“Nothing,” she whispered, shifting from one bare foot to the other, staring down at them all the while like she was hoping if she couldn’t see Stour he wasn’t actually there. “I mean… you can’t force the Long Eye to open.”
“You can’t?” hissed Stour, leaning close and making her shrink away. “Or you won’t?”
“I’d help if I could, but I don’t know how.” Her face crushed up and her voice got higher and higher. “It comes when it comes. I just want… to go back to my children.” She closed her eyes and squeezed tears down her cheeks, and Clover winced and turned his face away. “Please don’t kill me.”
Stour frowned then, and he put a finger under the woman’s chin and tipped her face up, so she had no choice but to look into his eyes. “Is that what you think o’ me?”
She stared at him, gooseflesh on her arms and her shuddering breath echoing around the hall.
“Look, I’ll confess I kill folk,” and Stour nudged at the bloody straw on the floor like he was trying to hide the stain. “But only when there’s something to gain by it. I kill folk who wrong me. Who stand against me, like that shit in the cage over there and his fool of a chief. I don’t kill folk who do what they’re told. I’m not the Bloody-Nine!” And he gave that great hungry grin of his, which was anything but a reassurance. “Greenway?”
“My king?”
“Give this girl a coin and send her back to her children, eh?” Stour patted her face and wiped some of the tears away with his thumb. “You tried, didn’t you? That’s all I can ask. You see anything, you let me know, eh?”
She closed her eyes, and wiped her runny nose, and nodded, and Greenway led her shuffling out, and all the way, Clover was wincing, half-expecting Stour to run up and stab her in the back out of pure meanness. Maybe he would’ve, too, if someone coming in hadn’t caught his eye.
They called him Dancer on account of his slick way of moving, but there was naught graceful about him then, edging around the doorway, trying and failing to be one with the shadows. There was a certain look messengers got when they had news the Great Wolf wouldn’t want to hear.
“Dancer!” called Stour. “You’re back, then.”
“Aye… just got here…”
“And? What did Oxel say?”
Dancer crept out to that bloody spot on the floor of Skarling’s Hall, no more eager than Seff from Yaws had been. “Oxel’s dead.”
There was a silence. Clover heard his own breath as he sucked it in. The wind sighed cold through the high windows. The river whispered at the base of the cliff beyond. Then the Great Wolf showed his teeth, and caught a fistful of Dancer’s shirt, and dragged him close.
“He’s fucking what?”
“Caul Shivers killed him! Cut his head off in the Circle!”
“How’d that old idiot get himself in the Circle with Caul fucking Shivers?”
“Rikke tricked him into it!” squealed Dancer. Before Clover saw her with the runes on her face, he would’ve laughed at that. But he wasn’t laughing now. No one was. Specially not Dancer. “Well, she tricked him and Red Hat into it, then Oxel killed Red Hat, then Shivers killed—”
“Red Hat’s dead as well?”
“She’s took her father’s hall. She’s took her father’s land. She’s said Uffrith’s going its own way—”
“She’s fucking what?” snarled Stour.
And Black Calder burst out laughing. Started with a snort on his ale, then became a giggle, then a chuckle, and soon enough was a full head-back belly laugh. Wasn’t a sound you heard too often in Skarling’s Hall these days. Unless it was Stour laughing at something dead.
“What’s funny?” he snapped at his father.
“Far as the Long Eye goes, I’ve got my doubts,” said Calder, sighing as he stood. “But that girl’s got a sharp mind and a hard heart.” He waved over his shoulder as he headed for the door. “Let me know when you’re bored of ruining things. I’ll do my best to stitch ’em back together.”
Half-Treason
“I have been so looking forward to seeing you again!” said Isold.
Savine leaned close to touch the back of her hand. “I have been ticking off the moments.”
“I feel, since we were married together… we have a special bond.”
“Like the sister I never had.” The bland, talentless, uninspiring sister she never had and did not particularly want.
Isold gave Savine a shy smile, all freckly blush and eyelash. “Fedor was desperate to visit Ostenhorm. He thinks of you and Leo as our closest friends.”
Snakes have no friends. It made Savine wonder what Isher was really up to. Most of Angland’s serious business was done here in the Lady’s Chamber these days, between Savine and a few chosen people, on its carefully curated furniture in the light of its new, thoroughly modern windows. But just this once she would much rather have been on the other side of the connecting door, in the panelled gloom of the Lord’s Chamber, puzzling out how exactly Isold’s husband meant to take advantage of hers. She had never seen Leo so agitated as he had been waiting for Isher to arrive, limping up and down the lawn like a caged lion indeed. It had made Savine feel oddly excited herself, wondering if a splash of real politics was about to upset the placid little pond of Angland.
“I hope you don’t think me too forward but… might I be right in thinking…” Isold glanced down significantly at Savine’s stomach.
“I am.” There was simply no hiding it any more, and Savine was rather enjoying letting it show. She had expected to be thoroughly annoyed, watching her body stolen more each day by a selfish little parasite. But there was something oddly comforting about her bulging belly. She was even finding herself singing to it, from time to time. The other day, she had felt it move. Savine raised her brows as she gently stroked it. “Who knew the key to happiness was looser clothes? How are things in Midderland?” she asked, trying not to sound eager. “Sometimes I feel as if I am stranded on the island of Shabulyan! I understand Wetterlant’s hanging was a fiasco.”
“A disaster.” Isold leaned across to give a shrill whisper. “Queen Terez was pelted with rubbish. Breakers in the crowd, is the rumour.”
“Are they sure it wasn’t members of the Open Council?”
Isold gave a guilty titter. “Arch Lector Glokta—that is, your father—has been granted more powers, and the King’s Own have been split up and sent into Keln, and Valbeck, and out on the streets of Adua. There are curfews and searches and roundings-up. It’s, well… it’s a nervous atmosphere. I’m trying to persuade Fedor to spend more time at our estates in the country, but he insists on doing everything he can to help.”
To help himself, no doubt. “Your husband is a true patriot.”
“As is yours, of course. I should retire.”
“Really?” Isold was tepid but Savine had hoped to pick up some more gossip. She had relished the challenge of taking charge in Ostenhorm, but now she was undisputed mistress here she was teetering on the edge of boredom. She missed being at the heart of things. She missed the rush of the gamble and the thrill of the win. She missed her friends, her acquaintances, even her enemies. Her enemies most of all, perhaps. “It’s barely even dusk.”
“I know, but I hope that I might be in… a delicate condition myself.” Isold was turning pink at the thought, poor thing. “My husband wants me to have plenty of rest.”
“Of course.” Though no one had ever fallen pregnant as a result of rest, as far as Savine was aware.
“Perhaps we might celebrate the births of our first children together, as well as our marriage?”
“We can hope.” Though since Savine had been with child several months before her wedding it did not seem terribly likely. She kept the smile clamped to her face until Isold was gone, then she stood, pushed the heels of her hands into her aching back, and went straight to the connecting door. She had planned to sweep through and take her share of the conversation by force, but there was something secretive to Leo and Isher’s hushed t
ones that made her hold back. She ever so gently eased the door open a crack instead.
“… The Dogman’s gone back to the mud.” Leo spoke in an urgent murmur. “His daughter Rikke’s in charge in Uffrith.”
“Could you get her support?” asked Isher.
Savine frowned. Was Leo planning some move against the Northmen? As he was always saying, he was the worst man in the world at doing nothing.
“I think so. We were close once.”
“And Uffrith still needs your protection. What about Stour?”
“He owes me his life. And he’s a man who loves war.”
“We need him, Leo. Find a way to bring him onto our side. Whatever it costs.”
Savine’s eyes widened. They were building an alliance, but with the Northmen.
“What about the Open Council?” asked Leo.
“Fifteen of us committed now,” came Isher’s voice, “but we must move with the utmost care. There are laws restricting the raising of private armies, and we cannot risk making Old Sticks suspicious.”
Savine felt the hairs prickling on the back of her neck.
She had known ever since Wetterlant’s trial that Isher was planning something. She had thought it strange Leo was so reluctant to disband Angland’s regiments. She had guessed they were about some secret business. But she had never dreamed it might be something so audacious. So enormous. So incredibly dangerous. This was not a splash of politics, it was a great wave that might sweep everything away!
“We need to move now,” growled Leo. “Every day we could be discovered.”
“Patience, my friend. Your enthusiasm is infectious, but we must not be rash. We have to gather every possible ally, wait for the clearest summer weather, then move on Adua without a backward glance.”
Savine’s eyes widened. By the Fates, they were talking of revolt. Open rebellion against the Crown. Leo would be turning on Orso. He would be turning on her father. He would be gambling everything on one mad throw of the dice. Did he have any idea what he was contemplating? It was nothing less than treason!
An investor must know an opportunity when she sees it, must judge the risks and rewards in an instant. Fast now, with her breath coming sharp in her tight throat, the choices flashed through Savine’s mind.
Do nothing? Retire to bed like Isold and pretend she never heard? Sit back like the good wife and let Leo manage their affairs?
No.
Reason with him, then? Enlist Lady Finree’s help and persuade him to abandon this madness? Even if she succeeded, he would resent her. And she would have no control over his embittered accomplices. Their plot might still be dragged into the light. Why, Lady Brock, did you not inform the authorities of a conspiracy against the Crown?
No.
Betray her husband, then? Tell her father everything? Throw Isher and his cronies to the dogs and herself on the king’s mercy? At best, her reputation would be in tatters, her title stripped away. At worst? Widowed. Banished. Ruined. Savine set her jaw.
No.
Because of her parents’ folly, she had lost Orso. She had lost the crown. Now she had clawed out a new place. Dragged herself back to the top. Because of her husband’s folly, was she to lose that, too?
No.
Which left one choice only.
She slipped the box from her sleeve with trembling fingers, dug out a huge pinch of pearl dust and turned from the door to snort it up. An investor must know an opportunity when she sees it, must judge the risks and rewards in an instant, and if one outweighs the other pounce upon it, commit without delay, without regret, without sentiment.
Revolt. Her mouth was dry. Rebellion. Her pulse thudded in her skull. Treason. She winced as her baby shifted. Could she really do this? Could she afford not to? Was it terrible fear she felt? Or was it an almost unbearable thrill?
“Calm,” she whispered. “Calm, calm, calm.”
It was a risk. An awful risk. Yet she could not help but think of all there might be to gain. No less than everything, if she played her hand well… The Closed Council had made many enemies, within the Union’s borders and without. Had her father not often listed them, discussed with her their fears and desires, their strengths and weaknesses? If they all could be brought together, pushed in the same direction at the same moment… It would take a delicate touch. Something Leo by no means had.
But that was why he had her.
She set her shoulders, swung the door wide and stepped through.
Savine had not changed this room. Probably no one had changed it in two centuries. Some dark oils of dead Lord Governors, some gruesome-looking Northern swords and shields looted from some old battlefield, some inexpertly stuffed hunting trophies, peering disapprovingly down with their bland glass eyes. An upset deer, an astonished stag, a baffled bear, a leering wolf. Leo had told her it was the way his father had liked it, and so it was the way he liked it, and she respected his decision. Or at least pretended to.
“My lords.” She calmly shut the door and walked smiling over, keeping a mask of dignified composure clamped over her feverish anxiety, to perch on an ancient chair that had by no means been designed for the clothes of a modern lady. Especially a pregnant one.
Leo sounded slightly choked. “We were just talking of—”
“You were talking of gathering allies in open rebellion against King Orso,” said Savine, shocked at how levelly her own voice pronounced the outrageous phrase. “You were talking of toppling the government of the Union and raising another.” She took the stopper from the decanter, poured herself a drink and worked her way into the most comfortable position she could find. “You were talking of changing the world, and I have come to join the conversation.”
Isher had a superior little smile. A look men often had when she opened negotiations with them. A look she always enjoyed wiping from the faces of people who supposed themselves powerful. “Lady Savine, I hardly think—”
“The two of you plan to risk everything you have. Therefore, you plan to risk everything I have. My future. The future of my child. It is clear you have already taken several steps along this path. Too far to turn back without considerable danger. Perhaps too far to turn back at all. So. It seems you have left me no choice but to commit myself to this project and do everything possible to make sure it succeeds.” She raised her chin. “But if you think I would ever do so without voicing my opinion, you are profoundly mistaken.”
Isher narrowed his eyes. “You would have to turn against your father—”
“That is between me and him.” Her father, if she even considered him her father, could hardly complain. He had been lecturing her about the value of ruthlessness since she was knee-high. “Now tell me your plans.”
Leo sat forward with the eagerness of a boy keen to show off a new game. “We have the Open Council. We have the army of Angland, the best soldiers in the Union. We’ll bring Rikke and Stour and all their Northmen onto our side. We’ll land on the north coast of Midderland, gather our friends as we march on Adua and take the Closed Council by surprise, forcing Orso to concede to our demands without a drop of blood spilled!”
Savine took a sip of her drink, worked it around her mouth and swallowed. “That sounds… optimistic.” She had managed to take her father by surprise perhaps four or five times in her life. The idea of Leo achieving it bordered on absurd. “You rather assume that experienced politicians and soldiers will play into your hands.”
“We have a secret weapon!” Leo thumped the table. “Lord Isher has a friend on the Closed Council.”
Isher sourly worked his mouth. Plainly he trusted her no further than she trusted him, but that hardly mattered. There were few of her many business partners she would have trusted to hold her hat, and they still made money for each other. “A good friend,” he said, reluctantly. “We know everything they do.”
“Orso is no soldier,” said Leo, scornfully.
“He’s no politician, either. Only see what happened at Wetterlant’s trial.”
Isher gave a disgusted sneer. “The man’s a fool.”
“A coward.”
“He is neither,” snapped Savine. “Indecisive, perhaps, but he is clever, and he has iron in him. The tougher things get, the tougher he will become.”
“Thought you were done taking his side?” grumbled Leo.
“Never fear your enemy,” said Savine, “but always respect him. Stolicus, I believe? If we mean to risk everything, we cannot simply assume our enemies will fail. We must stack the deck so heavily in our favour that we can only win.” She considered the collection of battered weaponry on the walls, already working the problem through from every angle. “The Union is flooded with idle veterans. Men who have returned from war to find a changed world in which they have no place. I suggest the Open Council asks leave to raise troops to protect their interests from the Breakers. To quash riots and root out dissent. A pretext for arming yourselves which will make the Closed Council trust you more rather than less.”
Leo raised his brows at Isher, who was moving from scornful to thoughtful. “Neat,” he conceded.
“I will arrange for a concerted campaign of pamphlets and newsbills that can keep the embers of resentment hot. Blame the Closed Council for the state of the nation. Blame the debt to Valint and Balk. Remind the people of the hanged outside Valbeck. Remind the nobles of the injustice against Wetterlant. Queen Terez is always a popular target. King Orso, too.” It gave her a twinge of regret. But she told herself they would be fighting for their lives. No weapon could be beneath them.
Leo grinned. “I hear that etchings speak directly to the heart.”
“The filthier the better,” said Savine. “King Jezal was a bastard, we can dig up doubts about the line of succession.” Who would know better than she did how destructive such doubts could become, after all? “I will write to Master Sworbreck and keep his presses hot. But even so, Lord Isher, you are right that we will need every ally. From what I heard, there are two potential ones you have left out. The Styrians. And the Breakers themselves.”
“The Breakers?” Leo looked almost as astonished as the stuffed stag’s head over his shoulder. “They’re traitors!”
The Trouble with Peace Page 26
