by D. J. Butler
“You speak Latin,” Sarah said.
“And a smattering of other languages,” he agreed affably. “German, some Greek and Hebrew, a little Haudenosaunee. Lack of language ability isn’t what holds me back from becoming a gramarist. It’s lack of magical talent.”
His voice and aura both took on a tint of sorrow.
“Hold on,” Sarah said. “We’re about to hit the chill again.”
She stepped forward, and the plow suddenly split out a doorway into the open air. Sarah emerged from a mound of earth into a narrow gully thick with tree roots, dead leaves, and muddy snow. She pulled her pirate and her wizard out after her, and then the crack closed behind them.
She picked up the Heronplow and put it away.
“We ought to be invisible,” she told them. “Unsmellable too, but stick close, just in case. Montse, we’ll follow you. Let’s go find your ship.”
But how will I sleep? Or will I ever sleep again?
“Hell’s Bells. You have had the revelation,
and you have converted it into mere church.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Maltres Korinn settled into the corner seat of the common room. For the meeting, he’d chosen a nondescript gray tunic and brown leggings, with an undyed matchcoat to keep out the winter’s chill. He also wore a broad-brimmed Pennslander’s hat, but he made no attempt to hide his face.
The disguise was that he wasn’t wearing black.
Naturally, he’d had to borrow the clothing from one of his servants.
He’d left the staff of office behind and was armed with nothing but a long fighting knife and a loaded flintlock pistol, both hanging from his belt and concealed by the matchcoat.
The tavern was called Mimir’s Well, and it was famous in the Wallenstein quarter of Cahokia—famous for its rough traffic, catering as it did to riverboatmen and traders, as well as travelers from Waukegan and Chicago. For whatever reason, travelers from Zomas and its sole city of Etzanoa often washed up here as well. They generally arrived by river just like the Germans and the Russians from New Muscovy, despite the fact that it was the southern gate of the city that had once commonly been known as the Zomas Gate.
The Well was an unsurprising place for a meeting with Gazelem Zomas.
“Wine,” Maltres said to the serving girl.
“It’s watered seven to one,” she said.
If she said seven to one, that probably meant it was watered ten to one. “An auspicious number. Give me two glasses. I’m meeting a friend.”
As Maltres thought the name, the man himself sat down.
“Maltres Korinn,” Zomas said. “I’m pleased you’re willing to venture down into this part of town. I’d have thought you preferred more high-priced eating establishments.”
“You mistake me, hetar.” Maltres Korinn sighed. “I would rather eat a slice of cheese from my own goats and baked squash from my own garden.”
“And then get back behind your plow and till, like the humble son of the earth you are.”
“You mock my ambitions.”
“Do I?” Zomas laughed. “And yet, the city has a queen…or a princess, who’s acting like a queen…and you’re still here. I think if you really, really wanted to sit on a stool among your blackberries and pick the banjo, you would be doing it right now.”
“I never said I’d pick the banjo.”
“Still.” Gazelem frowned. “It’s harder to relinquish power than to acquire it, perhaps?”
“Not for me.” Maltres leaned forward over the small table between them. “But I saw, Gazelem. I truly saw.”
A ray of doubt and surprise pierced the clouds of Gazelem’s face. “You saw Eden?”
“Unfallen. Eternal. I stood in it, and the goddess chose Sarah.”
“And for this you stay?”
“For this I stay. And because I love my people, and I think Sarah Elytharias can benefit from some guidance.”
Gazelem shrugged. “Less guidance than I would have imagined.”
Maltres smiled. “She’s growing on you, as well.”
“She’s brave,” Gazelem said. “She’s persistent. I think her heart is good.”
Was the poisoner prince from Zomas being sincere?
“She isn’t always tactful,” Maltres said.
“That’s true,” Gazelem agreed. “But listen…my homeland is under siege. I understand that it’s hard to have the beastkind rampaging on your doorstep, as Cahokia does, but they are ravaging within Zomas. Every teaspoon of blessing we ever had from building Etzanoa so close to the palaces of the Heron King, we are now paying out in a gallon of blood.”
“Etzanoa still stands?”
“Etzanoa stands. The sons of Zomas sow their blood, and I pray the seed sprouts in a crop of dragons.” Gazelem sighed. “I would happily come to her aid, if I could. But I think if she could free herself from the forces surrounding her, queen Sarah Elytharias would also come to the aid of Zomas. If she were to become empress, she might come to Zomas at the head of a very large army, indeed.”
“Have you considered seeking aid from Lord Thomas and the Empire?”
Maltres watched Gazelem’s face closely, though trying himself to appear nonchalant. The Zoman princeling’s gaze faltered at the mention of Thomas Penn, and then he looked back at Maltres.
“We aren’t exactly allies. Thomas Penn will one day have interest in Zomas,” Gazelem said. “When he has crushed the Ohio, consolidated power by doing away with Franklin’s Compact, and is looking for his next conquest…there lies Zomas. Her land is more fertile than Texia, her children are less savage than the Free Horse Peoples, her skies are clearer than those over the muddy bogs of the Misaabe, and her summers are longer than those of the frozen north. I believe we would be next.”
Might that belief push Gazelem into the arms of Thomas Penn?
The wine arrived.
“I believe you would, too,” Maltres said. “Gazelem, I need your help. The city needs your help.”
“I can’t commit my household troops to the wall, Korinn,” Gazelem said. “I already gave you my wizard. I get too many hard looks on the street, and I need them to protect my house from looters. And before you start…it’s different, being an outsider. Being Zoman. I get spat on in the street when I don’t have my guard.”
“I understand.” If it came to it, Maltres would requisition Gazelem’s small platoon of troops by force. They wore Zomas’s queer wooden armor, but they were ferocious fighters. “But it’s because you have soldiers…private soldiers…that I need your help.”
“Some suicide mission beyond the Treewall? How romantic.” Gazelem snorted. “The young prince on the distaff side tried and failed to save his own country, despite his exile. Then, permanently committed to an ideology of Quixotism, he died in a suicide charge on an Imperial trench. Here I had rather hoped that your messengers might actually bring help.”
Maltres sipped his wine and changed his guess at the watering ratio from ten to one to twelve to one. He made a mental note to send wardens around to talk with the owner. “I have the same hope. But I have a more urgent problem. Queen Sarah tonight wishes to attempt to contact the goddess.”
Gazelem sat upright. “For power? For information? As a symbol?”
“All of the above. And she needs protection. We fear spies and assassins.”
“She has the wardens. And her beastmen.”
“Her soldiers will be on the wall. Also, there will be a decoy.”
A sly smile crept onto Gazelem Zomas’s face. “Your decoy queen will be surrounded by wardens, and you wish me and my men to protect the real one. Because we will be less conspicuous.”
Maltres finished his cup. “Are you willing?”
Gazelem hesitated. “I should name a price, for the sake of my image. And to extract some vengeance on you for the debacle of the solstice presentation.”
“I have little to give. But you can ask.”
Gazelem shook his head. “No price. I’ll do what y
ou ask. I’ll hope that Queen Sarah remembers this service when she comes completely to her throne and I beg for aid on behalf of my country.”
“Tonight at sunset. At Alzbieta Torias’s residence.” Maltres extended his hand and they shook. “Keep your men out of uniform.”
He left Mimir’s Well directly. As he walked out the door he looked back to see Gazelem Zomas staring into his winecup and swirling its contents reflectively.
He had two suspects. Someone had betrayed Cahokia. Someone was passing information to the Imperial forces besieging the city. It could be anyone, but to Maltres Korinn, two men seemed the most likely culprits. Two men who had contributed household magicians to the effort on the wall and therefore knew about the plan to send messengers for aid. Two men who were, or had been, Sarah’s rivals, and had desired the Serpent Throne for themselves.
Maltres would test both possibilities.
He had told Sarah, through the enchanted writing slate of which each of them bore half, that he believed they had been betrayed, that he had two suspects, and that he was going to test the possibilities. She had concurred. She hadn’t asked who the suspects were.
He made his way directly to his second arranged meeting. This was beside an actual well—there was some irony in that, Maltres thought—in the center of a plaza on the northern side of the city. On the way, he bought an empty gourd from a streetside stall whose owner’s face brightened so much at the sale that Maltres was sad he couldn’t reveal his identity.
Voldrich had similarly disguised himself for the meeting. He wore a patched wool cloak over layers of rough and frayed cotton. He must have borrowed clothing from an employee or a dependent of some kind.
Voldrich’s disguise was poverty.
They stood beside the well and pretended to be strangers, engaging in small talk as Voldrich lowered the bucket.
“Voldrich, I need your help,” Maltres said. “The city needs your help. Your help and the assistance of your household troops.”
“Of course, I’m happy to do anything my city asks,” Voldrich said.
Maltres heard the distant splash of the bucket hitting water.
* * *
“The first Daughters of Podebradas took their vows in the year after Adela was executed by her former husband,” Yedera said. It was the most Cathy had ever heard her say, and Cathy herself had prompted it by asking what it meant to be a Podebradan.
Cathy had acquired Yedera as a companion by telling Alzbieta she was going to listen to the preaching at the Basilica. Ostensibly, she’d communicated her intentions to be responsible, to coordinate with the other members of Sarah’s party.
Had she also, though, wanted to tweak the priestess’s nose? Perhaps.
As they trudged up the steps to the Basilica in the chilly afternoon, they talked.
“Was there a founder? Other than Queen Adela, I mean?”
Yedera shook her head. “No founder, no rule, no organization, no property.”
“You’re not a nun?” Cathy regarded herself as well-versed in the ecclesiastical organizations of the children of Eve, but of the Firstborn she knew little.
“Does that surprise you?” Yedera smiled. “Did I give the impression of being a nun?”
Cathy chuckled. “No, more like a knight. Like one of the Knights of St. John, or the Swords of Wisdom. But knights have rules, and vows, and orders.”
“I have made vows,” Yedera said.
“If there’s no organization, to whom did you make them?”
“To Mother Adela. To be a Podebradan is a personal vocation, inspired by Queen Adela Podebradas and her life and works. There have been Podebradan poets and singers, mapmakers, architects, magicians, and so on.”
“But you’re a warrior. Maybe something like the warrior version of a Cetean nun.”
Yedera shrugged. “I’m a warrior.”
“What stops me from declaring that I’m a Daughter of Podebradas, too?”
“Nothing.” Yedera adjusted her scale mail. Despite its obvious weight, she didn’t seem to be breaking a sweat on the climb. “The first Podebradan was a poet. His name was Ondres the Blind, and he wrote a song called The Funeral Lay of Adela. In the song, he dedicated himself to his people and to his lost queen. Most Podebradans build their oaths and model their commitments on the words Ondres the Blind sang.”
“So Ondres was your founder, in a way. Only I thought St. Adela Podebradas had daughters.”
“He called himself an Unborn Daughter. Many men have done so since.”
“Will you share with me your vows?” As they approached the top of the Basilica Mound, they heard the rumbling of many voices. Cathy saw the backs of people standing near the top, watching the Basilica itself.
“No.”
“You swore an oath to Sarah, back in Chester.”
“On the Sevenfold Crown. I haven’t forgotten.”
“What if your two vows conflict?”
“Then I believe the power of the Crown will compel me to keep the latter oath.”
“And what will that mean?”
Yedera stopped walking and laughed. “I’m not some fairy tale creature, Cathy Filmer. I won’t cease to exist if I break my vow. I have no magical powers that depend on my vows. I have no order to be ejected from. I have no sacred penalties hanging over my head. I’m a warrior, and my skill comes from long years of fighting and longer years of training. If I’m forced to break my Podebradan vow, I will be disappointed. Then I will recommit myself, and I will move on. But I don’t think such a conflict will arise.”
“Why is that?”
“Because my commitments are to first, the Elytharias family, second, the people of Cahokia, and third, the children of Wisdom.”
“You resisted Sarah at first.”
“I didn’t believe her claims. I have come to see their rightness.”
“And having made those three commitments, you hold yourself outside other rules.”
“No bond can hold me but love of the queen,” Yedera said. “Yes. That is the essence of being an Unborn Daughter. I bring about a world Adela Podebradas would want, in her honor and memory.”
“What moves a person to become a Podebradan?” Cathy asked. “I was educated by the Sisters of St. William Harvey myself, but that was really a decision my parents made. They had enough children to run the farm, and wanted me to develop medical skills to be able to tend to the injured and help birth cattle.”
“I was born on a farm, too,” Yedera said quietly. “In the Missouri, closer to Etzanoa than to Cahokia. My family raised horses in addition to growing grain. One night, on a full moon, a Comanche raiding party attacked us. They killed my father and my brothers. My sister and my mother and I were captured, along with the horses.”
“I’m so sorry,” Cathy said.
“They treated the horses better than they treated us. My sister slit her own throat after three days. My mother asked to bury her daughter. In answer they beat her severely, then tied her wrists and made her run behind one of the horses. When she could run no more, she fell and was dragged to her death.”
Cathy felt sick. All she could do was shake her head.
“Both my mother and my sister were left to be eaten by vultures. I lived. I was adopted, and I lived for three years with a Comanche war band. I learned to speak Comanche, and to ride, and to fight.”
“Do you still speak Comanche?”
“A little. In summers, when the moon was full, the men would ride to the Cotton Princedoms, Louisiana, Texia, and New Spain to take plunder and slaves. They sold the slaves to Memphis and to Zomas, which brought the tribe most of their wealth. Me they kept, though…not for reasons of kindness.”
Yedera told her tale dispassionately, but Cathy knew what rape and intimidation and beating were like. She struggled to hold in tears. “How did you escape?”
“I didn’t. That’s the point. One full moon, the war band was on its way back from a slave-taking raid when it was ambushed by the Lion of Missouri.
He had declared a personal war on the slave trade. He had even threatened to start burning Memphite barges on the Mississippi if they didn’t stop buying slaves. He and his men killed the entire war band and then rode into camp. They gave the old men, women, and children who hadn’t ridden south fair warning that they would attack the next day unless the tribe released every slave it had.”
“Kyres Elytharias freed you.”
“I rode to Cahokia on the back of his very horse. I was a girl then, so I dreamed he was carrying me off to marry me. I dreamed it so hard, I convinced myself it was true. I recovered in his home, imagining I was preparing for my wedding. And then two weeks later, it was announced that he was marrying the Empress Hannah.”
Cathy chuckled. “That must have been a disappointment.”
“I was young.” Yedera snorted. “I got over it.”
“Did you?”
Yedera was silent awhile. “No. No, really, I didn’t. When Kyres rode to Philadelphia, I moved into the household of his cousin, Alzbieta Torias. It was there I first read The Funeral Lay of Adela. On a night when there was no moon, I climbed onto Alzbieta’s roof to face Cassiopeia and sing to her my vows.”
“Cassiopeia…were you making vows to the goddess, or to St. Adela?”
“The difference between those two is reasonably clear in my mind. It isn’t always very clear in my heart.”
“When did you tell Alzbieta?”
“She heard me in the act. I didn’t see her until after I had finished singing, but she was on the roof, performing her liturgy for the dark of the moon. She could have laughed at me, but she took me seriously instead. I think she knew I was partly acting out of infatuation with the Lion, maybe because she felt that way herself, and she thought my interest in Mother Adela would pass.”
“It didn’t.”
“I keep my vows.”
Cathy hesitated. “I want to hear what’s going on above us,” she said slowly. “But I want you to know that I honor your life. Thank you for telling me about yourself. And about Mother Adela.”
Yedera nodded, and they finished the climb.
Zadok Tarami sat cross-legged in the Basilica’s open front door, beneath a cloister of white doves and surrounded by people. Cathy and Yedera pushed their way through the crowd to see the priest. His face was smeared with ash; looking around at the crowd gathered about the Metropolitan, Cathy saw ash on many of their faces, too.