There were two long tables set beneath the awning, each with a pair of benches. They were packed with men in functional, filthy clothing who ranged in age from no older than Artus to no younger than her great grandfather. As the only women in the crowd, remaining inconspicuous would have been impossible, were it not for the shroud she had put over both of them. To the men, she looked like a young man of twenty with an honest face and a sturdy frame, and Bree looked like a bent-backed old man. They squeezed themselves into a spot on the bench. The men on either side were gray-bearded and bore more than a few scars on their arms, faces, and hands. They smelled like wet sheep.
“You have a look out, fella,” the man to her right said, nudging her. “Press-gang’s been by already today.”
Myreon managed a shallow smile. “Thanks.”
The man to Bree’s left spat in his soup for some reason and swished it around a bit before drinking. “Vora men. Just about picked us clean of the strongest backs by now. Next thing they’ll be coming for us.”
The first man grunted. “Done my time already, Stran. Got the paper what proves it, too.”
Stran shrugged, which meant Bree was forced to shrug as well as his arm was so close to hers. “I was there when you got it, Marsh. That battle up in Lake Country, laying siege to Lord Boring Face’s keep. Got an arrow through my hand, dammit—think I don’t remember? What’s it matter, though? That piece of paper don’t mean daisies—show it to the press man, and he’ll piss on it afore he claps a pot on your head and whips you into ranks.”
Myreon frowned. There had been a day when her first instinct would have been to suggest going to the Defenders. Not now, though. Lyrelle Reldamar’s voice echoed in her memory: “The Balance is, and ever has been, the status quo.”
It couldn’t be true, though. Justice wasn’t a fiction. The Defenders didn’t have to be the enemy.
Which means you think they’re the enemy now? Myreon grimaced at herself. Was I part of the problem, or was I different? She liked to think that she had been. With the distance of time and . . . perspective, she supposed was the word . . . well, maybe not. Maybe instead of chasing a petty thief like Tyvian all over the West, she might have spent her energies doing something more useful. More just.
“Been talk of the Gray Lady over in the Ayventry District,” one man farther down the table said. “Saying she saw to it fat old Andluss got that knife in the eye today.”
Stran hushed him. “Where you been talking about that, I wonder? Not near any mirror-man to hear, right? Not near any man a mirror-man has touched either?”
The man waved him off. “Bah—that ain’t true!”
Stran pounded the table. “’Tis! A mirror-man can use the ears of any man he’s touched—heard it in church, did I. Every man knows you can’t tell a lie in church.”
The man—he was skinny, young, not yet twenty—shrugged. “’Tisn’t me with the tongue for treason, anyhow. Take that assassin—he talked a good piece afore he got shorter. He yelled something in Akrallian.” The man squinted, trying to remember. “More O’Tirran?”
“Mort aux tyrans,” Myreon offered before she could stop herself. The men looked at her. She shrugged. “Means ‘death to tyrants.’ My da was from Camien.”
The skinny man nodded. “That was it. Anyway, heard some talk in the crowd. The Gray Lady is with us, they said. They know some underground folk who’s with her. Says they know how to beat the nobles’ magic and such.”
Silence at the table. The next table over was gathered around, too, all listening. Nobody said anything for a long moment. At last, Stran cleared his throat. “Any man here been touched by a mirror-man today?”
Everyone shook their heads.
Stran nodded. “Good.” He grabbed the skinny man by the collar and hauled him off his bench. Before the man could protest, Stran pushed him into the mud and kicked him in the backside until the rumormonger got up and ran off. Then Stran came back to the table. “There—all done with. Any man what goes to Dovechurch, Rose Hall, Bramble House, or the like with a pitchfork is dumber than a dead donkey. You all stay home, let these fools get themselves killed, and take all his work the next day. You’ll get double pay for a week and a half, is what I think of it.”
Men began to mutter among themselves. Myreon looked up at their faces—they looked tired, frightened, and more than a little underfed. Not starving and not hopeless—not yet. They were all men used to a better quality of life, she guessed. A quality of life they remembered no more than a year past, thanks to a plot none of them would ever know about or understand.
She cleared her throat. “He’s right, though.”
Bree, sullen in her broth, looked up. “What?”
Stran scowled. “Listen here, young feller—have I got to plant my boot in your breeches, too?”
Myreon fixed him with a steady stare. “I’ve no quarrel with you, old man. And you haven’t with me either. Don’t fret none about no mirror-men either.”
Stran grunted. “And why not?”
Bree chimed in. “Cause she . . . he’s under her protection.”
Silence. Marsh rubbed his beard. “Don’t suppose you can prove it, eh?”
Myreon grinned. She worked a quick heat ward on her hand and stuck it into the lantern flame. She left it there, the fire harmlessly licking her fingers. The men gasped. A few made the sign of Hann.
“I’m telling you she’s with you. The mirror-men can’t stop you.”
Stran snorted. “Says a young feller never seen a firepike volley before. I saw it.” He looked around at his audience. “Men charred and twisted, skin bubbling like lead in a fire. No sense fighting that, Gray Lady or not.”
“Sure there is,” Bree said. “There’s too many of us. They can’t shoot us all.”
Stran shrugged. “Of course they can. And what they don’t shoot, the sell-swords what the highfolk pay will see us dead just the same. Why spill blood just to lose?”
“Why starve just to keep your blood?” Myreon countered, standing up. “You think there’ll be a proper harvest this year? How many farmers’ fields will lie fallow? How much will the price of bread rise? We can’t let the nobles do this to us!”
Marsh nodded slowly. “The young man’s got a tongue on him. I’ll give him that.”
“Tongue or not, we’ve got no army.”
Bree snorted. “And what were all you men grousing about no more than a moment ago? Both of you were in the army. Every man here was in the army. You all know marching, weapons, the rest. What’s to stop you from joining together? What mercenary company will stand against all of you?”
“Your grandfather’s right.” Marsh flexed his bicep. Myreon had to admit it was pretty impressive. “I did a fair bit of soldierin’. So did half the old men in this city. The levies have been taking them regular for years.”
Stran sipped his broth. “I don’t like the highfolk any more than anybody else, but you need more than numbers and shovels to make ’em do anything but hang you.”
“I know something we got.” Myreon looked toward the sound of the voice, and saw a toothless old man raising his hand. “We’ve got Perwynnon’s son.”
“That’s right!” Marsh slapped the table. “Heard about that today!”
Myreon hid her reflexive scowl. At the mention of Perwynnon, something changed at the table. Men’s eyes were alight. Stran was stroking his beard now. “Name’s Waymar, I hear. They say he’s the spitting image of his father.”
“How do you know?”
The toothless man yelled, “I know! I met him!”
“Really?” Myreon stood up.
“He stopped at the Laketown toll and gave a patch of hard-luck farmers a handful of jewels.” The old man laughed. “Told them to tell old Wicker-tits Hesswyn that if she had a problem with it, to come look him up!”
Chuckles all around. A man at the back spoke up, “I heard a guildman say they saw him meeting with some mysterious woman this afternoon. Last they saw him he was going into
the sewer. Meeting with the Gray Lady, I’d wager.”
Someone else nodded. “Heard at the beheading today, a man in armor saved a peasant girl from a whole column of mirror-men! Said he was a handsome feller—charming, too, just like Perwynnon were!”
Marsh and Stran nodded. “Aye. Perwynnon were at that. Marsh and I joined his army back in the war—not more than boys, we were. Never saw action, but I did see Perwynnon.” Everyone fell silent, their eyes far away as Stran spoke. “Riding on a white charger, taller than any one of us, armor silver-bright, big smile on his face. He waved to us, got down off his horse, and shook hands.” Stran’s voice cracked a bit. “Just like a man. Touched me on the head and told me to keep my wits about me, to do him proud.”
Marsh nodded, rubbing at the edges of his eyes. “’Tis true. I was there.”
The gathering broke down into stories about Perwynnon—about his battles, his duels, his lovers, and his death. They all blamed someone different for the loss of their folk hero, but the supposed perpetrators all had two things in common: they were all members of the peerage, and they were all still alive.
Myreon listened, a feeling building in her. If only Tyvian would agree to help—would agree to lead these men—then big things could change. Justice could come to Eretheria. Lyrelle Reldamar would be proven wrong.
But he’d never agree. He did not embrace the new. Of all the things she had learned about him, this was the lesson she knew best. You could not ask him to change.
You had to make him.
For the first time in days, her task became clear.
She tapped Bree on the shoulder. “Stay here. You’ll be safe. The mirror-men don’t really want you, anyway.”
Bree blinked. “But . . . Magus—what are you doing?”
Stran, sitting next to her, cocked his head. “Magus?”
Myreon stood up and let her shroud drop in full view of anyone who bothered to look. She enchanted her staff to glow, setting her apart even more. “Remember, gentlemen,” she said, “the Gray Lady is with you. Your king is with you. Stand ready.”
Their eyes could not have gotten any larger. She turned away and walked toward the House of Eddon, not bothering to check if she were being followed.
Because she already knew she was.
Count Andluss’s eldest son was a puffy sixteen-year old who used too much glamour to cover up his atrocious acne. He seldom looked anyone in the eye, not even his servants, and his sword was clearly a decoration—more gold leaf than steel.
Sahand had little trouble explaining to the boy his new reality.
Simply put, that evening at dinner when Count Andluss the Younger sat at the head of the table, Sahand simply stood over him and pointed to the empty seat originally reserved for himself. The boy, pale as chalk, quickly got up and changed seats.
Sahand sat down and put one leg up over the arm rest. He could see a long table of fifteen people, all of them close relatives of the Urweel family, all of them aghast. Sahand grinned.
“Well, don’t hold back on my account,” he said, gesturing to the magnificent feast arrayed—a feast in honor of their deceased patriarch. “Eat! You will all need your strength for the funeral procession tomorrow. A long trip, as I understand it—the city of Ayventry is so far away.”
One of the guests, a viscount of some kind, cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon, Your Highness, but will you be joining in the procession?”
Sahand gulped down a glass of wine. “What? Me? No. I think not. I have too much to attend to in the city.”
“But . . .” The viscount paused. “. . . I thought your support was being martialed in our own provinces. Won’t you be needed to oversee? Especially now that . . .”
“Now that old Andluss got a dagger in his eye?” Sahand chuckled. He’d wished he’d been there to see it—gods, what a lucky stroke! He should have had that sweaty land whale of a Count murdered years ago.
Obviously the table was aghast. Just as obviously, Sahand didn’t give a damn. He speared a pheasant from a serving platter with a dagger and plonked it on his plate. “I give you my word that every arrangement I held with the deceased Count of Ayventry will be honored with the current Count of Ayventry. Is that sufficient?”
The viscount nodded, his lips pale. “Thank you, Your Highness.”
Sahand sliced off a leg of the pheasant. “What are friends for, eh?”
He laughed, long and hard. Soon, the table was laughing with him, though he doubted they had any idea why.
Later that night, in his chambers, Sahand pulled out his sending stone. It connected him with a chamber deep in the Bastion of Dellor, his castle in the distant north. Taking care to make certain he was not being spied upon, he whispered into the enchanted sphere. “There will be a spirit engine leaving Eretheria City tomorrow bearing the body of Count Andluss and several dozen of his most important retainers. Expect it in Ayventry by early evening.”
“What of this spirit engine, My Prince?” a voice whispered back—one of his more trusted lieutenants.
“Inform my forces to intercept and . . .” Sahand grinned. “. . . kill everyone on board.”
“Even the women and children?”
“Especially the children.” Sahand looked up at the tapestry in his room, depicting the many Urweel Counts and their various progeny. “Yes . . . especially those. The Urweels die tomorrow.”
“It will be done, My Prince.”
Chapter 21
The Makeup
As he predicted, it took Tyvian hours to get back to the House of Eddon in such a way that he felt confident he had not been followed. Much of this involved crawling through the sewers, and his attire was in a state commensurate with such activities. To say he was irritable was a vast, vast understatement.
It was late—well after sunset—and the salon had ended long ago. After ordering a bath drawn, he kicked open Artus’s door. The boy sat bolt upright, knife in one hand. He’s learning—I’ll give him that.
Artus blinked at the filthy smuggler in his doorway. “What the hell happened to you?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. How did this afternoon go?”
Artus went very still. “Ummm . . . pretty badly.”
Tyvian nodded. “How badly?”
“I punched Valen Hesswyn.” Artus tried to smile, but it didn’t quite work.
Tyvian pinched the bridge of his nose. “Kroth’s teeth. You got into a duel?”
“Two, actually.” Artus looked down at his hands. “That’s pretty bad, right?”
Tyvian slammed the door closed. He couldn’t deal with this right now. His whole body ached, he stank, and his plans were in shambles. The first two of his problems he could address. In the morning he’d address the third one.
His legs stiff, he dragged his feet up the stairs, one by one. Every step up left a black mark on the red carpeted stairs. Behind him, floating in the air, a serving specter wielded a brush and a bucket of water to clean up after him. He made a note to summon a Rhondian masseuse in the morning in the hopes that his stiff muscles might be hastened to recovery that way. Tyvian disliked massages, as a rule—he felt as though he were a slab of beef being tenderized—but desperate times . . .
The great brass bathtub was piping hot by the time he got to his chambers, staggering along like the living dead. He stripped off the too-large peasant tunic and threw it in the fire—he’d be damned if he’d ever wear that again. He meant to unlace his shirt, too, but his arm cramped up, leaving him unable to do it without flailing around. He might have asked the specters, but they were still busy cleaning up the stains his passing had caused and in that endeavor he did not wish to distract them.
He tried to focus on the bath, but the failure of Artus and Hool that day threatened to overwhelm him. Sure, he’d wanted them to fail, but not this much! He felt like the only person he knew who understood the danger they were in and how to solve it. It occurred to him that this was the first time he had felt this alone in a long whil
e. It was strange. There was a time when Tyvian spent literally years by himself, skipping from one plot to another, one step ahead of the Defenders. His life had been a single, unbroken adrenaline rush. He had won big and lost big, and he travelled the world in a fine shirt with nothing more than Chance and his wits to defend him. He remembered loving it. Now, the isolation of his princely chambers made him brood.
Tyvian stood, forcing his stiff body to go through a variety of footwork exercises to take his mind off maudlin topics like “being worried about other people.” He rested in the en garde position, quickly and precisely advancing and retreating and then lunging at nothing—his recovering muscles obeyed, if reluctantly. He was getting better. He felt a hundred times better each night. One good bath and a good night’s sleep, and he’d be his old self again.
Or would he?
Had he, Tyvian Reldamar, actually settled down? Myreon talked about all of them living in a bubble, but he’d taken that to mean that they’d let their guard down temporarily, not that he or Artus or Hool had actually removed themselves from the “game,” as it were. The idea, as it struck him, came as a shock.
But what was even more shocking was this question: did he prefer it that way?
Tyvian had just argued with a beautiful woman who wanted to embark on a daring adventure and, instead, he had suggested that staying home and eating good cheese was the better call. He ran a hand through his hair. “Hann’s Boots, I’m becoming positively dull.”
“Tyvian?” He looked up—Myreon was in the doorway. She’d come back. Thank the gods. “What happened to you?”
Tyvian grunted, unwilling to reveal how excited he was to actually see her. After that afternoon, he hadn’t had the highest hopes. “Your former colleagues forced me to take a little tour of the sewers—you’re familiar with the place, I’m sure.”
Myreon seemed to deflate somewhat. “Look . . . I’m sorry. I should have told you what I was doing.”
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