Cansrel knew, of course, but where her gentle love of Liddy had been intolerable to him, her need for Archer roused nothing stronger than an amused acceptance of the inevitable. He didn't care, as long as she took the herbs when she needed to. "Two of us is enough, Fire," he'd say smoothly. She heard the threat in his words toward the baby she wasn't going to have. She took the herbs.
Archer did not act jealous in those days, or domineering. That came later.
Fire knew too well that things didn't ever stay the same. Natural beginnings came to natural or unnatural ends. She was eager to see Archer, more than eager, but she knew what he would come to King's City hoping for. She wasn't looking forward to putting this end into words for him.
Fire had taken to describing the foggy archer to everyone she questioned, very briefly at the end of each interview. So far it was to no avail.
"Lady," Brigan said to her today in Garan's bedroom. "Have you learned anything yet about that archer?"
"No, Lord Prince. No one seems to recognise his description."
"Well," he said, "I hope you'll keep asking."
Garan's health had had a setback, but he refused to go into the infirmary or stop working, which meant that in recent days his bedchamber had become quite a hub of activity. Breathing was a difficulty and he had no strength to sit up. Despite this, he remained more than capable of holding his side of an argument.
"Forget the archer," he said now. "We have more important matters to discuss, such as the exorbitant cost of your army." He glared at Brigan, who'd propped himself against the wardrobe, too directly in Fire's line of vision to ignore, tossing a ball back and forth in his hands that she recognised as a toy she'd seen Blotchy and Hanna fighting over on occasion. "It's far too expensive," Garan continued, still glaring from his bed. "You pay them too much, and then when they're injured or dead and no use to us you continue to pay them."
Brigan shrugged. "And?"
"You think we're made of money."
"I will not cut their pay."
"Brigan," Garan said wearily. "We cannot afford it."
"We must afford it. The eve of a war is not the time to start cutting an army's pay. How do you think I've managed to recruit so many? Do you really think them so shot through with loyalty for the bloodline of Nax that they wouldn't turn to Mydogg if he offered more?"
"As I understood it," Garan said, "the lot of them would pay for the privilege of dying in defence of none other than you."
Nash spoke from his seat in the window, where he was a dark shape outlined in the light of a blue sky. He'd been sitting there for some time. Fire knew he was watching her. "And that's because he always sticks up for them, Garan, when brutes like you try to take their money away. I wish you would rest. You look like you're about to pass out."
"Don't patronise me," Garan said; and then dissolved into a fit of coughing that had the sound of a saw blade tearing through wood.
Fire leaned forward in her chair and touched Garan's damp face. She'd come to an understanding with him regarding this bout of illness. He insisted on working, and so she agreed to bring him her reports from the questioning rooms; but only if he allowed her into his mind, to ease his sense of his throbbing head and burning lungs.
"Thank you," he said to her softly, taking her hand and holding it to his chest. "This conversation rots. Lady, give me some good news from the questioning rooms."
"I'm afraid there isn't any, Lord Prince."
"Still coming up with contradiction?"
"Most certainly. A messenger told me yesterday that Mydogg has definite plans to make an attack against both the king and Lord Gentian in November. Then today a new fellow told me Mydogg has definite plans to move his entire army north into Pikkia and wait for a war between Gentian and the king to play out before he so much as raises a sword. Plus, I spoke to a spy of Gentian's who says Gentian killed Lady Murgda in an ambush in August."
Brigan was spinning the ball now on the end of his finger, absent-mindedly. "I met with Lady Murgda on the fifteenth of September," he said. "She wasn't particularly friendly, but she was plainly not dead."
It was a tendency in the questioning rooms that had arisen suddenly in recent weeks, contradiction and misinformation, coming from all sides and making it very difficult to know which sources to trust. The messengers and spies Fire questioned were clear-headed and truthful with their knowledge. It was simply that their knowledge was wrong.
All at the Dellian court knew what it meant. Both Mydogg and Gentian were aware that Fire had joined the ranks of the enemy. To lessen the advantage she gave the Dellian throne, both rebel lords had begun misinforming some among their own people, and then sending them out to get caught.
"There are people close to both men," Garan said, "people who know the truth of their plans. We need those people – a close ally of Mydogg's, and one of Gentian's. And they have to be people we'd never suspect normally, for neither Mydogg nor Gentian must ever suspect us of questioning them."
"We need an ally of Mydogg's or Gentian's pretending to be among the most loyal allies of the king," Brigan said. "Shouldn't be so hard, really. If I shot an arrow out the window I'd probably hit one."
"It seems to me," Fire said carefully, "that if I take a less direct approach, if I question every person we're holding about things I haven't bothered to investigate before – every party they've ever been to, every conversation they've ever overheard but perhaps not understood the significance of, every horse they've ever seen heading south when it should've been heading north – "
"Yes," Brigan said. "It might yield something."
"And where are the women?" Fire asked. "Enough men. Give me the women Mydogg and Gentian've taken to bed, and the barmaids who've had to serve them their wine. Men are daft around women, incautious and boastful. There must be a hundred women out there carrying information we could use."
Nash spoke soberly. "That seems good advice."
"I don't know," Garan said. "I'm offended." He stopped, choked by a spasm of coughing. Nash moved to his brother's bed, sat beside him, and held his shoulder to steady him. Garan reached a shaky hand to Nash. Nash clasped it in his.
It always struck Fire, the physical affection between these siblings, who as often as not were at each other's throats over one thing or another. She liked the way the four of them shifted and changed shape, bumping and clanging against each other, sharpening each other's edges and then smoothing them down again, and somehow always finding the way to fit together.
"And," Brigan said, returning quietly to his previous topic, "don't give up on the archer, Lady."
"I won't, for he troubles me much," Fire said; and then sensed the approach of an altogether different archer. She looked into her lap to hide her flush of joy. "Lord Archer has just arrived at court," she said. "Welkley is bringing him here now."
"Ah," Brigan said. "And here's the man we should recruit to shoot arrows out the window."
"Yes," Garan said wickedly, "I hear his arrow is always finding new targets."
"I'd hit you if you weren't flat on your back," Brigan said, suddenly angry.
"Behave yourself, Garan," Nash hissed. Before Fire could even begin to react to the argument, which struck her as rather funny, Welkley and Archer were through the door, and everyone but Garan was standing.
"Lord King," Archer said immediately, dropping to his knee before Nash. "Lord Princes," he said next, standing to take Brigan's hand and stooping to take Garan's.
He turned to Fire. With great propriety he took her hands in his. And the instant their eyes met he was laughing and glinting with mischief, his face so happy and Archer-like that she began to laugh as well.