“Francis,” I whispered warningly, “what are you doing?”
His jaw tightened. “In an emergency, secrecy can be broken, Mercedes. This is too important.”
“That’s not your decision to make!”
Olaf was watching us curiously. Of course he was.
“Then whose decision is it?” Francis asked. “Yours?”
Well . . . yes.
And what decision would I make? Francis had a point. Was the habit of secrecy so deeply ingrained in me that I could not break it if necessary? Clearly not, since I’d told Francis what was going on. Was I only relying on my boss’s advice and not thinking for myself? Again, clearly not.
See, Francis had been a safe person to tell; I knew him, and knew where his loyalties lay. A strange knight was another issue—especially because knights owed their loyalty to their prefects, and only through their prefects to the king.
I hissed icily in Francis’s ear, too low for Olaf to catch: “Do you want him to arrest us for treason? Because that’s what sharing government secrets amounts to.”
Francis’s eyes bulged. “What are you talking about? We’re trying to stop—”
I slammed my hand over his mouth, wrapped my free arm around his neck and drew his ear close to my lips. “You fool,” I breathed. “You cannot accuse a prefect of treason without evidence, especially not to his personal knight! It’ll be your word against his, and the only proof you have is your sister’s boss’s theory. What do you think would happen?”
My hand was shaking when I released him, and the blood had drained from his face. He really hadn’t understood. Score one for Mercedes’s vehicular expositional skills. It should’ve occurred to me that he wouldn’t automatically keep his mouth shut. He hadn’t had to sign a twenty-seven-page document before being hired to a top-secret job. He hadn’t read the consequences of flapping your lips in public. He hadn’t been taught to mistrust knights.
I think Olaf was embarrassed by our argument, or maybe he understood part of what was going on. He was on his computer again, clicking away.
I drew Francis further back into the corner. He was looking at me helplessly, deflated. “Then what can I do?” he asked piteously. “I came here to help you, but I don’t know how to help. Tell me what to do.”
It seemed obvious to me: I needed to talk to Edenfield, and Olaf wasn’t going to let me. My eyes traveled between Olaf and Francis, sizing them up.
“Oh, no,” Francis said. “No, Mercedes. He’s a knight.”
Olaf was taller, younger, and lighter. He’d certainly been trained in hand-to-hand combat against bigger opponents, and he was armed. But Francis could punch like a sledgehammer.
“Buy me five minutes,” I murmured.
“Are you crazy? I can’t attack a knight.”
“You can and you will. You know what’s at stake—and I’ll make sure you don’t get in trouble. If I can’t talk Edenfield around, the king can always pardon you. You want to help, Francis—and this is something that you can do but I can’t. Ready?”
“No! I’m not—”
I turned, brushed myself off, and walked out of the knighthouse. The moment the door clicked shut behind me, I took off at a sprint—but I wasn’t fast enough to miss the sound of Olaf’s shout or the meaty thump of a punch.
I rounded the knighthouse and vaulted through the children’s window. It was too late for him to be sleeping and too early for lunch, so I made a beeline for Edenfield’s office.
Right on the first try. Prefect Edenfield sat behind his desk in a massive chair that looked like it had been made for him. Not the chair I had hidden behind—or I didn’t think so. It always amazes me how different rooms feel in daylight. Now that I could see it properly, I observed that the whole room had been decorated in a comfortable, masculine, faintly old-fashioned style: with layers of dark, richly woven rugs; wide armchairs; a broad, dark desk; and solid bookcases covering every available wall.
The prefect matched his room perfectly. Lord Holst was tall and corpulent, with a magnificent crop of auburn hair unstreaked with white despite his nearly sixty years. His expression was benign and academic. There was no hostility in the set of his double chins, no suspicion in his pale blue eyes, nothing but politeness in the lift of his bushy eyebrows when I sauntered in uninvited.
“Good afternoon,” he said, his voice suitably plummy and well-mannered. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
He spoke with such obvious and genuine good humor that I was momentarily taken aback. It struck me incongruously that this was how Prefect Avior had meant me to perceive him. He had come off as creepy. Prefect Edenfield was the sort of man I immediately and instinctively liked and wanted to please.
That first glance at Edenfield decided my tactic. I had twenty schemes lined up for getting him to do what I wanted. At least half of them would have worked, but only one would reflect my automatic respect for him.
“My name is Mercedes Cartier,” I said. “Here is my identification.” I handed him not my driving license, which Olaf had returned, but my work ID.
Edenfield’s eyes widened when he saw the CSS. Unlike Olaf, he’d know exactly what that meant: Carinan Security Service. The department in charge of not just cryptology, but also special investigations, spying, and doing whatever else needed to be done secretively to ensure national security.
For obvious reasons, my card doesn’t have my job title printed on it, and my security level is embedded in a hidden chip, innocuous to casual eyes but clear to those who already know what they’re looking for to find.
Edenfield swallowed hard. “I see,” he said. He focused his small blue eyes on me, inquisitive but shuttered against other emotion. “What may I do for the king’s agent this afternoon?”
I took back my card and tucked it in my wallet. “May I sit?”
“Yes, yes of course. Perhaps a cup of tea or coffee?”
“No, thank you.” I sat on the other side of his desk. The chair spread its lap wide, and only by bracing my arms on the sides did I manage not to slide off. I think the tension from holding my body in that position impressed Edenfield, because he had to press his palms against the desk to prevent trembling.
“I imagine,” I said, “that you plan to leave for Lindo soon.”
Edenfield began shuffling his desk, then controlled the movement. “In a few hours,” he said. “I’ll be flying.”
So my boss hadn’t managed to change the conference location. And he hadn’t contacted me about it. Had he heard that Silvertip had picked me up? Or had Avior proven less tractable than he’d assumed? Maybe I should have headed north to back him up instead of coming here—but no, this was where he’d expect me to come.
And if he wasn’t having any luck with Avior, maybe I could help him from this end.
“You won’t arrive until evening, at that rate,” I told Edenfield. “Wouldn’t you prefer an extra half day of Lindo’s hospitality to settle in?”
He shook his head. “She doesn’t want us early.”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t think she would. She has preparations to finalize. She is a woman with a long memory and a thirst for revenge. Her sister, wasn’t it?”
“Her younger sister,” Edenfield said, eyes going distant. “Zita Silveira. I met her on several occasions. Charming girl. Graça was so happy about the engagement, went around boasting about what a wonderful queen her sister would make. No doubt she would have been, if not for—” Prefect Edenfield stopped himself, blinking back to the present. “Of course, that’s only rumor.”
“Rumors can be true,” I said, “though there are many versions of this one. Which version does Prefect Lindo believe?”
He fluttered a hand. “I prefer not to indulge in idle gossip.”
“And I,” I said tartly, “did not drive two hundred miles to ask idle questions, prefect. Tell me what Lindo thinks happened. She’s told you.”
Edenfield looked away. “She thinks her sister didn’t want to marry King Emil.
That Zita was already engaged to someone else. That she and her fiancé made a suicide pact and walked into the ocean together. She saw that part,” he clarified, meeting my eyes again. “Graça did. She followed her sister to the ocean. She thinks that, at the last moment, Zita changed her mind and tried to swim, but her fiancé pulled her under.”
“And she blames the king for her sister’s death,” I said. Edenfield nodded. I gripped the edge of the desk with both hands and leaned in, lowering the tenor of my voice. “So you can see,” I said, “why it would be unwise to have her host the prefects’ conference this year. You understand the danger in which it would put the king.”
Edenfield was too honest a man. He tried to bluster, but I read guilt in every line, and I let him see that I read it. “If he’s worried,” he said, “why doesn’t he move the conference? Any of us would be willing to host.”
“I’m sure you would,” I agreed. “But that wouldn’t look very good for him, would it? No one wants a coward for a king. Besides, on the off chance that Lindo isn’t planning something, a show of weakness might give her ideas. No, that wouldn’t do. The change of location must come from someone else—and it must come at the last moment, so that Prefect Lindo doesn’t have time to adjust her plans.”
I leaned back and folded my hands, face solemnly set. “Edenfield is on the opposite end of Carina from Lindo, and you have a reputation for honesty and fidelity. There is no one we would rather have host the conference. If you are loyal to Carina, if you are as dutiful and wise and forthright as your reputation would have you, call the others. Move the conference here.”
Edenfield searched my face for excuses, for alternatives, but he’d have been better off looking to the door; it burst open behind me. I could tell by the pained panting that it wasn’t Francis. He wheezes in a lower tone.
I kept my hands gravely folded, kept my gaze on Edenfield.
“My lord, are you all right?” Olaf gasped.
Edenfield tilted his head and jerked up his chin. “Certainly. Is there some difficulty?”
“There’s an intruder! A woman—twenties, dark, short. She claims Prefect Silvertip sent her, and she came in a government van, but she disobeyed Captain Nass’s direct order. I was holding her, but she made her assistant attack me, and she escaped!”
Edenfield looked at me. I looked back at him, unemotional but expectant. The chair was so big and so tall it was no wonder Olaf hadn’t spotted me.
Olaf did, however, see the exchanged look. He arrived at my side in a trice, handcuffs rattling, prepared to arrest me but glancing to the prefect for approval.
I never moved my gaze from Edenfield. I sat as one waiting patiently for my host to dismiss the pesky servant, as one who respected Edenfield as master of his own prefecture, and as one who would judge him before the king for his actions now.
It was an eloquent gaze, and an effective one. “Leave her,” Edenfield told Olaf. “Ms. Cartier is my guest.”
I breathed again. My pulse was going crazy, but he couldn’t see that.
“But—my lord!” Olaf cried. “Captain Nass ordered—”
“I hope,” said Edenfield, “that Captain Nass’s orders don’t supersede mine.”
Olaf snapped his posture straighter. “No, my lord! I only meant that he was relaying your orders.”
“My orders are to treat Ms. Cartier and her assistant as my honored guests. You will provide Ms. Cartier with anything she requires and obey her orders as you would mine.”
“But—my lord—”
Edenfield could do pretty good gazes himself. Olaf stuttered to a halt, and corrected himself to, “Yes, my lord.”
I’d won and so, for the first time since his arrival, I moved my gaze to Olaf. He looked down at me, youth shining through his training. It was too early for the bruising to come out, but a slight puffiness promised a fine black eye. “Thank you for being so concerned,” I told him in my most gracious tones. “I am sorry for the trouble we’ve caused, necessary though it was. Would you please brief my assistant on the current situation and then bring him here?”
Olaf went red, then white, and finally a delightful greenish shade. He bowed to me and said, “Yes, ma’am.” He also gave Edenfield a bow before leaving, stiff as a tin soldier.
I’d not made a friend there, and I’d have to make time to sweet talk him later lest he become an enemy. He’ll understand when everything is over, I assured myself, hoping it was true.
On the other hand, I reflected, maybe it’d be easier to have Francis sweet talk him. His charm was usually aimed at potential girlfriends, but he got along well with his underlings, and businessmen tended to be impressed by the flannel tartan.
“Is it true that Silvertip sent you?” Edenfield asked, recapturing my attention.
“He inconvenienced me,” I said, “and loaned me the van to make up for it. He also told me that he was concerned about you. He seemed to believe you’d been acting strangely.”
Edenfield shifted uncomfortably in his chair, resettling his bulk and laughing unconvincingly. “You know how it goes,” he said. “I’m under a lot of stress. Leaving my prefecture for a week—who’s to take over for me? I have to make so many arrangements ahead of time, and what if something goes wrong and I’m not here to deal with it? Terribly awkward. I suppose I must have said one or two frustrated things over the phone and Otto misinterpreted them.”
“No,” I said. “That’s not it.” Come on, tell me! I thought at him, beaming trustworthiness. Turn king’s evidence and convict the others. I can help you.
Edenfield shook his head and resettled himself again. “It’s not important, just a few death threats—normal stuff, when you’re prefect. We all get them. Unpleasant, but part of the job. Like being a weatherman. Shouldn’t have let it get to me. Forget it. The real question is: how do I go about convincing the other prefects to move the conference?”
Chapter 21:
Manipulation
The prefects’ conference is something of a modern development. When the diverse factions of Carina agreed to unite under a single king, they did so on the understanding that the king would regularly tour the country. For hundreds of years, he did: he spent one month of every year in each prefecture, dealing with the issues of that prefecture and staying on top of current events. For the remaining three months, he lived in the capital (which, although located within Canopus Prefecture, is not part of it), dealt with national issues not fixable from within the prefectures, and rested.
From what I’ve read of that time period, the system was highly satisfactory to everyone except the king, who found it exhausting. Each prefecture felt equally represented and knew that the king understood and empathized with the problems unique to that prefecture. Nothing much slipped past the radar; and as long as the king chose his court with care, everything ran smoothly.
Then, a few of generations back, there came a period during which the king—that was Emil I—couldn’t tour. Queen Flavia of Vela had gone mad and was doing her best to conquer Akter and Carina while indiscriminately slaughtering her own citizens. She couldn’t possibly have succeeded against both her neighbors, which was why she got further than anyone expected.
For Carina, the long-term effect of her invasion was a strengthened national military. Whereas previously, the king had no substantial military of his own and had to rely entirely on the prefects’ combined might, now he was as strong as any two prefects put together. As with most consolidations of power, the more the king grasped to his hand, the more he lost touch with local issues.
King Emil I died, and Queen Éliane took the throne young enough that she barely remembered the tours except that they had been unpleasantly full of strangers bending over her and patting her head when she had been dragged along, and unpleasantly lonely and fatherless when she had been left at home. The older and more modish she grew, the more the tours struck her as old-fashioned, absurd, and unnecessary. During the fifteen years her father had been unable to tour, he had
held semi-yearly conferences in which the prefects came to wherever he was. That, she thought, was a much better system than constant touring—except that twice a year was excessive when once would do.
The prefects objected strenuously, but Queen Éliane would not listen to reason. Revolt threatened until Éliane gained Prefect Silvertip’s support by marrying Silvertip’s son and Fjordland’s support by marrying him to her younger sister. The other prefectures caved in turn, save for two amendments: first, that each retain a representative on the queen’s council; and second, that the conference take place in the prefectures, not the capital, and in a different prefecture each year.
Éliane conceded. The debate had been going on for nearly two years by that point, and she had other problems to deal with, including the birth of twins, one stillborn. The official Carinan history glides over the next bit, but I’ve read Akterian history that suggests Éliane suffered from post-partum psychosis, a condition from which she never fully recovered. In any case, the other twin died soon after, and Éliane was eventually succeeded by her nephew, King Enéas.
Enéas saw even less point to the conference than Éliane had, and the prefects had become too accustomed to their diminished positions to protest overmuch when he shrank the conference from two weeks to ten days. It stayed that way until our current king, Emil II, shrank it again to a single five-day work week: four days for the prefects to discuss among themselves what was most important and the fifth day to present, in simplified form, the most essential points to the king. This, Emil II reasoned, would separate the wheat from the chaff; anything more was a useless time-sink. Urgent issues didn’t need to wait for a conference; these were modern times, with modern cars, phones, and computers. The conference was less of a necessity and more of a bow to the past, a state-of-the-nation summation recorded for posterity.
King Emil’s redefinition of the purpose of the conference and its inception during Emil I’s time was the extent of what we learned in high school. I learned more in college, when I discovered how watered down (i.e., blatantly false) much of high school history and government classes are.
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