Of course, that was the first vision of the Androfrancines. And though Windwir was easily the most powerful city in the world, it had never been the largest. The children of P’Andro Whym, with help from their Gray Guard, had kept it to a size that they could manage, turning away the universities that sought to locate near that vast receptacle of knowledge. Instead, they’d allowed small groups of students to visit in shifts throughout the year, mostly the children of nobles. And Androfrancine scholars traveled out to the schools, carrying what knowledge the Order deemed appropriate.
She found herself wondering how this new library would work. The Order’s back had been broken and it would not soon come back. Two thousand years of careful growth had made them insular as it was. But now, with possibly only a thousand Androfrancines left in the world-one percent or less of their former numbers-she did not see the Order coming back into its strength any time soon.
She resumed her walk, glancing over her shoulder to be sure the scouts were following.
The town stirred to life, a few women out to the bakery and a few hunters gathering outside the locked tavern, waiting for the owner to throw open the doors and feed them before they went after their game.
A carpenter worked beneath a canvas canopy, planing a length of wood in long, slow strokes.
Jin Li Tam moved through the streets until she reached the narrow river that ran through the center of town. She followed the river north until the rest of the town fell away to a scattering of houses and huts. The steward’s wife, Ilyna, had told her where to go. There were never any signs but most towns had at least one apothecary.
She’d sent a bird to her oldest sister on the outer shores of the Emerald Coasts, now the wife of a Free City Warpriest, and the finest apothecary House Li Tam had ever produced. She’d studied at the Francine School disguised as a young man and fooled those old monks for three years. Much older than Jin Li Tam, Rae Li Tam had lived a lifetime making potions and powders for their father’s work, and her medicines, magicks and poisons were legendary.
She had replied to Jin’s note immediately, and the coded recipe waited for her when she and Isaak and their half-squad arrived at the seventh manor the night before. Jin had translated the recipe into a common script late that night, working by candlelight and feeling the knots in her stomach as she did so.
Smoke trickled from the small ramshackle hut, and an older, plump woman squatted at the river, her head inclined toward the water. “Aye,” she said without looking up. “Dark times indeed.” Then, as if finishing her conversation, her head rose and her eyes met with Jin Li Tam’s. She blushed. “Lady Tam, an unexpected grace.” She bowed.
Jin returned the bow, inclining her head and offering a smile. “I have need of your services, River Woman.”
The River Woman smiled. “Magicks for the Lord’s new Lady? Or will it be powders of another sort? Whatever my Lady needs, I’m sure we can find it in the elements given.”
The Gypsy Scouts lingered at the edge of the clearing, waiting. Jin Li Tam bit her lip. There was still time, even after this, for minds to change. But her father’s strategy seemed clear to her. “I doubt you’ll have seen this particular powder,” she said quietly.
“That will be quite unlikely,” the River Woman said. “But let’s discuss it over tea.”
She led Jin into the small hut and put water onto the stove. The River Woman’s home was crowded with cats and books and jar upon jar of herbs and powders, dried mushrooms and berries, crushed leaves and lengths of root. The house smelled sweet and bitter at the same time.
Once the tea was poured, Jin Li Tam slipped the recipe from her belt purse and palmed three square House Li Tam coins. She passed the recipe across the table, and the River Woman studied it, her eyes narrowing and widening intermittently. When she finished, she pushed it back to the center of the table. “You are correct. I’ve never seen such a thing. How did you come by it?”
Jin Li Tam shrugged. “The Androfrancines guard their light.” She waited, willing herself to ask the question. “Do you have the ingredients to make it?”
The River Woman nodded. “Aye. Or at least, I can. I may need to send away for some. Caldus Bay may have what I lack.”
Jin Li Tam brought the three coins out and placed them on the recipe. “I will require your utmost discretion in this matter.”
“You shall have it. A woman’s body is a temple of life, and she must open or close that gate as she pleases.” The River Woman glanced at the recipe again, clucking at it. “And you think this will work?”
She smiled. “We will see for ourselves soon enough.”
“Finally, an heir,” she said. The old woman chuckled. “You know,” she said, “I delivered both of Lord Jakob’s boys to him.”
Jin Li Tam leaned in. “Both?” The room, again, with its small boots and its small sword hanging on its wall.
“Lord Isaak and Lord Rudolfo,” the River WomA; tighan said. “Both strong, beautiful boys.” She must have seen the realization dawning on Jin Li Tam’s face. She blushed. “No one’s mentioned Lord Isaak to you?”
Jin Li Tam shook her head. “I did not know Rudolfo had a brother.”
“A twin brother,” she said. “Just two hours older. He died rather… unexpectedly… in his fifth year.”
Jin Li Tam felt something she could not name. It pulled at her, and she felt the knots in her stomach tighten. “How?”
The River Woman looked around as if there might be other ears within hearing. Her voice lowered to nearly a whisper. “They said it was the red pox that took him. They cremated him immediately.”
It wasn’t uncommon, though it was unnecessary. They’d had the red pox powders for over a thousand years now. Still, some children did not respond to the powders and, of course, they weren’t available to all children. Just to children of privilege. But the River Woman’s tone suggested doubt. “You do not believe it was the red pox?”
“I do not. I gave him and Rudolfo both the powders. I do not think it likely that it would work on one but not the other.” She paused, looking around again. “I think he was poisoned. Though I know of no poisons that hide behind a mask of the pox.”
Her stomach clenched again, and she wrestled to keep her composure. She looked at the recipe again and thought of her elder sister.
She felt a shadow stirring in her heart, and wondered how deep the layers of her father’s strategy might go.
Petronus
Petronus’s bellowing nearly drowned out that of the Marsh King and his War Sermon. “I will not,” he roared, shaking his fists at the west.
He could tell by the bird’s markings that it was a Tam courier. And by the fact that it came straight at him to drop lightly onto his shoulder with a chirrup, in the dark of night, as he patrolled the outskirts of the city for the boy.
If you do not declare publicly, I will declare you myself in three days’ time.
It was code within code buried in the text of a message regarding a House Li Tam donation of foodstuffs for the gravedigging effort.
Buried alongside the coded threat, there was another message. A generous petition from Lord Rudolfo to assist in the establishment of a new liAentes brary using the memory scripts of the mechoservitors in Sethbert’s camp to rescribe as much of it as was stored within their scrolls.