Prophecy (33 page)

“That doesn’t sound like matters getting out of hand,” Delin pointed out, shifting in the chair he’d taken a pair of moments earlier. “It sounds as though matters are well
in
hand.”

“They only began that way,” Bron disagreed, thanking Homin with a nod for the teacup the smaller man had brought over. “The arrests of the peasants and agitators should have quieted the rest of the noisy fools, the way it’s done in the past. This time, however, the places of detention were attacked and the peasants were freed, and the traitor who was paid gold for betraying the agitators was found hanging outside one of the guard posts. During the attacks the defending guardsmen were beaten savagely, and one or two, who had been teaching the peasants under arrest better manners, were killed. Now large numbers of peasants are defying the curfews, and the commandant’s men are reluctant to make any more arrests.”

“We’ll have to find more men for him to use,” Delin said as he stood and began to pace. “If we let the peasants get away with doing as they please, they’ll start to do even more. Once he has the men, we’ll tell him to kill the peasants rather than arrest them. That way there won’t be anyone for the others to rescue, and they’ll get the message that the same could happen to any one of them. That will make them toe the line again, just wait and see if it doesn’t.”

“Where are we supposed to get more men for him?” Bron had the nerve to ask after sipping at his tea. “The guard has always recruited from the peasants, and in the last week or two the number of applications from possible recruits has fallen off to almost nothing. We’ve had no word at all from
any
of the guard groups sent to take care of those five peasant upstarts who escaped from the city, and I doubt if we
will
hear from them. With that in view, killing any of the peasants out of hand will just make the others insanely angry and push them into retaliating in kind.”

“We may have to show more of the guardsmen the way to link in that new tandem way,” Homin ventured before Delin was able to reply to Bron. “If we do that, we won’t need more guardsmen. Kambil didn’t want to, I know, but it looks like we may have to do it anyway now.”

“Kambil had a reason for not wanting to show any of the local link groups,” Bron said to Homin with a headshake. “That special tandem link makes them a
lot
stronger than normal, and he didn’t want a bunch of them getting ideas about taking over from
us
. Now that we’re… less than full strength, there’s even more of a reason to keep the knowledge from them.”

“But that’s only a possibility, while the lack of enough guardsmen is a reality,” Selendi said, startling Delin. “With going up against the rabble ourselves the only alternative to doing nothing or showing them the new linking, what choice do we have?”

“We
can
go up against them ourselves,” Homin mused, no longer hesitating the way he had. “After all, we’refar from strengthless as far as our abilities are concerned. They won’t know the difference between High talents, they’ll only know that we
are
Highs. That might even do the job of squashing most of those rumors about us. What do
you
think, Delin?”

“Are you suggesting that I let Kambil rejoin us?” Delin asked, aware of those three pairs of eyes staring at him. “That may seem like a good idea to
you
, Homin, but not to me. Kambil won’t be Blending with us ever again, but we really don’t need him. The four of us can do the same without him.”

“And let everyone know that there’s serious trouble among the Five?” Bron asked, derisive again. “That would bring
more
problems, not solve the ones we already have. If we can’t go out complete, we can’t go out at all. What other suggestion do you have?”

“Why do I need another suggestion?” Delin demanded, pausing in his pacing to glare at Bron. “Because
you
say so? Well, the point may be difficult for you to grasp, but you’renot the leader of this group!”

“I never claimed to be the leader, Delin,” Bron returned, much too calmly to suit Delin. “What I am, though, is someone who remembers that there’s a prophecy out there claiming that the evil Four will return. If we go out in public without Kambil, people will start to say that
we’re
the evil Four, come back in different bodies to enslave everyone. Right after that they’ll start to attack the palace here, and we won’t have to worry about finding the spy among the servants because most of them will either be gone or will be attacking us along with everyone else. Is that really what you want?”

Delin stared his hatred at Bron, but the words which would have put him back in his place refused to come. Everyone knew about the Prophecy, and even people who had till now refused to believe in it would be forced to change their minds if a Four showed up in public instead of a Five. Delin couldn’t argue that, but he also couldn’t think of anything else to do.

“What I want is to have those troublemakers put down as quickly as possible,” Delin finally answered, glaring at all three of them. “I have the beginnings of a plan in mind, and I’ll tell the rest of you about it as soon as I have all the details straight. In the meanwhile, Bron, tell the commandant to carry on as best he can. But remind him that we can’t let the peasants get away with doing as they please.”

“What about the antidote for the poison we were given?” Bron called after him as Delin headed toward the door. “If we’ve lost the chance to find those people, we’ve also lost the chance to get rid of this poison permanently. What are you going to do about
that
?”

Delin hurried out of the room, refusing to acknowledge hearing the question. He had no idea what to do about that, just as he had no idea what to do about the peasants. He wanted to kill them all, but then who would do all the work that a city needed doing? Maybe if he had half of them killed, the other half would change their minds about making trouble. Yes, that might work, and he would have to think about it … along with the fact that those five peasants who had almost defeated them in the competitions were on their way back.

Peace would have to be restored before they arrived, but how were they going to achieve that? Delin didn’t know, and he hated not knowing. But there was a way to find out, if he handled things exactly right. Yes, it could be the right time to try that…

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Eltrina Razas let Edmin Ruhl hurry her into his father’s house, no longer finding his concern amusing. Edmin had reason to be concerned—just as they all did—and nothing
about
the situation was amusing.

“The High Lord seems much better today, Lord Edmin,” the elderly servant said as soon as he shut the front door—which took longer than it should have. “If you’ll be good enough to give me a moment, I’ll conduct you to him.”

“Don’t bother, Rishlin, I know the way,” Edmin said at once, most likely to keep the trip to the back study from taking an hour, Eltrina thought. “You may see to your other duties.”

“With most of the staff gone, not many duties are being seen to,” the old man muttered as Eltrina and Edmin began to walk toward the back of the house. “It’s a blessing that my wife is able to cook, else the High Lord would likely starve. Don’t know what this world is coming to…”

“It seems to be trying to come to an end,” Eltrina murmured to Edmin, knowing the old man wasn’t likely to hear her. “Can he and his precious wife really be trusted?”

“Rishlin was born to parents who served my grandfather,” Edmin replied in a soft voice. “He grew up serving my father, who is only a few years younger than him, and married just as he was directed to. My father had hoped he would produce a son to serve
me
the way Rishlin served
him
, but there were no children from the union. If that old man can’t be trusted, no one can be.”

The comment did well to describe Eltrina’s feelings, that no one
could
be trusted, but she refrained from saying so out loud. In these new times it would be necessary to
pretend
to trust those she was forced to associate with, as they were done for if they began to bicker among themselves.

Edmin knocked on the door to his father’s study and then walked in, and for the first time since Eltrina had been coming to that house the High Lord was on his feet and looking like his old self. His high color also said he was more than slightly put out, both of which meant he knew exactly how many servants he had left in the house.

“Edmin, you’relate,” Lord Embisson said, more a comment than a criticism. “Were you attending another meeting?”

“No, we were slinking through the streets, actually, trying not to be noticed,” Edmin replied, not joking in the least. “My household is as bare of servants as yours is, more so in that I don’t have even a single couple to see to it. Most of the servants everywhere have picked up and left, and our peers are frantic.”

“Or irate, I imagine, just as I am,” Lord Embisson growled, looking around for something to glare at. “Even my agents have missed their scheduled meetings, but just you wait. When those lazy ingrates try to come back to their jobs, they’ll find they have no jobs to come back to, agents and servants alike. I’ll turn them all out to starve, damned if I don’t!”

“Father, there’s every indication that none of the servants
intend
to come back,” Edmin said after seating Eltrina, his voice gentle in an obvious effort to break the news in the nicest way. “Some of my people felt loyal enough to make final reports to me, and that’s what I’ve been told. The peasants have begun to follow a plan of some sort, and that’s part of it.”

“What sort of plan can they possibly have?” Lord Embisson demanded, watching Edmin at the tea service. “If they leave their jobs and don’t go back, they’ll all starve while living in the streets. No plan can possibly change that.”

“One can,” Edmin denied, turning with two full cups when he finished filling them. “Where it comes from no one seems to know, but it does address the problem rather efficiently. Your agents haven’t been by to see you because most of them have been ejected from the city. Those who used to run various business enterprises for us have taken over ownership of those businesses, and will no longer turn over our percentage of the earnings. Instead they’ll use the gold to feed that horde of unemployed servants, while the ex-servants spend their time building housing for themselves and others. The land being built on used to belong to various of our peers as well, people who had no wish to see the land littered with housing for the lower classes. Now they no longer have a say over the property, and once the new housing is built the ex-servants will find employment among their own kind—financed by gold which was supposed to be ours.”

“But that’s outrageous!” Lord Embisson exclaimed while Edmin took a seat after giving Eltrina her cup of tea. “How can they expect to get away with it? The guard will—Come to think of it, the guard should have stopped this already. Are they all just standing around watching what’s happening without lifting a finger against it?”

“The guard, apparently under orders from the Five, made an effort to regain control early on,” Edmin replied after sipping at his tea. “Ah, I needed that after our rather lengthy walk. But about the guard: When this new attitude among the peasants first began, a platoon of them was sent to make examples of individuals and to send them all back to where they belong. They marched out intending to obey their orders—and found three times their number of peasants waiting for them. Their link groups immediately tried to disperse the crowds, and only then discovered that even more laws were being broken. The peasants had formed their own link groups, and the confrontation turned into a rout for the guard. After that an unfortunate number of guardsmen deserted their posts and joined the rabble, who have now taken it upon themselves to police the city. The guard commander pulled the remainder of his force back into our sections, but they’refar too few to keep out anyone at all. Which is why our walk over here was far from pleasant.”

“This is a nightmare,” Lord Embisson muttered as he dropped into a chair, apparently beyond pacing. “Our ancestors never had this trouble keeping the rabble down… But why did you have to
walk
here? If your carriage drivers went with the rest, you could have driven the carriage yourself. Doing that may be undignified, but not as undignified as walking.”

“Yes, Father, I certainly could have driven the carriage—if someone had hitched the horses to it,” Edmin told him with as little ridicule as possible. “All those straps and harnesses and things… I looked them over carefully, and discovered that I hadn’t the first idea of what went where. Then I tried to saddle one of the horses, but found it impossible to tighten the girth strap far enough. The fool horse kept puffing out its belly, that is, when it wasn’t throwing the saddle off to begin with. I believe I once heard someone say that there’s a difference between carriage horses and saddle horses, but
I
couldn’t see a difference. They all look like horses, and all of them were most uncooperative.”

“I see,” Lord Embisson said, clearly not seeing anything but his own position and fortune disappearing from the world. “Well, there seems to be only one thing left for us to do. You’ll stay here while I complete preparations, and then we’ll go to Bastions, my estate in the east. It’s completely self sufficient with a full complement of servants, and we can stay there until this nonsense blows over. Rishlin tells me that his wife has had trouble getting food at the market lately, which is why I began my preparations to leave. Now I think we’d better get going as quickly as possible.”

“That’s the only plan you can come up with?” Eltrina blurted, helpless to keep the words inside. “Abandon everything and just run away? What about those five disgusting peasants our own Five are so afraid of? They’redefinitely on the way back to the city, and are expected almost at any time. They’rethe other half of the source of all our troubles, and we owe them the same kind of vengeance we meted out to those vermin in the palace! If we run away now, they’ll have won.”