by Sonia Lyris
“Minister?” Innel asked, looking at the Minister of Accounts.
“The clerk Dyrik, whom you named, ser. We searched his room and found souvers below the floorboards. You were quite right to be suspicious. But the man himself—alas. He is dead.” The minister’s mouth worked furiously, as if whatever he were sucking on were fighting back.
“How?”
“A flash flood in the mountains, where he was visiting his ailing mother.”
“Where is the body?”
At this the man looked startled, then confused. “Swept away, ser. In the flood.”
“Ah, I see.” To Nalas: “Send someone to question the ailing mother. Be sure she has enough wood to get her through this cold winter. Find out what else she has.”
“Yes, ser,” Nalas said.
“And the rest of this?” Innel asked, gesturing at the books Keyretura had audited, looking at each of the three of them in turn. “The extra funds that have been, it seems, coming into the treasury?”
“I do not know how that came to be.” The Minister of Accounts said quietly.
“Truth,” Keyretura said.
Eyes fluttering as if fighting a fainting spell, the Minister of Accounts spoke again. “Lord Commander, I have no need to lie; I have done nothing wrong.” He glanced quickly at Keyretura, who shrugged, almost imperceptibly.
Innel turned his attention to the Minister of Coin. “Minister?”
She dipped her chin in a bow. “We are taking in a great many souvers these days, Lord Commander, as we re-mint for the queen’s visage. We do count them all, every one of them”—she paused, looking at Keyretura, who nodded—“but some inconsistencies are unavoidable”—another hesitation, another nod from the mage—“as I have said before. I will look into it, ser, and audit our process.” Her eyes were wide, and she seemed to be breathing heavily.
Innel made a thoughtful noise. Finally he looked a question at the Minister of Treasury.
“The treasury is healthy, my Lord Commander,” said the Ministry of Treasury, looking at Keyretura, who nodded for him to continue. “If there is an issue, well, I have no choice but to conclude it must stand with Accounts.” With that he looked back at the Minister of Accounts and was joined in this by the Minister of Coin.
Well, at least it was clear who was being thrown to the pigs now.
“I have no authority over any of you,” Innel said when it was clear they were hanging on his every word, “but I suggest that you look more closely at your agencies. If you need help, Keyretura dua Mage has told me he would welcome any opportunity to assist.”
None of them looked happy at this suggestion.
“It is not ours, Lord Commander. We did not mint this.”
The Minister of Coin held the gold souver up at arm’s length, lips pursed, her eyes refocusing past it, on Innel, then back to the souver. She offered it to Innel, who took it, turning it over and over in his fingers.
It looked like a souver.
“Are you sure, Minister?”
“Quite sure. And now that we are looking for them, we are finding rather a lot of them.”
He rubbed the metal of one side, then the other. “Is it not gold?”
“Oh, it’s gold. Most assuredly. Weight, displacement, and slot tests bear that out. Which is why we didn’t notice before now.”
“Then how do you know it’s not one of ours?”
She brought out another gold souver and held it out for Innel to see. Glancing between the two coins, one in her hand, one in his, Innel said, “I still don’t see a difference, Minister.”
“Look at the horse’s teeth, ser. You can almost count them.”
“No, I can’t. I am holding the forgery?”
“You are.” She brought out another, held them up, side by side. “I see attempted forgeries all the time, ser, but none this good. Never. This side—the king’s face. Do you see His Royal Majesty’s eyes? Such detail. You can almost see him blink.”
Still Innel could not see a difference. “Improved engraving on the dies, perhaps?”
“No, Lord Commander.”
“Then how can you—?”
She held both coins edge for Innel to see. “Just a bit too thin. Do you see?”
He made a doubtful sound, and she touched them together. Now he saw that one was very slightly thinner. Hardly perceptible. “Ah. Yes.”
“There is more gold in this forgery than there is in a standard souver.”
“More? What? But why—”
“Exactly, Lord Commander. And this is what puzzles me most: this coin would cost more to produce than a souver is worth. It makes no sense at all.”
“Not a problem.”
Sutarnan del Sartor del Elupene, recently returned from Garaya, sat in front of Innel eating boiled eggs dipped in oily saffron sauce and crab-filled pastries baked into the shapes of starfish.
“An entire city, remiss on taxes for nearly two years, and you say it’s not a problem? Care to elaborate?”
“My pleasure.” Sutarnan licked red oil from his fingers and took a sip of the black wine he’d had brought from his own collection. Then he leaned back, smug and smiling. “It’s not the merchants. Well, it is, but not the way the governor has whined to us. Oh, they’re full of spark and fury, all right, but the real problem? The governor. He’s been eating his seed corn, the bastard. Not a little, either; the entire royal garrison has been gutted, turned into an army of beggars.”
“What?”
“He hasn’t paid them in over a year. The barracks are falling down. Some of them have sold off their weapons and armor just to afford to live. Others have gone off into the countryside.”
More deserters. And close enough to the Perripur border that the word would spread.
Innel exhaled sharply. “This is why the merchants are troubled and taxes are in arrears. No one to collect and keep order. Where’s the city council?”
“Well-fed wethers. They speak his words, simper and equivocate and defer, then go back to their houses to eat and fuck. Useless, all of them. Not that I object to eating and fucking, you understand.”
“I’ll have his head,” Innel said darkly.
“A change in leadership might be just what the city needs. Even wants. Fortunately for you, Lord Commander, I can arrange this for you.”
“Explain your meaning.”
“The private militias aren’t going to want to get involved, and the governor’s guard has lovely uniforms and shiny weapons that they don’t want to dent or dirty. Still, the walls and gates are sound and solid and very sturdy. I could defend them with a hundred good men. Yes, even me.” He laughed. “Imagine. I’m starting to like the idea.”
Sutarnan had always been annoying. “Don’t let me rush you,” Innel said sweetly.
Sutarnan leaned forward, holding up a pastry then biting off one of the legs. “But the walls won’t matter. A number of merchants are good friends of mine, and it turns out quite loyal to the crown. They’ve agreed to open the poorly guarded eastern gates when the queen’s army shows its colors. You’d be surprised how many are eager for that moment to arrive.”
“You arranged this?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. It’s not only you bone-crushers who can take cities. Sometimes it requires a bit of”—he waved a hand at the food and wine—“friendly conversation.”
“I am—impressed. Well done, Sutarnan.”
The other man smiled. “And this,” he said, “is why you’re going to send me back at the head of an army to take Garaya. I’ve always wanted to be a general.”
“Ah.” A bit more of a title than Innel had intended to give him, but perhaps reasonable under the circumstances. In any case, it was unlikely Sutarnan would want to repeat this experience. “I might send someone with you. Keep you from getting into too much trouble.”
“Certainly. A little advice might be useful.”
Innel thought of who he’d send with Sutarnan and the companies most familiar with Garaya.
Then he thought of Cahlen.
“One of the companies I’ll be sending with you has a corporal, named Selamu. I’d be very unhappy if something happened to him. Keep him safe. Back with the birds.” Cahlen would like that. “Understood?”
“You have a boy companion? How charming, Innel. I would not have suspected you of such—sentimentality.”
“He’s my sister’s. Just keep him alive.”
“So noted, ser,” he said, with a lopsided smile and a sloppy salute that Innel did not think was unintentional. “I’ll send my clerk around tomorrow for the writs of command. I’ll have to have a uniform made, too, I suppose, and select a new horse. My parents will be delighted. Let me know when I’m nearly ready to go, will you?”
“Of course,” Innel said wryly.
Innel went to his suite at sundown, bone-weary and aching for his bed. He was starting to make little mistakes, letting important items slip by, getting angry with people over small things.
He could not allow little slips to turn into big ones, small annoyances to ripple out into the fabric of palace politics.
As he shut the door of his suite behind him, he saw her standing by the windows, dressed in soft, flowing magenta silks. She faced away from him, looking out the window at a city bathed in a golden sunset and the dark band of ocean beyond.
“Your Majesty,” he said. She was in his room. Why?
She did not turn around. “What are you doing, Innel?”
He gritted his teeth. It was a sufficiently vague question that he could not guess at what she might mean. There was no good answer. He recognized the tactic from her father. Intended to put him off-balance. And working.
Restarn’s daughter, after all.
He started unbuttoning his vest. “Getting undressed.”
Now she did turn around. “I don’t want all the details of how you keep order, but there are some disturbing rumors.”
“Which particular rumors are you thinking of?”
“The one where you are spending a very great deal of money trying to find a young woman. A fortune-teller. Normally I ignore such idiocy, but this rumor has been surprisingly persistent.”
“Rumors are always persistent. That’s what makes them rumors. The more outrageous, the longer-lived.” Innel pulled off his shirt.
“What is the new mage doing, Innel?”
He was beyond tired. “Helping me with a number of matters,” he managed, tossing the shirt on the floor.
“Is one of them this fortune-teller?”
It was tempting to tell her no and have this done with, but if such a deception came to light, nothing would infuriate her more.
Besides, she liked to be right once in a while.
“It is.”
She growled softly. “Is this a jest?”
“It is not. Do you now want the details?” His tone was too rough, he realized, struggling for calm.
She turned away in the darkening room, standing for a moment in profile against the fast-dimming sun. She touched a low-burning lamp and it brightened the room, underlighting her sharp features, giving her a formidable appearance. She looked a lot like her father now. “I do.”
“My lady, I’m desperately tired. Can’t this wait until morning?”
“Of course it can wait,” she said, voice chillingly soft. “If you think it prudent to deny your sovereign answers when she asks for them. I wouldn’t, in your shoes, but perhaps you know better than I do.”
“Forgive me,” he said quickly, feeling his blood rush at her words, grateful for the momentary clarity it lent him. “Whatever you want to know, you have only to ask.”
“Why are you searching for this young woman?”
“Because she can see into the future.”
Cern snorted in disgust. “Must I find a new Lord Commander? What a stunningly witless thing to spend on. You’re as bad as my father.”
“I would agree with you,” Innel said cautiously, “had I not heard her speak. That she has evaded my best trackers is not coincidence.”
“Anyone can get lucky.”
“Not this lucky. Not for three years.”
“Three years? Fates, Innel. How much is this costing?”
One of Restarn’s faults was that he rarely asked for a close accounting. For a moment, he missed the old king. “Shall I walk you through the ledgers, Your Majesty?”
“Oh, it’s going to be like that, is it?” Her words did not invite answer, so he did not offer. Instead he sat heavily on his bed and pulled off his boots.
She sat down across from him in one of the thickly padded chairs. “You realize how witless this sounds, Innel?”
“Yes. But it is worth the cost to find her, even if all she does is sit and mumble, if our enemies believe she might be able to predict tomorrow’s weather. And they do.”
“I hear my uncle is on the Labari coast. Perhaps a royal pardon would bring him back to resume the Lord Commandership.”
Innel laughed at this weak threat, even knowing it was a mistake. He was just too tired.
“You laugh at me? You dare?”
“I’m sorry, Cern,” he said, belatedly realizing he wasn’t making things better by addressing her informally. “But the thought of Lason trying to manage the military conflicts we are juggling—he’d change every allocation, just to show he could. He’d plunge us into outrageous, costly battles that could never be won. Besides, you don’t even like him.”
“I don’t like you, either.”
“But you trust me. Because I tell you the truth. As I am doing now.”
She snorted as if in disgust and disagreement, but he saw her shoulders relax. He knew how she had been raised. When he thought about it, it was surprising that she could relax at all.
A vivid memory came to him of her as a small child, perhaps four or five, her expression one of utter, agonized frustration following some harsh and confusing conversation with her father. She had stood still and silent, small hands clenched into furious shaking fists, but eyes dry.
Now she stretched her arms up over her head, hands tightening into fists, betraying her tension. After a moment she gave him an odd look. “I went to see him today,” she said.
Despite Innel’s exhaustion, there was no question who she meant. He blinked hard, trying to clear his mind. Then, to buy a moment: “Who, my queen?”
“My father.”
She crossed a foot over her other leg, pulled off her thick slippers and began touching her toes on their tips, one by one, bending them back and forth, as if testing each one to make sure it still worked properly. Innel was one of the few who had ever seen this odd habit. She only did this in private when she was sorting out details.
He must make sure he didn’t end up as one of her details.
“That was good of you, to go see him.”
“He likes you, Innel. As much as he likes anyone. Did you know that?”
“I admit it strains my credulity.”
“You want to keep Arunkel whole, our borders strong. So alike, you two, he says.” Her smile lacked warmth.
“Similar goals do not make similar men.”
“I am glad to hear you say so.”
There was something coming. Innel could feel it, like the pressure before a storm. He inhaled and braced himself, again willing himself to focus.
“He also says you are poisoning him.”
There it was.
Someone had let something slip. The doctor? He thought of the doctor’s grandson, now two years old, walking and talking at House Eschelatine, and what might happen to the boy if Innel discovered that the doctor had betrayed him.
Or could it be the slave? No, she could not possibly know, not unless someone told her.
Perhaps, after all this time, Restarn had simply guessed. Foolish of him to voice such suspicion, but he had now been sick two years. Perhaps his judgment was fraying.
And perhaps the king had outlived his usefulness.
“Does he,” Innel said.
&
nbsp; He met Cern’s gaze. He would not offer more. She would have to ask.
After a moment, she went back to her toes. “He wanted to talk, as if all we were was father and daughter.” Her tone was flat. “I went to leave and he—” She looked up from her toes, looking beyond Innel. “He begged me to stay. Begged me, Innel. He seemed on the edge of tears.” Now she focused on Innel again. “He said you were going to kill him. That I was the only one who could save him. That if I left, I would not see him alive again.”
Innel could well imagine Restarn enacting that particular drama. He knew how to control his daughter. “And then?”
She took a deep breath. “Then I left.”
Or maybe he didn’t.
“He isn’t at all well,” Innel said slowly. “Not thinking clearly. He could say anything. Might even believe it to be true.”
“Yes,” she said. “A very sick old man.”
And still she had not asked.
Innel had worked his entire life to win Cern’s trust. With her the coin of honesty was the hardest currency he held. Even so, now that she was a hair’s breadth away from asking, he wasn’t sure how he would answer. Some things were better left unsaid.
Standing, she put her feet back into her slippers. “Get some rest, Innel.” She walked to the door, paused. “If you were not so tired, I would ask you to entertain me tonight.”
“So very kind of you, Your Majesty,” he said quite sincerely. “Would tomorrow morning please you?”
“Yes. Come see me then.”
As the guard outside closed the door behind her, Innel realized that she was not going to ask him. She did not want to know.
He let himself fall back on the bed. Exhaustion came over him like a fog.
Chapter Twenty-six
“Ama, there is no need for this.”
Between market day and the loud masked comedy show in the courtyard of the inn, only one room remained available. An expensive one. It was huge, with a large bed in one corner.
Really, thought Amarta, there was no sensible reason not to share it with him.