Toarsen hadn’t been best pleased when Seraph sent them all to weed the kitchen garden—Phoran savored the memory of the expression on his captain’s face—but since Phoran had gone out without a murmur, Toarsen had to do the same.
Now, he thought wryly, when Rinnie had had to show them all what to do—her eyes wide at the thought of someone who couldn’t tell the difference between dill and reaverslace—that had stung Phoran’s pride. But she hadn’t laughed at them—at least not openly—and the memory of Toarsen’s face had kept Phoran’s sense of humor stronger than his sense of pride. Kissel hadn’t needed supervision: he said his family’s cook had taught him how to garden when he was a boy.
He’d learned a lot; but when Lehr and Jes returned, somewhere in his heart of hearts, Phoran had expected his trials to be over.
Lehr should have come back with the old healer in tow. She’d take one look at Phoran and give him a mysterious potion or tell him to turn around three times while wailing some unpronounceable word—like half the doctors in Taela. The Memory would leave him, and he could race home to rule in peace. He smiled to himself. At least until someone decided on a more effective method of assassination sometime when he wasn’t guarded by his men. His men.
He cast a quick glance at Ielian. The man had surprised him with his passionate attack on Seraph as Phoran’s advocate.
It seemed that the Emperor’s total number of loyal followers was growing. At this rate, in ten years they might number over—say—twenty. Phoran was amused at himself for the pleasure he found in knowing that Ielian, at least, served him out of something more than desire for gainful employment.
He turned his attention back to the map, but it looked the same as it had earlier. Sighing, he gave up. “If you have a sheet of paper, I’ll start making lists of places this might be. There’s nothing unusual about the placement of the roads. Maybe Master Willon will have more maps we can use for comparison.”
“I’ll do it, Mother,” said Rinnie as she wiped her hands clean on a rough cloth.
She rummaged around, then set a sheet of paper, an ink pot and a well-trimmed pen beside him with a smile—she’d been shy of him at first. That day in the garden, though, had robbed her of any awe she might once have felt.
“Good idea,” agreed Tier. “We might see if Willon will take a look at these maps, himself, if we don’t come up with anything. He’s had more than half a century running all over the Empire. Maybe he’ll see something that we’ve missed.”
“Dinner will be done soon,” Rinnie announced.
“As long as you used dill instead of reaverslace, we’ll not flog the cook.” Phoran started scratching out place names. He wished that at least one of the maps had some kind of scale so he knew whether he was looking at ten-leagues mapped in great detail or a hundred leagues.
“If it’s reaverslace, it’s because someone weeded out the dill,” returned Rinnie complacently. “You can try it first. If you don’t go into convulsions, the rest of us will eat.”
“Threatening your emperor is treason.” Phoran scratched out a place he’d written because it was too near the coast. If Colossae had been that near the sea, certainly one of the maps would have shown it. “Kissel, should we string this girl up?”
“Not until she finishes our dinner,” rumbled Kissel. “I’ll even eat reaperslace if it tastes as good as that fish smells.”
Tier stood up and stretched. “I’ll bring some water for washing to the porch,” he said. He took a step away from the table, glanced back at his map—the one covered in fine lines that seemed to be meaningless—and he froze.
“Seraph, can you hold that map up?” he said.
Phoran looked at Tier’s map as Seraph pulled it from the table, but it hadn’t changed. It still looked as though someone had, very carefully, drawn hundreds of meaningless lines all over the parchment.
It was big and had been in a roll for a long time and kept trying to curl up. Phoran got up and helped Seraph hold it flat while Tier took slow steps away from it without taking his eyes off whatever had caught his attention.
“Lehr?” he said. “Son, I need you to get up and help me a minute.”
Lehr groaned and muttered something that sounded rude to Phoran, but he rolled out of the bed in the loft and dropped to the main floor without bothering with the ladder. Staggering across the room, he stood next to his father and rubbed his eyes.
“Look at that map,” Tier said. “Tell me what you see.”
“Lines,” said Lehr grumpily. “What am I suppose to…” He frowned, coming to alertness just as Tier had.
“It’s the distance that helped me see what it was,” Tier explained.
He walked over to the map and put his finger on the lower left-hand corner. “The lines are elevations,” he said. “I bet they used to be different colors, but age turned them all dark.”
“What do you see?” asked Phoran. “Can you tell where it is?”
“It’s here,” said Tier simply. “Not Colossae,” he brushed his hand over the star that marked the wizards’ city. He dropped his hand until he pointed to the lower left-hand corner again. “Right here, this is Redern Mountain and the Silver River. Here’s our valley.” He ran his hand up to a section about the size of his palm that had a single thick line running through the middle of it, but none of the thinner lines. “This must be…”
“Shadow’s Fall,” said Lehr. “If the distances are right for Redern and this valley, then that’s right where Shadow’s Fall would be.”
Tier let his finger follow the line that bisected the flat plain of the battlefield. It connected to a second road, then took an abrupt turn north. About a finger length from Shadow’s Fall, Tier’s finger stopped and rested on the strange symbols that Hennea told them represented the ancient wizards’ city of Colossae.
“I can take us there,” he said.
CHAPTER 11
“You want journey bread?” Alinath came out of the baking room, her face tight with dismay after overhearing Tier’s request to her husband, Bandor.
Seraph took a step back and let Tier deal with his sister.
Tier picked up a piece of bread left out as a sample and tried it. “I’ll need it as soon as you can. You know, Bandor, if you put a bit less salt in this bread”—he motioned to the plate of sample offered—“it would allow some of the other flavors to come out.”
“I’ll try that,” Bandor said. “Does the journey bread have anything to do with your guests?”
Tier nodded easily, but Seraph could feel his arm tense under her hand. “Who told you about them?”
Five strangers were a hard secret to keep, but they hadn’t told anyone about them, and no one had been to the farm since Phoran and his men had shown up.
“Apparently some youngsters—who should have work to keep themselves busy—were out that way a week or so ago and came back into town spouting nonsense,” said Alinath.
“Spying on us, are they?” Tier grinned, and Seraph could tell that he was honestly amused. “I hope they saw something more interesting than our guests.”
“They said they were nobles,” Bandor said. “And one of them the Sept’s own brother. We had the tale from the steward, who was convinced you are after his job.”
“Gods save me,” exclaimed Tier with honest horror. “What idiot would want that job?”
“Exactly,” said Alinath with satisfaction. “And so I told the steward when he came whining to me.”
“Toarsen, the Sept’s brother, is there with a group of bored young noblemen whom Tier met in Taela,” said Seraph, having found a story that might satisfy some of the curious. “They had nothing to do, and knew Tier would come here too late for planting. They’ve asked him to take them hunting in the mountains.”