Liam could reach Callaston in only a couple of days if he pushed, but he had only the one horse and could ill afford the silver to buy another. Staying at inns each night would also eat into his funds, so he camped in fields and woods to save money. At least once I reach Callaston, I can find a proper bed at the Tarians’ manse. Besiana would be able to help him rescue Katin, he was sure of it. In the meantime, he still needed to eat; hunting took too long, and inns along the way provided easy meals, though they used up precious silver.
Callaston’s gates were still closed when he reached the city. Hundreds of merchants, farmers, and traders camped outside the Festival Gate, waiting for Edon to order it open once again. To kill some time, Liam made acquaintance with a merchant from Hedenham. He’d never met the man before, and so Liam gave the name Will instead, but they were both familiar with the county and got on famously once that fact was discovered. The merchant let “Will” sleep under his wagon when an evening storm rolled in and drenched them all.
The merchant told Liam that there had been a near-riot when Edon’s little army had returned a few days earlier, and the gate had been opened just long enough to admit them. All the merchants waiting outside thought this meant they’d be let in too, but when the gate slammed shut after the last soldier, the drivers and traders became enraged and started pounding on it. Archers atop the gate had let loose a few warning arrows, and the crowd had had a sudden change of heart, hurrying out of range.
The morning after Liam’s arrival, the gates were flung open to cheers and an instant struggle for a place in line. The gate guards still had to inspect every wagon and traveler, and it was half the day before Liam made it through the gate. By then the guards were so tired of examining spindles of fabric and crates of lettuce that Liam, a lone man mounted, was waved through with barely a glance.
He headed straight for Willbury Street as the afternoon sun slid downward. It was still hot, but there was plenty of shade in the streets. The Grainway was busy as ever, and Liam sighed with relief to leave the traffic behind as he turned onto the street where, he hoped, Besiana Tarian’s manse still stood.
And there it was, unchanged from his previous visit, but Liam cursed quietly when he saw two soldiers standing before it, wearing purple and blue. One sat on the steps, and the other stood by, chatting and bored, not paying much attention to anything. Liam forced himself to look away, and rode past feigning disinterest.
Well that’s a damned pisspot. He’d been counting on Besiana’s help, or at least on being able to ask, even if there might not be much she could do. Were the soldiers there to keep someone out, or in? Was Besiana even there? He would have to investigate without attracting attention.
Liam rode along to the Grainway and crossed it to a white-fronted little building next to an alley. He tied up Bandit to a post outside, glanced around to see if anyone seemed to be watching him, and went into the grocery.
The long tables inside bore baskets that would normally hold lettuce, squash, cheese, bread, beans, and all the other sundry goods needed for a well-stocked kitchen. But the baskets were mostly empty; the closed city gates had taken a toll on the available produce. Hopefully things would return to normal now. Liam had heard of the horrific things that happened inside cities during an extended siege.
Besiana’s chef came here twice a week, but Liam had never been in here. Just now, only one other man stalked the aisles. Probably some noble’s chef; he wore an apron and consulted a scrap of parchment.
A bell had tinkled when Liam opened the door, and in a moment a burly, ruddy man came out through a curtain behind the counter. His hair was thinning and he had a great red mustachio obscuring his mouth. Liam scratched absently at his own face, where sandy brown whiskers had started to grow in. He’d stopped shaving, figuring that a beard could prove a useful disguise in a place where he might be a wanted man.
“What kin I do fer ya, sir?” the burly man asked. He had the accent of the northern river valley, the Icerift.
Liam strode over and held out his hand. “Will White,” he said. “Might I have your name, sir?”
“Bryan Lightfellow,” the man said, shaking hands. “Not sure I’ve seen ye ’round here afore.”
“No, perhaps not. Is there somewhere more private we can speak?” Liam asked, nodding toward the curtain. “I have a matter to discuss.”
The greengrocer raised his bushy eyebrows and considered Liam for a moment, but nodded and led the way back to his storeroom. He casually grabbed a broom, as if he might start sweeping, but Liam noticed that the broom had an unusually thick handle. Clever. Bryan Lightfellow was well-muscled, and Liam had no doubt he could swing that “broom handle” with deadly force if necessary.
The curtain fell back behind them, and Liam spoke quietly. “I happened to notice some of the king’s men outside the Tarians’ manse, down Willbury. Is the countess there?”
Lightfellow was silent for a few seconds, so Liam drew a copper from his purse, flipping it casually into the air. The grocer snatched it before it fell, but then placed it atop a box of apples instead of pocketing it. “I’m not sure I kin take yer money yet, stranger,” he said. “Why d’ye want ta know ’bout the countess?”
“I’m an old friend of the family, and I’m concerned. I’ve just returned to Callaston, after hearing the most dreadful rumors. If the countess is in trouble…”
Lightfellow tapped a finger on the broom. “I don’t know what interest his maj’sty’s got in th’ Tarians, but the countess is hale, far as I know. Her chef still comes fer supplies, an’ he ain’t said anythin’ about her bein’ unwell.” The grocer waited a moment longer, then shrugged and pocketed the copper coin. “The servants go in an’ out, but it’s plain as day the countess ain’t got the freedom ta roam about, if ye follow.”
So Besiana was there, but locked up. Infiltrating the manse wouldn’t be too difficult, if there were only the two guards… but there was no way he could get to Besiana without the servants knowing, and they’d all recognize him and gossip their little hearts out.
He could probably get her a message, if he left it with Lightfellow to give to Besiana’s chef when he next came in. The Relindos guards probably weren’t searching the beans and flour when he brought it back. But what would he say? What good would it do to let Besiana know he was here? Even if she could reply by the same mechanism, it could take days just to have any sort of conversation.
And if the messages were somehow found out, great harm would come to them both.
Liam drew a silver from his purse and handed it to Lightfellow. “This conversation never happened,” he urged. “I was never here.”
Out on the streets again, he resolutely turned Bandit away from Willbury Street, frustrated beyond words. There were others in Callaston that he knew, other nobles, commoners, valai—but no one he trusted enough to try to go against the crown. If he was going to rescue Katin from Edon—if she was even still alive—he was going to have to do it alone.
———
Liam let the flow of traffic carry him all the way north to the Great Square. He passed several malthouses, and wanted badly to go in for a pint, but he had to watch his silver.
The royal palace loomed above. Its huge iron gate was closed; only a small sally port to the side let anyone in or out. Liam let himself fantasize about scaling the walls like a hero out of legend, but cruel reality kept intruding, and he saw himself falling to his death after a guard shot him with a crossbow.
Evening drew near and the vendors began to pack up their wares. If Katin really was in the palace, he wasn’t going to rescue her today. He tried to keep her in the forefront of his mind, to hold the lurking rage at bay.
It was dusk when he found a public stable down near the docks, and put up Bandit for the night. The stallion whinnied at him, and Liam gave up his last apple. “I’ll be back for you, I promise,” he said, patting Bandit’s muzzle.
He found a cheap sailor’s hostel even closer to the docks, but the owner of the laughably
-named Sailor’s Delight demanded ten coppers a night for a cell that should have cost two or three. Once in his tiny, dingy room, he counted his coins again, and was dismayed to find how much he’d spent already. He wasn’t used to having to manage funds so tightly. His perspective had been ruined by years spent serving a lord who always had plenty of coin at hand.
The next morning dawned clear and cool. Liam was up early and rode straight to the palace. He called at the sally port as soon as it opened, to see if the palace was hiring servants. The man at the guard house just inside told him that although the palace frequently needed new personnel, they had left all their hiring to a business concern that specialized in recruiting servants for nobles.
The clerk at the recruiter’s office, however, took one look at Liam and said that he would be unsuitable for even a minor noble household, let alone the palace. Liam hadn’t thought he looked quite that travel-worn. Surely the stableboys and scullery maids weren’t expected to be refined, he reasoned, but the clerk rudely asked him to leave.
He found himself in a malthouse after all, on the edge of the Great Square. The pints here were costly, but he was starting not to care, and anyway he could nurse a single pint for hours if he had to. The serving boy gave him dark looks every time he passed, probably wondering when this cheap lout would free up the table for more generous customers.
Evening had begun to creep through the windows when Liam saw a familiar face enter the hall. The man had bright apple cheeks and looked to be about twelve years old, but he only appeared young: Pater Uxhart, who had been in Liam’s regiment in the Royal Army, all those years ago. Pater hadn’t aged a day, so it seemed. He was actually older than Liam, but the other men had joked that he should still be holding his mother’s apron strings. Pater had always taken it with good humor.
He came in alone and took a seat nearby. Liam looked him over, and his heart leapt when he realized that Pater wore a servant’s tunic, with the royal sigil on the breast. If Pater worked in the palace…
Liam tossed back his ale for courage, and waved down the serving boy. The lad’s face brightened a little when Liam asked for another drink and a basket of fried onions to be brought over to his new table. The boy ran off as Liam slid out of the booth and sauntered over to Pater.
“Shouldn’t you be home with your mum?” Liam asked, leaning on the edge of the table.
The man looked up, confused for a moment, but then his eyes widened in recognition. “Liam! Liam Howard! Well aren’t you the Aspect of Chaos, showing up out of the blue.”
Liam slid into a seat. “Fate makes strangers of us all, I’m afraid,” he replied, smiling. “And look at you! Working for the king, eh? What have they got you doing, wiping his bottom for him?”
“Hah, don’t make japes about the king,” Pater said, but still smiling. “He can hear mockery a mile away, they say.”
“How’d a lout like you end up in the palace? I gather you’ve got to be at least a noble’s bastard to have even a chance at working in there.”
“I got lucky,” Pater said. “After you left—your father pulled you out of the regiment, wasn’t that it? Well, I got made corporal on account of the hole you left, and then there was a new regimental horse captain a bit later, and we got to be friends. He ended up the palace stablemaster, and hired me on as his assistant when I mustered out.” He sipped his ale. “Can’t complain, though serving nobles is a hundred times worse than serving officers. At least officers got discipline. Nobles are all like hummingbirds—this! No, that! No, do it this way! No, wait, I can’t find my arse with two hands!” He guffawed, and Liam joined in. “What about you? I thought your dad had taken you out back east.”
Liam shrugged. “Ah, I ended up as some noble’s valo for a bit, but… didn’t suit me,” he lied. “Dad wanted me to be ‘better than that,’ meaning soldier work. But I never had a better time than being in the field with you lot.”
“So what since then? I’m surprised you never lit out for the hinterlands like you always swore, to see the Skysilver Spire and all that. I suppose you wouldn’t be here if things were still looking up, money-wise. You looking for work?”
Pater was sharp, Liam had to admit. “Anything’ll do. I can read and write, and keep books in a pinch. I don’t suppose your master needs another assistant?”
“Nah, just me. I don’t even work with the horses so much. Mostly I deliver messages for him and help with counting and sums. He’s got a bunch of hostlers who oversee the horses themselves.”
“Any openings there? I know a fair bit about horses.”
“All full up right now, I’m sorry to say.”
“Really! Even stableboys?” Liam felt desperate, but he couldn’t let it show. He just had to be a man looking for work.
“Well… they come and go more than any others, but we’ve got too many right now. Although…” He looked around and lowered his voice. “Rumor says the king’s going out again, at the head of a real army this time. To ride against Vasland.”
So that was it. As badly as Edon might want Amira, if he really thought Vasland was becoming a threat again—and for all Liam knew, it might be—war against them would no doubt be more important. No wonder he’d come back to the capital.
Liam realized he wasn’t listening, as Pater went on. “…so when they go, half the stableboys will probably go with them. But I don’t know that that’ll open up any spots. We’ll have half the men, but only half the horses to tend to, if you follow.”
Liam nodded. “Well I’ll be around a bit. If a place does open up, could you put in a word for me? I can muck out a stall with the best of them,” he bragged, puffing out his chest.
Pater laughed. “Of course, anything for an old mate from the wars.” He chuckled. They both knew they’d never seen real war. Back then the prospect had seemed glorious, but it was ten years since, and they’d both learned a thing or two.
They spent a few more minutes catching up, but before Liam had to come up with an excuse to leave, Pater begged off. “Got to get home to the wife,” he said, with a smirk that somehow ended up looking sad, and stood up.
Liam was astonished. “You’re married?”
Pater wore no rings that he could see, but nodded just the same. “She’s a good woman. She cleans for a merchant. No children yet, not that we haven’t tried.”
“But where’s your rings?”
Pater shrugged. “Saving up for a farm. Every copper spent on jewellery’s a copper not spent on the farm, she says. I can’t argue. I don’t want to be a stablemaster’s assistant forever. Besides, the only ring that matters,” he tapped his chest, “is the one she put around my heart.”
Liam rolled his eyes and laughed. “Same old Pater.”
“G’night, mate,” Pater grinned, and left.
In his cot that night, Liam thought of Katin again. She was all he could see when he closed his eyes. For all he knew, she wasn’t in the palace; she’d been sent away, or she was dead, or, or, or… But he’d made his choice, and he had to see it through. He wouldn’t waste all this effort just to turn around and go chasing after Dardan. By now, he reminded himself, his lord could be a thousand miles away, and Liam might never find him.
———
On the slim chance that Edon had simply set Katin free after their return, Liam found a spot on Willbury Street where he could watch Amira’s manse without being seen. After half a day watching, he saw no one enter or leave except for a pair of maids. Maybe Katin was cooped up inside; but talking to the servants, who might recognize him, could put the royal guards on his trail.
Instead he went to the servants’ door of the other adjacent manse, where none of the staff knew him. A pretty young maid answered at his knock. “Good afternoon,” Liam said, giving his best smile. “I was led to believe I could find a Miss Katin Berisha here.”
The girl smiled back at him, slightly confused. “Oh, no, that’s next door. But… she ain’t been around since all that strangeness a couple months back.”
Liam apologized and left. So much for luck.
Three days after his encounter with Pater, all the news in the streets was of King Edon departing the city again, this time at the head of two thousand swords—no, ten thousand—no, only a hundred swords, plus a dragon. Liam’s coins had dwindled alarmingly, but the morning after that a boy came running into the hostel, carrying a message for Liam:
Spot opened up. Welcome to the palace, stableboy. - Pater
Liam returned sedately to his room, then hooted and danced about. He was one step closer.
It turned out that in the commotion involved in saddling half a hundred horses for King Edon and his most loyal lords and knights and Wardens, a bleary-eyed stableboy had gotten confused in the dawn mist and ended up walking into a horse’s rear. The beast took this unkindly and gave the lad a kick that shattered several ribs. Pater prayed for the boy, but seized on the opportunity and talked the stablemaster, a man named Chester Dormouth, into letting him hire an old friend who’d shown up seeking work.
Liam hadn’t been far wrong when he’d joked about nobles’ bastards working in the palace. Most of the stableboys turned out to be the young sons of nobles, legitimate or otherwise. It was a tradition for the sons of dukes and counts to serve in the palace for a few months, ostensibly to prove their loyalty to the crown and the realm. Of course, even there, nobles jockeyed for position. The stables were for the sons of nobles who didn’t have the clout to get their sons positions as pages, squires, or assistants to the Greater Council.
Liam didn’t really understand why nobles thought it was so important to have their brats running around the palace, playing at grown-up jobs. Dardan had served here for a season, he recalled; not in the stables, but rather as cupbearer to the Greater Council. Liam couldn’t fathom how bored Dardan must have been, twelve years old and sitting through endlessly droning political debates.
He had no idea how Besiana had gotten her son positioned so highly. The rumor around Tinehall was that she’d done it to show up the count after he’d refused to let Dardan be away for so long. Dardan hadn’t wanted to do it either—Liam could hardly blame him—but Besiana had run roughshod over both her son and her husband. It was part of the reason, he’d come to understand, why Besiana had lived apart from Asmus for several years.
Nobles’ sons or not, the stableboys were most young and uniformly terrified of Chester and his squad of lead hostlers who oversaw the stableboys. Pater assured Liam that Chester wasn’t unduly harsh or cruel, but handling the royal stables was serious business, and keeping the stableboys on their toes was good for everyone.
Chester’s threats and scoldings had fire to them, but they were no worse than anything Liam had heard Count Asmus say. He winced at the reminder; he’d never again hear Asmus threaten to use him for archery practice.
So Liam pretended to be intimidated and went about his work. Since Pater knew him, he had to use his true name, Liam Howard, and hoped it would raise no suspicions. Edon’s men might never think to look right under their noses.
The stableboys shared a common bunk room in a wooden building right behind the stables. On his first night there, three of the older stableboys—all still younger than Liam by years—tried to corner him, to see what he was made of. Rather than let them start a brawl, he beckoned them forward and whispered how he’d once gouged a man’s eyes out with his own thumbs, merely because the man had insulted his mother. The story was cut from whole cloth, but he told it so casually and with such ruthlessly precise details that the boys left him alone after that. Liam tried to ignore the anger, hiding beneath the surface, that had given a malevolent glint to his eye.
———
The stablehands were kept busy, but still managed to gossip. And there was plenty to gossip about, even with Edon gone, along with much of the royal army’s Callaston garrison. Even the Wardens in residence at the palace had gone with him. Liam hoped that Edon hadn’t taken Katin as well, but nobody mentioned any women riding with them.
Duke Terilin Faroa seemed to be ruling in Edon’s stead, and kept a close watch on the rest of the royal family: the Dowager Queen Alise, the princesses, little Prince Luka. Like most commoners who spent their time outside of Callaston, Liam had never paid much attention to the royal family. House Tarian had been his only concern. Now he found himself absorbing every tidbit of information about House Relindos that he could. Queen Alise never left her chambers, apparently by her own will, while Karina stayed confined at Duke Terilin’s command, despite constant pleadings to be let out. Taya went where she willed, riding into the city or the royal preserve. Liam saw her once, young and slim, straight brown hair glossy in the morning sun, as she left for a ride. She moved with purpose, a commanding presence even at seventeen. Her vala was a flame-haired girl with an impressive frown, who never went out of arm’s reach of her mistress and glared at any man who came close.
On Liam’s third night in the bunk room, several of the boys were gathered in a corner betting coppers at dice. Liam threw a time or two, but mostly listened and encouraged the others to keep talking. They spoke about Taya, mostly, making the sort of lewd comments young men do when their mothers aren’t around to box their ears.
“I bet she’d fancy a real companion on those long, hard rides of hers,” said Jonny, a yellow-haired duke’s bastard, punctuating his remark with a leer as he sipped thin honey mead from a chipped wooden cup.
“Her highness wouldn’t wipe her arse with the likes of you,” another boy said, tall and reedy and trying in vain to grow a moustache. “I hear she doesn’t much like boys, anyway.”
“Oh, shut it,” Jonny said back, and the others all hooted their derision at tall and reedy’s claim.
“I’ve seen nobles with stranger vices,” Liam put in, sitting on an upturned onion crate and leaning against the rough wooden wall.
“What do you know about it, old man?” Jonny spat at him. “Old man,” that was all they called him, which suited him fine. The less his name was spoken aloud, the better. At twenty-six, he felt less like a grown man than he had at eighteen, but he was still a decade past most of the brats.
Liam sat up. “I knew of a lord once who had a different boy brought to him every night, and had the lad lashed down like a pig for slaughter. Then he’d paddle him with a board—” He reached out and slapped the nearest lad sharply on the thigh, making him jump and yelp. “—while the lad used his mouth on him, until he did his business.” He leaned forward and locked eyes with Jonny. “They said he preferred blond boys, ’bout your age.”
Jonny paled, but the other boys all guffawed, and started calling Jonny “Paddle.”
Liam waited until the cacophony died down. “So Princess Taya fancies girls, does she?” he asked tall and reedy.
“So I heard,” tall and reedy said, and this time, the other boys didn’t interrupt. “I had it from a washerwoman I bedded—”
“You did no such thing,” another boy interrupted, but he looked fascinated all the same.
“Shut it. Anyway, this woman says…” He looked around and lowered his voice, making everyone lean in, even Liam. “She says Taya’s got herself a bedgirl cooped up in chambers. Makes use of her twice a day, she does. She said you can hear her screaming at night, even through the walls.” He rapped on the wooden wall at his side.
“Is that so,” Liam whispered back, feigning awe. A bedgirl was hardly much of a transgression, even for a princess.
Kris nodded eagerly. “She waited till the king was gone, of course. Everyone knows he’s a terror to his family. I heard he even keeps his own little wife locked up in their chambers, for fear the guards will all try to bed her. She’s a right beauty, they all say.”
The gossiping continued into the small hours. Liam eventually drifted away to bed. Three days in the palace, and not a hint of Katin, he thought, turning under the thin blanket. He said a few quiet words to the Aspect of Despair and let sleep claim him.
CHAPTER 20
KA
TIN
The Queen of Mages Page 23
