Though not officially a scout, she’d spent enough time with the scouts. Still, these she rode with now could stay magicked for days at a time-even weeks-without undue effect. She could barely handle a day of it.
‹«heh n/div›
They were a full squad now, between Rudolfo’s escort and her own, less the man who’d been killed by the archbishop. They kept her and Rudolfo in the middle with Isaak as they rode, and they kept their blades tucked back beneath their arms, ready to bring them forward with a moment’s notice.
When it was well past dark, they stopped to make camp. They rode their horses into a forest of old growth pine a league or better from the muddy track that served as the solitary road this far north.
Rudolfo pulled away with his lead scout while the others set up camp. Jin Li Tam tried to make herself useful, but in the end she was only in the way. The Gypsy Scouts moved with precision, quickly putting up tents and laying in a small fire.
Of course, Oriv would be a fool to have them followed. His already limited Gray Guard had been thinned by a handful of men. He’d not risk losing more or leaving his Palace unguarded. If he went looking for vengeance-and Jin was not sure he was the sort to do so-he would hire it out. Or turn to his cousin. She had no doubt that birds were already winging their way rapidly south and east, carrying news of Rudolfo’s escape.
Isaak had not spoken since leaving Oriv’s office, and for the first time since they’d left she realized he no longer wore his Androfrancine robe. How had she missed that? He sat against a tree, staring out through the woods at nothing. His bellows shook from time to time, as if he heaved sighs that his chassis was not designed for. She could see the intricacies now of his metal frame and musculature. His long, slender arms and legs and his helmetlike head with his jeweled eyes all glistened dully as the Gypsy Scout struck the sparks for their fire. His mouth opened and closed periodically.
Jin Li Tam walked to him and crouched. “Isaak?”
He did not respond. She reached out a hand, hesitated, and then lowered it onto his cold, metal shoulder. He spun, eyelids flashing to life as his hand came up. He paused. “Apologies, Lady Tam.”
“Where are your robes?”
His eye-shutters flitted and steam released from his back. “Pope Resolute ordered me to remove them. He said it was unseemly for a mechanical to wear the habit of P’Andro Whym.”
“I suspect,” Jin Li Tam said, “that P’Andro Whym would have been glad for you to wear it.” She waited, wondering if she should continue. “Is that what troubles you?”
Isaak looked up, his eyes full of a sorrow of such magnitude that she had only seen once before. “No, Lady Tam. I am troubled by another matter.”
She felt her eyebrows knit together. amp;«nit
“I fear,” Isaak said, “that I am malfunctioning. I do not believe I will serve well to assist with restoration of the library.” He paused, and his mouth clacked open and closed in a metallic stammer. “I am no longer… reliable.”
“In what way?” Around them, the scouts put the last finishing touches on the camp. She could smell the onions that the cook sliced as he prepared dinner.
Isaak looked back out at the forest. “Pope Resolute asked me many questions. Difficult questions. About my role in the Desolation of Windwir.” He paused. “Then he asked me if I could reproduce the spell from recall, in writing.”
Jin Li Tam felt her stomach clench. But she couldn’t bring herself to ask it.
Isaak continued, still staring off into the forest. “When he asked me to, I told him I could not. I told him that part of my memory scroll had been damaged in the execution of the spell.”
Jin Li Tam sighed. “And he believed you?”
“Of course he believed me. Mechanicals cannot lie.”
She nodded. “You are worried that you are malfunctioning because you lied to the archbishop?”
“Yes,” Isaak said, turning back to look at her. “How can a mechanical lie? I think-” He sobbed, and the violence of it cause Jin Li Tam to jump back. “I think perhaps the spell altered me.”
It changed all of us, she thought. “If it did, Isaak, then it was for good. You are carrying the most dangerous weapon the world has ever known. A spell that killed a world to satisfy a father’s wrath. A death for each of the seven sons P’Andro Whym executed in his Restoration Scientifika pogrom. Those Deaths must be kept hidden in you, Isaak. The Androfrancines were the best and noblest of us-with infinite patience, studying their matrices and working their ciphers, only releasing to the world what secrets and wonders it was ready for. If they couldn’t safeguard this secret, no others of us could. You are the safest tomb for it until it can be removed and destroyed.” She paused, charting her course of words carefully. “If you must lie to keep this secret, then lie.” Her eyes narrowed. “There is no price too high, Isaak.”
She waited to see if he would respond. When he didn’t, she put her hand on his chest, her fingers splayed out. Where his shoulder had been cool, his chest was warm. “Change is the path life takes,” she told him. “Maybe the death you have seen has brought you life.”
“It is an odd sensation,” he said in agreement.
She opened her mouth to speak again but Rudolfo interrupted her as he swaggered in from the forest. “Hail, Isaak,” he shouted, and tossed a bundle toward the metal man.
Isaak caught it and stared down at it.
“I thought perhaps you could use it. I picked it up on our way out.”
Jin Li Tam looked at the bundle now too, and felt the smile pulling at her mouth.
In that moment, she suddenly knew that love was planted in her heart toward the laughing Gypsy King, Rudolfo.
She smiled at Rudolfo while Isaak stood and dressed himself in Androfrancine robes.
Vlad Li Tam
Vlad Li Tam was not even halfway to the Emerald Coasts when the bird found him. This bird always found him. He was riding when it settled upon his shoulder and nibbled playfully at his beard. He’d petted it and raised his fist to signify a halt. They helped him down from the saddle, and he pulled the message.
While he read it, his servants hastily erected a tent and chair for him to sit in. He summoned his master sergeant and his aide. “There has been a significant change in the course of events,” he finally said after leaving them in silence for a time. “I have in my hands a decree from our invisible Pope. Of course, he doesn’t name himself. But he has the tone of authority, the confident positioning of his words.”
Vlad Li Tam stopped, took the message and passed it to his aide, who sat quickly and began to study it, making ciphers in the margins. “He’s moved faster than we thought he would,” the aide said.
“But without his name,” Vlad Li Tam, “we have nothing but words.”
The aide went back to reading. “He encourages the continued gathering of resources at the Papal Summer Palace and commends Archbishop Oriv for his strategic effort on behalf of the Order.” Then he shook his head, amazed. “And then exercises his Right of King by way of kin-clave to declare war on Lord Sethbert, Overseer of the Entrolusian City States.”
“Note that,” Vlad Li Tam said, accepting his kallaberry pipe from the servant who was setting luncheon. “He does not declare war on the City States themselves.”
The aide chuckled. “He is allowing them a way out. They can deliver Sethbert or they can support him.”
Vlad Li Tam nodded. “Mark him, Arys. Petronus is the wiliest of men.”
But, he thought, for all of his wiliness, he still hid himself from the world. Vlad Li Tam had spent a year fishing with Petronus when they were both young. Vlad’s father, Ben Li Tam, had insisted that his first son spend a year without privilege. Of course, every Tam father realized that a true first son would think beyond the edges of the light. So they offered the families that took them in a stupendous amount of currency to ensure that the experience truly was without privilege. Because these boys-the first sons-would someday inherit the lucrative and invisible network that the Li Tam shipbuilders had created when they turned to banking both currency and information. And that inheritance demanded a broad range of experience to give a broad range of knowledge.