by Sonia Lyris
The smell of hay. A place to lie down.
There was a way.
“Yes,” she said, too tired to explain.
They walked the rutted path to the house. It stretched back and away from the road under a leafless oak, a barn nearby.
Dirina took a breath, and knocked.
A woman opened the door, gray at her temples, a frown on her face. “What do you want?”
“We are travelers,” Dirina said, trying to sound hopeful and pitiful all at once. “Begging your mercy. With nowhere to go this wretched night. All we ask—”
“You’re letting in cold.” She scowled. “Get in.”
They did so, pulling the door shut behind. A fire in a large wood stove breathed heat into the room. Two men, young enough to be the woman’s adult sons, sat at a table and turned to look.
The smell of meat and spices hung in the air. They had food. They were eating. For a moment Amarta could think of nothing else.
“We were orphaned, ma’am,” Dirina said, moving the blanket a bit so that they could all see Pas in her arms. “Our parents fell off a mountainside and died. Our uncle took everything we had. We’re not beggars,” she said. “We can clean and mend and care for children . . .” She glanced at the young men and faltered. There were no children here.
Dirina ducked her head, eyes wide. It was the look she got when they were most down on their luck. “We can cook and fetch water and collect wood and pick wildflowers and—”
Flowers? Dirina must be beyond tired. Her sister stuttered to a stop, only now seeming to realize what she had just said.
“Anything, really,” Dirina finished softly.
The woman, clearly reluctant, shrugged. “The barn has hay. Be gone in the morning. The donkey is mean and will bite, so don’t bother him.”
But the last thing Amarta wanted was to leave this warm room to share space with an unpleasant animal in a cold barn. More than anything, she wanted to stay right here and eat whatever they were eating.
They would share what they had, if they wanted to. How to convince them?
The woman didn’t trust them, Amarta could see that in her hard expression. What would it take to change her mind?
So tired. Too tired to look ahead.
Just a little ways ahead, then. Heartbeats in the future. A hint of what could be.
She caught it then, barely a whiff. A taste of stew from a future that might yet be.
“No,” she said to the woman. “I mean—” She glanced at Dirina, who gave her a dismayed look. “That’s not all of it.”
“Not all of what, girl?” the woman asked, moving to the door to open it. “Loham, take them out to the barn.” One of the young men stood and approached.
“It’s true we’re orphans,” Amarta said, talking quickly, “but there’s more. There’s a man after us. I think he means to kill us.” She spoke calmly. That was the thing, she realized, not to try to look ragged and pathetic. Dirina’s approach had worked before, many times, but it wouldn’t work now.
The woman gave them both a long look. “Why?”
“We don’t know,” Amarta continued. “But we have nowhere to go. We haven’t eaten today because we have no food or money. But we’re trustworthy, and we’ll work hard for you as long as you’ll have us.”
“Not the king’s men,” the woman said. “We don’t need that kind of trouble.”
“No, not that,” Dirina said.
The woman nodded slowly. Then, to Dirina: “Next time you let her speak.”
Dirina looked down, face reddening.
“Cafir,” the woman called to the other man, “put some blankets in the corner by the fire. Loham, ladle out two more bowls. You two, take off your packs, and—” she stepped toward Dirina. “Here, woman, give me that baby before you drop him.”
Dirina hesitated a moment, then handed her Pas.
Amarta took off her pack and looked around the room, feeling dazed as the future she had glimpsed moments ago became the present.
Chapter Seven
Again Innel stood in the small toilet room at the back of the Frosted Rose. Against the patter of a light spring rain came a familiar series of knocks from the roof by the ceiling vent. Innel responded.
“Captain,” came a familiar voice.
“Well?”
“I found them.”
“Finally. Where are they?”
“Gone. When I arrived at Botaros, they had just left the village in some haste. I tracked them to the Sennant River, where they escaped me on a raft.”
“They escaped you?”
“Yes. And here is the interesting part, Captain: they were warned that I was coming.”
“Warned? What makes you think that?”
“They left a warm room and belongings to face a rough mountain road deep in snow with a babe in arms. At the riverbank they escaped me by mere heartbeats. What would you conclude, Captain?”
“That makes no sense. Who would even know to warn them?”
“An excellent question, Captain, since I told no one.”
After a moment it occurred to Innel what the man was implying. He snorted. “I have no reason to send you after them and warn them as well. Not with what I’m paying you.”
“No, you don’t,” the other responded mildly. “Perhaps it was coincidence that they left abruptly just before I arrived, and coincidence that they did not seem entirely surprised to see me at the river. What do you think, Captain?”
Innel thought that the girl had foreseen Tayre coming, as she had foreseen Innel’s duel with his brother. But he would not say so.
He had underestimated the girl. She was more dangerous than he had thought.
Worse, anyone who found her would be similarly dangerous. He had to get to her first.
“I think we will know better when you have brought them to me. A woman, a child, and a baby. How hard can they be to apprehend? Did you follow them?”
“Yes. They are somewhere off the Sennant, which describes rather a lot of territory.”
“They’re poor. I don’t think they will have gone far.”
“Perhaps. But there are clearly forces here beyond the obvious, and thus many things become possible. Fortunes can change quickly.”
Innel remembered placing bright coins atop a rough wooden table. Who else was overpaying the girl for her answers?
He exhaled. It came out a growl.
Before he could respond, Tayre spoke again. “What aren’t you telling me, Captain?”
Innel hesitated. Careful, he warned himself. “I’ve told you what I know.”
“My reason and your tone says otherwise. Keep your secrets, and I’ll keep looking, but every day whatever it is that you won’t tell me now might delay my finding her. My expenses rise. I will pass them on to you.”
Innel exhaled, this time more softly. This was not going well.
“Captain, how badly do you want this girl?”
“Badly enough to hire you.”
“That is my point. If this is that important to you, I suggest you tell me everything. Then I have a better chance of completing your business quickly.”
Innel considered the man’s words, aware that his silence was an admission. But perhaps the man was right. “You have a reputation for confidences.”
“I do.”
Annoying as it was, he was starting to appreciate that Tayre did not use a lot of words to reassure him. But how far to trust?
A balance of risks.
“The girl is a seer,” Innel said at last. “She predicts the future.”
“She has done this for you?”
Should he admit that much?
“She has.”
“I have been told by those who should know that there are no true Seers.”
“So have I. Nonetheless, she is one.”
A thoughtful noise from the vent, and a moment’s pause. “I have had occasion to cross paths with many who can accurately predict outcomes, Captain, but what is cause, and wh
at is consequence, can be cleverly reversed. I can arrange a demonstration if you wish.”
A reply just short of condescending.
“No need. I know what a swindler can do.”
“What has this girl told you, to make you believe this?”
That was more than he was prepared to reveal. “You’ll have to take my word for it.”
“As you say. Shall I resume the search?”
“Yes. And when you find her, I don’t want her getting away again.”
“I have no intention of letting her get away.”
“My meaning is this: if you have to wound her to keep her from escaping, do so.”
“I understand. How whole do you want her?”
“Alive. Able to speak, at least. Do whatever else you need to.”
“And the woman and baby?”
“I no longer care about them. Do whatever you must, but get me the girl.”
These last few days’ drenching spring rains meant that Innel was more than a little damp when he came in from leading his ever-present guard at a hard sprint around the circumference of the garrison field, where he then beat on a rain-soaked straw-filled sack while his guard looked on, because no one would take up a practice weapon against him.
“This is absurd,” he had said to Nalas.
“Captain,” Nalas had said, with amused forbearance. “If I won’t, they won’t. And I won’t.”
“Why not? I assure you the king would not object to any of you hitting me. With force.”
“No,” Nalas said, nodding, “but His Royal Majesty might be less than perfectly pleased if we actually damaged you. We like our positions, ser.”
So Innel beat on stuffed sacks that didn’t hit back, while his guard and everyone else watched. A pretend opponent with all the wit and tactics he might expect.
When he was done, his guards trailing him into the palace, he stripped off his wet jacket and handed it to Nalas. Someone handed him a towel and he began to dry his head while he considered which of the many plans he was cultivating required his attention most.
Cern, of course. Nothing else would advance without her.
She had not so much as permitted him a touch since he returned from Botaros, now pushing a half year. From what his informants were telling him, she wasn’t having any of the other boys to her room, either, and that was something, but he could hardly expect her to marry him until that door was open again.
The bitch makes the match.
No one would say that within Cern’s hearing, of course, but the king had said it often enough to the Cohort that it stuck in all of their minds. From early on, the king would bring them to see his dogs and horses mate.
Bloodlines mattered, the king told them repeatedly, in any breeding match—he’d point out the preferred traits of his dichu dogs and coal-black horses—but if the female wasn’t interested in the male, the offspring would always be flawed. So when the Cohort came of age, they were all sent to the anknapa for training, the boys especially.
The king liked his lessons vivid and bloody, so the point was driven home by his requiring every member of the Cohort to cull the weakest of those born to the kennels and stables. Slaughtering pups and foals that didn’t meet the king’s standards went a long way to inspiring the Cohort’s focus on learning to make Cern happy.
Innel was certain that it had occurred to many to wonder just how pleased Cern’s mother was with the king’s attentions a quarter century back, but no one who valued their future would wonder that aloud.
From his lifelong study of the princess, Innel knew that his strategy back into her bed was simple: a gentle but relentless persistence. He had to seem confident, but not overly so. Just enough to be charming.
Well, he’d done it before; he could do it again.
He wiped the sweat from his face and neck as he walked the halls to her suites for what was turning into a daily rejection. Srel quick-stepped to catch up with him.
“Two of the Lesser Houses are meeting shortly,” Srel said at a low volume. “Glass and Chandler. The lamp contracts. Elupene and Murice are sitting in to approve. They want amendments.”
“Because the last ten amendments weren’t enough?”
Srel made a sound that said he didn’t disagree. “In any case, ser, the king’s seneschal requires your presence.”
“Of course he does. Well, I doubt this will take long.”
Outside Cern’s suite, Innel’s guards arrayed themselves alongside her royal guards with now-familiar ease. This time he was allowed inside the antechamber, where his Cohort sister sat on a plush settee, a pleated, black long-jacket across her lap.
“What did you bring me?” Sachare asked, not looking up.
She was passing the long seams of the jacket through her extended fingers as if looking for something, which she probably was, and rolling and biting the buttons as if they might be poorly counterfeited coins.
“This,” he said, tired of being polite, throwing the wadded-up sweat cloth at her face. Without looking up, she batted it aside. “What shall I bring you next time, Sacha?”
“Trillium wine, boy.”
He snorted. Of course she would demand something impossibly rare and commensurately expensive.
“Something in season, girl. At least give me a chance—”
The inner door opened. Sachare stood quickly, jacket in hand. They both dipped their heads.
Cern gave them each a sharp glare, following it with a long, sour look at Innel.
The room was quiet for a long moment.
“Inside,” she said to him.
He followed with alacrity. He did not waste the chance, navigating every caress she allowed him, steering by the set of her shoulders, the cords in her neck, the sound of her breath, the scent at her nape. He missed the hours-long House meeting entirely.
She was, of course, tight and angry for quite some time. Only partly at him, he knew, but it didn’t matter—this was the opportunity he had been waiting for, and he applied himself entirely to it.
By the time they were done, she was a little more relaxed, and a touch less furious.
A good start.
The next morning, he came by again, and the following as well. She let him inside. He made a habit of showing up so she could get in the habit of saying yes, but left well before it might occur to her to wish him gone.
He was missing important meetings.
So be it.
The looks he was now getting across the palace told him that word was getting around that he was back in Cern’s good graces.
The ladder goes up one rung at a time, Pohut would have said.
It was no time to get overconfident, though, so his every caress was planned, measured, carefully applied. Every look and laugh likewise, no matter how casual it might seem. He had to show Cern that he was strong in the ways she was secretly afraid she was weak, while at the same time avoiding any echo of her father’s mannerisms. Unless they were the ones she even more secretly admired.
A delicate game. A meticulous seduction.
In another tenday, she nodded a welcome to him at dinner.
Another rung up.
When at last Innel judged he would be likely to succeed, he politely asked if he might be allowed to sit next to her at dinner.
She shrugged.
Her father looked on.
Another rung.
One night, sitting by her side at the end of a particularly long and well-attended meal that saw nearly all the remaining Cohort in attendance, the king casually opined that autumn was a good time for a wedding.
The room went dead silent.
Cern gazed down at her plate, eyes narrowed, lips thin, and said nothing.
Which was, it seemed, good enough for the king. The next morning, some twenty royal retainers poured into Innel’s apartment, took his measurements, made notes, and began planning what promised to be an astonishingly complicated and impressively expensive event.
But he would be wed.
To the princess.
A lifetime’s goal.
In even better news, Innel was allotted an allowance to assemble a staff. As tempted as he was to instead put the funds toward finding the girl in Botaros, he now had far too many eyes watching him, so he did as instructed; he took Nalas as his second, and after he made him steward put Srel in charge of settling all the rest.
At least now, Nalas would do as he was told and hit back.
“Are you satisfied with the help I obtained for you, Captain?”
The days had lengthened and warmed, so now Bolah prepared the bitter Arunkel tea that the season’s fashion demanded. She set a silver cylinder on the table between them along with two small matching goblets.
“Not yet, I’m not.”
Bolah froze, the etched cylinder clutched in her spotted hands.
“What has happened?”
“Nothing has happened,” Innel snapped, letting his annoyance show. “He searches but does not find. A glimpse; then the prey is loose again in the brush.”
“Ah,” she said, slowly completing her movement to fill his cup and then her own, setting the tea cylinder on the table. “Such things can take time.”
“I am out of time.” He took a sip, enjoying the tea, if not the conversation.
Bolah eased herself into the seat across from him and folded her hands together on the table. “Captain, if this man cannot obtain what you seek, it may be that the item cannot be acquired. Few, I assure you, are his equal.”
“So you have said.” Innel would venture a few inquires of his own, to see what others thought of Tayre’s work.
Bolah seemed ill at ease.
Good. Innel was on the path to become royal consort. She should want him happy.
“Could it be that the item you seek is occluded by some . . . unknown aspect? Thus . . . distant and difficult to see?”
So many words to describe magic, all to avoid being direct. Even here in the privacy of her own home.
But she might be right.
“Perhaps.”
“Then perhaps someone with exceptionally good vision could help speed the search.”
Good vision. The euphemism for mages. Innel felt a little safer for sleeping in Cern’s bed, but until he was wed to her, even that could be swept away in any number of unforeseeable ways. It paid to be careful.