by Victor Milán
To her intense annoyance, Melodía actually gasped. “You’ve been here the whole time?”
“Oh, for Maia’s sake girl, no! From the comfortable seclusion of my own sanctum. Through spies. I know you’ve no gift for it, but don’t you know anything at all about intrigue?”
“I—well. No, I guess.”
La Madrota patted her arm. Her skin was dry and felt like the finest strider-belly leather, like Francés gloves.
“There’s a girl. You’ve wit at least to know what you don’t know, when it belts you in the nose like a fool’s blown-up bladder. And the courage to admit it. That’s a thing less common than you think it is.”
Trying to talk with her … ancestor … felt like trying to reason with a dust-hada. So Melodía said nothing to that.
“So,” the old woman said, seeming to sense her surrender, “since we’ve gotten the nonsense out of the way—once more: you need help. Specifically, you need my help.”
Melodía sighed. “I do.”
“Then prepare yourself. I am taking over your life as of now. Completely. You will attend my every word, unquestionably obey my every command. And most of all, listen and learn everything I have to tell you. Or everything I can. Because our need is great, and I very much fear our time is short indeed.”
She stopped. “No.”
A few steps short of the stairs up to the Imperial apartments Rosamaría stopped beside her and looked up. Melodía braced for a vicious verbal onslaught—perhaps even a physical slap, since there was no question who held the real power in La Torre Delgao—and accordingly, it was dawning upon her, in the Empire of Nuevaropa.
Instead, the old woman emitted a cackle of laughter like a delighted Deinonychus. “You still have the fire of spirit, flickering away among the ashes of despair. That’s good; there’s hope for you. Now don’t let it flare in my direction again, for it’s you they’ll burn.”
“What do you know of how I feel?” snapped Melodía, for the crone had summed it up perfectly.
“I’ve been there myself, of course. I know the signs. I don’t even need spies on the servant staff to tell me you’re mired deeply in despair. Though I have them, just to lay to rest any doubt.”
“But how could you? I mean—you’re the real head of the Imperial family!”
“And as the saying goes, I’m half as old as the Empire itself,” La Madrota said. “At my age I’ve been everything. And believe me, the uttermost depths of despair are an all-too-familiar environment.”
“Oh.”
“Now.” The old woman set off up the steps at the same age-belying pace she’d led to them. “Start by assuming that I know everything about you. I don’t, but it’s simpler than assuming the other way around.”
Melodía stumbled on a riser and barely checked herself before toppling forward. “You know—”
“That that evil, bloated, black-bearded Horror falsely accused you of treason, imprisoned you, and forcibly fucked you in the ass before you escaped? Yes. Now breathe.”
For a fact Melodía was having a hard time doing so. She finally managed a full inhale and nodded. They started climbing again.
“Your sister did a wizard job hatching the scheme to spring and bringing both the servants and your friends in with her. She’s the brilliant one in your generation; you’ll have to settle for being smart and beautiful. It was good enough for Juana la Roja; you should make shift well enough.”
“The first Empress? You knew her?”
“Of course not. She died nearly two centuries before I was born. I’m her sister Martina la Negra’s several-times great-granddaughter, meaning you and Montse are too. A terrible shame about Claudia; her wits and courage were wasted as a mere servant.”
“She was yours?”
“She was one who got away. Fiercely independent spirit, that one; resisted all attempts to recruit her. And I couldn’t openly intervene to free you, obviously. That goes against the whole shadowy-power-behind-the-throne thing.”
“Is that what you call what you did just now?”
“What do you mean?”
They were starting up the final flight of stairs to the Imperial level. Melodía hadn’t by this point expected her ancestor to flag, so she wasn’t surprised that she didn’t. “I thought you’d be a master of subtlety. Yet the way appeared before the court…”
“What do you call my entrance?”
“Blunt and vulgar enough for a whole tercio of Brown Nodosaurs?”
“Reminds me you haven’t had much actual experience of them, or you wouldn’t underestimate them so. But, yes, close enough. So what do you think of that, now? Of me?”
“I … don’t know what to think.”
La Madrota patted her cheek. “Precisely. Now: the Trebs who kidnapped your sister are playing their own side false. I don’t know the details, but I know that much—which is another reason war with the Basileia would be a disastrous mistake. As I know we’re facing supernatural foes as well as all-too-fleshy ones.”
“The Fae?” Despite herself, Melodía almost choked on the word. It still seemed too much like—like blasphemy, she supposed—to say it aloud.
“Them, too. I’m not sure in what capacity, but the little I know about them suggests they may not have any greater idea themselves. And yes, I’m fully aware it wasn’t mere carelessness on your novio’s part that lost the poor child. I knew that from the outset.”
“You mean you knew what stopped him?”
“Of course,” she said. “But more than them, we have the Grey Angels to worry about.”
“But we—I mean Karyl—I mean Shiraa killed—”
“Nothing and nobody but a few tens of thousands of hapless flesh puppets, and a few traitors to their kind. Raguel isn’t dead. The slayer destroyed a throwaway corporeal form of an incorporeal being. Who’s not happy about it. Whether from him, or others of his kind, we shall be hearing more soon, I fear.”
To Melodía’s surprise—Why am I still even letting her do that to me? she wondered—La Madrota sailed blithely past the doors to the suite she shared with her father, down the lamp-lit corridor to a blank wall. Which, after doing a few things with her hands she didn’t let Melodía see, she slid open to reveal another passageway.
“Secret passages,” Rosamaría said with almost childlike delight. “I have to love Abuela Martina and her sister: they schemed the whole thing out together, as they did everything—yes, including the Empire and our role as its perpetual rulers. If we can keep it. Which may prove a near-run thing. They kept alive both childhood fancies and the eyes to spot where they might come in handy. The bloody mountain is honeycombed with secret passages—and secret chambers.”
She did another hidden thing, and another apparently blank section of barely smooth stone wall slid open to reveal a small but cozy and well-appointed apartment with a little but cushy-looking bed, a pair of chairs, a table—and a pair of irregularly shaped windows letting in afternoon sunlight from different heights on one wall.
“You even have windows? I’ve never seen them, nor openings that could be them.”
“That’s why they’re called ‘hidden,’ my child. It’s time you started learning the Heart’s secret ways.”
“Does my father know?”
“No.” She pointed to a chair, plain wood though with a velvet cushion. “Sit. There’s fresh, cool water in the ewer; pour and drink if you’re thirsty.”
Melodía found she was, so she did. It was cool. She thought about asking how it got refreshed, or who by, but thought better of it.
* * *
La Madrota plopped herself on the bed. “So: let’s get to work. You’ve intrigue to learn, fighting skills to master, and we’ve got to head off a wicked mistress of intrigue before she sinks her fangs deeply enough in your father to place her son’s broad Alemán rapist ass on the Fangèd Throne.”
Melodía sucked in a sharp breath. “You can’t be serious!”
“Of course I am. Of course she intends that.
It’s what I’d do.
“And there’s lesson the first: never assume your enemy is less intelligent than you.”
Chapter 28
Gancho, hook-horn.…—Einiosaurus procurvicornis. A hornface (Ceratopsian dinosaur) of Anglaterra, where they are a popular dray beast: quadrupedal, herbivorous, 6 meters long, 2 meters high, 2 tonnes. Named for their massive forward-hooking nasal armament. Two longer, thinner horns project from the tops of their neck-frills. Placid unless provoked.
—THE BOOK OF TRUE NAMES
Riding Little Nell onto the grounds of Séverin Farm, a kilometer or two south and west of Providence Town, filled Rob with nostalgia. Even though the last time we saw it, it was getting overrun by an army of demons in human form. The sun-warmed dirt and the greenery around had their own distinctive smells, bringing on a nostalgic fit. And blessedly not a whiff of the unwashed, cannibalistic Horde remained. Though he felt a spiritual unease, knowing that they’d been here and what they’d done.
The first thing he saw were Melodía’s successor as captain of the jinetes, a brown-haired young man named Tristan Épine, standing near the central stone house and talking with a light-rider squad leader named Simone, a Slavia-born woods-runner named Dominika, and a male woods-runner he didn’t recognize.
“Ho, my friends!” he called out as he came jouncing up toward them at the semivigorous lumber that served his hook-horn as a trot. “Looks as if we’re to be back in the business of spying and slitting throats again!”
To his astonishment they glanced at him, then turned their backs. Frowning, he steered Little Nell toward a stone water trough in the shade of a barn, dismounted, and left her a bucket of grain and fresh-pulled fodder to keep her happy. Then he walked up to the small group.
“What’s the matter? How’d I manage to offend you? Here I’ve been hoping some of you would visit me at my new digs. I don’t think I was that odious a taskmaster, but I’ve been wrong before. Back in ’29, I believe it was.”
That didn’t break out a smile. But the new light-rider boss sighed and turned back.
“They did,” he said. “Your man turned them away.”
Rob felt as if he’d been smacked in the face with a shovel. “The spalpeen did what, now?”
Dominika turned back to face him, shaking back her short dust-colored hair. “The ugly one. He told us you had no time for trash like us. That you were an important noble now, and not to be bothered.”
“That’s a steaming load of Slayer-shit if ever there was one.” He didn’t roar it, because the person the roar would’ve been directed at was several hours’ ride away in Tertre Herbeux—and because he’d received a lifetime’s worth of practicing restraining his urges since getting tangled with Karyl the year before.
“He insisted you’d instructed him personally to turn us away,” Simone said.
“No, no, no,” Rob said, shaking his head hard. “I said no such fucking thing. Nor would I. Come on, now; you all knew me. Well, except for our woods-runner friend here, whom I at least don’t recognize. Does that sound like the merry, madcap Rob Korrigan you know?”
“No,” Dominika said. “But this Baron Rob—him we don’t know.”
“Ah, but you do. The Emperor laid a burden on my shoulders, not a gift. And one I would’ve shrugged off if I could. I told my man no such fucking thing.”
He stood a moment, considering. He knew his audiences, and this one was at least listening to him now.
“I’ll host you to a banquet, when I get back to the manor house. All your old comrades and even new friends are welcome. As for Bergdahl—well, it’s a different kind of noble he’s used to serving. One born with blue blood, and not created on accident in the befuddlement that follows a battle. I shall set him straight. My word on that!”
“Your word,” said Dominika, in a skeptical tone. “As a Traveler, and an Irlandés?”
“Indeed! And as a wandering minstrel, to boot! The word of a confirmed and lifelong rogue to a passel of spies and forest ambushers—so you know it’s good!”
At that they laughed. He shook hands and clapped shoulders all around. “And where might I find Himself?”
“Around the house in the exercise yard, in the shade of the plane tree the monsters didn’t chop down for the sheer joy of destruction,” said Tristan, pointing. Rob nodded, thanked them all, and set off briskly.
Only to be stopped dead by what he saw. There was Karyl, a longsword practice-blunt in his hand—not his favorite weapon, but he could kill you with a wooden serving-spoon if that was what he had to hand, so it didn’t seem to matter much. His chest was bare and pale above loose dark trousers.
Facing him was a nearly naked woman, a bit taller than he, her black hair tied at her nape and barely long enough to do it. Her olive skin gleamed with sweat. She held a longsword above her head, pointed at Karyl.
So that’s the way it is, thought Rob, with a sort of crushing feeling inside. It’s sweaty play with the Mora Brokentree for His Grace Karyl, now. Small wonder he’s no time for poor Rob Korrigan, once an honest scoundrel, and now a thief of a Baron.
“Ahem,” he said. He didn’t clear his throat; he said the actual word, the one used by writers of the overwrought romances filled with ferocious dinosaurs and derring-do, which proved so enduringly popular with nobles and peasants alike. “If I’m interrupting an intimate moment, it’s off I’ll be, then…”
The woman turned, lowering her sword—but into a lower two-hand guard position, the tip of its meter-long blade now angling upward. She had appointed herself bodyguard to Karyl, as if he of all men alive ever needed such a thing. And for reasons of his own, Karyl chose not to send her packing.
And is this mere dutiful protectiveness I see before me now, Rob wondered, or a matadora guarding her prey?
He could understand Karyl’s interest in her well enough. The body revealed by the silk band tightly wrapped around her small breasts and the wisp of a pair of trunks wrapped around her slim hips was that of the sort of dinosaur knight who trained rigorously for dismounted combat—not one who let herself go to seed because, when mounted, her real weapon was the giant war-dinosaur she bestrode, and she along for little more than guidance. Muscle rippled under every shiny square centimeter of her skin. A single lock of black hair had escaped her queue and lay plastered to her forehead in an almost fetching way.
Rob favored women a bit more padded, but there was no accounting for taste. He himself wouldn’t kick this one out of bed, and only in part because he feared that if he did, she might just kill him.
But Karyl’s face actually seemed to brighten when he heard and saw Rob, and his lips curved upwards. Which Rob knew served him the way a manic grin would a more … usual sort of person.
“Ah. You made it. Excellent.” Karyl turned to the woman. “Enough for the day, Mora.”
“Yes, Your Grace. And—thank you.”
“It’s always a pleasure to train an apt pupil.”
She bowed and left with her practice sword. Karyl tipped his back over his shoulder.
“A curious young woman. Melancholy and … abstracted, unless she has a task to focus on. But she’s an avid learner, indeed.”
“No doubt mad avid for what you have to teach her,” Rob said.
Karyl ladled water from a bucket and drank. He held the ladle out toward Rob. Rob raised his palm in polite refusal.
“Count Laurent sends word that strangers have been haranguing the folk of Crève Coeur,” Karyl said, returning the ladle to its rightful place. “Even on the streets of his seat of Languissant l’Amour, to the effect that Laurent’s a usurper, and that the rightful count is one Baron Eric.”
“Should I know the wight?” asked Rob, intrigued despite himself. And here’s a fickle heart that can’t even hold on to a case of the dudgeons, he thought. And isn’t that an Ayrishmuhn all over, then?
“I doubt it. All I know about him is that he’s a widely reputed lackwit. And Duke Eric’s nephew.”
“Oh
. So speaking of hearts broken and languishing, the Duc de Haut-Pays still pines for the dominions Raguel wrenched away from him with his filthy claw and Felipe saw fit to bestow upon you?”
“Such is Laurent’s surmise.”
“And so you’ve need of a spymaster once more, perhaps?” asked Rob, pulse quickening.
“It appears so, old friend. I’ve told the good Count to restrain his impulse to have them sworded, or at least publicly flogged, for their sedition.”
“That seems downright forbearing, even for you—since crying down Count Laurent is the same as crying down the man who made him. But also the Emp, so?”
“Possibly. But it may muddle the case sufficiently for Eric to escape accusations of lèse-majesté, if it all can be made a matter of Julien’s inheritance and the putative longing of the Brokenhearts for their rightful ruler.”
“I’ll never understand dynastic politics.”
“That’s two of us. But Laurent does, and thoroughly. Which is a reason I chose to put him where he is.”
“So—you don’t want him squashing these agitators, because you want ’em investigated and well shadowed, to see what devilry the jilted Duke Eric has in his black heart?”
“Precisely! If more … poetically phrased than I would.” Karyl actually smiled and made as if to clap Rob on the shoulder. Then he stopped awkwardly and dropped his hand. Karyl seemed to have trouble laying his hand upon another unless to kill him; Rob knew and made allowances. “And I need to know how widely he’s flung his net. Providence was his, as well.”
Castaña, the third county of the new Borderlands, lay in Spaña and was never part of Eric’s realm. Rather it had been held in vassalage to the Spañol throne. And if the King—Felipe’s own cousin Telemarco—objected to having it removed from his ownership, he’d not peeped about it that Rob had heard. Not that he exactly kept current on court gossip from La Fuerza, despite his own fief lying right across the river from Castaña.
“So you’ll be wanting me to shift back here to the good old Farm,” Rob said, mentally rubbing his hands in eagerness. “And then it’s back to the good old days!”
