One of the nicer things about working for the Spider of the Silver Tower was that she gave you a job and the resources and information you needed and then left you to get on with it.
Though God have mercy if you screw the pooch, for she won’t.
“I’d suggest that you start your day with that. You can continue with the dispatches from the hospital and the death letters.”
She plucked two wallets out of the pile. Tiphaine took them and waited for Lilianth to bring Sandra’s dispatch.
No need to guess what it’s about. Mathilda’s letter is quite clear; Alex Vinton finked her out to the Cutters off there in the wilds of Idaho, and did it with Mary Liu’s knowledge and approbation. The only upside is that Odard Liu wasn’t involved; he got screwed over too, and saved Matti’s life. And he’s Baron Gervais now, so since the head of the family is loyal and can be shown to be loyal we needn’t proscribe the lot of them and attaint the estates. That would drop the horse apple in the bobbing bucket right along with the Golden Delicious just now, the way the nobility are antsy about things in general.
But Mary Liu would have to go, one way or another. Which probably meant her brother Guelf Mortimer had to go, too, he was a notorious grudge bearer and was almost certainly involved in anything she was. Her other brother Sir Jason had been a serious loose cannon, and Tiphaine had had to deal with him back fifteen years ago. There wouldn’t be any need to cook a trial for Mary, the evidence was right there, but Guelf might be awkward if he didn’t fuck up in dramatic fashion or show what a skank he was politically.
The problem was that so far he’d been performing far better than she’d expected. Killing a competent leader just because had a serious potential for blowback down the road these days. It wasn’t like Norman’s time, when nobody knew in the morning if their head would be attached to a spike over the gate at sundown.
Will the Lady Regent prefer a large public trial for the Dowager Baroness Liu or a nice private referral to the Court of Star-Chamber, which is to say, herself? A large, very emotionally charged trial, against a woman who has proclaimed her ill-usage since before the Field of the Cloth of Gold will not go over well with the Associates with this war getting going and so far not going well at all. On the other hand, just having her mysteriously drop dead . . . we’ve been trying to cut back on stuff that raw, getting ready for the transition when Mathilda turns twenty-six and becomes Lady Protector. On the third hand, Mathilda ran away with Rudi and they’re off looking for a magic sword in the Death Zones of the east, and along the way she just handed us this can of worms. Damn it, I love the girl like a kid sister but smart as she is she’s a pain in the ass sometimes.
She was still thinking hard when Lilianth came back with a small steel box. It had the Lady Regent’s personal sigil on it, an etching of the Virgin subduing the Dragon of Sin, which was one of Sandra’s private jokes. The same was stamped onto a paper-and-wax seal over the lock.
“I witness that the seal is unbroken,” Tiphaine said, then flicked it off with the point of her dagger.
“I witness that you have broken the seal and unlocked the dispatch box,” Lilianth said as Tiphaine turned the key.
The Grand Constable gestured to the door. Lilianth closed it as she left. The carrick bend knot wound with copper wire was one used only by Sandra Arminger and only to Tiphaine or Conrad Renfrew. She drummed her fingers on the disk, still turning over the implications of Mary’s treason and the way the Associates would react to any public news of her complicity. Then she neatly snipped the copper coils and undid the knot and unfolded her instructions.
Hmmm, she wrote this with her own hand; and she was upset. Unusual for Sandra, but then Mathilda is the focus of everything for her. Her latest amanuensis . . . Lady Jehane, of House Jones . . . is what, seventeen? Why didn’t she entrust it to her? She’s old enough and she’ll have to deal with the grittier aspects of life, soon enough.
Tiphaine read the directions again.
Oh! Tricky, very tricky. How are we going to do this? Glad I stuck Guelf with Viscount Chenoweth at Hermiston, he’s nicely out of the way for now and young Renfrew can keep an eye on him.
Tiphaine closed her eyes, used a mnemonic trick to make sure she’d memorized the Regent’s missive and then set it alight in the room’s empty fireplace. A few strokes of the poker made sure that nobody could reconstruct anything from the ashes as well. She sat for a moment in silence, then looked up as the door opened.
“The condolence letters, my lady,” Lilianth said.
An unpleasantly long casualty list was attached, and the allies had suffered badly while breaking loose too. Tiphaine took the letters and began to sign them carefully; it was her job to take care of the noblemen, just as each lord would do the same by letter or in person for his subordinates. No dashing off her signature in the pre-Change fashion. Each one was a work of art, and much treasured by many of the recipients.
They gave their lives for the Association, the least the Association can give them back is a duly formal letter of thanks. And for once it’s not the most unpleasant duty in prospect.
She shook her hand out when she’d finished and plunged into the data in the rest of the files and reports. It was even soothing, in a way; when you were in the thick of things any battle felt like a defeat and an actual defeat felt like unmitigated disaster.
But according to this it’s more of a mitigated disaster.
Meanwhile she could feel her subconscious chewing over Sandra’s orders and the information she had and coming up with a way to reach the desired outcome. A page came in with a list of provisional unit movement orders from Rigobert de Stafford; she glanced at it, went over to the map, thought for a moment and scribbled approved, d’Ath on the bottom and set him running back to the situation room. The door opened at ten, just as she was about to call for a stenographer, and Lioncel came in with a cup of hot coffee. She gave a slight jerk of her head towards the desk.
“Good, I’ll have an errand for you soon. Put it there. Did you get Delia home?”
“Yes, my lady, at your orders, my lady. Lady Phillipa had to help me, but we sent her home an hour ago. Lady Phillipa asked me to help with the records and said she’d make it good with you.”
Tiphaine nodded. “I’m fine with that. Does she need any more help? I can probably send over a few of the widow brigade.”
Lioncel grinned. “She says no. I say yes, my lady. She doesn’t want to interfere with the war ministry’s needs.”
Tiphaine scribbled some names on a scrap of paper and waved her hand in dismissal. “Notify these that they’re seconded. And send Dame Lilianth in on your way,” she said as she took a quick swallow of the acrid brew.
Better watch it or I’ll be peeing all afternoon, she thought. And remember what the headaches were like the last time you had to cold-turkey, the stuff’s too expensive and the supply’s too unreliable to get really dependent on it.
“Sit, Dame Lilianth. I am going to make you the possessor of a secret and part of a conspiracy. I have instructions from the Lady Regent and wide latitude on how to carry them out.”
The older woman sat, her plain brown eyes deliberately and annoyingly bland. “By your word,” she said, an ironic twist to her voice. “What can I do for my lady the Spider?”
Tiphaine leaned back in her swivel chair and put her hands behind her head, staring thoughtfully at the coffered ceiling.
“It’s complicated and it will need us to be very quiet and sneaky. As a start, I want you to have a fainting fit—people actually believe in those again, so useful—and call for your son-in-law’s brother’s help. He’s on garrison duty with the city castellan, isn’t he?”
“Garrick? Certainly . . . what next?”
“It’s enough like my special-ops days to make me feel nostalgic. We—”
As the door closed on Dame Lilianth, Tiphaine broke open the next dispatch. My head hurts again . . . but not as much as Astrid’s does!
Alone, she let a s
udden sharp grin split her face. She relished the second of pure, unadulterated joy contemplating Astrid Loring’s concussion gave her. The thought of how the fact that Tiphaine had rescued her from the wreck of her covert ops mission gave a more subtle pleasure; it would be grit under the Hiril Dúnedain’s eyelids for the rest of her life.
Or it would be for me, in her position, and I can hope we’re enough alike for that to be so for her as well.
She worked her way through the day’s stack of wallets and made a good start on the stack of allocation files. The Association’s military system was largely self-financing, but only as long as you didn’t need to use it for anything but routine. Once vassals had done more than their regulation forty days of service in the field, they had to be paid. And of course all the allied contingents were trying to shift as much of their costs as possible onto the Portland treasury.
Lioncel brought her lunch. And his brother, two years younger and as dark as Lioncel was fair, but otherwise much like his brother. The three made their usual quick meal in the office on the pork-loin sandwiches and potato salad and fruit. Dame Lilianth scolded as Diomede tried to avoid getting a huge yellow mustard blot on his hose—and succeeded in getting it all over the floor. After he had cleaned it up, she sent him out with Dame Lilianth and Ysolde to work on organizing the kitchens to cope with the influx of temporary workers; that was good training in logistics.
She was deep into a plan submitted by the Count Palantine of Walla Walla to reinforce Castle Campscapell and wondering if it could, just possibly, be a scheme to get his own troops inside that Crown fortress when a quick tap on the door broke into her concentration.
“Come.”
Her senior squire Armand Georges poked his head in.
“Urgent dispatch, my lady Grand Constable.”
“Another?”
She managed to keep most of the sound of resentment out of her voice; this sort of thing went with the job.
“What is it this time?”
“Sir Guelf Mortimer of Loiston . . . did a bunk.”
“Shit! A bunk?”
“Fled. Scarpered. Twinkle-toed into the wild blue distance. Absent without leave . . .”
“All right.”
Tiphaine snapped her mouth shut, and squeezed her eyes shut for an instant. She’d parked him out at Hermiston to keep him on ice while the Gervais problem was dealt with. On the other hand . . .
“Tell me how Guelf pulled it off.”
He shrugged. “From what we’ve managed to piece together, he conned each of the back-scouting parties into believing he was with the other one. Unfortunately for him, Sir Thierry Renfrew ran into a CUT probe down the Columbia. He fought and called for reinforcements. That’s the train that arrived at four this morning with the wounded. Chenoweth called up Mortimer’s picket. They had some trouble finding them. He finally tracked them down late yesterday. Guelf left early on the nineteenth.”
“Days! He could be anywhere by now.”
“But there’s not much doubt where he’s headed. Gervais.”
“Yes.” She frowned. “That getaway was a lot more subtle than Guelf’s usual level. But heading for Gervais is putting his head on the block and even he should have been able to see that. Uncharacteristically smart, then bone-stupid even beyond his usual.”
“Offhand, I’d say that means he’s being used as a puppet, and by someone who doesn’t care about the consequences for him.”
“Good analysis.”
She smiled then, and even Armand blinked, though he’d been one of her operatives for years.
“I was hoping to keep the Gervais problems on hold, but the operation’s ready to go. And Guelf has just delivered himself into my hand. Desertion in the face of the enemy!”
She held her right hand out, palm-up, and then slowly closed the long fingers into a fist. Then she reached out for Chenoweth’s dispatch.
“Go find Sir Garrick Betancourt. He’ll be down with the Marchwarden of the South in the situation room. Tell him drop the hammer. Verbal orders only, of course.”
Armand nodded and left at a brisk walk; running would attract the eye and arouse curiosity.
Tiphaine leaned back from the crowded desk and let her fingers trace the pommel of the misericord dagger at her belt.
Thirty miles, give or take, and the rail runs right through Gervais. Betancourt should be there by midafternoon if he pushes it.
Mistress Douglas came in with a new sheaf of papers and searched for the correct docket to file them in.
Tiphaine followed her out to talk to one of the typists.
“Mistress Romero, write and send a message to the Regent. It can go in the clear, as fast as possible. Guelf Mortimer of Loiston has drawn the dotted line.”
Puzzlement, and then she could see everyone assuming that it was some private code. It was; the rest of the phrase was on the back of his neck, which was where the headsman’s ax went—Guelf wouldn’t rate the two-handed sword, not being a tenant-in-chief.
CHARTERED CITY OF GOLDENDALE
COUNTY OF AUREA
PORTLAND PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION
(FORMERLY CENTRAL WASHINGTON)
HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL
(FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)
AUGUST 5, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD
Mathilda grimaced slightly as Tiphaine halted her narrative.
“There weren’t any palatable choices right there, were there, Tiph?”
“That’s war for you, Matti. Particularly this type; we just couldn’t take any chances on the politics of it. Fortunately I’m not at the ultimate policymaking level. I’m more like a crossbow. You point me and pull the trigger.”
“And I am doing the aiming now, and the only ones I can blame things on if it goes wrong are Rudi and God, which wouldn’t be a good idea. Well, the Liu siblings need to know some of that. That way of dealing with Mary Liu was so Mom, though. Just trying to follow her logic makes my brain hurt, sometimes. It’s always there but it’s . . . twisty.”
“At least you can follow it. Thousands couldn’t, and a lot of them came down with a case of the deads. Not least the late unlamented Dowager Baroness Liu, in the end.”
The man-at-arms came back up the stairs.
“His Reverence Abbot-Bishop Dmwoski, Your Majesty,” he said. “The Honorable Huon Liu, heir to Barony Gervais; the Honorable Yseult Liu.”
Tiphaine looked at her, and Mathilda nodded slightly. Then she smiled and rose as they entered and made their bow and curtsy; she advanced and kissed Dmwoski’s ring respectfully, then extended her hands to the youngsters. She’d known them socially, of course—Odard had been a frequent companion of hers for years before the Quest. But they’d both been teenagers and then young adults, and at that age you tended to ignore younger siblings who were still children. Neither had been presented at court.
And their mother tended to keep them very close, she thought. Even before she went to the bad.
“Lord Huon, Lady Yseult,” she said gently. “I am so sorry about Odard. I miss him terribly, but you can be very proud of him. It was an honor to be his friend and liege.”
She liked the way Huon reacted, dignified but reserved; for a fifteenyear-old it was rather impressive. He moved well, too, and looked as if he’d have something of Odard’s wiry strength. Yseult was more reserved still, and . . .
Tiphaine gives her the willies, though she hides it well. Of course, looked at objectively Tiph is scary as hell; she doesn’t scare me because I grew up around her. She did kill Yseult’s mother. So I don’t expect more than courtesy, but if the girl is going to be around Court, she just has to get used to it.
“And you all know Baroness d’Ath.”
Another round of polite bows. Mathilda could tell that Dmwoski was being a bit chilly, and Tiphaine was secretly amused by it; she respected Dmwoski despite his faith, not for it.
I don’t think the Lius noticed. They’re smart enough, but young yet.
The cleric and the Gran
d Constable were both far too self-controlled to make it obvious. Or to let personal dislikes interfere with the job, for that matter.
“Please sit, and help yourselves,” Mathilda said. “I understand you’ve been on the train all day, and it can’t have been much fun.”
“Crowded and slow, Your Majesty,” Dmwoski said. “But that’s only to be expected in wartime.”
Mathilda chatted a little to relax them; Huon grew enthusiastic about the gear and horses he’d picked up in Portland, and the prospect of going on his first real campaign after training to war all his life, and his swearing ceremony as a squire. That was natural enough, since it was big step and one that was overdue. After a few minutes he was also wolfing down the chicken empanadas. Yseult nibbled on one and agreed that she was up to transferring to a forward field hospital of the type the Sisters were setting up here in Goldendale.
“Ah . . . do you want to take my oath now, Your Majesty?” Huon said.
Mathilda shook her head. “Tomorrow, and publicly,” she said decisively. “That will be better, if you think about it.”
She watched them carefully; Yseult grasped the point first, but Huon was only a second behind. A public oath would be a public statement: I trust Huon Liu at my back, or more specifically I trust Huon Liu at my back with a dagger, twenty-four/seven. Neither was obvious about it either, which was good.
People might, would, still talk, but they’d do it in a whisper and not where he could hear. More important, they wouldn’t do it where the High Queen or anyone close to her could hear it either.
“I understand that you’ve been eager to hear the results of the Most Reverend Father’s investigations,” she said after a moment’s quiet contemplation. “Besides being most helpful.”
“Ah . . . not exactly eager, Your Majesty,” Huon said.
He and his sister exchanged a glance.
Those two are allies against the world, Mathilda thought. A little wistfully, since she’d been an only child. And necessarily a little isolated from others her own age by her birth, except for Rudi.
Emberverse 08: The Tears of the Sun Page 25
