Tamas swallowed. He felt a cold sweat on his brow. “What do you mean, ‘Where’d I get him?’ I’ve not hired a new cook.”
“He said you appointed him head chef yourself,” Olem said. He put a hand out in front, miming a large belly, and took on an air of self-importance. “ ‘… to fill the hearts, minds, and souls of the soldiers and give them strength for the coming years.’ Or so he says.”
“A fat man, this tall?” Tamas gestured above his head.
Olem nodded.
“Long black hair, looks like a Rosvelean?”
“I thought he was a quarter Deliv,” Olem said. “But yes.”
“You’re mad,” Sabon said. “He’s not got a drop of Deliv in him.”
“Mihali,” Tamas said.
“Yes, that was him,” Sabon confirmed. “A devil of a cook.”
“Chef,” Tamas said distractedly. “And devil he may be. Find out who he is. Everything about him. He said his father was Moaka, the na-baron of… oh, something or another. Find out.” He would not have strange men infiltrating his headquarters with nothing more than a lamb souffle.
“I’ll get right on that, sir,” Olem said.
“Now!”
Olem jumped. “Right away, sir.” He flicked his cigarette away and went for the stairs. Tamas watched him go, then turned back to the slowly approaching longboat. He felt Sabon’s eyes on his back.
“What?” he asked, more annoyance in his voice than he’d intended.
“What the pit was that about?” Sabon said. “A lot of fuss for just a damned cook.”
“Chef,” Tamas said.
“You think he’s a spy?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m having Olem find out.”
“What’s the good in having a bodyguard if you send him off when the Kez show up?”
Tamas ignored the question. So Mihali hadn’t been a figment of his imagination. But what about what he had said? He’d warned Tamas to investigate the Privilegeds’ dying admonition – something he should have no knowledge about.
Tamas wasn’t a religious man. If he were to ascribe to any one belief, it would probably be one most popular with upper society and philosophers these days – that Kresimir had been a timepiece god. He’d come and set the Nine in motion and had moved on, never to return.
Yet now the holy mountain itself rumbled in anger. What could this mean?
Superstitions. He couldn’t let them get the best of him. He’d have Mihali arrested this very night, and that would be the end of it.
They watched the approaching longboat for a few minutes before Sabon pointed down to the beach. “The rabble-rousers are here.”
“About damn time.”
They headed down to the docks to join Tamas’s council. With aides, assistants, bodyguards, and footmen, it seemed like all of Adopest had turned out. Tamas missed the days when secrecy demanded that they meet in person: just seven men and a woman plotting to overthrow their king.
The members of his council gathered at the front of the group to meet him on the boardwalk.
“Tamas, my dear,” Lady Winceslav said as he approached. “Be so kind as to ask His Eminence and the other gentleman” – she gestured disdainfully at the arch-diocel and the eunuch – “not to smoke so heavily around a lady.”
“You could ask them yourself,” Tamas said.
“She has,” Ricard said. “Seems His Holiness doesn’t know how to act around the ladies.”
Lady Winceslav harrumphed. “Sir, I don’t think you do either.”
Ricard removed his hat and gave her a bow. “I’m just a poor workin’ man, marm. Excuse me.”
The arch-diocel and the eunuch both seemed to enjoy Lady Winceslav’s discomfort. Charlemund turned to Tamas, blowing smoke rings. “Did you know this fellow had his manhood removed at birth? I didn’t know they still practiced such a thing, not for a thousand years.”
“The Church favored castrati for their choirs up until fifty years ago,” Ondraus said, looking over his book at the arch-diocel. He smirked. “There are still a few famous singers like Kirkham and Noubenhaus who are castrati. They’re popular in cathedrals all about the Nine. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”
The arch-diocel puffed hard on his pipe.
“It’s a common practice,” the eunuch said softly, his high-pitched voice nearly drowned out by the crash of the surf on the beach. “In my native land there’s a whole caste of eunuchs, created at birth, who serve the Gurlan magistrates. They serve in the harems and the magistrates’ courts and see to their every whim.” He eyed Lady Winceslav. “Every whim imaginable.”
“Disgusting,” Lady Winceslav said, turning away.
Tamas watched the whole exchange without a word. Sometimes the council seemed to amount to nothing more than children thrust together at a boarding school that has no thought for class or upbringing. They were a motley assortment. “This is all quite interesting,” he said, “but the ambassador is here. I’ll greet him myself. Alone. No doubt he’ll bring up the Accords before he’s even off the boat. I’m going to tell him to stuff them up his ass.”
“I think he’d respond better to a lady’s charm,” Lady Winceslav said.
“I bet you do,” the arch-diocel grunted. “I have nothing to say here. The Church is neutral on matters of war in the Nine.”
“Your unwavering support brings tears to my eyes,” Tamas said. “The Kez will have demands. I prefer peace, if possible. The only question is how hard we sue for it. The Accords are out completely. I’ll not have them take this country from us. Ricard?”
“War will bring trade on the Adsea to a crawl,” Ricard Tumblar said. “The union doesn’t like the idea. Then again, the factories will grind into full use, employing thousands for munitions, clothes, and canned foods. It’ll be a great boon to industry in Adopest. Between that and rebuilding the city, we may completely solve unemployment in Adopest.”
“Start a war to improve the economy,” Tamas murmured. “If only it were so simple. Lady?”
“My mercenaries are at your disposal.”
Until Adro ran out of land for her officers, Tamas supposed.
The eunuch shrugged. “My master has no opinion on war.”
“Will he hold the gangs in check?” Tamas asked. “If Adopest goes to war only to tear itself apart, things will be over before they start.”
The eunuch took a draw at his pipe. “The Proprietor will keep things… under control.”
“Vice-Chancellor?” Tamas said.
The old man looked wistfully off over the sea and trailed a finger across the spiderlike birthmark on his face. “There hasn’t been a real war among the Nine since the Bleakening. I hope for peace but…” He wiped a hand across his brow wearily. “Ipille is a greedy man. Do what must be done.”
The reeve was the last to speak. Ondraus pocketed his ledger and removed the spectacles from his nose, folding them and putting them inside his coat. “It’ll cost us more to pay the Kez back what Manhouch borrowed than it will to run a war for two years. They can go to the pit.”
Sabon burst out laughing. Ricard and the eunuch grinned. Tamas swallowed a chuckle himself and nodded at the reeve. “Thank you for your educated opinion, sir.”
Tamas headed down the dock to greet the ambassador. He removed a powder charge from his pocket, gently unwrapped it, and sprinkled a bit on his tongue. He felt the sizzle of power, the surge of awareness that came with a powder trance, closing his eyes as he walked, one foot in front of the other, the dock boards creaking underneath him. He opened his eyes twenty paces from the boat.
A small delegation disembarked. Wardens scrambled up to the dock and then turned to help noblemen up, their sorcery-warped muscles moving like thick snakes beneath their coats. The Wardens were all big men, some nearly two heads taller than Tamas and each one worth ten soldiers in a battle. Tamas shuddered.
He wouldn’t let himself be threatened. Whatever the Kez said in the coming negotiations, he needed to keep a level head. They would menace and insult and he would take it in stride. War was not the best course here. He would sue for peace, but not at the cost of his country.
One by one the delegation climbed onto the dock. There were a number of them, all dressed in the finery of the nobility. He caught sight of a white Privileged’s glove as it reached up and took the hand of a Warden. Only one sorcerer, his third eye told him. Tamas took a deep breath, reaching out with his senses. This Privileged was not a powerful one, though such a thing was relative when speaking of men who could destroy buildings with a gesture.