Serin Raja among them. Charismatic, fanatical, and rabid, Serin Rajak was ungovernable and dangerous. If he was even still alive; they'd had him in chains for months.
Rajak believed "witches," as he called those with magic, to be evil. He had a number of followers he had incited into wild and destructive mobs before they'd arrested him.
Men like that were dangerous. Dalton had lobbied against his execution, though. Men like that could also be useful.
"Oh, and you just won't believe it," Teresa was saying. She had started back on the gossip she'd heard. As he pondered Serin Rajak, he only half listened. "This woman, the one I mentioned, the one who thinks so much of herself, Claudine Winthrop, well, she told us that the Minister forced himself on her."
Dalton was still only half listening. He knew the gossip to be true. Claudine Winthrop was the "perturbed lady" in the message in the secret compartment of his desk, the one for whom he needed to find a plum. She was also the one who had sent the letter to Director Linscott-the letter that never arrived.
Claudine Winthrop hovered around the Minister whenever she had the chance, flirting with him, smiling, batting her eyelashes. What did she think was going to happen? She'd gotten what she had to know she was going to get. Now she complains?
"And so, she's so angry to be treated in such a coarse manner by the Minister, that after the dinner she intends to announce to Lady Chanboor and all the guests that the Minister forced himself on her in the crudest fashion."
Dalton's ears perked up.
"Rape it is, she called it, and rape she intends to report it
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to the Minister's wife." Teresa turned in her seat to shake a small squirrel-hair eye-color brush up at him. "And to the Directors of Cultural Amity, if any are there. And Dalton, if the Sovereign is there, it could be an ugly row. The Sovereign is liable to hold up a hand, commanding silence, so she may speak."
Dalton was at full attention, now. The twelve Directors would be at the feast. Now, he knew what Claudine Winthrop was about.
"She said this, did she? You heard her say it?"
Teresa put one hand on a hip. "Yes. Isn't that something? She should know what Minister Chanboor is like, how he beds half the women at the estate. And now she plans to make trouble? It should create quite the sensation, I'd say. I tell you, Dalton, she's up to something."
When Teresa started prattling onto another subject, he broke hi and asked, "What had the other women to say about her? About Claudine's plans?"
Teresa set down the squirrel-hair brush. "Well, we all think it's just terrible. I mean, the Minister of Culture is an important man. Why, he could be Sovereign one day-the Sovereign is not a young man anymore. The Minister could be called upon to step into the Seat of Sovereign at any moment. That's a terrible responsibility."
She looked back to the mirror as she worked with a hair pick. She turned once more and shook it at him. "The Minister is terribly overworked, and has the right to seek harmless diversion now and again. The women are willing. It's nobody's business. It's their private lives-it has no bearing on public business. And it's not like the little tramp didn't ask for it."
Dalton couldn't dispute that much of it. For the life of him, he couldn't understand how women, whether a noble or a Haken girl, could bat their lashes at the letch and then be surprised when he rose, so to speak, to the bait.
Of course, the Haken girl, Beata, hadn't been old enough, or experienced enough, to truly understand such mature games. Nor, he supposed, had she foreseen Stein in the bar-
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gain. Dalton felt a bit sorry for the girl, even if she was Haken. No, she hadn't seen Stein lurking in the tall wheat when she smiled in awe at the Minister.
But the other women, the women of the household, and mature women come from the city out to the estate for feasts and parties, they knew what the Minister was about, and had no grounds to call foul after the fact.
Dalton knew some only became unhappy when they didn't get some unspecified, but significant, recompense. Some plum. That was when it became Dalton's problem. He found them a plum, and did his best to convince them they would love to have it. Most, wisely, accepted such generosity-it was all many had wanted in the first place.
He didn't doubt that the women of the estate were agitated that Claudine was scheming to bring trouble. Many of those wives had been with the Minister, seduced by the heady air of power around the man. Dalton had reason to suspect many who had not been to the Minister's bed wanted to end there. Bertrand either simply hadn't gotten to them yet, or didn't wish to. Most likely the former; he tended to appoint men to the estate only after he'd met their wives, too. Dalton had already had to turn down a perfectly good man as regent because Bertrand thought his wife too plain.
Not only was there no end to the women swooning to fall under the man, but he was a glutton about it. Even so, he had certain standard
s. Like many men as they got older, he savored youth.
He was able to indulge his wont for voluptuous young women without needing, as most men passing fifty, to go to prostitutes in the city. In fact, Bertrand Chanboor avoided such women like the plague, fearing their virulent diseases.
Other men his age who could have young women no other way, and could not resist, did not get a chance to grow much older. Nor did the young women. Disease swiftly claimed many.
Bertrand Chanboor, though, had his pick of a steady sup-
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ply of healthy young women of limited experience, and standards. They flew, of their own accord, into that candle flame of high rank and nearly limitless authority.
Dalton ran the side of his finger gently along Teresa's cheek. He was fortunate to have a woman who shared his ambition but, unlike many others, was discerning in how to go about it.
"I love you, Tess."
Surprised by his sudden tender gesture, she took his hand in both of hers and planted kisses all along it.
He didn't know what he could possibly have done in his life to deserve her. There had been nothing about him that would augur well for his ever having a woman as good as Teresa. She was the one thing in his life he had not earned by sheer force of will, by cutting down any opposition, eliminating any threat to his goal. With her, he had simply been helplessly hi love.
Why the good spirits chose to ignore the rest of his life and reward him with this plum, he couldn't begin to guess, but he would take it and hold on for dear life.
Business intruded on his lustful wanderings as he stared into her adoring eyes.
Claudine would require attention. She needed to be silenced, and before she could cause trouble. Dalton ticked off favors he might have to offer her in return for seeing the sense in silence. No one, not even Lady Chanboor, gave much thought to the Minister's dalliances, but an accusation of rape by a woman of standing would be troublesome.
There were Directors who adhered to ideals of rectitude. The Directors of the Office of Cultural Amity held sway over who would be Sovereign. Some wanted the next Sovereign to be a man of moral character. They could deny an initiate the Seat.
After Bertrand Chanboor was named Sovereign, it would not matter what they thought, but it certainly mattered before.
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Claudine would have to be silenced. "Dalton, where are you going?"
He turned back from the door. "I just have to write a message and then send it oh its way. I won't be long."
CHAPTER 18
NORA STIRRED WITH A groan, thinking it must be light already. Her thoughts rumbled woodenly in the numb blur between asleep and awake. She wanted nothing so much as to sleep on. The straw beneath her was bunched just right. It always bunched just right in perfect, comfortable, cuddling lumps, right as it was time to be up and out of bed.
She expected her husband to slap her rump any moment. Julian always woke just before first light. The chores had to be done. Maybe if she lay still, he would leave her be for just a few moments longer, let her sleep for a few dreamy minutes more.
She hated him at that moment, for always waking just before first light and slapping her rump and telling her to get up and to the day's work. The man had to whistle first thing, too, when her head was still a daze in the morning, rickety with sleep still trying to get out of her head.
She flopped over on her back, lifting her eyebrows in an effort to wake by forcing her eyes open. Julian wasn't there beside her.
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A feeling skittered up her insides, bringing her wide awake in an ice cold instant. She sat up in the bed. For some reason, something about him not being there gave her a feeling of queasy dismay.
Was it morning? Just about to be light? Was it still somewhere in the night? Her mind snatched wildly to get her bearings.
She leaned over, seeing the glow from the embers she'd banked in the hearth before she went to bed. A few on the top still glowed, hardly diminished at all from the way she'd left them. In that weak light, she saw Bruce peering at her from his pallet.
"Mama? What's wrong?" his older sister, Bethany, asked.
"What are you two doing awake?"
"Mama, we just gone to bed," Bruce whined.
She realized it was true. She was so tired, so dead tired from pulling rocks from the spring field all day, that she'd been asleep before she closed her eyes. They'd come home when it got too dark to work any more, ate down their porridge, and got right to bed. She could still taste the squirrel meat from the porridge, and she was still burping new radishes. Bruce was right; they'd only just gone to bed.
Trepidation trembled through her. "Where's your pa?"
Bethany lifted a hand to point. "Went to the privy, I guess. Mama, what's wrong?"
"Mama?" Bruce puled.
"Hush, now, it be nothin'. Lay back down, the both of you."
Both children stared at her, wide-eyed. She couldn't stick a pin in the alarm she felt. The children saw it in her face, she knew they did, but she couldn't hide it no matter how she tried.
She didn't know what was wrong, what the trouble was, but she felt it sure, crawling on her skin.
Evil.
Evil was in the air, like smoke from a woods fire, wrinkling her nose, sucking her breath. Evil. Somewhere, out in the night, evil, lurking about.
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She glanced again to the empty bed beside her. Gone to the privy. Julian was in the privy house. Had to be.
Nora recalled him going' to the privy house just after they ate, before they went to their bed. That didn't mean he couldn't go again. But he never did say he was having no problem.
Consternation clawed at her insides, like the fear of the Keeper himself.
"Dear Creator, preserve us," she whispered in prayer. "Preserve us, this house of humble people. Send evil away. Please, dear spirits, watch over us and keep us safe."
She opened her eyes from the prayer. The children were still staring at her. Bethany must feel it, too. She never let nothing go without asking why. Nora called her the "why child" in jest. Brace just trembled.
Nora threw the wool blanket aside. It scared the chickens in the corner, making them flap with a start and let out a surprised squawk.
"You children go back to sleep."
They lay back down, but they watched as she squirmed a shift down over her nightdress. Shaking without knowing why, she knelt on the bricks before the hearth and stacked birch logs on the embers. It wasn't that cold-she'd thought to let the embers do for the night-but she felt the sudden need for the comfort of a fire, the assurance of its light.
From beside the hearth, she retrieved their only oil lamp. With a curl of flaming birch bark, she quickly lit the lamp wick and then replaced the chimney. The children were still watching.
Nora bent and kissed little Brace on the cheek. She smoothed back Bethany's hair and kissed her daughter's forehead. It tasted like the dirt she'd been in all day trying to help carry rocks from the field before they plowed and planted it. She could only carry little ones, but it was a help.
"Back to sleep, my babies," she said in a soothing voice. "Pa just went to the privy. I'm only taking him a light to see his way back. You know how your pa stubs his toes in
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the night and then curses us for it. Back to sleep, the both of you. Everything is all right. Just takin' your pa a lamp."
Nora stuck her bare feet into her cold, wet, muddy boots, which had been set by the door. She didn't want to stub her toes and then have to work with a lame foot. She fussed with a shawl, settling it around her shoulders, fixing it good and right before she tied it. She feared to open the door. She was in near tears with not wanting to open that door to the night.
Evil was out there. She knew it. She felt it.
"Burn you, Julian," she muttered under her breath. "Burn you crisp for making me go outside tonight."
She wondered, if she found Julian sitting in the privy, if he'd curse her foolish woman
ways. He cursed her ways, sometimes. Said she worried over nothing for no good end. Said nothing ever came of her worrying so why'd she do it? She didn't do it to get herself cursed at by him, that sure was the truth of it.
As she lifted the latch, she told herself how she wanted very much for him to be out in the privy and to curse her tonight, and then to put his arm around her shoulders and tell her to hush her tears and come back to bed with him. She shushed the chickens when they complained at her as she opened the door.
There was no moon: The overcast sky was as black as the Keeper's shadow. Nora shuffled quickly along the packed dirt path to the privy house. With a shaking hand, she rapped on the door.
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