The Humbled (The Lost Words: Volume 4) (21 page)

“That surely did not help your position. Now that she’s escaped, she made you look weak. And you might have an enemy
when she could have been your ally. You seem quite fond of keeping people captive under armed guard.”

She deserved the jibe. “What do you think of the Sirtai’s omen?”

He bent down, groaning, and plucked a dandelion. He twirled it between his fingers, then puffed, scattering the seeds. “I am not the one to ask about wizardly affairs. I can give you advice on matters of steel and blood and a man’s honor. Piss makes for a good thing to cool hot, forged iron, but it’s a poor way of soothing one’s pride.”

In some lunatic reality, I might call this old hound a friend
, she thought. But she realized it would never be that way between them. His open admission was his way of distancing himself from her, she knew. He probably believed she was not going to win this war. Rather than being a traitor, he just closed his heart to her. Erased her. Easier to cope, she knew.

“You would not pay heed to his warning of a large foreign army,” she pressed.

“I would not. But
you
should. In fact, you’d better hope that army comes, ’cause it’s your best chance now. Once the forces of this or that witch descend on the realms, we will be all too busy fighting it together. Might give you a chance to save face, amend old wrongs.”

She had such a splendid repertoire of options before her. She could choose between a Caytorean murderer for her champion, a sly Sirtai wizard with his own vendetta, or serving King Sergei, whose family had been orphaned by her own father. And in between, she could hope she might get on friendly terms with James’s widow and the whole High Council, both of which she had scorned, snubbed, and insulted on several occasions. She also had to choose a husband for herself, go back on her promise to Xavier, and outlast a war against an incredible,
magical enemy force. If all these turned out all right, she might not have a realm left. All the while, she still had not even the slightest idea who had betrayed her and freed Lady Rheanna.

She could not trust anyone, and that made her attempts at friendship even trickier.

For all she knew, the leathery sergeant might have been the one to help the widow escape. He might be blunt and honest now, but that did not mean he was telling her the whole truth.

Father, what do you do when you don’t have anyone you can trust? Oh, Father, I miss you
. But late Emperor Adam had no answers for his daughter.

“Thank you, Master Hector,” she said and dismissed the wiry sergeant.

Amalia woke in the middle of the night, her bladder bursting. She was quite alert, despite the hour, she realized, the flickering images of her dream gone. It was hot and stifling in her room, even though the window was cracked open. Her soldiers warned her against assassins using the opportunity to slip inside, so she had posted a pair of crossbowmen on the roof at night. Sometimes, she could sniff the stench of their smoking or hear them chatter, mostly about women. Ever since James’s dead friend Rob had brought his ugly habit from Eybalen, more and more men had embraced it.

Amalia walked to the small privacy chamber built into the corner of the room. Inside, it had a seat made of polished wood, a funnel, and a bent length of pipe connecting to the drain outside. Marvelous invention. You did not have to tinkle into a pot under your bed or brave the night going to a smelly outhouse.

She sat down, the cold pine making her thighs tickle. It only made her urge to pee stronger. Soon enough, she released
her belly muscles and groaned softly, and the tin funnel began purring with a metallic, wet sound. Marvelous invention, indeed. Master Guilliam was not just a highly skilled weapons maker. Once she retook Roalas—if she retook it, she reminded herself—then she would have privacy chambers built in every room of the manse, as well as all the guilds and inns.

She was finished soon enough and reached for a rag, hanging on a nail from the side wall, to dry her nethers. Something creaked. She thought it might be a last errant drop, but it did not sound like urine plinking against metal. It sounded like a floorboard being bent by a considerable weight.

Like a human presence.

Her breath caught in her throat. She swallowed a whimper of panic, imagining Calemore standing out there, waiting for her, a pearly smile on his face.

“Your Highness?” someone whispered.

She almost screamed. She realized she had buried her fingernails in her stomach, gripping hard. What now? Shout for help? Would anyone hear? Would anyone be able to respond fast enough? Who was it out there? A friend? A foe? Why would anyone sneak into her chamber? Was it Xavier, come to rape her?

Amalia heard a reedy snivel escape through her clogged nostrils, in and out. Her body was frozen, and she could not move. She was unarmed, and all she had was her dignity pooled round her ankles.

“Do not be afraid, I wish you no harm. Please come out.”

Like a puppet, her arms and legs tied to strings and moved by some unruly giant, she rose, pulled up her knickers, rolled the nightgown down, reached with a trembling hand toward the door of the privacy chute, and carefully pushed it open.

A man was standing by her bed, arms spread in a pacifying gesture. “Your Highness. My name is Adelbert. I have helped your half brother in the past.”

“Why are you here?” Was it her own voice? It had to be.

“Unfortunately, the presence of your two Sirtai advisers precludes me from meeting you in the open.”

“What do you want?” Did she really sound so terrified, so weak?

“I really wish you no harm. I just want to talk. I noticed you have been making all kinds of deals with your people, so I thought it would be prudent if I mentioned my own debt. The debt your family owes me, that is. Your half brother, but now he is dead, so the debt is yours now.”

“How did you get in here?” Hadn’t Jarman placed magical wards around her?

There wasn’t much light from the moon in her chamber, but she could see the expression on the man’s face change subtly, as if he had remembered a fond, pleasant memory. “Those two men are very talented wizards, but they are still Sirtai. They have spent too long living in their own beautiful land to really understand the extent of trickery and ingenuity people under dire circumstances may come up with. They protect you against people of the realms and the witch’s touch, but they forgot harm might come to you from one of their own. They don’t protect against Sirtai magic, you see.”

Sirtai? Was this man Sirtai? She vaguely remembered seeing him before around the city, but he was just another member of the household, silent, distant, unimportant. So what was he doing in the room now?

“I will tell them that,” she heard herself say, feeling morbidly detached. Drums rolled in the night, but it was just in her heart really, she figured.

“I would appreciate if you kept our meeting secret. I wish you no harm. But late Emperor James promised I could name my price for my assistance. Your Highness, I must know you will respect your dead brother’s promise.”

She swallowed; it was an effort. “Tell me.”

Adelbert made a minute step toward her. She gasped, so he stopped and shuffled back. If he intended to hurt her, he was taking his time torturing her mind first. But there was nothing outright violent or dangerous about him, except that he stood in her magically warded room. Amalia regretted being alone. Agatha was in the nearby chamber, sleeping on her own. Lately, ever since she had become pregnant, she would snore quite often, because she had to sleep on her back, and Amalia preferred silent nights, without noises and grunts. Her bodyguards were just outside, in the corridor.

Right now, she wouldn’t have even minded wet, lousy dogs for company.

“I can’t name my price,” the strange man insisted. “I have not decided on it
yet
. But I wish to know if you are going to honor the agreement.”

“How did you help him?” she croaked. She had to know.

The interloper made a tiny smile, a flash of teeth in the night’s silvery light. “He needed magical assistance.” He paused. “Perhaps, you might require my help, too? I would be glad to assist you, but the price might be higher.”

There was this stranger standing in front of her, but she saw Calemore in his place. Teasing her, making demands, threatening her, asking her questions. How much was she willing to sacrifice? Would she give up her maidenhood?

And then, he broke her spirit.

“What do you say, Your Highness? I could help.”

Beggars don’t get to choose
. “Yes,” Amalia mumbled. She had no idea what he could ask. But she would say yes to all of them. Jarman, Xavier, Sergei, Adelbert, all the rest. She would buy herself time and make sure she responded when she finally regained her strength and confidence. Or maybe she never would, doomed to remain a beggar her whole life. That was
her
price, perhaps, for her mistakes in Roalas.

She thought she should be resentful, but all she felt was sadness. Maybe she deserved the terror and derision. Make peace. That’s all that mattered. Save the realm.

Once, she might have even considered sweet revenge, but even that idea made her weary now. Could she blame the vultures around her for pecking at her soft flesh? Could she blame the animals for sniffing out her fears and chasing her? This Adelbert was no worse than Xavier or Jarman. He just wanted his share. And Amalia, a weak, pitiful thing, should comply so he would not get upset and retaliate. That was the sum of her new life. An empress reduced to a fool.

She thought she should have learned from her mistakes in the capital. Her spring-cleaning should have established her reputation, made her dreaded even. Well, it may have with the common men, but the powerful figures around just kept using her, ignoring her, commanding her about. As if nothing had changed. And maybe nothing had. She was still a silly, frail, naïve girl who knew nothing about politics and survival.

What would Father do in this mess?

“Thank you, Your Highness. That is good enough for me,” he said, shattering her resolve, before she could come up with an answer. “I will be going now. We will meet again.” He stepped into the shadow by her bed, and then, she realized he
was gone. The shadow changed hue, and it was no longer a man’s figure there, but old furniture.

Amalia exhaled a long, shuddering breath. Tears came to her eyes. Biting her lower lip in a silent keen of anguish, she sat down on her bed, cursing her cowardice, her inability to fight her enemies, to stand up for herself. She was such a miserable little thing. She did not deserve to be the empress of Athesia. She didn’t deserve anything. She was Jerrica the washerwoman again.

Stop it
, a deep inner voice tried to tell her.
You’re embarrassing yourself. You’re Adam’s daughter, you saphead
.

But the weak side prevailed, and she curled herself into a ball, lying under the pale moonlight and mumbling, cursing her ugly luck. She wished Gerald was there to hug her, to love her and protect her, but she had no one, just the bored whispers of the two smelly roof guards discussing the breasts and arses of the town’s girls.

CHAPTER 15

M
ali had the entire Barrin estate to herself, more or less. She was the countess of Barrin. Sort of.

The people who lived at the estate had fled before the strange northern army arrived, leaving behind a frozen moment in life, only partially spoiled by panic, looting, and the passage of time. Most of the property remained strangely intact, apart from valuables and food, which had gone missing. When the Eracian force arrived at the Barrin manor house, her scouts had found several bandits inside, having taken shelter in one of the halls, spitting rabbits over a fire made from broken chairs. The nearby castle, the one she had used for her mock engagements in what felt like a completely different lifetime, also housed a huddle of new inhabitants, of the unsavory kind. They had quickly been rounded up and killed.

Now, it was her new base of operations. Finley, Alan, and she shared the massive premises, trying to figure out what their enemy had in mind. Leaving behind such highly lucrative, highly defensible positions, entirely empty, sounded like madness. Mali thought she could discern a pattern in the enemy’s behavior, but it was a flimsy guess. Apparently, they did not seem that interested in tearing down stone and wood. They
only cared about humans, it seemed. And they destroyed only what they considered useless.

The army had more than welcomed the respite. After so many months of grueling, boring marches, they were back in something akin to civilization, with drinkable water in the wells, and real beds. At first, Mali had feared letting the soldiers into the lavish mansion, but she had relented eventually. Lord Karsten would have to find it in his heart to forgive the brave defenders of the realm.

Right now, she was sitting on a crate, whetting a knife, watching life roll by in all shapes and forms. The estate was busy with military work and activity, the two not quite always going hand in hand. There was a bunch of strange northern people being herded back north, escorted by a few mounted men. A new patrol was leaving the camp, armed with crossbows and lances. Like the rest, they were tasked with harrying enemy convoys within a day’s march of the estate. If the enemy surrendered peacefully, they were sent home. If they resisted or fought, they were destroyed. Mali did not relish killing civilians, but the moment they drew their knives, they became soldiers.