by Sam Hawke
I seized the moment. It took little effort to summon tears; the mention of my Tashi’s name had burned anyway, and the memory of his body being carried away from us was enough. I let them splash down my cheeks and dropped my head. Though he was behind me, Jovan was doubtless watching Ectar closely as I said, in a tiny voice, “Oh, Lord Ectar. I … I have tried to be brave, but…”
He knelt closer to me. “What is it? What has happened?”
“Credo Etan. My uncle. I didn’t want to frighten you, but I’m afraid he was infected. It was fatal.”
“Fatal?” Ectar scrambled to his feet, reverting to Talafan as he spluttered, “You mean we are infected with something that might kill us? Why did no one inform me of this? This is unacceptable!” Now he was shouting. The solicitous merchant persona abandoned, he reverted to pure nobleman. His servants hovered about him like bobbing flies, convincingly fearful and unsure. “This is an outrage! I will not be treated like this. Call your physics, woman, and summon me a messenger at once! My grandfather will hear about this.”
Exchanging glances with Jov—he would understand the sentiment if not the words—I tried to calm the Talafan. “Lord Ectar, please.”
But he was having none of it. Lazar woke, spluttering and red-eyed, and stared at the furious Talafan. Jov stood. “Lord Ectar,” he said firmly, “you should also know that the disease that apparently killed your animal was passed to the Honored Chancellor himself.”
Ectar broke off midrant, and his already pale skin went alabaster. Tiny muscles around his mouth worked. Rage subsided into the bone-deep politics of nobility; he was from a different world, but politics were not so different all the world over. He knew what the death of the Chancellor meant. “I am … deeply grieved to hear this,” he said in Sjon, bowing his head. “Please forgive me, Credola Kalina, Credo Jovan, Credo Lazar. The Chancellor! I … I did not know.” Still shaking, he stepped back a few paces. “How could I know? The leksot was perfectly healthy, you believe me. I bought her from the best breeder. I beg you, please understand. This was not my doing.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Credo Lazar said tearfully. “Word is already spreading. The whole city will know by the morning. I brought you into my home! My family’s honor will never recover. To have had a role in the death of our most beloved Chancellor and his closest adviser … the shame of it.”
“It was healthy,” Ectar insisted. “I would never have gifted an animal that had so much as sneezed in my presence.”
“Yet the creature scratched our uncle and the Honored Chancellor,” Jovan said, his tone cold and his face still. “Now they are dead.”
“And we are going to die also?”
I suddenly realized he was not much older than we were, and not nearly as controlled as he’d appeared. If this fear was not genuine, he’d best make an appointment with the Performers’ Guild, because I believed it. “I’m sure we are not in true danger,” I reassured him. “The symptoms came on fast, so we are only here as a precaution.”
But the Talafan, still white and shaking, closed himself off once more. He mumbled another apology and then lay down with closed eyes. I would get no more from him. Jovan and I shuttered the lamps without speaking, and we lay down on our pallets in the darkened room, holding on for just a bit longer in the darkness to the illusion that this was all a terrible nightmare. He held my hand as I fell asleep.
* * *
Morning dawned without symptoms and the physics cleared us to leave. Lord Ectar was asked, in the politest possible terms that could be backed up with a sword, to accompany the Order Guards who had guarded our room to the Manor.
“I’ll go with them,” Jov told me. The creases around his eyes and brow and the redness of his irises gave away his lack of sleep. My heart ached for him. Sleep had been a brief escape for me; my brother would have spent the whole night trapped in his own head, imagining things that he could have done differently, berating himself for the path of his own thoughts. “You go home and rest.”
As if home, empty of our Tashi, would bring rest for either of us. “I’ll send a message to the estate,” I said instead. “If I go now I might not get trampled.” Most, if not all, of the Council would have heard the news last night. All the Credol Families owned birds to communicate swiftly with their family in the other cities and their estates; it would be crowded at the cote before long.
“Take a litter,” he said, frowning at me even as I slipped off. Well out of anyone’s earshot, I let out the cough I’d been smothering. My chest hurt and my breath came shallow and fast. Thendra crossed my path on the way out of the hospital, and the dark creases fanning out from her eyes deepened as she looked me over with swift appraisal.
“Go home and rest properly, Credola,” she warned me. “You should not push yourself so hard. The last thing you need right now is a relapse, yes?”
She was right, of course, even if I resented her for it a little. The cote was at the southern base of Solemn Peak, a fair walk from the hospital. Though I’d been working on my strength, it seemed spent today all the same. It was barely dawn, but the hospital was good business for the litter carriers and I found a pair easily. They were fit men who sang old religious songs in harmony as they jogged me south along the lake path. I envied their lungs.
As we passed Bell’s Bridge, the great bell tower by the Manor rang out a solemn peal, and kept ringing. The carriers slowed in surprise, speculating in anxious tones. “It’s the Chancellor,” I told them quietly. The man in front twisted to stare at me, shock stopping him in place. “To the cote, please,” I reminded him, and he gripped the edges of the litter tightly and took off at pace.
The cote was a rough tower built into the stone so the birds could nest naturally in crannies in the rock. If not for the orderly spacing of the nests it would almost seem like a natural breeding space. Some of my peers in the Administrative Guild hated coming here with missives, preferring to send messengers or servants. I liked it: the strong, earthy smell, the streaks of bird droppings that striped the insides black and white, the chorus of the birds’ raucous chatter echoing around. It was quiet—I’d apparently beaten the other Credolen here—but the door was open. “Hello?” I called, approaching the opening. Unease settled over me. I cleared my throat. “It’s Credola Kalina. From the Administrative Guild.”
The bird keeper edged out, slablike arms encircled with heavy claw-scratched leather bands, her trepidatious mannerisms at odds with her rectangular chunk of a body. “Credola,” she said, wringing her hands. “I heard the bells, and I knew people would come. I didn’t know the tower was weak, honor-down, I swear it was sound.…”
Following the keeper into the cote, the blood pounding in my ears was the only sound to be heard. Through the jagged mouth of a hole in the top corner of the tower a pale blue patch of wrongness gleamed. Scattered beams of light sprayed down into the cote, long white fingers pointing at empty hollows where the gray-and-white birds should have nested. “The birds…”
“They’ve flown,” the keeper finished. “All the tourists. They’ve all gone home, and no messages on them! Today, of all days.”
Tourists were birds not from this cote; released, they would fly to their own home cotes. “All of them?” I asked, dismayed. There should have been dozens of tourists here; the city birds, for official use, as well as the private flocks housed here for a fee and owned by some wealthy merchant families and all of the Credol Families, including mine, for messages between Silasta and the other main cities, and to the country estates. But the only birds to be seen were marked with white tags on their legs, indicating they were trained for this cote, and the locals were no use at all. They wouldn’t fly anywhere but to their own familiar nests located right here.
“All of them.” The keeper pointed one thick finger at a pile of collapsed rock and root-bare shrubbery. “It must have been a rockslide during the night. I came in to feed them this morning and found it like this. A few of the locals went out to explore, but most have come
back. The Oromani bird is fine,” she added, quickly pointing out the gray-chested bird, which had arrived with a message from our steward a few weeks ago and was waiting to be taken back with a courier.
Fat lot of good the locals will do us, I thought, but the poor keeper already looked distraught enough. Probably afraid of losing her job. And with good reason, too; I doubted the Credolen would take well to the news that they’d have to inform their families about the death of the Chancellor by courier instead of bird. While boats could reach Telasa downriver in a day, the journey upriver to Moncasta would take far longer, and West Dortal even longer, by road. For those who had close family on their country estates, the delay would be substantial, even with the best couriers.
The feeling of unease strengthened as I stared up at the hole again. It was just an inconvenience, I supposed, but it somehow felt like more than that.
“Stay here,” I said, trying to sound authoritative. “We’ll get someone from the Builders’ Guild here to patch the roof so no predators get to the rest.” And my own Guild would need to be informed that there was going to be a sudden demand for couriers. Maybe there would need to be some kind of central organization for how we spread the word. We’d have to inform our neighbors and trading partners, and there were only so many messengers in the city.
I’d wondered yesterday how we would get through life without our Tashi. Perhaps this was how people did it; letting themselves be pulled to and fro between things that must be done, obligations and decisions and more decisions. It was easier than thinking. Definitely easier than feeling.
* * *
Inherently suspicious, my brother took the news of the damaged cote with unease. What’s the difference between a coincidence and a pattern? Etan used to say.
“What happens next…” Jovan murmured, as if answering my thought.
We had been allowed in the Manor, though our time was limited. Tain had called a Council meeting and even now the others would be gathering in the Council chamber. The three of us sat in the mess of his sitting room—the surfaces bare, the floor strewn with belongings he’d hurled in his rage and grief—clinging to the last few moments we had. Tain looked a wreck; I doubted he’d slept at all.
After hearing my report on the birds, Tain had spoken to the Stone-Guilder, Eliska, and she’d sent builders and an engineer from the Builders’ Guild both to repair the cote and to report on whether the rockslide had been natural. There was no specific reason to connect the damage to yesterday’s events, except timing, but it was enough to concern Jovan and me. Tain seemed dazed, willing to take our advice on what to do next, and I worried how he would cope with the Council meeting.
“You’ll need to talk to the Scribe-Guilder,” Jov said. “To manage the priorities for who gets informed when. We can send a boat in each direction, and a messenger by road west, perhaps one messenger per estate, one for the army, as well—do we wait to inform other countries?”
“I’ll consult with Budua,” Tain agreed. “I don’t know enough about our international relations. About anything.” He stared at the wall, face shadowed. He hadn’t expected to replace his uncle for decades or longer. We’d all thought we had so much time.
One of Tain’s servants interrupted us politely with a tray of food. Once he left, Jovan pulled the tray out of Tain’s reach and examined the plate of fruit and three bowls of baked fish. “From now on, you eat nothing I haven’t prepared.”
Tain regarded him with a strange look and tense shoulders as Jov started his process, sniffing everything, separating the components of the food with his fingers. This was the inevitable progression of their friendship, and hardly unprecedented, but from the range of emotions tugging at his expression it seemed Tain had avoided thinking about that. Undeniable, too, was the kernel of dread in my stomach. Yes, this was our family’s duty, and protecting Tain was an honorable task. But could Jov protect Tain if Etan had failed to protect Caslav?
“What do I say about what happened yesterday?”
Tain’s question forced us to an uncomfortable place, and we were silent a moment. “I suppose you have to say it seems to have been a disease or toxin carried by the leksot,” Jov said at last. “You can tell them you have Lord Ectar in custody for questioning as a precaution, but that at this stage it doesn’t look deliberate.”
“Was it, though?” Tain looked between us, eyes red. “Was this just an accident?”
“I don’t know,” Jov said. “Honor-down, it wasn’t a poison we know of, but Thendra said it didn’t act like any disease she knew of, either. If Ectar’s telling the truth about the animal being healthy during the trip here, why did it only die yesterday, without sickening?”
“I don’t even know what to do with Ectar. He’s related to the bloody Emperor; I can’t accuse him of anything without good evidence.”
I cleared my throat. “I’m not even sure the leksot was connected. Someone could have poisoned it, too, to throw suspicion on Lord Ectar.” When Tain looked surprised, I elaborated. “I found the leksot in the glass gardens, but someone else had been there, too. There were crushed weeds by the pond, footprints, and the way I found the body didn’t look right. I think … I think it’s possible someone laid it out for us to find.”
Even as I said it, I wondered if it sounded paranoid. My brother looked at me strangely, not in condescension or judgment but rather, an uncertain reevaluation. He trusted me, but he didn’t understand everything about me. He wasn’t the only one who had been trained to a duty.
“Plenty of other people were at that lunch,” Jov agreed slowly. “I don’t think we should ignore other options at this stage. Don’t tell the other Councilors you suspect anything but a disease. Thendra is examining our uncles’ bodies this morning. We might know more after that.”
“So I just have to hold off that baying pack in the Chamber in the meantime.” Tain managed a weak grin. “Should be no problem.”
* * *
The two of them sent me off home, again, when time came for the meeting. I couldn’t deny my exhaustion, but their well-meant concern stifled me. I had lost my uncle, too, and that same family honor tied me to protecting Tain as much as my brother. So I nodded meekly and exaggerated my weariness so as to be outpaced. When they’d passed from my sight down the spiral corridor, I slowed further, waiting until their footfalls pattered away.
I removed my sandals and tucked them into the cording of my dress. Evading servants was easy enough. They were distracted and unsure, and I was a silent ghost, moving barefoot through rooms and corridors I’d not visited in years. My heart beat fast as I wobbled on top of the cupboard in the dusty storeroom at the end of my journey. Ghost or no, I’d be in trouble if anyone disturbed me now.
The panel stuck and I had to pry it open; no one had used it in years. Inside was a tighter fit than I remembered, and the darkness and heavy air more intimidating. Though perhaps that was because my memories of this place were as a young woman desperate to impress an uncle she’d long thought was shamed by her failures. It had been a game I was good at—at last, something I could do well!—being quiet, being underestimated, and listening, always listening. My throat constricted again as I remembered the warmth of my Tashi’s praise. A secret only he and I had shared, and something no one else ever knew about me. Not even my little brother. The loss of Etan beat inside me like a hammer, but I crawled on.
The murmur of voices alerted me that I’d reached my destination long before my fumbling fingers found the latch in the dark. It opened soundlessly, giving me a sliver of a view down below. I settled into the small alcove and pressed close.
The chamber was a comfortable room, designed for long hours of discussion, with soft thick carpet and plush chairs around a circular polished stone table, and cabinets stacked with expensive ornaments and artifacts. All the great and terrible decisions of Sjona’s past had been made right here beneath the enormous glass-and-metal dome roof. How many had been observed by someone in this hiding place, all but in
visible between carved panels depicting the histories of the peoples who had come together to form a country of peace and prosperity?
Jovan sat in my uncle’s chair; behind him hung Etan’s portrait, his gentle face inclined slightly downward as though watching over his nephew. Between him and Tain was an empty seat, Chancellor Caslav’s solemn face above it, gazing off to the side in contemplation. To Jov’s left were the other four Credol Family seats, organized in order of the strength of their relationship to the Chancellor. I catalogued them now as Etan had required of me in the past: Bradomir, impeccable from fingernail to groomed moustache; Lazar, shrinking into his seat, a disheveled ghost of his usual self. The other two—plump, handsome Javesto and shriveled Nara—an exercise of contrasts; one bold, careless, squandering family fortune and sometimes honor in dubious business arrangements, the other bitter, miserly in her protection of power and money.
To Tain’s right, the six Guilders: Warrior, Craft, Artist, Stone, Theater, and Scribe, the difference in their levels of haggardness marking who had heard the news last night and who had woken to it this morning.
“It is imperative that I be able to send the best couriers immediately, Honored Heir,” Credo Bradomir was saying, leaning past Jovan toward Tain. “Much of my family is in Moncasta at this time of year. It will be difficult for them to return for the funeral if I am forced to—”
Credo Javesto snorted. “We can’t wait for everyone’s family, friend, or the funeral won’t be for a month.”
“Forgive me, Credo, but as someone who is terribly young, and new to the Council, perhaps you’re struggling to understand the depth of relationships that some of us had with our beloved Chancellor.” Credola Varina, the Theater-Guilder, was Bradomir’s cousin, and shared both his good looks and his supercilious attitude. Despite the circumstances, she’d found time to immaculately style her hair in a fashionable structure of braids, curls, and beaded sections. “I understand it possibly doesn’t mean as much to your family to be present, but some of us were very close.”
