“So you thought there was merit in what I mentioned after all?”
“What?” she said thickly.
“When I thought that you might be interested in what would happen if you were the only Queen.”
“Oh. That. No.” She pointed at me sternly. “I’m not taking over. Not permanently. We’re just in a crisis right now and we can’t afford to be arguing about everything. I’m just going to fix it,” she said loudly, “and then we’ll have elections. And then it’ll be fixed.”
“What will you do about tiebreaks now that you’ve disbanded Pattern?”
“Ah, see, we didn’t always have five,” she said immediately. “We can manage with four, just like we used to back in the old days. Fewer than four, even. Anyway, Law is supposed to abstain. And Pattern was a waste of space and money no matter how you look at it. Most of what Pattern did should’ve belonged to Order anyway.”
“Diplomacy and foreign affairs? Espionage?”
“Exactly. Sounds Orderly to me. We’ll handle it now.”
“If you say so,” I said, though I disagreed—there had to have been a reason for Pattern in the first place, right? The area Pattern covered didn’t seem to me like it could be so easily “reallocated,” as she put it, but that was none of my concern.
“I do say so,” she said. “War’s a foreign affair. And war’s always belonged to Order. So now we’ll just look after all of it. Better this way. Loads more work, though.” I handed her the flask, and she took another huge gulp of it without flinching. I admit, I was more than a little impressed. That stuff could have eaten through leather. “I was thinking,” she said suddenly, “about that general.”
“Oh?”
“The one you told me about the other day.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“When I was killing Anfisa Zofiyat, I was thinking about that general.” I remained silent, and Vihra Kylliat soon continued. “She had to kill people in cold blood for the good of the empire, didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“I thought of her. When I was doing that. I wondered how she felt about it.”
“I don’t think anyone feels good about killing in cold blood.”
“Some people do. Some people are fucking crazy.” She toyed with the cap of the flask. “We hire them as executioners. Only thing they’re good for. Not good soldiers—too hungry for blood. They murder people on the street, they always want to go fuckin’ pillaging . . . Can’t control ’em, and it’s like a plague, you know. One weird guy who gets hot over killing, he can fuck up a whole squad. So you make ’em executioners and you keep ’em on a short leash. At the front of the army, so they’re the first to get killed if you’re attacked, and so they’re far away from the camp followers.”
“You seem to have a good deal of experience.”
“Years,” she muttered. Another swig from the flask. “Killing in war, that’s different. Your blood is up, everyone’s in a mess together, the other folks are usually trying to kill you at the same time you’re trying to kill them. It’s not like execution. It’s not like making a handcuffed woman kneel and lay her head on a block.”
“Why didn’t you have one of these short-leashed executioners do it?”
Vihra Kylliat was silent. “Because,” she said slowly, “because of a lot of reasons. She was a Queen. She deserved the honor of a quick, clean death from a peer. And also, I don’t think that . . .” She stopped herself and laughed. “Vidar!” she shouted. “Go down the hall, stand at the door.” Vihra Kylliat lifted her head and whispered loudly, “They all try to eavesdrop when they can, you know. Don’t blame them. Did the same thing when I was a kid like them.” We listened to the steps recede down the hallway. “I was saying—I don’t think that I could have had someone else do it, because I don’t think that her charges should have”—her voice dropped to a whisper—“ended in a death sentence.”
“Even with the conspiracy and murder and so forth? Not to mention the trespassing?”
“Even then. Should have had her stripped of her titles and exiled. Bound up and shipped off to somewhere far away, left with nothing but the clothes on her back and the boots on her feet.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“She’s sneaky,” Vihra Kylliat said immediately. “She would have come back. Like rats, you think you’ve gotten rid of them all, but they always come back.” She stopped and shook her head. “No, that’s not true. That’s what I’ll tell other people. I killed her because I wanted her dead. Because I was afraid of her.” She fixed me with glassy, bloodshot eyes. “Because I thought she tried to kill me.”
“When?”
“Few days ago.”
I waited, but she didn’t seem like she was planning to continue. “What happened?”
“Went home, and there was someone in my house. In the dark. No lamps lit. They’d gotten past all the guards and through all my locks and past my dogs. They were in my bedroom. Under the bed. They waited until I got in and then they—” She stopped and drained the flask, then threw it aside. She licked her lips. “But they didn’t check the bed first,” she said, almost giggling. “There’s a dagger under my pillow and a club hidden as part of the bedpost, and I’d put my leg and my arm on the night table, and these both have sharp things hidden in them. Pretty heavy themselves, too.”
“You clearly defended yourself well.”
“Not well enough. They ran off, dove out a window. No tracks, no traces. Must have been a Weaver. No one but a Weaver could’ve done that.”
“So it wasn’t just conspiracy to murder me that you convicted her of.”
“Couldn’t bring up the assassin in court, though, because then I would have had to recuse m’self as a judge, and then I would’ve had to testify—too much trouble. Had blood on my knife, that was good enough for me.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “I could’ve given Anfisa Zofiyat a different sentence. I didn’t. So my ruling is blood on my hands, instead of on someone else’s. It’s only fair. And this way—this way I made sure she was dead.”
“General Ger Zha killed the pretender, when the throne was retaken by the rightful emperor. I don’t think she liked it either, but . . . It was necessary. And what you did was necessary.”
“Was it?” She looked at me. “Or are you lying to me again, trying to save your own skin?” I was lying. There was no rightful emperor after all that, and Ger Zha died with the Eminent Prince and his mother.
“Does it matter? If you hadn’t thought killing was necessary, you would have done what was. I know your reputation, madam. I know what kind of a woman you are.”
She snorted. “If you say so. I suppose you’re just trying to make me feel better about it.”
“There’s no way to feel better about it. You’re trying to do what’s right, aren’t you? That is rarely an easy path, or a comfortable one. Take what consolation you can get, when you can get it. You’ll live another day, and you’ll keep trying to do the right thing. Maybe one right thing will include letting me appeal my death sentence, and maybe you’ll send me far, far away instead of killing me. I live in hope.”
“Hah! We’ll see.” Which was better than go fuck yourself or keep dreaming, old man, I supposed. From beneath her tunic, she pulled out that strange necklace of twisted metal I’d spotted before, and toyed with it. Not a necklace, she’d said. “The guards say you’ve been chattering away nonstop.”
“Have they?”
“Through the flap in the door. Every moment you’re awake, unless you’re eating or shitting, they said.”
I shrugged. “I’m bored and cold. My apprentice is vanished, or lost, or dead maybe. My advocate has left me to die.”
“Has she? How do you know?”
“She hasn’t been to see me.”
“Because I’ve barred all visitors to the prison, stupid,” she said.
Well, that’s what the kid had said too, that guard who’d been scrubbing the floor, when I thought about it. My brain didn’t seem to w
ant to listen to reason. It was easier to conclude that I’d been abandoned, even if I knew better when I thought about it logically.
Vihra Kylliat was still speaking: “I thought something like the Weavers’ raid might happen if I let visitors in. But there aren’t any Weavers anymore, except psychopaths who might keep on keeping on out of odd loyalty to Anfisa Zofiyat, or some crusade to avenge her. You get lunatics everywhere. But she’s dead now, and Casimir Vanyos is dead, and it’s just me and Taishineya and Zorya Miroslavat.”
“Zorya Miroslavat is still imprisoned?”
“In a nicer cell than this one,” Vihra Kylliat snapped. “But yes.”
“Oh. That’s surprising.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I thought you would have freed her by now. The two of you seemed . . . friendly.”
“My personal regard for her is irrelevant. She has to have a fair trial. These are extraordinary circumstances, and we have to be lawful. I told you I wasn’t going to be a traitor, didn’t I? And besides that, it’s for her own protection.” I wasn’t convinced, but Vihra was clearly doing an excellent job convincing herself. “The Weavers might have tried to kill her, too, you never know. We’ll finish investigating Casimir Vanyos’s death soon, and then we’ll get this mess sorted out.”
“So may I have visitors again?”
She waved one hand in a big wobbly gesture through the air. “Everyone else will be, as soon as word gets out that it’s allowed, so I don’t see why not. You’ll have to speak through the door, though. No one’s getting in or out of this room but me.”
I relaxed. I’d been thinking of you again, you see, and I had come up with a plan—it seemed fanciful and improbable, and I really needed Ivo to be able to work it. Before anything, I needed information, and he was the only one who might be able to tell me what I needed to hear.
And Consanza and Ylfing came soon after, as soon as they heard that visitors were permitted again. I saw their shoes coming down the corridor, lying as I was on my smelly, bloodstained horse blanket and chattering stories through the door flap again. I didn’t cry. Obviously. I can’t remember the last time I cried in my life. I’ve probably never cried ever, come to think of it. I was just relieved, is all. I was glad to feel not so alone in my little white plaster cell. Ylfing crouched down and clasped my hands when I reached them out to him. “Gods, Chant, are you all right? You got all the messages I left for you, didn’t you?”
I couldn’t speak for a moment, so I just squeezed his hands. “No,” I said, after I’d swallowed a couple of times—I was just sick, you see, probably pneumonia. “No, I didn’t get any messages.”
“Why did they move you again?”
“Well,” I said, “did you hear about the Weavers trying to break Anfisa Zofiyat out of prison?”
“Yes,” Consanza said. “Was that to do with you?”
“Only because they tried to kill me,” I said, too sharply. I was trying not to show how relieved I was to have them here. “They were going to take me away and kill me and dump my body in the harbor!”
“I can see why they’d want to,” she mused. “I can’t blame them.” Of course the twit hadn’t changed in the weeks we’d been apart.
I freed one hand from Ylfing’s grip and wiped it over my face—sweat, you see. Just sweat.
“You’re filthy, Chant. Haven’t they let you wash at all?”
“No,” I said. “And my clothes were ruined. I pile them on top of me at night to sleep, but I have nothing to wear except a tunic they took off one of the other prisoners, and it’s almost as disgusting as my old clothes anyway.”
“Well, at least it’s not as cold here as it was below,” Consanza said.
Ylfing pulled his hands back and I heard a clink of metal. He tried to shove his cloak through the flap in the door, but the flap was too small and the cloak too bulky.
“Oi, stop that,” the guard said. “What are you doing?”
From Ylfing: “He said his clothes were ruined! How can you let an old man sit in a cold cell with only a tunic? He can have this—family members are allowed to bring things to people in prison, aren’t they? Ivo said they were.”
“I have to inspect it first,” the guard said.
Consanza made some sort of shushing noise to Ylfing, and he must have allowed the guard to take it. “So, what news, Chant?” she said. “Anything I should know about, as your advocate?”
“No,” I said slowly. I didn’t think I had any sensitive information to tell her, but I hadn’t realized the guard would keep standing there the whole time. It unsettled me. I closed my eyes and—well, I don’t usually pray, as you know, it’s not part of my personal attitude towards the world. There are gods, of that I’m sure, I just don’t think that they have any call to be sticking their noses in my business, nor do I think they’d be interested in doing so anyway, except to fuck me over. Sadistic bastards, gods. But I sent up a little prayer anyway, hoping that one of the Hrefni folk heroes might be looking down favorably on Ylfing and thinking about sending some extra cleverness his way. He’d need it—as I’ve told you, he’s a bumbling idiot of a child. “No, I’m sure you know the trials have all been frozen, so there’s nothing to do but wait until the other Primes have been sorted out and either condemned or released.”
Consanza made an assenting noise. “I’m not even allowed to do paperwork related to your case, you know. Or any cases. It’s been a lean few weeks in my household.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Oh, is it your fault?” she asked airily. “How convenient, I’ve been looking for someone to blame. Not surprised it turns out to be you of all people.”
“Do you live to make me miserable?” I asked.
“All right, the cloak’s fine. He can have it,” the guard said. “Stand well back and I’ll open the door. Prisoner, sit on your bench and don’t move.”
I scrambled back as far as I could—didn’t bother getting up onto the bench, since it’d be difficult to get off the floor and I’d only have to get back down to keep talking to Ylfing and the twit. The guard opened the door six inches and flung the cloak in. I caught it—it was heavy wool with a thin fur collar and a lining of some soft fabric, and a simple metal clasp. I wrapped it around myself immediately and found it was still warm from Ylfing’s own body heat. It was the loveliest thing, as lovely as that big chicken dinner that they’d brought in after my sentencing. I scooted back across the floor and lay down next to the flap. “Thank you, lad. You won’t be too cold?”
“Don’t you even think of me! I have mittens and boots, and I’ll share Consanza’s cloak if I have to. She’s been taking me with her around the city, and I’ve been doing some assistant work for her for money, and—”
I groaned. “You’re going to be apprenticed to an advocate now. You’re fucking a Nuryeven court scribe and you’re going to be an advocate’s apprentice.”
“No, I’m not, Chant, don’t be like that. I can’t keep borrowing money from Ivo forever. He’s letting me stay with him, so I don’t have to pay any rent, but I eat more than he does and—and I can’t be a burden on his generosity.”
“Even if you’re fucking him?”
“Even then, Chant!” he squeaked. I could hear the blush in his voice and it made me smile.
I was dying to ask him about Ivo, to ask if he’d come clean to him about what he’d told me, but all I said was, “Do you have any spare money?”
“A little. I don’t think I’m allowed to give it to you. . . . The guard is giving me a look. I’m definitely not allowed to give you any.”
“I don’t want the money, I just want some more clothes. And a new blanket, one that doesn’t smell of horse and old blood.” The other blankets, the ones I’d earned through trickery and deception, had been too sodden with blood to bother bringing with me—good for nothing but feeding the fire.
“Blood?! What happened? Did they hurt you?” I told them, and Ylfing made all the appropriate
disgusted and sympathetic noises. He’s a good lad. Dumb as a brick, but he’s got a good heart. “Well. I’ll bring you some. You don’t mind if they’re secondhand, do you?”
“Never have,” I said. “As long as they’re clean and they don’t have bedbugs in them.”
“I’ll have them cleaned before I bring them. And I’ll wrap them around a hot stone when I bring them over, so they’re warm when you put them on.”
My eyes pricked. Still not crying, just one of those odd things that happens when you get old. “Thank you. Will you be assisting Consanza, or . . . or do you want to continue your studies while we still have time? Perhaps Ivo could come along, I would like to see him again.”
“Um . . . Hmm.”
“I don’t need you for much, Ylfing, you know that,” she murmured. She sounded warmer when she spoke to him than when she spoke to me. Sort of motherly. But she’d mentioned she had a couple young boys, hadn’t she? “Give me four days of the week, and Chant can have the other three?”
“Why do you get four?” I snapped. “He’s my apprentice!”
“Because I need the money, Chant!” Ylfing said. “Clothes for you and—and maybe the guards would bring you a bucket of hot water and a cloth to wash off with, if we gave them a little present. Where’s your brazier?”
“He can’t have it in the cell,” the guard said.
“Put it in front of the door, though, so it will warm the wood and he can lean against it. Or so he can stick his hands out through the flap and—have you felt his hands? They were freezing!” Ylfing made grabby motions, and I obligingly eased my hands back out. He chafed them gently for me and my eyes prickled again. “He’s a very old man, you know. Don’t you have a grandfather or an old uncle? How would you like them to be freezing in prison in the winter, with no clothes, with no heat? It’s barbaric, is what it is!”
“Calm down, love,” Consanza said.
“But feel his hands, and look how filthy they are.”
A Conspiracy of Truths Page 23
