Lost Crow Conspiracy (Blood Rose Rebellion, Book 2)

by Rosalyn Eves

  *

  Dinner that night was a sober affair. Of the dozen or so betyárok who had ridden against the caravan, only five of us remained. And Zhivka.

  It had probably been a mistake to let her stay. Ákos and Bahadır were terrified of her, though Bahadır hid it better, even managing to offer her salt for her soup. Their terror didn’t worry me. It was the others who did—their clipped words and sharp body language told me they had not forgotten the destruction the samodiva had wrought that afternoon. But their eyes spoke differently. Their eyes kept drifting back to Zhivka, brushing across the curves of her cheeks and lips, lingering on the generous lines of the body beneath her dirty white dress.

  I made a mental note to give her some of the men’s spare clothing after supper—and to give her the room László had occupied, the only room in this farmhouse with a lock.

  “What now?” Bahadır asked me.

  I shrugged. “Ask Ákos.”

  “We stay,” Ákos said. “This is all the home and family I’ve known these past three years.”

  “There’s a price on my head,” Bahadır said. “I’ve nowhere else to go.”

  “Will you stay?” Ákos asked me.

  My debt of honor to László was paid, and I’d retrieved my father’s ring from among his things; I could be a free man, if I chose.

  “Please stay,” Bahadır said. “We are stronger with you.”

  “I wager,” Ákos said, “that you can’t last two weeks in László’s place without getting someone caught.”

  I shook my head. “I’ll not fall for that so easily.” I thought of leaving, tracking across the puszta with only Holdas for company. There was freedom in the picture—but loneliness too. I found I did not want to leave the others, frightened and vulnerable as they were. Not yet. I’d become infected with honor in my old age.

  “I’ll stay.” Only until things felt secure—then I’d leave.

  *

  The next morning something scratched at the door just as dawn bled grey fingers into the room where we all slept.

  A few of the other men groaned, then rolled back over to sleep. I punched the pillow beneath my head. It was a branch, I thought. The scratching sounded again, too insistent to be accidental.

  Cursing beneath my breath, I scrambled from my blankets and sidestepped bodies to reach the door.

  I flung it open. The hairy creature I’d saved from László stood on the doorstep. He said something and spread his hands wide.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t understand. Do you speak German, perhaps?” I asked in German, then switched to English. “Or English?”

  “He offers his service,” Zhivka said at my ear, and I jumped, stubbing my toe as I landed.

  “What kind of service?” I asked.

  “He is domovoi. He can protect your house, so long as you treat him kindly.”

  Ákos came up beside me. “Might as well let him stay. It was only after we drove him away that we had such ill luck.”

  Zhivka said something to the creature, who bobbed his head and shuffled across the muddy courtyard to the stables. “He will sleep in the barn,” she said. “And you should like him. He is a bit like you, táltos.”

  How did she know that? Wary, I said, “I don’t know what you mean.”

  She seemed amused rather than offended. “I think that you do. The domovoi can shift. Small things, you understand, like a dog or a cat.”

  “Or a crow?”

  Her smile glimmered, and my throat seized up. “Or a crow,” she agreed. “Though not so good-looking as you.”

  Ákos laughed. “I like this one, Mátyás. She knows how to keep you in your place.”

  I mumbled something and took refuge in the kitchen, under the pretext of warming water for some pilfered tea.

  The domovoi was only the start. Within the next week, a motley assortment of creatures found their way to that isolated farmhouse: a small, knobbled brown man; a pair of craggy-faced, moss-covered treelike creatures; and late in the week, a giant, towering a good two heads above me. He seemed a bit simpleminded, and harmless, and Zhivka wept when she saw the burn scars along his arms, tokens of his most recent encounter with humans.

  Their arrivals unnerved me. Not because of the praetheria themselves, but because each arrival was followed by a small side-glance from Ákos, as if my reaction decided the matter, not his. At first I thought the creatures would shelter for a night or two, then move on. But as the days passed, it became clear that they meant to stay.

  “They come for you, King of Crows,” Ákos said to me at the end of the week, sitting beside me as I shuffled through a deck of cards. “But I don’t understand why they seek you out.”

  The Lady sent them, I was nearly positive. But I had not asked outright, because if I knew for certain, I should have to do something about them—accept the role she gave me as protector or send them away. Innate laziness suggested the best action was to do nothing. However, at Ákos’s nudging, I crossed the dirt-packed courtyard to the barn. Zhivka trailed behind me, in case I needed help translating.

  Inside, the air was thick and musty, rank with the familiar odors of livestock: horse, cow, a fat pig in the far corner. But under the familiar smells were foreign ones, something sharp and bitter that made the hair on the nape of my neck stand up.

  The creatures seemed peaceable enough. The giant had taken up refuge in an empty stall, and the two tree-creatures had planted themselves in the corner opposite the pig. The others clustered around a pile of hay, burrowing into the dry strands for warmth, as the summer morning had come on misty and chilled.

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  Holdas, hearing my voice, whiffled a greeting. The creatures, however, didn’t answer. The domovoi hugged his knees and rocked back and forth on the ground.

  “You frighten them,” Zhivka said.

  “I frighten them?”

  She arched one thin eyebrow. “You stink of magic.”

  I tried to take a surreptitious whiff of my armpits. I stank? I could smell nothing above the usual odor of cotton and wool and skin that was, perhaps, due for a washing. “Well, I mean them no harm.”

  “Do you mean them well? The two are not the same.”

  “I—” I broke off, scowling. “I’ll ask the questions, if you don’t mind.”

  Zhivka smiled, pleased at successfully nettling me, and as always, her smile sent prickles that were equal parts pleasure and terror down my back. She looked at the creatures and spoke, her lovely voice lilting and reassuring. Even I felt my hackles softening and smoothing out.

  “They have heard this is a place where they might be safe.”

  Alarm tingled across my skin. “How do they all know where to find us? Is it so widely known where we are?” If a small horde of praetheria could track us, what did that say of the hussars in Debrecen? Perhaps we were at risk. I’d talk to Ákos later about moving camp.

  She laughed, a light trickle of water across stones. “No. I think you are still safe. They say the Lady told them.”

  Each word pierced me. The Lady meant to goad me into taking on the role of protector, whether or not I wanted it. Irritation built in me, fanning into a flame. “Tell them they cannot stay here any longer. I’m willing they can shelter here for the rest of the day, but they must be gone tomorrow.”

  Zhivka looked at me, shadows gathering in her eyes. “But, Mátyás…”

  “I haven’t given you leave to use my first name. I want them gone by morning. Tell them!” I stalked to Holdas’s stall and flung myself onto his back, not bothering with the saddle. Without looking at Zhivka or any of the others, I rode out of the barn and into the rain that misted across the endless plains.

  By the next morning the barn was empty of all except the livestock and the domovoi, who insisted that this had been his home before we had arrived and only the master of the farmhouse had the right to turn him out. If I caught fleeting glimpses of the others in the grasses that afternoon as we made
plans to stake out the road the following day, the glimpses were brief enough that I was never sure what I had seen. And no one else complained.

  That night, the rain came down in heavy sheets, and lightning cracked across the sky, followed by thunder booming over the grasslands. When the others huddled into their blankets to sleep, I crossed the courtyard to the barn, to ensure the animals were not savaging themselves in terror. Varjú called unhappily from the roof of the barn and fluttered down to follow me.

  My hair was plastered to my forehead before I was five steps from the door; by the time I reached the barn, I was soaked through and shivering. I whispered a Lumen light into being when I crossed the threshold—and stopped.

  A dozen pairs of eyes blinked back at me. Gathered before me were all the creatures I had sent away—and a few more. Near the wall, a healthy space between her and the nearest praetheria, I spotted a tangle-haired creature I hadn’t seen before, with blood-dark lips and clawed fingers, her shapely legs ending incongruously in goose feet.

  My breath caught. Lidérc. Even I knew this one, the creature of nightmares.

  I wasn’t heartless enough to send the others out into a rainstorm, but this one, she couldn’t stay.

  “You need to leave,” I said, my body tensing in anticipation of a shifting. If she fought me, I’d need something more powerful than my human self to drive her out.

  “And where should I go?” She did not seem defiant, only defeated. “This used to be my homeland, but there is nowhere here for me. Everywhere I go I am met with hatred and suspicion. And yet I helped free you: I fought with the soldiers near Buda Castle after the Binding was broken.” Her eyes flickered, though the light I held was steady.

  “You helped free the Hungarians?” I had not heard this story.

  “The girl who broke the Binding asked for an army. We gave her one. And for this we are driven out of your borders.”

  Anna.

  The lidérc curled her arms around her chest, a narrow black tongue licking at her dark lips. “I would have died for her, had she asked it.”

  Her words reverberated through my bones, a soul-deep kinship. I had died when Anna had asked it. In that, we two were alike.

  Weariness slammed over me. I wiped my hand across my face. I knew, then, that I could not send the lidérc away—or the others, for that matter. Whatever they had done, however they had come to be here, we were bound together by some force I was only beginning to understand.

  “Stay, then,” I said. “But I must have your word—on whatever you consider sacred—that you will not harm my men, or any other human for that matter, unless your life is at stake.”

  A murmur of agreement swept through the barn. In the morning, I’d bring Zhivka, and we’d have them formally swear. For now, I called to Varjú, who had settled in the rafters and was shaking water from his wings, telling him to warn me should any of the creatures try to approach the farmhouse during the night.

  *

  Three weeks after László’s death, Ákos announced another raid.

  I lifted my eyebrows. I was not certain we were ready for that—Bahadır and another of the betyárok still jumped at anything that sounded like gunfire. But I was not the leader, and we did face the problem of providing for our growing menagerie, though the creatures mostly took care of their own needs—Zhivka and the lidérc went out to hunt every day at dusk. I did not ask where they went or what they hunted, and they did not tell me. But sometimes Zhivka would come back with a duck or a brace of hares for our pot.

  In the end, it was just me, Ákos, and Zhivka. We rode down the single carriage, its gold coat-of-arms gleaming against the maroon body of the vehicle.

  Zhivka had turned up her glamour a little. Riding across the grasses, her ember-red hair streaming behind her, her beautiful face focused as a blade, she looked like something out of an old story. Emese, the mother of the Árpád dynasty, storming across the plains with the first Hungarian tribes. Or the British Boudica, riding on London to burn it to the ground.

  She was dazzling, even to me, who had begun to grow accustomed to her.

  The coachman had no chance. As soon as he spotted her, he pulled up on the reins. His gun entirely forgotten, he gaped at her. And when Ákos and I reached the carriage to demand they stand and deliver, the inhabitants of the carriage were similarly so smitten that they handed us their jewels without any protest.

  Back at the farmhouse, my men toasted Zhivka with home-brewed ale. She shrugged, as though it were no great thing, but I saw the secret smile hovering in the corners of her lips. After that, we talked of ways to use the other praetheria: the lidérc to terrify the wealthy into submission; the two horned tree-men with the blue-green, bark-textured skin (they called themselves leshy) to grow their branchlike limbs across the road and block passage; the giant to threaten to break an axle if they would not pay him for safe passage.

  But we had not yet done more than talk. Bahadır pointed out that using the praetheria too often would only draw attention to our group. Already, the slow trickle of praetheria coming in search of us meant that our group was too large to stay safely at the farmhouse.

  We began moving the camp from night to night, stopping at the farmhouse only if the weather was inclement. Sometimes we’d return to the farmhouse to find that owners of outlying farms had stopped by in our absence, leaving us cakes or vegetables or hay for our horses.

  The first time this happened, I asked Ákos why.

  “They want our blessing and protection. A strong betyár means that the farms are not so open to attack by rogue bandits. Isolated praetherian attacks on livestock have dropped since so many have joined us. And they know that come winter, if they are starving, we will give them what we can spare. Part of the betyár’s code of honor.”

  “Isn’t it dangerous that so many know where to find us?”

  “They won’t betray us.”

  I wished I could be so certain.

  At the next meeting of the Congress, I found I could not concentrate: all I saw, as the members discussed what to do with the praetheria, was bodies splayed out across a table.

  Witness, Vasilisa had said, but I did not know how. The men in the room had not listened to me before: why should they listen to me now?

  The Congress began much as usual, with each of the main parties arguing their position. Ponsonby urged strenuously that an independent kingdom of Poland be established and a sanctuary be formed there for the praetheria, funded by British coffers and by the Congress. The Austrians, predictably unwilling to relinquish their territory in Galicia, refused, counter-offering a reserve in Austrian lands. The German confederacy and the Hungarians favored the British plan; the smaller kingdoms, like Saxony, favored the Austrian plan, as did the Turkish delegation, which sought primarily to preserve neutrality and prevent Russian aggression into their territory.

  Across the room, my uncle Pál whispered something to Tsar Nicholas, whose face purpled. The tsar shot up, shouting at the room in French. Beside me, Richard murmured a translation.

  “Bah! You are all imbeciles, afraid of what is stronger than you. You seek to curtail my power and influence. You want to cage the praetheria like beasts, because you fear them too. You need only send them to me. Russia will welcome them, and I will keep all of Europe safe.”

  Lord Ponsonby snorted and muttered, “I dare say. After the Russian armies conquer the rest of Europe, it might be safe. But at what cost?”

  The tsar cast a long look around the room. “We do not need this Congress. If you will not agree to support us, we will withdraw our voice and open our borders to the praetheria.” He sat down, arms folded across his chest, as arguments broke out all across the room. Beside him, Pál smiled.

  It was some time before order was restored in the room. At length, Emperor Ferdinand rose, and the quarrelling members fell silent.

  “Where is Dr. Helmholz?” he asked. “The man said he had vital information for us regarding the praetheria.” />
  For a long moment no one answered. Then Borbála Dobos spoke, from the back of the room. “I tried to speak with the doctor at his rooms this morning. His housekeeper said he has not been seen for two days.”

  A string of images shot through my mind: the doctor abandoning his lecture to dance after a group of vila, the fragile curved shape of a dead praetherian baby, Vasilisa’s face as she asked me to witness. I shivered. Was his disappearance only an accident?

  Dragović stepped forward. “I believe I know what Dr. Helmholz meant to share. The praetheria have been difficult to study because of their variety, but Dr. Helmholz believes he has found one thing that unites them: excess life force. I understand this means that most praetheria have more magic inside them than the average human.”

  Vasilisa had told me as much, but it was only now, surrounded by a Congress more interested in their own security than the well-being of the praetheria, that I saw the implications. No wonder the praetheria had been held inside the Binding for nearly a millennium. It was not simply that the Binding spell had been fueled by their magic—it was their excess magic that made them a prime target for such a spell in the first place.

  I was not the only one to see this link.

  “It hardly seems reasonable,” a fat man near me objected, “to let such creatures roam free when their independence directly threatens our own.”

  “How?” I burst out. The man ignored me. Richard shook his head warningly.

  “Without the Binding, our own magic suffers.” He pointed at his soul sign, a pale, flickering lion. A weasel, more like. “Why should we suffer a curtailment of our own powers just so creatures who despise us can be comfortable? I vote we reinstate the Binding—or something very much like it. Such power should be returned to the Luminate, where it belongs.”

  A murmur of agreement swept the room. Lord Ponsonby said to Richard, “At all costs, we cannot let Russia take them.”

  Anger built steadily in me, driven by the crowd’s disregard for the praetheria, their willful ignorance of the Binding’s price. In my head, a faint echo of Vasilisa’s voice from a long-ago ball: What you could be, Anna Arden, if you were not afraid!