“Will he really keep Feldin safe?” Phelia asked. “If I give him the letters, will Palliako really see that Simeon doesn’t kill him?”
“That’s certainly what he said,” Clara said.
“Do you trust him?”
“I barely know him, dear.”
They lapsed again into silence.
“If the king already knows anyway,” Phelia said. “If he only wants to see who in the court of Asterilhold was involved… I mean, with all that Palliako already knew, Aster was never in any real danger. Not really.”
“That’s one way to see it.”
For the better part of an hour, Geder Palliako had coaxed Phelia into admitting everything. Feldin’s complicity in the mercenary riot, his connections in Asterilhold, his alliances within the groups fighting for a farmer’s council. Any one would stand as treason. Together, Clara didn’t see room for mercy. Which wasn’t what Phelia needed to hear now.
“How did it all get so out of hand?” Phelia asked the darkness. She sighed. It was a small, hard sound. “Tell him I will. I’ll take him to Feldin’s private study. I have a key, but there will be a guard. And he has to swear that it will only be exile.”
“All right.”
Phelia took Clara’s hand, holding it like it was the only thing that kept her from falling down a cliff.
“You won’t make me go alone, will you? You’ll come with me?”
There was nothing Clara wanted less. Phelia’s eyes glittered in the twilight of the room.
“Of course, dear,” she said. “Of course I’ll come.”
In the smoking room, Clara found the men waiting with such anxiety she imagined herself as a midwife come to deliver news of a birth. Dawson stopped his pacing as she walked in. Geder and Jorey looked up from a game of cards they were only half playing. Only the quiet priest seemed unconcerned, but then she supposed unnatural serenity was part of his work. Even Vincen Coe was there, brooding in the shadows the way he so often did. The air was close and hot, like every sip had already been breathed once before.
“She’s agreed to take Lord Palliako to the letters,” Clara said, “but only if he swears Simeon won’t have Feldin executed and if I’m with her when they go.”
“Absolutely not,” Dawson said.
“She will lose her nerve, husband,” Clara said. “You know what she’s like. I’ll take Vincen with me, and we’ll be fine. The four of us—”
“Five,” Geder said, “with Basrahip.”
“I’m going too,” Jorey said.
“Of course you aren’t, dear,” Clara said. “Feldin only allows me because I’m a woman and he finds me feckless and charming. Vincen’s a servant. Lord Palliako and…”
“Basrahip,” the priest said.
“Yes, that. Phelia was here for the needlework and had an example she wanted to show me, so I went home with her. Along the way, we bumped into Lord Palliako and his friend and Phelia invited them along so we could hear stories of his summer travels. Perfectly innocent.”
“I don’t see why I couldn’t be part of that,” Jorey said. “Or Barriath.”
“Because you are your father’s sons, and I am only his wife. You have a great deal to learn about the place of women. Now, I suggest we do this before Phelia has a change of heart, poor thing.”
Walking out to the carriage, Clara felt proud of Phelia. The way she held herself. The polite nod she gave to Dawson as they pulled away. The autumn sun was already near the horizon, the flame seeming to dance on the rooftops as the driver threaded his way through the streets. The city seemed clearer than usual, the sounds of wheels and voices sharper and more real than she was used to. The buildings they passed had rich textures in the stone of the walls. They passed a young Tralgu pushing a cart piled high with grapes, and Clara felt she could have counted each individual fruit. She felt as if she’d woken up twice without going to sleep in the middle. She wondered if it was how soldiers felt on the morning of a battle. It seemed likely.
Geder Palliako smiled at everything. She still thought of him as the pale, pudgy boy who’d ridden off to war in her son’s company. In truth, his travels had left him leaner and darkened by the sun. And more than that, his eyes had changed. Even when he’d returned from the city he’d killed, there had been a shyness to him. It wasn’t there any longer, and she thought he looked less handsome for the loss. She found herself wondering what he had really been doing all those weeks he pretended to have been in the Keshet. When his priest caught her staring, he smiled. She turned away.
The private courtyard wasn’t half dead any longer. As many lanterns and candles were glowing in the windows of Curtin Issandrian’s mansion as in Feldin Maas’s. The carriage jolted to a stop and a footman ran out with a step for them. Phelia first, and then herself. Geder Palliako, the only man of blood. Vincen Coe and the priest paused, unsure for a moment, and then the priest smiled and waved the huntsman on.
The door slave was a different man, Firstblood this time, but so thick with muscle he might have been the priest’s twin. Vincen and Geder turned over their swords and daggers. The priest had no weapons.
“The baron wanted to see you when you came,” the door slave said. “He’s in the rear hall.”
No honorifics, no my lady. He might have been speaking to anyone for all the respect in his tone. Clara wondered what sort of men Maas had been taking into service, and then instantly answered her own question. Mercenaries. Fighters. Sword-and-bows. The sort of men who kill for pay. And she was going into the enemy camp. Stepping over the threshold, she faltered. Phelia looked at her, alarmed. Clara shook her head and bulled on. She refused to accept support and comfort from someone in her cousin’s position. It would be rude.
In silence, Phelia led them down the wide corridor toward the room where she’d received Clara the last time she’d been. Fresh-cut flowers and garlands of autumn vine left the air smelling rich. The candlelight softened the corners and warmed the colors of the tapestries and the carpeted runner. Geder coughed. A nervous little sound.
At the base of the stair, Phelia turned right, and they all followed her. A short hallway that jogged at the end. Fewer candles were lit here. The shadows thickened and pressed in against them. At the far end of the hall, a thin servant’s staircase rose up and a wider set of doors stood closed. They wouldn’t have to go so far.
“Who’s that?” a man’s voice said.
In a recess, a man in hunting leather stood up from where he’d been sitting. The guard.
“My husband sent for me,” Phelia said. “They said he was in his private office.”
“He ain’t,” the guard said. “Who’re these?”
“The people my husband asked me to bring,” Phelia said tartly. Clara could hear the fear in her voice, the despair. She felt a surge of pride for the woman’s courage.
“He is here,” the priest said. His voice had an odd, unpleasant throbbing quality. “You’ve made a mistake. He’s in the room behind you.”
“No one in there, I’m telling you.”
“Listen. Listen. You’ve made a mistake,” the priest said again. “He’s in the room behind you. Knock on the door and he’ll answer.”
From the look on the guard’s face, Clara was fairly sure anyone beside the lady of the household would have already been knocked to the ground and reinforcements shouted for. Instead, the man turned to knock on the oaken door and Vincen Coe stepped up behind him, wrapping an arm across the guard’s neck and lifting him. The man choked and kicked, his hand clawing at Vincen’s arm. Clara closed her eyes, and the sounds alone were worse than the sight. After entirely too long, the guard went slack. Vincen lowered the body to the floor and stood with the guard’s drawn sword in his hand. Phelia drew a key from her sleeve, fitted it to the lock, and a moment later they were in Feldin Maas’s private study.