by Sharon Green
Delin stared his hatred at Bron, but the words which would have put him back in his place refused to come. Everyone knew about the Prophecy, and even people who had till now refused to believe in it would be forced to change their minds if a Four showed up in public instead of a Five. Delin couldn’t argue that, but he also couldn’t think of anything else to do.
“What I want is to have those troublemakers put down as quickly as possible,” Delin finally answered, glaring at all three of them. “I have the beginnings of a plan in mind, and I’ll tell the rest of you about it as soon as I have all the details straight. In the meanwhile, Bron, tell the commandant to carry on as best he can. But remind him that we can’t let the peasants get away with doing as they please.”
“What about the antidote for the poison we were given?” Bron called after him as Delin headed toward the door. “If we’ve lost the chance to find those people, we’ve also lost the chance to get rid of this poison permanently. What are you going to do about that?”
Delin hurried out of the room, refusing to acknowledge hearing the question. He had no idea what to do about that, just as he had no idea what to do about the peasants. He wanted to kill them all, but then who would do all the work that a city needed doing? Maybe if he had half of them killed, the other half would change their minds about making trouble. Yes, that might work, and he would have to think about it … along with the fact that those five peasants who had almost defeated them in the competitions were on their way back.
Peace would have to be restored before they arrived, but how were they going to achieve that? Delin didn’t know, and he hated not knowing. But there was a way to find out, if he handled things exactly right. Yes, it could be the right time to try that…
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Eltrina Razas let Edmin Ruhl hurry her into his father’s house, no longer finding his concern amusing. Edmin had reason to be concerned—just as they all did—and nothing about the situation was amusing.
“The High Lord seems much better today, Lord Edmin,” the elderly servant said as soon as he shut the front door—which took longer than it should have. “If you’ll be good enough to give me a moment, I’ll conduct you to him.”
“Don’t bother, Rishlin, I know the way,” Edmin said at once, most likely to keep the trip to the back study from taking an hour, Eltrina thought. “You may see to your other duties.”
“With most of the staff gone, not many duties are being seen to,” the old man muttered as Eltrina and Edmin began to walk toward the back of the house. “It’s a blessing that my wife is able to cook, else the High Lord would likely starve. Don’t know what this world is coming to…”
“It seems to be trying to come to an end,” Eltrina murmured to Edmin, knowing the old man wasn’t likely to hear her. “Can he and his precious wife really be trusted?”
“Rishlin was born to parents who served my grandfather,” Edmin replied in a soft voice. “He grew up serving my father, who is only a few years younger than him, and married just as he was directed to. My father had hoped he would produce a son to serve me the way Rishlin served him, but there were no children from the union. If that old man can’t be trusted, no one can be.”
The comment did well to describe Eltrina’s feelings, that no one could be trusted, but she refrained from saying so out loud. In these new times it would be necessary to pretend to trust those she was forced to associate with, as they were done for if they began to bicker among themselves.
Edmin knocked on the door to his father’s study and then walked in, and for the first time since Eltrina had been coming to that house the High Lord was on his feet and looking like his old self. His high color also said he was more than slightly put out, both of which meant he knew exactly how many servants he had left in the house.
“Edmin, you’relate,” Lord Embisson said, more a comment than a criticism. “Were you attending another meeting?”
“No, we were slinking through the streets, actually, trying not to be noticed,” Edmin replied, not joking in the least. “My household is as bare of servants as yours is, more so in that I don’t have even a single couple to see to it. Most of the servants everywhere have picked up and left, and our peers are frantic.”
“Or irate, I imagine, just as I am,” Lord Embisson growled, looking around for something to glare at. “Even my agents have missed their scheduled meetings, but just you wait. When those lazy ingrates try to come back to their jobs, they’ll find they have no jobs to come back to, agents and servants alike. I’ll turn them all out to starve, damned if I don’t!”
“Father, there’s every indication that none of the servants intend to come back,” Edmin said after seating Eltrina, his voice gentle in an obvious effort to break the news in the nicest way. “Some of my people felt loyal enough to make final reports to me, and that’s what I’ve been told. The peasants have begun to follow a plan of some sort, and that’s part of it.”
“What sort of plan can they possibly have?” Lord Embisson demanded, watching Edmin at the tea service. “If they leave their jobs and don’t go back, they’ll all starve while living in the streets. No plan can possibly change that.”
“One can,” Edmin denied, turning with two full cups when he finished filling them. “Where it comes from no one seems to know, but it does address the problem rather efficiently. Your agents haven’t been by to see you because most of them have been ejected from the city. Those who used to run various business enterprises for us have taken over ownership of those businesses, and will no longer turn over our percentage of the earnings. Instead they’ll use the gold to feed that horde of unemployed servants, while the ex-servants spend their time building housing for themselves and others. The land being built on used to belong to various of our peers as well, people who had no wish to see the land littered with housing for the lower classes. Now they no longer have a say over the property, and once the new housing is built the ex-servants will find employment among their own kind—financed by gold which was supposed to be ours.”
“But that’s outrageous!” Lord Embisson exclaimed while Edmin took a seat after giving Eltrina her cup of tea. “How can they expect to get away with it? The guard will—Come to think of it, the guard should have stopped this already. Are they all just standing around watching what’s happening without lifting a finger against it?”
“The guard, apparently under orders from the Five, made an effort to regain control early on,” Edmin replied after sipping at his tea. “Ah, I needed that after our rather lengthy walk. But about the guard: When this new attitude among the peasants first began, a platoon of them was sent to make examples of individuals and to send them all back to where they belong. They marched out intending to obey their orders—and found three times their number of peasants waiting for them. Their link groups immediately tried to disperse the crowds, and only then discovered that even more laws were being broken. The peasants had formed their own link groups, and the confrontation turned into a rout for the guard. After that an unfortunate number of guardsmen deserted their posts and joined the rabble, who have now taken it upon themselves to police the city. The guard commander pulled the remainder of his force back into our sections, but they’refar too few to keep out anyone at all. Which is why our walk over here was far from pleasant.”
“This is a nightmare,” Lord Embisson muttered as he dropped into a chair, apparently beyond pacing. “Our ancestors never had this trouble keeping the rabble down… But why did you have to walk here? If your carriage drivers went with the rest, you could have driven the carriage yourself. Doing that may be undignified, but not as undignified as walking.”
“Yes, Father, I certainly could have driven the carriage—if someone had hitched the horses to it,” Edmin told him with as little ridicule as possible. “All those straps and harnesses and things… I looked them over carefully, and discovered that I hadn’t the first idea of what went where. Then I tried to saddle one of the horses, but found it impossible
to tighten the girth strap far enough. The fool horse kept puffing out its belly, that is, when it wasn’t throwing the saddle off to begin with. I believe I once heard someone say that there’s a difference between carriage horses and saddle horses, but I couldn’t see a difference. They all look like horses, and all of them were most uncooperative.”
“I see,” Lord Embisson said, clearly not seeing anything but his own position and fortune disappearing from the world. “Well, there seems to be only one thing left for us to do. You’ll stay here while I complete preparations, and then we’ll go to Bastions, my estate in the east. It’s completely self sufficient with a full complement of servants, and we can stay there until this nonsense blows over. Rishlin tells me that his wife has had trouble getting food at the market lately, which is why I began my preparations to leave. Now I think we’d better get going as quickly as possible.”
“That’s the only plan you can come up with?” Eltrina blurted, helpless to keep the words inside. “Abandon everything and just run away? What about those five disgusting peasants our own Five are so afraid of? They’redefinitely on the way back to the city, and are expected almost at any time. They’rethe other half of the source of all our troubles, and we owe them the same kind of vengeance we meted out to those vermin in the palace! If we run away now, they’ll have won.”
“My dear Lady Eltrina, allow me to state the obvious,” Lord Embisson returned, not in the least out of control. “I’ve lived far more years than you have, and I’ve learned one very important lesson: the winner of any particular confrontation is the one who survives it. Whether that survival is brought about by fighting or running makes not the least difference, as long as survival is achieved. If those peasants also survive, which at this point is no foregone conclusion, we’ll then be able to see what might be done about them. If not, then we’ll have won without needing to lift a finger. You’reperfectly welcome to accompany Edmin and myself, but if you feel you must remain here in the city, only a blind fool would agree to stay with you.”
Eltrina glanced quickly at Edmin, and caught the faintest trace of a flush of embarrassment in his complexion. She’d learned that the one thing Edmin couldn’t abide was the thought of looking like a fool, and of course his father would know that. By speaking to her rather than to Edmin, Lord Embisson had made his opinion a general statement rather than a direct criticism against his son. Edmin could well respond to that, despite the work she’d done to bring him over onto her side.
“I’m afraid I don’t agree with your comment about staying,” Eltrina tried, keeping her voice as steady as Embisson’s had been. “Survival is, as you said, the most important thing, but at times one’s survival depends on being in the right place at the right time. Staying here to strike against those peasants could mean the difference between surviving as a potentially penniless outcast, and helping things to go back to the way they were. With that in mind, how can you even consider running away?”
“Rather easily, child,” Embisson replied, standing up from his chair to stretch. “I’ve seen to my business affairs carefully over the years, and to be very frank I’ve enough gold to keep me in comfort even if I live to be two hundred and fifty. Edmin is almost that well off, and once I’m gone he’ll have the balance of my estate to add to his own. Much of our gold is hidden at Bastions, to be handy in an emergency like this one. And there’s one other, very important point to consider.”
Lord Embisson took two steps toward her, and stood looking down with as serious an expression as she’d ever seen him show.
“It would destroy me if anything were to happen to Edmin,” he said, the words simple and open. “There’s no longer a society here to protect him, a society of guardsmen and servants and those who would support him against the rabble. By his own admission he cannot even saddle a horse, so what good would his remaining in the city do? The best-conceived plan in the world would be useless without those to carry it out, and we no longer have those to carry it out. Remaining in danger when there’s something one might do is heroism; remaining when one is helpless is not. But Edmin is a grown man, and more than capable of making his own decisions. If he wishes to remain behind, I’ll … somehow find a way to cope without him. I do, after all, have Rishlin and his wife.”
And then the man turned toward the tea service, walking away as though everything had been said on the subject. Eltrina felt the urge to scream and break something, because Embisson had noticed the mistake he’d made and had quickly repaired it. His first comments had shown that he took it for granted that Edmin would join him, telling Edmin what he would do rather than asking. That mistake would have done irreparable harm with someone as stiff-necked as Edmin, trampling as it did on his dignity and pride. But now… There was only one possible response, and Eltrina quickly decided to make it.
“Edmin, my dear, your father is right,” she said almost at once, turning to give Edmin a wan smile. “He does need you more than I do, so you really must go with him. I’ll … be quite all right on my own, you needn’t worry about that. If fortune favors me, we’ll certainly see each other again.”
“So you really mean to stay,” Edmin said, gazing at her with that emotionless look that did so well in covering his thoughts and feelings. “No matter what anyone says, no matter what happens, you mean to stay. The situation has turned into an obsession for you, and you’ll sacrifice anyone and anything to that obsession. I’m nothing more to you than a means to an end.”
“Edmin, how can you say that?” Eltrina protested, actually rather upset. His sudden comment had startled her, touching as closely as it did to the real truth. “You know how much you mean to me, and haven’t I just proved it by urging you to leave with your father? You can’t believe I just said that for effect, not meaning a word? You can’t really believe that of me, can you?”
“Eltrina, your aspect is Earth magic, but mine isn’t Air magic, as I said it was,” he explained, also getting to his feet. “I’m fairly strong in Spirit magic, and I’ve learned that people watch themselves a good deal less closely when they don’t know a Spirit magic user is about. At first I felt I might be betraying something real by not telling you, but then you began to try to sway me by pretending to things you didn’t actually feel. I’ve found our relationship to be … pleasant, but since I abhor people who attempt to use me, you may now consider the time at an end. Do allow me to see you to the door.”
“But where am I supposed to go?” Eltrina demanded as she stood, furious that the man had hidden things from her. “My former refuge must be as empty as your house and this one, and the same is probably true of Grall’s house. If you aren’t here to use your contacts with those peasants you employed secretly, there won’t be anything I’ll find it possible to do!”
“I’m afraid you should have considered that sooner,” Edmin replied smoothly, totally unmoved by anything she’d said. “If you’d kept silent and agreed to go with us, I would have allowed you to do so even though my father obviously had no interest in taking you. Now… As I said, I’ll see you to the door.”
“Don’t bother!” Eltrina snarled, turning her back on him and heading for the door herself. “I’d rather live on the street than stay here, where people spy on you without any warning! And I hope that your precious plans fall down around your ears, leaving you homeless and penniless and wishing you’d stayed in an effort to do something! If I succeed, you’ll certainly never find a welcome in this city again!”
And with that she strode out, caring nothing about whether or not he followed to make sure she actually left—which he most likely would do anyway. She’d wasted her time trying to cultivate him for use in her plans, but maybe not entirely. She had met a few of the peasants he’d employed, and they weren’t the sort of men to join what the rabble was in the midst of doing. If she found it possible to locate them, Grall’s gold would buy their assistance and obedience, at least until she’d completed what she now considered her mission in life. That last member of th
e five vermin had been taken care of, or at least would be seen to soon. But the disgusting peasants who had been the cause of so much pain and humiliation…
Eltrina smiled as she swung the front door wide and walked out, caring not at all about closing the thing behind her. Those peasants would soon be in the city again, and by then she would have a plan in place to see to them. If she survived, she would see them destroyed…
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Lady Hallina Mardimil woke up slowly feeling vaguely annoyed. It took a moment or two after her eyes fluttered open for her to understand the annoyance fully, and by then she had progressed to being irate. She was supposed to have been awakened precisely at eight o’clock as usual, but something about the morning sunlight told her it was later than that. A glance at the mantle clock told her it was indeed later, eight thirty-five to be precise, which meant that people were going to be punished for certain!
Hallina threw the covers aside and swung her legs over the side of the bed, and then shock held her still for a moment. For all the years of her life, there had always been a warmed pair of slippers waiting to receive her feet in comfort. It was the one service she required every day of the year, even in summer, and the one her staff always knew was most important. Today there wasn’t even a pair of cold slippers, and shock quickly gave way to fury.