by Sonia Lyris
If he were to be more than Cern’s consort, he must be able to hold his own with her. He took a deliberate, insulting tone. “Is that what your father told you?”
Her lips thinned, edges down. She looked away a moment, silent and angry. For a long moment her expression did not change, and Innel wondered if his rise to power might have found its ceiling.
“No mages, Innel.”
Innel clenched his fist, tapped it lightly to the tile at his feet, and considered. He had worked hard for her throne, perhaps harder than she had. He knew he needed her; without her he was only a mutt, rising above his station. Perhaps she needed him, too, or perhaps she could do without him if she must.
Most important was what she believed. It was time to find out.
He shifted onto his knees then touched his head on the tile toward her, then did it twice more.
“Your Majesty,” he said, “I will need you to scribe your commands for me, so that I miss none of them.”
“What? Get up.”
“A list of what I may and may not do,” he said, head still down.
She snorted. “No mages, Innel. Do whatever else you like.”
“Next week, my lady,” he said, lifting his head and meeting her gaze, “it will be no mages and no elk-horn buttons. The week after perhaps no horses with spotted manes. Then—no yellow flowers. After that—”
“You mock my laws.”
“Your father’s laws. Perhaps you should put me in charge of the kitchens instead of the army.”
“You are starting to annoy me.”
If he annoyed her enough, she could divorce him. Quite easily, as her seneschal had pointed out. Or she could have him sent to the towers without fingers, as her grandmother had done with one of her consorts who had presumed too much.
If she were truly vexed, she could have him torn to pieces in Execution Square, relieving him of his oversight of that particular job. That would be an irony many would appreciate.
He was betting she was too smart for that. Betting rather a lot.
“Then, my lady,” he said with a calmness he didn’t feel, “give the job to someone else. Someone you trust to make such decisions.”
“No mages,” she said, slowly, forcefully.
“I’m sure Lason would take back his command if you offered it to him.”
“Cold crack your balls.” She slammed her hand against the side of the tub. “Do as I say.”
Their gazes locked.
“I am your queen.”
“Without question, ma’am.”
“You will obey me.”
“You’ve given me conflicting orders.”
“No mages. Isn’t that simple enough?”
She was not yielding. Don’t push until you must. And then go in with all you have.
“Perhaps you should break the marriage, my queen.”
A step too far, he judged from her sudden change of expression. She was furious now, eyes wide, fists tight.
Innel suppressed a wince; worse yet would be to retreat. So with effort, he stayed silent, letting his last words echo.
“I’ll have you in charge of the kitchens first,” she said at last.
“I am reassured,” he said, dryly, to hide how reassured he really was. He sat back on the tiles, letting himself softly exhale. “The Houses use mages, Cern. We must have at least the advantages they do.”
She gritted her teeth, splashed the water a little. “Be sure your hire is a citizen of the empire. One who pays taxes.”
Unlikely, given the laws about practicing magic.
But, he realized, she had just said yes.
“I thought it prudent to find one from outside Yarpin, outside Arunkel. Someone without obligations or ties here.”
Her expression bordered on the incredulous. “You have already done this thing.”
He hesitated, then wished he hadn’t. “Yes.”
“You broke the laws.”
“Your father’s laws, which he himself broke regularly. Your laws now, my queen.”
“When did you—” She broke off, stared at him with hard, green eyes. “How long have you been planning this?”
He wondered what answer would pacify her most, decided to risk the truth. “A year and some, my lady.”
To his surprise, she smiled. “When my father still ruled. You planned ahead, for me. I like that.” Then the smile turned brittle. “But don’t hide things from me. If there’s a mage in my palace, I want to know about it. No secrets from me, Innel, the way you did with him.”
“No secrets.”
Cern moved through the water to come close to him at the edge of the tub, then reached up and grabbed the back of his head with her wet hand, slowly pulling him close. She kissed him for long moments.
This he had not expected. For a fair number of moments afterward she continued to surprise him.
When Innel returned at the fifth bell, Lason left, finally and gracelessly, storming out of the office along with an entourage of his remaining loyal retainers. They left with the best of the old king’s travel set. “Stole” might be the more accurate word, but it was unclear what the legal status of the king’s royal horses was now that Cern was queen. From there the group had headed north, Innel was told, but to where no one knew.
It had better not be to cause trouble at the mines. He instructed Srel to send word to his people there to report back anything that sounded like Lason’s work.
Finally the Lord Commander’s office was Innel’s.
He signalled Srel, who gestured to the many servants who were unpacking his things onto the mantles, making the final touches Innel wanted—new maps on the walls, weapons on racks so they were more accessible than ornamental—to stop. They streamed out the door, leaving only the young, uniformed woman who had just arrived. She stood arrow-straight, staring at nothing.
When the two of them were alone, he spoke. “Identify yourself,” he said
“Vevan sev Arunkel, Lord Commander.”
“Sit down.”
Startled at this, she obeyed, taking the chair across from him. The manner in which people sat in chairs told Innel a great deal about them, soldiers especially. They were accustomed to being watched when they stood; sitting was what they did off-duty, drinking or eating, their defenses lowered.
“You have a lover,” he said. “Bintal.”
Her eyes widened. She stuttered in her reply. “Yes, Lord Commander.”
“He spoke to you before you left Yarpin on campaign last year. About me and my brother, Pohut sev Restarn. Is that so?” He was guessing. Satisfyingly, the blood drained from her face and her stark expression made reply unnecessary. “What was said?”
“Some sort of plan,” she said, her voice low. “Against you. By Lieutenant Pohut.”
“Give me details, Sergeant.”
“The lieutenant was asking someone questions.”
“Who? Where?”
“In the mountains south? Some fortune-teller.” She laughed a little, uneasily.
Innel’s stomach clenched. “Who did you tell this to?”
“No one, ser.”
“No one? Not one person in your company?”
“No, Lord Commander.”
He leaned forward. “No talk about the lieutenant’s funeral? No rumors about how he might have been killed? No late-night speculations about the new Lord Commander? I find this hard to believe. I can have you interviewed at length by someone who can tell the truth of your words if I have any doubt about your sincerity. You are far better off telling me. Now.”
Her face went even paler, her voice barely a whisper. “I might have said something, Lord Commander. In jest. Once.”
“How many might have heard you, had you said this something?”
Her mouth opened and closed and then again. “We were out. Drinking and smoking, Lord Commander. Truly, I don’t recall.”
She was too easy to read: she wanted anything but to recall.
“Guess,” he urged.
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br /> “A tencount, perhaps, my lord.”
“Just one?”
She swallowed. Her mouth fished open again. “Perhaps a few more than that.”
There it was, then: a rumor based in fact, with plenty of time for it to have found life across the public houses of the cities and the fire pits of the camps. It would sound like typical aristo dalliance and excess, consulting a fortune-teller, but Pohut’s death might give it more credence than he could afford.
Innel would start his own rumors to combat it, of course, far more outrageous. Pigs that snorted predictions, dogs that burped tomorrow’s weather. This would help confuse anyone looking for a kernel of truth. He hoped.
The woman before him was slumped in her chair, face a mask of despair, gaze on the floor.
“You’ll want to go back to your company,” he said after a moment’s consideration.
“Yes, ser,” she said, her tone flat.
She did not expect to survive this interview. In Restarn and Lason’s time, she might not have. Might have quietly disappeared, family and friends acting as if she had never existed at all. No funeral, no gift ceremony, no body. Innel had seen it countless times.
“I can’t let you go back,” he said, letting that sink in, watching her face collapse, giving her another moment to consider her mortality. “So I will post you here, on the palace grounds. Something modest, perhaps the cavalry inventory staff. Would you like that?”
She blinked a few times, doubt warring with hope, then nodded with fragile enthusiasm.
“You can keep seeing Bintal; indeed, I encourage it. But you will tell me anything that is said around you, about me or anyone in my family. My own people will be feeding you some of those rumors, just to keep you in practice. Understand?”
“Lord Commander, thank you, I—”
He waved it away. “You’ll tell me you’re loyal, that you owe me your life.” He leaned forward, caught her gaze. “I advise you to make sure I never question having let you keep it. Yes?”
“Yes, Lord Commander.”
Getting away from the palace was harder than it had ever been, taking hours to arrange. Again he made his way to the toilet room of the Frosted Rose.
“Where in the hells have you been?” Innel demanded of the vent overhead.
“Finding your girl, Lord Commander.”
“And?”
“You were right: she sees the future.”
“You have her?”
“No. And I will need more funds to continue my search.”
Innel’s fist trembled as he touched white knuckles to the wall of the small toilet room. Softly. “Hiring you, first and most expensively, was intended to resolve this matter quickly. Yet I see no resolution.”
“Commander, this no a simple girl. In each moment she knew what I was about to do next. A seer. Truly, this is extraordinary.”
“It took you a year to come to the conclusion that I was right? And you are supposed to be the best?”
“Few escape me, even once. I doubt anyone will get closer to her than I have.”
“We can celebrate that at least,” Innel said, “because rumors of the girl are now everywhere. Let’s hope your competition is even less competent than you are.”
“Lord Commander, I urge you to allow me to kill her. She will be far easier to control when she is dead.”
“Absolutely not. I need her alive.” Cern’s rule was yet weak, his own command under hers consequently tenuous. Innel needed the girl’s answers far more than he needed her silence. “So you come to me with nothing?”
“Not quite. I have some items that once belonged to her. A small seashell, some blue cloth. You may wish to ask your mage about these.”
His mage. Tayre was surely guessing. That Innel had every intention of doing just this as soon as he could bring Marisel dua Mage to the palace did not change the fact that it was still against both law and custom. He wondered if he should pretend to be offended for the sake of appearances. “Explain your meaning.”
“You are an insightful man, not given to common superstitions during your uncommon rise.” Mutt to Royal Consort to Lord Commander, he meant. Innel frowned a little at this, wondering if Tayre was flattering him. “You would have a mage.”
Innel made a noncommittal sound.
“Though,” Tayre continued, “I suspect the girl’s ability to anticipate danger will work equally well against magical forces.”
“Is that intended to reassure me?”
“If you want reassurance, ser, you’ll find it for far less coin than what you’ve been paying me. But coin is the least of your costs if someone else finds her first.”
The very thought that kept Innel awake at night. “This is neither news nor does it put her in my hands. If you cannot find her—”
“I know where she is.”
“What? Why didn’t you say that before?”
“Because finding her is not the problem.”
Again his hand was clenched into a fist. “And yet it seems to have thwarted you repeatedly.”
“Lord Commander, your other hires—have any of them reported finding her?” He paused. “Or reported finding me?”
“No,” he admitted.
“I’ve threatened her life twice. If any of your other hounds had done that much, I doubt you would be here.”
“Damn this. Can you apprehend her or not?”
“Her foresight has limitations or she wouldn’t be fleeing from me in the first place. I will keep pursuing, but I can offer no promises.”
Unlike the others Innel had hired, all of whom had been quite willing to give promises. That it would be easily accomplished. That they would have the girl to him shortly.
“She is still on the run,” Tayre said. “No one else has her, either.”
“Someone will.”
A doubtful sound. “Perhaps.”
So many ways to use the girl if he could only get his hands on her. He thought of the mountain regions, where towns thought taxes and House Charters didn’t apply to them, or the Greater and Lesser Houses and their squabbles. Trade boats that had been lost in bad weather, costing the crown astonishing amounts. The shifting metals markets.
For whoever held her, the potential advantages were boundless. He exhaled in a long stream.
“If capture is not possible . . .” It would be a great shame to lose her. But far worse to let someone else have her. “Bring me her head.”
“A prudent decision, Lord Commander. And the woman and the boy?”
For all Innel knew, the girl’s exceptional ability ran in the family. It made no sense to remove the girl and leave alive two other potential and similar threats. It was time to finish this.
“Yes. If you cannot capture, kill them. All of them.”
Chapter Fifteen
At the meal, Amarta looked for Darad, but he had slipped out some time ago, to where she did not know. Without even signing good-bye to her.
There had been a conversation the previous evening between the handful of them, the subject turning to the upcoming trip. Someone had pointed out that she and Dirina already looked like Arunkin, because they were Arunkin, and why, he wondered, couldn’t they be sent on the out-trips instead of sending Emendi?
“That’s a dumb idea,” Darad had said. “They don’t know what we need to get.”
“So give them a list. They can read, can’t they?”
“Not really,” Amarta admitted.
“Why not?” asked a younger boy.
“I just never had to learn, I guess.”
“I mean why can’t you go on these trips instead of us?”
Another girl spoke up. “We risk our lives on the trips. It’s no risk for you at all.”
Amarta could not—would not—tell her how wrong she was. But at this Nidem and Darad exchanged quick looks, making Amarta wonder how much they suspected about why she and Dirina and Pas were in Kusan in the first place.
“No,” Nidem said adamantly. She gave Amarta a b
rief, unfriendly stare. “I’ve worked hard for my place in the out-trip. She hasn’t done anything to earn it at all.”
Amarta nodded her agreement at this, feeling both relief and gratitude to Nidem. Darad gave her a thoughtful, unreadable look.
Which was why, now, with him gone early from the meal, she worried that she had said or done something he didn’t like.
The meal was finishing and Emendi were leaving. Some to the baths, some to the nursery, some to the music room, some to the coops.
Nidem caught her eye from the door. Come with, she signed.
Clean-up duty, Amarta signed back with one hand, holding a stack of bowls with the other, hoping she was properly conveying with the abruptness of her movements the frustration she felt at being stuck here. She desperately wanted to get Nidem alone so she could ask her where Darad had gone.
But no, it was beyond important that they be reliable here. To be worth the sanctuary and food the Emendi generously gave them.
Washroom Three, Nidem signed back. Come soon.
Maybe she could get Dirina to take her clean-up duty, she thought, looking for her sister. She was with Kosal, a young man she had been spending a lot of time with. Judging by her happy look, her sister wouldn’t be in a mood to wash dishes for Amarta.
Again Kosal was trying to teach Dirina hand signs by holding her hand and moving her fingers. It seemed to Amarta that her sister was taking a very long time to learn. But no real mystery there; Dirina grinned foolishly as he slowly manipulated her fingers.
It was good that they were making friends among the Emendi. Still, many Emendi would not even speak to them, despite how diligently she and Dirina had worked these last months to find a place here in Kusan, to make themselves valuable and trusted to the suspicious Emendi.
After the Teva left, Nidem had warmed to Amarta, joking that it was best to keep enemies as close as possible. At Amarta’s hurt look, Nidem had rolled her eyes and cuffed her lightly. Joking, she signed.
Not long after, Nidem had taken Amarta on a night-rabbit hunt, the two of them standing well to the back of the group of adults who released the hunting ferrets to find and flush the rabbit warrens, where two of the hugest ferrets Amarta had seen waited. As the rabbits exited their holes, the ferrets clamped onto their necks, rolling hard to break them.