“Why are you so angry, old man?” he asked himself aloud.
Petronus felt the stirring of wind and heard the voice nearby. “Do you often talk to yourself?”
Petronus squinted but saw nothing. “I see you’re still around, Gregoric.”
“I am,” he said. “We ran in with the wagon. We’ve been gathering what information we can on Sethbert’s strength here.”
Petronus thought for a moment he saw faintest ghost of a dark silk sleeve. “Do you think the Wandering Army will return?”
“Unlikely.”
Of course, Petronus thought. If Rudolfo wars alone against the Named Lands, he’ll not make a stand here in the open. He’ll force a fight where he is most likely to win it-at the end of his opponent’s long march into the Prairie Sea, with winter fast approaching and Rudolfo’s Wandering Army defending their home from a backyard they no doubt knew how to use as a weapon.
“But it is good to know what you are up against,” Petronus said.
“And I fear we’re up against quite a lot,” Gregoric said. “I’ve had birds that say there are two armies on the move in addition to Sethbert’s.”
“They’re marching here?” Petronus asked, a bit surprised.
“They’ll stop here,” Gregoric said. “A good leader shows his men what they fight for, gives them a night to get drunk and rage over it, then points his army like burning arrow straight at the heart of his enemy.”
“They’re riding east, then?”
“Aye,” Gregoric said.?“ric/fo0;They are.”
Petronus chuckled, but it was a grim sound. “Then they’re fools.”
“Aye,” he said again. “They are. But they’ll come angry to our back door. We’ll still have all of the advantage… but also all of the risk.”
“Any word from Rudolfo?”
Gregoric didn’t say anything. After a moment, he changed the subject. “What were you so angry about?”
Petronus nodded slowly. “I was angry about Sethbert’s wagon of supply. The hypocrisy of it enraged me.”
He saw the faintest glimmer of a dark eye. “Perhaps it isn’t hypocrisy at all,” Gregoric said. “He’s burying his own dead-Marshers would hold him in high regard for such a thing.”
He felt another stab of anger that twisted into remorse. “Marshers are-” He stopped himself.
“In the end,” Gregoric said, “it doesn’t really matter as long as your men are fed and clothed. The rains are not so far away, afterwards the winds and snows. It’s already miserable work without the cold and wet. The outlying villages might be able to help some but that would be impossible to manage once the weather goes.”
Petronus wanted to tell him that he’d already solved that one. The arrangements he’d initiated with Vlad Li Tam before he learned that this clerk turned archbishop had gone and declared himself Pope would have ensured supplies and eventually guards and skilled laborers for as long as the work required.
“As long as the work gets done,” Petronus finally said.
“Be well, old man,” the Gypsy Scout said.
“Be safe, Gregoric,” Petronus answered.
Once he was alone, he turned back and looked across the expanse of black, studying the forest of bones. He could see now those places that were clear, and he could see the trenches where they dumped the wheelbarrowed dead.
He’s burying his own dead, Petronus thought. That’s what Gregoric said.
Petronus looked out at that field again.
And I am burying mine, he realized.
Chapter 15
Rudolfo
When they finished dinner, Rudolfo led Jin Li Tam to the sitting room and brought a bottle of cinnamon scented liquor and two metal glasses with him.
Before sitting, he looked back at Isaak. “And you’re certain that you can do this?”
Isaak’s eyes shuttered. “My limited understanding is that in matters of Shunning, communication privileges are not withheld. Your request does not interfere with my adherence to Androfrancine protocol.”
Rudolfo nodded. “Very well.”
He’d spent days in this room, hating the cage, and writing out carefully coded instructions to his scouts, to the stewards of his Ninefold Forest Houses and to the pontiffs. Of course, he’d assumed the messages would never be seen; it was more for his benefit that he wrote them. He would have burned them eventually… until the old Gray Guard captain had poked his head in to say he would be dining with his betrothed and the mechoservitor that was not to leave her side.
Now, Isaak sat slowly reading each document. Then later, in the same way Rudolfo hoped to rebuild the library, Isaak would conjure back each page exactly as Rudolfo had written it. Truly a miracle of mechanics.
After Isaak reproduced them, Jin Li Tam could pass them to the Gypsy Scouts that arrived with her. They in turn would run them to the half-squad that Rudolfo had left outside.
Rudolfo sat and poured liquor into the glasses. He held one out to her.
She took it and he found himself admiring her long slender fingers. He followed them, then caught the line of her wrist and lower arm. The gown she wore accentuated the line and grace of her and he’d found it hard to take his eyes off her.
Her father’s acceptance of him as suitor and declaration of their betrothal had surprised him a bit, but more surprising was that he’d not reversed it when Resolute took power. Of course, it also said something about the man. He was a Whymer Maze, to be sure, and he knew something or he would not gamble with his forty-second daughter.
But even more surprising than all of that was the sheer fairness of her. And the fierceness, too, Rudolfo saw. It was not unheard of for a woman to be taller than him, but she towered-and she held that poise as power in her fists. Her red hair, now pulled back and pinned to reveal her long neck and the curve of her jaw, threw back the lamplight. She was not overly slim, she had musc›m, Hle to her. But she also had curves and the gown played to all of them.
Beyond the beauty, intelligence shone in her eyes and wit played on her tongue and Rudolfo felt utterly charmed.
He studied her face, sipping the warm liquor. “How do you feel about this… arrangement?”
She shrugged. “I am a daughter of House Li Tam. I am about my father’s business.”
Rudolfo smiled. “A proper response.” He leaned forward. “Are you always so careful, Lady?”
She took a drink from the metal cup, then put it down on the small pine table nearby. “Are you always so direct?”
“I am known for it when it suits me.”
He watched her face, finding her harder to read in this instance, now that the reading went deeper than food and drink. “I am intrigued by my father’s choice of strategy,” she finally said.
Rudolfo stroked his beard. “Your father studied with the Francines as a boy, yes?”
She nodded. “He did.”
“His move to humiliate Sethbert by so quickly aligning with his enemy-and so quickly endorsing our betrothal-shows that he learned well from them.” One of probably hundreds of actions Vlad Li Tam spun into his web in order to influence outcomes to his advantage. “I have always admired his strength.”
Jin inclined her head slightly. “My father has spoken highly of you and your house, as well.”
“Then you are not displeased with his decision?”
Her words were careful again. “My father is a brilliant man. I trust his judgment implicitly.”
Rudolfo refilled their cups. Back in the Ninefold Forest, they called this liquor Firespice. It was a blended spirit his people had brought across the Keeper’s Wall when the first Rudolfo settled the Prairie Sea. It was strong, and if the night went where it could, he thought it might help prepare them.
He sipped it and put down the cup. He looked over to Isaak, who sat at the table, humming quietly as he read Rudolfo’s stack of notes. The mechoservitor looked up and their eyes met for a moment.
Jin Li Tam followed his eye. “He is a wo›822/p›nder to behold,” she said.
Rudolfo leaned forward. “He is amazing, to be sure. But truthfully, Lady Tam, you are the only wonder in this room.”