by Alma Boykin
Something about Thomas of White Rocks set of a warning in Pjtor’s mind, but he could not recall quite what. Was it Father Thomas or something else? Pjtor let his eyes droop half closed and started humming under his breath. Music helped him remember things. He’d gotten to a second tune before a picture came to mind of a woman and child tied up and laid on a pile of wood, a priest ready to light the fire. That was it! Three Rivers parish looked to White Rocks and Bishop Josko for guidance. Pjtor and his men had arrived at Three Rivers barely in time to save a woman and her son from being burned alive because the priest claimed they’d prejudiced Godown against the community and Godown had killed the crops in revenge. Pjtor had seen justice done, but even three years later had not heard an explanation for how things had gone so wrong. They’d found two other towns in the far north with priests almost as ignorant, leading to a major discussion about training and the quality of men entering the priesthood and monasteries. Pjtor uncapped the ink jar, confirmed that it was thawed and mixed, and made notes on a separate page. The archpriest from White Rocks might be an exception, but his former bishop had failed at least once, and Pjtor could not risk that kind of failure in Muskava. That bumped Thomas to fourth place.
Archpriest Rudy also bothered Pjtor, but that had to do with his voice more than anything. Rudy sang with poor tone quality. Godown did not care so long as the celebrant’s heart were pure and his intentions were proper, but Pjtor suffered from a good ear and superb sense of pitch. Rudy’s liturgical performance grated Pjtor’s nerves. He also had a few odd beliefs about bathing and fasts, but Pjtor could ignore that, most of the time. That was for Rudy’s colleagues to deal with, and Pjtor made an additional note to ask the council to “give him guidance” on the Holy Writ’s texts on bodily fasts. Fleas and lice are not signs of holiness, not in any thing that I have read or heard. Pjtor placed Rudy as third.
Pjtor knew nothing about the two bishops that would dispose him to oppose their nomination as Archbishop. For that matter, Robert of Marshton might as well have been a creation of some history writer, because Pjtor had never laid eyes on the man. He served a parish on the edge of the White Sea, where one of the smaller rivers had a hundred mouths that emptied through a great swampy marshy area into the sea, an area rich in birds and bugs and fish. As Pjtor thought about it, it was the southernmost parish district, surviving only because even the Harriers avoided the place, probably because you couldn’t ride through it on raids. You had to travel by flat-bottomed boat much of the time. The marsh people tended to be traditionalists, loyal to Godown and the emperor, and preferred to be left alone. The nobles from that area were few and, well, odd. Pjtor thought about Lord Martin Borislov and his memory produced a picture of a wading bird. He bit his tongue to keep from chuckling, but the image fit. Martin’s legs seemed to stretch for most of his two meters of height, and his red-brown hair stood up like a storch’s crown-feathers. Lord Martin came to Muskava only when forced and left as fast as possible. After some thought, Pjtor named Bishop Robert of Marshton as first choice and Adam of Westering as second.
The monk seemed as happy to accept the lists and pages back, bow, and return to the chambers of the church council as Pjtor was to dismiss him. Pjtor stopped by a necessary and went to his chambers. Food arrived and he inhaled it as he read the latest messages, then sent a servant to Strella, asking her to meet with him in the library.
He looked at a map as he waited for her. Trouble came from the south and west. How could he hold the south with so few people? He needed men—women too but especially men. Godown might select one woman as His chosen war leader, but Pjtor did not have that power or judgment. The Harriers would attack come spring, that everyone knew. And Pjtor knew that a long supply line and a few men in the fort at the end of it would never last against the Harriers. “I have to hit them so hard and so terribly that they never recover. How?”
“Use your fist, honored brother?” He straightened up, closed the map and turned around to see Strella bowing.
“You may rise, and my fist does not reach that far. Not yet at least. I would have less success than sending children to catch the mound-rats Lord Arkmandii complains of.”
She smiled. Strella was pretty with a round face, small pink lips, a nice nose, and light brown hair that she kept covered in the traditional way. She wore a plain white underdress with a touch of light blue sewn on the tight cuffs, a sleeveless overdress in light brown embroidered with darker brown and blue, and some kind of lace-like stuff around the square neckline. Her mind was far less traditional than her clothes, and Pjtor respected her knowledge of domestic matters and management. “How may I serve, my lord?”
He walked over to the wall by the window and leaned against it, shoulders against the cool, pale wood of the wall. He crossed his arms. “You can tell me how greatly my taking Alsice as my mistress, if she is willing, would upset the Homefold.”
Strella’s eyes narrowed and she pursed her lips. “Hmm. Permission to speak freely, brother.”
That’s interesting, usually she just gives me a piece of her mind. “Speak.”
“Not greatly at all, brother. In truth, it would be easier in some ways if you did, because her position is awkward. She is not a service-slave nor a regular servant, but she’s not quite one of the noble ladies, either. She has good basic skills for managing things, just not on the scale of the palace, and she managed to calm down a spat between two of the ladies last week. She’s—well, for lack of a better world, calm, honored brother. No one can stay too upset around her, and she has not lost her temper yet that I know of.”
That was good to know. “What problems would it raise?”
“Oh, gossip, some reorganization of the service-slaves, but we probably needed to do that anyway. Half of them are getting too old to truly serve and need to be pensioned out. If anything, brother, and forgive me if I go too far, but I would take her as mistress and train her to wife. If she bears you a son, marry her. There are no safe daughters to marry right now.”
Pjtor closed his mouth, recovering from surprise at her words. None? What in the name of shahma does she mean? There’s at least three that seem to appear every time I turn around. “What do you mean by safe?”
Strella walked back and forth between the table and the closest book case before answering. She counted off on her fingers. “Tabor’s daughter is too young. Arkmandii’s daughter is spoken for, and by a non-heretic. You can’t marry Nilgal’s daughter even if she were of age.”
“No, I can’t. That would,” he shook his head, “no. She’d probably knife me in my sleep.”
Strella shrugged. “There are ways to prevent that, but you’d gain too many enemies and start rumors that you executed Nilgal just to get her, like someone out of a bad story.”
Pjtor tried to recall who else had eligible female offspring. No one that he could trust as a father-in-law, and the others either had sons or the daughters were too young. “Geert Fielder already said his wife wants a very high bride price for Anne.”
Strella snorted. “I can imagine. And there is that, honored brother: you cannot marry a foreigner.”
He’d never considered it, but she did have a point, at least for the moment. “It might be entertaining if I mentioned that I was considering it.”
A firm head shake and foot stomp met his words. “Fun in what way? Watching the daggers, literal as well as verbal, come out against the foreign women? The suffering the poor girls would go through at the bride show? No. I remember hearing from one of the dowager sisters what happened to mother’s grandmother.”
“What did happen?”
“She was not sick, and was not struck by Godown. Lord Mornovi’s wife was one of the dressing women, and she and her maids tight-laced the candidates they disliked. Two fainted, including great-grandmother, because they could not breathe. The other girl was sent to a convent in the north by her family as punishment for disgracing them.”
Pjtor stroked his mustache and frowned. “No, that is
not funny.” He nodded. “Then a month after Tamsin takes vows, I will raise Alsice to mistress, if she agrees.”
Strella tipped her head to the side. “Why ask her?”
“Because a wise woman in New Dalfa warned me never to impose myself on women. She had a point.” He squirmed a little at the memory. “And I still do not want to get knifed in bed. Or to find that she’s embroidered rude words into my shirt or something.”
“Oh, you noticed that too? I thought it rather clever of the girl, getting even with Karliniov’s son without being obvious.”
Since young Karlinov probably could not read, it was a good idea, Pjtor had thought at the time he’d first seen the shirt and coat. Now he wondered how the sewing master’s girl had learned to read and write. “So I will invite Alsice to become my mistress this summer, and we will see what transpires.”
She shook her head. “After the summer, brother. If something goes wrong, people will not say that Godown in punishing you for taking her to bed.”
I do not care what people think about who I sleep with. Except the church does, and the new archbishop will not have had time to lose support yet. Although he should realize the need for an heir. Well, just because she wasn’t his official mistress didn’t mean he couldn’t tumble her a little more often. Once more he wondered how Strella knew about such things. Well, she’d probably learned from watching what transpired in the Homefold during Sara’s tenure. “After summer.”
The next day Pjtor met with General Boris Poliko, Captain Thomas Anderson, Admiral Paulson and General Franklin Green. Landis attended as well, listening, dark eyes watching from over the scarf he always wore to cover the scars the Harriers left. Maps overflowed the table in the center of the room. “I anticipate trouble,” Pjtor stated.
“So does everyone else, imperial majesty,” Green sighed. “We have to expand our holdings, start fortifying the southern roads, and make certain that the bastards can’t retake what we retook.”
“I want the army to go south as soon as possible and push, hard, to the west and around the lake that feeds the Sweetwater Sea. Not capture the Harrier city unless Godown grants us a sign, but push the heretics farther away from what we hold.” He spread his fingers across the map, then pulled them in a little. He couldn’t take and hold that much territory.
“What about the western edges, imperial majesty?” Green pointed with the stem of his unlit pipe at Tabor’s lands. “If the Harriers attack here, and hit hard enough, they could cut us off here.” He gestured to an area well north of the Sweetwater Sea, a few days ride from the settlements south of Muskava.
Let them kill Tabor’s heretics and Godown will claim His own, Pjtor thought. But the heretics do pay taxes, and they do stand in the way between us and the Harriers. I do not want a repetition of my first encounter with the Harriers, not after executing for Grigory for allowing them to get so close among other things. “Tabor has arms and should be anticipating an attack, since they worry him every year. Should we divide the army, I think we will lose everything.”
Captain Anderson, the old retired soldier from the Sea Republics, grunted. “Aye.” He rubbed beside his nose. “But we may well lose the fort on the lake either way. It is too easy to starve out, or to catch from the water side, now they know how we did it. Granted, the Harriers do not have kettle guns, not yet. But the Turklavi might, and they may decide to turn their attention this way, to this side of the Split Sea. Godown forefend,” he added quickly. A flurry of blessing signs and saints’ signs followed his words.
Pjtor straightened up, and paced a little. He needed to move, to be out, to get away from the walls. Anderson and the others said he was impatient. No, he was trying to make up for his half-sister’s follies. And he had wood-working projects he needed to start, wanted to start. That new lathe he’d rigged up might work on the— Pjtor dragged his mind back to the summer’s plans. “Fine. Give me two plans, gentlemen. One for holding only, keeping the road and the fort, possibly expanding both, and scouting. And one for pushing out, expanding the, no, expanding here.” He ran a finger along a valley where a major stream crossed the south road before flowing into the Dawn River. “For setting up a secondary defense line here. And moving people in to settle behind, with one of those earthen border lines that book shows, um, what was it?” He started humming a little.
“Suveroff’s fortifications, imperial master?” General Poliko offered. “The one that we have half of?”
“Yes, that’s it. Thank you, Poliko.”
The men looked at each other. Admiral Paulson nodded. “And continue with the naval plans, imperial majesty?”
“Yes, oh yes.”
Ships, he would have ships and a port and a new city. And ships to sail the world, ships fit for an emperor.
Pjtor shook with anger, hands clenched into fists. The red haze came over his vision and he took a deep breath, about to roar. How could they, how dare they, he had left specific instructions, he would have them flogged with the five-tailed whip as a warning to all the other service-slaves that— His thoughts tumbled into incoherent fury.
“Oh, what if—? Perhaps, imperial master, if they lifted this corner of the roof?” Alsice had dismounted from her little horse and picked her way around the corner of the collapsed boat-shed. “Yes, imperial master, if they raise this side, carefully, they can slide the, ah, hmmm.” She backed out of his way as Pjtor stormed down to see for himself. Geert Fielders followed at a safe and respectful distance.
Pjtor had gone to the manor farm at Hornand for the first part of summer, to get away from Muskava and to see about his favorite boat, the little sailing craft called Swift One. He’d brought Alsice and Master Fielders as well as his usual personal servants, and soldiers and couriers. The emperor of NovRodi could no longer disappear into the countryside as the emperor-in-name-only had once done. Now Pjtor fumed at the destruction someone’s carelessness had caused. The special shed for Swift One had collapsed under the weight of snow and storms, and none of the servants had thought to try and rescue Pjtor’s personal sailboat. He wanted to kill them all for destroying his favorite thing. He should, to teach the others not to take his mercy for granted.
“She’s right, Pjtor Adamson,” Geert called from the other side of the wooden structure. “The main posts held, and the boat looks intact. You’d stepped the mast down, hadn’t you?”
“Of course,” Pjtor snapped. He unclenched his fists and took another deep breath, this to keep from smashing through the wooden remains to get to the craft.
“By your leave, imperial master?” Alsice asked, kilting up her sturdy, plain skirt and giving him a nice view of her legs. “I can fit inside and see if it is so bad as it seems.”
“Go.” He should not have been sending a woman, but just then he did not trust any of the servants or service-slaves cowering at the top of the slope. She crouched down, wiggling through the open side of the boat shed, the side facing the riverbank. Geert finished his inspection of the far side of the shed and rejoined Pjtor. He stayed quiet, looking at the river and then up at the horses and farm staff. “Well?”
“The uphill gave way,” he tipped his hand back, “pulled the downhill side loose, then it all settled, but not on top of Swift One, my lord. Or so it looks. Someone neglected to dig drains around the shed, or so I’d guess.”
Well, yes, because we don’t build near water the way the people from the Sea Republics do, so they never thought about that. The people of NovRodi built away from water, because . . . Why? Pjtor thought hard. They just didn’t, except there had to be a reason. What was it? “Because building near water is bad, not ‘tempting Godown’ bad but risky, since Godown sent fire once and may send water next time, and because water is uncanny. Strange things happen near water.”
Geert’s pale eyebrows rose to touch the bottom of his broad-brimmed hat. “I’ll say, my lord. Remember the fishwife, the brewer, and his doxy?”
Pjtor found himself grinning despite his anger. “How could I fo
rget? Especially after the fishwife called in St. Gimple and St. Alice to witness for her. That was bold.” He’d never quite understood exactly what triggered the fight, but the ancient woman had a deadly aim with rotten fish. She had launched two at the brewer’s regular whore and had hit the woman square on her rather impressive—
“Imperial master?” A hand waved out of a gap between two of the wall boards. “Imperial master, it is as Master Fielders says. If the men lift the front, carefully, the ship seems intact, as best I can tell.”
“Good. Come out.”
She emerged, lowered her skirts, and joined the men. Alsice had taken Pjtor’s orders to act as a free woman to heart, and while obedient and respectful, she did not defer excessively. He liked that. He also liked her practical turn of mind, and a number of other bits of her as well. She could barely ride a horse, but that would improve, and well, most women of rank rode inside enclosed wagons for protection. Alsice’s reaction to that suggestion had been, according to rumor, blunt, terse, and drew on vocabulary she’d picked up from the army. Pjtor found the tale too charming to question. Now she waited at a respectful distance, watching the men.
“Do you think any of the servants have died of fright yet, Pjtor Adamson?”
Pjtor snorted. “If so they were probably overdue for pensioning off.” Or for having their contracts sold, he growled. The service-slaves served for a set period in order to repay their debt for food and shelter. Within that time span, they could have their contracts sub-let or sold to other owners, although the church had firm words for people who abused that law, meaning it was done, just quietly, Pjtor knew. He’d not done it, yet. Alsice had almost ended up a service-slave, except for having been claimed as war loot by Gen. Poliko. She remained a servant of sorts, which was another reason to bring her with him. That and Pjtor hated the disturbances that came when he bedded a maid or service-slave and she tried to use his favor to get out of work or to pull rank among the other servants. Strella had bent his ears a few too many times about the chaos that ensued for him to forget her warnings. “You, and you,” he called, pointing to two of the sturdier-looking men. “Get some of the men and come back with lift-poles and rope.” The touched their foreheads to the ground and fled. “The rest of you, what are you waiting for?”
