At one end was a bar made of rough boards. Behind it were stacked a few barrels, as well as several pottery jugs. Aidane could smell the acrid scent of fermenting mash,
suggesting that the tavern keeper distilled his own poitin. She mustered her courage and went to the bar.
“I’m looking for Kir.”
A florid faced man looked up from pouring a drink for a customer. “Who wants to know?”
“I’m a friend of Surrie’s.”
The barkeeper gave Aidane a hard stare. “Surrie went missing two nights ago. Do you know where she is?”
Figuring it best to keep her true source to herself for now, Aidane shook her head. “No. But she told me that if I ever needed somewhere safe, to come here and ask for Kir.”
“Who ya runnin’ from?”
“A man who hit me.” Aidane pulled back her hood enough to expose the bruised cheek and blackened eye. It would be enough of a motivation, she thought, if Kir was the type of man to give shelter. And if not, invoking Buka’s name was unlikely to help.
Kir paused as if making up his mind. “You’ll need to earn your keep. How do you earn your coin?”
Aidane let out a long breath. “I’m a whore.”
Kir chuckled. “Lots of those down here. Anything special?”
“I’m a bit of a hedge witch,” she lied. “I read Jalbet cards and tea leaves for a message from spirits.” Kir didn’t need to know that neither the cards nor the tea leaves had anything to do with obtaining a message from the dead, but it might make her unusual enough without standing out too much.
“You can stay the night. There’s room on the floor in the back, by the still. It’s a mite warm, but better than too cold. It’s angled off the main room, so you can take your customers there if you’re quiet about it. I get half of
whatever they pay, and you get two meals and two cups of poitin. Deal?”
“Deal.” Food, shelter, a way to earn coin, and, possibly, a protector. It was the best she was likely to get.
She turned to find her way to the back room when a familiar face caught her attention. Ed the peddler sat against the wall. He was well into his cups, but he was sober enough to entertain a few of the tavern’s customers with one of his tales. He looked up and a glimmer of recognition crossed his face.
“Aidane! Come on over here.”
Aidane hurried to comply, fearful that Ed might say something that would give her away. One of the men got up and gave Aidane his seat, but from his quick exit Aidane decided that a full bladder had more to do with it than any form of rough chivalry. Aidane forced a chuckle as Ed finished his story and waited nervously as his listeners drifted up to the bar, leaving them to themselves.
“What are you doing in this nest of rats?”
Aidane could smell the river rum on Ed’s breath, but she recalled from the journey from Margolan that the peddler held his liquor deceptively well. Ed knew for certain that Aidane was a
serroquette
, having used his own hedge witch magic to free her when hostile spirits had tried to possess her.
Aidane spread her hands, palms up, and shrugged. “What everyone else is doing here, I imagine. I ran out of places to go.”
Ed looked at her skeptically and dropped his voice, further proof that he was quite sober. “I thought Jolie was looking after you. How did you end up in Principality City?”
Aidane sighed. Ed pushed his glass of river rum toward her and Aidane took a drink, letting the rough liquor burn down her throat, fortifying her. “It’s a very long story.”
She could see worry in Ed’s eyes. “Principality City’s not safe for the likes of you,” he said in a voice just above a whisper. “Doubly so, with what you are, and what you can do. Buka—”
She cut him off and made a warning sign. “I know. The ghost of one of his victims led me here, told me the barkeeper would shelter me.”
“Not Surrie—”
Aidane nodded, and Ed’s face fell.
“She was a sweet girl, come to a bad place. I’m sorry to hear that.”
Aidane took another drink of the river rum. “How is it you’re here?” she asked, hoping to change the subject.
Ed shrugged. “You remember the musicians? Cal, Nezra, Bez, and Thanal? They crossed from Margolan with us.” When Aidane nodded, he went on. “Cal had an old friend he thought would have a place for us in a tavern up this way. Thought there might be more business. Fie! We should have stayed in Dark Haven. The tavern was closed, boarded up tight. They ended up playing on the street for coins, and that’s cold work with winter coming on. That’s where they are tonight, playing for the festival crowds, hoping to make enough to keep them in food and ale for a few weeks, at least.”
“And you?”
Another shrug, but this time, Ed looked away. “What’s a peddler with naught to sell? I traded all that I had on the journey to Dark Haven. Meant to buy more with what I’d earned, but I was robbed and lost it all. I get by now by
telling fortunes, mixing poultices, and doing a bit of healing when I can. On a good night, I can tell a few stories in here and someone will buy me a drink and share a bit of bread.”
Aidane looked closely at Ed. He had a narrow, angular face that was more gaunt than she remembered. His clothes, hard worn a few months ago, were tattered. He seemed to be sizing her up as well.
“You look like things have been a little rough for you lately.” His gaze went pointedly to the bruise on her cheek, and Aidane looked down.
“One of the hazards of my kind of work,” she murmured.
“I thought that biter, the blond one, might have taken a liking to you,” Ed said. “Thought he’d have looked after you. ’Course, I thought Jolie would have wanted someone with your skills in her house.”
“I had business that brought me to Principality City, and with the war, I don’t think I could make it back to Dark Haven on my own, so even if Jolie would take me, I can’t get there, at least no time soon. As for Kolin—” Her voice fell, and she stared at her hands. “He has more important things to think about.”
Ed took the meaning she intended him to take, and he clucked comfortingly. “Then he’s blind as well as dead, if he left you on your own. Do you have a place to stay?”
“The barkeep said I could have the back room, by the still.”
Ed’s eyes narrowed. “Do you mean to use your gift when you work?”
Aidane shook her head. “I didn’t tell him… what I was. I didn’t think it was safe.” She lowered her voice to a
whisper. “Can you feel the spirits? They’re all around us. I can barely think for having them crowd me.”
She could see in Ed’s eyes that he understood. “Aye. I feel them. Thick as thieves. Between Buka and the plague, there are plenty of souls so newly dead they can’t find their way.” He paused. “Probably as well to keep your gift under your hat, though you’d earn a bit more coin.”
“Assuming my patron doesn’t kill me.”
Ed shrugged, and he reached for his river rum, knocking back the rest of his drink. “Just a matter of time before everyone down here is dead of the plague anyhow.” He looked over Aidane’s shoulder toward Kir at the bar. “No one’s saying it, but they all know. Plague travels fastest in places like this. Bad air, foul water, people pressed on top of each other, and no real food to speak of. I’m afraid that we’ve come here to die, Aidane.”
Y
our Majesty, I must protest. This is far too dangerous.” Tice crossed his arms and glared at Kiara, who turned back toward him exasperatedly.
“We accomplish nothing if I hide in the palace. I dare not fight in the front lines, like a proper queen, because I’m pregnant. But I have to do something, Tice, and this is important. If we succeed, we’ll end the burnings in the city, cut off the chance that our troops might face an attack from the rear.”
“And if we fail, the succession of two kingdoms is in danger.”
Kiara sighed. “I know. I just don’t see any way around it. I’m the only one who can do this.”
“You’re using yourself as bait.”
“There isn’t any other way.”
“There’s always another way,” Tice said, glowering. “Use a double. Kings and queens have done that for centuries when situations were too dangerous.”
Kiara shook her head. “If we want to draw out the Divisionists and the Durim, then we’ve got to take a risk.
A public coronation—really public—will be too much for them to pass up. For once, our soldiers won’t need to hunt for them; the Durim and the Divisionists will come to us.”
“What makes you so sure that they’ll come?” Tice fidgeted as Kiara crossed to the window and looked down on the streets of the city.
“Oh, they’ll come. The prize is too good to refuse. Allestyr is proclaiming the Sohan festival as a special celebration in honor of the unborn prince.”
Tice turned to her, slack jawed. “I was not consulted. This is madness!”
“Blame Allestyr. He knew you’d worry. But it’s perfect. There were going to be large public celebrations for Sohan night anyway. The ghost in the kings’ crypt said that it takes one of the blood to rally the people. That’s exactly what I mean to do, and the Festival of Changes is the time to do it.”
“What makes you think that the sword of the clan lords will mean anything to a crowd of drunk revelers?”
Kiara gave a smirk. “Are you telling me you don’t know from which of the eight clans you’re descended?”
Tice stiffened. “Of course not.”
“Uh-huh. Royster’s done some digging in the last few days. Seems that all of the current nobility can trace a direct lineage back to the eight warlords and their clans. But we didn’t know whether it was just the nobles, so Captain Remir and a few of his soldiers did a little experiment for us. They spread out to about a dozen pubs in the city, everything from the better inns to some of the taverns in the worst part of town. They had coin enough to buy drinks for the house and keep the ale flowing. Then they
made a show of feigning an argument that the invaders could whip the asses of the eight old clan lords.”
“And?”
Kiara’s smile widened. “In every case, it nearly touched off a riot. Crofters may not feel especially cozy toward the crown at the moment, but the old warlords are still revered. Not only that,” she said, grinning, “but everyone in the pubs, down to the drunk in the corner, claimed one of the clans for his own.”
“I don’t understand.”
Kiara crossed to a writing desk and opened up a box. She withdrew a paper with a hand-drawn crest showing a sword cleaving apart the three-bone symbol of the Shrouded Ones. “The lords and the drunks aren’t the only ones who have clan blood. Royster found this in the archives. Father’s family isn’t just the royal line. They’re descended from the intermarriage between two of the eight old clans.” Her hand fell to the sword that hung in a scabbard at her side. “I’m willing to bet that if the threat of invaders isn’t enough to turn people against the Divisionists for the love of the crown, they’ll do it for their family ties.”
Tice looked at her skeptically. “Do I need to point out how many times war has pitted brothers against brothers? Blood ties aren’t as thick as we’d like to think.”
Kiara put the crest back carefully in the box and closed the lid. “Let’s see what Balaren and Royster are able to find. If they bring me what Balaren promised, it could change everything.”
The rest of the evening was consumed in consultations with Allestyr regarding the Sohan feast as well as a briefing from messengers from the front lines. A fitting for her festival clothing took two candlemarks, largely because
the seamstress had little experience concealing chain mail and a hardened leather cuirass beneath a satin gown.
Throughout the meetings, Kiara had difficulty concentrating. Balaren and Royster were a day late, and the Sohan feast was the next night. She began to fear that the quest she had given Balaren and Royster might have been impossible.
Her spirits rose when one of the guards hurried her way as she finished dinner. “Your majesty,” the guard said with a low bow. “You have visitors.
Vayash moru
,” he added nervously.
Her broad smile was not the reaction the servant expected. “Bring them to the parlor. And make sure there are refreshments for both mortals and
vayash moru
.”
The servant blanched and swallowed hard, and then nodded. “As you wish.”
Kiara left the rest of her meal untouched and hurried to the parlor. She had just arrived and taken a seat near the fireplace when the guards knocked on the door to announce her visitors and one of the guardsmen swung the door open. Royster rushed into the room, his white hair forming a wild cloud around his excited features. The librarian looked fit to burst with news. Behind him, Balaren followed at a more leisurely pace, and his features did not reveal his thoughts.
Kiara’s attention went to the third man, a
vayash moru
. He moved with the grace that she had come to associate with the oldest among the undead, and he was quite pale. The newcomer was built like a professional soldier, medium height but with muscular shoulders and arms earned from years of serious swordsmanship. Kiara found herself holding her breath in anticipation.
“Your Majesty,” Balaren said, making a low bow. “May I present Olek, of the clan Kirylu, the last surviving warlord of the great clans.” He turned to Olek. “Warlord Olek, I present Queen Kiara Sharsequin of Isencroft.”