“Thank you for the invitation.”
“Thank you for accepting it,” Fassiana said, the words politely neutral. “Won’t you join me?”
“I’d be delighted.” Not quite a lie. At least, not as much of one as Surela had hoped. She did not want to crave this woman’s approval quite as much as she felt she might.
They sat, and the servant poured for them, brought them cakes and cream. For a brief time there was only the chime of spoons meeting the lips of plates and the click of cups returned to their saucers. Then Fassiana dismissed the servant and clasped her hands beneath her chin, studying Surela in a way that became, very quickly, uncomfortable.
“So you have dispatched your army.”
And what a tedium it had been, standing at the balcony in the wet chill of a dull winter afternoon, watching as the column processed before her in the courtyard and then made its slow progress out of the palace grounds and off through the city to the nearest road south. “They go to collect allegiance from Jisiensire.”
“And you know they will never give it, as their seal-bearer has already rejected you?” Fassiana poured for herself again, her tone conversational.
“It is their duty—”
“To bow to you?” Fassiana shook her head minutely. “You know better, Asaniefa.”
Watching her, Surela said, “I bowed to Liolesa.”
“Queen Liolesa did not steal the throne from you.” When Surela began to speak, she held up a hand. “Be honest, Surela. Did someone yank the throne from you now, would you meekly bow your head to them?”
“That would depend on their policies toward the aliens,” Surela said, trying not to seethe. Why did all of Liolesa’s allies believe they would be protected from the consequences of their cheek?
“Ah, yes. The aliens.” Fassiana spread clotted cream onto her cake and pushed aside one of the tart red berries, leaving it smeared with a white swirl. “Tell me, how do you find the food?”
“I—the…” Surela gathered herself and said, “You set a fine table, thank you for asking.”
“Berries are such a fine talisman against the winter doldrums, aren’t they?” Fassiana scooped hers up on her spoon and offered it. “Another?”
“Ah… thank you?” Surela took it, perplexed at the change in subject. “I am fond of raspberries.”
“As am I,” Fassiana agreed. “Have you a sense of where they’re grown?”
“No? Though I suppose now that the entire kingdom is my responsibility and not Asaniefa alone I shall soon learn.”
“Mmm.” Fassiana reached over to refill Surela’s tea, which was gratifying, as was the continued graciousness of the conversation. Even the studied neutrality of the word shadings couldn’t detract from it. “And the cream is particularly fine today. Don’t you agree?”
“Very much.”
“I’m told the cakes are made here in the palace. A very delicate touch they have with the sugar. Not overwhelming.”
“The kitchen staff has great talent,” Surela said.
“You grow wheat in Asaniefa, do you not?”
“Some,” Surela said. “Not much for export, I fear. We tithe of other crops.”
“It does not strike you as strange,” Fassiana added. “That Ontine has berries in winter.”
“No?” Surela glanced at the other woman. “There have always been berries in winter.”
“At Ontine,” Fassiana said.
“At the winter court.” Surela paused, then laughed, hiding her nervousness. “You are going to tell me that Ontine has some magic garden that will not work without a Galare on the throne?”
Fassiana calmly ate a piece of her cake. Then set her spoon down, tapped her lips with her napkin, and said, “Yes.”
Surela stared at her. “I was not aware that you had such poor taste in humor, Lady Fassiana.”
“That is because I do not.” Fassiana met her eyes. “I was not making a joke, Surela. This food—the flour, the sugar, the berries, the cream—all of it was imported.”
“From some other fief?”
“From the Alliance.”
Surela sat back, fighting anger. “So Liolesa had alien taste in food. What else is new? I will end our foreign dependence on these aliens and we will resume eating what we grow!”
“Then you will doom us to starvation, because we cannot grow enough to live on.”
The cup Surela set down clattered when it met the saucer, but by then she didn’t care that Fassiana might know she trembled. Let her think it wrath! Surela herself was fairly sure that was the cause. “You say amazing things, Lady Fassiana. Notorious things.”
“Only because they can be proven,” was the unperturbed reply. “Go ask the Royal Procurer. Check the almanacs, and the ledgers. See you where our food comes from, Surela. And then tell me how you mean to solve the problem without the aid of the aliens.”
“And if I find a solution?” Surela asked. “Assuming that the problem even exists. Will you bow to me then?”
Fassiana said, “Go check the books. You will learn something about the kingdom you purport to be yours.”
Infuriating. Ridiculous! Surela rose and managed a frosty, “Thank you for the tea.” But she left before waiting for a response, and hated that Fassiana had driven her to such a petty discourtesy, like a spoiled child.
From that suite she went directly to the library, where she demanded the ledgers that showed the amount of the royal tithe. Sitting beneath the cupola’s windows, she began paging through them and reading…
…and reading….
She sent for a lead and a sheaf of papers and began making notes, and ordered the census records brought to her. The almanacs she drew down from the shelves herself. As the afternoon waned, more books joined the ones already scattered on the desk in the library, and by evening she sent for the Royal Procurer, wishing that the Chancellor hadn’t hidden himself off with the Heir—she should do something about that, but later—for the Chancellor would have been able to give her a broader view of the issue. But the Procurer would do, and he arrived shortly after her summons.
Surela tapped her lead against the paper and said, “If we ceased to buy food from the aliens, how much of our population could we feed?”
The Procurer hesitated. He was a thin, small man with delicate hands and great hollows in his cheeks, and a perpetually surprised expression caused by the natural arch of his brows. But he recovered from his hesitation immediately and answered, “Fifty-five percent.”
Surela clutched the lead. “Fifty-five percent.”
“Yes, Lady Surela,” he said, and she let the improper form of address go while she grappled with the horror of the figure… which he compounded by continuing, “That is by crop-weight only. Unfortunately, given factors involving the livestock, it is closer to forty.”
“Forty… percent?” she asked carefully.
“That’s right.”
“Because of livestock,” she repeated, to have anything to say in response to this unbelievable situation.
“That’s correct, Lady Surela. We can eat the crops we manage to grow here, though they are not as nutritious as the ones we can import.” The Procurer tucked his hands into his sleeves as he spoke, for all the world as if lecturing on a topic of less earth-shattering significance. “But our livestock situation presents several challenges. Our domesticated fowl cannot survive on the insects of this world, so we buy insects to feed them. We have a few experimental greenhouses where we attempt to cultivate the insects, but those projects haven’t succeeded on a large enough scale to make the importation of insects unnecessary. Also, the ruminants cannot thrive on the grass here. We can feed some of our livestock on the produce we grow—swine do better on some of our crops than we do, in fact—but if the majority of their diet is grass-based, they must be fed imported hay. Without those imports, we would have no horses, Lady, nor what few cows we’ve managed to maintain. Goats manage well enough, but they are easy prey for the wildlife here….”
“I fear it is a matter of numbers, Lady,” the Procurer said. “We are too few to farm the amount of land we would require to live without aid… and this world is not ours. The crops that have adapted to the foreign environment kept us from dying out, but as you no doubt know yourself from the management of Asaniefa, we are not as fertile as we should be, nor do we thrive. It is what the Queen has been attempting to understand with her fertility projects.”
“Her what?”
“The research she has been funding?” the Procurer said. “In the Alliance, in an attempt to understand our low birth rate. I do not know much about that aspect of her endeavors, Lady Surela. The Chancellor would. Perhaps you can ask him when he returns.”
“Of course,” she managed. She set the lead carefully down on the desk. “So… you mean to tell me that for centuries, we have been eating from the mortal table, and that otherwise we would have long since died.”
“Since the reign of Queen Maraesa, yes.”
She looked down at her books, her notes… wondered suddenly whether the paper she’d been writing on had been made here. She touched its surface, felt the dust from her lead on her fingertips. Clearing her throat, she said, “You may go.”
After he left she carefully shelved all the books and sent the census back with a servant. Once she’d cleared the table of everything but her notes, she sat down again and stared out at the sullen winter twilight. It felt far closer than it had last night… and as the snow began to drift from the clouds, she put her head in her hands.
CHAPTER 11
The part of the plan Reese had not been anticipating involved walking. A lot of walking. It hadn’t occurred to her to notice the lack of horses in the underground camp, but she guessed it made sense; who kept horses underground? They didn’t like that, right? What did she know about horses, anyway… and she would have to learn. If they survived all this. Of course, if they survived all this she could just ask Hirianthial….
Reese tried not to think about Hirianthial because it made her chest hurt. She needed her chest not to hurt when she was about to throw herself into crazy danger.
No horses meant they hiked from the site of the camp east, toward the sea, and they left in the mid-morning, when the light was diffuse and gray and the wind cut straight through her coat and made her limbs clumsy. She wondered if it was normal not to be able to feel her nose and trudged after the column of Swords in silence, grateful Irine had elected to come along. Malia and Taylor had stayed behind to coordinate via telegem with both parties and the backup they were sending toward Ontine to help the escapees. As much as possible, they didn’t want to use the telegems, though. Reese was hoping the pirates were as careless as they were in stories, but knowing her luck Baniel had hired some kind of hyper-vigilant super-pirates who’d notice the first whisper of unauthorized telegem traffic. Belinor had elected to come too… to keep an eye on Val, maybe? Reese didn’t know, but she was oddly comforted by the steadfast acolyte’s presence.
After two hours of hiking through the forest, they crossed a pitted path Olthemiel called a road despite its lack of pavement and headed gradually down a narrow, crumbly path shrouded in more trees. The shadows, the moist wind, the cold… Reese couldn’t remember when she’d been more uncomfortable in her life. But in the distance she could hear the boom of the surf and she found she was eager to look at the ocean again. Had Hirianthial ever told her the word for sea? She couldn’t remember. How many vowels would it have? She smiled a little, wondering.
The light waned and the path became a trail, and the trail a suggestion, a place where the sea grass hadn’t grown in over rocky soil. They continued to descend until at last they broke away from the trees and found themselves on a beach, where Val, who’d been leading the expedition, pointed out their ingress.
“You have got to be kidding,” Reese said.
“Not at all.” He flashed her a grin. “How do you think it went unnoticed?” Tucking a line of rope through his belt, he began to climb.
Their way in was a hole in a sea cliff at least six stories over Reese’s head. She scooted close to Irine, tucking her hands under her armpits to keep them warm. “Are we seriously going to have to climb that? Because I’m not a good climber. I don’t think I can climb. What is it with us and cliffs, anyway? The last cliff we climbed… that wasn’t a good memory.”
“Fear not, Lady,” Beronaeth said. Kindly, she thought. She wondered what her expression looked like, to have prompted that much concern. “The priest will send down the rope once he’s made the ascent and the rest of us will go up aided. Pulled if necessary.”
She wanted to be too proud to be pulled, but when her turn came around she found the rocks too slippery and cold for the mittens built into the sleeves of her coat. Her boots couldn’t find purchase either, and the distance was too daunting. So she suffered herself to be tied into a harness and lifted, and spent the entire journey staring east. It had gotten dark while they’d been making the trip, and all she could see of the ocean was a hint of star-gleam on the waves that sounded on the shore. It was like being in a dream, one composed of the racing of her heart and the discomfort of uncertainty and the voice of the sea, the smell of it, brine and salt and so, so cold.
She wondered if she could pinch herself and wake up back on the Earthrise, with all this over and everyone safe.
“It’s a little underwhelming,” Reese muttered to Irine once they’d both made it up.
“I don’t know.” The tigraine swept her gaze over the narrow, craggy cave. “I think it looks just right for a secret entrance. Not too ostentatious or anything.”
Reese snorted and padded after Val and Olthemiel.
“From here,” the former priest was saying, “we should maintain silence unless absolutely necessary. I will guide us to the intersection I mentioned, and from there you go to the captives and we will head on through the catacombs.”
“After waiting the necessary time.”
Val nodded. “We’ll give you your lead, Captain.”
Satisfied, Olthemiel said to Reese, “Lady?”
“It’s a little late to be messing with the plan now,” Reese said. “Let’s get moving.”
Reese remembered very little of what followed, except that she’d been expecting hallways, like the ones that led out of Ontine into the catacombs, or that had been hollowed out of the ground at the Swords’ campsite. But Val brought them through a maze of passages, some so tiny that she had to squirm to make her way through them. She left scraped skin on a few of them, even.
“Here,” came Val’s voice in the dark.
Some shuffling. Reese could barely see Olthemiel’s face by the sticklights Malia had passed to them all before they’d left. The Captain was looking up at something; abruptly, he nodded. “I see it.” Faint humor. “You didn’t mention having to climb.”
“It’s not much of a climb,” Val said. “Just pull yourself up half a body-length and you’ll be under the servant’s quarters.”
“Understood. Lady?”
“Here,” Reese said.
He regarded her carefully. “Still well?”
“Fine,” Reese said. “I like small spaces.”
Shadows edged the little smile. “And you are petite enough to use them well. We go, then. You remain well with the plan?”
“Twenty minutes, and then we head for the pirates’ den,” Reese said. “Assuming they’re somewhere near the priests.”
“Or we can get the information out of the priests,” Val said, low.
“Right. What he said.”
“Very good,” Olthemiel said. He touched his palm to his breast. “Go with God and the Lady.”
“Freedom bless your errand, Captain.”
He paused, surprised. “Yes. I very much hope so.” Turning to the men he said something sharp in their tongue and they were away, leaving fifteen of their num
ber to back-up Reese’s part of the mission. She sighed and slid to the ground, putting her back to the wall and hugging her knees.
“What are you thinking?” Irine asked, sitting next to her.
“You’ll laugh.”
“Try me?”
Reese glanced at her and smiled wryly. “That I don’t remember what it’s like to feel warm?”
Irine huffed. “Yes. Me too.”
“What, no ‘now you know how I feel?’”
The tigraine smiled. “I guess that doesn’t feel too important right now. You know, what with the ‘we might end up dead by the end of the day’ business.”
Reese sighed a little. “This is not how I planned to go.”
“Did you? Plan to go? Actually, did you ever plan anything beyond our next stop?”
The innocent question made her thoughts scatter, left a blank in her head in their wake. Had she ever had an idea of what she wanted her life to be like? The end game, the thing she’d be able to do once she could stop running the Earthrise to make up for past debts? What came to her lips then was, “No. I never had any idea what to do with my life.” She rubbed her knees, trying to get the ache out of them. “Though ‘living in a rose-choked castle surrounded by Harat-Shar kittens’ was certainly never in sensor range.”
“Sounds like a pretty good life to me!”
“To me too, actually.”
Irine glanced at her, ears pricked in surprise. Then she shifted closer and rested her head on Reese’s shoulder. For a moment, Reese tensed… then she let it go. Let herself rest her cheek on Irine’s hair, and was surprised to find it cold. She’d had no idea hair could be cold.
“What about you?” Irine said.
Val, who’d been sitting across from them with his wrists resting on his lifted knees, glanced at them, surprised. “You’re asking me?”
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