Rule

by Rowenna Miller

  “Then if we want more supplies,” Theodor said slowly, “we are going to have to capture them.”

  “And one excellent method,” Annette said, “is to take ships.”

  Sianh smiled. “There we are. And. We could use a larger navy. How does one grow a navy?” He was enjoying this almost too much, I thought as he waited. “One cannot plant a longboat and harvest frigates. There are three options. One may build ships. One may buy ships. Or one must take ships as prizes.”

  “I think we’ve only got one option open to us right now,” Annette said. “What money we still have in the coffers won’t cover much in terms of buying ships, but it can buy that powder from this—Tyse fellow.”

  “Oh, I’m not sure I advise that,” Alba said. “Personal assessment of his character and motivations,” she replied to Annette’s raised eyebrow. “I don’t believe he’d lie about the state of Fen, but I do think he’d gouge us for every penny he can. I would advise, instead, keeping a good reserve of funds.”

  “Very well,” Annette said. “My fleet will leave a small contingent here to patrol near your waters, and the rest will go out on the hunt to see what we can see.”

  The first task to tackle with the small but intrepid navy Annette had supplied us was to set protection spells over it, as I had planned to do with the ships we had intended to buy from the Fenian shipyards. Annette was willing to help, although curious and cautious, as though approaching a strange animal for the first time. I resisted reminding her that there was nothing to be afraid of—after all, she had been willing to wear charms I had made at Midwinter.

  “I’m not sure,” she said as we walked to the cliff to overlook her miniature fleet of three ships, “of the best way to go about this. You’ll have to tell me.”

  “What do you think these ships need most?” I asked. “Protection, luck, strength?”

  “Protection, certainly. Good luck, yes. Can you make them impervious to cannon shot?” She was still wearing her men’s coat and a pair of petticoat breeches, but her impish grin was just as I remembered it from Viola’s salon.

  “Afraid not. Though—do you anticipate that the Royalists will fire on you to sink you or to tear up your rigging and disable you for boarding?”

  “Look at you, learning naval strategy like a wee cabin boy on his first cruise!” Annette laughed. “We have cannon and powder and shot, and those are worth taking, not to mention the ships themselves. But these are not Fenian ships ferrying supplies—the ships themselves are our assets. I wouldn’t put it past the Royalists to want to simply sink them. They’ve a large navy—they would use our ships, if they could capture them easily. But I doubt they’ll take any risk to do so.”

  “Then it would be best if the hulls as well as the sails were charmed.” I assessed the three ships at anchor with a thin sigh. Embedding charm in wood was harder than in cloth, and the expanse of dark, weather-hardened wood stared back at me, daunting.

  But I had to. “It will be easier if I’m closer,” I said.

  “Want to come aboard? I’ll give you the grand tour.”

  Within the hour we had returned by longboat to the largest of the three ships, a Serafan frigate with lower, sleeker lines than a Galatine ship. “Ever climb up the side?” Annette asked. “It’s a regular riot.”

  “Afraid I haven’t,” I said, staring at the rope ladder with trepidation. When we were children, Kristos used to climb trees, and drainpipes, and stacks of barrels, and anything else our working-class quarter could offer up for adventure. I preferred to stay on solid ground.

  “Don’t fret, we’ll stay in the longboat as they pull her up. I’m not very steady on the ropes, myself.” But I saw her glance at the ladder, once more, and I had a feeling Annette’s lithe, nimble figure had found itself quite at home climbing among ropes and rigging. As she offered me her arm to clamber out of the longboat onto the deck, I felt the taut sinews of new muscles under her coat.

  “Now. Should we get you a chair, or something to drink, or anything?”

  “No, I’ll have to move about the ship.” I mapped its features, its construction and materials as I planned how to most efficiently lay a charm. I considered asking if there were specific places she was most vulnerable, if there were weaknesses or liabilities inherent in her design. But I knew that, in the end, I needed to cast over her entirety.

  So I started with the bow and moved forward, weaving a tight net of protection and luck, nestling it over the seasoned wood of the ship’s hull, and driving it into the grain. The wood resisted; it was sturdy oak to begin with, and then hardened from years of service in the water and sun and wind. I pressed, slowly, carefully, determined to write good fortune over each inch clearly and completely. No shoddy, half-completed charm from me, not with so much on the line.

  It took well over an hour to complete the first ship, the sails and rigging taking the charm more easily than her hull, and I refused Annette’s suggestion of joining her for tea in her cabin before moving on to the other two ships. She watched me warily. “What?” I half snapped.

  “No one said we needed to finish today,” she said. “And there’s still the rest of the fleet, to the south.”

  “I’m doing a thorough job,” I replied wearily. Annette couldn’t even see the golden grid embedded in her ship; I didn’t want to try to defend my diligence to someone who couldn’t see the proof herself.

  “That’s not really what I meant,” she said. “Go on ahead to the next ship, then. I’ve some ledgers to balance here.”

  By the end of the second ship, I was wishing I had accepted Annette’s offer of tea. The sun was warm for autumn, I reasoned, and it had been a long time since that morning’s meal of hot cooked oats. I pressed on to the third ship, using the short trip in the longboat to clear my head. I closed my eyes and was surprised when a strong arm yanked me back from sleep.

  “You were ’bout to fall in the drink,” the oarsman nearest me said. I flushed and abandoned the idea of a rest. My legs shook as I stepped onto the last ship, but I had pressed through work before; deadlines in the shop and of course the cursed shawl had demanded my full concentration and effort. It was time to dig into those reserves now, I resolved, and began to cast.

  The threads of light I pulled wavered, strangely brittle under my manipulation. Before I could begin to weave it into a crosshatched net, several threads snapped, springing back like Theodor’s violin strings when they broke. I pulled at them, but the more I tugged, the tenser and thinner they became, until more of the threads snapped and recoiled.

  I expelled frustration through my nose in a terse sigh, and tried again, but my knees threatened to buckle and my vision seemed, suddenly, two-dimensional and flat. I blinked, hard, and pulled at the light one more time.

  Instead of light magic, blackness washed over me, and I felt myself falling.

  27

  I WOKE TO A POUNDING HEADACHE AND THE KIND OF NAUSEA that churns an empty and very hungry stomach. I struggled up on my elbows, surprised by the faint scent of damp canvas and a creaking cot beneath me.

  I was in Hamish’s field surgery. I pushed a coarse wool blanket aside and would have stood up if the bayonet of a headache lancing through my eye hadn’t roared to life. Instead I sank back with a sigh.

  I didn’t need anyone to tell me what had happened. I knew—I had worked too hard, for too long. I hadn’t tested my body’s ability to keep pace with my casting capabilities, not like this. On Fen the work had been controlled, slow, and with malleable materials. The hard grain of the ships’ hulls fought my casting, and the speed with which I had tried to cast had been too much.

  I stared at the stained gray canvas ceiling above me, frustration building. If this had been too much, what use was I? I had produced the charmed uniforms, but I was beginning to feel, painfully, the limits of my casting. I always knew it wasn’t a panacea, that it wasn’t all-powerful fairy-tale sorcery. But I had allowed myself to forget, briefly.

  And if I couldn’t help b
y casting, what could I do? I was a minor celebrity, or perhaps more accurate, an oddity, but not a figurehead like Theodor. I wasn’t a visionary like Kristos, and I wasn’t a military expert like Sianh. I certainly wasn’t a leader like Niko.

  “You ready for some tea?” Hamish shuffled into the tent. “Maybe a biscuit? I can get Lara to toast some of that brown bread on the brazier for you if you’re keen.”

  “No,” I said, pushing myself back onto my elbows, ignoring the roaring protest in my head. “I should get back.”

  “To the ship?” He snorted. “Not likely.”

  “To my own room, then,” I argued. “I should free the bed for someone who truly requires it.”

  “A lugheaded tar rat carried you in here, with the former princess in tow, saying you dropped like a stone on their deck. No warning, no symptoms beforehand. Now what am I supposed to think, that you don’t ‘truly require’ my expertise?”

  “I don’t,” I snapped. “I know exactly what’s wrong.”

  He didn’t rise to the bait, didn’t demand an explanation of my self-diagnosis. “And knowing exactly what’s wrong means you’re feeling better? All right, trot on up to the house, then.”

  I set my jaw and swung my legs over the side, but the headache flared like fat poured on flame, and I nearly heaved.

  “Ah. So you’re not feeling too chipper. Perhaps if you told me what ails you, I’d have something for it.”

  I swallowed hard on both bile and pride. “My head. It’s as though there’s a spike running from the back of my neck through my eye.”

  “Rather like a migraine or occipital inflammation,” he muttered. “Either way, it’s got your stomach in knots, too?” I nodded. “Then ginger tea for the stomach.” He shouted something to one of the nurses outside—I assumed about the ginger tea. “And my headache balm.”

  “Balm?” I asked, unconvinced. The Pellian women I knew chewed catmint for headaches, and Galatines swore by a bitter powder some of the apothecaries sold.

  “It’s never failed,” Hamish boasted. “And besides, worst it can do is make you smell pretty.” He produced a tin of what looked like hair pomade from his chest.

  He offered the open tin. “Just rub it on your neck and forehead. I’ll be back shortly with that ginger tea.” He paused, and added, “And toast. I’d like some toast, anyway.”

  I rubbed doubtful circles of the balm, which I had to admit did smell like a kitchen herb garden, into the knot at the back of my neck where the headache seemed to originate. Useless, I breathed in each exhale. I’m useless.

  The tent flap opened, but instead of Hamish with the tea and toast, Kristos poked his head inside. “You’re all right,” he said in greeting.

  “Of course I am,” I replied, cross. “Annette overreacted.”

  “I have a feeling,” Kristos said, crossing the tent with two strides of his long legs, “that the woman who commands our fleet isn’t the type to overreact. You collapsed.”

  “I—” I intended to say something noncommittal, something vague about overwork. Instead, I half sobbed, “I’m of such little use here. I can’t even cast effective protection charms.”

  Kristos pursed his lips. “You can’t, huh? Well thank every corner of sweet hell, because now I can ditch this uniform. No, no, I don’t look good in gray, and if the charm that’s supposed to be woven in here is useless, why…” He cocked his head at me with a chiding look that he must have inherited directly from our mother.

  “No, those charms are good. You know that, don’t be an ass.”

  “I’m being an ass?” He snorted. “You make charmed uniforms for an entire damned army, then question your usefulness, and I’m being an ass?”

  “I meant now,” I whispered. “Maybe my part in this is done.”

  “You can still charm our ships. Just take your time?” he suggested.

  I nodded, still miserable. “And when that’s done?”

  “You thought you could directly cast during engagements,” he reminded me.

  I sighed. “I don’t know. It’s difficult, maintaining direct casting, and I don’t know—I don’t know if I can do it long enough.”

  “Anything is better than not,” Kristos asserted confidently. “Besides, you don’t have to maintain curses, do you?”

  My stomach sank. “That depends. But I also can’t cast from a long way away. I’m afraid by the time we were close enough, my help would come too late.”

  “We’ll find a way—”

  “We might not,” I retorted. “It’s not witches with cauldrons and sorcerers with magic wands. There are limits, more than you realize.”

  Kristos fell silent, and I wallowed in the misery of knowing he knew I was right. My magic might not be the turning point he had hoped for. It might not even level the field with the Royalists and their Serafan allies. With more time, with years of development and research in the Serafan archive and the library of Alba’s house, with an army of casters, perhaps, but I was alone.

  “There’s limits to everything,” Kristos finally said. “But mark me, if we can do anything to help you work within these particular limits, you tell me.”

  I nodded. The only worth I had here was the light and dark I controlled; I owed everyone the full reach of what I could do. “Sometimes I wonder,” I said softly, “that what frightened me the most about your protests and pamphlets, back before the revolt, was that I would end up useless.”

  “What?” Kristos said, brows constricting. “How do you mean?”

  “I had a life with some purpose,” I said, trying to pick the right words, “a vocation. I was learning how to use that vocation to the best of my ability, to help others. In a small way, maybe. And you admit, you needed me.” I smiled wanly.

  Kristos laughed ruefully. “I did. You kept food on the table and a roof over my head. I probably should have admitted a long time ago that I would have been living in a gutter if it hadn’t been for you. And your shop,” he added.

  “All the changes you wanted—they could have meant the end of that vocation. And you wouldn’t need me anymore.” I stared at my hands, the calluses and the dirt under the nails.

  “Ah, Sophie,” he sighed. “I thought I didn’t, maybe, before the revolt. But I do. You’re the other side of me. My balance. My friend.” He reached awkwardly for my hand, and I let him take it. “There’s no apology sufficient for what I did. But I didn’t realize I hadn’t apologized for this—for not acknowledging how much I needed you then, and how much I still need you.”

  At that moment, Hamish stomped back into the tent with a tin mug of tea and a hunk of toasted brown bread. “Any better?”

  I stopped, surprised. The headache was still there, but dimmed, quieter, no longer the rage of pain it had been. My stomach had settled. “I am,” I said.

  Hamish winked at Kristos. “That balm. Never failed yet.”

  28

  “I WISH I COULD SEE WHAT YOU DID TO MY SHIPS,” ANNETTE SAID several days later as we watched Sianh take the Third Regiment through their paces. I had finished the third ship, slowly, still disappointed in my plodding work. I had to add this to something I couldn’t do on the fly—though sails and riggings could get a quick protective cast, ships’ hulls, fortifications, and buildings would take much more time and effort.

  Instead, I was practicing adding pointed charms to the men of the Third Regiment, spread across the parade field as they practiced open order movements. I could land a charm on an individual man, settling the magic into his coat or even his cocked hat. It wasn’t well-anchored in the fibers, and so it didn’t last long—Annette had her pocket watch out as I timed the unsustained boosts of charm—but I reckoned that it could be an additional dose of protection during the urgency of battle. Or, I acknowledged, a rapid system of deploying curses.

  “Charm magic? It looks like sunlight on dust motes,” I said. “Or candlelight reflected into a mirror. But on your ship, it looks rather like I swaddled the hulls in very loose cheesecloth made of l
ight,” I said.

  “I can’t even imagine,” Annette said. “How fares the—charm?—that you’re doing now?”

  “Yes, it’s a charm. Wouldn’t want to curse our own fellows, would I?” I laughed. I could make conversation and cast, I could walk around and change position—which was good to know in the face of potential battlefield use. But the charm was far from permanent.

  I pushed at the limits and I found them. Resolute and stubborn, waiting for me.

  Annette watched them walk through the motions of firing in open ranks, the rank behind moving up like clockwork to outpace the front rank. “They seem to have learned the motions well enough,” she said with approval. “Will they stand up to the battlefield, I wonder? In terms of their perseverance?”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” I reminded her. “Some insurance on their moral fortitude.”

  She turned back to watching them, silent. “Dust on the road,” she said. I followed her gaze to a small cloud on the road to Hazelwhite—a single rider, I discerned.

  I allowed the charm to falter and fade. “I wonder who?” He was in a hurry, riding at full gallop, and didn’t wear our uniform. Without a word, Annette and I half ran back to the stone farmhouse.

  We arrived only seconds before the rider, a diminutive man on a dappled horse flecking foam. Or not a man at all, I realized, but a lad still on boyhood’s side of adolescence.

  “Jeremy!” Theodor pushed past the rest of us and half embraced, half hauled his brother from the horse. “What in the name of the Galatine Divine are you doing here?”

  “I ran away,” he asserted immediately. “Father has another think coming if he expects me and Gregory to commission in his army of Royalist whores.”

  I bit back a laugh at his salty language—the lad looked thirteen, but I knew he was nearing sixteen. He and his brother were at the military school in Rock’s Ford, and sure enough, they were both set to commission into the army within the year.