The Seer - eARC

by Sonia Lyris

  “We come to ask questions,” Innel replied.

  “You bring a mighty force to ask questions.”

  “We are seeking to cut away the diseased skin of treason. We bring the necessary tools to do so, no matter where on the body we might find it.”

  “Treason? Against whom? You are”—he gestured—“making camp on Teva lands.”

  “Against the queen whose lands you live within, Teva,” answered Lismar.

  Jolon looked confused. “It is the Teva you wish to ask these questions of?”

  “It is.”

  “Ah. Then we will require a writ of truce.”

  Innel gave Lismar a querying look. She nodded. “So be it,” he said to the Teva. “I offer you a ten-day truce for discussion, in force immediately. Send your leaders to my pavilion and we will sign the decree.”

  A few words were spoken between them in the fast, atonal language of the Teva, which Innel did not know. Two of their riders left. “They go to notify our people of this truce. You will do the same?”

  Innel motioned to Nalas, who gave an order to two others, who similarly rode off.

  “We accept your word,” the Teva man said, “And we two will sign the treaty, then hear your questions.”

  Innel frowned. “You? We expect to meet with your leaders.”

  “My sister and I hold authority to speak for our Elders and people. As you hold the authority to speak for your queen.”

  “I see.”

  Barely short of insulting, to compare their elders to the monarch of the empire.

  Jolon pointed. “Do you see that rock outcropping there, at the top of that mesa?”

  “I do.”

  “We will come to sign when the morning sun touches there. We wish you to rest well this night so that when our discussion is complete, you and your many soldiers may return to your homes.”

  With this Jolon of the Teva gave Innel a wide, guileless smile.

  Innel nodded slowly. “Tomorrow, then.”

  As sun touched the rock on the mesa, seven Teva dismounted outside the newly erected pavilion.

  Everyone in camp who could arguably have had reason to be close to the command pavilion was there, watching as the Teva slipped down from their small, strangely striped horses. The camp’s horsemaster stepped toward the shaota, looking lost as she realized the horses had no reins to take.

  Mara spoke to her. “They do not need your help.”

  “But,” the horsemaster began, looking to Innel for direction.

  “As they say,” he told her.

  Jolon spoke to one of his companions, saying something fast and low. “He will stay here, with the shaota,” he said to Innel.

  “So be it.”

  Innel led the remaining six into the pavilion, to a long table. Silver cups marked with the Anandynar sigil had been set out in a row. When all were seated, Innel and Lismar on one side, the Teva on the other, an aide poured wine into every cup, moving them into a semicircle equidistant from Jolon and Mara.

  Jolon considered the cups, exchanging a quick glance with his sister. He then slid the cups from the ends of the semicircle in sufficient number to pass to his companions, leaving the center two.

  Interesting.

  Innel and Lismar took the remaining cups.

  After they had all sipped, Innel nodded to a clerk, who brought a paper forward, along with a quill, ink, and seal. Innel made his mark and pressed his seal into a pool of red wax the aide dripped onto the document. Another pool of wax was dripped, and Jolon took from around his neck a long, thin seal that appeared to be woven from horsehair, pressing the Teva mark. As it came away, Innel saw a set of stripes much like the pattern on the backs of the shaota.

  “Thus is the truce confirmed,” Innel said after the necessary marks were made.

  “Then”—From Jolon, an open hand, a gesture—“ask your questions, Lord Commander and First General.”

  Innel took another sip of the dark wine, considering the group before him. “Where is the gold coming from?”

  “Gold?”

  “In any form. Nuggets. Bars. Counterfeit coin. Statuettes. Those who make these items commit high treason.”

  Jolon appeared to consider this as he sat back. Then: “We regret we cannot help you with this.”

  Innel studied the Teva, thinking of Keyretura’s words about the figurine and its casting and traces of gold. This man, this Teva before him, had handed that figurine to Innel as he sat on his horse at Arteni. Behind the Teva had been trade wagons.

  Wagons Innel had decided not to search. Wagons that might have been full of these figurines, some of which might have been made of less lead and more gold. It was all starting to make a kind of sense. Innel suspected that Jolon and Mara, like the Teva itself, were not quite what they seemed.

  But all that showed on their faces were looks of innocence.

  “We want to check your foundries,” Innel said. “Search your lands.”

  “We do not permit this,” Jolon said easily. “Whatever you seek on Teva lands, it is not yours. We are sovereign—”

  “Within Arunkel borders,” Lismar said.

  “—sovereign under the treaty of Nipatas Two,” Jolon continued, his gaze still on Innel, “a treaty signed in blood, renewed by Hesindae One, Evintine Three, and Restarn the first of his name, your queen’s own father. All esse Arunkel.”

  “We know the treaty, its ratifications, and what it means, Jolon al Otevan,” Innel said.

  “And we have been your neighbors in peace for over three hundred years.”

  Lismar leaned forward, jabbed a finger at the two of them. “Listen, Teva: no treaty gives you the right to violate Arunkel law. Your sovereignty does not swathe you like a babe. If it is not you doing these things, then you surely know who it is, and you will reveal this to us.”

  Jolon spread his hands. “We deny violating any law. We have nothing to tell you.”

  “Then you will not protest if we look around,” Innel said.

  “We do protest. It is our land. If you go farther, it is trespass.”

  At this tense moment, an aide stepped inside the pavilion. At this interruption, Innel shot Nalas a sharp look. Nalas quickly conferred with the aide, gave Innel a look that said the matter was urgent. Innel motioned him to speak.

  “A scout from the southern team, Lord Commander,” Nalas said. “She reports the other nine on the team are dead, slaughtered in a gully at a watering hole. She is wounded. Barely escaped.”

  Innel was on his feet. “Who did this?” he demanded.

  Nalas’s eyes flickered to the Teva. “Dressed in simple clothes, from the scout’s description. Much as they are, ser.”

  No one was sitting now. The Teva spread out slightly from each other, fingers spread wide. Not yet on weapons.

  Innel gave his full attention to Jolon. “Hours into our truce and you murder my men?”

  “Not us, Lord Commander,” Jolon said, hands up in a gesture of placation.

  Innel glanced at Lismar. She trusted them no more than he did. “You deny much, Teva,” he said. “Our credulity stretches thin. Someone has killed our scouts. Someone commits treason against our queen.” He gave Nalas a sign. Nalas dipped his head, little more than a twitch, and was gone.

  “What we wear,” Jolon said, “it is simply practical. Many wear such clothes. On our lands and yours.”

  “Very well,” Innel said. “You claim this is not your work. For the moment we will consider the truce whole and refrain from retaliation. But we will have answers. One of your people may leave to tell your Elders what has happened. The rest, and you in particular, Jolon of the Teva, will stay here until we get what we came for.”

  “What?” Jolon seemed shocked. “You cannot hold us against our will.”

  “I think you will find I can.”

  A twenty count of guards were streaming into the tent, weapons ready.

  Jolon spoke softly to his sister. They exchanged urgent whispers. With a loathing look at
Innel, Mara turned to leave. At Innel’s signal, the guards parted to let her through.

  “Disarm the others,” he commanded, noting Lismar’s expression. She approved.

  The remaining five Teva did not resist as they were stripped of their blades and bows and arrows. Outside were the sounds of two Teva and their horses—Mara and the one already there—riding off.

  And now, finally, satisfyingly, Jolon showed an expression beyond wide-eyed innocence. An intensity that Innel could not quite read. Fear, perhaps.

  Good. It was time the Teva took them seriously.

  “Food and water for their horses,” Innel told an aide.

  “Leave them be,” Jolon said. “They come and go as they wish.”

  “We will pen them. For their own protection. Until this matter is resolved.”

  “Lord Commander,” Jolon said. “This is unwise.”

  “So is your silence. You will give us the answers we need.”

  He gestured to Lismar to step outside with him.

  He and Lismar watched as the camp’s horse handlers surrounded the shaota and attempted to usher them into a fenced enclosure. The small horses seemed undecided about this, but after a few minutes went where they were directed. The horsemaster had water troughs and feed brought while she yelled at the collected crowd to get back.

  “If I had brought the mage,” he told Lismar softly as they watched, “instead of leaving him at the palace to protect the queen, I would bring him into this questioning, because his very presence loosens tongues. This is the reason for having the rumored fortune-teller in hand.”

  “Is that so? Are you telling me you don’t credit her prophesy?”

  “Predictions are easy to make,” he said with a wry smile. “But I must seem to believe her if I am to convince others that her predictions carry truth. Once they believe that, her presence in questioning can be of great use.”

  Lismar studied him a long moment. “That is clever. You and my brother were well-matched.” At his look, she added: “My brother the king.”

  “Then I am flattered,” he said. “How so?”

  “You are determined to win. Even when it came to Pohut. My brother the king thought he was playing you against each other, but you saw right through it. Your willingness to sacrifice your own brother—” A soft snort and a nod. “That is the character and attitude it takes to hold an empire.” A tilt of her chin in the direction of the Teva towns. “Or conquer treason.”

  Playing you against each other? What was she saying?

  “Yes, General, it is,” he said with a certainty he didn’t feel. He would consider her words later when there was time. “And what do you advise now to ferret out this treason?”

  “I say the truce is broken. We should take the towns. Someone there will talk and tell us what we want to know.”

  A simple, clean victory. Very tempting. But as their captives had pointed out, the Teva treaties were ratified across both centuries and monarchs. To take the towns in blood would not only bend that covenant but shake the confidence of any potential future allies.

  You cannot win this, ser, not if you fight.

  “Best we keep conflict as a last resort,” he said. “Give the Teva Elders a chance to consider the wisdom of cooperating with the empire that surrounds and upholds them. They’d be fools to do otherwise.”

  “Fools or a people hiding something. Not too much time, Commander.”

  “No, not too much,” he agreed.

  Tayre crouched down in the scrub and brush, a look of bored contemplation on his face, just one of the many uniformed soldiers hovering around Food Square, waiting for the meal, as out of the corner of his eye he kept track of the master cook and her various assistants.

  Something was wrong.

  Nothing unusual about the cook wanting a measure of privacy in a camp this crowded. He’d watched her direct the drovers with a fair bit of grumbling to surround her cook-camp with a square of wagons, restricting access to her territory.

  Again, not particularly uncommon.

  She looked around, eyes moving constantly, as if she were afraid she were being watched, her movements hunched, abrupt. She tucked a good deal of henbane leaf into her cheek, and drank a fair bit of wine, easily accounting for her lurching, stumbling movements.

  She was hiding something. He had a good idea what.

  With no actual part in the command structure, Tayre was able to make his way around the various camps and tents. As long as he moved confidently, said the right things, made the right jokes, and occasionally passed along a wrap of twunta, a slug of henbane, or a flask of rotgut, he was only noticed when he chose to be. If that didn’t work, a bit of good jerky went a long way. All of which he had in abundance, having prepared for this campaign with quite a bit more coin than was available to the ordinary soldier.

  When, on the second day, the cook’s furtive looks reached a peak, Tayre was sure she was about to act on whatever it was she had been nerving herself to do.

  And then, as he watched, she did.

  He roused himself from his hiding place and injected himself once again into the pattern of camp movement, taking a roundabout way to the wagon where the seer was being kept. While he had no particular desire to save the entire camp from the cook’s ministrations, and thought it likely Amarta could protect herself, he wanted to be sure.

  “Hey,” one of the guards around the wagon said to him with a nod and a grin.

  “Hey.”

  They knew him now; he’d been here every day, having managed to replace the regular aide assigned to this task.

  “Got more of your special mix? I want an aunt like yours.”

  A potent in-cheek powder that was both stimulating and calming, which had been credited to a nonexistent aunt.

  “I might,” Tayre said. “Play again tonight and I’ll let you try to win some.”

  Another guard spoke up. “Count me in.”

  “Me, too,” another said.

  “So be it, then,” Tayre said with a wider smile, then let it vanish suddenly. “For now, though, I am still the clod who does the chamber pot and brings slop to the—” He thumbed at the wagon. “Lord Commander’s cousin. Or whatever we’re calling her today.”

  The group had already used some rather unflattering titles for Amarta.

  “She’s got hardtack and water,” said the first, “but Lord Commander said to treat her well, so—” A shrug.

  “I’ll go find whatever’s being dished out and bring some back.”

  “Bring us something, too.”

  “I will.”

  At least, Amarta reflected, her small wagon prison was no longer rattling along rutted roads. She could rest, even contemplate. She was, currently, musing on how her vision worked.

  That it was sometimes wrong, she already knew. Whether this was because events were constantly in motion and what she saw one moment would simply be impossible the next, because the present had changed to make it so, or if the fault were hers because she imagined a thing rather than actually foreseeing it, like a snatch of memory that turned out to be a dream rather than a true memory, she wasn’t sure.

  Or perhaps vision was not wrong, but was revealing an event so unlikely that it might as well be imagined or dreamed. Highly improbable but not entirely impossible.

  Perhaps the problem was that she didn’t think about how one thing might lead to another. So much of what she knew came to her without her needing to understand anything at all. She had come to realize that if all she did was live by her visions, she would never understand such things. She must learn to reason, not simply believe anything that came through her head.

  For example, right now reason told her that the brief flash she’d had of Tayre bringing her food and talking quietly to her here in the wagon was in the category of imagination. It was clearly far beyond possible. That he was on her mind was not surprising, given her broken fingers and bruises and cuts, but that was not reason enough to envision him here.


  Tell me what you want most of all.

  Still she had no good answer. It was almost as if wanting was the opposite of foreseeing; vision didn’t care about desire, only about action.

  Not that her wants factored into things much now, captive as she was.

  But she’d had a thought about that, too. In the dark of the previous night, listening to the laughing and chatting of guards outside, it had occurred to her that she might find a moment, a tiny opportunity between moments, when the guards were rolling dice and not paying close attention, the tarp perhaps not secured quite perfectly, when vision might help her find a way to open it and slip out of the wagon.

  And do what? She was bound to the Lord Commander by her contract and oath, and the reasons she had come to him: to prevent death and suffering.

  What do you care if strangers suffer?

  All right, then: to prevent his actions from harming her family. Dirina. Pas.

  It soothed her, as the heat began to ease somewhat with the coming night, to imagine them in Perripur with Maris, out in the garden, weeding or planting, eating peas and cabbage leaf, endive and luff, Pas’s smiling face and fingers smeared with avocado.

  He could be there right this moment, laughing and pointing at a brilliantly colored bird or lizard, demanding Maris tell him what it was called. She smiled at this, lay back, let her eyes close.

  “Sure, go on in,” said one of the guards.

  She sat up, watching the tent flap open. As Tayre stepped up and into the wagon, she gaped in astonishment.

  He put a finger to his lips, set the tray down, and closed the flap behind, coming to sit right next to her.

  She was too startled to even be scared.

  Not imagination.

  “Do not eat the stew,” he whispered in her ear. “I believe it is corrupted and will make you ill.”

  “I—”

  Before she knew it, he had taken her bandaged hand, unwrapped it, examined her fingers, then replaced the splints and re-wrapped.

  “You are healing well.”