The Liar's Knot

by M. A. Carrick

  Westbridge and Kingfisher, Lower Bank: Colbrilun 18

  There was an ostretta, the Laughing Crow, where Arenza had said she would look for messages—and it was there that she found word from Idusza, four days after she accidentally walked into the Serrado house.

  The reply was unwritten, just a verbal message from the bartender: “The bridge south of where you two met. Noon tomorrow. And she says to be careful.”

  Luckily, Ren knew how to be careful.

  A small laundry stood at the foot of the bridge, adding its steam to the heat of early summer. Arenza wasn’t surprised when Idusza popped out and beckoned her inside. But she had to applaud the ingenuity of the plan; Idusza led her past the women churning the washing tubs with their heavy wooden paddles, to the hatch where they dumped wastewater. It jutted out over the canal, and by the simple expedient of hanging upside down out the hatch until a splinter-boat went by, Idusza was able to arrange for a ride.

  “For weeks I’ve searched,” Arenza said as the skiffer began poling them up the canal, away from the river. “I thought—”

  Idusza waved her to silence. So Arenza waited while the boat took them deeper into the Lower Bank, finally depositing them at a canal stair in Kingfisher. Only when they were off the boat did Idusza say, “Was that necessary? Who can tell. I know only that I wouldn’t want to learn the hard way that I should have been more careful.”

  “I feared you were dead,” Arenza admitted, covertly studying the other woman. Idusza had always been a hard bite in a deceptively soft wrapping, but now that softness looked tired and worn around the edges. The braid that had once curved around her head to drape over her shoulder had become a simple straight plait, as if there was no point in doing anything prettier. “It was the cards only that gave me hope. The last place I expected to find word of you was in the house of a hawk.”

  “You’re no more surprised than we were to be there. But Szerado is Kiraly, and those gutter cats are never without their masks. I think his might be made of feathers rather than fur. He defied even the ziemetse to help us.”

  Feathers rather than fur. Ren was so used to seeing him as a hawk… and as a slip-knot, currying favor with the Liganti rather than holding fast with his own people. But he’d protected them after the Night of Hells, and defied Mettore Indestor to rescue people from the amphitheatre. It couldn’t be easy, standing between two worlds like that.

  She glanced around and realized she recognized the neighborhood. “Masks have mercy. Tell me you are not living in that hawk’s house.”

  The smile Idusza flashed in return was too tight for real humor. “The last place any would look for us. But no—only Koszar is there. And that only because he cannot yet walk well enough to leave. He dislikes putting the children in such danger.”

  Ren didn’t like it any better, and she could hardly imagine the Serrados did, either. She silently followed Idusza back to the courtyard house, but this time not to the front door. Idusza led her around to the back entrance, and knocked in a specific pattern before opening it.

  Alinka rushed to meet them, hands twisting when she saw Arenza. “My apologies, szorsa, for not trusting you before. But—”

  Arenza waved the apology away. “But you must be cautious. I fault you not. Why bring me here, Idusza? Anything this healer has not done for Andrejek, I am unlikely to do.” She hoped Idusza didn’t expect the kind of miraculous—and wholly staged—changes she’d once wrought in Sedge.

  The answering scowl said it wasn’t healing Idusza had in mind. “Koszar asked you here for your insight. But I will let him tell you. If he is awake?” That last was directed at Alinka, who nodded and gestured them to the staircase.

  In all her dealings with Idusza, Arenza had never met Koszar Andrejek. The man waiting in the room upstairs was younger than she expected, though made older by the thin face and lank hair of a recovering invalid. Despite his splinted leg, he made as if to rise and greet her, only to be pushed gently down by the man at his side. That one she recognized: Ardaš Orsolski Ljunan, whom she’d met when she advised Idusza on how to steal Fulvet’s saltpeter. His name, like Andrejek’s and Idusza’s, was on Dalisva’s list.

  She had no intention of handing them over. If Ažerais truly had created the Black Rose for a purpose, it wasn’t to fight people like these.

  Biting down on obvious pain, Andrejek said, “Szorsa Arenza. I am Koszar Yureski Andrejek of the Anoškin. Thank you for coming. Few enough friends I have these days; it is a relief to count you among them.”

  “What happened?” Arenza asked, not hiding her concern. “The tales I have heard—”

  By way of answer, he unbuttoned the collar of his shirt with his good hand and dragged it open, revealing a complex piece of knotwork around his throat. “Inspect it if you wish. You will find stains, faded colors. My knot I have worn without pause since I was twelve; those of my predecessors, since I was nineteen. The cut charm Branek displayed was a fake.”

  “Then you were still tied in when they attacked you?” Arenza whispered, fingers clenching in her skirts like they had the day Ondrakja lurched at Ren with fever-poisoned fury. “They were still tied in? When they tried to kill you?”

  Idusza snarled another curse. “Branek should have his name stripped from him, and be called Zevriz from now until death.”

  Her condemnation sent a trickle of cold sweat down Ren’s back. On the streets, a knot oath was only as strong as the people who took and kept it, but the threads led back to older Vraszenian traditions of clan and kureč. Bad enough to be cast out, as her mother had been… but to be called Zevriz—to lose one’s name entirely—was the worst condemnation possible. Such a person was cursed to receive neither food, nor drink, nor shelter from anyone, until the day they died.

  She hadn’t believed what Dalisva said about a Cinquerat pardon, but Andrejek might have cut his knot when he realized those he led would no longer follow him. Instead he’d been betrayed, and blasphemously so.

  The way Ren had betrayed Ondrakja.

  Unaware of her bleak thoughts, Andrejek gestured at a truckle bed piled with colorful patchwork blankets—no doubt where the children slept. “You came seeking us, but it is we who need your guidance, if Ažerais will bless us with a pattern.”

  It was the least she could do for him. Ren had read some of the seditious pamphlets the Anduske printed in secret, and she’d heard Idusza’s tales about their leader. She didn’t agree with everything Andrejek argued for, but he was somebody she would enjoy debating. He seemed like the kind of man who would listen to contrasting views and consider them before making a decision.

  Now the organization he’d led was in the hands of Branek. Even if Ren was a hypocrite for condemning anyone’s blasphemy, she had no problems with condemning Branek’s other actions. The other day a family of Liganti glassblowers had tried to adopt a Vraszenian orphan, but a group of Anduske had stolen the child away, leaving the would-be parents bleeding and half-conscious.

  She hadn’t brought a bowl for the offerings, and Andrejek didn’t have any coin on him. Idusza passed him a few centiras, then took them back when he injudiciously tried to lean over and lay them on the truckle bed. She put them next to Arenza’s knee as Andrejek said, “I cannot leave the Anduske in Branek’s hands. How am I to win back my people, though, when so few will even listen to me now? Perhaps your cards can say.”

  Arenza had healthy confidence in her skills as a pattern-reader, but Koszar might be asking for more than she could provide. Nevertheless, she gave the cards an honest shuffle, praying one by one to the ancestors of the clans, and Ižranyi last of all. If only the Ižranyi could fix this… She doubted they could have. But in the centuries since their clan was wiped out in the destruction of Fiavla, people had taken to speaking of them as if they’d had miraculous powers. The Ižranyi could have stopped the Tyrant. The Ižranyi could have won back Nadežra. The Ižranyi could have healed all the rifts that separated the clans and the kretse, mending the tears that kept Vras
zan divided and weak.

  “This is your past, the good and the ill of it, and that which is neither.” Her breath huffed out at the first card. “The Face of Stars: You have been a very fortunate man, favored by Ir Entrelke.”

  Andrejek grunted, trying and failing to find a comfortable position on the bed. “Not always fortunate.”

  “No one is,” she agreed, touching the card in the veiled position. Four Petals Fall, the card of nature. The flower it depicted was beautiful, but already fading, and its dropping petals were as white as snow. “Some disaster in your past… in the mountains?” She knew he came from one of the trading kretse, which traveled the Dawn and Dusk Roads. It was a hard life, and full of danger. “You lost many people to nature’s wrath.”

  “A rockfall.” The grief that shadowed his voice was old enough not to bleed, but the scar remained. “Two of us survived. The other never walked again.”

  Bereft of a kureč, he’d come to Nadežra. Much like Ren’s mother had. To Nadežra, and the Anduske—represented by The Mask of Mirrors at the center of the line. Secrets and lies. Trying not to choke on the irony, Arenza said, “And so you entered a life full of deception. But some lies are necessary. Force of arms has failed to take Nadežra back, more than once; perhaps more-subtle means might succeed.” Someday.

  For his present, the good was Three Hands Join, and she exchanged a wry smile with Andrejek. The card of aid needed no explanation, when he lay hidden in Alinka Serrado’s house. The other two were a matched pair, The Face of Light in the middle, and the eyeless shape of The Mask of Nothing on the left. The two aspects of Gria Ežil Dmivro: Gria Ežil representing rationality and the future, and Gria Dmivro, madness and lack of control.

  “Branek?” Andrejek asked, nodding at The Mask of Nothing. Then he grimaced. “Apologies, szorsa. I should not presume.”

  She sighed. “You are not wrong, though. He believes that bold action alone will suffice—that if he shows his strength, others will rally to it. Blind faith, as the Mask itself is blind. But it means not only him.” She tapped The Face of Light. “This is the crux for you, and your whole pattern. Against Branek you burn to act… but you must have patience. Now is not the time for action, and not only because your body is still weak. If you wish to defeat him, you must be careful, and you must plan.”

  Even as she spoke, she knew it would frustrate him. For one brief flash, Andrejek reminded her of Donaia: not a parent, but someone who cared deeply for the people under his care. Not being able to help them would be torture.

  Sure enough, he said, “Plan for what? And with what? You see here the extent of what Three Hands Join has brought me.” He gestured at the two people with him, the family downstairs that courted danger by hiding him.

  Her mind was beginning to work, pulling together the threads, both in the cards and beyond them. “Of the Black Rose I’m sure you’ve heard—that she saved the wellspring. But have you heard the more recent tales?”

  Idusza made a small, enlightened noise. “They say for Branek’s allies she’s been causing trouble.”

  “It seems she has no love for those who would slaughter for the cause. Be patient, and let her do her work. Your enemies she will weaken for you.” Not that she’d managed any significant successes yet… but Ren had some thoughts about how to make that happen. And if it bought Andrejek time to plan, so much the better.

  “Once I can move—” Andrejek growled in frustration. “Always I must wait for that. But perhaps, szorsa, you can guide me to this Rose.”

  The last thing Ren needed was to meet him in both personas. But had she expected him to say anything else? Rather than answer, she turned over the top line. The good of his future was The Mask of Hollows; the ill, The Mask of Ravens; that which was neither, Storm Against Stone. “Six Faces and Masks,” she murmured, glancing down at the rest of the pattern. “The deities have taken a strong interest in you, Ča Andrejek.”

  “Koszar,” he said. “And I would make offerings to them if I could walk a labyrinth. But tell me—what do they say?”

  The Mask of Ravens was hatred and war. “Divisions run deep, within the Anduske, within Nadežra, within Vraszan. This is where Branek would lead us… but not only him. By your own actions you might go there, if your heart is fed too strongly by revenge. Focus not on taking down Branek—though that may happen—but on bringing the Anduske back to your side.”

  Idusza muttered a soft curse. “As if that will be easy.”

  “I never said it would be. Many forces stand in the way of that.” Arenza shivered, looking at Storm Against Stone. During the Night of Hells, in the pattern laid out by the dream of her mother, that had been the central card. An unstoppable force, a tempest howling around the Charterhouse—and Mevieny, the blinded szorsa, had been desperate for Ren not to give into it. “This is not simply a problem for the Anduske, or even for Vraszenians. Nadežra itself struggles. For you to succeed…” She was losing herself in the pattern, trying to feel what lay hidden in its threads. “Other things must change. Things beyond your control.”

  Koszar smacked one hand against the bed. “Mean you that I cannot succeed? But I have a good fate as well. The Mask of Hollows—what must I lose?”

  The starving mien of that card did represent loss… but not only that. “Revealed, this says your strength will be in those who have little. Ča Andrejek—Koszar—”

  She hesitated. It was one thing to carry out a short-touch con on the street, or even to pass herself off as a Seterin noblewoman to Nadežra’s elite. This was harder. Ren had always thought of herself as Vraszenian, but spending time with people like these only reminded her of how much she wasn’t. She needed makeup to hide her mixed blood, practice to make her Vraszenian speech fluent again. They welcomed her because they thought she was one of them.

  And that was one of their problems.

  Softly, she said, “To the people of Nadežra, the Anduske are Vraszenians, fighting for Vraszenians. And that is not wrong. But how many here trace their ancestors to more than one land? Those people suffer also under the Cinquerat’s control. The poor laborers, the knots on the streets… How often have you considered that they, too, might be your allies?”

  Her thoughts had been on the politics of Nadežra, not on planting any specific idea in their heads. But by the brief conversation Idusza, Koszar, and Ardaš had, all in nods and headshakes and eyebrow twitches, she’d struck an unexpected chord.

  One that resolved into a sigh from Koszar. To his allies he muttered, “That one can hardly be called ‘one who has little’—but very well.” He turned his attention back to Arenza. “Vargo. He had people looking for you some months ago. Rumor says he found you, and yet you walked away unharmed.”

  “You think to ally with him?”

  “Not if you advise against it,” Andrejek said. “We seek your wisdom in this.”

  Her fingers curled around the deck. The logic made sense: Branek and many of those who followed him were Stretsko, and kin of those same Stretsko were causing Vargo problems up and down the Lower Bank. Hadn’t she herself pursued Tserdev Očelen in the hopes of finding Dmatsos? Common enemies had created stranger allies.

  Once she wouldn’t have hesitated to tell Koszar to work with Vargo. Now…

  Now, I can use this.

  At least she had a cover for her knowledge of him. “I laid his pattern when we met. He is a dangerous ally; to bind yourself in his web risks becoming his prey. But above all, he desires benefit for himself. Show him there is profit in alliance, and with you he may work.”

  Possibilities were starting to take shape in her mind. She let a little of her distaste show and added, “A man like him wants assurances up front, though. Likely you will need to give him some aid unasked before he’ll consider your words.”

  Given the state of Koszar’s tiny faction, she wasn’t at all sure they could offer much. But Idusza brightened immediately. “Tserdev Krasnoskaya Očelen of the Crimson Eyes plans a strike against Vargo’s home, on the
night of the solstice. We had word of this from one who remains loyal to us, hiding among the traitors. Would a warning persuade him?”

  “It might,” Arenza said, concealing her satisfaction. “I can take word of this on your behalf, if you wish.”

  She wasn’t stupid enough to walk up to Vargo again as Arenza… but she didn’t have to. Only way I’m getting close enough to know Vargo’s business is if I save his Lig-spitted ass—that was what Sedge had said. While this wasn’t quite saving Vargo’s life, it might be enough to get Sedge’s foot in the door.

  With a final prayer, she swept up her cards and tucked them away. “What else can you tell me of Ča Očelen’s plans?”

  5

  The Peacock’s Web

  Upper and Lower Bank: Summer Solstice

  The Traementis kitchens were usually bustling at noon, but with Altas Renata and Giuna out for the day and Era Traementis taking nothing but broth and bread in her room, Colbrin had declared a similarly spare meal for the servants. Nobody complained, as half the staff had been given the night and the next morning off and would be gorging themselves on solstice festival fare, celebrating the New Year. The other half were still recovering from their freedom the night before.

  But they’d gathered at the changing of shifts to exchange gossip. Sitting in the chair she’d claimed, Tess sipped her broth and let the liquid and the company warm her. In Nadežra or in Ganllech, in Westbridge or the Pearls, the kitchen was the heart of every home.

  Her cheer cooled like a hearth banked as she thought of Westbridge. Uncomfortable as it had been, at least there Tess could be with her sister.

  “What’s that frown for?” asked Suilis, poking a plump finger at the furrow between Tess’s brows. The Nadežran girl had been hired to see to Donaia and Giuna after the Traementis fortunes improved. She was round, cheerful, and a comfort to have in the house, with them both being so new.

  Also terribly nosy and much too observant. Tess had to constantly remind herself to be on guard. She shook off her frown and gave Suilis a happy smile. “Only thinking of the crowds.”