Lamentation (28 page)

He looked up at the men, and lowered his spoon back into the bowl of cooked oats. They’d tried to give him a bigger tent and better meals to go with his fancy robe, but he’d refused those, insisting that he be treated as every other worker. He’d continued to make his rounds, though now under escort, and even stopped to help dig the bones from the frozen ground.

“What can I do for you, Garver?” he finally asked.

The man was clearly uncomfortable now. Before the proclamation he’d had no difficulty speaking his mind to Petronus, and the sudden shift reminded Petronus that this role he now played honored a lie he did not believe in. That somehow his station in the Order set him apart in some way.

Petronus looked across to Neb. The boy sat quietly, looking from Petronus to the group.

Petronus sighed again. “You had no trouble speaking plainly when the latrines needed redigging or when the supply wagon came up short on flour and salt.” He offered the best smile he could. “Nothing has changed.”

Everything has changed
.

Finally, Garver spoke up. “Excellency, we know how important this work is to you, and we’ve come up with a plan to finish by early spring if the winter is as mild as the past three. We can rotate men and women into the camp just as we’ve been doing. The new supplies are coming in well, and the workers are overwhelmed by the Order’s generous wage.”

Petronus nodded. “Excellent.” But the look on Garver’s face told him that he’d not gotten to a point he was afraid of raising. “And the problem is . . . ?” He let the words trail off.

“I don’t know how to say this, Excellency,” Garver said, looking around to his companions for moral support. Petronus followed his gaze. He’d brought the best of the lot with him, the smartest and most able.

“Say it plainly, Garver, like you did four nights past in the council tents when we talked about curtailing the hunting because of the armies.”

Garver nodded. “Very well, Excellency. We don’t need you here anymore.” He flushed. “Not to say we don’t want you. You’ve done right by us and by your kin. But we don’t think it proper for our Pope and King to dig graves in the snow.”

“And I think it’s quite proper,” Petronus said, feeling the anger rise quickly in him.

Garver swallowed, eyes shifting to the left and right again. “You mistake my meaning, Lord, but it’s from my poor choice of words. Any of us here can work a shovel or wheelbarrow. But only one of us can be the Pope.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “The world just lost a Pope and does not need to lose another. The fighting has stepped up. You will be safer elsewhere and able to focus on your work.”

Petronus studied the faces of each man around him, including the rangers. None of them looked surprised or uncertain. None of them looked as if they were ready to disagree. And if he were honest with himself, he wasn’t sure he could disagree with that wisdom either.

“What would you propose?”

Garver released his held breath. “Appoint someone to lead this effort in your stead. Work with them by the bird if you must, but don’t overlook your other responsibilities. The Named Lands need their Pope.”

Petronus sighed. “Very well. I’ll think on it and we’ll discuss it at council tomorrow. Is that reasonable?”

Garver nodded. “Thank you, Excellency.”

“Thank you.”

After they left, he looked across to Neb. “What do you think?”

Neb chewed a piece of bread, a thoughtful look on his face. “I think they’re right, Excellency.”

Petronus rolled his eyes. “Not you, too.”

Neb grinned but the grin faded quickly. “I think Sethbert’s men will come for you here at some point. Or try to. There is no dispute for the ring and the scepter if you are not alive. But more than that, I’m certain you’re going to need to convene a Council of Bishops under Holy Unction. There is much work to do beyond digging these graves.”

Petronus leaned back, realizing for the first time how much the boy had grown these past few months. Well-spoken and wise, firmly rooted in a classical Androfrancine education and yet so young. “And who do you think I should put in charge of this operation?”

He shrugged. “Rudolfo is in charge, by proxy, as the Guardian. He or one his officers can provide the military support and council we need. You could appoint Garver or one of the others to oversee the gravedigging and the day-to-day logistics of running the camp.”

Petronus shook his head. “I’d want someone from the Order for that.”

Neb shrugged. “I don’t know then. Most of the Androfrancines went to the Summer Papal Palace. There are a few left, but I don’t know them.”

Petronus smiled. “How strongly do you concur with Garver’s recommendation?”

Neb scowled, his brow creasing. “I think you can do more away from here, in a safer place. Regardless of what we believe, there is another Pope competing for authority and attention, and the only way to prevail is to be a better, stronger Pope than he.” He paused, and his face softened as he shrugged again. “I concur strongly, I guess.”

Petronus stood. “Then you’d best find new robes, Neb.”

Neb looked at him, confusion clouding his face.

“I’ve just made you my aide. Your first assignment is the completion of the work here. Afterwards, you will join me in the Ninefold Forest to assist with the restoration of the Great Library.”

The boy was still sputtering and red-faced when Petronus left the galley, chuckling. He hoped he was making a good decision. He’d always been impeccably good at picking out the shepherëouted-ds from the sheep, but this shepherd was terribly young and these sheep were a motley herd.

Still, the boy had seen the work of Xhum Y’Zir and lived to tell it. He’d been the guest of the Marsh King and the subject of his War Sermons. He’d proclaimed a Pope and buried his own dead.

But more than that, he’d known when to keep Petronus’s secret, and had known even better than Petronus when it was time to break that secret onto the world.

That alone was enough for Petronus to trust him with the graves of Windwir.

Neb

Petronus rode out three days later. Neb watched him and his escort leave the plains of Windwir and slip into the northern forests. There had really been no time for him to adjust to this new responsibility. But whenever he felt the panic rise in his chest, Neb remembered what Petronus had said to him.

“You’ve watched everything I do here,” Petronus told him that first night after Neb had asked him to reconsider his decision to put him in charge. “You won’t need to deal with the guard shifts or any other military matters. Just keep the work moving and the workers supported. Anything that can’t wait a day or two for a bird, decide by council or ask whoever Rudolfo attaches to you.” Then the old man had paused, smiled, and put a hand on Neb’s shoulder. “I know this is a lot. But I would not give you more than I thought you could handle.” And finally, he’d leaned forward, his voice low. “You of all people understand why we must finish this work.”

Neb had nodded, and from then on he’d spent every waking moment with Petronus, following him everywhere he went and asking him every question that he could imagine.

Now, three days later, he felt uncertain all over again. After Petronus vanished, he sent the workers back to their tasks. None of them balked. Then he checked the supply wagon schedule, the artifact wagon and the galley. While at the galley he had the cook pack him a lunch, and he started walking the line, surveying the effort remaining. Having to move the snow first was extending the time, and though the cold wasn’t yet unbearable, they’d still had to shorten the shifts considerably. One of Neb’s biggest hopes was that Petronus would issue a plea for help with the gravedigging effort.

Neb walked out each direction, trying to keep the hem of his new robes up off the snow as he went. They had carved Windwir into quadrants. The city proper—those parts within the walls—was the inner layer, quartered by north, south, east and west. Most of that section had been taken care of before the snow fell to take advantage of finding any artifacts while the ground was clear. Beyond the city itself, they quartered the outer layer. They’d finished the eastern and southern quadrants, but uncertainty about the Marsh King’s intentions—regardless of his words—had kept them from the north, and they were already digging trencëy dut hes in the western quarter in preparation for the work beginning there.

By the time Neb reached the outer northern quadrant, he was ready to eat. He cleared a small patch of ground beneath a tree and pulled out two pieces of pan-fried bread and a slice of lamb. He ate the sandwich, sipping from his canteen between bites, and wondered for the twentieth time that day what the Marsher girl Winters might be doing right now and whether or not she wondered about him and when he would see her again.

He felt himself blush, and forced his mind back to the plains. She popped into his head more and more and he wasn’t sure why. He’d even dreamed about her twice. He was talking to Brother Hebda about the Churning Wastes and he saw her just outside the window, standing beneath a solitary pine tree in a vast wasteland, watching him with a strange smile on her dirty face.

Suddenly, someone sneezed, loudly, and Neb jumped. He looked around and saw no one.

“I know you’re there,” he said.

Silence.

“You are a Marsher Scout,” he said. And suddenly a thought occurred to him. “You are the same Marsher Scout that took me to your king.”

Still, no answer. Neb shifted, wondering if he should ask what he wanted to ask next. He tried to push it aside, but couldn’t. “Do you know the girl Winters?” he asked, feeling his face and ears go red.

This time, he heard a grunt. Neb decided to assume it was in the affirmative. “Tell her that Nebios ben Hebda saw her beneath the tree in the Churning Wastes.”

Another grunt.

Neb drew an apple out of his pouch and munched on it. Then, as if an afterthought, he pulled another. “Here,” he said, holding it up. “Catch.” He tossed it in the direction of the grunt and watched it melt into nothingness as the scout snatched it from the air.

Silently, they ate their apples. Then Neb stood up and stretched. “I have to get back,” he said. But as soon as he said it, he felt awkward. “Give her that message, please.”

One last grunt, and Neb turned and left the forest. All the way back, he stopped periodically and scanned the snow for other sets of footprints. There had been enough foot traffic with the fighting and the patrols that he really couldn’t tell.

Was it possible that the scout had followed him all morning? Maybe he was still out there, carefully walking in Neb’s own footprints, hanging back but never letting the boy leave his sight.

Could it be that the Marsh King had assigned Neb a bodyguard? Unlikely. More likely, he was a scout on patrol or posted on the perimeter.

Still, the thought of that level of attention from a king made him smile. It wasn’t so long ago that the only kings he knew were in books.

Neb looked to the sky, saw that it was growing white, and moved eastward toward the river, putting his mind to the work ahead.

Rudolfo

Spring came early to the Named Lands in rare fashion, and war moved on around it. For Rudolfo, the months had been a blur. He’d divided his time between Windwir and the front as the war moved southwest and Sethbert’s allies fell back. He’d lost a good portion of his Wandering Army holding Rachyl’s Bridge on the second river, connecting Pylos to the Entrolusian Delta. They’d held their first true parley just after that, though no terms had been reached. And the two Popes were starkly contrasted—Resolute in his fine, white linens and Petronus in his simple brown hermit’s robe—as they spoke in voices that were sometimes hushed, sometimes raised.

Now, Rudolfo rode with Petronus from the seventh forest manor to Windwir so they could escort Neb back with that work finished. He’d spent three rather luxurious days with his betrothed, and he found it more satisfying than anything he had ever known. Since Gregoric’s death, her strength had become his own. It was a strange sensation. For so long, it had been Gregoric as his right hand and he’d never imagined this level of partnership possible. But there was a reckless joy in this new arrangement. She had the strength and spirit of a Gypsy Scout, the mind and strategy of a general. He admired her skills of statecraft and misdirection. And for all of that, she was a formidable lover as well.

Still, he carried the loss of his friend near at all times. They’d been like brothers for longer than he had memory, and the world did not make sense without him in it. Perhaps because it was combined with the loss of Windwir that this particular death had struck him so hard. Though the Francines would say that all loss connected back to earlier losses, and that Gregoric represented the last vestiges of a time in Rudolfo’s life when he was innocent and responsible for nothing.

As he rode, he looked up to the hill above the town. Most of it had been cleared now that the snow was gone, and he expected the workers he’d hired to level it and start digging the basements within the next week. The stones were already being cut in the shallow hills at the base of the Dragon’s Spine. He had deferred to Petronus on all matters regarding the library, but the Pope had been more concerned about planning the council of bishops than plodding through the details of the restoration. Isaak continued the work of identifying the resources that hadn’t already gone tîcouo the Summer Papal Palace. They’d located a small private library on the Emerald Coasts that would now be en route with the passing of the snow.

Rudolfo watched the men moving on the hill and saw the glint of light on steel, the morning sun reflecting off Isaak’s metal head. He turned in his saddle to stare at the narrow glass door of his bedchamber’s balcony. Wrapped in a red silk sheet, Jin Li Tam stood in the doorway and watched him leave.

He smiled and whistled his horse forward to catch up with Petronus.

The old man had aged in the last handful of months, but it was no wonder. The skill with which he moved across the political landscape impressed Rudolfo, but it had to take a toll. The Named Lands were locked in its fiercest conflict since the settlers had come across the Keeper’s Wall.

Rudolfo saw that the Pope was also looking to the hill. “Three years by our best estimates,” he said. “But Isaak is confident that we can restore nearly forty percent. He’s having the mechanicals double check their inventories.”

Petronus nodded. “I’m impressed with his work.”

Rudolfo smiled at this. “He is a marvel. They all are.”

“Yes,” the Pope said, “but Isaak is different from the others. They’re more reserved. They don’t seem to have the empathetic capacity that he does.”

Rudolfo had noticed this as well. The other mechoservitors spoke when spoken to for the most part and kept to themselves. They also hadn’t clothed themselves and hadn’t taken on names, preferring their numeric designations. Yet oddly enough, they looked to Isaak as their leader.

“I think Windwir changed him as it changed all of us.”

Petronus sighed. “More, I would suspect.”

Rudolfo agreed. “I tried to convince him again yesterday that he should have one of the other mechoservitors fix his leg. He said he wanted the limp as a reminder of what he had done.”

Petronus scowled. “You reminded him, I’m sure, that Sethbert did this?”

“Yes.”

Petronus’s brows furrowed. “Where is Sethbert these days?”

“He’s back in the City States dealing with insurrection. Tam’s blockade has sown its discord. Lysias continues to hó cofacold their borders up, but between Pylos and the Wandering Army, it’s starting to wear them down.” He chuckled, but it was a dark laugh. “Turam’s nearly done for; the crown prince has pulled back to reconsider his commitment.” Rudolfo had been in communication with the Marsh King, but she had insisted on staying near Windwir until the graves were filled in. He hoped to spend at least some time trying to convince her that now, with that work finished, they could use her military leverage in the southern lands.

He suspected that the Marsh King’s forces could end this war and bring about successful parley. But she’d surprised him by her refusal to leave that work. At first, he’d thought it had to do with the gravedigging.

But the last few times he’d visited Neb, the boy had remarked that he thought he was being followed by Marsh Scouts. Rudolfo saw a connection of some kind there. After all, Neb was supposedly the dreaming boy mentioned in the Marsh King’s War Sermon.

Still, if it was the boy she was concerned about, he hoped that she would trust him and his Gypsy Scouts to make sure Neb was well cared for.

Rudolfo started, suddenly realizing that Petronus had spoken. He looked up. “I’m sorry?”

“I said: Perhaps this insurrection will do our work for us.”

Rudolfo nodded. “I hope so.”

But as he rode south, Rudolfo doubted it could be so simple as that.

Jin Li Tam

Jin Li Tam slipped from the manor into the afternoon light. She used one of the many concealed passageways and doors within the large house after telling her escort that she would be bathing. She’d even filled the large marble tub with hot water and perfumed oils. After, she’d taken first one passage, then a ladder down to the basement, its tunnels eventually bringing her to the manor’s low stone wall beyond its northern gardens.

Eyes constantly scanning for watchers, she’d slipped out of a hidden gate she found during her winter reconnaissance of the manor.

She wore nondescript robes and sturdy boots to guard against mud and melting snow. She moved quickly over the ground.

When she reached the River Woman’s hut beyond the town, she waited in shadows and watched to be sure that the old alchemist was indeed alone with her cats.

Last night, she’d used the last of the powders and so far, she’d not had the result she was looking for. Twice since winter she’d thought perhaps it had taken, but both times came to nothing. Todayó no fa, she would decide whether or not she should keep trying.

It was the longest winter she’d ever experienced, a cold and white expanse of time largely spent indoors. The only bright patches were the few days Rudolfo managed to spend with her as he moved between Windwir, the front and the work Petronus and Isaak were doing. She wasn’t accustomed to a cold so bitter that it could freeze a river in its track. She wasn’t accustomed to a house becoming a cage.

Certainly, Rudolfo would not hold her. But where else could she go?

From time to time, the tropic warmth of her father’s house sprang to mind but she knew she could not face him. After Gregoric’s death, she’d stopped returning House Li Tam messages, even those from her brothers and sisters as they did their part in her father’s work. Eventually, the messages stopped coming altogether.

It was a silence she’d never experienced, and a part of her grieved it but another part felt a freedom growing within her beyond anything she had ever known.

She’d always prided herself on being her own woman, a strong woman, self-contained and able to hold her own against any circumstances. But as the time marched on away from the Desolation of Windwir, from her discovery of her father’s hand in Rudolfo’s life and her realization that she herself was a critical component of that work, she saw clearly now that she had never been her own woman. She’d been her father’s daughter and nothing more. All of these events had shown her that this was no longer enough, that there actually could be a higher calling than the Tam matrix.

To her father’s credit, he’d not pressed her. But perhaps, she thought, this too is what he wove into the elaborate tapestry that he and all of those other fathers before him had created.

Smoke leaked from the chimney of the small hut, and she saw movement inside. Jin Li Tam broke her cover and walked the muddy path up to the porch, knocking lightly on the door.

The River Woman met her with a smile. “Lady Tam,” she said, sounding delighted to see her. “Please come in. I’ve just put on some tea.”

Jin kicked off her boots on the porch, then concealed them behind a chair. “Thank you,” she said.

Once inside, she saw that the small cottage and its connected shop was even more full than the usual sacks and jars, overflowing from the counters onto the table and stacked in some instances to half her height.

“War is tragic but good for business,” the River Woman said. “Magicks for hooves, magicks for men, magicks for blades and interrogation. Even the physicians have orders in, anticipating their own work ahead.” The woman clucked. “Men and their violenónd s fce,” she said. She poured tea into two ceramic cups and placed one in front of Jin Li Tam. “But enough of death,” the River Woman said as she sat down across from her. “Let’s talk of life.”

Jin Li Tam nodded and sipped her tea. It had a strong lemon and honey flavor to it, going down smooth and hot. “I’ve used the last the powders,” she said. “I will need more.”

The River Woman smiled. “I can’t give you any more,” she said.

Jin Li Tam blinked and set down the cup. She felt a moment of panic, and it folded in on itself, reproducing more anxiety as she realized how afraid it made her that she might not be able get more of the powders and continue her attempts with Rudolfo. As much as she hated the deception—and had even convinced herself a dozen times that she would tell him—she’d gotten quite adept at slipping the powders into his drinks in those hours before they were to be together. She knew that telling him about this deception meant leaving footprints that he could follow back to other deceptions, eventually seeing her father’s work—and her own work in support of her father—in his life.

She could not bear the way he would look at her once he realized that House Li Tam had murdered his brother, his parents and his closest friend in order to move his life in a direction one man thought it should go in.

All of this flashed across her mind, and she felt something squeezing her heart. “I don’t understand,” Jin Li Tam finally said. “You have the recipe. I can arrange whatever ingredients you may need delivered.”

The River Woman shook her head, still smiling. “It would not be prudent, Lady Tam.”

Jin Li Tam felt anger rustling awake within her. She could hear her own voice getting cold as she pushed back the chair from the table. “I need those powders,” she said. “If you can’t make them for me, I’m sure Caldus Bay’s woman can oblige me.”

The River Woman’s smile continued, broadening as she clucked. “Lady Tam,” she said, “please sit down.”

Uncertain, Jin paused, then sat. Suddenly, she didn’t feel she could meet the River Woman’s eyes. She looked around the room instead.

She felt the old, rough hand slide over her own and give it a squeeze. “I can’t give you any more,” the River Woman said, “because they might harm your baby.”

Jin’s eyes snapped up. “My what?”

The River Woman nodded. “It’s all over you now. The tone of your skin. The brightnesó. T"1es in your eyes. It’s in the very way that you walk.” She stood and walked over to a cabinet, drawing a gold ring with bits of pink and blue ribbon tied to it.

Jin Li Tam felt her heart flutter and expand. “You mean—?”

The River Woman nodded again, picking up a bucket of river water. “You’re with child. Recently, too, I’d say.” She winked.

Jin Li Tam did not know what to say. Instead, she sat still and watched as the woman clenched the ring and its strings in her closed fist, speaking to them in a mumbled tongue she could not place. The River Woman poured the water into a wooden cup, then dropped in the ring, still mumbling.

“Now,” she said, “we see what your water tells the river.”

Jin went into a back room, feeling suddenly awkward and exposed. She felt fear and elation arguing within her over whether she should run or dance. Afterward, when she brought the cup back out, the River Woman took it and set it on the table.

“Now finish your tea, dear,” the River Woman said. “It will take awhile.”

Jin Li Tam looked at the cup and the ring at the bottom of it. The threads were tucked neatly beneath the gold circle, their tips waving slightly in the blended waters. “What if it’s wrong?”

The River Woman shook her head. “Forty years and I’ve yet to not know a woman with child when I saw her walk into this hut—even as soon as the morning after if you get my meaning.” She grinned and sipped her tea.