by Callie Bates
“Did you bring your children here?” I ask Demetra.
She nods. “They’re with their grandmother. But my husband…” She looks away. “He had to stay in Ida.”
So she’s Idaean, then. I look at Ciril. “And you? Did you come with family?”
His face draws closed. “My family is gone. I came alone.”
I find myself wondering what became of the family—maybe he struck them with lightning because they offended him. But I force my face and tone to remain pleasant. “We will certainly find a use for your help, but I must consult with the ministers first. In the meantime, High Priest Granpier, if we could complete our tour of your facilities? Then I’ll know what we need to supply, and for whom.”
* * *
—
IN THE EASTERN wing, the refugees’ beds are packed tightly together, occupied by children with hollowed eyes. Though the floor is clean and incense smokes nearby, an undeniable odor clings to the large rooms. “Most of these people don’t have a change of clothes among them,” High Priest Granpier murmurs. Delicately, he adds, “They are keeping the place, and themselves, as clean as they can.”
“Ah.” I wince, as much out of shared shame for the refugees as for the stench. I cannot imagine the difficulty of trying to maintain one’s dignity in a situation like this.
A man comes up to us. In broken, insistent Ereni, he says, “We are not here to make trouble. We are here to live.”
I press his hand. “I will do everything I can to help you, I promise it.”
At the end of the corridor is a small washing chamber, its walls hung with ragged towels and a forgotten stuffed animal. With a swift glance to make sure we’re unfollowed, Granpier takes my elbow and pulls me through the washing chamber and out a back door into a narrow courtyard. Wooden privies occupy the far wall. To our left, a gate leads to what must be the temple’s garden. Granpier stops beside the compost heap. I do my best not to inhale.
Granpier grimaces. “We’re finding that our accommodations for…refuse…are somewhat inadequate.”
“We’ll find another solution,” I promise him.
“I hope that we can.” He pauses. “My lady, I think the news of the dead refugee would come better from me than from you. Let me make inquiries.”
It feels like the coward’s way out, but at the same time I can’t face any more of their despair. “Tell them we will do everything in our power to dispense justice and discover the culprit.”
“That is why I brought us out here.” His gaze grows keen. “You said it happened on Rambaud land?”
“Yes. The farmer—”
Someone calls Granpier’s name from inside the bathing chamber. With a hiss of exasperation, he opens the garden gate and shoos me through it. The bushes are drab and brown, only a hint of green shoots pressing up through the earth; the garden is empty. He pulls me all the way through to a small potting shed, its walls sheltering us from the garden and, in turn, from the city itself.
I turn to Granpier. “What do you know about the Rambauds?”
“They’re an old family. A powerful one. Wealthy—they’ve donated much to the temple, as well as to many other causes. One might say that, where privilege doesn’t open doors for them, they buy their way into what they want.” He pauses. “I—and many others—expected Aristide Rambaud, the duke, to remain in Laon after your victory. It would have been in keeping with his nature to procure a seat on your council, and make himself a thorn in your side until he got what he wanted. But he hasn’t.”
I’m shaking my head. “I didn’t even know about him until yesterday. Only the name, of course.”
“I thought perhaps he’d gone to Tinan, with his wife. Perhaps he has. But…” Granpier looks at me. “My lady, you need to know that Aristide Rambaud has not been seen since you deposed Loyce Eyrlai. He was in Tinan until a few weeks ago, and now…my contacts have lost sight of him. Powerful men like the Duke of Essez don’t simply disappear.”
I swallow. “Then where—”
The gate thumps behind us. “There you are, High Priest!” It’s the red-haired novice Felicité and, behind her, a man shouldering through into the garden.
“Your Majesty. High Priest Granpier.” He bows, lowering the handkerchief from his nose with a look of distaste. “I heard you had returned, my lady. I wanted to bring you my regards.”
“I hope you’ve been well, Lord Devalle.” I manage a smile at Nicolas Devalle, the minister of finance. He is a sleek sort of man, with smooth hair and shrewd eyes, his clothes tailored without being gaudy, his buckled shoes always polished to a high shine. “High Priest Granpier is just showing me how tight the housing has become for the refugees. I wonder if there’s another place that might have room for them.”
Lord Devalle looks thoughtful. “Perhaps there is. Indeed, it might be a wise move. There are those, you know, who wish you would aid Laon’s own poor. They call the foreigners nothing but leeches on our resources.”
“I merely offer help where it’s most needed,” Granpier says serenely.
As always, I wonder whether Devalle’s gossip is, in fact, his own handiwork. He has reason to be disgruntled with me—he owns a fleet of merchant ships, and our lack of trade has severely impacted his income. However, he insists that his place on the council makes him uniquely poised to bolster Eren’s floundering economy, and that indeed, he sees it as an opportunity rather than a disappointment. It all gives me a headache.
“That is, of course, your prerogative,” Devalle says to High Priest Granpier, with the faintest quirk of his eyebrow, the gentlest implication that Granpier’s prerogatives might, in fact, be suspect. He turns to me. “You have, of course, seen the letter from His Imperial Majesty.”
“I’ve only been in Laon a few hours.” A cold finger slithers down the back of my neck. A letter from the emperor of Paladis isn’t likely to contain pleasantries. “I shall read it directly when I return to the palace.”
He bows. “Pray permit me to offer counsel when you do. You may find his language somewhat alarming. But I am certain there are ways to accede to his demands.”
“Oh,” I say with the brightest smile I can muster, “have you read it, then?”
Lord Devalle doesn’t miss a beat. Humbly, he says, “In your absence, Your Majesty, I thought it prudent that someone find out what the emperor had to say.”
“You didn’t think to forward this message on to me?” I say, sharply now. “When did it arrive?”
“Why, I couldn’t imagine Your Majesty would agree to his demands!” he exclaims. “Especially now that we are a haven for dread sorcery. You would never remove the Caveadear from her post and let witch hunters into the country, now would you?”
“Naturally, no,” I say.
Devalle looks at Granpier with a sigh. “The emperor promises such swift retribution against those who defy his laws. It’s a trifle distressing, as well as tiresome.”
I bite my cheek in an effort to control my growing anger. “Our laws are not his. Emperor Alakaseus doesn’t govern our country, and he has no right to impose his justice upon us.”
“Not at all,” Devalle says soothingly. “None of us expect you to grovel before him.”
I glance at Granpier, who gives me a warning look. As usual with Devalle, I feel the thread of the conversation slipping out of my control. He means that I should grovel—that I have no choice—I’m sure of it. Yet his manner is entirely at odds with this message.
“That’s fortunate,” I manage. “Because I have pledged to protect sorcerers, no matter the emperor’s threats.”
No matter that El has been taken, I think bleakly. What would Nicolas Devalle say if he knew?
He spreads his hands. “Perhaps you would permit me to write to Emperor Alakaseus on your behalf. I lived in Ida for a time in my youth, and made my bow at Aexione. Even attended so
me of the parties. I spoke privately with the emperor once. He may remember me.”
And by extension, he’s implying that his Idaean is better than mine. It probably is.
I think of Elanna, hauled away by witch hunters. The Tinani gathered on the border, and the ships the queen of Baedon has reportedly promised the emperor when he mounts his attack against us. This is not something I want Devalle arranging for me.
“I’m sure the emperor and I can reach an agreement,” I say. We will have to. Without El, we stand no chance against him.
Devalle inclines his head. “As you wish. I am sure you know the best way to word it carefully, in order to prevent war.”
“Indeed,” I say flatly.
“On another note, Your Majesty, I brought a…friend.” He gestures to the temple proper. “He’s waiting for us.”
My shoulders tighten instinctively, but Devalle is already moving toward the temple, clearly expecting both of us to follow. I sigh and go after him.
“This man arrived in Laon this morning,” he tells us confidentially, stepping through the temple’s back doors and into the kitchen. “He wanted to speak to Your Majesty and, alas, in your absence, I had to fulfill the need instead. He’ll be so glad to see you.”
“Mmm,” I say.
The man in question is waiting for us in an antechamber, twisting his brown hat in his hands. He’s stocky, middle-aged, and to judge by the mud stains on his rumpled coat and trousers, just in from the country. Amid the brilliant tiles, he looks rather shabby—probably not much different from me, I think ruefully. He bows practically double when he sees me.
“Your Majesty!”
I smile and gesture him up, trying to ignore Devalle and Granpier watching from behind me. “What can I do for you?”
“I have come to beg a boon from you.” His gaze flickers to Granpier. “I’ve come to ask that you stop valuing the sorcerer refugees more than your own people.”
I blink and bite back a frustrated sigh. Naturally this is the kind of person Devalle would just happen to pick up from the palace. “The refugees are harming no one. They have no other place to go where they don’t have to live in fear.”
“You don’t understand,” he says, his brow wrinkling. “They’re making it worse. It needs to stop.”
“They’re making what worse?”
“The magic!” he bursts out. “Maybe you city folk don’t feel it, but in the country, we do. Ever since the Caveadear woke the land, the stone circles have been whispering. Things have been happening, strange things. The snow around my sister-in-law’s house melted while the rest of the village stayed covered, and a few days later, she lit a fire with only the touch of her fingers.”
I’m staring. Other people have been feeling Elanna’s magic—not just me?
“There’s too much magic in Eren,” he says, before I can reply. “That must be it. Too many sorcerers.”
“So you blame the Caveadear for your sister-in-law’s sudden ability?” I say carefully. “And the refugees for…bringing more magic into the kingdom?”
He nods vigorously. “There’s another town up in the hills, where a woman woke one morning and claimed she saw spirits moving through the streets! She claimed they were passing her arcane knowledge about the stars and the magic that lives in the heart of each living thing. She started neglecting her husband. Her children.” He shakes his head. “They had to lock her up.”
My throat closes in such revulsion I struggle to speak. “They locked her up?”
“Yes, but she escaped by crawling through the earth, don’t ask me how. They caught her and put her in a house with a good stone floor.”
“And has she escaped from that?” I ask, dreading the answer.
“Not yet.” He twists his hat in his hands. “Please, Your Majesty, if you stop the magic, perhaps she’ll come back to her right mind.”
Stop the magic? How on earth does he think I can do that?
“Has it occurred to any of you and your friends,” I say tightly, “that perhaps she is in her right mind? That this is her true nature?”
“Can’t be,” he says with appalling confidence. “She was never like this before.”
I try another tack. “Sorcery isn’t evil—that’s a lie the Paladisans taught us. What she’s doing isn’t wrong.”
“She was never crazy before,” he says stubbornly. “But she’s mad now.”
I breathe out through my nose and remind myself that Granpier and Devalle are watching us closely. I can’t simply tell this man that he’s the crazy one, for advocating that this woman be locked up because she can see ghosts who are apparently teaching her sorcery.
“With respect,” I say, “it sounds to me like she might not be crazy. Perhaps you simply haven’t taken the time to understand what’s happening to her.”
“You’re not listening, my lady! She never used to be like this.”
I study him. His face is closed, stubborn; he doesn’t seem deliberately cruel, but rather aggressively ignorant. He doesn’t want to entertain the idea that either of these women had magic all along, and if he won’t listen to them, he’s certainly not going to listen to me—another woman who supports sorcery.
It makes my hands clench with anger—and yet maybe there’s a way to help the women. “What villages did you say these were?”
“Tristere and Fontaine,” he replies, looking much more satisfied now that I seem to be listening to him.
“Thank you. I’ll send someone to investigate the stone circles in your area, and speak with the woman. And the villagers as well, of course.”
He beams. “Thank you, lady!”
I manage a smile in return. I’m not sure who I’ll send, but I’ll make sure they talk to the villagers—before they break that poor woman out of her prison.
I turn to find Devalle staring at me. When I lift an eyebrow, he merely bows.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Granpier arranges for a coach to take me back to the palace, as the evening has now turned full dark. Lord Devalle has, thankfully, taken it upon himself to escort our villager friend to his lodgings.
“I’ll send down some food stores,” I tell Granpier as I clamber into the carriage, its swaying lantern-light dancing across my vision. “And extra blankets.”
He clasps my hand in gratitude, yet hesitates. “I truly value your generosity, Majesty. Yet as Lord Devalle pointed out, we must both not neglect our own people…The winter has been hard on many.”
He nods toward the beggars who have begun to gather beneath the lanterns on the temple steps, ready to enter for the evening meal promised them by Granpier’s ministry. Their faces are no less hardened and careworn than those of the refugees. A cold fist grips my stomach. That could have been me, if Ruadan hadn’t taken me in—a motherless girl living on nothing but her wits.
Sometimes it seems like nothing I do could ever be enough to ease this heartache. I bid Granpier farewell and climb into the coach. For once, I’m alone, unescorted—without even Rhia—and for a moment, the silence feels a balm. And yet I keep seeing the refugees, their paltry beds, their sunken cheeks, their grief. If I find a way to feed and house and clothe them, the ministers will protest that I’m caring for foreigners before my own people. But who could look at them and not be moved?
The coach draws up before the palace, its windows ablaze with candlelight despite my instructions not to waste the tallow. I disembark with a sigh, pausing in the courtyard to look up at the bulk of it. Most of the palace is crisp and white-gray even in the evening shadows, but there’s a section off to the east made of old dark bricks that blend into the night. No lights shine in its windows.
I go inside. I find Charlot in the lesser drawing room, instructing some footmen on polishing the silver. He bows, and the footmen immediately go to attention. “Your Majesty?”
“I a
pologize for interrupting,” I say, and gesture for him to follow me into the corridor. Once we’re away from the listening ears, I turn to him. “Did a letter arrive for me from the emperor of Paladis?”
He winces. “I apologize, my lady. Lord Devalle’s people intercepted it before I could send it on to you. He returned it, however. It’s waiting on the desk in your study. This way.”
“Thank you.” We climb the back stairs, and I glance down the long corridor to a distant door, heavily locked. “The old part of the palace—the east wing. Does anyone live over there?”
“Not at all, my lady. The late king Antoine planned to renovate it in style with the rest of the palace, but after the hunting lodge at Oise…” He coughs discreetly. “He ran out of funds. The wing is still full of old furniture. An absolute mess of cobwebs and dust and broken windows. I can arrange a tour if you like, but…”
“Yes,” I say. “I would like that.”
He manages to look both acquiescent and mildly appalled. “Very well. Tomorrow morning, perhaps?”
“It may have to be afternoon,” I say. “I am planning a speech to the people tomorrow—about midmorning. Could you see the word spread?”
“Of course, Your Majesty. We will see a suitable crowd assembled. Will you need anything?”
But I’m distracted by a door opening at the top of the stairs. Teofila is emerging from her room, bundled in a heavy coat. “No, Charlot. I’ll simply speak from the balcony. Thank you for seeing to it.”
He bows, but I’m already hurrying after Teofila.
* * *
—
SHE DOESN’T LOOK at me; only barely seems to register my presence. She’s got a lit lantern in one hand, a bundle of dried flowers in the other, and her coat is buttoned up to the throat. I ask where she’s going, but still she doesn’t answer.
“Let’s stay here,” I say. “I’ll order supper.”
She just shakes her head. There’s something brittle and wild about her. Her hair is flying loose from its knot in wild brown curls. I never realized before how much she looks like Elanna.
