“Hawking, hunting, managing his estates. He soldiered for a while, but he gave that up about a decade ago.”
Amaury nodded thoughtfully. There wasn’t enough to worry about. Yet. He had plenty of more pressing problems and couldn’t shake off the feeling that he had his hands tied behind his back. He had the object he had coveted for so long, yet felt he couldn’t use it.
Why was that? He had a strong indication of how it worked, and what he needed to do, but still couldn’t bring himself to drink from it. He was worried—would he ever have enough information?
He made a resolution with himself that he would use it once Ysabeau got back, irrespective of what new information she brought him. It was as much use to him sitting in his pocket as if he wasted it. He couldn’t live much longer on the promise of a better future. Amaury wanted it now.
“What of the city? I’m sure all the little schemers in the coffeehouses are delighting in the current situation.”
“There are reports of unrest, but the increased presence of the City Watch has kept any trouble off the streets. In that regard, Watch Commander Mensiac is taking to his new role well, but has asked that you bolster some of his patrols with members of the Order.”
“Out of the question,” Amaury said. “I don’t want the Order to be seen as an instrument of social control. That’s our absolute last resort.”
“I think that’s a wise move, your Grace,” the minister said.
Amaury nodded, quenching his irritated frustration. Of course it was a wise move. That was why he made it. He wasn’t fool enough to think people would accept magic if the wielders of it were seen as a force of oppression. Sick children cured, injuries healed, the reduction of the pain, suffering, and misery that life in a city like Mirabay brought those at its lower levels—that was what would make the mobs of Mirabay see the value in magic. People were motivated by self-interest. He would make sure everyone knew magic was in their best interest.
“That will be all for this morning,” Amaury said. “Tell my clerk to send in my next appointment.”
Amaury returned to the seat behind his desk. There was nothing worth seeing out that window anymore. His next appointment was dressed in the cream robes of the Order, although she wore a black, hooded cloak over them. Travelling the streets in Spurrier cream was not the thing to do these days.
This was Zehra Kargha, the Order’s new marshall. Amaury was coming dangerously close to losing count of how many of the Order’s senior officers had been replaced in the last few months. Dal Drezony, Leverre, Vachon, among others. It was surprising how much the rapid changes in personnel had altered the Order’s character.
The new marshall was something of an interesting proposition. A Darvarosian mercenary, she’d impressed the Prince Bishop during their few previous dealings, and when the position became available, once Ysabeau reported that Gustav Vachon had met an untimely end, Amaury had decided to offer her the job.
Kargha wasn’t one for talking, so sat there silently, glowering in that foreign way of hers. Amaury wasn’t used to that, and as amusing as the novelty was, he felt as though it put him on the back foot in a way he didn’t usually experience.
“I know the soft approach isn’t your normal one,” Amaury said when he was unable to bear the silence any longer. “But that is what I need you to do, for now. I will be appointing a new seneschal and chancellor in due course, and they will take care of the Order’s charitable and social functions, but for now you are the only command-level officer of the Order. I need you to organise and manage clinics throughout the city, for the treatment of the sick and injured. The Order’s corps of magical physicians has lost many of its more talented and experienced personnel recently, but those who remain are more than capable of dealing with non-life-threatening cases.”
She eyed him suspiciously but said nothing. If she hadn’t spoken Imperial to him in the past, he would have wondered if she could understand him.
Eventually she shifted in her chair and spoke, her accent rich and her voice sonorous. “This is not a task I expected to be given.”
“And it’s not one I expect you to carry out for long. Merely until I’ve had the chance to replace the other command-level roles. That of marshall is most important, so was the one I sought to fill first.”
“Clinics for the sick?” she said.
She had a hard face, and Amaury didn’t reckon a good bedside manner was one of her talents. Still, needs must. “Clinics for the sick,” he said.
“How many?”
“As many as the Order can accommodate. This is a campaign to win the support of the people.”
She nodded. “Fine. I’ll do it … until you find someone more suited.”
“There are other projects I need you to oversee for the time being. Water treatment, food preservation, things like that. The Order’s remaining mages all know what to do, they just need direction. The details are all in this file.” He slid a purple folder across his desk to her.
Kargha picked it up, gave him a nod, and left. Amaury couldn’t quite believe it. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been treated with such casualness—no bows, no flattery, no obsequiousness. Luther, the mercenary fixer who had originally put them in contact, had said she was a princess. Although Darvarosian royalty was almost as common as Mirabayan aristocracy, they had an attitude, particularly toward those they viewed as being of a lower social rank. She’d need to be good at her intended role, when the time came. If not … He shook his head. He’d lost enough commanders already. Killing another one who was making his life difficult wasn’t going to aid his cause. Not for the time being, at least.
CHAPTER 11
Six of them stood over a roughly drawn map of the palace that had been laid out on the floor of dal Ruisseau Noir’s salon: Gill, Solène, Pharadon, the salon master, Val, and another man—who had the intimidating and mysterious look of an Intelligencier who wanted to look intimidating and mysterious, rather than utterly anonymous, as Intelligenciers usually did.
Gill’s initial reaction to the small, and not at all merry, band was “Is that it?,” but he kept the thought to himself. It quickly became obvious the Intelligenciers had suffered badly in the days following the coup. Their official structure had been all but wiped out—all that remained were some clandestine elements that had already been operating in the city. He had to admire their resolve. There were few groups who would remain true to their mission after the beating they’d taken.
Dal Ruisseau Noir knelt and pointed to what Gill recognised as the Tower of Forgetting, where high-level nobles were imprisoned—and forgotten about. The only one Gill had ever seen leave was carried out in a nondescript wooden crate.
“This is where the king is being held,” dal Ruisseau Noir said. “We’ve confirmed that he is indeed taken ill, so that wasn’t simply propaganda on the Prince Bishop’s part. Quite severely ill by all accounts, perhaps to the point of being completely incapacitated, but he’s still alive.
“The main advantage we have is that we’re infiltrating a palace rather than a fortress. If the king were being held in the castle, our chances of success would be nonexistent. As it is, we have only two options for gaining access to the palace,” dal Ruisseau Noir continued. “Our man on the inside can do his best to get us into the complex through the front gate and into the palace itself through one of the service entrances.
“We can try this as a group or individually. While moving as a group might on its face attract more attention, staff enter the palace in this fashion several times a day, and it reduces the number of opportunities for discovery at checkpoints.”