Lamentation

Chapter 26

Rudolfo

Spring came early to the Named Lands in rare fashion, and war moved on around it. For Rudolfo, the months had been a blur. He’d divided his time between Windwir and the front as the war moved southwest and Sethbert’s allies fell back. He’d lost a good portion of his Wandering Army holding Rachyl’s Bridge on the second river, connecting Pylos to the Entrolusian Delta. They’d held their first true parley just after that, though no terms had been reached. And the two Popes were starkly contrasted-Resolute in his fine, white linens and Petronus in his simple brown hermit’s robe-as they spoke in voices that were sometimes hushed, sometimes raised.

Now, Rudolfo rode with Petronus from the seventh forest manor to Windwir so they could escort Neb back with that work finished. He’d spent three rather luxurious days with his betrothed, and he found it more satisfying than anything he had ever known. Since Gregoric’s death, her strength had become his own. It was a strange sensation. For so long, it had been Gregoric as his right hand and he’d never imagined this level of partnership possible. But there was a reckless joy in this new arrangement. She had the strength and spirit of a Gypsy Scout, the mind and strategy of a general. He admired her skills of statecraft and misdirection. And for all of that, she was a formidable lover as well.

Still, he carried the loss of his friend near at all times. They’d been like brothers for longer than he had memory, and the world did not make sense without him in it. Perhaps because it was combined with the loss of Windwir that this particular death had struck him so hard. Though the Francines would say that all loss connected back to earlier losses, and that Gregoric represented the last vestiges of a time in Rudolfo’s life when he was innocent and responsible for nothing.

As he rode, he looked up to the hill above the town. Most of it had been cleared now that the snow was gone, and he expected the workers he’d hired to level it and start digging the basements within the next week. The stones were already being cut in the shallow hills at the base of the Dragon’s Spine. He had deferred to Petronus on all matters regarding the library, but the Pope had been more concerned about planning the council of bishops than plodding through the details of the restoration. Isaak continued the work of identifying the resources that hadn’t already gone ticouo the Summer Papal Palace. They’d located a small private library on the Emerald Coasts that would now be en route with the passing of the snow.

Rudolfo watched the men moving on the hill and saw the glint of light on steel, the morning sun reflecting off Isaak’s metal head. He turned in his saddle to stare at the narrow glass door of his bedchamber’s balcony. Wrapped in a red silk sheet, Jin Li Tam stood in the doorway and watched him leave.

He smiled and whistled his horse forward to catch up with Petronus.

The old man had aged in the last handful of months, but it was no wonder. The skill with which he moved across the political landscape impressed Rudolfo, but it had to take a toll. The Named Lands were locked in its fiercest conflict since the settlers had come across the Keeper’s Wall.

Rudolfo saw that the Pope was also looking to the hill. “Three years by our best estimates,” he said. “But Isaak is confident that we can restore nearly forty percent. He’s having the mechanicals double check their inventories.”

Petronus nodded. “I’m impressed with his work.”

Rudolfo smiled at this. “He is a marvel. They all are.”

“Yes,” the Pope said, “but Isaak is different from the others. They’re more reserved. They don’t seem to have the empathetic capacity that he does.”

Rudolfo had noticed this as well. The other mechoservitors spoke when spoken to for the most part and kept to themselves. They also hadn’t clothed themselves and hadn’t taken on names, preferring their numeric designations. Yet oddly enough, they looked to Isaak as their leader.

“I think Windwir changed him as it changed all of us.”

Petronus sighed. “More, I would suspect.”

Rudolfo agreed. “I tried to convince him again yesterday that he should have one of the other mechoservitors fix his leg. He said he wanted the limp as a reminder of what he had done.”

Petronus scowled. “You reminded him, I’m sure, that Sethbert did this?”

“Yes.”

Petronus’s brows furrowed. “Where is Sethbert these days?”

“He’s back in the City States dealing with insurrection. Tam’s blockade has sown its discord. Lysias continues to ho cofacold their borders up, but between Pylos and the Wandering Army, it’s starting to wear them down.” He chuckled, but it was a dark laugh. “Turam’s nearly done for; the crown prince has pulled back to reconsider his commitment.” Rudolfo had been in communication with the Marsh King, but she had insisted on staying near Windwir until the graves were filled in. He hoped to spend at least some time trying to convince her that now, with that work finished, they could use her military leverage in the southern lands.

He suspected that the Marsh King’s forces could end this war and bring about successful parley. But she’d surprised him by her refusal to leave that work. At first, he’d thought it had to do with the gravedigging.

But the last few times he’d visited Neb, the boy had remarked that he thought he was being followed by Marsh Scouts. Rudolfo saw a connection of some kind there. After all, Neb was supposedly the dreaming boy mentioned in the Marsh King’s War Sermon.

Still, if it was the boy she was concerned about, he hoped that she would trust him and his Gypsy Scouts to make sure Neb was well cared for.

Rudolfo started, suddenly realizing that Petronus had spoken. He looked up. “I’m sorry?”

“I said: Perhaps this insurrection will do our work for us.”

Rudolfo nodded. “I hope so.”

But as he rode south, Rudolfo doubted it could be so simple as that.

Jin Li Tam

Jin Li Tam slipped from the manor into the afternoon light. She used one of the many concealed passageways and doors within the large house after telling her escort that she would be bathing. She’d even filled the large marble tub with hot water and perfumed oils. After, she’d taken first one passage, then a ladder down to the basement, its tunnels eventually bringing her to the manor’s low stone wall beyond its northern gardens.

Eyes constantly scanning for watchers, she’d slipped out of a hidden gate she found during her winter reconnaissance of the manor.

She wore nondescript robes and sturdy boots to guard against mud and melting snow. She moved quickly over the ground.

When she reached the River Woman’s hut beyond the town, she waited in shadows and watched to be sure that the old alchemist was indeed alone with her cats.

Last night, she’d used the last of the powders and so far, she’d not had the result she was looking for. Twice since winter she’d thought perhaps it had taken, but both times came to nothing. Todayo no fa, she would decide whether or not she should keep trying.

It was the longest winter she’d ever experienced, a cold and white expanse of time largely spent indoors. The only bright patches were the few days Rudolfo managed to spend with her as he moved between Windwir, the front and the work Petronus and Isaak were doing. She wasn’t accustomed to a cold so bitter that it could freeze a river in its track. She wasn’t accustomed to a house becoming a cage.

Certainly, Rudolfo would not hold her. But where else could she go?

From time to time, the tropic warmth of her father’s house sprang to mind but she knew she could not face him. After Gregoric’s death, she’d stopped returning House Li Tam messages, even those from her brothers and sisters as they did their part in her father’s work. Eventually, the messages stopped coming altogether.

It was a silence she’d never experienced, and a part of her grieved it but another part felt a freedom growing within her beyond anything she had ever known.

She’d always prided herself on being her own woman, a strong woman, self-contained and able to hold her own against any circumstances. But as the time marched on away from the Desolation of Windwir, from her discovery of her father’s hand in Rudolfo’s life and her realization that she herself was a critical component of that work, she saw clearly now that she had never been her own woman. She’d been her father’s daughter and nothing more. All of these events had shown her that this was no longer enough, that there actually could be a higher calling than the Tam matrix.

To her father’s credit, he’d not pressed her. But perhaps, she thought, this too is what he wove into the elaborate tapestry that he and all of those other fathers before him had created.

Smoke leaked from the chimney of the small hut, and she saw movement inside. Jin Li Tam broke her cover and walked the muddy path up to the porch, knocking lightly on the door.

The River Woman met her with a smile. “Lady Tam,” she said, sounding delighted to see her. “Please come in. I’ve just put on some tea.”

Jin kicked off her boots on the porch, then concealed them behind a chair. “Thank you,” she said.

Once inside, she saw that the small cottage and its connected shop was even more full than the usual sacks and jars, overflowing from the counters onto the table and stacked in some instances to half her height.

“War is tragic but good for business,” the River Woman said. “Magicks for hooves, magicks for men, magicks for blades and interrogation. Even the physicians have orders in, anticipating their own work ahead.” The woman clucked. “Men and their violenond s fce,” she said. She poured tea into two ceramic cups and placed one in front of Jin Li Tam. “But enough of death,” the River Woman said as she sat down across from her. “Let’s talk of life.”

Jin Li Tam nodded and sipped her tea. It had a strong lemon and honey flavor to it, going down smooth and hot. “I’ve used the last the powders,” she said. “I will need more.”

The River Woman smiled. “I can’t give you any more,” she said.

Jin Li Tam blinked and set down the cup. She felt a moment of panic, and it folded in on itself, reproducing more anxiety as she realized how afraid it made her that she might not be able get more of the powders and continue her attempts with Rudolfo. As much as she hated the deception-and had even convinced herself a dozen times that she would tell him-she’d gotten quite adept at slipping the powders into his drinks in those hours before they were to be together. She knew that telling him about this deception meant leaving footprints that he could follow back to other deceptions, eventually seeing her father’s work-and her own work in support of her father-in his life.

She could not bear the way he would look at her once he realized that House Li Tam had murdered his brother, his parents and his closest friend in order to move his life in a direction one man thought it should go in.

All of this flashed across her mind, and she felt something squeezing her heart. “I don’t understand,” Jin Li Tam finally said. “You have the recipe. I can arrange whatever ingredients you may need delivered.”

The River Woman shook her head, still smiling. “It would not be prudent, Lady Tam.”

Jin Li Tam felt anger rustling awake within her. She could hear her own voice getting cold as she pushed back the chair from the table. “I need those powders,” she said. “If you can’t make them for me, I’m sure Caldus Bay’s woman can oblige me.”

The River Woman’s smile continued, broadening as she clucked. “Lady Tam,” she said, “please sit down.”

Uncertain, Jin paused, then sat. Suddenly, she didn’t feel she could meet the River Woman’s eyes. She looked around the room instead.

She felt the old, rough hand slide over her own and give it a squeeze. “I can’t give you any more,” the River Woman said, “because they might harm your baby.”

Jin’s eyes snapped up. “My what?”

The River Woman nodded. “It’s all over you now. The tone of your skin. The brightneso. T"1es in your eyes. It’s in the very way that you walk.” She stood and walked over to a cabinet, drawing a gold ring with bits of pink and blue ribbon tied to it.

Jin Li Tam felt her heart flutter and expand. “You mean-?”

The River Woman nodded again, picking up a bucket of river water. “You’re with child. Recently, too, I’d say.” She winked.

Jin Li Tam did not know what to say. Instead, she sat still and watched as the woman clenched the ring and its strings in her closed fist, speaking to them in a mumbled tongue she could not place. The River Woman poured the water into a wooden cup, then dropped in the ring, still mumbling.

“Now,” she said, “we see what your water tells the river.”

Jin went into a back room, feeling suddenly awkward and exposed. She felt fear and elation arguing within her over whether she should run or dance. Afterward, when she brought the cup back out, the River Woman took it and set it on the table.

“Now finish your tea, dear,” the River Woman said. “It will take awhile.”

Jin Li Tam looked at the cup and the ring at the bottom of it. The threads were tucked neatly beneath the gold circle, their tips waving slightly in the blended waters. “What if it’s wrong?”

The River Woman shook her head. “Forty years and I’ve yet to not know a woman with child when I saw her walk into this hut-even as soon as the morning after if you get my meaning.” She grinned and sipped her tea.

They finished their tea in silence and sat, watching the cup. Finally, the River Woman clapped her hands. “Delightful,” she said. The blue thread had become disentangled from the ring and drifted to the top.

Jin Li Tam didn’t need to ask what it meant. She fell back into the chair, letting her breath out. She felt tears in the corners of her eyes, and her stomach suddenly felt uncertain. “A boy,” she said in quiet voice.

The River Woman nodded. “A strong one, by the looks of it. What will you name him?”

She didn’t even think about it. The name leaped to mind immediately even though she’d not thought about it before this very moment. “Jakob,” she said. “If Rudolfo concurs.”

The River Woman’s smile filled the room with light. “A strong name for a strong boy.”

Jin Li Tam couldn’t take on amp;#_her eyes off the cup now and its blue thread floating in the yellowed river water. “He will need to be,” she said. “He is inheriting a tremendous task.”

The River Woman nodded. “He will be strong because he has strong parents.”

One of the tears broke loose, and Jin Li Tam felt it trace its course down her cheek. “Thank you,” she said.

The River Woman leaned in, her voice low. “Lady Tam,” she said, “it occurs to me that you are more concerned about how this child came to be than you need be. Lord Rudolfo will be delighted and he will not question this.” She paused. “I consider this to be a private matter between you and me.”

Jin Li Tam nodded. “Thank you,” she said again.

As she left the hut to make her way back to the manor, she found herself wondering what kind of mother she would be. She’d barely known her own mother, spending most of her time with large groups of siblings, taking instruction from her father and his brothers and sisters as they raised her to be a Tam. The idea confounded her. Two parents bringing one child into the world and staying near that child until old age carried the parents away. That child creating children of their own and the turban passing down from father to son in the shadow of a new library in a different world.

It was the most terrifying undertaking Jin Li Tam had ever imagined.

Once inside her room, she reran the bath and stripped down, pausing in front of the full-length mirror to study her stomach.

Easing herself into the hot, sweet-smelling water, Jin Li Tam smiled.

Neb

Neb felt the weariness deep in his bones now that the work was done. He’d walked Windwir twice in the last week to be certain, but despite the winter’s storms they’d finished ahead of schedule. And though the sense of accomplishment permeated him, he felt a sadness in the midst of it. Over the months, he’d seen more and more of the Marsh girl, Winters, and they’d fallen into a routine together. At least twice weekly now, she met him out on the northern edges of the camp, when he could discreetly slip into the forest. They walked together, and somehow, somewhere along the way, their hands had touched and then joined so that now, whenever they walked alone, they did so hand in hand. They had not kissed again, but Neb found himself thinking of it all the time, uncertain of how to bring that about again.

He laughed as he walked north across the empty plain. Over the last several months, he’d commanded a camp of gravediggers, presided over discipline, even buried some of their own dead when the war crossed into their work. He knew how to order and inventory the supplies for a camp, and he found himself suddenly undeof s sorstanding and even proposing military strategy. All impressive for a boy of fifteen years.

Sixteen now, he realized suddenly. Sometime in the last few weeks a birthday had slipped past him unawares.

He had learned much and had proven much, but he still did not know how to kiss a girl.

As he approached the line of trees he called out, and she broke from them, running nimbly across the ash and mud.

“Nebios ben Hebda,” she said, smiling and out of breath. She looked around the field and looked south to what remained of the gravediggers’ camp. The tents were already coming down as the workers began their exodus. A small contingent would be traveling north with Neb to aid the construction of the new library. Most were scattering to what homes they could either find or make or return to. “You really are finished,” she said.

Neb nodded. “I am. Petronus and Rudolfo should arrive tomorrow. I’ll ride back with them to the Ninefold Forest to see what help I can be with the library.”

Winters smiled. “Your work here was impressive. I’m certain you will be an asset to them.”

He smiled, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks. Odd how only she could do this to him. “Thank you,” he said. “Shall we walk?” He extended his hand to her and she took it.

They walked to the river first, pausing there to watch a deer at the far side. They’d never come so close before, but nature reasserted its rule quickly. Someday, Neb thought, if no one built here, this plain itself might return to the forest it once had been.

As they walked, they didn’t speak this time. Before, they’d talked about his dreams and the Marsh King’s dreams and where they intersected. He’d always been amazed at her grasp of those-as if she were in them, herself. And she had been on a number of occasions, or at least the image of her.

She’d shown up in other dreams, too, that Neb could never talk about. Just thinking about them made his hands get sweaty and his mouth go dry. In one of those dreams, they lay beneath a clear canopy looking up on a moon far more massive and blue and green and brown than the one that hung in their night sky. They lay there naked in their own sweat, holding one another in their arms. She had rolled into him in that dream, her body sending shivers through him as she whispered in his ear.

“This dream is of our home,” she had said, and he’d awakened afraid that she really had been there, not just some image of her conjured out of his imagination and his desire.

As they turned west and walked with the river to their back, they feor b/dill into a rhythm. After a while he looked over to her, and saw the sadness on her face.

She looked at him and as if reading his mind, she explained. “We will never have these times again,” she said. “I will miss them.”

Neb shrugged. “I’m sure we’ll see each other again, Winters.” He knew he should say something else, thought about it, and hoped they were the right words. “I want to see you again,” he said.

She squeezed his hand. “I do, too. But it will be complicated.”

He stopped, suddenly knowing what to do, exactly what to do, and the words tumbled out before he could think himself out of them. “Then come with me, Winters. Surely, the Marsh King would understand and grant you this? Perhaps Rudolfo would speak to him on our behalf. Come and help me with the library.”

She stopped walking and dropped his hand. A wry smile played on her face, and the beauty of it, despite the smudges of mud and ash on her face, made his heart ache. “An interesting proposal, Nebios ben Hebda.”

He blushed at the word “proposal,” and starting reaching for words to dismiss his outburst. But she continued before he could finish that dismissal. “What would I do in the Ninefold Forest? How could I help with this library?” She took a step closer to him, and his nose was alive with the earthy scent of her. He could feel heat radiating from her, and he willed his feet forward one step.

Just one step. And then the kiss. But he couldn’t do it. “I’m sure Petronus would have work you could do,” he said.

She chuckled. “I’m sure he would. But I’m less concerned about his plans for me and more interested in yours.”

Neb’s felt his face go red and lost control of his tongue. He opened his mouth, but the words escaped him utterly.

Her eyes were playful now. “Childhood is but a day behind us, and adulthood looms ahead of us the day after tomorrow. Whose house would I share? What family would I have?”

The words came out suddenly before he could stop them. “We’d be together,” he said.

She laughed. “Would you take me as your bride, Nebios ben Hebda, and grant me a Gypsy wedding filled with dancing and music? Is that what you would do?” She paused. “I suspect that’s not something Androfrancines do.”

It wasn’t; he knew this. Though there had been special dispensations down through the years, strategic alliances anoic nt d such. And with the Order so completely shriveled now, it wouldn’t be out of the question. Still, he’d not considered marriage at all in this. He really hadn’t considered anything beyond the fact that he did not want to be away from the Marsh girl.

Her face went serious now, but it remained soft. “I know you’ve seen my dreams of home.”

Neb’s mouth dropped open, and he felt panic rising.

She reached out and took both of his hands, holding them loosely in hers. “You have seen my dreams. I have seen yours. We do not need to concern ourselves with matters that the Gods have already spoken to.” She leaned in and kissed his cheek. “No matter where we go from each other, we will always come back.”

You’ve seen my dreams of home. The words resonated within him. Not the Marsh King’s dreams. My dreams.

She stood still before him there, her eyes searching into his own, her lips slightly parted as she watched and waited to see if he would hear the words beneath her words.

“You are…?” His words trailed off as he tried to make sense of it.

She nodded. “Today is the day I have held in my heart with hope and fear. Though the dreams give me great hope, and my fear is only that my deception might somehow hurt your trust in me.”

Neb looked into himself. Surprise seemed to overwhelm any hurt he might feel, yet it made sense. Never had he seen the burly, fur-clad Marsh King in his dreams, but she had intersected them again and again. And her deception made sense to him. Just his few months leading, he’d come to realize quickly how carefully a leader had to be with who knew what. It wasn’t a matter of trust, he realized, but of practicality. Hers was a secret that could take the teeth out of the Named Lands’ carefully sown fear of the Marshers. To find out that a slip of a girl was the power behind that army…

Her eyebrows furrowed, and concern washed her face. “Nebios, I-”

Neb didn’t wait for her to finish. The moment arrived and he recognized it for what it was. Without thinking, without giving himself even a second to hesitate and change his mind, he stepped forward and wrapped her in his arms. He enfolded her and pressed himself to her, his mouth moving in slowly even as her head came back and her eyes closed.

Then Neb kissed the girl whose dreams shared his own, the girl who was in all actuality the Marsh King that the New World trembled to think of.

He kissed her and kept on kissing her, hoping that the dreams were true and that their paths would croopataliss again.

Vlad Li Tam

Vlad Li Tam waited in an office in the upper room of a squat, square guard tower on the Pylos border. He’d left the preparations at home in the hands of his capable children, steaming for Pylos in one of his iron ships for this clandestine meeting. His fourth son and his thirteenth daughter accompanied him along with two squads of their best trained men and women. Even now, they were magicked and taking up various positions around the guard tower. Vlad sat with his aide and waited.

There was a knock at the door and the aide opened it. A man in Androfrancine robes entered, pushing back his hood. General Lysias looked out of place in those robes, his eyes narrow and looking around the room.

Vlad Li Tam gestured to the chair across from him. The aide quickly refilled the glasses with Firespice, that Gypsy liquor that he’d grown to love. “Please sit, General,” he said. “Drink with me.”

Lysias held the glass beneath his nose, inhaling the scent of it. Then he took a long drink. “I bring word from Sethbert’s nephew,” he said. “Erlund is agreeable to the arrangement, though he isn’t pleased with it.”

Vlad Li Tam shrugged. “Pleasure and displeasure do not enter into it.”

Lysias nodded. “I told him I saw no better resolution to this conflict. The City States are nearly in civil war. The blockades-in addition to the loss of Windwir-have crippled the Entrolusian economy.”

Vlad Li Tam wondered how it felt to move from being a general of the most powerful nation in the world to a desperate man hoping to save at least some of that nation’s pride through last-minute bargaining. “The delta will most likely never recover fully from this,” he said in a quiet voice.

Lysias swallowed. “I agree, Lord Tam. But we must save what we can. This entire event has been a great tragedy.”

Vlad Li Tam thought about the children he had lost along the way. Most recently, the son who had given himself in the Entrolusian camp and the daughter who no longer spoke to him. And before that, others he did not wish to think about in this moment. “It has been unfortunate,” he agreed.

Lysias drew a pouch from beneath his robes and passed it over. “We’ve drawn up the terms and-”

Vlad Li Tam waved him away. “Burn those, Lysias. There will be no written terms.” He looked to his aide, and the aide came forward with a cloth-wrapped object and a sheet of parchment. The aide put the sheet of parchment into Lysias’s hands and unwrapped the metal object. It was roughly the lengoougappth of a forearm, a metal tube ornately decorated and set into a wooden crossbow stock. “This belongs to Resolute,” he said. “It’s a powerful weapon.”

Lysias looked up from the note he read. “And this letter?”

Vlad Li Tam smiled. “It matches Resolute’s handwriting. Any scholar who could tell otherwise is long dead.”

Lysias looked at the weapon, then returned to the note. “And you think they’ll believe this?”

Vlad Li Tam sipped his drink, savoring the burn of it as it traveled down his throat. “They will. The rumors continue to grow. Sethbert wasn’t exactly discreet about his role at the beginning of this.”

Lysias’s jaw tightened. “He claimed he was in the right. He claimed he had evidence that the Androfrancines intended to restore the spell and use it to rule us.”

“Ask him,” Vlad Li Tam said slowly, “to produce that evidence and I suspect he will be hard-pressed to do so.” His eighteenth son had taken care of that for him. “Once word of this next tragedy unfolds, expect a new Papal decree offering terms. Tell Erlund that this will be the final offer and that all he need do is accept the terms and demand the arrest of Sethbert.” He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing in the dimly lit room. “And if he thinks to protect his uncle in some way, tell him that what is offered here is a mercy. The boot is firmly on the delta’s neck. One twist of it and she is broken.”

Lysias nodded. “I will carry your message.”

Vlad Li Tam stood. “Very well, I think our work here is done. The letters of credit will arrive quietly once Sethbert is in custody.”

Lysias bowed his head. “Thank you, Lord Tam.”

Vlad Li Tam returned the bow, careful not to incline his head more than what was proper. After the general left, he sat again and finished his drink.

Later this week, one of the two Popes would be dead. Once the Named Lands heard the details of the note Resolute would leave behind, no one would doubt that Sethbert had brought down the City of Windwir and its Androfrancine Order. Resolute’s grief-stricken confession would lay out his shame at having told Sethbert of the spell’s existence and speak of the guilt that gnawed at him until he could no longer bear to live with it any longer. It would point to accounts at House Li Tam that even now were being carefully created and funded to point accusing fingers at a man whose paranoia and ambition had nearly cost the world the light of knowledge, and at a cousin who would be his puppet Pope, doling out what little light remained for profit.

After this, Sethbert would lose his following and the war would lose its grounding.

The Overseer would be stripped of his lands and titles, reduced to flight. And that was as much as Vlad Li Tam would do for now. But he was certain that it was enough.

Rudolfo and Petronus would take care of the rest.