“We’ve been instructed to bring any survivors before Lord Sethbert, Overseer of the United City States of the Entrolusian Delta.”
Petronus squinted, trying to see the line of the man’s face. “So there were survivors?”
“It’s not our place to say,” the scout said. “We will bring you before Lord Sethbert.” Petronus felt his horse being pulled. At first the roan resisted, and Petronus considered doing the same. He’d known Sethbert when the Overseer was a pimple-faced teenager. The young son of Aubert had been in the Academy around the time of Petronus’s death by assassin’s poison. They certainly hadn’t seen much of each other.
But what if he recognizes me? He chuckled. Thirty years had changed him. He was twice the size he’d been and his hair had gone white. He was an old man now, moving a bit slow. Dressed in ratty fisherman’s robes. It had been three decades since he’d worn the blue cloak or the white robe. The man that he had been in those days wouldn’t even recognize the man he had become.
“Very well,” Petronus said with a laugh, “take me to Lord Sethbert.”
They moved quickly through the wood. Those places where the sunlight lanced in, Petronus caught shadows of the dark clothing and the drawn battle knives of the Delta scouts. They reminded him of the Gray Guard, and he thought about Grymlis again and the Marsher village.
A black field littered with bones as far as the eye could see.
Petronus shook off the memories. “I heard fighting in the night,” he said.
No quick reply and no boasting. These men were defeated, he realized. He’d not press the question to them again.
In silence, they made their way to Sethbert and the Entrolusian camp.
The camp was alive with activity, a small city of tents blended into a forested hillside, invisible until you were within it. He saw servants, war-whores, cooks and medicos all busy about their trade. For the whore, his escort even paused for a moment, laughing and pointing at the young lieutenant she was riding.
Finally, they stopped outside the most lavish array of connected tents Petronus had seen. It even
out-glamoured the silk Papal Suites that the Gray Guard accompanied around the Named Lands during the Year of the Falling Moon, that time each century when the Pope wandered the Named Lands to honor the settlers who homesteaded the New World.
They walked Petronus to the side of a large open canopy, and whispered for him to dismount.
“Wait here. When Lord Sethbert is finished, he’ll send for you.” Then, taking his horse, they left him there. He couldn’t help but hear the one-sided conversation.
“I just hope you’ll be able to speak soon,” the voice said. “I’m running out of patience, boy. You are the only witness and I must hear your story.”
Petronus looked for the voice, and saw an obese man sitting upon a folding throne that creaked beneath his weight. He was chastising a boy in robes not dissimilar to his own. With Sethbert’s tone, he would’ve thought the boy would hang his head, but instead, he was looking all around.
He’s counting the guards, Petronus realized, and with no subtlety. But Sethbert wasn’t noticing as the boy cased the open air court.
What’s he up to? Perhaps a spy from the other camp. But Jakob would’ve certainly never used a boy in such a hapless way. Surely Rudolfo could not be so very different from his father? Then he saw the line
of his face.
He’d had a professor of human studies at the Francine School named Gath. “Show me the line of a man’s face,” Gath would say to his classroom, spanning the students with his finger, “and I will tell you the intentions of his heart.” Petronus stayed late after class three afternoons per week and asked that old professor every question he could think of.
It had never failed him, and he knew exactly what the line of the boy’s face meant.
The intention of his heart was to kill Sethbert, and as careless as he was studying Sethbert’s circumstances, Petronus was fairly certain that his intentions wouldn’t matter once the guards saw what he was doing.
Petronus shouted and raced beneath the canopy.
Jin Li Tam
Jin Li Tam rode across the prairie ocean and watched the metal man beside her. He’d been silent most of the day, his eyes fluttering as the lids flashed up and down. He was drumming his long, slender metal fingers on the saddle.
Every time she looked at him, she remembered his tone when he’d told her he knew how Sethbert destroyed Windwir. Somehow, Sethbert had used this mechoservitor to bring down a city and end an era where knowledge of the past was carefully preserved… and protected.
She shuddered. “What are you doing, Isaak?”
His fingers and eyelids stopped, and he looked over at her. “I am ciphering, Lady. I’m calculating the supplies and surface are cnd eyea necessary to rebuild the Androfrancine Library.”
She was impressed. “How can you possibly do that?”
“I’ve spent a number of years logging expeditionary expense ledgers and cataloging the financial reports of various holdings,” he answered. “Once I’m finished, I will modify my numbers based on the economic growth patterns between now and the day the reports were written.” A gout of steam from his back. “These will merely be initial inquiries,” Isaak said. “I will have to present Lord Rudolfo with something far more accurate.”
She smiled at the metal man. “You really mean to do this, don’t you?” He turned to her. “Of course I do. I must.”
Jin Li Tam chuckled. “It’s a giant task.”
“It is,” he said, “but a pebble shall fell a giant and a small river make a canyon over time.” She recognized
the quote from the Whymer Bible. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact passage-and she certainly couldn’t find it if you pushed that heavy, square book into her hands.
“Hopefully you’ll have help.”
“I’m sure Lord Rudolfo will free my brothers.” He paused and blinked. “But of course, there will be other Androfrancines that were not in Windwir when I-when it fell.” He looked away.
Others, she thought. Others. The expeditions, the scattered schools, missions and abbeys. They would be out there, and soon-if not already-they would hear about the fall of Windwir.
“What do you calculate the library holdings outside Windwir to be?” she asked.
“Ten percent. The mechoservitors-all of us-account for another thirty between us.”