Before that long, Chalmyr announced Vaerlon.
When the envoy entered the study, he looked very much like he had stepped out of a tale of the coastal bravos, one of the romantic tales to which Rachylana had alluded more than once. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with sweeping black mustaches. His doublet was scarlet and worn over a shirt of a green so deep it was almost black, and his sword belt was of fawn-colored leather, as were his knee boots. Both belt and boots were oiled … and scarred.
“Lady-Protector.” Vaerlon’s bow was just shy of being dismissive.
“Envoy Vaerlon. I had wondered when you might make an appearance … after spending so many days in Tempre.”
“When so much unexpected has occurred, one tends to be more … deliberate.”
“Deliberation is always a wise course. What brings you here today?” Mykella gestured to the chairs before the desk before seating herself
Vaerlon paused, then slowly sat. “If I might observe, Lady-Protector … you do not wear the usual attire of a woman of state and position…”
“No. What I wear is similar to that worn by others of position and power. I always have worn this attire, except at balls.”
“It is said you have powers like as to those of the Ancients.” The dark-haired envoy’s words were delivered in an offhand, almost-dismissive manner. “One never knows what to believe of such reports.”
“Much is said, Envoy Vaerlon. One can choose to believe or not. While men act on what is said, often the outcome results from what is done … or what fails to be done.”
“Determining what has been done, even when one views it when it occurs, is not always so easy as many believe.”
So he saw the investiture ceremony … and can’t quite believe what he saw … or chooses to think there was trickery. Mykella smiled politely. “There is always an explanation for what happens. Usually the simplest is correct, no matter how strange or unbelievable it may appear.”
“I have found that to be true, yet explaining to those who have not seen can prove difficult.”
“It can indeed, especially if those others have reasons not to wish to accept the report of one who has seen.” Or if, like your prince, they are considering invasions or attacks.
“You have not answered my question, Lady,” said Vaerlon, with a laugh and a glance designed as flirtatious.
“I don’t recall your asking one, dear envoy.”
Vaerlon smiled. “I thought I had.”
“You made an observation. I offered a judgment on that observation. If your observation was a question, then my judgment was an answer.”
“You have no guards close at hand.”
“Should I?”
For just an instant, Vaerlon froze, and Mykella could sense apprehension. Then he smiled again although there was no warmth behind the expression. “You must know I had come to see for the Prince what the possibilities might be for a match.”
“That I had heard. I had thought that, in your own time, you would appear … as you have. I presume it is the Prince for whom you inquire?”
“But of course. He is but a young man as sovereigns go, less than ten years older than you, I would judge.”
“And he is intelligent, handsome, ambitious, kind, generous … and all the other terms that one must apply to a ruler?” Mykella spoke gently, leaving the sarcasm in her own mind.
“Not all who rule are so … but indeed he is.”
“Then you and all of Midcoast are most fortunate. Most fortunate, indeed.”
“Any woman who became his consort would be also most fortunate.”
“I am most certain that would be so, for you would not be here were it otherwise.” Mykella paused. “Because matters here have been so … unexpected, as you put it, I have not had much time to consider matters such as matching, either for myself or for my sisters. They are both beautiful, as you may have heard, far more so than me. I have decided one thing. Any suitor will have to meet the lady in whom he is interested before any match can be considered. Much of the difficulty here in Lanachrona might well have been avoided had the Lord-Protector met the woman who became his brother’s wife before the consorting.” That was inaccurate, but true enough in spirit … and conveyed a message if Vaerlon were willing to accept it.
After another instant where something flashed through Vaerlon’s thoughts and feelings, not that Mykella could sense anything but the fact that something had, the envoy nodded slowly. “I can see that you might wish such.” He smiled. “If indeed Prince Skrelyn should be interested in a match, he might well undertake the long journey from Hafin to Tempre.”
Mykella understood the meaning behind those words as well. “If he should, we will welcome him in precisely the spirit in which he comes.”
“I will convey that as well, Lady-Protector, and your courtesy and directness.”
Mykella smiled again. “I fear that I can be far too direct, dear envoy, but that is indeed one of my faults.” She stood. “I do appreciate your requesting an audience, and I wish you well on your return to Midcoast.”
Vaerlon stood and inclined his head. “I thank you, and offer my hopes that your rule will be all that it should be.”
“You are most kind.”
Mykella was more than relieved when the study door closed behind the departing envoy.
She had little time to recover, because in less than a quarter glass, both Salyna and Rachylana slipped into the study.
“I saw the envoy from Midcoast leaving when I was about to ride over to the Southern Guards,” Salyna said. “What did he say?”
“Why was he here?” demanded Rachylana.
“To find out what he could although he did inquire, rather indirectly, about matching.”
“He wanted to know about you, didn’t he?” Rachylana asked.
“He was very indirect. He mentioned none of us by name. He only said that whoever was matched to Prince Skrelyn would indeed be fortunate.”
Salyna snorted softly.
“What did you tell him?” asked Rachylana, her voice diffident.
“The same thing I told the other envoys—that my sisters would have to meet any suitor.”
“You didn’t mention your approval?”
“No. That seemed unnecessary.” Especially since he’s not really looking for a match yet.
“What did he say about that?” Rachylana looked directly at Mykella.
“He said something to the effect that if Prince Skrelyn were interested in a match, he would certainly have no problem making the long journey from Hafin to Tempre.”
Salyna winced. “He only wants one kind of match.”
“Why did you put him off?” demanded Rachylana.
“I was very polite, but Skrelyn has already made up his mind. Even before Father’s death, he was thinking about attacking us. The only way that wouldn’t have happened would have been if Joramyl had remained Lord-Protector. At least, he wouldn’t have attacked immediately.”
“What are you going to do? What will become of us?” Rachylana looked to Salyna.
“That depends on Mykella, doesn’t it?” replied Salyna. “It’s always depended on someone. Father feared what may come. Why do you think he wanted all of us matched and away from Tempre so quickly?”
“Now … what are you going to do?” asked Rachylana.
“Take a ride to find out more about what needs to be done.”
“How will that help?”
“For the moment, Commander Areyst is doing everything he can to ready the Southern Guards. I cannot help there.” Not now. “There are other problems in Tempre and Lanachrona that need remedying as well. So I might as well do them while I can.”
“Such as the mundane and boring matter of selecting a Minister of Highways and Rivers?” asked Rachylana.
For a moment, Mykella couldn’t believe what she’d heard. “Mundane and boring? Mundane and boring? As Finance Minister, Joramyl funneled thousands of golds from the Treasury, and Porofyr resigned
immediately, and his assistant is acting guiltier than…” She couldn’t come up with an adequate comparison. “It’s too early to tell, but the ledgers suggest more thousands of golds are missing there. It could be more. We may not even have enough golds to get through the spring … because of corrupt ministers … and you’re saying that choosing the right minister is mundane and boring?”
Salyna shot a glance at Rachylana that as much as said, “Now you’ve done it.”
Mykella forced herself to lower her voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“You never mean,” said Rachylana coolly, “but you still do it.”
Salyna gently took Rachylana’s arm and led her from the study.
How can she not understand? Ministers control tens of thousands of golds … and finding out that they’ve stolen them after the fact doesn’t help—not when you can’t find what happened to those golds.
Mykella forced herself to take several deep breaths. Finally, after donning her riding jacket and gloves, she walked down toward the courtyard. Given the sections of the city she had not yet ridden through, she doubted she would like what she was about to see. But she did need to see everything, at least from the saddle, because that would tell her what the words and feelings of men did not.
13
Quattri morning was comparatively quiet for Mykella, although it took more than a glass for her and Areyst to go over the manpower situation of the Southern Guards, the need for more mounts, and the shortages in Guard supplies, especially of gunpowder, because of the higher costs of brimstone. After that, she pored over the master ledger of the Ministry of Highways and Rivers before going to the upper-level study of the Minister of Finance to talk to Haelyt and to request the breakdown of figures in several places.
Still … by just before the first glass of the afternoon, Mykella and Captain Maeltor were riding southward on the eastern avenue toward the building that housed the sewer inspectors and the city sewer engineer.
“Might I ask the purpose of this ride, Lady? Besides granting you greater knowledge of the city?”
Left unspoken was a question as to why Mykella was concerned about sewers, and that was something she couldn’t have answered logically. While the stench and the discharge into the rivers in central Tempre bothered her greatly, she felt that those problems were only the obvious ones. “Let us just say the more I know, the less likely golds will be spent unwisely, or, more important, the less likely that they will be diverted from where they are supposed to be spent. The Southern Guards did not receive hundreds of golds’ worth of tack and other supplies that it should have received over the past year because those golds were diverted to Lord Joramyl’s private purse. From looking at the accounts, I have other suspicions, but greater knowledge is necessary in order to know what questions to ask.”
“Begging your pardon, Lady, but that does not preclude untruths by those you question.”
“It does not, but I can usually tell when someone is lying. That ability does me little good, though, if I do not know the questions to ask … or whom to ask what.” Nor did it help in the past when I was not allowed to ask those questions or to be present when they were asked.
Maeltor nodded slowly although Mykella could sense that he retained some doubts.
Mykella took a well-kept and stone-paved lane westward from the avenue and between two low hills covered with grass and trees. Beyond the hills at the end of the lane was the sewer building, a low one-story stone structure located on a flat area to the west of the East River. The ground in front of the building was paved with large slabs of the golden eternastone that also surfaced the Great Piers. The Alectors thought that much of sewers? That suggested to Mykella that she was perhaps not being so illogical. She glanced to her left, noting a large stone pipe emerging from the hillside, then slanting into the ground at such an angle so that it had to pass beneath the sewer building proper. An aqueduct? From where? And why?
As she rode toward the trapezoidal arch that formed the entrance to the building, she could see nine men, all attired in what looked to be clean gray coveralls, heading along the stone walk bordering the lane toward the avenue.
When they reined up before the entrance, Maeltor turned in the saddle. “Judyn … go find the sewer engineer Nusgeyl and tell him that the Lady-Protector is here to see him.”
“Yes, sir.”
As the ranker dismounted and hurried into the building, Maeltor glanced at the apparently departing workers. The captain said nothing, but his glance was more eloquent than words.
In return, Mykella nodded, then waited.
Before that long, two figures stepped through the angular columns of the entrance. The man who emerged with Judyn had longish wavy blond hair and bulging eyes dominating a pug nose and flat clean-shaven cheeks. He wore gray trousers and a dark gray jacket.
“Engineer Nusgeyl, the Lady-Protector has some inquiries for you,” Maeltor said firmly.
“It would be my pleasure…”
Mykella sensed the affronted displeasure behind the cultured words and pleasant smile, but she said nothing, instead dismounting and stepping up onto fitted golden stones of the porch before the archway. “I’ve been riding through Tempre, and there appear to be areas where the sewers are not being used properly or where they do not appear to be used at all.”
“Lady-Protector, as the chief engineer, I can assure you that we do everything to make certain that all is in good repair. What I cannot do, and what I do not have the authority to do, is to require that people use the sewers or use them properly. That is the task of the chief inspector.”
Mykella sensed more than a certain amount of evasion but did not pursue that. “Where do the sewers discharge in the end? Or should I ask where they’re supposed to discharge?”
“They all converge and flow into the underground collecting basin to the south and west of the Great Piers. From there, the main conduit carries the wastes farther westward, still underground, to the discharge point at the head of the western marshes. The waters flow through the marshes, then into the west canal that empties into the Vedra after the waters flow over the last of the stone purifying sluices.”
“How do the sewers all manage to collect these wastes in one basin when there are two rivers flowing through Tempre that would separate the collection pipes?”
Nusgeyl offered a condescending smile. “The Alectors built stone tunnels under the rivers with precise engineering so that the tunnels all slope downward until they reach the marshes.”
“Is not Tempre larger than in the time of the Alectors?”
“Only in the area to the southeast, and we have followed the same plans in extending the sewers to serve those areas. The newer tunnels are higher, and that is why some of the more recent dwellings are built on higher ground so that they can link to the sewers.”
Mykella asked a number of other factual questions before she got around to one of the other reasons why she had ridden to see the sewer engineer. “I instructed the Ministry of Highways and Rivers to look into and to make the necessary repairs to the sewers in the central part of Tempre. It is less than a glass past midday, yet when I rode up, I saw workers leaving.”
“We received the instructions from Assistant Minister Duchael only late this morning.”
“And your crews are leaving?”
“They work from dawn to early afternoon.”
“Then you’ll be having them start on the central area sewers tomorrow?”
“Ah … Lady … I’ll have to develop a work plan … and see what materials we will need, and where is best to begin…”
“And you will take care of those places where crafts or metalworks are draining their wastes into the South River, of course.”
“When we notice such, we will inform the chief inspector. Of that, you can be certain, Lady-Protector.”
“I’m sure that you will be most diligent, and I look forward to the early commencement of your repairs.” Mykella smiled politely, then
turned and remounted the gray. “Good day.”
Maeltor said nothing about the engineer on the ride back to the palace on a circuitous route that took them farther south and west before wending their way through another part of Tempre, east of the metalworking area, where Mykella could not recall ever having been. There were areas where she smelled sewage, but she did not see what might be the source of the odors.
They were approaching the west end of the park across from the palace from the south when a Southern Guard galloped toward them. “Lady-Protector! Captain! There’s trouble at the palace.”
“What kind of trouble?” demanded Mykella, as the guard slowed his mount and turned to ride alongside Maeltor.
“Someone killed four guards while you were gone … from inside the palace.”
“How?”
“It looks like the guards were sliced in half by a blade of fire … or something like it. These huge men with shiny black hair came up from the lower levels of the palace. They had weapons like pistols that shot beams of light. The blue light cut like a burning blade. They killed two guards by the rear door, and two more outside the palace stables. There were three of them, and they took six mounts.”
“How did they saddle them so quickly?” demanded Maeltor.
“They were duty-squad mounts, sir. They cut down the two watching them.”
“No one shot at them?” Maeltor sounded incredulous.
“Yes, sir. The two who were watching them shot at them, and so did three others in the courtyard. The bullets bounced off their tunics.”
Maeltor glanced at Mykella.
“Keep riding. I need to get to the palace. Now.”
Areyst rode in from Southern Guard headquarters as Mykella and her squad entered the courtyard. His face was grim as he eased his mount up beside her.
Mykella rode straight to the westernmost door at the rear of the palace, where she dismounted and handed the gelding’s reins to the nearest ranker. “If you’d have him groomed, please.” She opened the door, then waited for Areyst, who carried his rifle, before stepping inside and turning to the right.
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