She would cut me down if she could.
Winters blinked and looked away again.
As they drew nearer, Jin Li Tam spoke. “Hail, Pylos and Turam.”
Meirov’s voice was cold. “Lady Tam, our parley and kin-clave is with the Ninefold Forest Houses.”
Winters watched Jin Li Tam read the woman’s posture and tone. “The Ninefold Forest Houses holds kin-clave with the Marsh Queen.” And her hands moved again slowly: Her grief is strong; be silent.
Winters shifted in her saddle. Yes, she answered. I will.
Meirov’s eyes narrowed. “So you’ve brought Rudolfo’s Wandering Army against us to protect these savages? Shouldn’t you be home minding your son?”
The word stung, but there was more said than that. Winters read the other messages beneath the words. She’d referred to it as Rudolfo’s army-a subtle way of saying she did not recognize Jin Li Tam’s authority. And there was another message, one that gave her pause and sent her eyes back to Jin Li Tam’s face to look for some sign of it registering there. Your son lives and mine does not.
Jin Li Tam inclined her head. “Lord Rudolfo is aware of this action and joins me in offering our deepest condolences for your loss, Lady Meirov. It is a terrible tragedy that breaks my own heart as a mother.” She turned to the Turamite general. “And we grieve for your loss as well. We are all bereaved at the violence of that night-including Queen Winteria, who lost her caretaker, Hanric, beneath those iron blades. The Ninefold Forest is pledged to helping the Marshfolk identify the killers and deal with this matter.”
Meirov’s face twisted and darkened. “Your condolences are poor currency with me, Lady Tam. If you would help in bringing justice, either turn your army around and go home to mother your son or honor your kin-clave with the rest of us by joining us.” Her eyes went to Winters again, and this time, Winters held them and tried to let the hatred pass over her. The Queen of Pylos continued, her stare unbroken. “The Marshers have been a problem since the days of Settlement; now, it has gone too far. Their babblings and barbarism, their constant skirmishing in the border towns”-here she wrinkled her nose-“even the smell of them has polluted the Named Lands too long.”
Pay her no mind, Jin Li Tam’s hands said, but Winters felt the water building in her eyes. She willed herself not to cry. It would be weak to cry. She listened to the calm in Jin Li Tam’s voice and wished for it to wrap her as tightly as Jakob’s blanket. “I cannot speak to your difficult history with her people, but Queen Winteria is committed to eradicating this threat. Even now, her army searches the Marshlands to find and bring justice to this resurgence. She’s just come from burying the Androfrancine dead at the Summer Papal Palace.”
The general from Turam spoke up. “We’ve lost three caravans en route to your new library; slaughtered and left on the road to rot.” His eyes narrowed, and he looked to Winters suddenly. “This resurgence. what is its nature?”
Winters glanced to Jin Li Tam and her hands. Keep your answer brief.
She swallowed, her mouth tasting like dirt and iron suddenly. “It is an Y’Zirite resurgence.”
She heard their breath expelled together. Meirov looked to her, then remembered herself and looked to Jin Li Tam. “We had feared as much. There were strange markings upon their dead.” Resolve and bitterness crept back into Meirov’s voice. “More the reason for a firm response from all houses in the Named Lands now before this violence grows further.”
Jin Li Tam’s voice was reassuring now and confident. “We are responding firmly,” she said. “I have pledged our support to Winters; we will help her find and deal with this threat against us all by working together with her army-not by invading their territories.”
Meirov stared at Jin Li Tam. “Our kin-clave with the Forest is tenuous at best, Lady Tam. It has not gone unnoticed that your House is the only to have benefited from Windwir’s fall-or that your House has been unscathed in this more recent treachery. If you prevent us from our work here, Pylos will view such action as a revocation of kin-clave.”
The general nodded beside her. “Turam as well.”
“That,” Jin Li Tam said, “would be most unfortunate.” She whistled low, and the Gypsy Scouts started moving in from their positions. “I believe we’ve taken this parley as far as we can for the moment. I welcome further dialog in future parleys under calmer circumstances. I hope that you will-”
But Meirov interrupted her, her voice cold and measured. “We’ve no intention to parley further. If you prevent us from our work here, we will consider it collusion with the Marshfolk and there will be war between us.”
Jin Li Tam turned her horse slowly, and Winters watched the careful calculations that played out quietly in her eyes. “We did not come to make war but to keep peace.” Those blue eyes narrowed, and her voice suddenly grew cold as well. “But if you engage my army or cross farther north into the Marshlands, we will meet you with our knives, Meirov. I am sorry for your loss-it is a terrible crime, and I cannot imagine the depth of your rage and anguish-but these are troubled times in our land, and you must ask yourself: Is there a better path that we might take?”
Winters started to turn her horse, but suddenly felt she should say something-anything-despite Jin Li Tam’s recommendation. She felt her brow furrowing, and even as she opened her mouth, she felt the tears filling her eyes; and at first, her voice was strangled. “My heart is broken for your loss, Queen Meirov, and my soul is pledged to justice for all that have been wronged so deeply by this evil.”
But Meirov did not speak. Her eyes said everything that needed saying.
As they turned and slowly rode from the clearing, Winters swallowed a sob and ran a quick hand to wipe at the tears she could no longer prevent.
They rode back to camp silently, and as they did, she tried to conjure up Jakob’s tiny face, his tiny hands, the smell of him and the way his mouth bubbled when he slept. It was the most peaceful moment she had known in weeks, holding him, but now even the memory of it eluded her. She could not find it or hold it in the midst of this grief storm.
All she saw instead were the hateful eyes of a bereaved mother burning into her, accusing her, cutting her deeper than any scout knife ever could.
Petronus
Petronus paced the small room and listened to the buzz of voices just past the oak door that separated him from the council chambers.
In a few minutes, he would be called upon to pass through that door and join Esarov at the advocate’s bench for his arraignment. At the heart of it, it was a simple and brief matter. But still, it weighed upon him.
After the interrogation, house arrest had become much more bearable. Erlund’s own chefs prepared his meals, and he’d access to birds and books in addition to more than adequate time with his advocate, the former leader of the revolution, Esarov the Democrat. The past days had been an endless flood of questions as they prepared for today and for what was to come beyond this time. It was an elaborate strategy and one that Petronus could not only appreciate, but enhance with what he himself brought to bear upon the matter.
He’d amassed a fair knowledge of kin-clave law alongside his mastery of Androfrancine law and Named Lands statecraft over his years in the Order. And Esarov’s clarity of focus and sharp mind for legal tactics-combined with the man’s stagecraft-would serve well.