“The same. Believe me, Victania. We’ve come from Rafsuhan, and trouble is brewing, trouble that will eclipse what’s happening in the west.”
“Don’t change the subject. They’ve convened a tribunal, Nikandr. They’re discussing your transgressions now in Father’s hall. They will find you guilty. The only real question is the punishment that awaits.”
“They won’t hang me, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Victania’s features grew fierce, a look she rarely leveled against him. “Watch your tongue. You don’t know what it’s like here anymore. Did you hear what I said? They’ve convened a tribunal, and they very well may decide to swing you from the end of a rope.”
“Such things can only be decided at Council.”
“We are at war, Nischka. And Borund has been licking his gluttonous chops at the seat he already holds in all but name. Think… Think what Ranos would do if his brother were hung in the very courtyard of Radiskoye.”
Nikandr considered this. Perhaps the war with Yrstanla was more serious than he’d guessed. Vostroma might even fear for its very welfare, and with Khalakovo in thrall, they might just use this incident as an excuse. And if he were hung, Ranos would rally the streltsi of Volgorod and he would come for blood, and then Borund would have two traitor brothers of Khalakovo to present to the other dukes. Many of the duchies, certainly those in the south, had already begun to refer to Khalakovo as the northernmost island of Vostroma. Father’s honored place at Zhabyn’s side or not, the dukes might very well decide to grant Vostroma their wish-for permanent assumption of Khalakovan lands.
“It will take the northern dukes less than a minute to see through this. They know what a bully Borund is.”
“If this had happened three years ago-even one year ago-I might have agreed with you, but they are weakened, Nischka. They are tired. And the last thing they want to do is go to war with the South again, especially with the Empire standing on our very doorstep with bloodied swords in their hands.”
“Go to Ranos,” Nikandr said, “and tell him this. All of it.”
“He knows, Nischka. But he’s been pushed to the brink. Borund takes and takes and takes, no matter that Father stands at the Grand Duke’s side. He will not allow himself to be pushed further, no matter what you or I or even Father says. And if you cared to spend more time on the shores of your homeland, you’d know that.”
“Don’t preach to me, Tania. We each find our own way to help. The Maharraht saved my life, and they may very well have saved many lives from the threat building in the east.”
“Muqallad and the stone-Mother told me of it-but really, how is this different than what we’ve faced from the Maharraht for generations?”
“Don’t underestimate him, Victania. He is no less strong than Nasim was those years ago, and he now has the Atalayina.”
“So Mother has said, but when a wolf lies before you in the field…”
“Don’t throw proverbs at me. The wolf that lies in the woods could feast on our flesh as well, and mark my words, Muqallad will not remain beneath the shadows of the boughs for long.”
Three soft knocks came at the door.
Victania glanced over and stood. “I must go. Ranos and I will speak to Borund, Nischka. In the meantime”-she reached the door and knocked on it softly-”don’t do anything stupid.”
In moments she was gone, leaving Nikandr alone with his thoughts. He waited hours more, wondering what might be happening in the tribunal being held several floors above him.
He found out as he was beginning, at long last, to nod off.
The door opened suddenly and jolted him awake.
Viktor Avilov Vostroma, husband to Atiana’s sister, Mileva, strode into the room, coughing heavily as he came.
Viktor was a heavyset man, and though he was barrel-chested and older than Nikandr’s father, he had always seemed strong, like a prized mastiff. His pepper-gray beard was trim, and he had a sharp look in his eye that meant he felt he had the upper hand-Viktor had always been a terrible player at trump.
Had it been Borund himself who’d come to visit him, Nikandr would not have been quite so worried. Borund was taken with the occasional fit of anger, but Viktor was a different sort of animal. He was a minor noble in House Vostroma, a man due little. The only reason he’d been given the hand of Zhabyn’s daughter was because, at the time of the arrangement, Viktor owned the rights to three mines that had become suddenly important when rich veins of jasper had been discovered. Ownership of the mines had been formally transferred to Zhabyn and Viktor had taken Mileva. Knowing Mileva as he did, Nikandr was sure it didn’t take long for Viktor to figure out which end of the bargain had been worse.
He’d been pushing ever since-if the stories of his bellyaching were to be believed-for a larger title and more holdings, things Zhabyn had been ever more reluctant to grant, but when Khalakovo had been ceded to Vostroma, Viktor had quickly found himself on the next windship to these shores. He, like many on Vostroma, thought it a permanent change in the structure of the Grand Duchy. He’d been vying for Ranos’s title, to push him from the Boyar’s mansion so that he could move in and pull on the Boyar’s coat, and if things continued as they had been, Nikandr wasn’t so sure Borund wouldn’t do it.
As Nikandr pulled himself up from the bed, Viktor pulled a chair out from the nearby table and fell into it. He scratched at his beard and clasped his hands around his ample belly, his jaundiced eyes glaring at Nikandr as if he’d just caught a hound escaped from the kennel. Nikandr refused to sit. Instead, he leaned against the stone wall and stared down at Viktor as if he were a boy.
Viktor frowned and coughed again before speaking. “Do you know what they say of you in the halls of Radiskoye?”
Nikandr stared, keeping his expression relaxed.
“They say you’ve forsworn vodka in favor of araq. They say you keep the stones of a qiram and wear them in your cabin at night.” Viktor paused. “They say you find solace only between the legs of the Aramahn. People talk, Nischka. The truth grows twisted in the telling, but with you I wonder if they’ve not struck truth.”
“What do you want, Vostroma?”
Viktor chuckled, pleased with himself. “Three sotni were sent this morning to round up the enemy you brought to these shores.”
“Iramanshah will not give up their own.”
“In this case”-Viktor grinned, a ghastly affair filled with yellowed teeth and baggy eyes-“they just might. The real question is whether you’ll admit to helping them.”
“What difference would that make? You’ve already had your trial.”
Viktor frowned and glanced back toward the door-clearly wondering who had told him of the proceedings but unwilling to ask-but then he relaxed and a satisfied smile came over him. “It may matter, Khalakovo. If you admit to it, perhaps some will be spared, the children, perhaps the women.”
A vision of Zanhalah and the others from Ashdi en Ghat came to Nikandr, and his stomach sank. “They won’t give up their own,” he said again, more to convince himself that none would die on account of his actions.
“Say it, Nischka. Say that you aided them. Surely there are some you wish to save, and if you confess, I’m sure that can be arranged.”
Nikandr nearly did. He hated that Viktor, this jackal, this carrion crow, had come in place of Borund himself. He hated that he had to sit before an interloper in his own house and debate whether to trade the lives of the Maharraht-a people he had been raised to hate-over his own. But then he began to wonder why the question was being asked at all. Just how much had Nataliya seen while she was in the drowning basin? She had taken over some time during that night, and from what Victania had said, she would have had plenty of time to watch, but perhaps she’d been too late. Perhaps her blood had been up and she’d had trouble slipping into the right state of mind to take the dark.
Nikandr decided he’d been wrong earlier. Sending Viktor to exact a confession had been the perfect choice. Keep Nikandr off balance and angry so that something might slip.