by Alma Boykin
“Agreed, my lady.”
They walked into the receiving room and she nodded to Duke Matthew Starland. He smiled back. The older he became, the more he looked like his father, but with his mother’s lighter build. “Welcome back, Elizabeth.” He offered his hand and they shook. “Horse, mule, or floor?”
“Horse this time. I do wish Godown, in His grace, had made ground softer to land on.” She kept her tone light so he knew it was a joke.
The dark-featured, beak-nosed duke laughed. “Truly the horseman’s prayer, Elizabeth. I trust all is well, otherwise?”
“Yes, thank you.” She turned to the right, allowing Marlow Eulenberg to join them.
Count Eulenberg bowed to Matthew. “Your grace.”
The two dukes exchanged tired looks. You outrank me because you are a duke by birth and I’m only a lord’s daughter, but I’m an Imperial duchess and senior in my title, as well as being a marshal of the Empire. So I should outrank you, except your title is older than mine. And Marlow knows better than to ignore me.
More nobles appeared, inquiring about the campaign and her thoughts on the southern situation. No one mentioned Count Hoffman’s little mishap and she wondered if he’d been able to hush it up. Not in the state he was in. I hope all he had was a concussion and not bleeding inside his head.
Three loud bangs warned everyone to turn and face the ornate chair at the head of the room. Elizabeth curtsied and the others bowed as his majesty Emperor Thomas II entered the room and took his seat. The young man, in his mid thirties, had his father’s height and dark hair and skin, but where Rudolph had been dangerously thin, Thomas resembled his rounder mother. “You may rise,” he called, pitching his voice lower than its usual light tone.
The council members stood up and shifted, taking their usual sides. Starland, Sarmas, and Eulenberg formed a loose triangle. Across the room, Lewis Midland, Count Gerald Jones and Duke Paul Clellan stood together. The other nobles present scattered out between the two groups.
“Duchess Sarmas,” Emperor Thomas called. She walked forward and curtsied again. “Welcome home, Duchess Sarmas. It pleases me that Godown granted you safe return this season, although success would have been even more welcome.”
“Thank you, your majesty. Godown has indeed been gracious, His name be praised.” She stopped there. You’re in no shape to fight a battle of words this afternoon. Save it for your reports and briefing.
“I understand that your parade mount killed Count Hoffman’s prize stud yesterday.”
She blinked as mutters rose behind her. “Maldonado defended himself after being attacked, yes, your majesty. Count Hoffman failed to yield when I had the right of way at the jump and failed to check his mount, leading to the fight and his horse’s injury. I take it the stud could not be saved?”
“No. The horse master deemed the injury too severe, and the beast lost too much blood.”
Blast. “And Count Hoffman’s condition, your majesty?”
The answer came from behind her. “He remains under close watch, but has regained his senses, although he is not yet out of danger, Sarmas.” Clellan’s voice always set her teeth on edge. He had a silky way of speaking and others seemed to appreciate his warm, mellow tone, but it raised her hackles. He sounds like Eric Windthorst is why.
“Godown be thanked for that, Duke Clellan. Head injuries are terrifying things.”
“Indeed they are,” Emperor Thomas agreed. “Bones mend, minds do not.”
Is that a warning that I’m going to be charged life-price for Hoffman? He’s not worth the cost of the pistol that shot his horse. She hid her thoughts well behind her expression.
“Because of your injuries and exhaustion, you are not expected to participate in this afternoon’s business, Duchess Sarmas,” Thomas interrupted her train of thought. “You may give your full formal report at a later time.”
“Thank you, your majesty. Your consideration is much appreciated.” She bowed a little and retreated two paces, clearing the floor for business.
3
Florabi
“…And in short I did not need to be there,” she finished.
Lazlo rubbed under his nose. “I think you did, my lady. Not just to prove that you were indeed injured yesterday, but to remind them that you are back and you must have a chance to present your account of the campaign.”
“Which raises a question.” She shook out her right hand after setting down the pen first, this time. “Do you recall when, as in what date, Emperor Rudolph raised Paul Clellan to the dukedom? And why?”
Lazlo straightened up, folded his arms, and studied the ceiling. “Five years ago? We were campaigning down in Scheel, and he’d been ennobled during the campaign season, I think, my lady.” He ran a hand over his hair. “Or it could have been seven years ago. I’ve been busy since then.”
“Yes, you have, and I am very, very grateful that Godown saw fit to put you in my life Colonel, because otherwise I’d be standing on the banks of the Donau Novi wondering where I’d left my baggage train and my wits both.” She smiled up at him as warmly as she could. “And I’d be even farther behind with,” she waved at the slowly shrinking pile of correspondence. “So. Court appearance done, first I need to finish this, I need you to go over my officer evaluations, and then we need to draw up the campaign report. Oh, and take a close look at the artillery materials expenditure, please. Something seems, I don’t know. The numbers look far too low, especially give that we had both field pieces and the siege guns with us this year.”
“Very good, you grace. Not all by this evening, I trust?” She shook her head and he bowed a little. They went through the papers to sort out what he needed for his work, and he carried them down the hall to his own office. After this long they knew that each needed a separate space to work in. His supply and logistics files easily filled a small room much as Elizabeth’s own books, maps, and papers overflowed her office and spilled into Donatello House’s library. She’d been in his space enough to know better than to disturb his organization. And Lazlo moved when he worked, twitching, patting his foot, smoking a pipe if he really needed to focus. It drove Elizabeth around the bend. She in turn scribbled notes on official documents and on scraps of paper that littered the floor around her desk by the end of the day, irritating her organized and orderly husband to no end. She expected the servants to take care of her, while he preferred to see to his own needs. They worked very well together, just not in the same room.
Elizabeth picked up her pen again, dipped it, and began more notes. Ah, campaign season. When I can leave politics behind and concentrate on doing what Godown called me to do. Or would be able to do what I’m called to do, if people would leave me alone to do it. And not drag religion into warfare, the Turkowi and their goddess Selkow aside, of course. Amazing, how much less aggressive Selkow’s followers became after we killed so many of her Chosen Acolytes and beat the Turkowi back to the Grimmly Hills. She smiled at the thought of past successes. And fond memories will not get this done, alas.
“Scritch, scratch, rustle, rustle,” and the afternoon passed, if not quickly, at least not as painfully as the previous day had been. Her head still throbbed by the time she finished the largest stack of papers, however. “Huh.” She held a page up, moving it a little farther away. The words grew sharper and easier to read. “Drat.” Her gusty sigh lifted a page off the closest stack and she watched it flutter gracefully to the floor. She was getting old.
At least things were not as bad as they’d first seemed, at least on paper. Elizabeth closed the inkwell, wiped the pens clean with a damp bit of rag, and sat back, rereading her condensed notes. The Frankonians had limited their activities north of the Triangle Range to harassing the Sea Republics’ shipping, something the Eastern Empire could do nothing about. But the Bergenlands and other states had been left alone for the first time in several years. She made a small mark beside that information—it could prove vital. There had been rumors of Frankonian incursions, as usual,
but nothing real. Even better in some ways, none of the bridges or main roads had suffered serious damage during the spring rises, and Godown in His grace had granted the lands within the Empire a bountiful and healthy summer, free from major disease outbreaks or crop and livestock losses. Trade remained strong, even after allowing for the closure of the northern ports and the Tongue Sea shipping due to the plague. “Is that why Clellan is focusing on the southern campaign?” she asked the shadows in the room. “Because there’s nothing else to worry about?”
The shadows gave no answer. Perhaps there was no answer, and she and Paul Clellan simply rubbed eachother the wrong way. That he leaned toward St. Mou’s interpretation of the Great Fires meant he’d be suspicious of her from the outset. She scooted the chair back and stood up, taking care not to jostle her arm this time. At least it’s my left shoulder so I can still write and ride, she thought yet again. She put out the lamps, confirmed that no papers or books had ended up near the stove, and locked the office. Time to see how my latest finds cleaned up. She waved away David and one of the maids before they could bother her, and retreated to her small workroom, the one only she could enter.
Once inside she opened the shutters on the window, lit a lamp, and wrinkled her nose at the faint fishy smell. She preferred earthoil when it got to the market, but earthoil cost more than fish oil. Elizabeth set the lamp near her worktable and laid out a bit of toweling. “So, how do you look, whatever you are? Ah, very nice!” She lifted a piece of ancient metal and glass out of the pan of now-dirty water it had been soaking in. Lazlo was right—she was as bad as a sparkseeker bird when it came to picking up shiny things. As she turned the milky piece, the colors shifted, more reds becoming visible in the fragment. The shiny silver metal frame, or what remained of it, had been engraved with a geometric pattern, almost like the teeth of a tiny gear. “What were you?” She asked the metal and glass. But they could not answer, unlike the timepiece found on Donatello Bend thirty years before. That now resided on the altar of her chapel. She’d hated giving it up, but she’d promised it to Godown if He’d grant her Lazlo’s safe return from the raid against the Turkowi that hard winter.
“Well,” she told the mysterious thing, “I think you will make a lovely necklace or bracelet.” She dried the piece and set it aside, then pulled a flat case out of a drawer and opened it. Metal gleamed in the waning fall sunlight and Elizabeth sighed happily. Each bit of glass or metal, and a few shards of plaztik, reminded her of what had once been and could be again, Godown willing. She picked out a silver chain. Five small pieces of green plaztik, each decorated with beautiful geometric patterns in sliver wire finer than her hair, hung from the chain. I wish I could wear you with that new dress I ordered for Winter Fair, but too many people would fuss. What were you, anyway? Not jewelry, I’m certain of that at least. The Babenburg family had a few sets of Lander jewelry in the Imperial treasury, and the ornate pieces of glass, gold, and precious stones looked nothing like the green and silver plaques. She set the necklace back in the case.
Next Elizabeth picked up a polished blue-green metal cylinder with a loop in the end, running her finger along the cool, perfectly smooth surface. She’d found it in an abandoned Lander mine in the hills of Frankonia on the day after she’d begun her flight to the Empire. There had been much more in that cave, and some nights she still dreamed of going back and rescuing the machines she’d glimpsed. But it could never happen, not even if Laurence V permitted her to return. Even Lazlo would refuse to help. And someone would probably try to kill me for blasphemy, even though there’s nothing in the Holy Writ about Lander technology. I should know. Do some of St. Mou’s followers even read the Writ, all of it? It was uncharitable, but she really wondered. And why did they not complain about the Babenburgs’ rule, since the first Babenburg had been the water engineer in Vindobona when the Fires came, and it was Lander technology that kept Vindobona’s water supplies safe to use. Even worse, the Imperial palace still sported electric lights and plaztik. And yet the Fires had not fallen down to consume the palace, at least not as of that morning.
“Well, tomorrow will come early and I need to be ready for it.” She tidied her worktable and emptied out the rinse water, filtering it through a fine sieve and cloth first, in case any flakes of metal might have come off with the dirt. She locked everything, put out the lamp, shut the shutters, and went to have a bath before supper.
She and Lazlo ate lightly, then walked through the dark streets, past the other town palaces and onto the High Street, to the chapel of St. Kiara. She’d agreed to come with him for the vigil despite her broken bone. The Feast of St. Kiara, his name patron, meant a great deal to him. Once inside they bowed to Godown’s Presence and Lazlo lit two candles, thick tapers meant to last the night, and set them on the sides of the rack for other worshippers to use to light their smaller petition candles. The couple took places a few rows back from the altar rail, close enough to see but far enough to leave room for people coming and going. Elizabeth folded her thick skirts into a pad under her knees. Unlike her personal chapels, this working-class chapel did not have cushions on the kneelers. Lazlo knelt beside her, and they began to recite the bead prayers.
The pattern of prayers and responses, as familiar as breathing, came easily. She’d missed the luxury of the full prayer cycle during the campaign season, and added a quick prayer of thanks for the chance to live to return to Vindobona and to attend formal liturgy. The cool glass beads passed through her fingers over and over as the hours passed. The candles beside the image of St. Kiara dwindled and a priest replaced them, moving the older, still-burning tapers onto the high altar. She stole a glance at Lazlo. Totally enwrapped in his prayers and meditations, he could have been a statue himself. She returned her attention to St. Kiara, the patron of seekers. Kiara’s flame always burned clearly, lighting the way through confusion and spiritual darkness, helping those struggling to discern Godown’s will and truth. Holy Godown, Lord of the night who sees all that is dark to our eyes, guide Your children. Holy Godown, Lord of the night who hung the stars and scattered the planets, hear Your children who are small in Your great universe. Another bead passed through her fingers and she fought off a yawn despite her aching shoulder and hip. Holy Godown, Lord of the night, He who sleeps not, help Your children in their watches.
She and Lazlo left a few hours before dawn. They went home and napped, then walked through the still quiet streets to St. Gerald’s cathedral, the spiritual heart of Vindobona. They bowed to the Presence and took seats near the front of the great church, close to St. Gerald’s image. A bell tolled and the first threads of incense rose into the air as the Archbishop sang, “Holy Godown, Lord of Morning, Light of all Lights, we bless Your name.”
“Holy Godown, Lord of Morning, bless us this day,” the worshippers sang back, beginning the liturgy of the feast of St. Kiara. Elizabeth partook of the service with a grateful heart and lost herself in the rhythms and patterns of worship. When the time came, she and Lazlo joined the line of congregants at the altar rail, bowing and taking the bread and receiving the oil. The bread tasted like the food of paradise to her, and the anointing oil soothed her soul.
Once worship ended, Elizabeth and Lazlo stopped by the side-altar of St. Michael-Herdsman to make a special offering. As they finished, she heard an unpleasant, oily-smooth voice declare, “Duchess Sarmas, this is a surprise.” Lazlo tightened his grip on her arm under the cover of helping her rise to her feet. They turned to see Paul Clellan and a number of his supporters, all of them wearing the red and black badges of St. Mou. Clellan continued, “I wasn’t aware you were religious.”
Are you lying or truly that ignorant? No, not now, not here, she warned her prickly temper. “We all serve Godown in our own ways, Duke Clellan, just as He gives us different gifts and callings.”
“Quite true, and He gives us discernment if we choose to use it. A good day to you, and to you, Colonel.”
“Godown’s blessings with you this day,” she offe
red in return.
“Good day, your grace,” Lazlo choked out. They waited until Clellan’s group had swept out of the cathedral before making their own departure.
No one else seemed to have been caught in the power play, and a few of the other early-risers nodded to Elizabeth, who nodded and smiled back. By now everyone knew she was not just a servant or shop woman, but they pretended otherwise. Godown made all people equal in spirit, after all, and those attending dawn worship tended to be more interested in devotion than in being seen.
“Are you going to noon liturgy at St. Kiara’s, Colonel?” She asked as they walked back to Donatello House.
“No, my lady. I spoke with Father Pascual yesterday and received a dispensation, in light of current events. I don’t want anyone disturbing worship just because I’m there.” She felt his tension as he gripped her arm, his fingers shaking. “Especially after what just happened.” They walked a little farther, being very careful to stop and check for slops flying out of the open doors and gates. They’d both been surprised before. Half-way back to Donatello House the couple detoured off the direct route and he ventured, “My lady, does he truly not know what you were?”
“I wondered, too. I see no reason to enlighten him if he does not.” They stopped at a little house-corner chapel to St. Sabrina and she left a few coins before they continued on.
They napped again once they got home. The sworn postulant who could do an all-night vigil, morning and noon prayers, and then work until sunset is no more. She yawned and began stretching her arms. The broken bones shifted and she flinched, causing a muscle spasm. Owwww. Not smart, that. She’d given the servants a half-holiday, so nothing stirred in the house until noon, including Duchess Sarmas and her chief aid.
