Some time in the middle of my rambling story, the steward came back with Cherida, the red-haired medician who’d tried to save Pateros. They bustled upstairs and then, after a while, back down. Cherida stopped by the living room, patted Esmelda on the shoulder, and said, “He’s exhausted, that’s all. Let him rest.” Esmelda, with no visible change in expression, went right on questioning me.
Finally she nodded, but I knew it wasn’t the end, only a pause before we started all over again. Maybe she was just tired of the smell.
The mouse-woman steward, Annelys, led me upstairs to a cot made up for me in a room that used to be Avi’s. Avi herself was no more than a snoring lump in the corner, behind the old desks and wooden storage crates and wicker baskets overflowing with mending. Outside the door I found a bathroom with a tub filled with steaming, herb-scented water and a wicker stand bearing fluffy towels, soap and bath oils, scrub brushes, real Archipelago sponges.
Annelys handed me a long, velvety-soft robe. Pink, of course. Was every single Mother-damned bathrobe in Laureal City pink?
“I’ve put some clothes on the foot of your bed,” she said. “They’re clean and they ought to fit you.” She didn’t say whose they were or that she thought mine weren’t fit to be worn again. “You’ll want to sleep in, then. I’ll leave your breakfast in the kitchen for whenever you come down.”
I looked down at the bath. The water was a light
blue-green with some kind of fragrant salts. I felt myself drifting, falling into it, my head swimming with the curls of sweet-smelling steam.
Ah yes, Laureal City... I gripped the edge of the tub hard enough to cramp my hands.
“Where’s...Terris?” Whose voice is saying that, mine?
“Terricel.” She gave me a funny, sideways look. “Asleep. At the end of the hallway, in his old room. With that older man. The two northers,” she didn’t quite sniff, but looked as if she’d like to, “I put them in the back, downstairs.” Then, before I could ask any more annoying questions, she shut the door on me.
Wishing I had my long-knife, I laid the two currently in my possession — the buckle knife and the City Guards knife — at the side of the tub, within easy reach, and sank into the hot water. For a blessed five minutes, I let the bath and my aching muscles think they were winning. I scrubbed everything twice, including my hair, and went over my body with a brush. The water was brown the first time I drained it, but soapy clear the next.
I toweled myself dry, dragged a comb through my hair, wrapped myself in the robe and tiptoed into Avi’s room. She was still asleep. I slid into the borrowed clothes and low-cut house shoes. They were a bit narrow, but so buttery-soft they stretched out to fit.
I opened the door at the end of the hallway just a crack to make sure Terris was there. The walls, I noticed, were a depressing shade of blue. Hell, I’d probably have painted my room that color if I had to live here, too.
Noiselessly I shut the door and sat with my back to it, my arms folded over my knees, the way I passed many a night on the Ridge or before that in the Brassa Hills, in between skirmishes, with my fingers resting on the hilt of my knife. A house-snake rippled by, its eyes glowing like opals. It tasted me delicately with its tongue, decided I wasn’t edible and slithered on in search of dinner.
Me, I slept lightly. Very lightly.
o0o
Behind me, a boot sole scuffed over a smooth wood floor and the latch hinge rattled. Before I could think, I was on my feet and ready.
The door cracked open. Terris glanced down at the drawn knife in my hand. Beneath his beard, his face was pale, the skin under his eyes purplish. I heard Etch snoring somewhere in the depths of the dismal-blue room. I put the knife away and stepped back.
Terris eyed me as he closed the door behind himself. “As usual, you’re up early...” he began, then paused, his brows drawing together. “You slept out here, didn’t you? On my doorstep like some kind of watcher — ”
I set my jaw. This was going to be harder than I thought.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Do you think you’re made out of iron?” he stormed at me. “Did you think I was in danger here? This is Laureal City, not the gods-damned steppe, and, more than that, this is my mother’s house!”
With two northers downstairs, still armed for all I knew, gangs of crazed Brigade kids in the streets and Montborne on the loose. Terris could swear at me by whatever misbegotten gods he liked, but I wasn’t sleeping down the hall.
He narrowed his eyes. “You did sleep?”
I shrugged. He grabbed my shoulders and spun me around toward the staircase. “Then you are now going to eat breakfast.”
No argument there.
o0o
“We damned well better be ready for his next move.” Avi leaned over the breakfast table and gestured as she made her point to Esmelda.
“We will be ready for him,” Esmelda replied calmly.
Neither of them looked up as Terris and I walked in. Their heads — black and steel-gray — almost touched over the clutter of crumb-covered dishes and papers scrawled with notes and figures that hid a dining table big enough for a dozen people. Beyond them, a sideboard held a ceramic tea urn, pots of jam and butter, a huge glass platter overflowing with peaches and cherries. The fruity smell mingled with the tang of cheese and the yeasty aroma of new bread. Annelys the steward bustled through the kitchen doorway and put two crusty loaves on the cutting board.
Terris took a plate from the sideboard, and loaded it with fruit and cheese and three thick slices of still-warm bread. He shoved it into my hands. For a moment, I couldn’t think what to do with it. He carried his own plate to the table and cleared a place for both of us by sweeping the nearest papers into a heap with the back of one forearm.
Avi looked up, tossed back the heavy black hair that had fallen forward across her face, and scowled at him. “How could you do it? Take Montborne to that toxic world or wherever it was — and then bring him back!”
“Montborne truly believed he was doing the right thing for Laurea. He didn’t understand where his desire for better weapons would inevitably lead,” Terris said in between bites of bread. “He thought all that stuff the gaea-priests spout at us was just empty words. Hell, so did I, so did everybody.”
“Whose side are you on, anyway?” Avi snapped.
“Avi’s right,” Esmelda said. “Montborne won’t give up. Not when he’s devoted his life to a single goal — the ultimate defeat of the northers — and believes he’s the only one who can accomplish it. No matter what he said or did last night, this morning he’ll feel justified in using any means available to achieve his goals. Beginning with eliminating you.”
“I was there with him. He saw — he understood...”
“Do you think a few minutes in some outlandish place will make any difference to a man like him?”
“What else was there to do?” Terris said. “I couldn’t leave him there.”
“You could,” I said, laying down my half-eaten cheese. “And you should have. He deserved it. Have you forgotten who sent those goons in the night and who had Pateros killed? I haven’t. What did you bring Jakon here for — to bring Montborne to justice or to let him go free?”
I did not add that there were certain things that changed a person forever, for good or ill. Montborne might have been the true hero the Laureans thought him. Once. But some bloodstains didn’t wash off.
Terris’s eyes went opaque for a moment, staring through me to Mother-knows-where. I wished I’d kept silent.
“I have no intention of letting him go free,” he said tightly. “He must stand trial for what he’s done. But I am not his judge, and certainly not his executioner. He didn’t deserve to be abandoned in that...place.”
“There’s no point in recriminations,” Esmelda raised one hand for quiet. “And Montborne hasn’t won yet.”
“Oh no?” Avi demanded, bristling. “What’s to keep him from marching his men into this morning’s Inner Coun
cil meeting and staging a military coup?”
“For one thing, Orelia’s doubled my security, and for another, I’ve arranged a location change from the Starhall to the Senate Building. The meeting won’t be with the Inner Council but the entire Senate. And Montborne won’t find out until the last minute.” Esmelda’s mouth twitched in what might have passed for a smile.
“But we must do more than neutralize him as a threat,” Esmelda added. “He must be held accountable for his acts. The people will never accept a treaty with Clan’Cass as long as they believe the northers were behind the assassination of Pateros. Montborne must be eliminated and proved responsible.”
“We don’t have enough hard proof yet,” Avi said, frowning. I could almost see her thoughts churning, her mind settling into the habits of so many years ago. Moment by moment, she revealed her mother’s training. “Just Terr’s testimony about the attempt on him — and Jakon’s that his people had nothing to do with either time.”
“The daggers were forgeries,” Terris said. “But that’s only Kardith’s word and mine.”
“We don’t need an irrefutable case right now,” Esmelda said, “only enough evidence to indict in the public’s mind, to cause them to question their loyalty to him. There’s more than one way to do that. Montborne could not have acted alone. Those daggers, for example, required fairly sophisticated metallurgy. It’ll take a bit of investigation to determine the connection, but I doubt he’s been able to cover all his traces.”
“Or someone along the line may panic,” Avi said, nodding, “once they see the great Montborne himself under suspicion, and we’ll be watching.”
Esmelda turned to Terris. “Where is this second dagger now? Does Montborne have it?”
Terris paled visibly. “It was in my pack.”
“There’s a good chance he’s destroyed it, then,” Avi said. “He can’t risk it coming to light at some future point. Either way, it’s beyond our reach.”
Esmelda picked up her cup and swirled the steaming tisane meditatively. “What else did you tell him?”
“Not much,” Terris said with a fleeting curl at the corners of his mouth. “I was so determined to get him under the Starhall, that’s all I would talk about. He was still acting friendly...” His face went grim. “Trying to win my trust.”
“So he doesn’t know those two northers are here and ready to begin negotiations?”
“They were at the barricades with us,” I pointed out. “The Brigade kids could have reported seeing them.”
“Even if they noticed them in the shadows,” Terris said to me, “it’s you and Avi they’ll remember.”
“He’ll find out about them soon enough, but on our terms.” Esmelda set down her cup with a clatter. “Today I plan to introduce Jakon to the full Senate as the envoy whose mission is to open formal diplomatic channels.”
o0o
In the pause that followed, I slipped the Guards knife out of its sheath and held it under the table and ready. Avi noticed the movement. Her eyes widened as she heard the faint, whispery footsteps along the corridor.
Jakon and Grissem stood at the door, and Mother knows how much they’d already heard. Both of them wore their elkskins and quilted vests. Jakon’s hair was wet and freshly plaited. They didn’t smile as they came in.
The steward woman bustled after them, almost on their heels. She looked distrustful and motherly and exasperated at the same time. It took her only a moment to clear the dirty dishes and stack the papers in a tidy pile in the center of the table.
Following Esmelda’s invitation, the two northers helped themselves to bread and fruit, and gingerly settled themselves in chairs at the table. For Jakon, who was used the drum stool, it was awkward enough, but Grissem looked like he’d never sat in a chair in his life.
Jakon examined his peach before biting into it. He chewed slowly, tasting its ripeness with a wondering expression.
Avi got up and took a paring knife from the sideboard drawer. She handed it, hilt first, to Jakon. “You can peel it if you don’t like the fuzz.”
Jakon raised one eyebrow, glancing from the simple blackwood handle to her eyes. For a long moment he didn’t move, and I remembered how fast he’d brought the poisoned dagger to my throat. This was no simple offer of a paring knife, this gesture of Avi’s. I wished her joy, because with him, everything would always be some demon-cursed test.
Avi knew exactly what she was doing. She was a Ranger, forged at Brassaford and honed on the Ridge — and more than that, she was Esmelda’s daughter.
Jakon reached out his right hand, not to take the knife but to enclose her hand in his. Then he slid the knife out and placed it on the bare table.
Avi sat down. “It occurs to me,” she said, just as if they’d been talking all along and this was the continuation of their conversation, “that we’re going to need more than a treaty to smooth over the decades of conflict between our nations. Trade will help, of course. But so would a marriage.”
“That has been a traditional way for us to unite families,” Jakon said gravely. I thought his expression a shade too wellcontrolled. “I think my grandfather would welcome it as an honorable solution. But we’re only one clan of many in the north. The other chiefs may follow us, but they’re not bound to do so. If my grandfather asks it, they will stop raiding long enough to listen. The question is whether your people will do the same.”
“You mean how much time it will take us to reverse the effects of Montborne’s war propaganda,” Esmelda said.
“Ah! And what of your general?” Jakon glanced over at Terris. Then back to Esmelda. Mother knows what he saw in those ice-colored eyes of hers, the slash of her mouth, those bony shoulders hunched forward, fingers tipped together like a house of claws. As she outlined her plans for the morning’s meeting, he nodded at each point.
“Ah!” he said when she’d finished. “So that’s the way of it!”
These two understood each other well, I thought.
Etch chose that moment to make his entrance, looking very much like a weather-faced horse doctor despite his borrowed city clothes. He nodded a greeting to Esmelda.
“Excuse me, magistra,” he said, “I don’t mean to interrupt...”
“Come in, have some breakfast,” Terris said. “No horse tonic on the menu, I promise.”
Etch shuffled forward. “Ah — if we’re going to stay here in the city, there’s some legal charges we’ll have to get cleared. To begin with, there’s the minor matter of a jailbreak... “
“That,” said Aviyya, laughing, “we can deal with.”
Chapter 39
It was a scramble to get us all organized for the meeting, what with Esmelda rattling off orders and sending messages by way of the small troop of Senatorial pages who’d appeared on the doorstep, Avi and Terris hurrying back and forth, and Annelys asking people to move here or there or to please get out of the way. In the middle of it all, a City Guard arrived with our weapons, my Ranger’s vest, and an official release from Orelia. Our jailbreak was, if not pardoned, at least erased. Forearm knife, boot knife, and folding utility to go in my vest pocket, they were all here.
I slipped the long-knife back where it belonged, handed over the “borrowed” Guards blade, and settled myself in a corner from which I could keep an eye on Terris. Sometimes I glanced at Avi, her hands full of papers, and I hardly recognized her. She paused in midstride, as if she were going to say something. But what was there to say that we didn’t both already know?
Esmelda wasn’t sure what to do with Etch except ignore him, but he commented to me that he was much happier going off to check on the horses, anyway. Doing something useful. He’d catch up on the news later, he said. He walked out the front door, his shoulders bowed just a fraction, as if the city weighed too damned much. Watching him go, I missed what had grown up between the three of us and later between the six of us. We’d counted on it for our lives out there, but here it was nothing. In some crazy way, I’d come to care abou
t these people, and that caring had stopped me running, stopped me hiding in the Rangers. Would that all be nothing, too?
I wondered if it was worth it to come back.
o0o
Esmelda wrapped the two northers in long hooded cloaks and sneaked us into the Senate building through the back way. I wouldn’t have said sneaked to her face, but it sure felt that way to me, winding along the back corridors. She stuffed us all in a little room underneath the spectator’s balconies, one of several such waiting areas, a bland and modern cave — pasty yellow walls and furniture just uncomfortable enough to keep you from getting too cozy.
Two old men had already arrived, Esmelda’s witnesses, I guessed. One wore ordinary clothing but held himself as if he were in uniform. From the shift of his eyes, the spark as they passed over my knives, the hidden ones as well as the visible, and the careful way he placed his own hands, I guessed he knew more than a little about weapons. I’d also bet his loyalty and qualifications were above suspicion. The second man, in scholar’s robes, beamed as he was introduced to Jakon and Grissem. With undisguised eagerness, he asked if he could just please ask them one or two questions about their clan traditions.
“For what purpose?” Jakon asked.
The scholar didn’t seem to notice Jakon’s tone of voice. “We know so little about your culture. We’re anxious to fill in the gaps, to do a little impromptu field work, so to speak. This is such an opportunity, to have two native informants — ”
“We are not specimens to be examined,” Jakon snapped, “to have the living heart of our people imprisoned in your books.”
“Yet if there is to be a new understanding between these people and Clan’Cass, we must learn about one another,” Grissem said. “Why else did you build the trading post? Why else let the Ranger woman and her friends live, instead of killing them as your grandfather would have done?”
Northlight Page 32
