The Seer - eARC

by Sonia Lyris

  “No, ser.”

  One of the things Innel had allowed the old king to keep was curled up like a cat on a palette on the floor, her blond hair a tangled, pale waterfall, her beauty still breathtaking.

  Restarn looked up at Innel from the bed through half-closed eyes, his small form so withered and sunken that he was nearly lost in the sea of blankets. The room stank of herbs and sickness.

  “Blessings of the season to you, Sire,” Innel said, aware that it was winter.

  From the bed it seemed a very different man who stared at him, not much like the man whose gaze Innel had grown up under. He cautioned himself to be wary; fifty-six years of rule did not happen by lucky accident.

  Naulen looked up at Innel, her perfect mouth and blue eyes wide, face like a frightened faun, no doubt intended to evoke in him a desire to protect.

  “Leave,” he said, suddenly disgusted with her. She stood gracefully, quick and lithe, clutching the edges of her tunic, and fled the room. Restarn’s eyes opened. He watched her go.

  How ill was he? He was tempted to ask Marisel.

  But no, not only did he want her focus on the search for the seer, he didn’t want her tempted to improve the man’s condition. Despite the very expensive contract, Marisel dua Mage was answerable only to herself. He would trust the doctor, whose loyalty he could control.

  “Innel,” Restarn said in a raspy voice, drawing the name out. “At last. What is it this time? Did you drop the signet down the shithole? Want to know how much to pay a down-city whore?”

  Every time Innel came here, he had more sympathy for Cern’s moods.

  “I came to see you,” Innel said. “And now that I have, I will go.”

  “The girl,” Restarn said. “That was thoughtful of you.”

  It brought him up short, this rare appreciation. “Yes, it was.”

  “So?” Restarn asked. “What is it? What do you want?”

  “I had questions.” About the tribes and towns now resisting Arunkel protection, which they had previously been happy to accept. About the one tribe that had sovereign status within Arunkel borders. About arrangements that had never been written, agreements with Houses. Things Restarn knew that he needed to know. That Cern needed to know but would never ask her father.

  But suddenly he did not want to be here, playing this game. “I see how sick you are, Sire. I will not trouble you.” A lifetime’s worth of anger seemed to come over him at once, tightening his throat. He went to the door.

  “Don’t be a fool, Innel. Stay and talk to me.”

  He turned back. “You will tell me what you know.” A half-question.

  “That may take a while. A little today, perhaps a little tomorrow. I tire easily, as you keep pointing out.”

  Innel gritted his teeth. What choice did he have? He took a step back toward the bed. “The Houses claim you made them various promises. Some of them are clearly invented. Treasury ledgers aren’t balancing. The Teva—I saw some in Arteni, riding those strange laughing horses. Could they be supporting the rebelling mining villages? Garaya’s taxes are short again. Start by telling me about the Houses.”

  An annoyed grunt as the old king slowly sat up and then drank from a nearby cup. Innel did not offer to help.

  “I want to see my daughter.”

  “She’s busy.”

  “You can make her come to me, Innel. I know you can.”

  Innel gave a humorless laugh. “I rather doubt that.”

  The king looked at him, silent a moment. “You took my dogs away. Bring them back.”

  “I will look into it. But first—”

  “Don’t trust the Houses.”

  “Yes, I know that, but did you promise—”

  “Of course I did.”

  “What exactly—”

  He waved a hand, as if it were of no consequence. “Make them new promises. As long as nothing’s written or witnessed, you can play them like two-head.”

  Innel frowned. “But—”

  “Remember the Karmarn Range battle? No, of course not—you were an infant. False understanding of the enemy, boy. Kill you every time. We had ten companies. No, fifteen. All those villages with their adorable little farms and trout streams? Should have been easy. Wasn’t. The Teva made that win for us. Those laughing horses. I’d trade every hoof in my stables for a breeding pair.” He snorted. “Don’t make enemies of the Teva. Forget Garaya. Get me my dogs.” He coughed a little and lay back.

  “Sire. I need to know exactly what you said to the Houses.”

  “Bring the dogs tomorrow. I’ll tell you about the Battle of Uled and exactly how your father died. He was a hero, boy. You know that? Seems a good place to start, don’t you think?”

  At a long table sat the queen, Innel, and the ministers of Accounts, Coin, and Treasury. At the other end were many tens of large books, most open, a number of clerks standing beyond.

  “Your Majesty,” said the Minister of Accounts, a man with a roundish face. “It is not possible to make the numbers come out equivalent. There are simply too many variables to be tallied thus. For example, accounting for our changing currency and metals markets—”

  “Yes, that,” the Minister of Coin broke in, her voice throaty and soft. “Now that we are modifying the coinage to reflect Your Majesty’s new and may I say exceptionally handsome visage, invariably there will be some shifting in value of the old coinage being returned, and we must—”

  “Allow me,” said the Minister of Treasury. “To account for that difference, these minor inconsistencies, our agencies make adjustments. Do you see . . .” He motioned to three clerks who hurried over with books, opening each of them in front of Cern in sequence. “Do you see here, and here, and here, and how those numbers are the same?”

  “Yes,” Cern said, uncertainly.

  Innel rubbed a hand across his eyes, spared a glance for Nalas and Srel at the side of the room.

  “Just a moment,” Innel said. “Do I correctly understand that we are losing fifteen parts in a thousand of our tax and levy revenue to—what do you call it—inconsistencies?”

  The Minister of Accounts was already shaking his head. “Not at all, ser. The adjustments account for these differences, which I have already explained, so that the ledgers tally, here”—another clerk, another book of numbers opened, and a finger pointing to a particular line—“and in the master ledger, equal to the amount here, in the coinage and collections books. Do you see?”

  “Are we losing money or not?” Innel asked.

  “It is hardly that simple, ser,” the Minister of Accounts replied with poorly veiled condescension before turning back to the queen, his expression tidy again. “Your Majesty, these practices are entirely consistent with those that His Royal Majesty Restarn esse Arunkel approved for the entirety of his 56-year rule. Nothing here is in error. Furthermore, the treasury is robust.”

  “Inconsistencies, you called them,” Innel said. “Does that mean the clerks can’t read each other’s numbers? Do they need handwriting lessons? Or do you mean something else?”

  “Perhaps the Lord Commander’s attention might be better spent overseeing the security of the empire, Your Majesty?” the Minister of Treasury asked the queen.

  “I assure you that I—” Innel began.

  “You must be so very busy in this difficult time,” said the Minister of Coin to Innel, her face a sudden mask of sympathy.

  “Yes, of course, but that isn’t the point.”

  The Minister of Accounts looked at Innel. “Ser, no monarch in near a thousand years has been able to remove all of the minor record-keeping inconsistencies that naturally arise in the course of accounting. Do you think we ought to be more capable than our esteemed ancestors?”

  “You call them inconsistencies—” Innel tried again.

  The Minister of Treasury stroked his bare chin as he spoke in a flat tone. “We are happy to call it anything you like, Lord Commander, though what this has to do with the administration of the armed fo
rces is really quite unclear to me.”

  “The military accounts for a large portion of the crown’s expenditures. If there’s corruption, and I suggest we call it that, because I think that’s the word you’re looking for, then those missing funds are not going to horses and wagons, ships and soldiers. The crown does not keep its influence across the empire merely by fattening the purses and midlines of aristos and bureaucrats.”

  “Of course not, ser,” replied the Minister of Coin without so much as a hint of a smile. “That’s why we have the Charter Court.”

  For a moment Innel suspected the minister of humor.

  “Innel,” Cern said. “Perhaps they’re right. They have been doing their jobs for some time.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” replied the Minister of Accounts with obvious relief. “We are grateful to you for your confidence in us. We do know our trade; we have devoted our lives to it.”

  It was too rich not to respond to, but Cern’s hand was on Innel’s, keeping him from replying. With effort he stayed silent.

  “We are done for now,” she said. “You may all go.”

  The ministers stood, bowed deeply and stayed bowed for the time it took their clerks to bow to Cern, gather the books, and somehow bow again with the books in hand. The crowd backed out of the door.

  “You, too,” Cern said to Nalas and Srel, who left much more quickly.

  “Your Majesty—” Innel began as soon as they were alone.

  “Innel, we can’t fight on every front. You yourself told me that I needed to trust my ministers. Do you intend to restructure the treasury? Audit all the ledgers? Count all the coins in the mint?”

  “The numbers—”

  “It’s paper and ink, Innel. Not the thing it represents, which comes from the empire’s lands and her subjects. The treasury is, as they say, healthy, and you, I think, do indeed have other things wanting your attention. Is this not so?”

  It was. He nodded uneasily.

  The books were wrong. Given how much he himself was tapping the very healthy treasury, hiding some expenses in the complications of accounting, he knew perfectly well they were missing something. And if they were missing one thing, they were certainly missing more than that.

  So it nagged at him. But she was right, and it was, perhaps, best to let it sit quiet for a time.

  Innel glanced at Nalas standing at the window, watching Execution Square’s single resident this cold spring morning.

  Colonel Tierda stood at attention in front of him, her eyes flickering to the same view before returning to look straight ahead. She would be keenly aware that he would not have called her back from Sinetel if he had been pleased.

  Outside, now at day four, the man was still and impressively alive. Around his neck was a leather thong, tight enough to have sunken into the red and swollen skin of his neck. His hands were tied behind him, only the noose keeping him from falling over. The other end of the leather thong traveled over a scaffold, where it was counter-balanced by a series of lead weights attached to a water bag just in reach of the man’s mouth.

  As Innel watched, the man turned to the nipple of the water bag, legs trembling. Then, instead of drinking, he turned his head away, expression a mix of agony and resolve. Thus the balance of water did not shift, the weights remained the same, and the noose did not tighten.

  The man’s self-control was admirable, but eventually he would be thirsty enough to drink, and the noose would tighten sufficiently to slowly strangle him. The tricky part of the contraption was making sure the water nipple was always close to the man’s mouth. Putar was to be congratulated for the design.

  Had Innel cared to bet, he would give the man until sunrise tomorrow to succumb. A handful of men and women who did care to bet stood at the edge of the square, hunched over, wagering on the man’s future: days he would live, times he would cry out, sips it would take before he died.

  In their youth, Innel and his brother had slipped in among those wagering to hone their understanding of the process. They had gotten good return for a time, and then Mulack had reported them to the king, and they had been instructed to stop.

  For a time after the coronation, executions had fallen off and the in-city holding dungeons had swollen to capacity. Innel had given Putar a position in the complicated hierarchy of the execution team and told them to clear it out. Now Yarpin’s criminal population was cautious again.

  Innel considered Tierda, still standing silently in front of them. When her reports by messenger bird were not encouraging, then were not detailed, he had sent for her. Disruptive, he knew, to take her away from the conflict. “I would have thought three months and four companies enough to quell the trouble at Sinetel. What is the problem, Colonel?”

  A tense exhale. “Ser, the townspeople hide in the woods, picking us off as we approach. They know the mountains better than we do.”

  He wanted to tell her this was a weak excuse, that other mining villages along the northern range were watching, slowing the ore they owed the capital city. That every month this continued, the crown looked increasingly impotent. “You must end this treasonous resistance, Colonel.”

  “Yes, ser.” From her tone and expression, he could tell there was something else she didn’t want to say.

  “Speak.”

  “Not all those hiding in the woods are townspeople,” she said reluctantly. “Some are ours.”

  “Ours? What do you mean?”

  “Deserters, ser.”

  Innel scowled. “How many?”

  “Perhaps—five in a hundred, ser.”

  At this Innel stood. “That many?”

  “Yes, Lord Commander. I—ah. I think they may be aiding the insurgents, from some of the”—she hesitated. “Arrows we are now facing. Our arrows.”

  Tierda, he reminded himself, had a fine grasp of tactics and a fast eye. Her troops respected her. She was far from incompetent.

  “Bring them back for me, Colonel. I want the deserters there.” He pointed out the window.

  She followed his look. “I assure you, ser, I’ve done everything I can. I—”

  “I know. Enough.”

  There must be a way to encourage the soldiers to continue to fight, beyond the threat of death.

  “Settler’s rights to the soldiers if this is won,” he said. “Provisional land grants, certified only after they produce at least two heirs who have come of age in their homes.” Land and children tended to effectively turn soldiers into loyal citizens, keeping them where they were put. Better to lose soldiers to the countryside than to the rebels.

  “Yes, ser.”

  “Land and children,” he muttered. “Your child. He now lives with your sister’s family.”

  She paled, swallowed. He knew the trouble she had gotten into under Lason, having the boy at her high rank.

  “He belongs to my sister’s family now,” she said, keeping her look distant.

  “A mistake anyone could have made,” he said, watching her face. “Was it? A mistake?”

  She focused on him, clearly considering what might be the prudent answer. She exhaled. “No, ser, it was not.”

  Good; she had spoken directly, even under this duress. She didn’t know, and he wouldn’t tell her, but this had been his test of keeping her rank, that she would speak truthfully to him.

  “I’m not Lason,” he said. “I don’t care if you drink or smoke or make babies. I care that you win. If your command suffers for any reason, I’ll take it from you. If it’s a child, I’ll feed it to the royal pigs. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she said, her lips twitching in a near-smile, then sobering, as if she had suddenly decided he was not joking at all.

  Good. Now for the reassurance.

  “Some people think women make better commanders. What do you think, Colonel?”

  “Some do, ser.”

  “Well said. If it were up to me, every soldier, man or woman, would bear at least one brat before taking a command position. The pain yo
u go through makes you better equipped to understand the necessities of battle.”

  “I’d have to agree with that, ser.”

  “And less hesitant to share pain. On your way back to Sinetel, go through the other mining villages. Make sure they know the price for disobeying the queen’s orders. Examples should be clear and easy to understand, and, like the broken toes, should not prevent them from working the mines. We must keep the ore flowing.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “I will expect to hear of your successes soon.”

  She bowed her head and left, looking in equal measures relieved and troubled.

  Innel sat back in his chair, taking a long look at the young man who stood at attention on the other side of his desk. He thought of his mother, then of Cahlen, and found himself oddly at a loss as to what he might say.

  The man was twitching, struggling to hold still. Nervous. More nervous than surprised.

  “Selamu, is it? Selamu al Garaya, yes?”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Innel was fiddling with Pohut’s arrowhead. If his brother had still been alive, if they had come to power together as they should have, as they had planned to, he had no doubt Pohut would be the one to handle this now. What would his brother have said?

  “How long have you been sleeping with my sister?” he demanded.

  Not that, he was sure, as soon as the words left his mouth.

  “Ser.” The man’s mouth moved silently for a moment, and he gulped as if he did not have enough air. “Some three months, ser.” It came out a croaking sound.

  “And what advantages do you think this gains you?”

  “Ser Lord Commander?”

  “Don’t fence with me. I’ll win. No delay, either. Speak.”

  Selamu’s eyes went as wide as they could go, and he swallowed over and over.

  Innel sighed with frustration. Now he had terrified the man into silence. He looked at the arrowhead, put it on the table, clicked it against the wood while he considered. “Answer,” he said, trying for a gentler tone, suspecting he was not succeeding.

  “She’s beautiful, ser.”

  “Cahlen,” Innel said, not quite a question. “My sister? What are you attempting here? What do you hope to acquire in this?”