“What is your interest here?” Lepulio asked smoothly. The Envoy’s quarters, on the main floor of one of the newer palace buildings, faced the harbor. In this room, the only furnishings were a single massive chair and a heavy table with a leather top, with three velvet-wrapped packages laid out on its surface, along with a pair of yellowed parchment scrolls. As he spoke, the Envoy retreated behind the table. “I must admit I am personally curious to know your motives for interfering here, besides Imperial Sciuttarus having commanded me most particularly to ask you.” His voice was silky, poisonous. “Are you seeking some further guarantee of Tielmark’s borders? The personal security of a title or land? A blood-tie
to the House Imperial? Come now, you must have some stake. Tell me so we may reach a satisfactory agreement.”
Tullier, who had been peering intently into the man’s face, suddenly stepped forward. “I know you,” he said. “You served as quaestor the year the Sha Muira charter was renewed.” Then, to Gaultry, “This man oversaw the Sha Muira finances the year the Emperor ordered their review. He lives and breathes Sciuttarus’s most interior court.” Despite himself, the boy flushed with excitement. “There are only five such men in all Bissanty—and Llara’s Heart-on-Earth has sent him here to treat with me!”
“Indeed.” Lepulio flicked the leather surface of the table with a finger. The gesture was like the rest of him, complex. It conveyed so much: a sense that he found the table, the room, his quarters—even Tielmark!—unclean and beneath his dealings; but he would complete his charge, on sufferance, because it was what his emperor required. “You may regard my presence as a register of the solemnity of the Emperor’s concerns.”
“Tell me what you have come here to offer,” Gaultry said, determined not to let him unnerve her.
“Security,” Lepulio said smugly. “I have been instructed to remove young Tullirius from his current perils and bring him safely home.”
“Don’t make me laugh,” Gaultry said.
“There have been two attacks upon Tullirius in the last week alone, from what my sources have told me. Why shouldn’t I be serious?”
“Discounting for a moment the manhunt that pursued us through all Bissanty,” Gaultry said coolly, “here in Tielmark, there were Bissanty soldiers at the first attack. Indeed, the man responsible for wounding my ward at Sizor’s Bridge was a Bissanty soldier. Who knows what hand the Emperor might have had in the second?” It had still not been discovered who had sent Siànne and the other palace soldiers, but the possibility of a high-ranked Bissanty-sympathizing Tielmaran could not be ruled out.
Lepulio set down the scroll, caressed the dark gem on the centerpiece of his chain of office, and assumed a pensive look. “If there were soldiers, they could not have been the Emperor’s men. The Emperor is fully cognizant of the futility of sending soldiers against the boy. Tullirius has inherited great Llara’s blood. To raise a hand against him invites her fury, and offers only damnation.
“By Llara’s own laws, the boy should never have earned this blessing. Two Imperial Brothers cannot pass their Great Mother’s blood to their
children. When Sciuttarus earned it from his father, his uncle’s opportunity to pass it to his progeny should have been forever closed. And yet—and yet there is no denying that this is just what the Emperor’s uncle has accomplished.”
Lepulio smiled, a smile more of bitterness than humor. “You cannot imagine the bleating flocks of priests the Emperor has assigned to study the problem. But the fact remains—there is not a soldier in Bissanty who can stand against the boy, unless he acts in ignorance. And now that my blessed master has raised the boy to an Imperial throne—what soldier can claim such bliss?”
“Both attacks came before Benet had officially welcomed Tullier to a place at his court,” Gaultry said. “Until then, we were traveling privately, without an order of protection. There was room enough for Bissanty to try for him, before he came under Benet’s shield.”
“The same could be said for anyone in Tielmark who had motive against him,” the Envoy said. “Which could be anyone, ranging from the ill-starred Destra Vanderive’s family to everyone who believes him a danger to your Prince—regardless of whether they believe him a murderous Sha Muira or an upstart set up to challenge your Prince’s sovereignty. So you see,” he was untying the largest of the velvet-wrapped parcels as he spoke, his fingers stroking in the lush nap of the cloth as he unfolded it, “Bissanty should be Tullirius’s home. If he has enemies there, at least he will be able to count them on one hand’s fingers.”
The cloth parted, revealing a fabulous chain of office. Heavy overlapping plates of gold were overlain with alternating bands of wirework and inlaid rubies. He laid it beside the parchment scrolls, which he next picked up. “This scroll is young Tullirius’s deed of lands.” He tapped its edge. “The other, his deed of property. In your own land,” he looked at Tullier, who looked not quite scruffy in the secondhand tunic and trousers Gaultry had procured for him, but certainly not pristine, “you are a rich man, with great resources and power. You own houses, rich fields, slaves—even a levy on your brother Princes’ lands to pay the expenses of raising a regiment, should you desire to prove yourself in war. The lands of Tielmark are not yours to command, it is true, but Bissanty’s Orphan Prince of Tielmark is far from a pauper.”
The second package contained a jeweled dagger. The third, an enameled orb. “You see my Imperial Master’s condescension. Not one of these emblems of power has traveled beyond the gates of Bassorah city for six hundred years, and yet he has sent me here with the entire collection.
So great is the Emperor’s trust, I have been instructed to pass them to your stewardship.”
The gleaming treasures had the effect of flame to moth. Gaultry unconsciously shifted forward for a closer look. The bands of golden wirework on the chain of office depicted Tielmark’s history of origin, the battles that the Bissanty had undertaken to claim it, so long ago now that time had all but swallowed them. Crude but intricate, the tiny pictures showed the clashes of mounted knights, fields and houses in flames, tall stone idols tipped and broken.
“How did Prince Costin respond to his deposal?” Tullier asked. Unlike Gaultry, he had not approached the table. If anything, he’d retreated. He touched the collar of his tunic—as though reassuring himself that the glass charm Gaultry had bought him earlier still lay safely there beneath the cloth.
“Costin?” A flicker of perturbation fluttered on the Envoy’s face, quickly smoothed.
“Sciuttarus was unmarried when he rose to the Imperial throne,” Tullier told Gaultry. “His brothers—and my father, and a cousin—filled the five Princely thrones beneath him, until he could get sons on his wives to take their places. To this day, he is two sons short. Costin Aggripinelus is Sciuttarus’s youngest brother, by almost thirty years. In Bissanty, he has sat on the throne of Tielmark for twenty years, since the time he was a young boy. I am sure it could not have pleased him to have been deposed for my sake.”
Gaultry, not being Bissanty, had not been able to spy the obvious flaw in Sciuttarus’s apparently princely offer. What the Emperor chose to render unto others, he could also reclaim. “How interesting,” she said to Tullier. “How long do you think it would be before the Emperor decides to remove you in your turn?”
“The case is different here,” Lepulio interjected. “Tullirius, once raised up to the throne, cannot be removed by earthly powers. Llara’s blood runs in him, and the Great Mother jealously guards her mortal heirs. He could never be deposed for a man who lacked that blood.”
“Which is something Sciuttarus is still trying for gain for his sons, hmm?” Gaultry said. Llara’s Imperial Blood did not descend to an emperor’s heirs until he had sired five boy children. While a rival line—Tullier’s father—seemed to have claimed it, it was not obvious how the Emperor could ever earn it back—though it was certain he would try. “All those priests at work on the paradox—how can Sciuttarus’s heirs
even hope to mount the Imperial throne if a rival cousin has somehow already climbed up to that seat?”
“If that is so,” Lepulio said, “the priests have yet to prove it. Do not mistake this overture: The Emperor is offering the boy real honor and power.” He reached down and picked up the great chain of office. The mass of its gold was obviously heavy in his hands, the rubies winked with bright fire as he turned it in the light. “If he can’t make anything of that power, that is not blessed Sciuttarus’s burden to bear. Llara’s Heart-on-Earth would not offer you an empty promise. He knows what it means to rouse Great Llara’s ire, even for one so powerful as he. He would not risk it twice in his life. My word on it, and his through me. For Tullirius, the throne of Tielmark will be a life appointment. Llara’s Blood flows in him. It is his right that we acknowledge that.”
Tullier laughed bitterly. “As quaestor, you traveled to Sha Muira island,” he said. “You inspected the cells, the training grounds, the jobirooms where the slaves are killed. They even allowed you to the inner sanctum of Llara’s temple. Before your master sent you here, I’m sure you reviewed every detail of my life. My former masters will have provided you with every particular, on the Emperor’s orders. What did you make of my performance in the Muir Reic passage? My endurance while facing the Khai Sha?”
Lepulio put the necklace down and covered it carefully with a fold of velvet, realizing belatedly that the sight of it had served only to fan the boy’s temper. “I am the lone member of the inner circle who has direct experience of the Sha Muira,” he admitted. “The Emperor felt I was best qualified to negotiate with you so you could take your throne.”
“But I am not Sha Muira,” Tullier said coldly. “You will not find the key to owning me by looking into my past.” He turned to Gaultry. “We are finished here. This fawner was sent to offer me an empty plate. I will not treat with him for barren favors.”
“Sciuttarus wants you in Bissanty,” Lepulio called, as Tullier threw open the door. “He is willing even to pledge—”
Tullier did not stay to listen. He stalked angrily out through the antechamber and on into the corridor. Gaultry followed behind, proud of his spirited rejection, though curious to discover what she’d missed in the exchanges. Sha Muira island was a closed sanctum, outside visitors a rare occurrence. She was hungry to understand the advantage the Emperor thought to gain by sending a man who had seen the island to talk Tullier over to him.
She reached the domed entrance hall of the outlander dignitaries’ quarters just in time to see Tullier disappearing out to the yard. “Hothead,” she said concernedly.
“He could be Emperor of Bissanty one day,” a voice said from her side. “With that in mind, doesn’t it offer a thrill to think you own him?”
Gaultry whirled around. Argat Climens rose from the hard seat of the bench where she had sat waiting, and flared her skirts. Heavy red linen today, with stiffened insets of cream-colored lace. “My turn next,” she said. “More’s the pity. I don’t imagine you’ve left him in any good temper.”
“You!” Gaultry said, startled. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have charges enough standing against you without private meetings in the enemy’s quarters?” She was in no mood for the Duchess of Vaux-Torres’s sly thrusts.
“Private meetings,” Vaux-Torres said. She issued an annoying soft laugh. “If I truly had private meetings with the Envoy planned, perhaps I would not find myself in such trouble.”
“You should think of your daughter,” Gaultry snapped. “Don’t you want to protect her?” She cast a quick glance at the woman. The Duchess of Vaux-Torres looked beautiful today—too beautiful to have garbed herself merely for a business parley with the envoy of an enemy state. Ivory shoulders gleamed above the cream-colored lace, the rich ebony of her hair was artfully curled in a waterfall of tresses against her neck. Beneath the fabulous dress, her sensual, assured humor showed in every lush line of her body, every detail of her mature beauty revealed.
The red of the dress reminded Gaultry of old Melaudiere’s gift, of the cuckoo egg’s red enamel. “Think of Elisabeth,” she found herself saying. “Think of your family’s honor.” She swept past the Duchess and made for the door, following Tullier.
“What makes you think I am not?”
In her impatience to catch Tullier, Gaultry scarcely heard those words.
Gaultry blinked against the sun as she emerged into the gravel court
outside the Envoy’s quarters. She raised her hand to block the glare and looked around, but Tullier was nowhere in sight. Numerous archways and three stone staircases led away from the narrow, irregularly shaped yard. Unfamiliar with this precinct of the palace and unclear even of the most direct way to return to her quarters in the Summer Palace, Gaultry had no way to guess which way her ward had gone.
“Terrific,” she groused, unwilling to question one of the lounging footmen or palace servants, lest rumors rise that she was failing to keep the boy under control. “Fine. Lick your own wounds. I hope you feel the better for it.” She loosed a weary sigh, and headed for the stone stairway at the far side of the court.
A wave of loneliness swept her as she ascended. The exhaustion of tending corpses and making so many good-byes weighed heavily, as did the pressure of appearing so constantly in public among unfamiliar faces, so many of whom might be concealing ill will. Court life was more cloistered, more claustrophobic, and more confusing even than she had remembered.
The clipped grass of the palace lawns and the artificiality of the planted flowerbeds were suddenly oppressive. She longed for an unpaved path, a planting wild and grown untended. Without presuming on the raw power of her magic, she did not know how long she could maintain even the appearance of being able to keep up with the twists of court politics looping around her, all of them subtly moving her attention further
away from addressing the real problem that faced Tielmark here: solving the Kingship riddle. Yet if she were to stoop to using her magical powers … That would be tantamount to admission that court ways were too much for her. Everyone certainly would rise against her then, like wolves on a foundering deer. Her freedom to move within court without restraint would be curtailed—and how then would she be able to reach those she must influence to her purpose? How then would she be able to save Martin, her family, Tullier or herself?
Gaultry leaned against the cool shadowed stone of the wall at the staircase’s side and closed her eyes, for a moment imagining that she was back in Arleon’s ancient forest: the massive moss-hung trees, the rolling hills, the wildness and the familiar dangers of the borderlands. She pictured herself moving beneath those trees, fluid and confident, tracking a deer or a hare, or just resting on a jutting overlook, the purple-blue waters of the River Rush, with its alluring taint of magic, curling deep below her on its long languid journey to the sea.
Feeling a little recentered, she began once more to climb the steps.
Martin and the Prince had probably passed the rebuilt Sizor’s Bridge by now, pushing their horses and men west. On the High Road, which ran like a spine all along the northern edge of Tielmark, through the Bissanty Fingerland, and then on into Haute-Tielmark, it would take them more than a week of hard riding to reach the western border. She wondered what their war party would find there. The ducal armies, amassed for a final push against the Lanai? A fragmented battlefield, with pervasive death and chaos? An unexpected early victory, with the Lanai tribesmen forced to retreat? From what Victor Haute-Tielmark had described, she doubted the ducal armies had yet been so lucky as to consummate the latter.
Memory of the towering bearlike duke chivying them into the cart the morning they departed Sieur Jumery’s flashed on her. Gaultry found herself grinning.
She had dismissed the man as an enemy, possibly as a traitor, yet somehow he had convinced her that she had been overhasty in her judgment. The moment the balance of her opinion had turned to his favor had probably been his mischievous description of thwarting Dervla and her plan to publicly disgrace him. What traitor would so freely admit to working to tweak the nose of the High Priestess? Besides, Gaultry could too well understand the apparent contradiction of desiring to frustrate the High Priestess while remaining loyal to Tielmark itself.
She touched at the silver ring Haute-Tielmark had given her, still concealed after all this time on its leather string under her clothes. She would have to hunt for its secret soon or find a safer place to keep it hidden. Now that Dervla had completed the ceremonies of Midsummer and the unexpected and time-consuming business of Melaudiere’s funeral rites, she would be free again to snoop for those who might defy her will. Carrying this ring on her person was a risk, knowing that it had come from the traitor Heiratikus’s secret cache—and not knowing why Heiratikus had secreted it there, or why Dervla believed it important.
As she reached the top of the steps, the roof of Tielmark’s great hall hove into view, and beyond it the domed white temple where Dervla held sway. Gaultry shook her head. She did not understand the High Priestess’s insecurities. It was as though Dervla needed attention always to be centered on herself as a source of power. To Gaultry, this did not make sense. The magical gifts of the Goddess-Twins were so obvious in the older woman. They were a seething reservoir of power, tangible evidence of the Great Twins’ favor. If the gods recognized her merits, rewarded her with such strength, why did Dervla behave so threatened by anyone who attempted to support the Prince, independent of her own plans?
Thinking on Dervla brought Gaultry inevitably to the Common Brood. She had told Martin she would try to unite them, but she did not even know what had driven them apart to begin with.
Egotism, combined with conflicting ideas of the best route to Tielmark’s future, must surely have played its part. Without a powerful and experienced ruler to quash their individual ambitions and to focus their vision on a single goal, the coven had simply fragmented. She sighed. On the surface, that was not so different than the same challenge that faced them today.
Gaultry, reaching the head of another staircase, paused before taking the first step down. It was time to learn the real reasons for the Brood’s split. It was time to confront Tamsanne.
In all the years Gaultry had lived with her grandmother, the old woman had been uncommunicative about her life before her retreat to Arleon Forest. Knowing what she knew now, Gaultry could see that Tamsanne had concealed so much to give her granddaughters the gift of an innocent childhood. The burdens that they had assumed as adults were grounded on the strength of that upbringing, the simplicity of its truths.
It came to Gaultry suddenly that she had been avoiding Tamsanne.
Her upbringing had taught her to avoid confronting her grandmother with questions. But now there were certain things she needed to know—certain questions that she
had
to ask for the sake of all the Brood, not just for herself and Martin—she had to have answers about the Brood’s past decisions, about Kingship. But where her grandmother’s private affairs intersected with these public queries … there were questions that she wanted to avoid.
Your grandfather was a dead man when Tamsanne used him to get with child.
What grain of truth informed the harsh words Sieur Jumery had spoken? Gaultry knew so little of her family’s past. Her mother Severine had been fey, unstable. Tamsanne had mentioned more than once that her match to the steady stableman-turned-warrior Thomas Blas had been a good one, a balance to her fundamental wildness. But the source of Severine’s instability had never been discussed. Nor the possibility of how it might ultimately manifest itself in her daughters.
When Gaultry had first left Tamsanne’s with Martin, the old woman had spoken nothing regarding the heritage her granddaughter had been on the verge of discovering. She had not told Gaultry of her true lineage, she had not hinted at the magical power that was so soon to rise in her.
And yet Tamsanne had cast a Rhasan card for her, had performed a reading. The Rhasan deck Tamsanne used had passed through her family for generations, accumulating power, becoming increasingly dangerous and strong, increasingly direct in its predictions. Gaultry’s card had been the Orchid—the card that symbolized the power of Glamour. Seeing that card, Tamsanne must have guessed at least something of the power that was about to manifest itself in her granddaughters. Gaultry could only wonder what else Tamsanne had sensed in that reading, what else she had kept concealed.
There had to be a connection between all these events: her mother’s feyness, which had taken her so early from the world, the Glamour power that had manifested itself in both of Severine’s daughters, and Sieur Jumery’s words.
Your grandfather was a dead man.
Tamsanne had always spoken strictly, passionately, against the use of necromantic magic. Was this because she had used it once herself, in getting herself with child? The horror that her beautiful Glamour power might have its roots in death magic—Gaultry did not want to face that.
The very corpses of the ground rise to renew you
, Sieur Jumery had said. Perhaps this was why her Glamour was so painful, even dangerous to use. The thought filled her with revulsion.
But she could depend on her grandmother’s reticence. The Kingship problem could delay, for a time, investigation of these more private fears.
If she asked her questions cautiously, perhaps Tamsanne would reveal the information Gaultry wanted, yet leave the rest unsaid. A dubious hope at best—Tamsanne had been pregnant with Severine at the time the Brood cast the spell to protect young Corinne. These events—somehow everything was linked.
Crossing another yard, she made for a stair that led up to the palace battlements, the sea breeze on her face refreshing her a little as she worked her way around to the eastern side of the palace, helping her drive the worst of her fears back. Sieur Jumery had been a bitter man. It could be that her grandmother would have some more innocent explanation for what he thought he had learned. In time—in time she would be brave, and ask Tamsanne what the accusation really meant.
For now, she would focus on deciphering the Kingship riddle. Tamsanne would know what had soured the Brood on acting in concord. She would know why the Brood had failed to play Kingmaker, failed to crown Corinne as Queen, and why the matter of transforming the nature of Tielmark’s rule been left to another generation to settle.
The other questions Gaultry hoped could wait on a less warlike season.
T
amsanne was quartered in the palace’s orchards, below the outlook where Gaultry and Tullier had met with the Princess.
As Gaultry reached the orchard grounds, someone—several someones—were playing lutes and harmonizing. She stifled a groan of impatience. Instead of finding Tamsanne alone, she had managed to run smack into Dame Julie’s cortege. A scattering of court folk she vaguely recognized were dispersed among the trees; clustered ahead in a green clearing, she recognized the musicians from Julie’s concert.
Gaining a private conference with anyone within palace precincts seemed an unattainable goal. She was beginning to understand why court was a maze of circles nested within circles. Who ever found the time to talk to anyone without someone else listening?
“Elisabeth,” she said, hardly surprised as the girl, tamarin in tow, came into view from behind one of the plum trees that bordered the tiny field where the musicians had assembled. The girl seemed destined to pop up
wherever Gaultry made an appearance. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to listen to Dame Julie.” Elisabeth picked up the tamarin and came to join her. “She played a suite with her granddaughter.” She gestured at the young viol player, now seated beneath a leafy plum tree, concentrating on a complex tuning as her pale blond hair, cut short and sleek, fell over her face. “Everyone was dancing, just before you arrived. Now Dame Julie’s resting in the orchard-cot with your grandmother.” She nodded over her shoulder. The orchard-cot, a modest cottage with mossy thatching, was just visible through a screen of trees. “But the rest of her musicians continued playing, so I stayed on.”
“I’ve just seen your mother,” Gaultry said. Despite the girl’s candidness, it was hard not to be wary, considering her mother’s questionable connections. Circles within circles. If Gaultry’s own appearance in the orchard had been any less spontaneous, she would have had to wonder about the coincidence of Elisabeth’s. “She’s looking well. All dressed up for her appointment with the Bissanty Envoy.”
Elisabeth’s face fell. “Coltro Lepulio.” Gaultry had not been told that the man had a title—or in her confusion as she received his other news, she had not absorbed the information. A Coltro was the Bissanty equivalent of a Tielmaran Count, though in Bissanty, Coltros had more influence. They possessed some of the army-raising rights of Dukes, a rank for which there was no comparable title in Bissanty—that role being reserved for the Imperial Princes.
Elisabeth’s concerns about the man, however, were more personal. “He keeps calling her to see him,” she said dejectedly. “I don’t know why she even agrees. Why doesn’t she find some reason to defer until her business with the High Priestess is complete?”
Gaultry found it curious too. “Doesn’t your mother have other business to keep her occupied until the Ides?”
“Loads.” Elisabeth nodded. “Even though I’m standing for her in all her public roles, she still has to treat with all our tithemen. It’s cumbersome and inconvenient that they have to come up to court during summer rather than her visiting them, but so far they’ve accommodated. They come themselves, or else send messengers.” She smoothed the tamarin’s fur, and pulled a dark-purple plum from her pocket for it. “You should see some of the people they send!” A smile warmed her earlier dejection. “They’ve never been away from their master’s fields, and Mama is rather overwhelming—let alone court, and the city!” Because Elisabeth seemed
to be laughing with her mother’s country bumpkins rather than at them, Gaultry smiled too. Argat Climens was certainly overwhelming, no question there.