Her Gypsy Scouts waited for her at the door. She stopped, and Edrys stepped forward. “You’re certain I cannot dissuade you of this notion, Lady Tam?”
She smiled at him. “I assure you that you cannot.”
He nodded. “Very well. We shall accompany you.”
She inclined her head, ever so slightly. “Thank you, Sergeant.”
As they exited the manor into the snow-blanketed courtyard, she felt for the satchel of powders in the pocket of her coat. She took no pleasure in the deception she must play, but neither did she lament it overmuch. For all she knew, Rudolfo pined for an heir. But her father’s work must be done with discretion. Whatever his strategy ultimately was, it required secrecy and care.
So I will deceive the man I marry.
Of course, she’d always known that if she married, deception would be required of her.
She was her father’s daughter.
Neb
Neb waited near Petronus’s tent. In the last few weeks, the old man had Uhe eigused the tent more and more for work. Eventually, it made more sense for Neb to stay with some of the other young men.
Neb hadn’t expected the response to the proclamation. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but the sudden convergence of three armies upon the new Pope was an alarming outcome. When the crowd broke and all that remained were the Marsh King, Rudolfo and Queen Meirov, Petronus walked away with them while they talked in low voices. Neb returned to the camp, and after a dinner that he’d barely touched, he waited there in the snow.
Finally, the old man arrived. He saw the boy and offered a grim smile. “It had to be done, Neb,” he said.
Neb nodded. “I am sorry for it.”
Petronus pulled open the flap to his tent. “You may be. But it’s unnecessary.” He paused, half in and half out of his tent. “But I do wonder what else you’ve seen in your dreams.”
He couldn’t bring himself to tell him. “Nothing that makes any sense,” he finally said. “You should rest, Excellency.”
Petronus nodded. “Good night, then.”
After the old man slipped into the tent, Neb wandered through the camp.
The workers were snoring in their tents, the small Androfrancine heaters venting steam into the cold air through long brass chimneys. Otherwise, the camp was quiet. With the snow falling now, Neb wasn’t sure how long they could hold out. With Petronus firmly rooted in Windwir, there would be no more supply wagons from Sethbert. But with Petronus proclaimed, they would have access to the funds in House Li Tam’s Androfrancine accounts. The Entrolusian sentries were now simply replaced with Marshfolk or Gypsy Scouts. And he suspected Rudolfo’s Wandering Army was on the march.
Thinking of the Marshfolk brought memories of the girl back to him. He couldn’t push her far from his mind-she invaded regularly.
He’d already felt drawn to her, but the kiss sealed it. He wondered what she was doing now and if he would see her again. She said he would, but Neb took little at face value these days. For instance, this Rudolfo. On the surface he seemed a fop, but up close, Neb saw steel in that man’s eyes. It made him grateful that Petronus had given him the guardianship, and even more grateful that Petronus had put the metal man in the Gypsy King’s care.
Neb wandered past the edges of the camp. The moon was up again, high above now, blue flecked with green. Some days the Moon Wizard’s tower was barely visible, but only when the moon was low and nearby.
Of course the Moon Wizard was a distant memory from thU me"0ee First World. And all of the books containing the legends of his exploits were ash now. Brother Hebda had once shown him a parchment of an early text about the Czarist Lunar Expedition from the world before the time of P’Andro Whym. They had been talking and walking during one of his father’s visits.
“I want to do what you do,” Neb said. He’d not been allowed to touch the parchment, but he’d leaned in close to study it well. “I want find the lost parchments of the Old World.”
A shadow formed on Brother Hebda’s face. “Not all of them should be found,” he mumbled in a low voice.
“Brother Hebda?”
He looked up. “I’m sorry, Neb. I’m a bit distracted tonight. I think we found something that would be better off unfound.”
Neb looked up at him. “What is it?”
Brother Hebda shook his head. “I don’t know. And if I did, I couldn’t tell you. But I have a bad feeling.”
His father had been right.
Neb heard a low, familiar voice.
“Nebios ben Hebda.” He could smell the musky earth smell of her, and without warning he felt warm lips brushing across his cheek. “The Marsh King is very pleased with you,” she said.
He jumped at the kiss. At night, the magicks were virtually impenetrable. “Winters?”
But she was already off and running back into the night.
Vlad Li Tam
Vlad Li Tam smiled and sipped at the kallaberry smoke through the long stem of his pipe. He’d replayed the day’s events again and again and could not be more pleased. When he’d finally left, Rudolfo, Meirov and the Marsh King had been discussing strategy for the night’s work.
Now all he needed to do was wait.
“Obviously my fiftieth son did very well with the ring.”
The aide nodded. “He did, Lord.”
“I have fine, strong children.” He closed his eyes, feeling the smoke lift him. But he wondered if the smoke would lift him past what was coming tonight.
“Your children are legendary, Lord,” the aide said. “There is also word from your thirty-seventh son. He rides with Resolute the First.”
Vlad Li exhaled the smoke. “He’ll arrive to a surprise tomorrow.”
“He has a good source on the Guard,” the aide said. “He will feed us what he can on their movement and strategy.”
Vlad Li Tam pondered this. “Oriv’s contingent of Gray Guard is too small to do much beyond protect him. Still, knowing their location will be useful. And perhaps we’ll glean something from his parley with Sethbert.”
But he wondered how long Oriv would hang on to what small foothold he had now that Petronus had proclaimed himself. Certainly there would be some of the Androfrancine Remnant that remembered Petronus, but the fact that he’d faked his own death thirty years ago would turn some away. It was certainly a challenge to Androfrancine Law. No Pope had ever quit before, let alone gone to such lengths to do so.
But bringing one back from the dead had proven to require equal lengths. Petronus had resisted at every turn. Vlad Li Tam’s betrayal had been quietly arranged. A new ring forged with a bit of the Fargoer’s steel he’d kept for such an occasion along with specifications for the ring that he had found in the Androfrancines’ very own library nearly thirty years ago.
He wasn’t sure how the Marshfolk and Sethbert played into it, but Vlad Li Tam sensed a strategy alongside his own-something that even overlapped his own schemes. Scraps of it drifted to the surface from time to time.
His own part was complex. But this other strategy was as elaborate as a Whymer Maze, he knew that much. And he knew that the Androfrancines had been afraid of something. Their quiet, somber tones as they discussed the need for a strong leader, for a new guardian of the light, set apart from the rest of the world.
He took another pull from his pipe, listening to the crackle of the dried berries as they burned beneath the match his servant held. “We will return to the Emerald Coast tomorrow,” Vlad said.
Already, he knew his iron armada had redeployed, blockading the river and seaports throughout the Entrolusian Delta. Sethbert’s reinforcements would come by foot, and his supply chain would come by land now rather than by water. The lines of war had not been clearly drawn, but at the very least he could see the shape and size of what loomed ahead.