by Robert Brady
“It is because of the invasion—” he argued, but she raised her hand again.
“Perhaps you need the state to guarantee your loan from the Eldadorian bank?” she offered. She could do that. The Eldadorian bank could lend him coin, and then if he defaulted, Eldador would take his holdings as collateral and install a new Earl who could pay his debts.
Most Earls didn’t like that. Dukes could make large land grants and sell leases to raise money. Earls usually had nothing but the taxes on their subjects.
“Perhaps I might be able to increase the taxes on my peasants?” he offered. “Higher taxes will drive many to my levies until they’re lowered, and then those that remain will pay for them.”
Lee actually had to take a look at the Shem Hannen for that one. Hectar hadn’t come to court since speaking with her mother, although he’d stopped fighting her openly. She could sure use his advice now.
“The Emperor has always argued that high taxes limit wealth, not increase it,” Haldarch, the oldest of the Shem Hannen, said. When her father didn’t pay attention, he sometimes called this Shem Hannen, “Three.”
It was a private joke throughout the capitol that he didn’t know their names, and was too embarrassed to ask.
“An incomprehensible supposition,” the Earl argued, then took a look around himself. Many of the courtiers went stone-faced. No one doubted that the Emperor’s economic genius had built the Empire, even if they didn’t understand it.
“We will consider, your Excellence,” Lee offered. “However, I make no promise.”
“Your least consideration is a blessing to a poor, old man,” the Earl said. Lee thought that was a pretty stupid close, as he bowed his way out. He had some gray but he was neither old nor poor.
The Man stepped away, and Lee straightened to address the court.
“Before closing,” she said, watching the Shem Hannen in her peripheral vision, “a declaration, straight from the Emperor, my father.”
That got the whole court’s attention. Eyes turned to her throughout the throne room.
“Let it be known, for those who are in need of wealth, for those loyal to the Eldadorian Empire or those who are fascinated with the lineage of the stallion Blizzard, a bounty—a contest, as well, if you will.”
She took a breath, she licked her lips, and she announced, “A prize is to be awarded, one of the stallion Blizzard’s get, as bounty to the first group or individual who can bring to this court ten horns, matched or unmatched, from the heads of Swamp Devils.”
A murmur ran through the court. She herself questioned this. There was one mare left that was considered ridable from Blizzard. They’d managed to seed two draft mares, one of them Little Storm’s dame, before her father left, but that was eleven months in the making, and years before delivery.
She called court closed for the day and stood to leave. There had been a secret exit built behind a mural of the first queen of Eldador—Alekanna or something—that everyone knew about because her father used it so often. She exited through there, Hectaro and his squad with him.
“We’re going to my rooms,” she informed them, absently. “I need a bath and I want to rest before dinner.”
“Of course, Highness,” D’leer informed her. “Shall I send ahead for your ladies?”
Her ladies. Since she’d started sitting court in Galnesh Eldador, barons had started sending her their daughters to be her ladies. More than anything else, they bickered and gossiped and practiced kissing each other, promising skills their future husbands would stay home from war for.
Her mother would have slapped them all silly if she were here. Where at first she’d liked the novelty of having ladies, none of them could cast, none of them rode and not one of them bore being trusted.
“I think you can handle my hair, D’leer,” she said. “I’m tired and don’t feel much like listening to them natter.”
“Of course, my Lady,” she said. D’leer had been with the family so long, she seemed more like a cousin than a Wolf Soldier, not that she had any cousins she knew of. Supposedly Uncle Tali had some bastards, but she never saw them.
She entered her rooms in the Family Tower, D’leer and Hectaro exchanging glances behind her, and she passed her sitting room for her personal baths. The Wolf Soldiers immediately took up positions at her door. She took a look at Hectaro, sighed and said, “Can you behave yourself?”
“My—my lady?” he stammered.
“I need to talk to you,” she said. “If I let you in, can you sit behind a screen and behave yourself?”
“As you command, my Lady,” he informed her.
She sighed. This might be a bad idea, but she needed someone she could trust to talk to now, and Hectaro had lived his whole life in the palace, and seen a lot more things than she had.
Some trick of her father’s made water flow upwards in pipes from the ground and, more than that, made it flow hot if she wanted it. Her polished marble bath could be hot enough to scald her, as she’d learned after she’d moved here, and when she was done the servants didn’t need to carry buckets to the windows, she just flipped a lever and the water drained away to nowhere.
She turned a knob to make the water flow now. D’leer set up a screen for Hectaro, her Uman eyes flickering to his beneath her pencil-thin black eyebrows. Some might think her mother would be furious with her for having a man in here while she bathed when, in fact, her mother had done more and worse in their Andaran tradition.
Her people were relatively frank about their bodies.
Hectaro stepped behind the makeshift curtain and Lee immediately shed her dress and kicked off her uncomfortable sandals. Steam rose from the water in the bath, and she closed the drain.
“You heard what was going on in court?” she asked him, knowing he had.
“Yes,” he said from behind the screen.
She sank into the tub, about a quarter of the way filled with water already. She felt it soaking into her skin, into her muscles. She’d almost wanted to ride first, but she’d worn a nice dress and she didn’t feel like changing.
Maybe tomorrow.
“Every Earl in the country is complaining they have no money and they want to raise taxes,” she said. “Those Confluni, and the Daff Kanaar after them raided every farm they could find for forage, and then the Confluni burned even more of them to deny them to the warriors pursuing them.”
“Father said that Earls always want to raise taxes, just like Dukes always want to lower them,” Hectaro said. “Low taxes bring in more peasants, and then more money. But the peasants look to the Earls to protect them from raiders and brigands for free, and can’t pay for themselves for years or more.”
“So then if the Earls raise levies, they’ll have to spend more gold—”
“They want the levies to raid each other,” Hectaro said. D’leer had already opened a glass bottle filled with a green gel and started pouring it on her hair. The room filled with the smell of evergreen oil.
“They used to do that in lean times under Glennen,” he said. “Glennen would let them and tell me the strong earldoms would survive, and he didn’t need the weak ones.”
“Your father doesn’t let them do it,” D’leer said, absently. “But then, he’s not here.”
“I can’t see where this offer to bring in Swamp Devil horns will alleviate that,” Hectaro said. “What gave you that idea?”
She shrugged, though he couldn’t see it. “Father wanted it,” she said. “I spoke with mother about your father, and then right after, and father wanted this. I don’t think it has anything to do with starving Earls.”
“It doesn’t,” D’leer said. Her thin, Uman fingers found their way into her thick brown hair, and her nails scratched her scalp as she worked the oil in. Lee spun the knob with her toe to turn the flow of water down as it filled up to where her breasts touched the upper part of her abdomen. She wasn’t quite as well endowed as her mother, but then mother had three children.
“Did you s
ee the Andarans in court?” D’leer continued. “They were pretty excited to hear there was a way to get one of Blizzard’s foals.”
Lee nodded. She knew her Andaran heritage, what they’d offered and what they’d risked to mix their herds with Blizzard.
“Eldadorians are happy with Angadorian steeds,” Hectaro said. “If they’re collecting levies, they want to raid each other, but they think they can get you to pay for it.”
“So they want to get this past me?” Lee said.
“Apparently, yes.”
She sighed. “So, what do I do?”
Hectaro was silent. D’leer worked the oil into her hair and then, without warning, pushed her head into the tub. Lee barely had the time to catch her breath, then forced her eyes to stay closed as the Uman worked the oil back out of her hair. Finally the fingers slipped away and she forced her head back up into the air, blowing a spray of mist as she did.
“Hey!”
“What you get when you have trained killers do your hair,” D’leer informed her, the grin slight on her face.
“She doesn’t do that when she does my hair,” Hectaro informed them.
Lee surprised herself with the pang of jealousy that rippled through her. She hadn’t thought she considered Hectaro to be anything now that he’d shown himself a coward, and yet here was this girl, who’d taken something she somehow considered hers.
“If you call delousing doing your hair,” D’leer said, absently. She stood up and took a step back, the front of her uniform wet, waiting for Lee to finish her bath.
“You can’t show any emotion,” Hectaro announced from behind the screen.
“Wh—what?” that wasn’t what she expected.
“With the Earls,” he continued. “Yes, they’re trying to take advantage of you, of your inexperience. If you show them any emotion, they’ll think they’ve found a weakness, and then they’ll all do it.”
“You can’t offend them, either,” D’leer said. “If they decide to start withholding their taxes, then you’ll have Dukes, not Earls, running to your door, and your father needs the support of his Dukes to fight his war.”
“But if we let them raise levies, then they’ll fight—” Lee began, and then she caught herself.
Her father had told her once of his own land—it stuck in her mind because he never spoke of his past—and how the politicians there had become greedy and corrupt, so they focused on almost nothing but their own power and wealth.
“Nobles who have no nobility,” he’d informed her, “are worse than common thieves, because a thief only steals from a few people at a time, where a corrupt noble can affect hundreds. Eventually, it was their own suspicions of each other that destroyed the politicians, and let the common people get their leaders back under control.”
Lee smiled to herself. She hadn’t understood why her father had shared this with her, until now.
Her mother called him a wolf, after all.
“D’leer, send a squad to round up all of my ladies,” she proclaimed, standing up dripping in her tub. She’d piled soft, fluffy towels by the wash basin here—another invention of her father’s which he called ‘terry cloth.’ She took one from the pile and wrapped it around her while the Uman woman stuck her head out of the bathing room door.
“Why do you want your ladies?” Hectaro asked from behind the screen. “They aren’t going to tell you any
different—”
Lee pushed aside the screen for a startled Wolf Soldier/Prince. Hectaro’s mouth dropped open to see her in nothing but her towel, her long dark hair limp and wet over her shoulder.
“I think it’s time,” she said, feeling closer not just to him but to her own father than she ever had before, “for all of you men to realize what we women have always known.”
* * *
Lee’s ladies in waiting flirted shamelessly with the court barons that evening, Lee presiding over them with an unquenchable grin on her face. Normally she detested the court barons; they had no morals and no property other than high-sounding names and a desire to live off of the Eldadorian state without working. They would take jobs teaching etiquette and riding from time to time, instructing the children of nobles and every girl knew never to be alone with them.
So the mead flowed at her father’s table and her ladies flashed their pearly teeth and the clefts of their bosoms to lecherous nobles of varying ages.
As the night wore on, these noble daughters extracted oaths from these men to go to different earldoms, and to advise these Earls, in the name of the Empire, on how to better manage their money.
Of course, the court barons had no idea of how to manage money, and everyone knew it. Her father had become infamous when he’d elevated one court baron to the rank of Duke of Uman City, where he’d done, if not exceeding well, well enough to keep his title and for that port to prosper.
Later, he’d sent a court baron to Britt, and then the Baron of Britt to his death at the hands of the Dorkan Navy. That court baron remained a baron there still, technically subservient to Glynn Escaroth, who couldn’t be reduced until her capture.
Why would the Eldadorian state, then, be sending more barons out to the Earldoms? The Earls would be speculating and gossiping and, while they did, they would have better things to do than to travel to the capitol, perhaps there to find the reason they were advised by court barons.
Hectaro had laughed richly when she’d told him the plan. He stood in a corner of the room behind her now, and she found herself sneaking looks at him as he stared off into space.
She might have misjudged Hectaro, she thought to herself.
Only time would tell.
* * *
Tartan Stowe had been surprised to hear not only that the princess, Lee, had come essentially to run the Empire, but that one of her first actions had been to alienate Duke Hectar Gelgelden. Hectar, as far as Tartan knew, loved the Emperor and counted him a good friend. Perhaps he’d been offended that Lee, and not he, sat the throne in Galnesh Eldador. Eldador under Tartan’s father had looked to Hectar until the Conqueror had come.
Lupus liked to make his own rules.
Now Tartan and one thousand of his Angadorian Knights rode the long trail from Angador to Galnesh Eldador, where the Duke hoped his personal influence could heal any rifts that might be forming in the capitol. While Lupus made war in Volkhydro, someone had to see to things here. No one had been more the Emperor’s student than he.
Tartan’s wife had reminded him of all of this. As he rode, the Duke reflected at his good luck to have her. At first he’d been warned this marriage had been cast to nullify him. Yeral’s family was disgraced, her father executed, and she, although a Lady, left unpropertied; barely more than a female court baron. The Empress had chosen wisely for him, though. Yeral had proven herself a good confidant with a sharp mind. Tartan tended not to want to play politics, taking too seriously the slights and too dearly the praises peers and courtiers laid on him. Yeral navigated all of it more clearly.
Now she remained with his brother, Terran, in Angador, charged with supporting Ceberro and guarding the south. In the unlikely event of an invasion from Toor, it would take weeks for Tartan to return here. Yeral, he knew, even if she couldn’t command the armies, could support Terran and J’lek. In worst case, old Nevarre remained to help them.
As he rode, thinking these thoughts, Tartan felt very lucky indeed to be clear of the intrigue in his southern duchy. He took the opportunity to plan the words he might say to mend fences between house Mordetur and house Gelgelden.
Chapter Twenty-One
Conclusions
Slurn lay curled in a corner, in a stone room in a tower, in the palace at the center of Hydro, where Raven lay on a bed stacked with quilts, their dog at her feet, its great slobbering head across her lower legs.
His eyes watched her unblinking as they had for hours. His stomach rumbled at the rat he’d eaten, a smaller palace variety that had all but tumbled into his claws.
His exhalation didn’t even stir the dry dust before him. Another female of the race of Men, a servant, had actually stared at him and decided he couldn’t be real, and then retired. All of his attention remained on Raven, whose breast rose and fell as she slept.
The dog’s head rose suddenly. Only a short second later, Slurn’s predator senses detected that the girl had roused—she lay still but did not sleep.
Good for her that she’d learned not to start, as did the race of Men on awakening. That practice made them such easy prey.
The dog stood up on heavy mammalian bones, wagged its tail, turned on the bed to lick her face. Raven’s eyes opened, not reacting to the dog’s greeting, but staring at the ceiling, as if still wondering at the things she’d seen in her dreams.
Zarshar had informed them of the unimagined Power she’d wielded. Slurn had seen her enter the realm of the goddess, Water, and bend it to her will.
She’d created a channel in Water for daheeri. Clearly this one had the sleeping goddess’ favor. This explained to him the adoration he felt for her. Without realizing it, he’d finally found the instrument of Water—the one who would face all other instruments and triumph.
Finally she rose, and looked right at him, Slurn not stirring or doing anything to announce himself, showing Slurn once again that she knew her people.
“Where—who? How long, Slurn?” she asked him.
He hissed, not even attempting to speak in the language of Men or Uman. “Ten days. You’re in Volkhydro now, in the city of Hydro, in the Duke Dragor’s palace.”
She nodded, understanding him. This didn’t surprise Slurn. They spoke the whispered language of the sleeping goddess.
“I—I tried a spell—that spell,” she said, and raised a hand to her forehead. Her hair was greasy and lay almost in ropes from her head. She’d fouled herself in her bed, and Slurn could see she’d become aware of it.
“I need to clean up,” she said. She pushed the dog from her and tried to rise. Slurn leapt to her side, his claws as gentle as a mother with her hatchlings, taking her elbow and the small of her back. He guided her to the adjoining washroom, and helped her to sit herself in a wooden basin. They scrubbed her with tepid water that had been kept here for cleaning, and wide, white cotton cloths and some evergreen oil.