by Kirby Crow
He’d already tried to return to Byzan clothing. It was just one more thing to make him stand out, to mark him as different. He’d made a promise to Liall to try to fit in and learn Rshani ways. Going back to tunics and pedlar’s coats was a step backward, not forward. “I know,” he said reluctantly. He raised his arm to let Tesk finish. “Maybe you’re right.”
Tesk knotted the last lace. “Of course I am. There.” He straightened Scarlet’s collar and stepped back. “Nicely done, if I do say so myself. If my art did not keep me so engrossed, I would apply for the position myself. There’s an art to bathing a man, too, you know.”
Scarlet felt his cheeks turning hot. “I don’t believe Liall would approve.”
Tesk arched a brow. “You think not?”
They both laughed at the same time.
“You’re a terrible flirt, friend.” Scarlet nodded at the table. “Sit and eat. Are we waiting for the king?”
Tesk waited for him to take a seat first, then eased into a chair across from him. The head of the table they left for Liall. “We are, but King Nazheradei asks that we begin without him. He was called away and will return shortly.” He signaled to Chos to pour the che.
Scarlet murmured his thanks to Chos, the youngest of the servants. Chos gave him a dry smile in return, all eyes for Tesk. In the beginning, Chos had only been the bath attendant, which was an easy task and something one could do with little training. It was only recently that Nenos had moved Chos to full duties in other areas of their apartments, and replaced the bath attendant with a much older man who was very skilled. Privately, Scarlet was glad of it, since Liall was nearly obsessive about bathing, and that meant that Chos saw the king naked almost as much as he did. Chos had an avid eye. Scarlet decided he didn’t care for that much.
“Is that rose che?” Tesk asked Chos sharply.
Chos froze in the act of pouring. “Yes, my lord.”
Tesk waved his hand. “Take it away. This is not a morning for weak che. Dvi,” he snapped his fingers for the cook. “Bring the northern black.”
Dvi moved at once to obey.
“But my lord,” Chos began.
Tesk turned a stare on Chos that made him swallow whatever he was going to say.
That look would freeze tree sap, Scarlet thought. He’d never seen Tesk so dangerously cold, or Chos so intimidated.
Chos collected the che cups and retreated quickly to the sideboard. Scarlet leaned forward. “What’s amiss?” he whispered.
Tesk shook his head very slightly, barely moving his chin. “Try the eggs, ser. Dvi is a wizard with egg pie.”
Puzzled, Scarlet helped himself and chewed while watching the doorway for Liall. Tesk did not speak until Dvi returned with the black che.
“I never did care for roses overmuch,” Tesk sniffed.
Scarlet’s thoughts again went to Ressilka. Jarad Hallin had named her the Rose Lady of Tebet. He wondered if Tesk was trying to be kind.
“The leaves of rose che must be young and weak if one is to taste the flower,” Tesk went on. “But then that’s all you taste.” He sipped his che delicately. “I find the scent of roses rather insipid, myself.”
Scarlet gave him a questioning look. Again, Tesk shook his head almost imperceptibly. Scarlet busied himself with his plate as he tried to puzzle it out. Things certainly were odd this morning.
The door opened and Liall came in like a storm, swearing a blue streak in Sinha and throwing his cloak at poor Dvi.
Scarlet caught some of the words, mostly to do with parentage and genitals and manure. His ears turned warm and he knew he must be blushing.
Liall looked at him and the flow of obscenities stopped. “Your pardon, Scarlet. I just had to deal with those...” There apparently wasn’t a word for it in Bizye. Liall switched back to cursing in Sinha.
Tesk rose from his chair and bowed slightly. “Sire.”
Liall didn’t seem at all surprised to see Tesk. The king nodded and glanced around the room, empty but for servants and the three of them. “All is well?”
“Nothing out of place, my lord,” Tesk said.
Scarlet pushed his plate away and reached for his che cup. “Deva save us, I’m afraid to ask. Is there some reason I can’t drink the che I want in the morning?”
“It’s nothing you need worry about,” Liall said.
Tesk raised his chin. “I think he should be told.”
“Of course you do,” Liall answered in a flat voice. He looked at the servants. “That will be all.”
Dvi bowed and turned at once to leave, but Chos lingered, che pot in hand. “Sire?”
“We’d like to be alone.”
Chos’s face turned pinched, and Scarlet felt a little sorry for him, but only a little. Chos bowed and left the room with his back stiff. A flustered and embarrassed Dvi followed.
“You’ve insulted him,” Scarlet said. Tell me what?
Liall plucked the cup out of Scarlet’s hand and took a drink. He licked his lips. “He could use some insult,” he muttered. “The lad is too full of himself.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“He’s not you,” Liall said, sour and adamant. “Not even close.”
“Because he carries a wine jug to your table rather than goods between villages?” It wasn’t like Liall to be so snobbish. Scarlet felt a rush of sympathy for Chos. Like him, Scarlet had been born a peasant, too. There were some who would never let him forget it.
“Because he makes sure I know he’s carrying the wine jug,” Liall answered. He put the cup down. “I don’t want to discuss the damned servants.”
“Then tell me what’s happened.” At Liall’s look, Scarlet snorted. “You’re not moving from this room until you do.”
Liall’s white brows went up and his expression lightened to amusement. “Is that so?” He shook his head. “As you will. You won’t like it, I promise you. One of the horses died.”
“Was killed,” Tesk interjected.
“We don’t know that for certain,” Liall countered.
Scarlet’s stomach lurched. “A horse.” He paused. “One of the white ones?” Quieter: “One of hers?”
Liall nodded. “They’d had a hard crossing, and had to sail around the islands of Sul-na. The water is different here, as well as the feed. Animals are sensitive to such things.”
“Not so sensitive that they drop dead from clean water and grain,” said Tesk. “Theor inspected those horses just yesterday. He swears they were well.”
“Why do you believe someone killed it?” Scarlet wished now he hadn’t eaten. “What kind of point does it make to slay an innocent beast?”
Tesk glanced at the king.
“Well, don’t stop now,” Liall said. “Not unless you want to be imprisoned in this dining room with me. Tell him what you suspect.”
Tesk gave Scarlet a kind look, as if asking forgiveness. “You know that we in the Nauhinir are very fond of you, ser Keriss. None of our people believe this, but Jarad Hallin has accused you of poisoning Lady Ressilka’s bride gift.”
Scarlet made himself take a slow breath before responding. “One, they’re not bride gifts because she ent a bride. Not yet, anyway. Two, I don’t have the best aim in the land, but be sure if I meant to harm Ressilka, I wouldn’t miss her by a mile and hit a poor fucking horse in her place.”
Liall laughed.
Tesk smiled and diplomatically lowered his eyes. “That it’s a lie isn’t the point. Someone dispatched that animal knowing you might be blamed. That makes it a plot.”
If there was one plot, there may be more. “This palace is more stuffed with plots than a cat in a fish market. Is that what this is about?” Scarlet asked Tesk. “You sending my che back and acting so queer and all. Some idiot threatened to poison me because a horse died?”
“Not in so many words,” Tesk admitted. “But rose che to avenge an insult to a Rose Lady? It would have been... precious. Just the kind of clumsy poetry I’d expect an imbecile of Hallin’s stripe t
o send a message with.”
“That bastard needs to get out my palace,” Liall growled, humor gone, “before Tebet is short of a drover.”
Scarlet had only just begun to think of the palace as his home, and the guards and courtiers as his friends, or at the very least not his enemies. He put his elbows on the table and cradled his forehead. “Gods.”
Liall took his hand. “Put this from your mind. It was nothing—”
“It’s not nothing!”
“No, of course not,” Liall rushed to say. “I only meant to say there was nothing you could have done any differently.”
“I could have walked away when Nevoi told me to,” Scarlet said glumly. “But I stood there and argued with that purple-coated fool in front of his people. I gave him exactly what he wanted.”
“I know it’s your way to accept the weight of every problem on your own shoulders, but this is neither your doing nor your burden.”
“It does feel very neatly planned, sire,” Tesk put in. “Hallin doesn’t know ser Keriss well enough to predict how he would react, but his spies may.”
Liall fell silent, and Scarlet could tell he was thinking. Deciding.
“Don’t do anything,” Scarlet said. “Please, just don’t.”
“I agree,” Tesk said. “As ser Keriss pointed out, we’ve already played his public game once.”
“So now we play a private one.” Liall nodded. “Very well. No response. Dignified silence. The court already chafes at a pack of commoners swaggering the halls like lords. Accusations and ill-behavior will make the Tebeti even less welcome.”
“I think I can help that along.” Tesk smiled. “There are so few occasions for palace gossip to serve the crown. I can’t afford to miss the opportunity.”
Scarlet sighed wearily. “Listen to the pair of you. Games and gossip. I’m tired of grown men acting like children. You don’t need swords, you need a spanking.”
Liall ruffled Scarlet’s hair. “Just try it.”
“There is one bit of pleasantness,” Tesk said. He went to the sideboard and took up a folded cloth. He unrolled the cloth with a flourish, revealing a gold-embroidered flower on a red background. “Your badge, Lord Wild,” he said proudly. “The flame flower. I designed it myself.”
“It’s for me?” Scarlet stood and traced the embroidery with a finger. “It’s beautiful.” He smiled up at Tesk.
“So you approve?”
“Approve? It’s brilliant. My sister Annaya would just about burst if she could see this. She’d love it.”
“We should send her a silk banner,” Liall suggested. “A gift from Lord Wild of Nau Karmun.”
“A few coins would be more welcome,” Scarlet replied. “Annaya would cut the silk up for hair ribbons and smallclothes.”
Tesk smiled. He folded the cloth and tucked it into his sleeve. “She sounds like an eminently practical girl.”
“A woman now,” Scarlet mused. “I miss her ever so much. Thank you, Tesk.”
Tesk nodded. He seemed happy. “You’re most welcome, ser. And now, since my design passes muster, I have packing to do.”
“Packing?” Scarlet echoed in dismay. “Where are you going?” He’d come to rely on Tesk’s company, to look forward to seeing him. Tesk wasn’t as formal with him as Jochi, and he cared less for rules. Scarlet felt like he was losing all of his friends.
Liall exchanged a look with Tesk. “Sit,” he said gently. “I’ll explain.”
Tesk bowed and took his leave.
Scarlet sat and propped his elbows on the table morosely. “You’re sending him away because the hunt went bad.”
“What, punishing him for saving your life? Hardly.” Liall sat down. “The army... my army... is on the march.”
Scarlet’s head jerked up. “Good gods. We’re at war?”
Liall smiled. “That’s the first time you’ve said we when referring to Rshan.”
“Like you said, this is home now. For better or worse. What’s happened?”
“Nothing that wasn’t going to happen anyway,” Liall said easily.
Scarlet got the impression that Liall was deliberately making light of his news. He scowled. “None of that. Tell me all of it.”
“I did help move matters along,” Liall admitted. “You know what occurred last year in Magur?”
“I know some from Jochi. The rest is what everyone knows about rebels and burning towns.”
Liall rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I did not give those orders. I won’t denounce them, but it’s not what I would have done, either. Magur had long been a thorn in my mother’s side. The rebels who had taken root there said that an old queen putting forth a mere boy as her heir was proof of the weakness of an aging dynasty. No few agreed with them.”
“Your mother proved them wrong.”
Liall nodded. “That she did. Before that, there were small skirmishes on the borders of Sul and Uzna, too. Nothing overt, but all the signs were there for trouble on the horizon. You remember I told you of the Tribeland campaigns of my youth, yes? Our enemy was the Ava Thule. They live in gers and ice caves and are always on the move, savage as beasts and twice as dangerous.” He paused. “Vladei paid the Ava Thule to join the rebels in Magur.”
Scarlet tried to picture the kind of people who could dwell in a land the Rshani deemed too harsh for survival. He could not. “Deva’s hells,” he murmured.
Liall nodded. “And it nearly worked. If Vladei had been victorious, their combined forces would have moved on to Uzna Minor. Eventually, they may have fought their way to the palace gates. Whatever else they might be, the Ava Thule are peerless fighters. There may still be ambitious men attempting to use them for their own aims.”
“Do you know the names of these men?”
Liall shook his head. “Not with enough certainty to accuse. With three members of the royal family dead, there’s been far too much change in the realm. Hopefully, this war will unite the baronies against a common enemy. Rumors have been heard of the barony of Tebet planning to defect and declare their own king.” His smile was bitter. “That won’t happen, though.”
“Why not?”
“The Blackmoat,” Liall answered simply. “The Blackmoat is in Kalas Nauhin. The baronies of Tebet, Jadizek, Hnir, and S’geth are in Fanorl Nauhin, far north and on the other side of the continent. The Blackmoat is far from here, but it is much closer to us than it is to Tebet. Those northern baronies would have no chance of controlling the Blackmoat so far from their home base, and whoever controls it rules the kingdom, north and south.”
Scarlet recalled the vision he had in the deadfall, when he was sure he was in the Overworld. “What is it, exactly? What do they do there?”
Liall pointed to the furnace in the corner, dark and cold because Scarlet preferred the scent of wood fires. It was black and round with bright metal chasing and clawed iron feet, and a round pipe funneling into the wall for fumes.
“That,” he said. “I don’t mean they weld furnaces. They produce the fuel to burn in them. It’s a very old art. The Ancients built the Blackmoat, but not on their own. They followed a king named Ramung.”
Scarlet covered his shock with a grunt and poured more che. “I thought he was called the Red King?”
Liall looked at him sharply. “So he was. Jochi is a good teacher.”
Scarlet bit back the comment: Probably shouldn’t have sacked him, then. “Well, what happened to this King Ramung?”
“No one knows. He vanished in a blizzard years later, after a great disgrace that left many dead. There are shrines to him on the Temple Road. Without him, we might have all perished long ago, buried under ice in a land of ghosts.”
“Was he a true king?”
“He was a Camira.” Liall drained his che cup and stood. “But they also say the Camira could fly.”
Scarlet snorted. He reclined in his chair as Liall summoned Dvi for his cloak. His mind churned with questions. The Blackmoat? Why did he hear of that place so much of late? Why
was Liall so surprised that he knew about the Red King, and why was he dreaming of him?
If it was a dream. Was Scaja real? I thought so at the time.
“Is suspicion alone enough reason to go to war?” he asked.
“It’s not the only reason,” Liall assured him. “I’ll tell you more about it on the road. I promise.”
Scarlet blinked. “You’re letting me come with you?”
Liall wagged a finger. “You were about to insist on coming. Don’t deny it.”
“I wasn’t going to. One less argument sounds good to me.”
Chos brought the cloak in Dvi’s place. Liall sighed and took the cloak from Chos’s hands when the servant tried to drape it on his shoulders. He fastened his brooch and fixed Scarlet with a measuring look. “Don’t you want to know what dangers you face beforehand?”
Scarlet shrugged. He took a roll from the plate. “You’ve already said. They sound like Bledlanders to me, and I understand them well enough, all right.”
“They’re much worse than Bledlanders.”
“If that’s so, why haven’t you wiped them out by now?”
Liall’s brows went up. “Is that your counsel: kill them all?”
Scarlet bit into the roll, enjoying the rich flavor and soft texture that were nothing like the rough bread of Lysia. Only in a noble house in Byzantur would he have found such. A baker needs fine flour for good bread, and there had been none of that in his village, thanks to raiders like the Bled.
“Never had much pity for outlaws,” he said, chewing. “Since my parents were murdered, even that is gone. As Scaja used to say: Pity one rat in winter, you’ll have a litter by spring.”
Liall made a humming sound. “I agree with your father’s pragmatism, but these vermin are particularly difficult to exterminate. If you think the land is harsh and unforgiving here, you have not seen the glaciers of the north. A man can die in minutes if he loses his way, and there are predators up there that make snow bears seem like puppies. We never killed all the Ava Thule because we couldn’t find them all. If pursued, they flee beyond even the borders of their own lands, beyond the Greatrift and into Whitehell, where no sane man or beast would follow. In the war, Jarek turned us back at the Greatrift. She didn’t want to, but the Ancients asked her to show mercy. If she had not, it’s likely that most of us would have died, too.”