The Will of the Empress (16 page)

“…know it’s a bad idea to wake a dreamer, but it didn’t sound like you’re enjoying yourself and if I can’t get you to wake I’ll have to get one of the
Viymeses
, though perhaps—”

Briar grabbed Zhegorz’s skinny arm and sat up, glaring into the older man’s eyes. He could see them clearly: Zhegorz had managed to light a candle. “Don’t you
dare
,” Briar ordered softly. “They’re not to know you caught me bleatin’ like a kid, you got me, daftie? Elsewise I’ll plant a bit of green on your lip that will grow your teeth shut, you got me?”

Zhegorz blinked at him, his odd blue-gray eyes bright. “I don’t think that’s possible,” he replied. “I don’t believe it would cling.”

“It’s got stickers on it, and they sink in the cracks.” Realizing the man had no intention of telling on him, Briar released Zhegorz’s arm. “It’s only a dream.”

Zhegorz sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed. “So you’ll give me drops for
my
dreams, but not yours?”

Briar rubbed his aching head. “Just what I need—a daftie that makes sense,” he grumbled. “Besides, your dreams is bleating, and mine is real. Except for some bits. And those might have been real.”

“But
Viymese
Tris thinks some of mine are real, too,” Zhegorz pointed out in a reasonable tone.

“
Viymese
Tris thinks too much, and she yatters about it too much,” Briar grumbled. “You’d best learn that right off.”

“If I learn it, will you take the drops?” asked Zhegorz.

Briar stared at him, baffled and confused, then began to chuckle. “Crazy you may be, but when you get an idea in your head, you stick to it,” he said when Zhegorz raised an eyebrow. “How about I just make us both some sleepy tea instead? We’ll be all right with a cup of that in our bellies.”

The tea sent Zhegorz back to bed, at least. Briar had known it would have no other effect on him than to calm him down. Instead he pulled his chair up to his work desk and put his hands around the base of his
shakkan
, letting the tree’s centuries of calm banish the last shivers from the dreams that had made him so reluctant to sleep alone anymore. Looking at it, he realized that while he’d been occupied with preparing for court, the
shakkan
had slyly put out a handful of new buds.

“Nice,” he said with a grim smile. “But you still don’t get to keep them.”

When the maid came to wake them before dawn, she found Briar asleep with his head on his desk, one arm around his
shakkan.
Tiny clippings from the tree lay next to its tray from its late night trimming.

The 30th day of Goose Moon, 1043 K. F.

Landreg House, Dancruan, to

Clehamat Landreg (Landreg Estate), Namorn

R
izu, Jak, Fin, and Caidlene arrived with the dawn, just as the hostlers were bringing out horses for Sandry and her escorts. They all greeted one another sleepily. No one was inclined to conversation at that hour. Zhegorz, who had shown a tendency to talk rapidly in bursts the night before, huddled silently in the patched coat they had found for him. He rolled his eyes at the sleepy-eyed cob who had been saddled for his use, but once he was on the sturdy gelding’s back, he seemed to do well enough.

Ambros, pulling on his riding gloves, frowned as he looked at their scarecrow. “How shall we explain him?” Sandry’s cousin wanted to know. “You can’t just go around adding strangers to your entourage without questions being asked, Cousin, particularly not when you came to us without a single guardsman or maid.”

Sandry looked crisp in her blossom pink riding tunic and wide-legged breeches, but her brain had yet to catch
up. “Ambros, how can you even think of such a thing at this hour?” she demanded, and yawned.

He gazed up at her as she sat on her mare, his blue eyes frosty. “Because there are going to be at least two spies outside the gates, and more on the way,” he added. “Young women in Namorn do not enjoy the license they appear to do in the south, Cousin. There are good reasons for that.”

Jak leaned drowsily on his saddle horn. “Can’t we just let the spies guess and decide when we’re awake?” he asked.

Ambros glared at him, his mouth tight.

“I think we’re probably supposed to be spies, too,” said Caidlene, who had been lively enough the afternoon before. “Which is silly, because we’d have to be awake to be spies.” She sipped from a flask that steamed in the chilly spring air. “Tea, anyone?”

“He’s my secretary,
all right
?” demanded Sandry, out of patience with it all. “I didn’t realize what a complicated social life I should be leading in Namorn, so I had to hire a Namornese secretary, Cousin—will that satisfy you? May we get on with our lives?”

Ambros snorted and mounted his gelding. Zhegorz looked around at his traveling companions and their guards. “Secretary? I don’t even have pens, or ink, or—”

Briar leaned over and slapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll set you up in style,” he reassured Zhegorz. “You’ll be a king of secretaries.”

As a pair of guards opened the gates, their company formed up in pairs to ride through. Leading the way with Ambros, Sandry heard Zhegorz complain, “I’m not sure I even know how to
write.
”

And here I thought Tris was the one who was always bringing home strays, thought Sandry, shaking her head as they rode onto High Street. Now she’s got Daja and Briar and me doing it, too. She glanced sidelong at Ambros, whose long mouth was tight. She couldn’t help it: Her own lips twitched. I would love to hear Ambros explain how I can have a social secretary who can’t write.

Just as Tris had vaguely warned them the day before, rain began to fall as the servants closed the house gates behind them. Ambros halted their party, looking at Sandry as Rizu moaned and Caidlene sneezed.

Sandry turned in the saddle. “Tris?” she asked.

Tris, who already had a book in one hand, looked up, startled. Sandry indicated that water was falling from the sky—though surely even Tris would notice when her book got wet! she thought.

The redhead glared up at the clouds. Though Sandry saw or felt nothing, the soft rain parted, streaming to either side of their company, just as if they were protected by a glass shield. Tris looked around, making sure that everyone, including their guards and packhorses, was included under her protection. Then she raised her eyebrows to silently ask, All right?

That’s our Tris, thought Sandry, resigned to her sister’s eccentricities. She nodded and turned to Ambros, who stared at Tris, unnerved. Sandry nudged him with a booted foot. Remembering where he was, Ambros set his horse in motion, though his eyes followed the curve of the rain as it rolled away over his head. The others followed, though the guards and the courtiers visibly hesitated.

Sandry caught up to Ambros. I hope he learns to take odd magics in stride, she thought. He’ll be seeing them all summer, and they aren’t all going to be nice, quiet ones like redirecting the rain.

Given the early hour, there was very little traffic on the streets around the palace. They found more as they wound down into the commercial parts of town. There the big wagons that supplied the city came in to unload their burdens of produce, meat, eggs, and cheese. Their party slowed still more approaching the gates, and on the roads that led from them. Once they had traveled some miles from the city, however, the traffic thinned. They made very good time overall. Sandry wondered at the amount of room they were always given on the road, until she realized that anyone who had the time to notice that invisible shield over their heads moved as far from their party as they could while still remaining on the road.

At midmorning they halted at a good-sized inn where Ambros was recognized and given prompt service. The riders dismounted for hot tea and fresh-baked rolls, while the
hostlers rubbed the horses down. Once they were back in the saddle, everyone was awake and feeling more cheerful, despite the gloomy weather. Caidlene took Sandry’s place next to Ambros, talking about court news and about Ambros’s four lively children. Jak rode with Sandry, pointing out landmarks. Fin and Briar rode together, talking about horses. With Tris absorbed in her book and Zhegorz inclined to huddle between the packhorses and the rest of their guards, Rizu and Daja soon fell into conversation. Rizu had an endless fund of court stories. It wasn’t long before Daja realized many of the stories were also cautionary tales about different figures at court, particularly the empress. The picture Rizu drew of Berenene was one of a woman who was determined to have her way.

“Are you afraid of her?” Daja demanded as they reined in at a second inn. It was well past midday by then. Everyone was starved. “You sound like everyone fears and loves her at the same time.”

“Because they do,” Rizu explained. “She is a great ruler. Like most great rulers, what she wants, she will have.”

Sandry, dismounting nearby, heard this. “But that must be dreadful for her character,” she remarked. “No one can have everything they want. It gives rise to overconfidence, and arrogance.”

Daja looked at Sandry’s round chin, which was set at its most mulish angle. “I don’t think she’ll appreciate a lesson from us,” she warned, letting a hostler take her horse. “I’d as
soon not have to leave in a hurry, thank you. It’s a long way to any border.”

“I don’t care to leave places in a hurry, either,” Briar said as he followed the ladies into the inn. “One of these days I won’t be fast enough on my feet.”

A woman bustled forward to guide them to tables. “Remember old
Saghad
Gurkoy?” Ambros asked as they took seats in a private room. “Beggared, him and his entire family.” His blue eyes glinted as he looked at Fin. “Your father was the empress’s chosen beneficiary in that matter.”

Fin shrugged. “If you want to try to stand between her and what she wants,
Saghad
fer Landreg, I will wish you well. I promise to burn incense in the temple of your choice when you’re gone,” he informed Ambros, who was not at all offended. “She was going to do as she willed. And if it pleased her after that to give what she had taken to my father, well, she
really
didn’t like it when Gurkoy told her no, either.”

“No one is all-powerful,” insisted Sandry.

“Maybe, but you’d be surprised how much damage can be done by someone who thinks he is,” Briar said bitterly as maids put mushroom and noodle soup and herring salad in front of them.

“What on earth
happened
to you?” demanded Tris, glaring at Briar. “You’ve done nothing but hint since you came home. Either tell us outright or stop hinting!”

Briar glared at her. “What do you care? You don’t bother with what’s real—only with what’s in books.”

The Namornese were good at pretending they hadn’t heard an outburst from one of their companions. They must have a lot of family dinners like this, thought Sandry. Or maybe even imperial ones.

The rain continued as they took the road again, still mostly dry under Tris’s shield. Now the courtiers were truly awake. Soon everyone but Zhegorz and the guards were playing silly games like “I See” and “Fifteen Questions.” The group continued word games as Ambros led them off the main road at last onto a smaller, well-kept road paved in stone like the main highway to keep wagons from making ruts.

After another hour, Briar demanded, “So when do we get to these precious lands of yours?”

Ambros looked back at him with a smile. “You are
on
Clehamat Landreg,” he told Briar. “The extended estate, at least. Grazing and farming lands. We’ve been riding over them since we left the highway.”

Briar looked at Sandry. “You never said.”

“I didn’t remember,” she answered. “The last time I was here was ten years ago. All I remember was that I was bored to tears. Nobody would play with me.”

At last they reached a stone wall that stretched as far as the eye could see. Another road led through a framed stone opening in it. This new route was stone-paved as well, but only the center was as well-kept as the roads they had followed to get this far. Stones were missing from the edges,
and stones in the roadway were cracked and broken. As Ambros turned onto it he called back, “Now we are on the Landreg lands that are part of the main estate.”

It was another hour before they saw more than isolated houses, or fields green with the spring’s planting. Eventually they came upon a massive herd of cows at the graze, then shepherds and goatherds with their flocks. They passed apple and pear orchards that already showed small green knobs that would become fruit, and cherry orchards where the fruit was starting to turn orangey red. At one point Briar reined up and squinted at a distant field where glossy brown animals grazed.

“That’s a lot of mules,” he said to no one in particular.

Ambros replied, “It’s only one herd. The entire Landreg family is famed for the mules we breed and sell.”

“It’s been a family specialty for more than two hundred years,” Sandry added with pride.

Briar, Tris, and Daja exchanged glances. It was Daja who grinned and said it aloud: “That certainly explains more than it doesn’t.”

“I am not listening to you,” Sandry told them loftily as the courtiers laughed. “Do you notice that I am not listening to you?” she continued. “Mark it well. I ignore you.”

“And I feel ignored,” said Briar, rejoining them. “I am so ignored and unheard that I know it won’t matter if I say, Why does it not surprise me, that the Landregs breed mules?”

When they came to a river spanned by a bridge, Ambros
led their party onto a small, muddy, rutted track that bore away from the bridge. Sandry drew her mount up. “Wait a moment,” she called, frowning and confused. “I remember this bridge. We ride over that and we come to the village not long after, and the castle after that.”

Ambros turned his mount. “In better times we would,” he said heavily, something like shame weighing down his shoulders. “But the bridge is not safe. It’s old, and it’s needed work for some time, replacements on the roadbed and the supports. Then two years ago we had heavy flooding that weakened the supports more. It’s not safe. We must ride six miles downstream to the ford.”

Sandry didn’t like the sound of that. “I don’t understand. This is the main castle road. Why hasn’t it been repaired?”

Fin said, “Are those ripe cherries over there? It’s early, but I want to see. I’m a bear for cherries.” He rode toward an orchard nearby, passing out from under Tris’s shield and into the rain. Without a word, the other three courtiers followed him. The group’s men-at-arms drew back out of earshot. Zhegorz fidgeted, obviously not knowing what to do, while Briar and Daja exchanged glances. What’s going on here? Briar seemed to ask Daja with his eyes. Her shrug said, I have no idea. Tris hadn’t seemed to be paying attention, but she closed her book, holding her place with a finger.

Ambros rode back to Sandry’s side. “Forgive me. I didn’t know what else to do,” he said, his cheeks slowly turning
red. “I’d put off doing the work, that was first. And then we had so much flood damage everywhere that year, and late that summer the taxes went up. I could not repair the bridge, pay the taxes, and send you the usual amount. Your mother’s written orders are clear. She, and then you, must receive that exact sum every year, without fail.”

Sandry tightened her fingers on her reins. I knew Mother’s instructions for our income, she told herself, ashamed. I
knew
she didn’t leave any room for the steward to exercise his judgment. But I thought he would, anyway. I thought…

She suddenly remembered those columns of dry, boring numbers: the ever-increasing tax sums, the estimated costs of the flood damages, and the profits from the estates. If she had done all of the additions, gone over the accounts entry by entry, she would have seen that there wasn’t enough money for everything.

“I thought we could manage the bridge repair last year,” Ambros continued, his quiet voice strained, “but Her Imperial Majesty raised the taxes again, to cover fighting on the Lairan border. Again, it was a matter of repairing the bridge or sending what we are ordered to send to you. Our obligation to you comes first.”

“What of the taxes?” demanded Sandry, her voice trembling. “You paid them.”

Ambros looked surprised that she had even asked. “The taxes must be paid. I went to moneylenders last year. This
year, the gods willing, I should be able to pay it back if I raise the mill taxes and the wool taxes on the tenants.”

Sandry leaned closer to him. “You should have
told
me,” she said fiercely. “Not relied on me to refigure all of your accounts.” She could feel her cheeks blush hot with shame. “You should have said the problem in so many words! I have more than enough money for my needs. I could have foregone the payments both years and never even noticed!”