by Sam Hawke
We were back to not knowing who to trust. Tain had wanted to confront the rest of the Council. But we had no time to properly investigate who had known what, and our city’s defense couldn’t tolerate half its leadership suddenly vanishing. I saw what it cost Tain to leash his immense fury, and I knew like mine it was fueled as much by guilt as by judgment of others. No matter what, the priority had to be to find a way to avoid direct fighting with the rebels. Still, he was making no secret of his views that the countryfolk might have had good reason for rebellion, and tensions ran high within the Council. After all, though our own behavior had caused this, hanging over us was the near certainty that the first act of the rebellion had been to take control of the estates, and possibly the other cities. We were asking people to put aside the possible slaughter of members of their family.
It was a conflict I felt, too. Mother, Alozia, all our other cousins … Jovan might be good at burying the parts of himself that hurt too much, but I was not so practiced. I could forget, most of the time, distracted by our own danger, but then everyday occurrences reminded me of Mother without warning: a teapot, a familiar smell, an item of clothing. Our relationship had been difficult, but at least before there had been a hope things might one day be different. The memory of her last message, asking me to visit her on the estate, kept me up at night wondering—what if I had gone?
I walked the length of the shore, trying to clear my head. At the south end, things were further progressed. Every remaining oku in the city seemed to be herded on the grass there, a placid, shaggy little army of beasts, chewing grass and conversing comfortably with their distinctive low hoots. There were even some graspads there, picketed farther up on the shore, though I’d no idea how they were expected to help. Smaller than oku, with paws rather than hooves and long, slender necks, they were less tractable, almost inedible, unable or unwilling to pull carts: less useful than oku in every way. Farmers kept them because the omnivorous creatures ate crop-destroying madges and scatterburr, a particularly virulent species of weed toxic to other animals. You could ride them, if you weren’t too heavy or traveling too far, but I’d never seen one harnessed to pull a load.
A round man carrying a box of bottles almost bumped into me on the path. He swore, clutching at his wobbling load, and I helped him steady it. “Thank you,” he mumbled. “If these bottles cracked…” I looked closer and recognized the style of bottle Jov and Etan frequently used: glass with a wax-lined interior, for storing acids.
“For the mortar?”
He nodded. “We’re going to attempt it today. But this stuff is hard to make, and they’d have my hide if I dropped it.”
“If you’d dropped it on us, that’d be the least of our worries.” Etan had once spilled two heavily diluted drops on his leg and left holes scarred in his flesh. “When are you planning on starting?”
He shrugged. “Later this morning, Credola, that’s all I know.”
I checked the sky. If I left now to meet Tain and Jov, there would be time to return to see the attempt. It was something that ought to be witnessed.
“Credola Kalina!”
Suppressing my instinctive flinch, I forced a smile. “Oh! Lord Ectar, you gave me quite a shock.” I kept walking, slowly enough for him to join me and for me to satisfy politeness, but hopefully conveying an air of urgency.
“I have left messages, Credola,” he said, tone heavy with reproach. “It has been days. I have sought audience with the Chancellor but am told, over and over, he is too busy.”
“Our sincerest apologies, Lord Ectar. With the evacuation, I’m afraid there aren’t enough hours. The Chancellor is overseeing so much. As are we all, I fear; there is so much to do.”
“My man Geog is missing still,” he carried on. “It has been three days, Credola. I am concerned. I inform your Order Guards, but they give me nothing.”
Ectar was a problem we didn’t know how to solve; his servant’s actions notwithstanding, we still had no proof of his involvement in a grander plot, so we avoided and spied on him in equal measure. If Ectar meant us no ill, admitting to him that we had killed his servant would not help our relations with the Empire. So we played out this strange game, each wondering what the other knew. If Geog had acted on his orders, had Ectar guessed we had foiled the plan, or did he believe Geog had safely left the city, and his concern was all a ruse?
“That is concerning,” I agreed. “But be patient, I beg you. The city is in a state of great turmoil. It’s hard to find anyone at the moment. He wouldn’t be the first servant to abandon his master in a foreign city.”
Ectar bristled. “He was a deeply loyal servant. He would not have run away.”
“Then I am certain he will turn up soon, Lord Ectar.”
“I tell you…” he began, grabbing my arm with some violence; I recoiled and he dropped it like a burning coal, recognizing his mistake.
“I’m late for an appointment,” I told him coldly. He mumbled a response and I swept away, grateful to have been given an excuse to feign insult. My path eddied along with the flow of people moving up Red Fern Avenue and into the upper city.
“There are rumors about that one,” someone said in my ear.
I jumped but kept walking without glancing around. An-Hadrea’s voice was distinctive, though we’d only spoken briefly. Jov had told me she had followed him for some time before approaching him; had she been following me, too? “Which one?”
A glimpse of An-Hadrea’s profile beside me, her voice soft and low. “The pale man. Ectar. People are talking. They say he tried to flee the city.”
I stiffened. Her family was helping us, but perhaps some of Jov’s suspicion had rubbed off on me. A contrast to her sweet-tempered mother, An-Hadrea appeared to hold us in contempt. And yet, this was at least the second time in the last few days that she had approached one of us with information. Perhaps she was just showing off how easily she could follow us undetected. Jov had told me, with some frustration, that she had dropped into his path like a shadow from nowhere a dozen times already. He seemed incapable of detecting her. “How could anyone flee the city? We’d have tried that if it was an option.”
Ahead, a cart full of some kind of assorted metal objects had spilled, and people jostled to get around with loud complaints. A few weeks before I’d seen something similar; then, passersby had immediately stopped to help. The difference made my heart hurt.
An-Hadrea swerved to avoid the spill and the ensuing scuffle. Reluctantly, I followed as she peeled off to the side, down a lane. She leaned against a wall and regarded me frankly. “The rumor is that someone saw the body of one of his servants at the hospital. But he is all around town asking people about him.”
It wouldn’t take long for the rumor to reach Ectar’s ears if people were already talking about it. “What else?” I asked.
“People are saying he infected the Chancellor with a fatal disease. Or poisoned him.” She looked at me with her peculiar directness. “Is this so?”
Glad to be able to give an honest answer, I shook my head. “We don’t think so.”
“Hmm. Well, you should know, your people will turn on your Talafan neighbors as easily as they turned on us believers, you will see. Already they mark out differences. Who is to blame. Who is like me, who is worth protecting.”
“Everyone in our city is worth protecting.”
She scoffed. “Listen to what is being said, if you are so foolish to think that. It is not just my people they will blame, if you let them have a target. There are not enough of us to satisfy them. Your Chancellor says pretty things, but even if I believed him and believed you, you do not control your city. You are just a few people.” Then she suddenly patted my shoulder, her manner shifting to something almost maternal. “I just say, you should protect him, if you do not wish to start another war. You need all the allies you can get.”
Perhaps so. So far, having Darfri allies had not proved any great advantage. Salvea was a fascinating source of information about th
eir customs and etiquette, but while she could doubtless have spoken persuasively to any individual in the army, she had no more capacity than us to make herself heard. Her daughter offered intelligence about what the city Darfri were doing down in the catacombs, just not without some biting criticism alongside it.
I’d never met anyone quite like An-Hadrea, with her strange, blunt manner of speaking, and the way she smiled at the end of an insult and somehow took the sting from her words. One moment I thought she wanted to murder us all, and the next she would offer a random kindness.
“I’ve got to go to the Manor,” I told her, sensing in the glint of her eye that another tirade might be waiting. “But thank you. We’re watching Lord Ectar.”
She nodded and ducked around the corner; by the time I’d returned to the street, there was no sign of her. I thought I knew how to be unobtrusive and unnoticed, but she had a superior game.
I could guess what I’d missed at the Council meeting by the conversations of exiting Councilors: more arguments about billeting, a few protests about the destruction of the bridges—did Lazar really think that we could hold both bridges, or did he just not truly understand that the lower city could fall soon?—some secretive whispering. Varina trailed well behind Bradomir, speaking to no one. Only Marjeta, Budua, and Javesto acknowledged me as we passed.
“They’re all angry,” Jov told me, inside. “Angry and frightened.”
“Aren’t we all,” I murmured. “I saw An-Hadrea. She says that people are starting to target other foreigners now that they can’t find anyone openly Darfri. We’ll need to be careful when we evacuate that we don’t make things worse.”
“Maybe we should billet the Darfri—those who aren’t in hiding, anyway—and anyone else who needs protecting in a separate section of the city,” Tain suggested. He pulled out a city map and circled a section to the south. “We could use these buildings here—we could fit hundreds of pallets in that hall, there—and we could allocate Guards to protect the area. Just in case.”
“We’ll need to tell Marco’s watchers to keep an eye out for hostility against Lord Ectar, too,” I added. “Someone saw the servant’s body at the hospital and rumors are spreading fast. People are saying the Chancellor was murdered. And I don’t know who’s been talking, but An-Hadrea already knew there was an escape attempt.”
Tain frowned. “There were too many people involved the other night. We should have known they wouldn’t all be quiet about it.”
“An-Hadrea’s right, though,” Jov said. “The mood of the people isn’t good. They’re angry and they’re hungry. If they were beating up Darfri a week ago, what will they do if they think Talafar is behind all this?” He took a sip of water and pushed the cup across the table toward Tain like a challenge.
Tain stared at it. The silence stretched between them.
Every meal had become a battleground. While Tain focused on the grander scheme of problems—how to feed our citizens, defend the upper city, find a way to negotiate with the rebels—Jov retreated into the part of his life he still felt he had control over: his duty to the Chancellor. He obsessed over the potential threat to Tain, as if protecting him could redeem the broader failures of our family. Tain, on the other hand, seemed to process his own guilt as a repudiation of the trappings of the Chancellery; with every meal, his discomfort at his friend’s role grew more obvious, as did his impatience with the restrictions on eating and drinking while he tried to scramble to save the city. Their friendship grew more brittle every day. Tain hadn’t yet defied Jovan, but inevitably Jov’s prickly honor and Tain’s unease would clash at some point.
I rubbed my eyes. My face felt too small for my skull. Honor-down, I hoped it wasn’t today. I was exhausted, physically and mentally, and we had so little time to be alone together now.
Tain took a slow sip of the water, and I let my breath out in relief. Deferred for another day. I was about to comment on what I’d seen of the siege tower this morning when Jov spoke suddenly.
“This is getting ridiculous.”
“I agree,” Tain said, relief pouring from his voice in a rush. “Honor-down, Jov, I’ve been—”
“Half of them know anyway. Probably more than half, truth be told. It’s a waste of our time and attention, playing these games.”
“What?” Tain set the cup down. “What are you—”
“I say we stop hiding,” my brother plowed on. Some part of me took a tiny bit of amusement in seeing Tain so flummoxed; he had probably never been interrupted so much in his life. “You’ve got to be able to eat. No one will accuse you of dishonor, not now that everyone seems to know Caslav was poisoned.”
Tain shook his head. “You’re talking about proofing in front of people? I thought we were talking about us moving on from this. Putting yourself in the poisoner’s path, it’s not right. I’m not all right with it.”
Jovan looked at Tain as if he’d slapped him. I shrank back into my chair, wishing to disappear.
“You know how much I value you,” Tain said. “Your family’s always protected mine. But now … there’s no good in you constantly risking your life for me.”
“No good? That’s what I’m for.”
I understood, honor-down I understood how much our family duty meant to him, but it broke my heart a tiny bit to hear my brother express it like that. “Jov…” He sprang to his feet, ignoring me, and paced with one hand to his head as if to contain whatever swirled around in there.
“That’s our family’s honor you’re talking about. That’s everything we are. We protect you, we advise you. We’re your shield. You need us more than ever.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tain said, his temper flaring. “Since when is dying so honorable? Haven’t we had enough bloody dying around here?”
All three of us startled at a rattle outside the room. One of Tain’s servant guards stepped in.
“Sorry to interrupt, Honored Chancellor,” she said, ducking her head. “You asked me to let you know when you were due at the bridge?”
“Yes, of course.” Tain closed his eyes a moment, visibly containing his emotions, then smiled at the guard and stood.
The argument was over for now. But we could never go back to the way things had been before.
* * *
Quite a crowd had gathered to watch the grim spectacle. The wind had picked up, its distant howl a constant buzz in the background. The whole Council was gathered on the steps up to Bell’s Bridge; Tain had forced them all to attend. “If I’m going to be remembered as the Chancellor who destroyed some of the best architecture in the world, they can at least stand with me as the Council that endorsed it,” he’d said. There were some sulky and resentful expressions during his short speech, reminding everyone of the necessity of protecting ourselves but also the surety that we would rebuild Bell’s in time. As soon as he had finished, the majority of the Council dispersed. Eliska had promised destroying the support pillars for the bridge itself would not destabilize the stairs, but most Councilors either didn’t care to risk it or wanted to distance themselves as much as possible from the decision.
The engineer Baina was up on the top of the steps, yelling instructions at the men and women doing the last checks on the acid damage in her heavy, brash voice. Eliska and Marco stood between Jov and Tain, pointing and explaining something to them while Tain nodded, his face grim. Dozens of other workers and engineers went up and down the stairs, making last-minute adjustments and reports. Ectar, unaccompanied by servants, made his way up there, too, possibly in an attempt to gain an unscheduled audience with Tain. His persistence was indisputable. He looked down and found me in the crowd, the eye contact registering even from back here. I half-raised an awkward hand in a wave.
The herd of animals, all connected with a complex harness-and-pulley system to the closest, partially submerged, support pillars, would be heading away from us to make sure there was no risk of flying debris in our direction. Eliska called out for everyone to take safe positions,
and the movement of people between the stairs and the crowd petered out, then stopped altogether.
“Bloody shame this is,” an old man beside me muttered.
As if protesting its fate, the great bell hanging beneath the bridge made a tinny little whine in the wind.
I caught a glimpse of a familiar person, just a shape in the crowd heading up to the platform. Too quick to process. My attention caught. Something about her registered as wrong even as I struggled to catch another look. There, moving up the stairs.
“Everyone back!” Eliska shouted into her speaking trumpet. The last of the engineers clambered up onto the bridge and back to the platform.
The sewer guard, the one who helped us set the trap. Last I’d seen her, she’d been led away by an Order Guard who was comforting her after she’d accidentally killed Ectar’s servant. She wasn’t in the Builders’ Guild or assigned to guard duty for any of the Councilors. What was she doing there?
“Positions!”
I looked up at Ectar again. He had managed to move close to Tain, almost behind him, and hovered there waiting. He glanced down at me again, this time with a smile.
I took a step out from the crowd. “Get back!” someone called, but my legs moved forward on their own. Was the guard the person Marco had assigned to watch Ectar? Was she following him? The sense of wrongness intensified. There had been nothing subtle about that guard, and she had taken the bribe from Ectar’s servant; he might well have been able to identify her. And she had apparently been traumatized by her involvement. There was no way Marco or any of the Guards would have set her on such a task. My breath caught in my chest. Honor-down, what was she doing up there?