Vesteal 01 – 01 – Ghost in the Yew

by Blake Hausladen

  “Enhedu has no armies. Who trained them?”

  “I did, of course,” I smiled. “What did you think a thirty-year man would do with all the days of Enhedu’s mild winter?”

  The Hemari chuckled, and the alsmen cringed. A low murmur of voices rippled through the crowd.

  “And how many is this pathetic band you come to declare, Alsman?” Parsatayn scoffed. “One, perhaps two troops of local militia?”

  “In Alsonvale I secured over 4,000 head of horse, with tack and broke to ride.”

  The crowd froze. Parsatayn stammered, “Two full brigade of cavalry?”

  I said nothing.

  The chancellor’s expression hardened. “Clearly you are not the man I thought you to be.”

  “The Pqrista made the same mistake at Opti. So do most who have never served.” I shrugged and watched him shrink. “As for my petition?”

  “Denied,” he hissed in two long syllables.

  Another senior-looking man of the Chancellery spoke up suddenly. “You cannot deny him. The minimum for a prince who commands men is 800 per year.”

  “How dare you,” the chancellor said to the man, unaware of the grins of those behind him.

  Parsatayn’s challenger took two slow steps toward him. “The minimums are set by decree. You don’t mean to speak against the Exaltier’s wishes for his sons, surely.”

  Ah, Bessradi, what a wonderful breeder of snakes you are.

  I had not known the rule for it. I doubted many did. I would have thanked the man if not for knowing his motives were entirely selfish. For him to speak to Barok’s advantage, the damage being done to Parsatayn was great indeed. I kept my mouth shut.

  “Granted,” Parsatayn hissed, looking rather pale. He turned clumsily and fled toward the palace.

  The rest of the Chancellery men went back about their business as though I were not there, but I doubted any of them missed the proper salute the lieutenant and his men sent my way. I returned it reluctantly and climbed back into the wagon.

  “Quite the work the sculptors did on those pillars,” Gern said.

  I nodded at his attempt to distract, but the near calamity of my visit had my guts bunched into tight knots.

  “The next time I forget I am in Bessradi,” I said to him with all seriousness while I removed my vest, “stab me through the eye.”

  He coaxed the oxen forward after allowing them to empty their bowels along the path the alsmen used. The Hemari chuckled loudly at our parting gift. I thanked Gern for it, but we spoke no more of my adventure. I had just made myself a colonel in what was sure to be the most talked of little army in all of Zoviya.

  50

  Matron Dia Esar

  Merit

  I did not know what to do. I had forgotten Bayen—had lived without even a thought of him or his church since the first days of spring. The rest of Urnedi was as confused and stricken by Lady Emery’s sudden appearance. It went unsaid somehow, but the religion of the plains had been left behind. Enhedu did not have a god and was not looking for one either.

  By the evening meal, everyone was finishing their sentences with reluctant benedictions, and most of the women had hidden themselves away, Umera included.

  I arrived at the meeting hall to see Thell trying to console the Dame as she fled with tears in her eyes. Inside, the men of the town sat stiffly while Emery paced, pointed, and lectured. No one dared interrupt her, and I withdrew, just as uncertain. There was no arguing with Bayen’s faithful, and sending her back south would only hasten the priests of the Grand Renewal to our door. I considered slitting her throat and tossing her in the river, but as attractive as this option seemed, I could not bear the thought of murdering the twins she bore.

  Barok and Fana, meanwhile, continued their work in the castle, alone and undisturbed. I was no closer to solving that problem, either.

  With nowhere else to go, I returned to Umera’s. Perhaps I could convince her to accompany me on a late evening ride. I needed to clear my head. I found her just stepping out of her shop with the basket Emery had left. Its contents were clean and neatly folded. Umera’s smile had not returned.

  “Do you know where she is?” she whispered.

  “In the hall,” I told her but took hold of her arm before she could go. “Don’t give her the satisfaction. Merit is not with her. Why not just deliver them to him?”

  She looked toward the shop next to hers with uncertain alarm. “Call on her husband while she is away? I can’t do that.”

  “I’ll come with you,” I said and pleaded. “Please, let me save you the humiliation. I have not felt so useless in a very long time.”

  She nodded but said, “I thought it would be different here.”

  “Me, too. Barok would just as soon kiss a snake as build a church to Bayen in Urnedi, but who has ever told the church no?”

  “Truly? No church?” she asked, her smile slowly returning, “Do you mean it, Dia? It has been so refreshing here.”

  “I do, but what now that Emery has shown herself?”

  “Perhaps something very heavy could fall on her?”

  “What about the twins?”

  Her thin smile died.

  “You are not nearly as pretty when you are frowning,” I said, but my weak humor failed.

  “I lost all of my customers in Almidi to one visit from a priest accusing me of lawlessness,” she told me. “My husband had not been dead two days, and that priest happily ruined me. I don’t know what I would do if it happens again.”

  “We’ll come up with something,” I said, but the words were hardly convincing. I gestured at Merit’s shop. With matching shrugs, we made our way across.

  I knocked, and after some time and a few muffled sounds within, Merit answered the door. He looked tired and sullen. I had expected to find him newly converted—an angry partner to his wife’s furor. He was, instead, as simple and polite as I had remembered.

  “Oh, good evening, Lady Dia, Lady Umera,” he greeted. “Emery is at the hall if you are looking for her. I was to accompany her but am quite far behind. How can I help?”

  “Just dropping off the clothes your wife left with Umera. It looks like we should have come for a visit sooner. Are you well?”

  The beleaguered man haltingly accepted the basket from Umera. “Oh my, how wonderful. Thank you.”

  She blushed, and her sunshine-bright smile returned. The sight gave the man such trouble I had to ask after his health a second time.

  “Oh, oh yes, I am fine. It has been a long season, that’s all. Barok, as you know, has tasked me with surveying the town and making recommendations for its expansion so there is just not enough time for eating or sleeping.”

  I had not known it but nodded cheerfully. “Yes, you poor dear. Quite a lot of extra work, I imagine.” I led them both by the arm deeper into his shop. “Tell us what we can do to help.”

  His shop was identical to Umera’s, though filled with the makings of chairs and tables and layered in sawdust. Upon the table in the back, a detailed drawing of the town sat on top of a thin stack of pages.

  “Careful of your dresses,” he said, and I was warmed by the tired man’s polite attentiveness. I noticed then, too, that he was not altogether unattractive. A bath and the basket’s clean clothes was all it would take.

  “Don’t trouble yourself about our dresses,” I replied. “Urnedi taught us how to move in spaces like these long ago. What has you so troubled?”

  He set the basket aside and pointed at the drawing. “Erom says we can dig a better well west of town, but the ground south of it is much better for building—level and sturdy. A good argument can also be made for expanding northwest toward the stone road and the river. I cannot decide which to recommend.”

  He withdrew from the stack two additional drawings of what the town might look like. His elegant brushwork made Barok’s drawings of the town look like a child’s. The drawings were the kind of thing you expected to see in Bessradi, hanging on an important man’s wall.<
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  “Have you considered recommending all three?” Umera asked, looking fascinated.

  He fidgeted once at the sudden question. I stood up out of the way to let them talk.

  “All three?” he questioned. “Umera, it would take thousands more people just to fill one set of these new streets.”

  Umera looked once at me, for courage perhaps, and smiled back at him, “I think you misjudge Barok’s designs for Enhedu. You remember the festival, surely. Present them as a set to be built in stages. Which plan would you want to do first if you knew Urnedi would soon be as large as all of these?”

  “Great Bayen,” he admonished, “I—”

  “That’s enough of that,” I said crossly. He looked as startled as Umera did pleased.

  “Hmm. Umm, yes, umm,” he said nervously.

  “Please continue,” she encouraged with her heart-warming smile. “What were you going to say?”

  “Well, umm, yes. Ah, west first, definitely, so we could be sure of another good well.”

  “It would also keep the lovely carriageway approach to Urnedi intact a bit longer, too, wouldn’t it?” Umera asked.

  “Why, yes. I had not thought of that. A wonderful notion. The carriageway last, then, for the same reason.”

  “Excellent. Decision made.”

  He smiled, blushed a bit as the two of them laughed. He managed to say, “Well, yes. Good enough, indeed.”

  Then he looked around his shop and instantly lost all signs of renewed energy. He looked once at the door—quite worried.

  “Worried about the twins?” I asked.

  “Twins?” He scoffed and shook his head. “Perhaps if Bayen visited her in the night.”

  Emery was lying about being pregnant.

  “She speaks of sending a letter south,” I said leadingly, “to the prelature.”

  “I hope she takes it herself,” he sneered but then threw up his hands and shook his head. “Never mind. Never mind me. I’m just tired. I need a good night sleep is all. Please forget I spoke.”

  “Do not be so troubled,” Umera smiled. “It looks like all you need is a few apprentices to help you get ahead of your work.”

  “Sahin has sent two. Neither lasted a day.”

  We didn’t have to guess why. “You must be hungry. Come, I bet we could bargain with the Dame for a late access to the kitchen for a season if you promised her one of those lovely chairs.”

  “No,” he stated, all humor gone, “Emery decides who gets the chairs. You go along. I have to finish up here while there is still some light left.”

  “Very well, but if you don’t make it to the breakfast, I will bring you a bowl,” she said, quite sternly.

  He bowed at that, with a hint of his humor trying its best to make a last appearance. He thanked her again for mending his clothes and bid us farewell. We left him to his work.

  “You’re feeling feisty today,” I whispered as we stepped back toward her shop.

  “Dia, shush. I do not have any motive past that of helping my neighbor. He is a married man.”

  I shrugged, knowing different. Merit was attractive, hardworking, and if I had my way, very nearly available.

  “So what do you think Emery’s secret is?” I asked. “Infidelity, perhaps?”

  Umera scoffed. “Not that one. She would have to leave the house, and they do not have any visitors. If you believe Merit, which I do, she just went and got fat sitting around all spring.”

  I liked the knowledge very much. It also put back into play one of my earliest ideas for dealing with Emery. I did not want Umera to have anything to do with such a plan, though, and said goodnight to her without another word about it.

  Morning saw me still a bit uncertain of the details but just as confident of what needed to be done. I went in search of Sahin or one of his men but had not seen any of them in many days. No one in the castle spoke to me of their training. I had not asked after them but was past ignoring what they were up to. When I told Thell to ride out and bring back Sahin, he did so without comment.

  I found the hall full of unhappy faces, with Emery standing center stage over Urs and Madam Sedauer.

  “Yes, I am sure the well was necessary, but how can anything compare to the required maintenance of our very souls?”

  “We have been over this already. You clearly misunderstand the work it takes to carry water from the river.”

  “Is there even a plan to build one?” she demanded suddenly. “Tell me. Tell me where the church will be built.”

  Urs had no response to this, and I tried to interrupt. Emery talked over me, her stark white stole slashing the air around her as she flung her arms toward the heavens. “Bayen above. Has a proper priest even been invited? This is appalling. The Sten himself will hear of this. The Edict of the Renewal demands it.”

  This was going to be easier than I thought. The plan for it wasn’t even my own.

  “Would you like to see the spot where it will be built?” I asked.

  She looked at me for the first time, and her eyes flashed with a dark loathing. “Ah, it is you. The topic of this conversation is not a matter you need be concerned with, whatever the case.”

  I smiled softly and stepped between her and the reeve. “Lady Emery, a son of the Sword of Bayen rules this place and has heard your concerns. He asked that I show you where the church will be built. Do you mean to question his motives?”

  “No, I—so there is a plan to build one?”

  “Indeed there is. Shall we take a tour of the place? It is not too far north.”

  “Why not in the town?”

  “An entire province needs to be seen to,” I said and started out. “Come, the day is perfect for a ride.”

  She hurried to follow, and the men in the hall looked grateful for her departure. She noticed.

  “The trees here make men crude and unruly,” she commented as we stepped into the summer sun. “Bayen’s flames have much work to do.”

  “By his grace,” I replied and led her toward the stable. At the far end of the street, Thell, Sahin, and three of the senior sergeants rode in and approached.

  “Bowyer,” I bowed. “You are just in time. Have you met Lady Emery?”

  He dismounted, cautiously, as if he stepped toward a snake.

  “Chairman,” Emery greeted him curtly, standing straighter.

  “She wants to see where Barok means to build Enhedu’s first church to Bayen. I thought it proper we should take her on a tour of the place. Are you up for a ride out to the yew this morning?”

  He fixed his eyes on mine for a long moment before he asked, “Are you sure that is wise?”

  “Wise?” Emery asked coolly. “What is your meaning?”

  “I think he worries after the twins, Lady Emery,” I smiled. “It is a long ride.”

  She blinked then huffed, “It is a wonder anyone can be understood in this place. Bayen will guard them, Bowyer. It is all of you I worry after.”

  I said to him, “I do agree with Emery that it is vital for the town to understand how Bayen’s faithful should be treated.” Also from behind her, I was able to point at her stomach and gesture to Sahin that she was not pregnant.

  “Yes,” he said then with a wide, cool smile. “An excellent idea. Can you ride, Lady Emery?”

  She nodded, and Thell retrieved Clever and a fresh pony for Emery.

  I tried once to make conversation with her as Sahin led the seven of us north, but all she had to say was how unseemly it was for a lady to ride a stallion. It put an end to any regrets I had for what would happen in the yew. She had also lied about being able to ride. She almost fell a half dozen times, and if it wasn’t for Sahin’s calm horse in front and mine just behind, her pony would have bucked her off, the way she kicked him and yanked on the reins.

  We reached the bridge, and I said to her, “This is as far as Thell and I can go, Lady Emery. The site is just ahead. We’ll wait here for your return.”

  She smiled at me for the first time.
“Just so. Such a place should not be visited by the likes of you two.”

  I bowed, and Sahin and his sergeants guided her across.

  “Thell, I—”

  “Not another word, Dia. I know there is something in those trees that is on our side. All my life I have worked for Sahin or his father—it’s all I have ever needed to know about their secrets.”

  Then he spat at Emery’s back, and we waited.

  We saw Sahin first as they crested the bridge. The pony he led was empty. He and the rest of his men looked sick. Then I got a better look at the empty horse. It was covered in blood and dripped a heavy red trail as it came.

  I could not have been happier.

  Sahin said as they approached, “She is gone. Just … gone. She didn’t even see them coming. It was so fast. She started saying a prayer to Bayen and—I don’t know if we should have done that, Dia. I knew it would happen, but—”

  “You should have had it in mind before we left,” I said. “Get that horse down to the water’s edge and wash off the blood before the saddle stains.”

  “Hmm, yes. The bridge, too,” he said to his men, and though shaken, they got to it. He asked me hopefully, “You have a story for this, Dia?”

  “She lied about being able to ride. She lost control of her horse while crossing the bridge, collided with the rail, and went over the side. By the time any of us could even get a look, her body was gone. You just keep looking as ill as you do now and let me tell the story. No one will doubt it. We’ll put off the construction of the church out of respect.”

  “What about Merit?”

  “That part is already taken care of.”

  “How so?”

  “He has a pretty neighbor who just spent a day washing and mending clothes his wife would not. Stay clear of them both.”

  “You are too good at this, Dia. How can you not be affected by this?”

  “Life is very cheap in Bessradi.”

  “But such a murder—”

  “Get it together, Sahin,” Thell said. “Your father would be ashamed of your squeamishness. She was the enemy, and the deed is done.”