Neb watched the crowd to see how they would respond. And he watched Petronus, too. The old man’s face was hard and unreadable. The mayor climbed down and no one moved.
Finally someone spoke up, and Neb was surprised at the voice. It was his voice, clear and marching forward with every word.
“I am not a man to leave my kin unburied,” Neb said.
And when he said it, he couldn’t help but think of Brother Hebda.
Rudolfo
Rudolfo sat in the shade of a fir tree, alone, and thought. There was dried blood on his sleeve and his boot, but it wasn’t his. He’d killed a magicked sapper the night before when they breached the perimeter. Rudolfo’s men had taken a beating had held their ground. Three of his Gypsy Scouts-three
– lost in one night.
Gregoric slipped beside him and sat. “General Rudolfo,” he said. Rudolfo nodded. “Gregoric. What do you think?”
Gregoric shook his head. “I don’t know.”
The bird had arrived two hours earlier bearing news of the new Pope and the Writ of Shunning. Rudolfo had immediately sent word to House Li Tam and the Seventh Forest Manor. Just as he’d finished, his Captain of Intelligence had approached with more bad news. “We’ve word that two more brigades of Delta infantry are northward bound. And Pylos and Tyrn are sending contingents.”
That’s when Rudolfo slipped from the camp into the forest in order to think. Of course he’d known that Gregoric, still magicked from the morning patrol, had followed at a distance. And after sufficient time had past, his first captain had done as he always did and came to sit with his friend.
Rudolfo sighed. “I think we may have to pull back and find new vision. This new Pope has changed the pieces about on the board.”
“Aye,” Gregoric said. “We still have some time. A few days. We can do what we can and then divide the
army.”
Rudolfo nodded. “And I will be needed elsewhere.”
Tomorrow, with his own half-squad of Scouts, Rudolfo would ride for the Papal Summer Palace to parley with this Pope. Behind him, his Wandering Army would fall back to their forest islands until their general called them back to war.
For the first time in a week, Rudolfo wondered if he truly would prevail.
Jin Li Tam
The halls of the seventh forest manor were wide and long, with hardwood floors and wood paneling on the vfac walls, dressed up with thick silk carpets and framed portraits. During her brief stay, Jin Li Tam explored what rooms she could, finding few locked doors in the large four-story building. Most of the rooms were spacious, including the servants’ quarters, and even boasted running water, heated in a large metal furnace and gravity-fed through copper pipes. Another gift from the Androfrancines.
She’d walked most of the manor on the first day. But now, she sought out the floor she had avoided. She took the wide sweeping staircase that passed the second and third floors, going directly to the fourth.
There, at the end of a short wide hallway, stood the double doors and stained glass windows leading to the Family Quarters.
She looked in on the rooms for children. There were many, all empty now but for one-the room of a small boy, she gathered, complete with scattered toys and a small silver sword hung over the bed. An unwrapped turban lay draped over the back of a chair, and a small boot jutted haphazardly from beneath the bed.
It had been carefully cleaned, but she could tell that the room had been this way for a long while.
A dark, unlocked door marked Rudolfo’s quarters-a suite of rooms that included a den and connected to another suite through a large bathing room. The bathing room was impressive. It smelled of fresh lavender, and at its center was a large, round marble tub. An elaborate golden nozzle was set into the ceiling, along with long cords tipped with golden tassels for bathers to pull and bring down the hot rain.
Jin walked through the room, her hand moving over the edge of the tub. The marble was cold to the touch.
Beyond the bathing room a similar suite waited, and the softer colors told her that someday soon, if her father’s will held despite the recent Papal Writ, she would be moving from the guest quarters into this space as Rudolfo’s bride.
She’d known that someday, when her father willed it, she would either be released to seek a mate for reasons of her own, whether love or convenience, or she would be wed for strategic purposes to advance House Li Tam’s interests in the world. Of course, some of her sisters had chosen to stay home instead. She’d always thought that if she were left to her own heart, she’d neither wed nor stay home. Instead, she’d go to the places she wished to instead of the places her father sent her.
She reached out a hand and touched the thick quilt folded at the foot of the large canopied bed. Certainly, this place would have been one that she would’ve wanted to see. The ancient forest islands in an ocean of prairie, and their ruthless Gypsy kings-tied by their past to the legacy of Xhum Y’Zir, evidenced by their Physicians of Penitent Torture and their redemptive work. Yet Rudolfo’s forebears had blended that dark blood magick rite with the mystic teachings of T’Erys Whym, the younger brother of P’Andro Whym who for a time succeeded his {sucitebrother and led the leftovers of the world until the Francine Movement, of all things, brought them back to reason as the principal tenet.
Yes, she would’ve wanted to visit this place. But would she have chosen to stay here?
Probably not, she realized. Instead, if she had her way, she’d spend some time in the Great Library, possibly tour the edges of the Churning Waste, and then move south and sail the channel islands.
Instead, she thought, I am to be here in the shadow of a new library.
Of course, all of that hinged on the Writ of Shunning and its resolution… and on her father’s wishes. She was certain he’d shift his strategy and she’d been certain that a bird would come. But instead, a note from Rudolfo had arrived that morning.
Pay no mind to this emerging Pope’s Writ, it read. I ride to deal with him. Stay with Isaak. Only the word “with” had been tilted just ever so slightly to give it the subtext of “near,” lending it the weight of great importance.
She’d smiled. Another code was buried in it, too. It was simple and unexpected, woven into the note with the jots and tittles of the Bank Cipher script. I’ll dance with the sunrise yet again, the equation said.
Jin Li Tam heard limping footfalls in the hall and went to the door. “Lady Tam?” she heard a metallic voice call.
She poked her head out. “In here, Isaak.”
The metal man stopped and turned. He still the wore robes-dark and long. “I’ve come to wish you well,” he said.