When I heard a change in Nikolas’s voice, I looked at him.
He flattened his hands against the table and informed them of what was to come—a plague which would render every man, woman, and child unable to speak, hear, and move.
A few men suppressed their guffaws. The rest stared in disbelief.
“I realize that seems impossible, but this is no jape. I asked Miss Riven to speak because she is especially able to address the phenomenon. Their attention is yours,” he said.
With an assured tone, I described what I observed among the plants and creatures in Rothwyke and in the woods. For the plants, the plague’s three phases were of equal duration, each lasting three days, and for the creatures, seven. I assumed our people would be afflicted for weeks or months. Because the plants had entered the initial phase on the first day of spring, I predicted a cycle of Nature was involved. I believed the people of Rothwyke would sicken on the first day of summer. In time, the plague would spread beyond the borders of our town and kingdom.
“Miss Riven, how do you know this?” an old man with wiry sidechops asked.
“I have an unusual affinity with creatures and plants,” I said.
Several men couldn’t contain their laughter. Despite the humiliation singeing my cheeks, I continued. “Disbelieve me if you wish. I’d be incredulous, too, if I were in your place. However, those of you who live in Rothwyke, who have animals kept for service or as pets, you know their behavior was abnormal for three weeks. This happened, too, to the wild ones.”
“We aren’t potted plants and dumb beasts,” another man said.
“No, which makes us far more vulnerable,” I said.
“What’s the cause of the ailment?” someone asked.
“I don’t know, sir.” To them, there was no way to explain what we’d been told in the realm.
“How is it borne?”
“Through water, I believe.”
Several of them pushed away their teacups.
“How do you know that, Miss Riven?”
The man’s tone was suspicious, accusatory, threatening. I took a slow breath to quell my anger. I remembered when my mother told my father I’d awakened from the fever speaking the ancient language. Father’s response rushed back to me: “Once upon a time, we burned women like you at the stake.” He smiled when he said it, but what made his humor dark was the belief that what cannot be explained is tainted with evil, done with malice.
I looked into the man’s eyes with my strange ones the colors of night and day. He reared back in his seat. Because I couldn’t tell the truth Reach and Cyril revealed to me, I said, “On that matter, I’d refer you to the research of Dr. Bechgert, from Kirsau. Listen, gentlemen, we have eight weeks to prepare. We can spend it concerned with the source and its transmission, but that will do nothing to stop the spread. We in Rothwyke will be the first, but we won’t be the last. We can serve as an example to others, for better or worse.”
“This is preposterous!”
“How are we to know this isn’t a trick?”
“Or that the messenger bears no culpability?”
I blinked at the man who’d called out the last question. “If I meant harm, why would I reveal what’s coming? I’ll sicken like everyone else. If I don’t, persecute me, then. For now, take me as a loyal subject with good intent.”
The advisers rubbed their chins, crossed their arms, and tapped their fingers. Nikolas nodded at me with authority, but his eyes conveyed an affectionate pride.
“Which brings us to the other reason you’re here today, good men of the Council and Mayor Pearson. We must plan for what’s to happen,” Nikolas said. “Miss Riven, you may stay, but I expect you understand our remarks are confidential.”
At once, the men began to talk over one another. Nikolas made no attempt to quiet them, observing their demeanor with dispassion. Finally, in turn, they began to speak. They called to station sentinels in Rothwyke and throughout Ailliath. Of course, there weren’t enough men in the king’s service, so one man suggested a call for volunteers, another to require conscription of able-bodied men. Some advisers insisted there wasn’t time enough to train them all, but several noted that didn’t matter because anyone can figure out how to use a sword. Hiring mercenaries would be expensive, but those already-trained men could be rallied quickly. Many voiced their fear of what neighboring kingdoms would do once they learned of our vulnerability, especially as war spread around us—Ilsace now aiding Giphia to fight Haaud and protecting its border with Kirsau.
As they argued, I thought of Aoife, centuries before, listening as a few powerful men debated risks and anticipated threats that would affect so many. She wondered then about the power of words, how one could plan a strategy without them. “What kind of war could happen in the midst of silence?”27 she wrote. Now I pondered the same in different circumstances.
I looked at Nikolas. Days earlier, we’d had a long discussion. He told me he’d consulted with various advisers, contemplated the history he’d studied, and considered what Aoife included in her manuscript—her and the Guardians’ perspectives on war and peace, within one’s self and the wider world. He wanted to challenge the way order had always been held. I agreed but was afraid the approach would fail. For so long, threat had been the means to obedience.
“Gentlemen,” Nikolas said, “we have the option not to react as if violence is inevitable.”
“Your Majesty, there’s sure to be civil unrest—”
“—chaos—”
“—and if we are attacked from the outside—”
“—force will be necessary—”
“What lasting peace has that ever brought?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“What did she say?” one whispered to another.
“What lasting peace?”
The Council stared as if they expected me to say something else. So I did, because I would never get a chance like this again, and even though I knew, as it had been for Aoife, the men would not hear much less heed me.
“We choose the evil we do to each other, and because of that, we can choose the good,” I said.
They scoffed and snickered, making no effort to hide their condescending grins. Nikolas gave me an imperceptible nod, conveying his accord.
“If only things were as simple as that fairy-tale notion,” a man said at the table’s far end. “Now then, to these grave matters, how are we supposed to defend ourselves, Your Majesty?”
“From what?” Nikolas asked. “Gentlemen, I’m not naïve enough to think there will be no aggression, but I believe that will come from within more so than without. I won’t turn armed men among my own people. If they turn against each other, it’s to their own detriment. What I propose is different, but that doesn’t mean it will be ineffective.”
With that, Nikolas ordered a census of every person living in Rothwyke first, then in every other town and village in the kingdom, as well as a tally of available food and supplies and how much would be needed if the plague lasted a year.
He announced a delegation of the town’s people would convene in three weeks, to which Mayor Pearson had already agreed. Before then, in each ward, the residents were to meet as a group, state their ideas and concerns, and select two representatives, a man and a woman, of any age, of any occupation.
To the kingdoms which bordered Ailliath and several beyond, Nikolas would send a letter about the plague, intending to prepare rather than frighten them about what would spread past our borders.
I could see the conflict on the men’s faces. Many of the Council members disagreed with Nikolas’s proposals. Most had known Nikolas since he was a boy, which might have made them feel fatherly toward him, but now he was a man, their king, a role that demanded loyalty and respect he hadn’t had time to earn. If enough of them refused to cooperate or tried to usurp him, the plague would be only one of our worries.
“I speak for myself here, but perhaps for my fellow advisers when I say I have serious doubts this w
ill work,” a man said.
“—this requires more discussion—”
“—hear, hear!—”
“—indeed, what if this fails?”
“What if it doesn’t?” Nikolas asked.
“What if we perish?” a liver-spotted man said.
“Then what have we truly lost?” Nikolas said.
Nikolas stood with his fists against the table. “Lord Milton, Lord Ashby, and Lord Sullyard, you are entrusted to organize your fellows. By the end of the day, I require a list of who you’ve chosen among you to take charge. Within three days, I require a written account of your initial plans. All heads are to report their findings directly to me. Mayor Pearson, we’ll discuss arrangements for the town delegation. All of you, remember my intentions. I’ve been clear.” He paused. His eyes shone with tears. “I ask you to honor my father by honoring me. There was peace during his reign, as I wish to have in mine.
“Gentlemen, gentlelady, our meeting is adjourned.”
As the men rose from their seats, Nikolas asked me to stay. I answered what questions I could and tried to ignore the looks that pierced my way.
After everyone left, Nikolas held the door half-shut. Behind it, he reached out his hand formally for a shake, and I took it. “This is for a job well done,” he said. Then he pulled me forward and kissed me. “That was because you’re brave and brilliant and I love you.”
1 MAY /38
ON THE NIGHT OF THE ball, I dressed at Margana’s shop. She’d kept the costume she made for me the year before. I’d paid for it and said she could it sell to someone else, but she refused to do so. After making the final touches, Margana stepped away with a look of awe.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, peering into the mirror.
“Yes, it is, but you give it life. You are exquisite,” she said. “And your accessory makes you formidable.”
I reached my hand to the silver wolf. Together, we’d crept from the woods to the shop so that I could get ready for the ball. The wolf indulged a quick stroke of one ear before I leashed her.
When I arrived at the manor’s entrance, once again I accepted the offer of a man’s hand. He was dark eyed and dark haired, from the curls on his head to down the length of his body. When he noticed the wolf, he tried to pull away, but I held my grip.
“She isn’t the one to fear,” I said.
I released his hand and drifted inside toward the heady music and scents. Throughout the main hall, lanterns cast light on plush scarlet carpets and velvet cushions on the floor. Silk veils, saffron and moss green, streamed together across the ceiling and draped down over the walls.
Compared to the costumes two years prior, several of the guests’ disguises were far more revealing, with precarious bodices, gauzy codpieces, and skintight seams. What was alluring on some appeared comic on others. The guests sipped dark spirits and devoured their food. I felt the urge to have a drink, a taste, and knew I must not.
Find him, I said to the wolf, holding fast to her leash.
She escorted me through the hall. The gawking revelers cleared the way for us.
As I approached, I expected him to recognize me in that disconcerting way of his, as if he knew me by scent more than sight.
Fewmany laughed with two companions who were attached at the hip—the woman dressed as a man, the man dressed as a woman. The pair turned their faces. Their smiles receded as their jaws dropped.
His amber eyes flickered behind his muzzle mask. Fewmany tilted his head, then rose to his full height, his wolf coat fitting him like flesh.
“Ravishing!” the woman as man said.
“Divine!” the man as woman said.
They glanced at the wolf, then studied me, up and down.
A silver crown, tipped with crystal prisms, rested on my head. A simple white mask covered my eyes. My braided silver hair snaked over one breast. A shimmering beaded web, delicate as any orb weaver’s, cast itself across the décolletage. Black as a void, the dress traced my curves. White flames flared across my belly, and the fiery tips licked all the way to my feet. On the long black cape, silver fernlike fronds splayed high from shoulder to shoulder. In the cape’s cascade, a tapestry of silver birds and beasts danced against a darkness deep as night. Down the cape’s sides to the end of its train, the border was jagged as thorns.
In one hand, I held the wolf’s leash and in the other, the strap of a cylinder.
“Good evening,” I said, nodding to him and the two guests. “I wish to thank the host for his invitation and solicit him for a word.”
The glint in Fewmany’s eyes shifted with mercurial speed, from astonishment to suspicion to recognition. The conjoined guests bowed a gracious good-bye as Fewmany stared down at me.
“My keeper of tales, ’tis a provocative transformation. I see you’ve brought a guest this time,” he said, stretching his hand to the wolf.
Her quiet growl warned him to withdraw.
“To transform is the point, isn’t it?” I asked.
I noticed an addition to his costume. Pinned into the fur at his chest was the jeweled brooch. Gratifying though it was to know he cherished it, seeing the symbol exposed conspicuously disconcerted me.
“I’ve come with a gift. I must give it to you in private,” I said.
Fewmany smirked.
“No, this is something you truly desire. I’ll wait for you in the library.”
Before he could reply, I walked to the grand staircase. I ignored the sprawled couple who blocked my passage halfway up.
The library’s door was locked when I tried to enter. Soon enough, I heard footsteps. He let me in and locked the door behind us. For a heartbeat, then two, I realized I had no means to escape. The wolf pressed against my leg.
In the dark, my hands found a lamp but no matches. I walked past him and took a vesta from the mantel.
He placed his mask on the table. “You never cease to intrigue me,” he said.
“Which is one reason why we’re friends,” I said as I offered the lamp to him. When the light shone near his face, I winced. The red streak under his jaw and chin was no better, still swollen and now raw. A dark shadow loomed under his right eye as if he’d been punched.
“Your neck, and your eye,” I said.
He took the lamp with gloved hands. “Nightmare flailings. Both will heal.”
“Let’s go to the map room,” I said.
We walked the length of the library with the wolf between us. If Fewmany was frightened, he gave no hint. He opened the hidden room. Go, I said to the wolf, dropping the leash, and she stepped over the cabinet. I heard the humming murmuring crowd downstairs.
After I lit a second lamp, I took the map from the cylinder.
“Will you still not consent to let me follow you to find it again?” Fewmany asked, his tone suggesting an invitation, not a command.
“And spoil the surprise of what you’ll discover? That you must experience yourself,” I said, rephrasing what he’d said to me the day of the hunt. That he raised the issue again felt intrusive and ill timed. I excused this as some effect of the night’s preoccupations. “Help me fix the corners.”
We gathered heavy objects—the etched copper globe, an astrolabe—and placed them down. Fewmany swept his eyes across the chart. He curled one corner to feel the front and back, peered close at the inks, and studied the two sewn patches. “It looks ancient. You couldn’t have drawn this.”
“It’s genuine. More than a thousand years old.”
He shivered as his finger traced the X. “Explain.”
“I didn’t travel this route, but what you see marked is the destination. My father was right about the connection with The Mapmaker’s War, not only because some symbols are near battle sites. From your library or his, I read some apocrypha about a map drawn for Prince Raef to find the hoard, not long after Wyl returned from his quest to seek the dragon. The map was well described, down to the swallow.”
“How did you obtain this?”
�
��The royal library. I asked a favor of Prince—King—Nikolas—we were schoolmates, as you know—to conduct research on my father’s behalf, for his particular quest. Tax documents, land records, et cetera. Had I not found this map, I would have drawn one for you, not quite as lovely, or as valuable.”
“This is stolen.”
“A bottle of ink spilled; I apologized profusely; the archivist went out for cloths; I folded the map, slipped it under my skirt. No one’s looked at it in centuries. It won’t be missed.”
His incredulous squint vanished. He laughed. “What corrupting influence inspired this larceny?”
“I refrain from comment,” I said.
The silver wolf let out a huff.
“However, the map lacks an important detail,” I said. “When you arrive, you must look for a dead tree, a hollow through and through, large enough to stand inside. Near this tree is the cave entrance.”
“Hidden in plain sight.”
“So to speak. The chances of stumbling upon it are almost nil, and the journey to it requires fortitude.”
Fewmany gripped the copper globe over the words Here be dragons. “If the kings of Ailliath have known where the hoard is, ’tis strange they haven’t claimed it.”
I puzzled over his remark. How strangely literal it was for him, as if he’d forgotten what drew us together and sent me out in the first place. “The symbol’s mystery remains. The night you asked for my aid, you said you believe there are certain people who are led to great things. Perhaps not all princes are privy to its power.”
“Not so for you, my keeper of tales, my lady of the beasts. Your power is no longer concealed, is it? Do all animals respond to you as this one does?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Our hunt. The deer. She saw me but did not flee. I always thought that unexplainable. So—she was under your command,” he said.
“Yes.” I could admit that, but not to the remorse for what I’d done.
The Plague Diaries Page 26
