by Ken Scholes
Word that the assassins were Marshers had spread quietly through the ranks of the scouts, and certainly it was a darkness she needed to plumb. She was the Marsh Queen, with her work awaiting. He was an officer of the Gypsy Scouts-of the Forest Library-with his own.
Neb wanted to protest it. He wanted to strip off the scarf of his rank, take up the bucket of now-cold mud and smear himself with it. He wanted to pledge his knives to her service and follow her back to the Marshlands to hunt down whoever was responsible for last night’s attack.
But I am pledged to the library. Not the library, he thought, but the light of knowledge it represented and the man who would shepherd that light here in the Ninefold Forest, away from the political turmoil of the Named Lands. And if the dreams of her people were true, the Ninefold Forest Houses also guarded the way to the Home he was meant to find them. He sighed and pulled her close again, taking in the earthy scent of her.
After a minute or two of silence, Neb stood and Winters stood with him. When she turned to face him, he matched her movements and they put their arms around one another.
“I will see you in our dreams,” she whispered. “Be well and safe, Nebios ben Hebda.”
There at Hanric’s Rest, at the heart of the Whymer Maze, they kissed again. When they finished, Neb pushed a strand of dirty, unkempt hair from her narrow face. “Be well and safe, my queen,” he said. His voice caught on the words as he said them. Some part of him, deeply buried, knew they now moved through a time that was anything but safe. Still, he said it again, using her formal name: “Be safe, Winteria.”
At her nod, he left the young queen alone with her shadow and made his way back out, mindful of the thorny walls that squeezed him, body and soul. He walked briskly to the courtyard, where the horses and wagon awaited him. Isaak sat astride a great stallion, holding the reins of Neb’s mount. A cold morning breeze whipped the edges of his dark Androfrancine robes.
Neb took the reins and quickly checked the travel kit one of the men had fixed to the back of the saddle. Satisfied, he swung up onto the horse. When Aedric looked at him, Neb nodded and the First Captain whistled the men forward.
Without a word, and without looking back, Neb rode eastward with his company into the red light of the stirring sun.
Rudolfo
Late-morning sun slanted through the windows of a room that smelled of incense and sweat. Rudolfo sat in an armchair near the bed, holding Jin Li Tam’s hand, feeling his knuckles threaten to pop with each contraction as she groaned in her labor and squeezed his hand. He looked up, glancing first to the River Woman, who watched and waited near the foot of the bed, then to his betrothed, the formidable daughter of House Li Tam.
She lay in sweat-soaked sheets, her red hair wet and matting her forehead and cheeks. Her cotton shift clung to her body, the pink of her skin showing through where the damp cotton stuck to it. Her muscles were taut, her eyes squeezed shut and her jaw set.
“You’re doing fine, dear,” the River Woman said, but Rudolfo heard trouble in her tone. A platter of assorted cheeses and a carafe of lukewarm pear wine sat untouched on a small table within easy reach. There was a light knock at the door, and he looked up to see the River Woman frown at yet another interruption in a night and a day of interruptions.
One of the River Woman’s girls opened the door a crack and hushed words were exchanged. She glanced to Rudolfo. “Your Second Captain, Lord.”
Rudolfo started to stand, but Jin Li Tam’s grip prevented him. “No,” she said. “You’ll not leave again.” Her blue eyes were narrow and the firmness in her tone brooked no dissent. “Send him in,” she said.
The River Woman’s voice was also firm. “Lady, I do not think-”
Rudolfo glanced from woman to woman. The outcome of this moment’s match of wills was not difficult to surmise.
“These are not the best of circumstances for an argument,” Jin Li Tam said, anger and pain giving her voice an edge. “Send him in.”
The River Woman relented, and Philemus, the Second Captain of the Gypsy Scouts entered, discomfort obvious in his stance and stammer. “General,” he said with a nod, then paled as he glanced to Jin Li Tam. “L-lady, I apologize for-”
“You owe no apology, Captain,” she said. Her body spasmed again and she growled. “Bear your message quickly.”
He swallowed and nodded. “Our scouts have overtaken the assailants. There were four. They are all dead.”
Rudolfo raised an eyebrow. “Dead?” Unbidden, his mind flashed back to the scrambling fight of the night before, to the strength in their attackers that so completely overran them, so casually lifted and tossed them aside as if Rudolfo and his best and brightest were made of paper instead of flesh and bone. His men could not have taken them, not as they were. Unless. “Had their magicks burned off?”
Philemus shook his head. “No, General. But they were easy enough to track. They seem to have died suddenly and in midflight, near the edge of the Prairie Sea. I’ve ordered the men to bring back the bodies.” He hesitated. “The Physician Benoit is also here now. He will start his examination once the magicks have worn off.” He looked to the River Woman. “And once your. work. is finished here, certainly,” he added.
Jin Li Tam jerked again, arching her back. This time, she cried out even louder, and Rudolfo glanced to her again. He’d watched a hundred skirmishes from the hillside, eventually cursing and riding down into the thick of it when the waiting proved too much for him. But this was a battle he could not ride into, and he found frustration in that powerlessness. And until now, he’d heard his men speak of these moments. But as he’d grown older and accepted that an heir was unlikely though not for lack of practice, he’d brushed aside what little he’d heard from the new fathers in his household or his army. Though he suspected that even if he had listened intently, even taken notes upon the subject, it could not have prepared him for this.
He looked to the River Woman and saw the strain on her face, the cloud in her eyes, in that brief unguarded moment. When she saw he was watching, she smiled, but it failed to convince him.
Something in this does not bode well, he thought.
Rudolfo turned to Philemus. “In Aedric’s absence, you bear my grace in all matters pertaining to this investigation. Work with House Steward Kember on all other matters, and from here forward, do not disturb us unless it is absolutely essential for the well-being of the Houses.”
The man came to attention. “Yes, General.”
Now, to offset the sternness of his tone and the darkness of the night’s events, Rudolfo winked at the soldier. “The next time I see you, I will introduce you to my heir.” He glanced again toward the River Woman and saw her bite her lip at his words. His stomach lurched and he found himself hoping that Jin Li Tam was sufficiently distracted by the pain.
His hands moved quickly and subtly once the door closed. What are you not telling us, Earth Mother?
She blinked but recovered quickly. “You’re doing fine, dear. It’s nearly time to push.” Her own hands moved beneath Jin’s line of sight. There is something wrong with the baby. I do not know what. “Are you thirsty? Can we get you anything?” Even as the words came out, her hands moved again. But I would not have the mother of my lord’s child alarmed at this point.
Rudolfo took in a deep breath, feeling his stomach lurch again, a thousand times more pronounced than the impulse that led him charging down the hill to join his Gypsy Scouts in war. How is it, he wondered, that I could care so much so soon for someone I’ve not yet seen?
Jin Li Tam squeezed his hand and cried out again. Turning toward her, he put his other hand over the top of hers. “You are a fine, formidable woman,” he told her in a quiet voice. “And I am proud to have you at my side.” When her eyes met his and he saw the tears in them, he leaned in closer. “When this has passed,” he said, “I will take you as my bride and you will be the Forest Queen.” As he spoke, he pressed his free hand into the back of hers and into the soft places of her
wrist. You will ever be my sunrise and our son shall be my rising moon.
He wasn’t sure how long it had been since he had said the words. A fog had taken him at the end of the confrontation with her father, when he’d learned that his life had been a river moved to relocate a library and create a safe haven for the light away from the Androfrancine shepherds. Even the woman, Tam’s forty-second daughter, had been a part of that work. He’d loved her in the days before learning that, had drawn strength from her when his closest friend, Gregoric, had died in Sethbert’s camp. But those feelings had faltered and become something closer to resolve than love, though he did not doubt she loved him fiercely. That love had brought her to a choice, and she had left off her father’s work for it.
But now, in this place, so fresh from the death of Hanric and so far from that bonfire on the Inner Emerald Coast and the confrontation with Vlad Li Tam, he felt something stirring within him and did not know what to name it. He found himself recalling the nights and days they’d sweated together, exploring one another sometimes in silence, sometimes amid sighs and cries of delight, in a hundred different pairings. One of those pairings had borne fruit, though later she’d told him of the powders she’d used to give his soldiers back their swords.
And now, she travailed at birth, and there was something wrong with the baby.
Our baby.
He’d thought perhaps the new library would be the greatest thing he ever built, but now he knew that it could not be so. Indeed, this child was.
For hours, he sat and held her hand, pressing messages into her skin and whispering to her as she raged and roared against the pain like the tigers that wandered the garden jungles of her home. He watched as the pain grew and as the contractions increased, and when the time came, he urged her with the River Woman to push, to breathe, to push more and harder.
And when little Lord Jakob was pulled from her, limp and gray, he leaped to his feet to see his blood-mottled son, feeling the room spin away as powerlessness and rage washed him.
And when the River Woman shouted in alarm for her powders and swabbed out the small blue-lipped mouth with her little finger, he turned back to his betrothed and blocked her view and whispered yet more assurances as the Earth Mother gently blew life back into his son and reinforced that life with whatever magicks her alchemist’s pouch could yield.
When that first weak and retching cough came and that first mewling cry of Lord Jakob, Shepherd of the Light, met its first winter midnight, Rudolfo leaped forward to study the tiny face and hands that he had helped to make.
So this, Rudolfo thought as the River Woman cleaned and wrapped their child for the new mother’s waiting arms, is love.
Laughing, the Gypsy King collapsed back into the chair and wept for the terror and joy that had seized him.
Chapter 6
Jin Li Tam
Jin Li Tam drifted in and out of sleep, waking to nurse Jakob when the River Woman’s girls brought him to her. Rudolfo had come and gone through the remainder of the night, leaving after they changed out her bed and bathed the sweat and blood of her labor from her exhausted body. She’d run with the scouts, fought with them, even; but nothing had prepared her for this exertion, both physical and emotional. And when it was done, to finally meet the person who had caused her such discomfort and have that memory fade into an intense and satisfying joy. Truly an overwhelming time; something, again, that she was not prepared for.
She held Jakob to her breast, offering the nipple to him. His eyes were still shut, and he was tinier than she thought a baby should be. More gray, as well, his skin the shade of paper ash. He took it, his mouth working at it with less vigor than she would have expected, and she settled back into the pillows that propped her up in bed. Outside, morning announced itself quietly.
There was a faint knock at the door, and it opened before she could answer. The River Woman entered. She looked as if she hadn’t slept yet, dark circles casting shadows beneath her red-rimmed eyes. But more than weariness, she looked as if she bore a world’s weight upon her heart.
She is here to bear ill tidings. Jin Li Tam had spent her life reading people, looking for the signs of their honesty, their deception and their attempts to hide truth. The River Woman’s message was written into her posture, into the way she held her head and the way her hands restlessly picked at her skirts.
“Awake again, I see,” she said as she came to the edge of the bed. “May I sit with you?”
Jin Li Tam nodded. “Please.” She shifted while the older woman sat on a corner of the mattress.
The River Woman looked to the girl in the room. “Would you give us a few moments?” Jin measured the strain her voice and watched out of the corner of her eye as the girl curtsied and slipped out of the room.
Jin Li Tam’s eyes narrowed. “There is something wrong with my baby,” she said in a flat voice.
“Yes,” the woman said.
“He was nearly stillborn,” Jin Li Tam added. “You brought him back.”
The River Woman inclined her head. “He was,” she said, “and I did. Yes.” She looked at Jin Li Tam now, her eyes fixed on hers. “The time to be direct is upon us. Your child is sick, Lady Tam, and I cannot make him well.”
Even though she’d known at the core something was wrong, hearing the words sent a shudder down her spine. She felt the worry, hard and cold, in her stomach and found herself instinctively clutching more tightly to the tiny bundle that wheezed against her bosom. “How sick?”
I will be strong, she thought, and will not cry.
The River Woman’s voice was low and more matter-of-fact than Jin Li Tam expected after hours of tea with the old woman in her cat-dominated cottage at the edge of town. “We can keep him alive,” she said, “if we are diligent.”
Jin Li Tam felt her resolve slipping, felt the tears tugging at her, suddenly aware of how much her life had changed. “Have you told Lord Rudolfo?”
The old woman shook her head. “I have not. I wanted to speak with you first.” She paused. “Does he know what lengths you went to for this heir?”
“Yes,” she answered, looking in the direction of his study, remembering the night she’d slipped down there, barefoot and drawn by her conscience to confess her father’s last manipulation of the man she loved. He’d taken it well, but those were the days and nights when the distance had been the greatest, after Petronus’s execution of Sethbert and after her father’s retreat from the Named Lands. He’d accepted it with an aloof politeness that neither condemned nor praised her. Still, she’d felt better with that last deception between them now brought to light. Her eyes narrowed as curiosity over the River Woman’s question nudged her. “Why do you ask? Do you think there is a connection between-”
She interrupted herself, closing her mouth before she finished. Of course there was. Why else would she need to know how much Rudolfo knew? The tears came now, and nothing she did could stop them. She hung her head, held her baby close, and wept.
“Something in the powders lingered, became knit into your son.” She paused. “I know little of how these particular powders work, but they are working hard against him, now. I’ve heard of such things. It’s why the Androfrancines discouraged their use.” The River Woman moved closer and put a hand on Jin Li Tam’s leg. “There’s no way you could have known, Lady.” She offered a sympathetic smile. “Now, I have birds out to a dozen of my sisters as far away as the Divided Isle. They may know something I do not. But it would be best if I could contact whoever gave you the recipe. I’m hoping you can help me.”
An image of the iron armada, now seven months absent from their native waters in the Named Lands, flitted across her inner eye. Jin Li Tam forced her focus away from the waves of despair that threatened to capsize her. She blinked the water from her eyes. “I don’t think that is possible. Surely there’s another way?”
The River Woman nodded slowly. “Certainly, one might be found. The birds are out. And I have the mechoservitors searching
every inch of their memory scripts as well as the holdings that have drifted in from elsewhere. But most of the magicks and pharmaceutical knowledge were buried in Windwir.”
Jin Li Tam felt Jakob’s mouth falter, and she shifted her breast, surprised at how quickly she and her son learned this new dance between them. As he took to it again, she found her grief resolving into calculated inquiry. “What does this mean?”
The River Woman pulled a small pouch of powders from her satchel. “I’ve given you these,” she said. “You are passing them to Lord Jakob in your milk. It will keep him alive, but he will not be a strong baby.” She paused. “And you will need a wet-nurse to share this work.”
Jin Li Tam balked, feeling a sudden anger rise in her that she could not place initially. Fear? Panic? It took shape before her slowly, and she forced herself to sit with the feeling until the source of it was clear.
I am not enough.
The River Woman must have read it on her face. “These magicks are potent, Lady Tam, and they will harm you if you do not let others bear this burden with you.” She paused, letting the words find meaning. “This child will have a hard enough path. Let’s not have him grieve a mother he did not know.”
She heard hope beneath those words. Jin Li Tam looked up slowly, her eyes meeting the River Woman’s. “We will need to find someone.”
The River Woman smiled. “I have. There is a new girl in the refugee camp. Her husband was killed in the fighting on the Delta, and the moonshadow pox took her infant son four nights past. I tended to the child, but it was too late.”
Jin Li Tam studied the old woman’s face, reading it carefully for the hope she needed to see there. “And you think this will cure him?”
The cloud that passed through the River Woman’s eyes betrayed her words before she spoke them. “No,” she said, “it will not. It will merely keep him alive.” She frowned now. “I don’t know of a cure, Lady Tam, and eventually these magicks will also turn on him.” She offered a weak smile, and Jin Li Tam’s heart sank with it. “But it gives us time to find a better way.”