by M. A. Ray
“They got her.”
She sagged against Sir Hui again. “Let’s go back in,” she said. To her credit, Gudrun refrained from an I told you so. She only lifted Disa in sooty arms.
“Thank you, Sir Hui,” Disa said graciously.
“My pleasure, ma’am,” he said, and bounded down the steps.
“Wait!” Flannery shouted after him. “Sir Hui, did the king remember?”
“Of course he did, sweetie!” Sir Hui called back, grinning over his shoulder. “His name was Chuang, and he was the greatest king ever to rule Kuo.” He gave her a jaunty wave as he leapt down the last two steps to the street and set off toward Knights’ Headquarters.
“Come, Flannery,” Gudrun said, and they went into the Cathedral. Inside, beneath the rich scents of the incense the under-priests already burned, it stank of charred, wet wool.
“Take me up there a moment,” Disa said, though all she'd wanted to do for hours was sleep. When Gudrun sighed and obeyed, she said to the under-priests, “Burn some myrrh for Solveig tonight, when you're doing the commendations.” When the affirmative came, Gudrun was already making her way out of the sanctuary to Disa’s apartments, so that the distance blurred the words. “Take me to my study, Gudrun, and fetch me a dressing gown,” she ordered.
“Bed would be better.”
“The study,” Disa said, as firmly as she could. She wanted to get a start on the paperwork for replacing the carpet. “But—perhaps you ought to remain nearby.”
“I’d do that even if you told me not to,” Gudrun said, with the faintest trace of a smile.
Disa huffed. “You’re as bad as a Knight.”
Too Bad
Fort Rule, Muscoda
Krakus sat at his end of the desk in the sunny office, booted heels propped up and ankles crossed, playing with a metal ring puzzle that had sat for so long he didn’t remember the aim of the thing. Lech sat over on his end, scribbling something. The scratch-scratch-scratch-pause, scratch-scratch-scratch-pause of his quill as he wrote and dipped usually faded into the background, but today it annoyed Krakus near to screaming. He could go over to Section One and work with the Special Units a while—something he’d been doing more and more often—but didn’t see why he should always be the one to leave.
Krakus had lost some pudge. Once, his gut had kept slipping out from under his breastplate. Now he wore one of the old ones, three sizes smaller. Soon he’d need to switch to a smaller one yet. He wasn’t thin, but he looked pretty good, if he did say so himself. Even Tatiana had commented on it, just last night when she had come on her weekly visit, and for the first time in years, he could see his own feet.
Lech hadn’t said anything, but Krakus hadn’t expected him to. They weren’t speaking much these days, at least Krakus wasn’t. Lech went on and on as he always had. Used to be Krakus would offer something to shut him up, but no more. No matter how much Lech ranted and raved, no matter how closely in front of his nose a simple solution might hover, Krakus didn’t say a word. He liked being able to sleep at night.
“Go outside, Krakus,” Lech said. “I can’t concentrate with all your noise.”
“I’m comfortable where I am.” Krakus contrived to make his puzzle ring a little louder, watching Lech from under half-lowered eyelids.
Lech’s jaw clenched, but he kept on with his work. Every time Krakus made a sound with his toy, Lech’s mouth pinched tighter. Finally he threw down his quill. “Krakus—” He stopped and breathed, steepling his fingers over the desk. “I’m about to take a meeting.”
Usually that was enough to chase Krakus out, but today he felt mulish. “Meet away,” he said, shrugging.
“It isn’t your kind of meeting.”
“None of them are, Lechie.”
“Mm.” Lech’s lips pursed more tightly than ever. His ears started going red—he hated being called Lechie, what Krakus used to call him. “Be that as it may, this meeting in particular holds nothing of interest to you, since you persist in your refusal to promote the interests of Father Muscoda and the Church.”
“Everyone knows you’re the brains of this outfit,” Krakus said sweetly.
“Go play with your freaks.”
He smiled. “Fuck you.”
“Ah, yes, profanity. The last resort of a tiny mind.”
Krakus snorted. He was on the point of saying something about tiny genitals and Lech’s obvious need to compensate, but a soft knock sounded from the door. Feodor opened it a crack and said, “Estevan Barshefsky to see you, Father Lech.”
“Excellent. Send him in.” Lech looked down his nose. “Last chance, Krakus.”
Krakus didn’t budge as Feodor opened the door for a man so average the eye slipped off him even when bookcases and the jamb framed him in. Brown hair, brown eyes, medium height—not even a scar or tattoo marked him.
“Good afternoon,” the man said, in a voice as mild as fresh curds.
Lech nodded sharply. “I suppose you know why I called you here. Shut the door behind you.”
The ghost of a smile crossed the man’s face. He shut the door. “And I suppose you know I don’t generally respond to being summoned, or ordered around. I thought you might make it worth my while, Father Lech, but perhaps I was mistaken.”
“Yes, well. There are times, for every man in my position, when … impediments must be removed for the greater good. The impediment in question is a thorn in the side of Church and State, Mr. Barshefsky, and—”
“Stop.” The man crossed to the desk, Krakus’s side, and held out his hand. “May I, Father Krakus?”
Wordlessly, Krakus handed over the puzzle. In five heartbeats, no more, the man handed it back with the largest of the rings separated from the rest. Krakus tossed the puzzle into his desk drawer and rummaged for a horehound stick.
“As you can see, Father Lech, I specialize in solving problems. Your reasons are your own. Give me a name.”
“Vandis Vail,” Lech said, and Krakus rolled his eyes. Two horehound sticks, he decided, and slammed the drawer shut. “I want it done within a fortnight, at their Longday Moot.”
“Ah.” Barshefsky frowned slightly. “I’m afraid that will not be possible. Even if I could reach Knightsvalley in time, which I could not, the thing you ask cannot be done. Even if I could pass all the Knights around Sir Vail and reach him, which I could not, it is out of the question.”
Lech opened a drawer on his side and pulled out a canvas sack. He dropped it on the desk, and it crashed and rang with the coins inside it. “Five hundred sovereigns.” Krakus crunched into one of his candy sticks and chewed noisily.
“Oh, it’s a kingly price you offer me, Father Lech, but no. Some fool might bring himself to attempt it, but it will not be this fool.”
“And if I doubled your compensation?”
Krakus crunched again.
“I believe you’re missing my point, Father.” Barshefsky backed toward the door. “To attempt Vandis Vail north of the Back would be madness. To attempt it so near Dreamport would be to beg for painful death. Even ten thousand sovereigns couldn’t induce me to try.”
“In some other place, then,” Lech said, with a desperate edge on his voice.
“It’s best not to consider it. To murder Sir Vail for money—that’s more than my life is worth. No, I’m afraid I can’t help you, Father.”
Krakus fought the urge to laugh as Lech gnashed his teeth. “I am not accustomed to being answered ‘no.’ Why,” he bit out, “not?”
Krakus bit so hard into his candy he cracked a tooth.
“There is a world you don’t know,” Barshefsky said, “and most people never touch, even as much as you just have, but it is all around you. On your streets, in your temples, even in your precious Fort here, it exists just beneath your notice, and in that world, Vandis Vail is screened by an aegis none would seek to break, lest they find themselves in—if I may be permitted—deep shit.” He bowed slightly. “Good day.”
Barshefsky let himself out. Le
ch should have been boiling, but instead he wore a triumphant smirk.
“I knew it,” he breathed. “I knew it. Demons…”
“He meant criminals, you idiot,” Krakus said, unable to pass up the chance to correct Lech.
“Hush.” Lech pulled his writing things closer and began to scratch away at top speed.
Krakus took his legs from the desk. As he rose, he gave the side of it a good, solid kick, so ink would slosh out of Lech’s well. It splattered on his snow-white sleeve and he shot Krakus a burning glare.
“Oops.” Krakus put his hands in his pockets and smiled again. “See you later, Lechie.”
Lech didn’t quite growl out loud, but it was a close thing. Krakus strutted outside, heading for Section One. Thanks, he thought. I think I will go play with my freaks. He whistled the whole walk there.
The Valley
Knightsvalley, in Dreamport lands
After Dixon Forest, Dingus did what Dingus did best: he put a lid on it. He felt as if he’d put a cover on a boiling cauldron and sat on top. It burned him from the bottom up, and it was probably only a matter of time before it boiled over, but that was all he knew how to do.
It was harder than before. How little sleep he got these days—that probably didn’t help. He didn’t get a full night more than once a week, usually less. Sometimes he hardly even closed his eyes before a nightmare dragged him into its hungry maw, and he’d relive, in agonizing detail, the hanging. Every single time, it felt as real as the first—and as terrifying. Even on the nights he slept better, he’d have nightmares that didn’t seem like nightmares until he woke up, dreams that shook him to the core.
At least Vandis had been right: there was the work. If nothing else, it was an excellent distraction. He’d thrown himself at it the same way a drowning man goes for a log, and clutched it as tight, all the way north, so that now he could’ve recited the principal exports of Tarvylania in his sleep if he hadn’t been so busy screaming.
They’d made it to Knightsvalley about three weeks ago. Vandis had to be here to smooth things along with all the vendors and greet the Knights who arrived early. There were a lot of them this year, what with everybody wanting to know if their friends had gotten out of Muscoda—so Vandis had said.
If Dingus had to be stuck with lots of people and without much to do, at least it was in a beautiful place: a high-up valley surrounded almost completely by higher mountains, with a spring-fed lake that out-blued the sky in the middle and trickled off to a little waterfall at one end of the valley. A gravelly beach hugged the lake on the east side, and the rest of the valley was filled with pine forest, except farther up from the beach, near the mouth, where it was all cleared out. A beaten road passed down from the terraced mouth to the fairground. The one permanent structure up there was the round, flat Assembly Hall, with space for everyone who had a leaf on his hand, all the Juniors, Seniors, and Masters. Squires didn’t get a vote on the Assembly, but they were allowed to sit in the Hall at open sessions if they wanted.
Dingus had gone all ’round the Hall and even, when Vandis asked him to sweep it before everybody got there, inside: like stepping into Grandma’s cedar chest, low-ceilinged and aromatic. After he got the shutters open to air it out, the floor and walls oozed a thick, giddy scent. He dusted the candelabra and swept the floor, chasing spiders from under the concentric rings of benches set around an empty circle in the middle. After that, he went over every single inch of Knightsvalley, exploring the beach and the forest, and when Vandis didn’t have something else for him to do, outside the valley.
They were so high, Dingus had kind of a headache the first couple of days; Vandis had said his body was still used to the sunny hills in Wealaia. The South Wing had impressed him, but it had nothing on the mountains in the Back or the North Wing. It was mean country up here, all sharp rocks and vicious drops, high peaks, deep gorges, and washes that were just shy of vertical.
At first he took Kessa exploring with him. She was good company—maybe a little too good, because she had to put her hands on him all the time, and she never quit talking, asking him questions, and laughing. He was deeply relieved when she met a big group of younger Squires and started palling around with them, because then he could be alone in the wild that cupped Knightsvalley like two protective hands. He liked the quiet. Besides, she slowed him down so much she might as well have been a millstone necklace. He got a stab of guilt thinking that way, but only a little one.
A couple of times he stayed away overnight, high in the middle of nowhere. He feasted himself on squirrel and berries, on the welcoming peace of forest sounds, the clarity of scents on the sweet, thin air, the feel of uneven rocks calling his feet to move. It eased his heart—and when it didn’t, late at night, nobody was there to gaze at him out of sad eyes and worry about poor fucked-up Dingus.
Vandis didn’t say a word about his wandering. So much the better. Dingus didn’t want to explain how it felt to be knee-deep in snow, alone on top of a mountain, with the wind pulling his hood off his head, tugging at his hair, and making his muffler and cloak stream out behind him. He didn’t want to explain what it was to look at the world like it was all laid out for him, and only him. He didn’t want to put into words the feeling of smallness and glory at once. He saw, far to the north, a glimmering line of ocean, and to the east a dark smudge on the land that he was sure had to be Dreamport. The peaks rose around him; the valleys sank beneath him; and he exhaled a prayer of thanks on a steaming breath.
That night, he got back real late, and saw how the woods had filled with tents, and the peace he’d found broke like a dropped crock. Here and there, Knighthounds lifted their jowly heads as he passed, but laid them back down without commenting. After all the time he’d had alone, both up here and before, trying to shake Vandis’s sharp tracking eyes for practice or trying to catch him with Kessa, it seemed as though all the people pressed tight against him.
He slipped among the dark shapes that were the trees, skirting the campfires as far as possible and wishing he’d thought to take off his boots. His steps fell soft on the carpet of dropped needles, but if he’d gotten his boots off he would’ve stepped silent or near so, and he was just thinking about stopping to take them off when his foot came down on a dry twig. Fuck, he thought, freezing in place.
“Who goes there?”
He stood for a moment, getting his wind back, and then slid on. The thought of having to talk to anybody right now—his skin itched with even the suggestion of the intrusion on his thoughts. He’d nearly reached the campsite Vandis had picked out anyways; it was just over there in a clump of whitebark pines.
Out of the corner of his eye, Dingus saw a lantern light come out of the camp that had hailed him. He cast his eyes around for an escape, but was hemmed in by other camps. He pressed forward, hoping the lantern bearer would cross his path behind him, but whoever it was moved quickly to intercept.
The lantern dazzled his night-sight. Dingus threw an arm up over his eyes, but it was too late to save his vision. He dropped his arm, blinking hard, and felt a sharp rapping on the lacquered badge pinned to his chest. He took a reflexive half-step back at the touch, but the tall shape of the lantern bearer matched it forward on an eddy of pomade stink. “Squire, are you, boy?”
Dingus didn’t answer. The man in front of him stood tall—almost as tall as Dingus did—and slim, with deep lines around his piercing eyes and dark hair slicked back from his face.
“I’ve asked you a question,” the man said, rapping on Dingus’s badge again and making him ache for the solitude on the mountain. “Are you Squire, or no?”
“Yes, sir, I am.”
“Take your hood down when you speak to me. What were you getting up to that requires you to creep about the campground like a thief in the night?”
“Nothing, sir,” Dingus said, wishing at least for the quiet of the camp. He couldn’t even see it anymore, not with the lantern right there. “I wasn’t—”
“Take down
your hood.”
He reached up and laid his hood back. The man’s eyes raked him. Prickles raced over his skin and, little as he wanted to look weak, he shuddered. The man smiled, wide, slow, and whitely, that smile Dingus knew so well, the smile that said: meat. Rogen’s smile, but it wasn’t Rogen.
“You’re Vandis’s boy. The one from Wealaia … Dingus, isn’t it?”
Swallowing hard, Dingus managed a nod. Not Rogen, he thought. Not Rogen.
“Are you, or are you not, Vandis’s Squire?” the man bit off.
“Yes, sir. I am.”
“Now. Answer me.”
“I wasn’t sneaking, sir. I just—”
The man’s voice snapped out: “Look me in the eye, boy! Have you nothing resembling manners?” and his hand flashed up toward Dingus’s jaw.
Dingus’s breath snagged. He twisted to the side, quick, and the blow went past. It wasn’t Rogen. Vandis was here somewhere, and the tall man couldn’t hit him without answering to his Master, Vandis wouldn’t stand for it; he knew all that, but fear slimed his mouth just the same.
The man hardly stumbled, righting himself as quickly as his feet tangled. His pale eyes sliced Dingus open to the bone and held him, pinned apart. That cold gaze saw everything Dingus wanted hidden.
The lantern swung, flinging shadow, and he came on sudden, raising the back of his hand.
Dingus caught it in an iron grip and shoved the man away, hard, before he had a chance to feel the mistake in it. The man staggered back, dropping the lantern, and he had to put hands on the ground to right himself this time. “No,” Dingus said, shaking head to toe. “No, don’t hit me … ”
Flames started to lick at the needles around the lantern, but Dingus couldn’t move, couldn’t, he was frozen by the stupid horror of what he’d just done. The man picked it up, stamped the licking flame flat before it had a chance to grow, and straightened. Again Dingus had the sensation of being slashed open and studied.
