Lysias held the glass beneath his nose, inhaling the scent of it. Then he took a long drink. “I bring word from Sethbert’s nephew,” he said. “Erlund is agreeable to the arrangement, though he isn’t pleased with it.”
Vlad Li Tam shrugged. “Pleasure and displeasure do not enter into it.”
Lysias nodded. “I told him I saw no better resolution to this conflict. The City States are nearly in civil war. The blockades-in addition to the loss of Windwir-have crippled the Entrolusian economy.”
Vlad Li Tam wondered how it felt to move from being a general of the most powerful nation in the world to a desperate man hoping to save at least some of that nation’s pride through last-minute bargaining. “The delta will most likely never recover fully from this,” he said in a quiet voice.
Lysias swallowed. “I agree, Lord Tam. But we must save what we can. This entire event has been a great tragedy.”
Vlad Li Tam thought about the children he had lost along the way. Most recently, the son who had given himself in the Entrolusian camp and the daughter who no longer spoke to him. And before that, others he did not wish to think about in this moment. “It has been unfortunate,” he agreed.
Lysias drew a pouch from beneath his robes and passed it over. “We’ve drawn up the terms and-”
Vlad Li Tam waved him away. “Burn those, Lysias. There will be no written terms.” He looked to his aide, and the aide came forward with a cloth-wrapped object and a sheet of parchment. The aide put the sheet of parchment into Lysias’s hands and unwrapped the metal object. It was roughly the lengoougappth of a forearm, a metal tube ornately decorated and set into a wooden crossbow stock. “This belongs to Resolute,” he said. “It’s a powerful weapon.”
Lysias looked up from the note he read. “And this letter?”
Vlad Li Tam smiled. “It matches Resolute’s handwriting. Any scholar who could tell otherwise is long dead.”
Lysias looked at the weapon, then returned to the note. “And you think they’ll believe this?”
Vlad Li Tam sipped his drink, savoring the burn of it as it traveled down his throat. “They will. The rumors continue to grow. Sethbert wasn’t exactly discreet about his role at the beginning of this.”
Lysias’s jaw tightened. “He claimed he was in the right. He claimed he had evidence that the Androfrancines intended to restore the spell and use it to rule us.”
“Ask him,” Vlad Li Tam said slowly, “to produce that evidence and I suspect he will be hard-pressed to do so.” His eighteenth son had taken care of that for him. “Once word of this next tragedy unfolds, expect a new Papal decree offering terms. Tell Erlund that this will be the final offer and that all he need do is accept the terms and demand the arrest of Sethbert.” He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing in the dimly lit room. “And if he thinks to protect his uncle in some way, tell him that what is offered here is a mercy. The boot is firmly on the delta’s neck. One twist of it and she is broken.”
Lysias nodded. “I will carry your message.”
Vlad Li Tam stood. “Very well, I think our work here is done. The letters of credit will arrive quietly once Sethbert is in custody.”
Lysias bowed his head. “Thank you, Lord Tam.”
Vlad Li Tam returned the bow, careful not to incline his head more than what was proper. After the general left, he sat again and finished his drink.
Later this week, one of the two Popes would be dead. Once the Named Lands heard the details of the note Resolute would leave behind, no one would doubt that Sethbert had brought down the City of Windwir and its Androfrancine Order. Resolute’s grief-stricken confession would lay out his shame at having told Sethbert of the spell’s existence and speak of the guilt that gnawed at him until he could no longer bear to live with it any longer. It would point to accounts at House Li Tam that even now were being carefully created and funded to point accusing fingers at a man whose paranoia and ambition had nearly cost the world the light of knowledge, and at a cousin who would be his puppet Pope, doling out what little light remained for profit.
After this, Sethbert would lose his following and the war would lose its grounding.
The Overseer would be stripped of his lands and titles, reduced to flight. And that was as much as Vlad Li Tam would do for now. But he was certain that it was enough.
Rudolfo and Petronus would take care of the rest.
Resolute
A warm spring rain fell beyond the opened windows of Oriv’s makeshift office. When the Entrolusian insurrection had started heating up, Sethbert had insisted that his cousin return to the city states with him. He’d told the Pope he thought it would bolster his people’s morale and possibly quell the fighting, but Oriv suspected it had more to do with keeping him nearby and easier to watch.
So now Oriv-he no longer thought of himself as Pope Resolute-spent his days working at the small desk or making speeches that he did not believe in.
And drinking too much. He stared at the empty cup and reached for the bottle of brandy. Since that winter day when Petronus declared himself, Oriv had found himself drinking more and more. It was an easy snare to fall into. The warm sweet liquor, in sufficient quantities, promised to blur the edges of his memory and take the teeth out of it.
And there was a lot he wanted to forget, to not feel. First and foremost, there was Windwir. From a distance, he’d seen the gravediggers’ camp and the scars in the snow where the filled-in trenches hid the bones of a city. He’d needed to prove to himself that it was really gone. And now, more than that, he wanted to forget it had happened at all.
There was also the war to forget. Because even though on the surface this was called a war between two Popes, at the heart of it he knew it wasn’t. There was one Pope-Petronus-and Oriv knew he could bring the violence to an end quickly by simply bending his knee and accepting Petronus’s authority over him. And yet he wouldn’t. Partially at his cousin’s insistence. Mostly, though, because he did not know how to stop.
But there was even more to forget than these things. There was the deeper truth beneath it all.
Oriv could no longer dismiss Rudolfo’s charge: His cousin, Sethbert, had destroyed Windwir.
He’d had his suspicions shortly after reaching Sethbert’s camp seemingly so long ago. He’d overheard bits of conversation between the Overseer and his general Lysias. Grymlis and his Gray Guard had also brought him rumors froy som among the soldiers. And once Petronus left Windwir for the Ninefold Forest Houses, that crafty old fisherman had turned in his shovel for a pen. His tracts and proclamations were riddled with accusations against the Entrolusian Overseer, though always careful not to implicate Oriv.
Those tracts were everywhere in the Named Lands now. Combined with the blockade and the devastated economy, those damning pamphlets fueled the Entrolusian insurrection. Civil war had already swallowed Turam, and even what little remained of the Order was divided. Those of the Androfrancines who had not found their way back to the Papal Summer Palace were now in the Ninefold Forest. And with winter now past, there were rumblings that some of the higher ranking arch-scholars and bishops-men old enough to remember Pope Petronus-were planning a migration eastward.
He filled the cup to the brim, lifted it and tipped it back. It took most of a bottle now for him to forget. Half of another for him to sleep.
Oriv heard a knock at his door, and tried to stand. He swayed on his feet and sat down heavily. “Come in,” he said.
Grymlis pushed open the door. “Excellency, may I have a word?”