The Seer: Chapter Fourteen

    “He wants his dogs, too, ser,” Naulen told Innel.

    Easy enough, Innel thought, if that would get them the old king’s cooperation in the coronation ceremony.

    “And to see his daughter,” she added.

    That might be harder. Still, Restarn’s cooperation was worth a lot to the strength of Cern’s rule. It might be worth everything.

    He gestured, inviting the small blond slave to sit at a table where a mug of hot wine and a plate of pastries waited. “Have all you like,” he said.

    She sat where he directed, seeming bewildered, each movement somehow a graceful submission. She touched the cream-filled confections with her fingertips, as if she had never seen such a wondrous thing before.

    Enchanting, he thought, wondering how much was pretense. All of it, he suspected, though it was nonetheless compelling. Beyond her value as entertainment, Naulen was proving her worth by regularly relating to him bits of conversation from the old king, who talked a great deal now that he had no one else but his blond slave to listen to him.

    Naming names. Innel was gathering a very useful list.

    As for Cern, that had turned out to be the work of nearly a tenday, starting with gentle suggestions, outlining his reasoning, gingerly turning her objections into his own supporting arguments. In the end he convinced her to see her father, to even try to be pleasant to him. To take to him the dogs she hated so much.

    The king had always held the beasts with voice and will, but Cern had wanted nothing to do with them. Innel knew the king’s dichu dogs would fight harness and lead if Cern held the other end, so he had the kennelmaster give them something to make them more compliant.

    The coronation, Innel had reminded Cern.

    Outside the king’s room Cern took the leads of the muzzled dogs from the kennelmaster and went in. Innel waited in the hallway.

    When Cern emerged a bell later, she vibrated with pent-up fury. Innel took her to her rooms, signaling Srel to fetch for him the previously arranged-for wines and twunta and infused oils. He spent the next hours in attentive application of the collection.

    Day by day, as the coronation date inched closer, Cern became, if possible, even more tightly strung.

    The seneschal continued beyond annoying, insisting on extravagant expenditures that would dwarf those of the royal wedding. Again, Innel objected.

    “You can have it when you want it, ser Royal Consort, or you can have it for less coin, but you cannot have both. Trust me, ser.”

    Innel bit down on his objections and again gave way.

    If the ceremony happened — if Restarn did his part — if Cern was made queen — it would all be worth it.

 

---

 

    It was high summer when the coronation finally began. It took the better part of five days, dawn to midnight, most of it loud and brightly colored, excessive and ostentatious. The spectacle would culminate with the single most important moment, the one in which the old king was to hand his daughter the Anandynar scepter, passed down through the generations, from monarch to monarch.

    The object itself was a too-long, slightly dented stiletto encrusted with gems and worked through with various metals, so over-decorated and lightweight that Innel suspected it would break if one tried to use it for anything beyond ceremony.

    At least it would not be too heavy for a sick old man. All Restarn would need to do would be to hand the scepter to his daughter. His heir and only progeny.

    It seemed simple enough, so Innel worried.

    During each day of ceremonies and all-night celebrations leading to the main event, Innel reviewed the seer’s words to him that night in Botaros, and the extensive resources he had now put into finding her. It was starting to seem to him as if he were dumping coins into the depths of the ocean for all that his various hires, Tayre most expensively among them, were providing him.

    When Cern was queen, he would have more funds. But once he started tapping the royal purse, he would need to be even more discreet. He might even need to tell her, in case this all came to light. Another problem entirely, and for another time.

    The final day of the coronation — then the final hour — arrived. The king was carried in his chair to the Great Hall, wrapped in red and black and gold.

    It was the first time Restarn had been out of his sickbed in over six months, and he looked startled, eyes too wide, gaze flickering here and there as if not quite certain where he was. Innel felt an edge of alarm. Had the doctor given him too much of the various herbs intended to keep him calm and compliant?

    Surely the man would be able, at the very least, to hand Cern the scepter. It was all he needed to do. Such a simple thing. But even after a lifetime of studying the man, trying to read his thoughts through his eyes and turn of mouth, Innel could not tell what was in his mind or what he would do.

    “Get his dogs,” Innel hissed to Nalas and Srel. They hurried off, returning with the pair of brindled canines.

    With one dog on each side of him, their heads in his lap, one licking his hand, the king seemed to calm, something like sense coming back into his eyes. Innel watched him intently.

    When the moment finally came, the Great Hall packed with thousands of aristos and eparchs and royals, all falling utterly silent, the old king looked slowly around the room. His gaze settled on Innel. The moment lengthened. Innel looked back at the king, feeling sweat drip down his back.

    Finally Restarn looked to his daughter, then handed the long, sharp scepter to her with a casual, almost disgusted look, as if it were an unwashed dinner knife that he was well rid of.

    Innel could live with that. It didn’t matter now. Cern was queen.

 

---

 

    The next morning Cern announced Innel as her new Lord Commander.

    Innel sat in his small office as the day went on, receiving visitors, noting those who came — some to ask questions, some to explain past decisions at length, and some to lecture, as in the case of the seneschal — and those who stayed away.

    Conspicuously absent was the now-former Lord Commander, whom Innel could well imagine seething as he paced the much larger offices Innel was now entitled to. While Innel thought a military rebellion highly unlikely, he didn’t want to inspire one by mishandling the king’s older and now more powerful brother, either.

    Don’t push until you must.

    Yes, but when must he?

    Among his visitors were Cohort brothers and sisters, even those who had left years ago, all wanting to make sure he would not forget how passionate had been their support for him these many years.

    “Put in a good word for me, when the time is right, hmm?” Taba had said, referring to the commander of the navy, who Innel had yet to speak with.

    “No, really, Innel — congratulations. Truly.” This from Mulack, pushing toward him an excellent bottle of greened brandy, then eating the rest of the fruit plate Srel had brought, that Innel had barely touched.

    “And the mage?” Tok had asked him.

    “Under contract,” Innel replied. “When things settle, I’ll bring her.”

    Quietly. Tempting as it was, it would be some time yet before he could parade a mage down the hallways without upsetting a significant number of influential aristos with whom he was not yet ready to lock horns.

    The Great Houses seemed content to let Innel’s Cohort siblings represent their good wishes. Those Houses who had not been fortunate enough to have sons and daughters in the Cohort these last two decades instead sent notes. The pale red amardide envelopes were collecting in piles.

    But a good many of the rest, generals and royals, eparchs and bloodlines, would be waiting to see how well Innel handled this powerful beast he had gotten on top of, over the next days. It was one thing to mount up, but another thing, entirely different, to ride.

    They would be especially watching to see how he handled the former Lord Commander Lason.

    He missed his brother’s advice keenly now. Opening a drawer, he pulled out a metal arrowhead. It was the only thing he had kept of his brother’s.

 

---

 

    When he and his brother had been boys, during a particularly foolish game in the woods, Innel had grazed Pohut’s leg with an arrow. While Pohut pressed his hand against his leg where blood seeped out around his fingers, he had explained to the younger Innel that injuring your allies is a poor practice. As an apology Innel had broken the arrow, then broken the bow as well. Pohut had called him a fool, mocking him for wasting a valuable weapon, so Innel was surprised to find the arrowhead from that broken arrow among Pohut’s few possessions all these years later.

    Holding the bit of metal now, he ran his finger lightly over the still-sharp edge and considered the former Lord Commander and what do with him. Innel had every right to pressure the man as hard as he wanted now — he could push Lason past his temper, if he chose. It was an extraordinarily tempting idea.

    But it would be a short-term satisfaction. He did not need to push yet. He would give Lason a few days first to spend some rage and digest the meal of having been replaced.

    Then go in with all you have.

 

---

 

    At times it was difficult to believe Cern had been training to be queen her entire life. As Innel sat at the table of ministers, she was silent, tense, barely answering.

    It was almost as if she expected her father to show up at any moment and tell her it had all been a mistake, or a poor joke. He supposed she, too, would need some time to absorb what had happened to her.

    But if she appeared weak, then so did Innel.

    When in the meeting, her answers proved truly inadequate, a few questioning looks came Innel’s way. He returned them ambiguously. He would contact the ministers later, make sure they knew this was temporary.

    Much later, when he was alone with Cern, she said, “It’s too much, Innel. No one could keep track of all this.”

    “That’s why you have ministers and advisers, Your Grace.”

    And me. Which he did not say. She had spent a lifetime being told what to think. He had distinguished himself, in part, by refraining from being one of the many who did so.

    She wouldn’t admit it, but he could see it in her body, and hear it in her tone, that she was scared.

    “One step at a time,” he told her, gently. “That’s how we got here. That’s how we will go forward.”

    “They expect me to be Niala,” she said bitterly.

    That was true. Many were looking at her for signs of her famous great-grandmother. Another thing he couldn’t say to her.

    “You will make your own mark. Together we will show them who you are.” He put as much warmth and conviction into his voice as he dared, knowing she was used to being told all manner of flattering lies.

    At this she laughed a little, but there was no pleasure in it. “Whatever that is,” she whispered.

    He looked into her dark green eyes. She turned away and went to the chest where she kept her rods and hooks, flats, and now the set of bells that Innel had given her as a wedding present. Eyeing the ceiling from which descended a small chain, she began to put rods between the links, starting another of her in-air creations.

    Best to go now and let her comfort herself with this thing she did. But he could not bring himself to let the barely mouthed words go by without comment. Not after all he had done to get them to this moment.

    “The queen, Cern,” he said softly. “You are the queen.”

    Almost imperceptibly, she shrugged.

 

---

 

    “That was fast work,” Innel said of his reflection in the mirror while Srel adjusted the buttons and collars, cuffs and seams of the red and black uniform. Especially remarkable given that it had come from both Houses Murice and Sartor, working together, in under a tenday.

    Innel found his eyes locked on the reflection, especially the gold trim of neckline and arms that marked him as the queen’s high command. He touched it wonderingly. “Did you give them my measurements?”

    “No, ser,” answered Srel.

    Well, so, even more impressive: the two Houses had gone to some lengths to tailor a new uniform for Innel. They wanted him pleased and well aware of their support.

    And he was. “What do you think?” he asked Nalas.

    Nalas gave an approving nod. “You look very much the part, ser.”

    “The part?” He frowned at his second.

    “I only meant, Lord Commander, that –”

    Innel waved the explanation away. “Yes, yes. What do they say about me today, Srel?”

    “That you are young and inexperienced. That you should give the position to someone else.”

    Innel snorted. “My age and credentials would never matter. It’s my bloodline they object to. Would they rather keep Lason?”

    “Some would,” he said.

    Innel suppressed annoyance at this undecorated answer. That Srel didn’t dissemble, his loyalty manifesting in such directness, was one of the reasons Innel kept him close.

    Nalas he kept close for his cleverness and speed, though his tongue did sometimes stumble. At least he knew when to keep his mouth shut. Mostly.

    Lason had still not shown any indication of being aware that he had been replaced. What, Innel wondered, would the old king have done now, had Lason not been his brother?

    There was no question in his mind, and Innel had seen it countless times. Restarn would say a few words, and Lason would vanish. Lason’s wife and children would hastily relocate, far from the capital city. Lason would not return. If anyone went looking for him, they would not return either.

    A lifetime of watching Restarn’s ways had long ago resolved him to do things differently when Cern took the throne.

    Nalas handed him his sword belt and sword. It was the first time in his life he’d carried a weapon openly in the palace, let alone a sword. To do otherwise was an implicit questioning of the king’s power in his own house, an insult and offense. But now Cern was queen and Innel was Lord Commander. He buckled the weapon on.

    They stepped outside his small office, where a tencount of Innel’s new guard waited. Nalas and Srel had selected the set of them together. Innel was pleased with the men and women who looked back at him now.

    Who looked back at him. Under Lason, direct eye contact was discouraged.

    “Look at me,” he had told them when he first met with them. “If you’re going to protect me, you have to know what I look like, where I am, and what I’m doing. Yes?”

    Nods all around. A few grins.

    Now he made a gesture, telling them to stay where they were, and only took Srel and Nalas with him.

    “Is Lason still in my offices?” he asked as he walked.

    “Yes, ser,” Srel answered.

    “Are you certain you don’t want a few more than only the two of us, ser?” Nalas asked.

    To go with force was to expect to need it. Something his brother used to say.

    “I’m certain.”

    When Innel rounded the corner, Lason’s guards, two on each side of the Lord Commander’s office doors, shrank a little, looking away. That Innel had only Srel and Nalas with him made this even more remarkable. Innel would later have Srel and Nalas determine whether this cringing was driven by fear or prudence, to see if these four would keep their posts after today.

    As he opened the door to the offices, none of them moved to intercept him. Once inside, Nalas and Srel left beyond, he shut the door and dropped the bolt behind him.

    Maps covered the walls, hung between a scattering of swords, spears, and slings.

    The gray-haired Lason looked up from his desk, his face twisting in fury. Under his hands was an old map Innel recognized. Pre-expansion. Lason was reliving an old victory.

    “These are my offices,” Innel said, cutting off whatever the man might have been about to say. “It’s well past time for you to leave.”

    Lason slammed the flat of his hand hard on the desk. “You are nowhere near ready to take over this office. You haven’t any idea what it means. You are nothing like qualified.”

    “The queen disagrees.”

    Lason drew himself upright. “She’s barely twenty-five. A child. When the king returns –”

    “There was a coronation. Did no one tell you?”

    A look of loathing. “The king will recover.”

 

---

 

    Innel plucked a dagger from the wall, hefted it to see how it balanced, waiting for Lason to object, which he did not. He put it down, walked the periphery of the room. “How old were you when you took this office?”

    “Times were different then. She needs my expertise, now more than ever. No one trusts you, Innel.”

    Innel closed fast on Lason, stopping short of arm’s reach. The other man took a startled step backward.

    “Lason,” he said. “Your command is over. Step aside. Grow old in glory.”

    “I’m not done.”

    Innel glanced at the map on the desk. The northern expansion, some decades back. The one Innel’s father had given his life for.

    “You most certainly are done. I’ll give you until this afternoon’s fifth bell to leave my offices.”

    “The queen will see reason. I’ll go to her.”

    “Don’t challenge me. If you do, it will be the last time.”

    “It’s all been so easy for you, hasn’t it? Your rise to power. Just one long streak of good luck.”

    Innel was startled at these words. That anyone could see him as fortunate, in any way, as though he had somehow stumbled his way to where he now stood, was beyond his comprehension.

    Lason snorted. “And all because your father managed to get himself killed in battle in some clever way that the king noticed. I assure you being killed is not at all difficult, boy, and it doesn’t matter how clever you are about it, because you’re dead. Your father was clumsy.”

    Innel fought a craving to slam the man to the ground. He was simply not sure, once he started such a thing, that he’d be able to stop.

    Bad for appearances, Innel beating the old king’s brother. The queen’s uncle. It would look as if Cern had married and promoted a man with an unstable temper, and that would do them no good.

    But it was tempting. Agonizingly so. He struggled to keep his hands at his side.

    “You mutt,” Lason spat. “You’ll ruin Arunkel, piss on this glorious empire, shit all over everything we’ve built.”

    One of the advantage of Restarn’s ways, Innel realized, was that this confrontation would never have taken place.

    Innel walked to the door, unbolted it. “The fifth bell,” he repeated.

    “I trained you, Innel. I know what you know. I’ve seen your mistakes, and I know every one of them. It’s disgusting, what you did. We lost one of our best when you slaughtered your brother. Pohut had good sense, and patience. But you –”

    Innel shut the door behind him and wondered if Restarn’s methods might not have something to recommend them after all.

 

---

 

    “What else?” Innel asked, keeping his voice low, despite that the two of them were alone in this small cellar room, vegetables and bags stacked high on shelves.

    Innel had made sure Rutif was part of the team that delivered fruits and vegetables to the palace. The man had one leg shorter than the other and always stood lopsided, now splaying a hand to lean against the wall as he spoke.

    A dockworker from childhood, until a crushing accident had taken most of his foot and ruined his knee, Rutif had a knack for getting people talking, and remembering what they had said, so Innel paid him to sit in the taverns and drink, which the man liked very much.

    “Ser. Well –” Rutif drawled, rubbing his head in thought. “They liked the coronation parades. Especially the part with the sweet bread thrown from the carriages, the ones with the royal sigil baked in? They liked that very much.” He grinned, a gap-tooth smile.

    That had been Innel’s idea, which the seneschal had not much cared for, muttering about propriety and expense.

    “Tell them it was the queen’s idea. What else?”

    “Yes, ser Commander. Let me think. Complaints from some of the captains.” Rutif scratched the back of his head, examined his fingers as if to see if anything had come off under his nails. “Since His Grace the old king’s been so sick, they haven’t been getting their full take. Don’t like it so much. Whining a lot.”

    Full take? Innel needed to have a conversation with the finance minister. And a look at the ledgers. Perhaps the ledgers first. “Names?”

    “Ahead of you there, Lord Commander,” Rutif said, handing Innel a folded piece of paper that was stained with what Innel hoped was only food.

    “What else?” he asked.

    “People saying how things are going to be better under the new queen. They say she looks like the Grandmother.”

    She didn’t, not a bit, and anyone with a whole nals could see that, but it was a good rumor anyway. “I like that one; keep it going. Meet again next week. Now, you can get back to –” he waved at the stacks of vegetables.

    “Oh, and there’s a young sergeant, got her drunk the other night, on about you and your brother. Something about a hard ride south a couple of years ago.”

    At this, Innel froze. “Who?”

    “Last name on the list, ser.”

 

---

 

    Innel stepped to the edge of the large sunken tub where Cern bathed in steaming water. The royal bath was now Cern’s and the old king was bathed in his own rooms with a basin.

    And yet here Innel was, almost as often as before. One of the ways in which she was very like her father. Which he would not say.

    A slave boy knelt at the side of the tub, beginning to work a scented paste into Cern’s hair. When wet, Innel could see the hint of mahogany that was characteristic of the Anandynars. Like embers, he thought.

    “Good afternoon, Your Majesty.”

    Her mouth twitched at this coming from him, as though she could not quite decide how she felt about it. But Innel knew that his respect soothed her, and soothed she was more reasonable.

    She stared out the window at the Houses and city spread below.

    “Lason and I have spoken,” he said after a moment. “It wasn’t a friendly talk. He is refusing to leave my offices.”

    “Ah. That explains why he demanded to speak to me today.”

    “And?”

    “I am busy.”

    Innel made a thoughtful sound, not sure if this was loyalty on her part, or avoidance. “Perhaps you should talk to him, my lady. You might persuade him that it is in his best interest to cooperate.”

    Her shoulders twitched in a shrug that sent ripples across the tub. The blond slave lathering her arm paused, sponge in hand. “You take care of it, Innel.”

    There was a fine line between her letting him make decisions, and appearing not to rule at all.

    “I can hardly send him to survey the roads in the outer provinces, as your father would have done at this obstinacy, much as I might like to. He’s your uncle.”

    Her mouth turned downward. “I will talk to him.”

    Innel rubbed his chin, fingers still surprised at the naked skin there. Cern didn’t like beards, so now everyone shaved. Those who did not were watched closely, in the Yarpin style, by the many who did.

    “I’ve been talking to some of the captains about the rails to the north,” he said. It had been a challenge to find any who would confide in him about what was going on out there.

    The slave poured water slowly and carefully over Cern’s head. Innel could see the effort involved as the slave boy poured with great attention to avoid her eyes. It must have been especially challenging when she nodded, as she did now.

    “Good,” she said, distracted.

    “There’s widespread corruption. Transporting goods via rail, to and from the mining villages. Without House sanction or royal accommodation.”

    A second slave was tilting a bowl into the bathwater of dried flowers and scented herbs. Cern raised two fingers, and the slave froze in mid-tilt. Two more leaves escaped, fluttering down to the water.

    “I suppose this has been going on for a while?”

    That there were black-market arrangements up and down the Great Road and throughout the city, they both knew. How many, and how far it went, how much it was costing the crown, they had not. To grab hold of it, they would have to unravel the tangled knots that made up Restarn’s web of unwritten arrangements.

    “Yes. It will take a while to sort out.” Some knots were better sliced across, but Cern’s rule was yet too young to take such abrupt action.

    “I have sufficient things to take my attention,” she said. “Kelerre wants us to pay for repairs to their port, did you know that?”

 

---

 

    “I had heard something about it, yes.”

    In truth, he had been up late the night before, studying years’ worth of correspondence and trade agreements between the crown and the nominally Perripin city of Kelerre.

    “The ministers demand I approve everything. Perripin trade agreements, currency exchange contracts, shipping schedules…” She trailed off, raising and lowering a foot, making small waves against the side of the tub. “Surely you can take care of this.”

    “Yes, of course, my lady.”

    The slave rinsed Cern’s hair, and the other dried her head. It seemed a good time to leave, now that they had reached an accord of sorts. Perhaps the other subject could wait. He could do what he needed to do without telling her at all, but if it came to light and she did not know —

    “However,” he said, sitting by the edge of the tub, “to find the corruption and fix it, I must hire someone with… exceptionally good vision.”

    She knocked the boy’s hands away from her head. “Out. All of you.” Slaves, servants, guards — all but Innel left the room at a near run. She gave him a look. “You can’t mean what I think you mean.”

    “I do.

    “We do not do this.”

    Innel knew how far from the truth this was, and again wondered how she could know so little about how her father conducted business.

    “That is not quite the case,” he said mildly. “What we face is beyond simple graft and chit-bribes. Our soldiers are soliciting coin from towns to ignore taxation and Charter violations. The crown is losing revenue. And reputation.”

    “So root out the corrupt ones and send them to Execution Square.” She waved a hand. “You are now in charge of executions. Make it right, Innel.”

    “Cern, we need –”

    “The laws exist for good reason.”

    He motioned to the wide expanse of window. “Do you really think House Glass made this? You promoted me to Lord Commander because you trust me to do the necessary work. This is necessary.”

    “You’ve seen the Shentarat plains, Innel. A wasteland. Nothing lives there now. Magic did that.”

    “A mage did that. Magic does not act by itself.”

    “They bring death.”

    “The same can be said of our army.”

    “They are like raccoons. Once they learn you will feed them, you can’t get rid of them.”

    She had no idea how hard they truly were to come by, nor did he plan to tell her. “They sell their services like any merchant. Even mages need to eat.”

    “They bring ill-fortune. Stone that rots, babies born dead, the melting plague.”

    If he were to be more than Cern’s consort, he must be able to hold his own with her. He took a deliberate, insulting tone. “Is that what your father told you?”

    Her lips thinned, edges down. She looked away a moment, silent and angry. For a long moment her expression did not change, and Innel wondered if his rise to power might have found its ceiling.

    “No mages, Innel.”

    Innel clenched his fist, tapped it lightly to the tile at his feet, and considered. He had worked hard for her throne, perhaps harder than she had. He knew he needed her; without her he was only a mutt, rising above his station. Perhaps she needed him, too, or perhaps she could do without him if she must.

    Most important was what she believed. It was time to find out.

    He shifted onto his knees then touched his head on the tile toward her, then did it twice more.

    “Your Majesty,” he said, “I will need you to scribe your commands for me, so that I miss none of them.”

    “What? Get up.”

    “A list of what I may and may not do,” he said, head still down.

    She snorted. “No mages, Innel. Do whatever else you like.”

    “Next week, my lady,” he said, lifting his head and meeting her gaze, “it will be no mages and no elk-horn buttons. The week after perhaps no horses with spotted manes. Then — no yellow flowers. After that –”

    “You mock my laws.”

    “Your father’s laws. Perhaps you should put me in charge of the kitchens instead of the army.”

    “You are starting to annoy me.”

    If he annoyed her enough, she could divorce him. Quite easily, as her seneschal had pointed out. Or she could have him sent to the towers without fingers, as her grandmother had done with one of her consorts who had presumed too much.

    If she were truly vexed, she could have him torn to pieces in Execution Square, relieving him of his oversight of that particular job. That would be an irony many would appreciate.

    He was betting she was too smart for that. Betting rather a lot.

    “Then, my lady,” he said with a calmness he didn’t feel, “give the job to someone else. Someone you trust to make such decisions.”

    “No mages,” she said, slowly, forcefully.

    “I’m sure Lason would take back his command if you offered it to him.”

    “Cold crack your balls.” She slammed her hand against the side of the tub. “Do as I say.”

    Their gazes locked.

    “I am your queen.”

    “Without question, ma’am.”

    “You will obey me.”

    “You’ve given me conflicting orders.”

    “No mages. Isn’t that simple enough?”

    She was not yielding. Don’t push until you must. And then go in with all you have.

    “Perhaps you should break the marriage, my queen.”

    A step too far, he judged from her sudden change of expression. She was furious now, eyes wide, fists tight.

    Innel suppressed a wince; worse yet would be to retreat. So with effort, he stayed silent, letting his last words echo.

    “I’ll have you in charge of the kitchens first,” she said at last.

    “I am reassured,” he said, dryly, to hide how reassured he really was. He sat back on the tiles, letting himself softly exhale. “The Houses use mages, Cern. We must have at least the advantages they do.”

    She gritted her teeth, splashed the water a little. “Be sure your hire is a citizen of the empire. One who pays taxes.”

    Unlikely, given the laws about practicing magic.

    But, he realized, she had just said yes.

    “I thought it prudent to find one from outside Yarpin, outside Arunkel. Someone without obligations or ties here.”

    Her expression bordered on the incredulous. “You have already done this thing.”

    He hesitated, then wished he hadn’t. “Yes.”

    “You broke the laws.”

    “Your father’s laws, which he himself broke regularly. Your laws now, my queen.”

    “When did you –” She broke off, stared at him with hard, green eyes. “How long have you been planning this?”

    He wondered what answer would pacify her most, decided to risk the truth. “A year and some, my lady.”

    To his surprise, she smiled. “When my father still ruled. You planned ahead, for me. I like that.” Then the smile turned brittle. “But don’t hide things from me. If there’s a mage in my palace, I want to know about it. No secrets from me, Innel, the way you did with him.”

    “No secrets.”

    Cern moved through the water to come close to him at the edge of the tub, then reached up and grabbed the back of his head with her wet hand, slowly pulling him close. She kissed him for long moments.

    This he had not expected. For a fair number of moments afterward she continued to surprise him.

 

---

 

    When Innel returned at the fifth bell, Lason left, finally and gracelessly, storming out of the office along with an entourage of his remaining loyal retainers. They left with the best of the old king’s travel set. “Stole” might be the more accurate word, but it was unclear what the legal status of the king’s royal horses was now that Cern was queen. From there the group had headed north, Innel was told, but to where no one knew.

    It had better not be to cause trouble at the mines. He instructed Srel to send word to his people there to report back anything that sounded like Lason’s work.

    Finally the Lord Commander’s office was Innel’s.

    He signaled Srel, who gestured to the many servants who were unpacking his things onto the mantles, making the final touches Innel wanted — new maps on the walls, weapons on racks so they were more accessible than ornamental — to stop. They streamed out the door, leaving only the young, uniformed woman who had just arrived, who stood arrow-straight, staring at nothing.

    When the two of them were alone, he spoke. “Identify yourself.”

    “Vevan sev Arunkel, Lord Commander.”

 

---

 

    “Sit down.”

    Startled at this, she obeyed, taking the chair across from him. The manner in which people sat in chairs told Innel a great deal about them, soldiers especially. They were accustomed to being watched when they stood; sitting was what they did off-duty, drinking or eating, their defenses lowered.

    “You have a lover,” he said. “Bintal.”

    Her eyes widened. She stuttered in her reply. “Yes, Lord Commander.”

    “He spoke to you before you left Yarpin on campaign last year. About me and my brother, Pohut sev Restarn. Is that so?” He was guessing. Satisfyingly, the blood drained from her face and her stark expression made reply unnecessary. “What was said?”

    “Some sort of plan,” she said, her voice low. “Against you. By Lieutenant Pohut.”

    “Give me details, Sergeant.”

    “The lieutenant was asking someone questions.”

    “Who? Where?”

    “In the mountains south? Some fortune-teller.” She laughed a little, uneasily.

    Innel’s stomach clenched. “Who did you tell this to?”

    “No one, ser.”

    “No one? Not one person in your company?”

    “No, Lord Commander.”

    He leaned forward. “No talk about the lieutenant’s funeral? No rumors about how he might have been killed? No late-night speculations about the new Lord Commander? I find this hard to believe. I can have you interviewed at length by someone who can tell the truth of your words if I have any doubt about your sincerity. You are far better off telling me. Now.”

    Her face went even paler, her voice barely a whisper. “I might have said something, Lord Commander. In jest. Once.”

    “How many might have heard you, had you said this something?”

    Her mouth opened and closed and then again. “We were out. Drinking and smoking, Lord Commander. Truly, I don’t recall.”

    She was too easy to read: she wanted anything but to recall.

    “Guess,” he urged.

    “A tencount, perhaps, my lord.”

    “Just one?”

    She swallowed. Her mouth fished open again. “Perhaps a few more than that.”

    There it was, then: a rumor based in fact, with plenty of time for it to have found life across the public houses of the cities and the fire pits of the camps. It would sound like typical aristo dalliance and excess, consulting a fortune-teller, but Pohut’s death might give it more credence than he could afford.

    Innel would start his own rumors to combat it, of course, far more outrageous. Pigs that snorted predictions, dogs that burped tomorrow’s weather. This would help confuse anyone looking for a kernel of truth. He hoped.

    The woman before him was slumped in her chair, face a mask of despair, gaze on the floor.

    “You’ll want to go back to your company,” he said after a moment’s consideration.

    “Yes, ser,” she said, her tone flat.

    She did not expect to survive this interview. In Restarn and Lason’s time, she might not have. Might have quietly disappeared, family and friends acting as if she had never existed at all. No funeral, no gift ceremony, no body. Innel had seen it countless times.

    “I can’t let you go back,” he said, letting that sink in, watching her face collapse, giving her another moment to consider her mortality. “So I will post you here, on the palace grounds. Something modest, perhaps the cavalry inventory staff. Would you like that?”

    She blinked a few times, doubt warring with hope, then nodded with fragile enthusiasm.

    “You can keep seeing Bintal; indeed, I encourage it. But you will tell me anything that is said around you, about me or anyone in my family. My own people will be feeding you some of those rumors, just to keep you in practice. Understand?”

    “Lord Commander, thank you, I –”

    He waved it away. “You’ll tell me you’re loyal, that you owe me your life.” He leaned forward, caught her gaze. “I advise you to make sure I never question having let you keep it. Yes?”

    “Yes, Lord Commander.”

    #

    Getting away from the palace was harder than it had ever been, taking hours to arrange. Again he made his way to the toilet room of the Frosted Rose.

    “Where in the hells have you been?” Innel demanded of the vent overhead.

    “Finding your girl, Lord Commander.”

    “And?”

    “You were right: she sees the future.”

    “You have her?”

    “No. And I will need more funds to continue my search.”

    Innel’s fist trembled as he touched white knuckles to the wall of the small toilet room. Softly. “Hiring you, first and most expensively, was intended to resolve this matter quickly. Yet I see no resolution.”

    “Commander, this no a simple girl. In each moment she knew what I was about to do next. A seer. Truly, this is extraordinary.”

    “It took you a year to come to the conclusion that I was right? And you are supposed to be the best?”

    “Few escape me, even once. I doubt anyone will get closer to her than I have.”

    “We can celebrate that at least,” Innel said, “because rumors of the girl are now everywhere. Let’s hope your competition is even less competent than you are.”

    “Lord Commander, I urge you to allow me to kill her. She will be far easier to control when she is dead.”

    “Absolutely not. I need her alive.” Cern’s rule was yet weak, his own command under hers consequently tenuous. Innel needed the girl’s answers far more than he needed her silence. “So you come to me with nothing?”

    “Not quite. I have some items that once belonged to her. A small seashell, some blue cloth. You may wish to ask your mage about these.”

    His mage. Tayre was surely guessing. That Innel had every intention of doing just this as soon as he could bring Marisel dua Mage to the palace did not change the fact that it was still against both law and custom. He wondered if he should pretend to be offended for the sake of appearances. “Explain your meaning.”

    “You are an insightful man, not given to common superstitions during your uncommon rise.” Mutt to Royal Consort to Lord Commander, he meant. Innel frowned a little at this, wondering if Tayre was flattering him. “You would have a mage.”

    Innel made a noncommittal sound.

    “Though,” Tayre continued, “I suspect the girl’s ability to anticipate danger will work equally well against magical forces.”

    “Is that intended to reassure me?”

    “If you want reassurance, ser, you’ll find it for far less coin than what you’ve been paying me. But coin is the least of your costs if someone else finds her first.”

    The very thought that kept Innel awake at night. “This is neither news nor does it put her in my hands. If you cannot find her –”

    “I know where she is.”

    “What? Why didn’t you say that before?”

    “Because finding her is not the problem.”

    Again his hand was clenched into a fist. “And yet it seems to have thwarted you repeatedly.”

    “Lord Commander, your other hires — have any of them reported finding her?” He paused. “Or reported finding me?”

    “No,” he admitted.

    “I’ve threatened her life twice. If any of your other hounds had done that much, I doubt you would be here.”

    “Damn this. Can you apprehend her or not?”

    “Her foresight has limitations or she wouldn’t be fleeing from me in the first place. I will keep pursuing, but I can offer no promises.”

    Unlike the others Innel had hired, all of whom had been quite willing to give promises. That it would be easily accomplished. That they would have the girl to him shortly.

    “She is still on the run,” Tayre said. “No one else has her, either.”

    “Someone will.”

    A doubtful sound. “Perhaps.”

    So many ways to use the girl if he could only get his hands on her. He thought of the mountain regions, where towns thought taxes and House Charters didn’t apply to them, or the Greater and Lesser Houses and their squabbles. Trade boats that had been lost in bad weather, costing the crown astonishing amounts. The shifting metals markets.

    For whoever held her, the potential advantages were boundless. He exhaled in a long stream.

    “If capture is not possible…” It would be a great shame to lose her. But far worse to let someone else have her. “Bring me her head.”

    “A prudent decision, Lord Commander. And the woman and the boy?”

    For all Innel knew, the girl’s exceptional ability ran in the family. It made no sense to remove the girl and leave alive two other potential and similar threats. It was time to finish this.

    “Yes. If you cannot capture, kill them. All of them.”