Lamentation (16 page)

Petronus felt a sudden kinship with the young man and reached out to squeeze his shoulder. “Want rarely does,” he told him.

Petronus turned back to the north. The moon was still visible though no longer full. It cast eerie light onto the fields and hills east across the river and on the line of forest to the north.

Of course it had just been a dream, he thought. And his Francine sensibilities told him, regardless o›m, alf his upbringing, that dreams were the working of the deeper places inside. Bits of truth and lies we told ourselves, all fruit to be sorted as our bodies slept.

But why would Neb dream of the Marsh King?

He stood with the sentry until he was relieved and a new guard—this time one of his own men—took over. He chatted with the sleep muddled trader for a few minutes, then turned back to try and get an hour of sleep before the sun rose and they went back to their work.

When Second Summer passed, the rain would be on its heels. And after the rain, snow. They didn’t need any further complications than what the changing seasons could provide.

He was halfway back to the camp when he heard the shout behind him. Petronus stopped and turned. He moved quickly across the shattered ground, feet crunching in the ash.

By the time he reached the line again word had been passed, and the camp moved into Third Alarm. The lieutenant that Sethbert had attached to the camp—the same one that had let them pass what seemed forever ago—met them at the line.

The three men stood, facing north, staring.

At first, Petronus thought, it seemed the forest moved in on them. The moving branches rippled in the dim light of the blue green moon as it set over the hills.

An island broke away from the larger body and moved closer to them. A cluster of horses, Petronus realized, in formation around a larger horse at the center. A voice, amplified by magicks to carry across the river valley, bellowed out from it.

“I am the Marsh King,” the voice said in an archaic Whymer Tongue that few would recognize in this present age. But Petronus recognized it immediately. “Those who war against the Gypsy King war also against me.”

The guard and the lieutenant both looked to Petronus, their eyes wide with either fear or surprise. Petronus glanced at them, then stared back at the small island of mounted men and the contingent of foot soldiers behind them.

Petronus wondered what else Neb had dreamed. And he wondered, at the same time, if he really wanted to know.

Jin Li Tam

Jin Li Tam crept out of the darkened room holding her clothing against her naked skin. Rudolfo had pretended to sleep, she knew, sparing her the awkwardness of the morning after.

She pulled the bedroom door closed behind her and glanced around the room. Isaak now sat near the furnace, burning page after page of Rudolfo’s notes, just as the Gypsy King had instructed him over dinner. “You’ve finished then?” she asked.

He nodded, looking up at her. “And your betrothal is consummated?”

She chuckled at his directness. “It is indeed.”

“May your firstborn be strong and wily and inhabit the New Land with grace and awareness,” Isaak said, quoting one of P’Andro Whym’s lesser admonitions.

His words surprised her. Of course, she took powders for that. Betrothal was one thing; motherhood was another. Still, she imagined at some point, if her father’s designs held true through present events, she would walk that road.

“Thank you, Isaak,” she said.

She dressed quickly, putting herself back together but not nearly as well as she could have. It was important that they see they had indeed cemented the new arrangement. She was certain that the Pope would have the captain of his Gray Guard watching.

Rudolfo had surprised her yet again. Initially, she wondered if Sethbert’s assessment of him were true, but midway through dinner she’d known of a certainty that Sethbert was quite wrong. And in that time between the table and the bed, she’d even reached the conclusion that the Gypsy King was probably quite skillful in many matters, both private and public.

He’d confirmed this when they moved into the bedchambers. He’d confirmed it three times that night.

She’d approached the work with the same resolve and aloofness she had with the others before, giving only the parts of herself to him that her father—and custom—required. But he had worn her down with passion and gentleness, his hands moving over her body, pressing messages into her skin that disarmed her at the time and alarmed her now.

No, she corrected herself, the messages weren’t alarming. How she rose to them was.

And that final time, just an hour earlier, all of those words, spoken with his tongue and his hands across the landscape of her body, reached an unexpected and powerful crescendo.

Jin Li Tam prided herself on control in all things. And in the bedroom, she came (and went) as she pleased, keeping vigilant guard over her body’s responses to those who visited it. Of course, the visitors knew what she wished them to know. In some instances, they needed to know they had failed and that she had fabricated her end result. In others, she did not even bother to fabricate. And with a few, she had relieved the guards and given herself to the pleasure.

But Rudolfo had laid his ›o hthesiege, bribed her sentries and, eventually, taken the city. Some part of her could not—or would not—stop him, and that alarmed her.

A fortuitous undertaking,
he had said again after she had cried out that final time. Then they had fallen asleep for another hour, tangled in silk sheets and one another.

She pulled on her shoes and checked herself in the small wall mirror.

“Are you ready, Isaak?” she asked.

The metal man stood. “I am ready, Lady.”

They walked to the door and she knocked on it. When it opened, the Gray Guard’s face was unreadable. “Thank you,” she told him, inclining her head toward him.

Returning to her chambers with Isaak in tow, she selected a few pieces of fruit from the bowl in her sitting room. She drew a stack of parchment from the desk and placed it near a pen and a small bottle of ink.

While Isaak went to work, she took the fruit into the bathing room. She drew a bath and climbed into the large granite tub of steaming water.

Biting into a pear, she found her mind wandering back to the night before, then leaping into an imagined future.

There was a strength beneath Rudolfo’s foppish exterior, a steel that reminded her very much of her father. And considering that Vlad Li Tam was the greatest—and most formidable—man alive, this could not be a bad thing. But she wondered at the same time how the Gypsy King would deal with his changing world.

She knew enough of him. A life spent on the move between nine manors and a hundred small forest towns. A deep passion for good food, chilled wine and . . . She found herself blushing and settled deeper into the tub.

But if—or perhaps now it was simply
when
—they solved the present dilemma of the Papal Writ, and if Rudolfo did somehow manage to rebuild some portion of the Great Library far away in his northern woods, how well would the General of the Wandering Army take to being rooted in one place?

And how well would she?

But moving the center of the world came with consequences and sacrifice. So did shifting history, that wide and strong river, in a new and unexpected direction.

Roman - Rudolfo

Pope Resolute spent most of a week interrogating Rudolfo at his leisure. Most of those meetings occurred in the sitting area of Rudolfo’s quarters, but at least twice the Gray Guard had escorted him—shackled, of course—to the Pope’s office on the top floor. Apart from that first night, Rudolfo had not seen Jin Li Tam.

Resolute, he thought, was learning his job.

But this time, when the Gray Guard came for him, they did not shackle him. And he was surprised to find Isaak and Jin Li Tam both sitting in the office with Resolute.

“Lord Rudolfo,” the Pope said, looking up from his desk. “Please sit.”

Rudolfo nodded to Jin Li Tam and she returned the nod.

“It is good to see you, Lady Tam,” Rudolfo said.

“And you, Lord Rudolfo.”

Rudolfo sat. “And, Isaak, what of you? Are you well?”

The metal man opened his mouth to speak, but Pope Resolute spoke for him. “The mechoservitor is in working order. I am grateful to your betrothed for its safe escort.”

Rudolfo’s eyes quickly searched the room. There was more paper on the desk than there had been two days ago. The Pope himself looked less well rested, and the door behind his desk was closed against an overcast sky. The weather was cooling—he’d felt it in the last several days. Soon, rain would drum his thin, high windows. And this far north, the snow was just behind it. It was a conservative and predictable strategy. Something right out of an Academy textbook. They’ll hide here, Rudolfo thought, and assess what they have. In the spring they’ll know what to do, what to become. He suspected it wasn’t this Pope’s doing. Someone had to be advising him. Someone from the military.

Rudolfo couldn’t be here that long. He couldn’t be here even close to that long.

Pope Resolute leaned forward on his desk. “I’ve brought you here, Lord Rudolfo, to outline the next steps of this investigation.”

“You do not intend to recall the Writ of Shunning?” Rudolfo asked.

“I have no evidence indicating I should do so,” Pope Resolute said, moving papers across his desk.

Jin Li Tam spoke, her voice sharp. “And you have no evidence that you should
not
. The mechoservitor corroborated—”

“The mechoservitor corroborated only what Rudolfo had told him. I do not doubt at all that Brother Charles’s apprentice changed the mechanical’s script. I do not doubt at all that this mechoservitor spoke the spell and destroyed Windwir. Beyond that, I know nothing.”

Jin Li Tam’s fingers moved along the arm of her chair.
He stalls
.

Yes,
Rudolfo signed. “I can appreciate your position, Excellency,” he said. “Please continue.”

“In light of this, you will continue to be my guest. We continue to gather our people and our resources—every day, a few more respond. Soon enough, I’ll be able to convene a Council of Investigation.”

Rudolfo nodded. “A fair solution, I’m certain.”

There was a knock at the door. Resolute looked up. “Yes?”

An aide materialized, moving quickly to the Pope’s side and leaning down to whisper in his ear.

I cannot stay,
Rudolfo signed.

I concur,
Jin Li Tam signed back.

When the Pope looked up, his face betrayed surprise. The aide left quickly, and Resolute released his held breath. Rudolfo thought he might even look more pale than usual. He glanced at Rudolfo, then stared at Jin Li Tam.

“I have surprising news,” he told her.

But before he could continue, the doors opened. Pope Resolute stood, and Rudolfo took it as a cue to the same. Jin also rose, and out of the corner of his eye Rudolfo saw surprise now color her face as well. A slight man in saffron robes and short red hair shot through with gray entered the room. Two young men dressed in black silk accented with saffron colored sashes accompanied him, and Rudolfo immediately saw the resemblance in the faces and the posture. Brothers with their father, he noted.

But he saw more than that. He glanced at Jin Li Tam again to be sure, and there was no doubt. They had the same eyes.

“Lord Tam,” Resolute said. “It is an unexpected honor to meet you.”

“Some messages should be delivered personally,” the slight man said, his eyes sharp and hard. “I will be brief, Archbishop Oriv.”

Curious, Rudolfo thought, that he does not address him as Pope.

Resolute noticed it, too, he realized. The man’s eyes narrowed. “When I’ve concluded my business with—”

Vlad Li Tam waved aside the words like so many gnats. “I believe you will find that my business takes precedence.” He looked at Rudolfo and offered a tight smile, then he looked to his daughter and the smile widened. “It is good to see you, daughter.”

She bowed. “You also, Father.”

“I promised to be brief,” Vlad Li Tam said, turning to Pope Resolute.

“I will have my guests escorted—”

Again, Lord Tam waved the words away, interrupting. “That will not be necessary, Archbishop. What I have to say is for their ears as well.”

Resolute sat heavily, a dark look crossing his face. “Very well.”

“The matter of your succession to the throne of Windwir and the Holy See of the Androfrancine Order appears to be in dispute,” Vlad Li Tam said in a matter-of-fact tone. “There is another Pope—one with a more direct line of succession. I can personally verify this.”

Rudolfo watched Resolute’s eyes widen. “Another Pope? How is that possible?”

Vlad Li Tam shrugged. “Those questions are for another to answer. But as a steward of the Androfrancine treasury, I am required to inform you of this officially before suspending your access to the Order’s holdings. I could have sent a courier but I felt such news should come directly from me.”

“Where is this Pope then? Why has he not announced himself?”

Vlad Li Tam smiled. “I cannot say. He remains . . . 
discreetly
anonymous. In light of recent events, I’m certain you can appreciate that discretion.”

Resolute sat back in his chair. For a moment, he looked deflated. Beyond him, framed in the glass door, dark clouds broke open and rain fell. “This is highly irregular,” he said. “And you claim he has clear rights of succession?”

“It is not for me to make that claim. I simply say it is a more
direct
line of succession. It will be a matter for the Order to investigate. It would be improper for me to speculate further on the intricacies of Androfrancine law.”

Resolute’s face went red. The surprise is wearing off, Rudolfo thought. Anger touched the edges of his voice. “Certainly, there will need to be further investigation,” the Pope said. “Meanwhile, I have an Order to rebuild and that requires access to funds. How do you propose I handle that?”

“I would not presume to tell you,” Vlad Li Tam said. “I am merely fulfilling my obligation to convey this information to you.”

Resolute glared. “This is entirely unacceptable. You can’t—”

For a third time, Lord Tam dismissed him with a gesture of his hand. “It is,” Vlad Li Tam said slowly, “what it is.” He paused and Rudolfo knew that it was not to choose the right words but to set the stage for them. Vlad Li Tam’s words were chosen before he’d left his office on the eighth patio of his seaside manor. “You of all people should appreciate the importance of taking great care with what little remains of P’Andro Whym’s Order.”

The Pope looked from Vlad Li Tam to Rudolfo. Then he looked at Jin Li Tam. Rudolfo watched him calculating, saw the hardness growing in his eyes. “I understand entirely,” he said, his jaw tight.

Vlad Li Tam inclined his head. “Excellent. I have urgent matters to attend to. I’m afraid I must return to the Emerald Coast immediately.”

Without a word to his daughter, Vlad Li Tam spun and strode out of the room. Rudolfo caught Jin’s bemused look out of the corner of his eye.

Resolute looked again at Rudolfo and Jin Li Tam. “I will have you escorted to your quarters, Lord Rudolfo. I’d speak with Lady Tam about this unexpected turn of events.”

Rudolfo stood and smiled. “If Lord Tam speaks true, your Writ of Shunning has no teeth.”

But the two Gray Guards that stepped quickly to either side of Rudolfo, hands on the pommels of their short swords, were all the teeth this pretender required.

Jin Li Tam

Jin Li Tam waited for the archbishop to speak. Her father’s sudden arrival had surprised her. His sudden departure had not. He was a man given to a strange blend of effectiveness and attentiveness. He would ride the length and breadth of the Named Lands, deliver his message and then ride back.

And the news of another Pope also surprised her, though it was no shock at all that her father knew of it. He was ever at the center of the web—and often, the web was of his own design.

“This is most unexpected and unacceptable,” the archbishop said. “How are we to resolve it?”

Jin Li Tam pushed a strand of hair back from her face. “I am my father’s daughter, always about his business. But the matter of succession is not my matter to resolve. My interest lies with Lord Rudolfo and the Ninefold Forest Houses. I want him released immediately.”

Resolute chuckled. “When I needed your father’s good favor that might have had clout with me.”

The insolence stunned her momentarily. When she spoke, her voice was low, even menacing. “You will
always
need my father’s good favor,” she said. “And you will never have his without mine.”

“Regardless,” Resolute said, “Rudolfo remains with me. As does the mechoservitor.” When she opened her mouth, he continued, not giving her a chance to interject. “Do you dispute that this mechanical belongs to the Androfrancine Order? Matters of succession aside, I am at the very least an archbishop of the Order and the ranking member accounted for thus far.”

She looked at Isaak, then back to Resolute.
Oriv
is his name, she reminded herself. She would not allow herself to think of him as Resolute any longer. “I cannot dispute that.”

“Very well. I think given the strained relationship that presently exists between House Li Tam and the Androfrancine Order, it would be best for you to leave the Papal Summer Palace. The Gray Guard will escort you and your Gypsy Scouts to the gates tomorrow morning. Until the matter is resolved, you will not be permitted to return. Do you understand?”

She nodded and stood. “I do. Thank you, Archbishop.”

He flinched when she said it and she was glad for it. The more she dealt with him, the more she thought he must be Sethbert’s puppet. He probably was not in on the plan to destroy Windwir, but he was certainly a part of it. Sethbert had ensured his cousin’s survival somehow, and now pulled the strings that made him dance.

Once more it brought her back to the question that had plagued her since she’d first learned of Sethbert’s act of genocide. Why? Madness, she thought, and yet the plan was better conceived than she had initially thought.

Jin Li Tam left the room, her eyes darting left and right at the Gray Guard who stood in the shadows just outside the open office door. But they did not move as she walked quickly past.

The Gypsy Scouts were waiting for her in the guest barracks on the back of the palace. She slipped out the servant door and into the cold rain, knocking lightly on the door. The lead scout opened it. “What news, Lady Tam?”

She pushed past him and into a spacious room lined with bunks and chests. “House Li Tam has suspended all fiscal transactions with this so-called Pope,” she said. “My father claims there is a more direct successor. The pretender intends to hold Rudolfo and to enforce his Writ of Shunning. Sethbert intends to ride on the Ninefold Forest.”

The scout nodded, his face hard and unreadable. “What about the mechoservitor?”

“He is Androfrancine property. And Isaak will not dispute that, Pope or not.” Unless, she thought, someone with more authority than the archbishop directed otherwise.

“Very well,” the lead scout said. “I will send word to the others.”

He whistled and a scout stepped forward, pulling parchment and ink-needle from his kit. Another drew a small brown bird from a belt cage.

Jin Li Tam smiled. She had read Rudolfo’s instructions before passing them on to the scouts. Having nothing but time on his hands, he’d written up instructions for every possible circumstance he could imagine. She’d spent most of a day reading them, her respect for the man growing with each page. He was perhaps the most strategic thinker she’d ever known. He wasn’t quite as meticulous and careful as her father, but he was very close.

“So tonight, then?” she asked the Gypsy Scout.

“Tonight,” he answered.

Leaving them to their work, she returned to her quarters. She locked the door first, then went to her bed. Reaching below the pillow, she drew out the note she expected to find there.

It was a simple letter—the kind one would expect a father to write a daughter. It even included congratulations for her betrothal, and she smiled at this. It had been her father’s work and will—yet he congratulated her for it. But buried within the banality of the letter was another message. She read it twice to be sure. Then she read it again before crumpling it and pushing it into the furnace.