Then Tahn raised his hands in emphasis, and declared what he believed. What he hoped. What he wanted of all this. “But if we can prove Resonance, understand it—then we can find a way to strengthen the Veil, and keep the Quiet from pushing into the Eastlands. Keep us from having to fight another war like those recorded in our annals. Keep that ache from getting into the people we care about!” He pointed at the historicals that still lay open before Savant Jermane. “This is why I’ve come back. This is why I’ve asked for this Succession of Arguments. The time is now!”
Mutters flared. Some incredulous. Some with the sound of approval.
Then Jermane stood, bringing silence again to the discourse theater. He gave each of his fellow savants a long look before he spoke. “My friends, I don’t believe we have definitive enough proof of Resonance that the College of Physics will adopt this new law of mechanics. Not yet. And on those grounds, I might end Succession here.”
He gave Tahn an unreadable expression, then looked up at the model of their own sun and planets that hung above the theater. The orrery had been dialed back—at Rithy’s request of the clock keeper up on his perch—to show a conjunction that everyone in the theater knew. It was a subtle thing. But those who looked saw the Valediction Conjunction, an alignment that corresponded with a time of scientific persecution out of the Mal.
“However,” he said, still staring upward, “neither do I have good reason to do so. For while these evidences bear more scrutiny, they argue powerfully for Continuity. Or, as young Gnomon here calls it, Resonance.” He lowered his eyes to Tahn again. “The larger context you share is compelling, Gnomon. But don’t let it cloud your arguments. Your task is to prove this Resonance on the merits of its science. Not the pressures of a world that needs a scientific answer. We could all recite those times when our efforts were put to bad use … and mistreated. Let us have none of that.”
Then he showed the barest of smiles. “Succession will continue in a few days’ time with the College of Mathematics.”
Whispers and muttering resumed in a frenzied wave. Except for among the College of Astronomy. His fellow astronomers erupted with cheers that filled the entire theater. Polaema would, no doubt, scold them later, but Tahn was glad to hear it. He wanted to shout and dance a little himself. Join them. But that would have been rightly seen as gloating. So, he kept his composure. For now.
Physics researchers descended to their fellows, and began immediately to replicate the lodestone tests. Men and women whose robes bore the insignia of philosophy hurried out together. A few—who, Tahn noted, bore the insignia of the League on their robes—showed him a wary look as they exited the theater. Among them was Darius, who locked eyes with Tahn. The philosopher subtly shook his head, then gave a glittering smile of anticipation and swept through the exit.
The rest of the assembly sat staring from their seats, lost in their own thoughts, or meandering out in huddled groups, chatting amongst themselves. Tahn could hear the postulates and debates and excitement as they went. The Grove was alive with Succession.
Relief and joy flooded him like nothing he could remember, save maybe waking from his moment at Tillinghast. Feels damn good to make an argument!
Rithy sauntered up beside him, watching those from her own college exit the discourse theater. “I told you this was the easy one.”
“You did?” He smiled.
“College of Mathematics is going to come hard at you with numbers.”
“I have you,” Tahn replied, and elbowed her gently.
“My math is strong, but there are many minds over there. And now they have a framework to attack. What’s the plan?”
Tahn had an idea, one he’d had since he’d arrived here. It seemed ludicrous. But filled with the excitement of Succession, of being back in argument here in the Grove, he couldn’t help but grin. “Tell me, Rithy, can you sing?”
CHAPTER NINETY-ONE
Throne of Bones
Lore suggests that the first bone used to construct the Ir-Caul throne belonged to someone sent north during the Placing—Quiet or Inveterae isn’t specified. Reports vary, though, as to why: some say so we remain watchful of our enemy; others suggest that at least some of those we fought were friends.
—Scrap from but a few surviving pages of an uncopied Ir-Caul record
King Relothian shoved open the throne room doors and strode inside. Members of the Relothian House followed, Thalia chief among them. Other courtiers and attendants filed in. Mira entered beside Sutter and Yenola.
The king ascended the three wide steps to the top of the throne platform and turned. He did not speak, but scrutinized every face, as though cataloguing events and conversations in a new light. Presently, the general with the deeply scarred face came in, followed by ten men, all of whom bore a steady gaze. The last two soldiers to enter shut the wide doors behind them and took position as though to prevent anyone from leaving.
“Is this an inquest?” Thalia said sharply. “I hardly think you need to place a guard in your own keep. No one will enter a closed door without a summons.”
“Nor will anyone leave until I have answers,” Relothian added. “You are accused, Thalia. But you ask me to dismiss the Far’s account, since she’s a foreigner and we have no cause to trust her.”
“What else makes sense?” Thalia raised her hands in question.
The king locked his gaze on his sister. “But the testimony of your own stable hand. How do you answer his account?”
Thalia laughed. “Is it a surprise that a stable hand living in a city that prides itself on combat and who, no doubt, finds himself underpaid, would lie to condemn me? My king, please, he rakes stable filth. He’s half mad. I hired him out of kindness. Otherwise he would surely foul our streets with piss and become a menace. He was raving. Nothing more.”
Relothian let out a long breath, his face cast in thought. “And the boy?”
Thalia shook her head. “As I said before, brother, he’s a child. He’s lonely. Some of the children are fortunate enough to be adopted, but others perish from disease. He’s created stories in his mind to avoid dealing with their deaths or his own abandonment. If you would have it, I’ll make it my personal responsibility to set a new standard for our fatherless. We’ll increase their care and attention. But, Jaales, matters of the court shouldn’t be decided on the witness of a madman or a lonely child.”
Relothian looked over at Sutter, then back to his sister.
Thalia noted the exchange. “Nor the words of foreigners, however well-intentioned. If the Far stole onto the private grounds of House Relothian and overheard a conversation, then let us acknowledge first that she broke the law. Beyond that, she would have heard bits of a longer conversation your general and I were having about the war. Nothing more. I beg you, brother, be sensible. You’re always cheerless when the men return. So am I. It’s hard to look at the lines where fallen men no longer march. But don’t let your melancholy become a hunt for traitors. The enemy is in the north and west, not here among us.” Her face became earnest, imploring. “I swear it.”
Relothian looked next at the man to Thalia’s right. “What would you say, Jespan? You stand accused with my sister.”
“I’ve risked everything for you many times, sire. I hope that speaks for itself.” The general’s tone never rose or became defensive. “And I think our time is better used considering how we’ll defeat this latest Nallan army that marches south.”
The king then turned toward Sutter, whose patience had begun to wear thin. There were lies here, and this politeness with which they came angered him. Before the king could put new questions to him, he pulled his sundered Sedagin blade from its sheath, and walked directly to the foot of the throne platform. He shot a callous look at the king’s family and advisors, then turned his attention on Jaales.
He didn’t know what more he could say to convince the king that his court had been corrupted, or that he must join himself to Convocation’s purpose. He wanted to ask the
king why the evidence and testimonies he’d already heard weren’t enough. But he didn’t. Instead, he stared at the man, and thought about his own childhood. About the many roads that had taken him from the Hollows to Recityv to the Saeculorum and now here. As he did, he also recalled Thalia’s last words on the parade yard: Remember who sent them. It made him think about the king’s words when they’d first arrived here at Ir-Caul: Only a fool uses the name Vendanj to beseech this throne.… But I wouldn’t call him a friend.
Sutter touched the Draethmorte pendant in his pocket, and found he had a question after all. “What has Vendanj done to make you distrust us?”
A bitter frown drew Relothian’s face into an awful look, as though he were remembering something he would like to have forgotten.
“Your Sheason served here some years ago,” the king said, his words coming like those of a reluctant storyteller. “A hundred kings have had Sheason as counselors. In my ignorance, I thought I needed one, too. I agreed to have Estem Salo appoint one to my court. So came Vendanj to Ir-Caul.…”
Relothian took a few steps backward, his eyes still distant with the look of remembrance.
“He’s not a man of compromise,” the king continued. “I respect that about him. But his constant objections challenged my authority. Raised doubt in my other counselors about my choices.” Relothian pointed southward. “So I sent him away.”
The king paused, looking now at the throne directly on his right. He reached out a hand and caressed the chair of woven bones. Sutter had thought the seat gruesome when he’d first seen it; but now he believed he understood. Any king seated there would recall the blood of generations lost to preserve the kingdom it represented. And yet, Sutter realized, he’d not yet seen Relothian sit there.
“But that isn’t really the reason, is it?” the king said, quietly questioning himself. “I would be no king if I couldn’t suffer some dissent.”
Still touching the assemblage of bones, Relothian raised his eyes again to Sutter. “Did Vendanj tell you how I came to wear the crown of Alon’Itol? How any man comes to wear it?”
Sutter shook his head.
“We pay no respect to bloodlines,” the king announced loudly. “The right to rule from this throne is won on the battlefield. One king dies. Another is chosen from among the ranks. One who is believed to possess skill in combat and cunning in politics. The right choice is usually obvious. Each generation breeds its own heir. But the origin of that heir … it isn’t manors with stable hands, or families who can afford tutors and trainers. No, more often our kings come from the small places of Alon’Itol, villages that have little more to offer their children than a place in the king’s army.” He paused. “I was a company smith.”
Sutter looked over at Thalia, and understood the worry he now saw on her face. Relothian wasn’t an old family name or bloodline. It had been established with the smith king’s rise to the throne through the realm’s military. Any plot she had for her brother’s successor would have carefully laid plans that Sutter and Mira threatened to upset.
“That’s why I prefer the cold air and hard stone of my rooftop to a feather mattress,” he said, reminding Sutter of their predawn meeting. “I wear a king’s crown, but I came by it from the scratch of a straw bed—the best a smith could afford.” He smiled fondly. “That and many years with nothing but a footman’s wool wrap, as I lay amidst rock and scrub.”
Then the king’s expression darkened. “If there’s a contagion in my court, it won’t be the first time.” Relothian straightened, and came menacingly toward Sutter, stepping down with one foot on the first stair of the throne platform. “In the north of Alon’Itol, near where the rivers Tolin and Cantle separate, there was a town, Telamon. Not an important place. It grew no great crop, quarried no useful stone. There was no particular reason that anyone should want to go there. It had a dock for river trade; but it was used mostly as a place to moor when the sun went down. Rivermen rarely left their barges, and pushed back into the current before light.
“But for the most part Telamon was filled with good people. People who never complained about the weather or passed an unkind word that wasn’t deserved. A place of heavy coats and heavy beards to ward off the chill. A place where strong drink didn’t make men mean.”
Again the king stopped, his eyes glassy with memory and regret. What did this have to do with Vendanj? The feeling grew inside Sutter that maybe he didn’t want to know.
“Telamon,” Relothian said with languor, “was the home of my father, and mother, and sisters. It was my home until I stepped onto a barge and floated south into the ranks of the army.” The king lifted his arms to his sides, palms up. “This is where I landed after so many years.”
Sutter nodded, and pushed forward despite the dread in his gut. “And Vendanj?”
Relothian’s face went slack. “A year after he came here, the Sheason disappeared from my court for several days. He said he had things to tend to. I thought nothing of it. Even enjoyed his absence; I breathed easier when he wasn’t around.” Again the king’s eyes took a glassy, faraway look. “When he returned, he told me that the Quiet had infested a town in the north. He said they’d been using it to transport women and children upriver to their own dark purpose. He said that the Quiet had taken root there. That there was no way to save the town. He said he’d burned it down, all of it, killing everyone. He told me he was sorry.…”
“Telamon,” Sutter said with reverence, his gut tightening.
Then the king’s face changed, as though he’d drawn some connection between then and now. He looked past Sutter to Yenola. “Come,” he said, motioning her forward.
Relothian’s younger sister approached the throne.
“Did you see any of what the boy claims?” The king’s voice sounded strangely hopeful.
“No,” she replied. “But I don’t believe the boy is lying, or deceived by his own fancies.”
Sutter leaned forward, and spoke softly. “A friend of mine was attacked by Bar’dyn. They took her unborn child. Later, she and a small boy were captured by a highwayman who tried to sell them to Quietgiven.” He paused to let that much settle in. “The orphan’s story you heard today isn’t a delusion. It’s not even an isolated example of what’s going on. Whatever you feel toward Vendanj—and I’m no great admirer, myself—don’t let it cloud your thinking. He burned Telamon to try and stop what’s happening. Do you really need more evidence? Your army and your city’s children are being sent into the hands of your enemies by people close to you. How many empty beds will it take before you see the truth?”
“Careful, boy, I am yet the king.” Relothian’s threat sounded hollow, as his thoughts seemed still far away.
“Then act like a king!” Sutter demanded. “You told me we didn’t really know why Vendanj sent us here. You said he knew you would never take your seat at Convocation. I’ll go farther. I’ll say he doesn’t want you to take your seat there! You would infect it as surely as your own court and kingdom are infected. Why did he send us, then? Tell us. Then we will hate him together! Or are you still a fool in the dark, as you were when he murdered your parents?”
Relothian dropped down another step and grasped Sutter’s neck in an iron grip. “I should crush your throat.”
The man had a smith’s clench. Sutter couldn’t breathe, but returned the king’s violent glare, daring Relothian to kill him.
Behind him, the ring of a blade being drawn rose in his ears. “Take your hand off him or you’re going to lose it.” Mira was suddenly beside them.
Around the room, countless scabbards were emptied. The sound of steel being drawn filling the air like sibilant applause.
“The ‘boy’ and I might both die,” she said. “But not before you go to your own earth.”
Relothian held on for several more moments, then let him go. Sutter wasted no time. He climbed past the king to stand in front of the Throne of Bones. “You are all guilty,” he cried out, sweeping his arm in accusation.
“You connive in chicken coops. You fail to question the poor judgment of your generals. You barter with the lives of the fatherless!”
Sutter looked around the room, feeling a bounty of indignation. “Even if this boy Mikel is lying, you’re guilty. Because what else do you fight for if not to preserve his childhood? You march to battle but have forgotten the reason for war. It’s not the glory of your parade yard, or the manors you live in, or even the reverence you show for dead kings.” Sutter slammed a fist down on the arm of the throne, rattling the bones.
Relothian spun around toward him. “You disrespect our fathers!” He pointed at the throne. “And what are you, boy? Messenger? Sedagin?… Rootdigger. And bearing the mark of the Draethmorte!” The king’s gaze narrowed, questioning.
“He’s Quietgiven,” Thalia broke in, her voice shrill and accusing. “It makes sense now. The plot is his. How clever to turn it on us, and make us believe that House Relothian would betray its king. Take him!”
More than a dozen men moved fast on Sutter, their weapons drawn. Mira took a few quick steps to get to his side.
The king’s narrow, confused stare remained fixed on Sutter as the leaders of his army flowed around him toward the throne. In the last seconds before their swords met, Yenola slipped between Sutter and the encroaching mob.
“It’s true!” she screamed. “Thalia and General Marston have conspired to dethrone my brother. Most of Marston’s generals are part of their scheme. Even I…” She shifted to look at Sutter. “I came to you at their bidding, to learn who you were, what you were here for.” She lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry, Sutter. But the children … I didn’t know about that.”
Distaste and anger filled him. He’d shared her bed. Been duped by her artful lovemaking.
Yenola didn’t linger on the revelation, and turned back to the men poised to seize them. “They told me that we could have peace with Nallan. But they said the king was too mired in his war. Too enamored of his gearsmiths to see new ways. And so they prepared to replace him.”
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