by Ken Scholes
The Pope nodded. “We will accommodate his request.”
She nodded. She knew full well it had nothing to do with anything other than money. This new archbishop’s only bridge to what remained of the Order’s treasury was her father, and doing what her father wanted was prudent for him. “Also, there is the matter of consummating my betrothal to Rudolfo.”
The Pope stammered. “Yes. I did not know until today.”
“My father only recently announced it. I’m assuming that the Order does not forbid conjugal visits of their prisoners?”
“It can be arranged, certainly.”
“My father would appreciate that,” she said. Already, the betrothal was working in her favor. It had to be her father.
After the Pope left her, she bathed and perfumed herself and oiled her hair. She unrolled the one gown she’d found among the clothes laid out for her at the seventh manor and she hung it near the hot water so that the steam could lift the wrinkles.
She moved easily and naked around Isaak as she prepared.
“We will see Lord Rudolfo tonight then?” Isaak asked.
“We will,” she said. “We have much to discuss.”
She arranged to have her dinner served in Rudolfo’s chambers, and ten minutes before, she and Isaak went to the staircase that led to the tower where the Gray Guard waited. They did not bother to search her, though they looked Isaak over thoroughly, exchanging furtive glances of trepidation between themselves. Still, her father’s wishes-even those she manufactured-would be followed. Of this, she had no doubt.
Finally, they worked a large key in the door and opened it for her. She walked in, Isaak close behind, the thick carpets shushing his metal feet.
The Prisoner’s Quarters were nearly indistinguishable from her own. Wall hangings of hunting scenes woven in tapestry took the place of a wide glass window-this room’s windows were set high and narrow in the ceiling. She saw a desk with scattered sheets of paper filled with cramped script in at least three languages, and behind it, a bookcase. A door led off the main room into what she supposed was the bedroom and bathing room. Across from it, a small dining table was set for three, and in the “ee,e. center of the room stood a golden furnace surrounded by a low couch and three armchairs.
Rudolfo stood from the couch and bowed. She watched his eyes move over her quickly, pausing in the right places. “Lady Tam,” he said, “you are a vision in my desert.”
She curtsied. “Lord Rudolfo, it is agreeable to see you again.” And it was. It surprised her just how agreeable. He was dressed in a pair of dark green trousers and a loose-fitting silk shirt the color of lightly cooked cream, tied together by a crimson sash. A matching turban accentuated the midnight of his eyes. He looked at the metal man, and his smile widened.
“Isaak,” he said. “Are you well?”
“I am not, Lord,” the metal man said. “I fear-”
Rudolfo raised a hand. “After dinner, my metal friend.”
He walked to Jin’s side and offered her an arm. She let him take it. He seemed taller than she remembered, but certainly shorter than she was. She felt his fingers moving along her arm, pressing and releasing.
I hoped to spare you this, he tapped. “Let me seat you,” he said aloud.
She nodded and smiled as he moved her toward the table, placing her hand on his wrist. My father had other plans it seems, she replied.
He pulled out her chair and pushed it in as she sat. Then she watched as he circled the table to stand behind his own chair. “Come and sit with us, Isaak,” he said, pointing to a third place at the table.
“I do not eat, Lord Rudolfo,” Isaak began, but Rudolfo waved his words away.
“Join us anyway.”
Isaak limped to the table and sat, staring down at the place settings arranged before him. He looked up at the dome-covered dishes and the bottles of chilled wine. “May I at least serve, Lord?” the metal man asked.
Rudolfo shook his head. “Certainly not.” He winked at Jin. “Tonight is our betrothal dinner, and I intend to do all of the serving.”
Jin watched him as he moved from one side of the table to the other, now by her side again and holding a dripping bottle of wine wrapped in a white cotton towel. He raised his eyebrows and she nodded. He filled her glass, then filled his own and sat.
He raised the glass and leaned in. “I wo“ in./p›uld have cooked,” he said, “if Resolute had given me free run of the kitchen.”
Jin smiled, shifting easily into another nonverbal language. She sipped her wine, moving her fingers and shrugging. Resolute knows little of statecraft, she signed to him. She licked her lips, wishing the wine were tart and a bit drier. “This is an excellent choice,” she said.
I concur; we can use that to our advantage, he signed back. He returned her smile. “I’m glad you approve.”
He turned to Isaak. How has he been? Rudolfo signed to her, moving his fingers along stem of his glass while touching the table cloth with his right forefinger. “How have you been, Isaak?”
Remorseful, she answered.
“I am functioning properly, Lord Rudolfo.”
He nodded and turned back to Jin Li Tam. “It’s a tradition in my house that the groom-to-be prepare a feast for his betrothed. When my father took my mother into his house, he spent a week in the kitchens and three weeks before that in the Great Library poring over recipes to make the perfect selections for her.” Rudolfo chuckled. “He spoke of it often as his greatest test of strategy. He sent runners across the Named Lands gathering the ingredients. A bottle of apple brandy from the cave-castles of Grun El. Peaches from Glimmerglam, of course. Rice and kallaberries from the Emerald Coasts.”
Her father had spoken of Lord Jakob. He’d not spoken of the lady, though. Under better circumstances, her father would have fully briefed her on the history of Rudolfo’s house. When she’d accepted the role of consort to Lord Sethbert, she’d spent nearly a month locked away with everything her father had gathered on that man and his family.
Now, the stakes were higher-a full betrothal-but she knew far less about this man she was to marry.
She shifted in her seat, suddenly feeling the weight of those stakes. Perhaps her father had changed his strategy.
She doubted it. If he’d intended to do such a thing, word would’ve waited for her here and she’d not have been allowed to see Rudolfo.
Your father must protect Isaak, he signed to her as he stood again. “Alas,” he said, “we’ll celebrate our occasion with less glamour.”
Rounding the table, he took her plate and served her. He watched the look on her face as he lifted each lid, and she noticed how well he read her expressions, leaving off those dishes that elicited a less than favorable response from her.
He reads people well, she thought, as he speared asparagus onto her plate. He left off the drizzle of butter and roasted garlic and continued.
She smiled at him as he put the plate in front of her. “You are quite good at that.”
He nodded. “I am a student of the masses.”
He served himself quickly, and filled fresh wineglasses with something red and unchilled. She lifted it to her nose and knew already it would be tart and dry on her tongue.
Rudolfo raised his glass. “To formidable partnerships,” he said. His other hand moved slightly, but she followed with her eye. May we find happiness in one another despite the circumstances that bring us together.
She raised her glass as well and repeated the words that he had spoken aloud. She was too surprised to reply to the words he had not spoken, the words he’d signed in the nonverbal language of House Li Tam.
She’d not considered happiness as something important to this Gypsy King. She wondered what else would surprise her about him.
Petronus
Two days after Sethbert’s visit the first supply wagons pushed their way along the ash-strewn road, delivering tools, food and clothing to the workers.
Petronus tasked Neb with inventoryin
g and assigning them. The boy was quick with a pencil and ciphers. Over the days, as word spread to the outlying villages, more workers drifted in. A few refugees-tradesfolk who’d relied on Windwir for their livelihood-showed up. And at least two Androfrancine caravans had stopped, en route to the Summer Palace to heed Pope Resolute’s call. When those wagons-and their Gray Guard contingents-stopped, Petronus marked his face with soot and talked to the ground, though he knew it was unlikely that anyone would recognize him.
But the boy recognized you, some part of him chided. Of course, the amazing thing about boys was that they actually paid attention to busts and portraits even when it seemed like they didn’t. But someday, he thought, someone who really knew you will recognize you. You were lucky with Sethbert, the same voice said.
Now that Introspect was dead, there were no other Androfrancines who knew about Petronus. And back at home, in Caldus Bay, the few still living who knew his secret were too grateful to have their limerick master back to ever break it. And of course, Vlad Li Tam had known. He’d helped locate the roots and flowers that Petronus’s particular poison had required, and had arranged for and financed the runaway Pope’s escort home after an appropriate period of time in hiding at House Li Tam on the Inner Emerald Coast.
The past hounds us all.
After leaving Neb, Petronus walked north, away from camp. When he’d first seen the wagon, he’d felt a surge of anger far more powerful than he expected. As if all his rage towards Sethbert for this senseless act of genocide was focused into one white-hot flame that could only see a wagon of tools and supplies. The anger was so powerful that it shook him, and now, at least thirty minutes later, he still felt the tension of it. As he walked, he found himself suddenly moving into a Francine meditation he used frequently when he’d been in Windwir.
He stopped and chuckled.
“Why are you so angry, old man?” he asked himself aloud.
Petronus felt the stirring of wind and heard the voice nearby. “Do you often talk to yourself?”
Petronus squinted but saw nothing. “I see you’re still around, Gregoric.”
“I am,” he said. “We ran in with the wagon. We’ve been gathering what information we can on Sethbert’s strength here.”
Petronus thought for a moment he saw faintest ghost of a dark silk sleeve. “Do you think the Wandering Army will return?”
“Unlikely.”
Of course, Petronus thought. If Rudolfo wars alone against the Named Lands, he’ll not make a stand here in the open. He’ll force a fight where he is most likely to win it-at the end of his opponent’s long march into the Prairie Sea, with winter fast approaching and Rudolfo’s Wandering Army defending their home from a backyard they no doubt knew how to use as a weapon.
“But it is good to know what you are up against,” Petronus said.
“And I fear we’re up against quite a lot,” Gregoric said. “I’ve had birds that say there are two armies on the move in addition to Sethbert’s.”
“They’re marching here?” Petronus asked, a bit surprised.
“They’ll stop here,” Gregoric said. “A good leader shows his men what they fight for, gives them a night to get drunk and rage over it, then points his army like burning arrow straight at the heart of his enemy.”
“They’re riding east, then?”
“Aye,” Gregoric said.?“ric/fo0;They are.”
Petronus chuckled, but it was a grim sound. “Then they’re fools.”
“Aye,” he said again. “They are. But they’ll come angry to our back door. We’ll still have all of the advantage… but also all of the risk.”
“Any word from Rudolfo?”
Gregoric didn’t say anything. After a moment, he changed the subject. “What were you so angry about?”
Petronus nodded slowly. “I was angry about Sethbert’s wagon of supply. The hypocrisy of it enraged me.”
He saw the faintest glimmer of a dark eye. “Perhaps it isn’t hypocrisy at all,” Gregoric said. “He’s burying his own dead-Marshers would hold him in high regard for such a thing.”
He felt another stab of anger that twisted into remorse. “Marshers are-” He stopped himself.
“In the end,” Gregoric said, “it doesn’t really matter as long as your men are fed and clothed. The rains are not so far away, afterwards the winds and snows. It’s already miserable work without the cold and wet. The outlying villages might be able to help some but that would be impossible to manage once the weather goes.”
Petronus wanted to tell him that he’d already solved that one. The arrangements he’d initiated with Vlad Li Tam before he learned that this clerk turned archbishop had gone and declared himself Pope would have ensured supplies and eventually guards and skilled laborers for as long as the work required.
“As long as the work gets done,” Petronus finally said.
“Be well, old man,” the Gypsy Scout said.
“Be safe, Gregoric,” Petronus answered.
Once he was alone, he turned back and looked across the expanse of black, studying the forest of bones. He could see now those places that were clear, and he could see the trenches where they dumped the wheelbarrowed dead.
He’s burying his own dead, Petronus thought. That’s what Gregoric said.
Petronus looked out at that field again.
And I am burying mine, he realized.
Chapter 15
Rudolfo
When they finished dinner, Rudolfo led Jin Li Tam to the sitting room and brought a bottle of cinnamon scented liquor and two metal glasses with him.
Before sitting, he looked back at Isaak. “And you’re certain that you can do this?”
Isaak’s eyes shuttered. “My limited understanding is that in matters of Shunning, communication privileges are not withheld. Your request does not interfere with my adherence to Androfrancine protocol.”
Rudolfo nodded. “Very well.”
He’d spent days in this room, hating the cage, and writing out carefully coded instructions to his scouts, to the stewards of his Ninefold Forest Houses and to the pontiffs. Of course, he’d assumed the messages would never be seen; it was more for his benefit that he wrote them. He would have burned them eventually… until the old Gray Guard captain had poked his head in to say he would be dining with his betrothed and the mechoservitor that was not to leave her side.
Now, Isaak sat slowly reading each document. Then later, in the same way Rudolfo hoped to rebuild the library, Isaak would conjure back each page exactly as Rudolfo had written it. Truly a miracle of mechanics.
After Isaak reproduced them, Jin Li Tam could pass them to the Gypsy Scouts that arrived with her. They in turn would run them to the half-squad that Rudolfo had left outside.
Rudolfo sat and poured liquor into the glasses. He held one out to her.
She took it and he found himself admiring her long slender fingers. He followed them, then caught the line of her wrist and lower arm. The gown she wore accentuated the line and grace of her and he’d found it hard to take his eyes off her.
Her father’s acceptance of him as suitor and declaration of their betrothal had surprised him a bit, but more surprising was that he’d not reversed it when Resolute took power. Of course, it also said something about the man. He was a Whymer Maze, to be sure, and he knew something or he would not gamble with his forty-second daughter.
But even more surprising than all of that was the sheer fairness of her. And the fierceness, too, Rudolfo saw. It was not unheard of for a woman to be taller than him, but she towered-and she held that poise as power in her fists. Her red hair, now pulled back and pinned to reveal her long neck and the curve of her jaw, threw back the lamplight. She was not overly slim, she had musc›m, Hle to her. But she also had curves and the gown played to all of them.
Beyond the beauty, intelligence shone in her eyes and wit played on her tongue and Rudolfo felt utterly charmed.
He studied her face, sipping the warm liquor. “How do you feel abou
t this… arrangement?”
She shrugged. “I am a daughter of House Li Tam. I am about my father’s business.”
Rudolfo smiled. “A proper response.” He leaned forward. “Are you always so careful, Lady?”
She took a drink from the metal cup, then put it down on the small pine table nearby. “Are you always so direct?”
“I am known for it when it suits me.”
He watched her face, finding her harder to read in this instance, now that the reading went deeper than food and drink. “I am intrigued by my father’s choice of strategy,” she finally said.
Rudolfo stroked his beard. “Your father studied with the Francines as a boy, yes?”
She nodded. “He did.”
“His move to humiliate Sethbert by so quickly aligning with his enemy-and so quickly endorsing our betrothal-shows that he learned well from them.” One of probably hundreds of actions Vlad Li Tam spun into his web in order to influence outcomes to his advantage. “I have always admired his strength.”
Jin inclined her head slightly. “My father has spoken highly of you and your house, as well.”
“Then you are not displeased with his decision?”
Her words were careful again. “My father is a brilliant man. I trust his judgment implicitly.”
Rudolfo refilled their cups. Back in the Ninefold Forest, they called this liquor Firespice. It was a blended spirit his people had brought across the Keeper’s Wall when the first Rudolfo settled the Prairie Sea. It was strong, and if the night went where it could, he thought it might help prepare them.
He sipped it and put down the cup. He looked over to Isaak, who sat at the table, humming quietly as he read Rudolfo’s stack of notes. The mechoservitor looked up and their eyes met for a moment.
Jin Li Tam followed his eye. “He is a wo›822/p›nder to behold,” she said.
Rudolfo leaned forward. “He is amazing, to be sure. But truthfully, Lady Tam, you are the only wonder in this room.”
