by Anna Eluvae
An hour before Kendrick's funeral procession was to begin, a small boy arrived at the gates of Grayhull with a sealed letter clutched close to him. He handed it to the guards, who brought it to the valet, who in turn got it back into Nemm's hands. A performance consisting of subtle changes to her face followed as Nemm read the letter in front of Lexari and Darkheart.
"A gift from the Blood Bard," she said. "A barbed gift, but a gift all the same." She set the letter down. "This exonerates Gael. There are some unfortunate truths here though, ones that will need discussing." She took a deep breath. "Wenaru, Dravus, and I all came to an agreement about how the duel was to go."
Darkheart stared at her with an open mouth, then looked down at the letter. His cheeks began to grow red. "You're responsible for all this?" he asked.
Nemm turned to one of the porters. "Have the scribes copy this down, then take it to Cartwright's and have them begin setting the letters into their blocks. Tell them we'll pay whatever is necessary to have this done as quickly as possible." She turned back towards Darkheart. "How responsible I am depends on what you mean by 'all this'. If you mean the current civil unrest, then of course not. That had been set in motion long before we arrived. The duel I can take responsibility for though. I should have seen it coming."
"Your Royal Highness, I wasn't innocent in the matter," said Dravus. "Nemm can't take all the blame. What came after, the trick that the Blood Bard played, that was an opponent seeing weakness and moving in for the strike."
"I should have you both hanged," said Darkheart.
"It is unfortunate that we are the most skilled fighters in your realm," said Lexari.
Darkheart looked Lexari dead in the eyes. "You threaten me."
"No, your Royal Highness," said Lexari with an easy calm. "I only point out that we are useful to you, and that the position in regards to negotiation will worsen dramatically if we are gone."
Darkheart's red cheeks stood in contrast to his gray mustache. He seemed about to say something two different times, but on the third he visible sank down into his seat. "Fine. Do what you must. If we've been given a weapon … so be it."
* * *
Four men carried Kendrick's coffin. It was opened, to expose his face to the crowds that had gathered. Kendrick was well-known but not particularly well-loved. People liked him. Many had listened to his songs, either sung by others or by the man himself. He was too flippant and caustic to inspire much love though, even if it had been agreed that he cared deeply for his country, and had been doing his best to right a wrong. No one was going to speak ill of him so soon after his death though; he'd had his life taken in full view of half of the city, by a man who had killed Toric men, women, and even children, all in the cruelest ways. It might have been one thing if the Blood Bard had fallen to the newcomer Lightscour, but comparing the Blood Bard to the Red Angel almost had to leave the Blood Bard looking nearly faultless.
The four men who carried Kendrick's coffin called themselves the Phoenixes. They had put on new clothing since their transformations last night, and now they moved around in simple tunics that had been dyed a deep red. They weren't illustrati; to the extent that any of them had been known, they were dockworkers or laborers. Now they were something else. The only black mark on their new reputations was the fire that had been started in Lowside, but that fire had come after the others, and it was slowly becoming common knowledge that it had been the work of one of the queen's agents in an attempt to frame the Phoenixes.
A voice began booming out over the procession. "Dear Nemm," it began. The source was a town crier, who was standing on top of a nearby building and reading from two sheets of paper.
The noises of dissent began as soon as he was done.
Chapter 10
The Council of Laborers proved unable to formulate a coherent response to the letter. They had been running along with a single plan for too long. If they had planned for forks in the road, places where the plan had different paths to follow, they hadn't planned for this one. They first tried to deny the truth of the letter. They maintained that Kendrick was a noble martyr. This did not last particularly long; the narrative that the letter had offered was stronger than their denial could ever hope to be, in part because Kendrick was known for his exaggerations. The letter was damning towards both Nemm and Dravus, which called into question why they wouldn't have crafted a more beneficial response, if the letter was a forgery. Various people who had been in attendance at the duel (and some who hadn't) claimed that they had seen the telltale signs that something wasn't right, and overnight a number of tavern-dwellers became experts in combat between illustrati, despite having only witnessed this single fight. The Council eventually began to back down on their denials, but they couldn't abandon their claim to the truth entirely. If they had, it would have raised too many questions about those men they called the Phoenixes. Some of the alternate explanations being put forth by the people of Meriwall were surely worse than the truth; these ranged from a hypothesis about aid provided by the Iron Kingdom, to the ritual sacrifice of young children. Dravus had asked, but Nemm hadn't admitted to spreading any of these rumors. Her whereabouts were often unaccounted for.
Eventually, the Council made an overture.
Couriers traveled back and forth across the city over the course of two days. This was a long-range negotiation between the Flower Queen and the Council of Laborers, a temporary prelude to the conversational melee that would need to take place in order to bring matters to a close. The Council didn't trust the queen not to have them decapitated, and the queen didn't trust the Council not to have her assassinated, which made the matter of getting the two of them together quite tricky. Early on, it was determined that the whole thing couldn't just be solved by letter. This was partly owing to the fact that the letters had begun to descend into petty sniping and line-by-line quotes which received a full paragraph of response, and partly because there was little drama involved in that sort of settlement.
Nemm sat with Dravus on top of Grayhull Palace. The city was splayed out in front of them, though the view was nowhere near as good as from the top of Laith's Cathedral. Here there was an actual landing, and a door that led to a stairway down into the palace itself.
"So we're glorified lookouts?" asked Dravus.
"No," said Nemm. "Glorified would imply that there's some glory in it. We're just lookouts."
"It seems like there would be a better use of our time," said Dravus. Nemm had pared her armor back for the day, so that it was her traditional breastplate with closely-fitting trousers and thick boots. The breastplate itself shaped itself to her body and accentuated her curves, in a way that Dravus couldn't help but find alluring, even though he knew that was the desired effect. In serious combat, Nemm would reshape the concave surface to better deflect the blow of a sword.
"There's such a thing as tunnel vision," said Nemm. "If we buried our heads in the negotiations, we might miss what's going on outside the palace walls. Look for new construction, or a group of people conspicuously doing nothing. I don't think they'd assault the palace, unless the negotiations are a distraction." She touched her glass daggers and used her domain to make some slight change to their shape, so they would be better suited to some imagined task. Dravus was slowly learning Nemm's tells. "We need to talk about this romance."
"Ah," said Dravus. He wondered whether coming up to the rooftop was even necessary, or if it was all a pretense to speak alone.
"We're going to have to use the romance at some point," said Nemm. "People like romances. It will raise our standing. If we pull the trigger now, we might be able to distract the masses for a moment. The stories that they're telling are about me and Kendrick. The imagined romance between you and I deflects some of the attention away from the scandal with Kendrick. The story about you defending me from Cerulean Bane was told for the first time yesterday, and —"
"It was?" asked Dravus.
"Yes," said Nemm. "It had to be. We made good time getting
to Meriwall, but there will be ships coming in shortly that carry that news from Genthric. It would make us look like we had something to hide if we didn't get out ahead of it. The queen might ask for a recounting, just so you're forewarned. As I was saying, that pushes the romance thread even more."
Dravus watched a pair of gulls as they landed on a roof two blocks away. He had no idea how to respond to Nemm. She was beautiful, in everything that she did. Dravus wouldn't have ever tried to deny that. There was a grace in the way she swung her daggers, and the sway of her hips when she walked. Even the small things like the nervous way she would touch the handles of her daggers had the ability to enthrall him. Nemm was known for her beauty throughout the world. She had meticulously crafted her image, and that edifice was part of the allure. Yet the days spent in close proximity to one another brought unguarded moments, and what was backstage — the canvas beneath the layers of paint — had its own appeals.
All the same, the infatuation only went so far. Nemm was more of a mystery than anyone Dravus had met, even moreso because he knew all the stories about her. She had presented several alternate interpretations of well-known events to him, but it was impossible to know whether this was just another layer of deception. He had known her for fifteen days now. In that time, she had killed at least three men and practiced a variety of deceptions against all sorts of people, including Lexari Sunhawk himself. If Dravus was willing to admit an infatuation, he also had to admit to a sense of unease.
"What would this involve?" asked Dravus.
"Nothing much," said Nemm. "I'm known as a private person. People will make their own inferences if given a few subtle clues. They probably have already, as a matter of fact, it's just a matter of controlling those stories and bringing them in line with our goals."
Dravus was slightly unclear on what those goals actually were; it seemed that Nemm and Lexari were at odds with each other when it came to the more distant future. Nemm seemed content to simply sail around the world until the end of time, but that wasn't enough for Lexari. Dravus didn't know how he fit in with either of these plans. If everything in Torland went to plan, which seemed far too hopeful, then eventually he would stand next to Lexari and Nemm as an equal. Beyond that, it was unknown.
"It's the small things that people respond to," said Nemm. She stretched out and glanced towards him. "Lingering looks and brief, unnecessary touches. Smiles and laughs. That sort of thing. We won't need to display outright affection. It will be a simple fraud."
"Right," said Dravus.
"The only downside is that you won't be able to pursue other options, which I don't think you should be doing anyway. I saw how Flame looked at you after you rescued her. There are already good reasons not to spend too much time with her. The same goes for the commoners."
"Fair enough," said Dravus.
Nemm gave him a slight, unexpected smile. "Good, then it's settled. Remember, nothing overt. We'll be leaving Torland soon if all goes well, and we can feed them back whatever story they wish through our bards. It's always better to draw these things out if they're meant to last. In the meantime, it'll help to distract from the politics that Lexari is trying to work on behalf of the Flower Queen, not that he's making much headway there."
"Why's that?" asked Dravus.
"He's tainted," said Nemm. "They're still singing that damned song in the tavern. There are new stories recounting the Peddler's War written by young men who hadn't even been born when it started. The common folk of Meriwall haven't made a complete turn against him, but I don't know how much longer he can keep up his image of a shining knight. There are other illustrati who would write the whole island nation off as a loss, and accept that they'd be a villain in one place and a hero in others."
"Not Lexari though," said Dravus.
"He's a hero," said Nemm. "He needs to be a hero. Even if that's not the wise thing to be."
"That's what makes him a hero, I suppose," said Dravus.
"Sometimes being a hero makes you a villain," said Nemm. "You can't please everyone all the time."
* * *
The meeting was planned to death.
The location had been picked with care. It couldn't be the palace, because that was too much of an advantage for the queen and too much of a risk as far as security went. It couldn't be the cathedral, because the Church of Laith had too much of a connection to royalty, and furthermore the Council had been responsible for burning down a church. Amare's might have been the obvious place, but that was at the nexus of some unpleasantness on both sides, especially given that the Council hadn't managed to formulate a response that had done them any good. The list of places that would be suitable for a meeting and yet also uncontentious for both sides was a very short one, and neither side wanted to give in to the other's suggestions, just on general principle.
Traditionally speaking, Lexari's role would have been to step in as a mediator. He was known for being fair and impartial, and had played a key role in a number of settlements and accords. This was true even in the case when he'd been fighting on one side or the other. The business with Kendrick had tarnished his reputation in Torland, if only slightly. The letter which Kendrick supposedly sent from beyond the grave only implicated Nemm, but the prevailing narrative had always been that she was his knife in the dark. The letter had done nothing to challenge that line of thinking (since the letter borrowed quite a bit of its credibility from the fact that it fit well with the conventional wisdom). Unfortunately, Lexari's involvement was now somewhat problematic, given that the Council was still maintaining that he was a symptom of corruption and indifference.
"I'm a better speaker than Darkheart," said Lexari. He and Dravus sat alone in one of the many rooms of the palace, having just finished with dinner. "I have more experience with constitutional documents and peace treaties."
"If they don't want you there, what can be done?" asked Dravus. He'd been surprised to be pulled in for counsel, if that was what this was.
"It will tarnish my reputation to be excluded," said Lexari. His face was set, and his armor glowed brightly with light. Like Nemm, he had his tells, and the illumination that came from his constructs was one of them. This was something under Lexari's conscious control, but he used it as a form of punctuating his speech and expressing himself so often that it was second nature to him. "What story are we forging here? The duel was meant to be exciting, but it's been revealed as a lie. It's too convoluted for easy consumption, and furthermore involves only you. Before that letter you were acting as my protege, but now it's only of your own volition."
Dravus didn't know what to say to that. In their conversation with Darkheart it had never seemed to be an issue. Looking at it in this new light, he could see how Lexari might take some offense. "What do you want to do about it?" asked Dravus. "We can't say that you had a part in it."
"No," said Lexari. "Heroes do not stoop to lying. You should have known that. Leaving the criminal past behind was a condition of joining us our travels. I should have been more clear on that. I fear that Nemm has been a poor influence on you in that regard."
"What we did wasn't criminal," Dravus replied. "There aren't any laws in place that say people in a duel have to try their hardest to kill each other. It was deceptive, but that was it."
"Do you wish to debate me on the difference between legality and ethics?" asked Lexari. He frowned. "No, it wouldn't do, even if you'd had the schooling for it, which you haven't. Lightscour, if you're to be my apprentice, you need to follow in my footsteps and learn from me. Why did you even do this thing with Nemm? Why collaborate with Kendrick? Was it fear?"
Dravus was silent. He hadn't come here to be dressed down, and what's more, he didn't feel bad about any of the deceptions: not the initial one with Kendrick, nor the second one with Kendrick's letter. When Dravus had been younger, and still living with his parents, he had occasionally caught his father's ire for some small thing he'd done. It hadn't taken long for him to realize that these moments often
came on the heels of tax day, when money was tight and the ledgers had to be balanced. Lexari had been excised from the peace proceedings. He needed someone to direct his frustration towards. It was a simple, human thing, but Dravus had expected better of a self-proclaimed hero.
"Have you spoken with Wenaru?" asked Lexari. He cocked his head slightly to the side and stared at Dravus with piercing eyes. His face had fully healed, with the small cuts in the skin left behind by Wenaru's healing now fully closed. He was handsome and imposing; he was the sort of man who begged to be made into a statue. "He's down in the dungeons right now."
