“Yes, Lord Rudolfo?”
“I’ve asked Lady Tam to assist you. She will speak to her father on behalf of the library and try to get sanction from this new Pope he spoke of.” Rudolfo turned from watching her and studied Isaak. “I will get you more help as soon as I possibly can. Meanwhile, start planning.”
The metal man’s head swiveled around to face him. “Have you given any thought to the location of the new library?”
Rudolfo thought about this. “There is a hill near the seventh forest manor-on the outskirts of town. I had intended it to be a Whymer Maze. Is it of sufficient size?”
Isaak’s eyes flashed bright and then dim, the shutters working quickly as he calculated. “If we build into the hill and above it.”
Rudolfo nodded. “Once we have secured the patriarchal blessing, I will hire the best architects, engineers and builders in the Named Lands to realize this vision. I will hire the carpenters of Paramo to design and build the furnishings required. Your role will be to tell us what we need to properly house the holdings
you think can be restored.”
Steam chugged out of his exhaust grate. “Your faith in me continues to astound, Lord Rudolfo.” “You are a marvelous wonder, Isaak. You may even be the very best of the Androfrancines’ work
among us.”
Certainly the most dangerous and the most innocent at the same time, he thought.»thom"
“I will strive to exceed your expectations.”
Rudolfo smiled. “I have no doubt that you will.”
“I had started my preliminary research before the summons arrived. I will resume that work now, by your leave.”
Rudolfo nodded. “To your work, my metal friend.”
Isaak limped off and Rudolfo watched him as he went. His armorer had done the best he could, certainly, never having worked on a mechanical before. Perhaps he could do better for the metal man with enough time to properly study his musculature and metallic skeleton. Maybe as they cataloged what was left in
the memory scrolls of the mechoservitor corps, they would even find the ancient drawings from Rufello and have done with that limp.
Part of him wondered, though, if Isaak would permit that or if he would bear the limp along with his great remorse, a constant reminder of a pain that defined him.
Rudolfo had talked with Jin Li Tam about the metal man’s lie. It was an interesting development in the mechoservitor’s character.
Change is the path life takes. Perhaps that meant Isaak was truly alive. He wondered at the implications of such a thing. A man made by a man.
That night, as the coyotes howled beyond their camp, they ate cold rations and washed them down with colder wine. They talked briefly, voices low, about the next day and the work ahead.
“I’ll see to the Marsh King and plumb this sudden kin-clave he’s declared towards me,” Rudolfo said. “I’ll send word when I know. Until then, the Wandering Army stays at home. We need to see what this new Pope will mean for present loyalties.”
Jin nodded. “I think Queen Meirov is tenuous at best in her alliance with Sethbert. He’s not been a good neighbor to her people.”
Rudolfo stroked his mustache. “She is a strong queen with a weak army.” Pylos, the smallest of the Named Lands, used their army primarily to police the border they shared with the Entrolusian City States. He’d had kin-clave with her in the past. “Perhaps I will call upon her after I’ve parleyed with the Marsh King.”
“My father will also send word to her,” Jin said. “She relies on House Li Tam for her small fleet of river ships, and no small amount of her treasury is held with him as well.”
Rudolfo smiled. “What do you think your father will do about the City State» thht=s?”
She shrugged. “It’s hard to say. I’m sure he’ll follow this new Pope’s lead. He can put the blockade back in place in a matter of days.”
And in two weeks, Rudolfo knew, those iron ships-powered in some similar way to the Androfrancines’ metal men but on a much larger scale-could cripple the supplies and replacements that Sethbert relied on his wooden riverboats to deliver.
Gradually, as the clouds broke overhead and the stars shined out, swollen with wet light, they fell into silence. The scouts moved about the camp, some restringing bows and preparing to go on watch, others crawling into tents for a few hours of sleep. Beneath his own tarp across from them, Isaak sat with his eyes flashing and his bellows wheezing slightly as he ciphered.
They sat in silence for an hour, listening to the forest as it moved about them. A wind carried the faintest sound-a bellowing voice carried across long distances-and it stirred the fine hairs on Rudolfo’s neck and arms. Everyone knew of the War Sermons of the Marsh King-they sprung from the pages of that people’s violent history in the Named Lands, though they’d not been heard for more than five hundred years.
Rudolfo turned and tried to pick out the words, but it was in the ancient Whymer tongue-a language he was largely unfamiliar with.
Jin leaned closer to him. “He’s prophesying now. It’s fascinating.” Rudolfo’s eyebrows shot up. “You understand him?”
“I do,” she said. “It’s faint. Something about the dreaming boy and a Last Testament of P’Andro Whym. A coming judgment on the Named Lands for the Androfrancine Sin.” She paused, and Rudolfo admired the line of her neck and the strength of her jaw as she cocked her head and listened. “The Gypsy King will…” She shook her head. “No, it’s gone. The wind carried it off.”
They fell back into silence again and another hour passed. Finally, Rudolfo stood, bid his company good night and crawled into the low battle tent they had set up for him.
He lay still, listening to the low voices outside and to the sounds of the wind as it played the evergreen ceiling. Was it so long ago that he dreaded the idea of staying still? When one bed or one house was not enough for him? He’d spent his life moving between nine manors. From the age of twelve, when he stepped into his father’s turban, he’d spent more of his life in the saddle and tent than he had manor or bed. And he’d loved that life. But that pillar in the sky created a longing for something else within him. Perhaps it was a temporary fixation. The Francines would say to follow the thread of his feelings backward. It was grief connecting to grief-today’s sadness reaching back i»reaixanto yesterday’s and gathering strength.
You’ve lost your light young, he remembered his father telling him when he lay dying in the amber field. First his brother at five, then his father and mother at twelve. Windwir’s destruction found that grief and worried it, creating inside of him a longing for home and rest that he could not remember ever knowing before.