Canticle

Chapter 19

Jin Li Tam

Melting snow made for muddy grass, and Jin Li Tam stepped carefully as she held Jakob to her breast. With the small blanket covering her exposed skin, she didn’t feel much of the cold, and she hoped it was the same for her son. Still, they wouldn’t be here long. The tents were heated, but she’d suddenly craved the cool air and her feet had needed pacing ground.

No, she realized. It was more than a craving.

She’d needed it; the tent had pressed in upon her after the birder left, and she’d needed in that moment to be outside and close to her son. Colder air and open space to find focus and stop the world from spinning.

They had arrived just a few hours before, and already the tents were in place and the smells of the cooking meat and wood smoke were in the air. Scout patrols now made their wide-ranging circles, and the various companies of the Wandering Army took up their places on the perimeter.

Soon, she would have to give Jakob over to Lynnae and ride to parley with Pylos and Turam. She had exchanged birds with Meirov herself just that morning but had not recognized the name of the general who led Turam’s battalion. The first skirmishes had gone badly for both armies; their attackers-small in number they later found-had defied all reason and had pressed on through their ranks until eventually they had fallen.

But those iron blades cut deep, and that wind of blood had howled until they fell and the astounded officers from the two neighboring nations took stock of their dead.

Now, reinforcements had been summoned for a further push north and were perhaps half a week away.

All of this was worrisome. But now she’d word from the Gate that Aedric and his company had ridden into the Wastes in search of Neb and Isaak. The greatest weapon in the world was lost to them.

And on the heels of that bird, the next: Rudolfo was sailing around the horn, suddenly convinced by an old Androfrancine that a cure for Jakob was more likely found in this so-called Sanctorum Lux than in the seemingly impossible task of finding her father’s fleet.

But the last one-delivered just this morning-was the one that finally staggered her and made the canvas walls of her tent press in upon her, sending her into the winter air with her son clutched close. Rae Li Tam’s coded message had found her-updating Jin Li Tam on all that had transpired for them at sea so far and calling for aid from the Ninefold Forest Houses if such a thing were possible. Even now a response-with pledged support of undefined specificity-winged its way back with Jin Li Tam’s query buried into it: My son is sick from the birth powders; can you cure him?

It should have been relief, she thought. But in that moment, hope changed. She didn’t know how to describe it. It became different inside her-a gnawing thing. And something that kept fear as its constant companion alongside of it.

“Lady Tam?”

The soft voice startled her and she looked up. A young woman in mismatched armor and sad eyes stood before her, her tangled brown hair capped with a helm that was too large and a massive silver battle-axe in her muddy hands. Her face was streaked with ash and dirt. Two Gypsy Scouts accompanied her.

Jin Li Tam blinked. She’s changed in such a short time. “Winters?”

Winters curtsied. “It is good to see you.”

The young girl’s eyes were the most different. Beyond the sadness, there was something else hidden there. Fear? Uncertainty? Yes, Jin Li Tam realized, it was those things but also something deeper. Something that smelled familiar and disturbing to her.

Betrayal. A rotten and deadly weed grew up among her own people and threatened them all.

Jin Li Tam inclined her head. “It is good to see you as well. Have you learned anything new?”

The girl shook her head. “My army scours the Marshlands now, turning every stone to find the root of this sudden evil. And you?”

Jin Li Tam shook her head. “Nothing you don’t already know. Reinforcements are en route. The first several attacks have taken heavy tolls on the rangers particularly. These skirmishers fight with no sense of self-preservation; they fight until they fall.”

Winters sighed, and her voice was quiet. “It’s the blood magicks. They know before they take them that it will cost them their lives.”

Neither of them had seen these blood-magicked scouts in action, but both had seen the field of flesh and bone they’d mowed. Jin Li Tam felt a stab of loss, remembering the night that Winters had been forced to take her throne. And now, she stood fresh on the heels of burying the Androfrancine dead from the Summer Papal Palace, her lands now steeling for invasion. New to her throne, and already threatened from within and without.

Jakob stopped suckling, and she adjusted her shirt and coat, shifting the baby to her shoulder to pat the air gently from him. “I’ve not told Meirov that I am bringing you,” Jin Li Tam said. “I think it is better that way. You will be under my protection as a part of Forest kin-clave.”

Winters swallowed and nodded. She shifted on her feet, and Jin read indecision in her body. She wishes to ask something but is uncertain how.

Jin watched a blush creep into the girl’s face even as her brown eyes darted away. “Is there. ” She paused. “Is there any word of Neb?” Her eyes returned, meeting Jin’s for a moment, and the blush rose even further on Winters’s cheeks. “I know he’s missing and that Aedric seeks him.”

Of course. The boy. Jin Li Tam tried to force a smile but knew she failed. “I’ve an entire company seeking him. I know he was well enough when he left Aedric in pursuit of Isaak and the other mechoservitor.” She wasn’t sure what else to say. These were hard times for love; bitter soil for it to grow in. And these weeks with Rudolfo off seeking a cure for Jakob-long stretches with no word from her new husband-she knew the sharp teeth of worry that chewed this young woman. I should say something to comfort her. “I know that if he could, Neb would get word to you. The birds don’t seem to hold their magicks there. We’re doing our best to find them.”

“He’s no longer even in my dreams,” Winters said, looking away. The voice was so nearly a whisper, and there was a profound sadness in it.

“Maybe your dreams are affected by distance,” she offered, but doubted it would help.

Winters shrugged but said nothing, and Jin Li Tam was uncertain what to add. She wasn’t very familiar with the Marsh Queen’s dreaming beyond what everyone knew about the War Sermons and the Book of Dreaming Kings. She knew even less of these supposed shared dreams she had with the boy, though she’d known there was a bond between the two of them from their time at Windwir. She’d certainly heard talk of the young romance even before she’d known of the girl’s true identity. But Jin’s attention over the last several months had been preoccupied with preparing the manor-and her own soul-for the small package of struggling life she now held. And the work of sorting what her life had been and what it was becoming. If those weren’t enough, the circumstances of the Firstborn Feast and Jakob’s troubled birth had also done their part to keep her focus elsewhere.

Still, she certainly understood the power of dreams. Her own had turned dark and violent that night-and had stayed that way. Even this morning, she’d clawed her way to wakefulness with her last memory still vivid before her closed eyes: a dark bird gobbling eyes in a field of faces that she knew too well.

She realized that the girl still waited for some further response. What do I tell her? There was more strength and certainty in her voice than she had hoped for when she finally found the words she needed. “We will find him, Winters, and we will bring him home safe.”

The girl inclined her head. “Thank you, Lady Tam.”

Jin Li Tam returned the bow, then looked to the face of her son, swaddled in the thick woolen blanket that had once held Rudolfo as his parents rode with him from Forest House to Forest House, presenting the younger twin along with his older brother, Isaak, to the Forest Gypsies they would someday serve. He was asleep now, his lips bubbling contently as his breath whispered in and out between them.

She saw the interest on Winters’s face and turned slightly so that the girl could see the infant more clearly.

“He’s so small,” the Marsh Queen said.

“Yes.” She paused. “There is little time before we must leave; would you like to hold him?”

The girl blanched, her face moving between fear and delight. “I don’t think I can. I’m-”

Jin clucked her tongue. “Certainly you can. Follow me.”

She led the way back around the tent, leaving the scouts at the flap as she and Winters entered.

Lynnae and the River Woman sat at a table together beneath a guttering lantern measuring out fresh scout magicks carefully into the small, string-tied satchels. They looked up briefly, but went quickly back to their work. In the corner, a small stove warmed the large space and a pail of wash-water along with it. Jin motioned to a narrow cot near the fire. “Sit,” she said. “And scrub your hands. There’s soap there, too.”

Winters propped the axe against the nearby table. Jin watched her washing up, wondering absently exactly how the Marshers managed with their own young in the midst of such filth. Unlike most in the Named Lands, she did not for a second believe that they were still caught up in the Age of Laughing Madness, left over from their dark master’s last and most desolating spell. She knew they were driven by a different insanity: the slightly more tolerable mystic variety.

When the girl’s hands were clean, Jin leaned over and shifted Jakob over into her arms. She tried not to wrinkle her nose, making a mental note to have Lynnae clean the blanket later.

Winters held him, awkwardness visible in every aspect of her posture. “He’s so small,” she said again. But this time, Jin noted the light growing in her eyes and the smile that pulled at her mouth.

“Have you never held a baby?”

Winters shook her head, her eyes never leaving Jakob’s face. “I’ve seen plenty of them. But I grew up alone. My friends were mostly books and dreams. And Tertius, my tutor.”

Jin wasn’t surprised. The sheer size of her own family insured her own exposure to the young, but she could see how, isolated and kept apart as Winters had been, a girl could reach the age of her own fertility without having seen up close and personally what her own body was capable of making with a little help. She suddenly grinned and felt a bit of wickedness rise up within her. “Perhaps I should send another company east to find young Nebios and fetch him back here for you,” she said, “so that you might make one of your own.”

For a moment-a brief moment-Winters became a girl again, blushing and giggling. “I don’t think I would know what to do if-”

“Trust me, Queen Winteria,” Jin Li Tam said, still smiling, “you’d figure it out soon enough.”

And in a brief moment of her own, Jin Li Tam felt the weight of the New World slide off her shoulders as she and the Queen of the Marshfolk laughed until even Lynnae and the River Woman had no choice left but to join them.

When that moment passed, she strapped on her knives, checked her armor and passed Jakob over to his nursemaid’s care. Then, still flushed from their laughter, she and Winters called for their horses and set out in the direction that duty called them to.

Winters

A light snow fell as they rode silently south to parley. Above them, the sun hung veiled in gray behind the overcast sky. Around them, they heard the sounds of a forest leaning toward spring and the steady footfalls of their horses.

Winters rode beside Jin Li Tam, occasionally glancing over at her. The Gypsy Queen wore a coat of silver scales and a pair of scout knives with worn handles. Her long red hair was pulled back into a braid, crowned with a circlet that matched her armor. She rode proud and tall in the saddle. There was stern beauty in the steel of her posture.

I am nothing like her, Winters thought. What had Rudolfo called her? Formidable? And yet, not so long ago, she’d seen beneath the calm mask Jin Li Tam wore. When she’d first approached the Gypsy Queen, Winters had seen anguish and doubt upon the woman’s face. There was a desperation in the way she had clutched her child even in the midst of her deliberate pacing. But she’d also watched as Jin took that anguish and doubt and stored it away as soon as her work called upon her to do so. It was a mastery of self that Winters could only hope to someday attain.

And the baby. When she’d taken that small, warm bundle into her arms, had seen those tiny fingers and that tiny mouth, it had sparked something within her. Not the ribald, baser instinct that Jin had teased her about, but something else, something deeper even than that compelling human need to become one with another and out of that, to make life.

Deeper than that, it had awakened within her a sudden and strong need for family-for an abiding connection to others that transcended her experiences to date. She’d thought she’d felt that with her people, but now she was uncertain of it.

Upon the death of her father, when she was very young, Hanric had done his best by her. He’d given over any personal desire he might have had for a family of his own to serve her father and later, her, so there really had been no woman to play the role of mother to the young queen. No siblings to shape her sense of place in the world. And knowing no different path, she’d grown up amid the Book of her predecessors and what other volumes they could pillage or purchase. She’d learned about her monthlies from their Herb Lady the day after it had first begun. She’d learned the fundamentals of procreation from Tertius, laid out for her in the practiced language of Androfrancine scholarship without any of the trappings of love or marriage or wonderment. And until that day she and Neb had fallen to the ground, tangled in glossolalia and prophecy, she’d given no real further thought to it. But gradually, as he’d filled her dreams and they had become even further tangled up in images of a Home they would someday share, she’d grown to feel a bond like nothing she’d felt before. And now, she realized, this was essentially a part of the same dance.

We long for connection. She saw it in Jin Li Tam’s face as she fed her baby. She felt it herself as she laughed with the women in the tent, clutching precariously to that life in her arms.

If anyone had asked her even as early as last autumn, she’d have sworn she felt that connection with her people. But now, with Hanric in the ground and her boots fresh from the Androfrancine graveside at the Summer Papal Palace, she questioned that connection. Somehow, within her very people, her family, a vicious and twisted thing grew in shadows, and neither she nor her Twelve had known of it. She saw once again the look of despair and fear upon Seamus’s face as he pulled back his grandson’s shirt for her. She thought of the prophet, Ezra, and the milk white of his eyes. She remembered the ecstasy upon his face as he showed her the markings of ownership upon his breast.

No, she realized, not just of ownership. but of belonging. A passionate and powerful connection to something.

She shuddered. Begone, kin-raven.

A low whistle drifted through the forest, and she realized they now approached the edge of a small clearing. At its center, a handful of horses gathered beneath the flags of Pylos and Turam. She glanced again to Jin Li Tam, saw that calm determination upon the woman’s face, and allowed that to settle her.

Jin Li Tam looked to her and must have read the worry there in her eyes. “Follow my lead if you are uncertain,” she said. And as she spoke, her hands moved subtlety around the reins and along the neck of her horse. I will see you through this.

Winters blinked, uncertain why this surprised her. Rudolfo knew the nonverbal language of House Y’Zir, so it stood to reason that his bride would as well. “Thank you, Lady Tam,” she said.

Jin Li Tam offered a forced smile. “You are welcome, Lady Winteria.”

Then, their scouts were in the open, hands ready at their knife hilts as they took up their positions. Winters turned her attention to the cluster of horses ahead and felt the firmness settle into her jawline. The weight that had lifted earlier from her returned, and she breathed deeply as it settled upon her neck and shoulders.

Meirov was easy to pick out though Winters had never seen the woman up close. Hanric had handled her parleys during the War of Windwir. Still, those times she’d seen her from a distance, she’d not imagined she’d be so haggard and hollow-eyed.

She is consumed by grief. But more than that, she realized, the grief had become a bitter rage that sharpened the angles of her face and paled her already fair skin. The long braid of her blond hair spilled out from beneath her helmet, and she rested her hand upon the pommel of her sword. Around her, her rangers stood near and ready, their eyes watchful upon the Gypsy Scouts that stood in a loose circle.

Turam’s general sat beside her. He wore a steel breastplate and a deep purple cloak, holding his helmet under his arm as he leaned over to whisper something to Meirov. The queen nodded, and her eyes met Winters’s. Hatred blazed out from them, and the stark honesty of it made Winters flinch and look away. Her stomach ached, and a sudden urge to flee rose up in her. She risked a glance back, but those eyes bore into her and the firmness of Meirov’s jawline, the white knuckles upon her sword and reins, were clear messages.

She would cut me down if she could.

Winters blinked and looked away again.

As they drew nearer, Jin Li Tam spoke. “Hail, Pylos and Turam.”

Meirov’s voice was cold. “Lady Tam, our parley and kin-clave is with the Ninefold Forest Houses.”

Winters watched Jin Li Tam read the woman’s posture and tone. “The Ninefold Forest Houses holds kin-clave with the Marsh Queen.” And her hands moved again slowly: Her grief is strong; be silent.

Winters shifted in her saddle. Yes, she answered. I will.

Meirov’s eyes narrowed. “So you’ve brought Rudolfo’s Wandering Army against us to protect these savages? Shouldn’t you be home minding your son?”

The word stung, but there was more said than that. Winters read the other messages beneath the words. She’d referred to it as Rudolfo’s army-a subtle way of saying she did not recognize Jin Li Tam’s authority. And there was another message, one that gave her pause and sent her eyes back to Jin Li Tam’s face to look for some sign of it registering there. Your son lives and mine does not.

Jin Li Tam inclined her head. “Lord Rudolfo is aware of this action and joins me in offering our deepest condolences for your loss, Lady Meirov. It is a terrible tragedy that breaks my own heart as a mother.” She turned to the Turamite general. “And we grieve for your loss as well. We are all bereaved at the violence of that night-including Queen Winteria, who lost her caretaker, Hanric, beneath those iron blades. The Ninefold Forest is pledged to helping the Marshfolk identify the killers and deal with this matter.”

Meirov’s face twisted and darkened. “Your condolences are poor currency with me, Lady Tam. If you would help in bringing justice, either turn your army around and go home to mother your son or honor your kin-clave with the rest of us by joining us.” Her eyes went to Winters again, and this time, Winters held them and tried to let the hatred pass over her. The Queen of Pylos continued, her stare unbroken. “The Marshers have been a problem since the days of Settlement; now, it has gone too far. Their babblings and barbarism, their constant skirmishing in the border towns”-here she wrinkled her nose-“even the smell of them has polluted the Named Lands too long.”

Pay her no mind, Jin Li Tam’s hands said, but Winters felt the water building in her eyes. She willed herself not to cry. It would be weak to cry. She listened to the calm in Jin Li Tam’s voice and wished for it to wrap her as tightly as Jakob’s blanket. “I cannot speak to your difficult history with her people, but Queen Winteria is committed to eradicating this threat. Even now, her army searches the Marshlands to find and bring justice to this resurgence. She’s just come from burying the Androfrancine dead at the Summer Papal Palace.”

The general from Turam spoke up. “We’ve lost three caravans en route to your new library; slaughtered and left on the road to rot.” His eyes narrowed, and he looked to Winters suddenly. “This resurgence. what is its nature?”

Winters glanced to Jin Li Tam and her hands. Keep your answer brief.

She swallowed, her mouth tasting like dirt and iron suddenly. “It is an Y’Zirite resurgence.”

She heard their breath expelled together. Meirov looked to her, then remembered herself and looked to Jin Li Tam. “We had feared as much. There were strange markings upon their dead.” Resolve and bitterness crept back into Meirov’s voice. “More the reason for a firm response from all houses in the Named Lands now before this violence grows further.”

Jin Li Tam’s voice was reassuring now and confident. “We are responding firmly,” she said. “I have pledged our support to Winters; we will help her find and deal with this threat against us all by working together with her army-not by invading their territories.”

Meirov stared at Jin Li Tam. “Our kin-clave with the Forest is tenuous at best, Lady Tam. It has not gone unnoticed that your House is the only to have benefited from Windwir’s fall-or that your House has been unscathed in this more recent treachery. If you prevent us from our work here, Pylos will view such action as a revocation of kin-clave.”

The general nodded beside her. “Turam as well.”

“That,” Jin Li Tam said, “would be most unfortunate.” She whistled low, and the Gypsy Scouts started moving in from their positions. “I believe we’ve taken this parley as far as we can for the moment. I welcome further dialog in future parleys under calmer circumstances. I hope that you will-”

But Meirov interrupted her, her voice cold and measured. “We’ve no intention to parley further. If you prevent us from our work here, we will consider it collusion with the Marshfolk and there will be war between us.”

Jin Li Tam turned her horse slowly, and Winters watched the careful calculations that played out quietly in her eyes. “We did not come to make war but to keep peace.” Those blue eyes narrowed, and her voice suddenly grew cold as well. “But if you engage my army or cross farther north into the Marshlands, we will meet you with our knives, Meirov. I am sorry for your loss-it is a terrible crime, and I cannot imagine the depth of your rage and anguish-but these are troubled times in our land, and you must ask yourself: Is there a better path that we might take?”

Winters started to turn her horse, but suddenly felt she should say something-anything-despite Jin Li Tam’s recommendation. She felt her brow furrowing, and even as she opened her mouth, she felt the tears filling her eyes; and at first, her voice was strangled. “My heart is broken for your loss, Queen Meirov, and my soul is pledged to justice for all that have been wronged so deeply by this evil.”

But Meirov did not speak. Her eyes said everything that needed saying.

As they turned and slowly rode from the clearing, Winters swallowed a sob and ran a quick hand to wipe at the tears she could no longer prevent.

They rode back to camp silently, and as they did, she tried to conjure up Jakob’s tiny face, his tiny hands, the smell of him and the way his mouth bubbled when he slept. It was the most peaceful moment she had known in weeks, holding him, but now even the memory of it eluded her. She could not find it or hold it in the midst of this grief storm.

All she saw instead were the hateful eyes of a bereaved mother burning into her, accusing her, cutting her deeper than any scout knife ever could.

Petronus

Petronus paced the small room and listened to the buzz of voices just past the oak door that separated him from the council chambers.

In a few minutes, he would be called upon to pass through that door and join Esarov at the advocate’s bench for his arraignment. At the heart of it, it was a simple and brief matter. But still, it weighed upon him.

After the interrogation, house arrest had become much more bearable. Erlund’s own chefs prepared his meals, and he’d access to birds and books in addition to more than adequate time with his advocate, the former leader of the revolution, Esarov the Democrat. The past days had been an endless flood of questions as they prepared for today and for what was to come beyond this time. It was an elaborate strategy and one that Petronus could not only appreciate, but enhance with what he himself brought to bear upon the matter.

He’d amassed a fair knowledge of kin-clave law alongside his mastery of Androfrancine law and Named Lands statecraft over his years in the Order. And Esarov’s clarity of focus and sharp mind for legal tactics-combined with the man’s stagecraft-would serve well.

Today would be brief, he reminded himself. What followed after would take time, but the landscape they’d covered through Esarov’s pile of books gave Petronus confidence of the outcome.

Still, he paced.

He heard the noise beyond the door swell. That meant Erlund and his council of governors had entered the room. Next, the small bell in the corner of the room would ring and the silent guards seated at either side of the entrance would stand and escort him in.

You wanted a reckoning, old man. This wasn’t what he’d had in mind exactly, but Petronus was confident in the rightness of it. His mind had wandered back to that brief encounter with Charles in the market square. And at night, he dreamed about a library stretching deep underground, hidden in some forgotten corner of the Old World. If this reckoning of his could bring back so much of the light, his own personal outcome didn’t matter. And despite his strong confidence in what was to come, some part of him knew that it was a dangerous river he forded here. One misstep and he could find himself swept away.

The bell rang and the guards stood. When they opened the door and passed through, Petronus followed.

The council room was large and round, paneled with elaborately carved oak offset with gold fixtures and trim. The high domed ceiling was painted in themes of early Delta history with scenes from the First Settlers Congress and the signing of that document that guided the fledgling band of City-States into its prominence in the Named Lands.

The nine governors sat on a platform in an arrangement of seats and tables set up like a horse shoe; and set apart from them, centered in the open end of that U shape, stood the Overseer’s dias and upon it, a worn chair and table. Erlund looked up at him from that place and their eyes met.

The disinterest there spoke volumes, but Petronus was not surprised. He knows what is coming.

The Overseer wore his crimson prosecuting robe, and to his right, the prosecutor he’d selected-Ignatio in this case-dressed in similar fashion. Behind them, the governors wore black robes not terribly dissimilar from the robes of an Androfrancine. As Petronus scanned their faces it was not hard to pick out the four that had been chosen by Esarov’s democratic city states. They did not have the blank stoic regard of the others. Their faces spoke of purpose and pride rather than obligation, though in time Petronus wondered if that might fade as the newness of their roles wore off and as the reality of their work ahead on the Delta set in.

Esarov was the only person to stand as Petronus entered. He wore gray as befitting an advocate, and his long hair was pulled back and powdered. His spectacles gleamed in rays of sunlight that sliced into the room from high glass windows, and he nodded once at Petronus, his smile slight but confident.

Apart from these and a handful of others scattered throughout the observation balconies and the audience chamber, the massive room was empty. Guards stood at each of the doors.

Petronus forced his shoulders to straighten and walked to the empty chair beside his advocate. The two of them sat in unison as Erlund brought down a gavel.

Ignatio spoke. “The Governors’ Council of the United-City States of the Entrolusian Delta is petitioned to convene now in judicial capacity for the arraignment of Petronus, former Holy See of the Androfrancine Order and King of Windwir. The charge before you is murder and conspiracy to commit murder for the unlawful execution of Lord Sethbert, former Overseer of the United Entrolusian City-States.”

One of Erlund’s handpicked governors made the motion to convene; one of Esarov’s newly elected governors seconded. All men said “aye” when the question was called, and when they had Ignatio smiled and looked at Petronus.

“It is the position of the accuser that on the fourth of Anbar, during a closed council of bishops convened in the Ninefold Forest, Petronus-acting in his capacity as Pope-did summarily execute Sethbert without benefit of a trial as provided by the First and Second Settlers Congress of the Entrolusian Delta. Further, the accuser posits that Petronus, in collusion with Lord Rudolfo of the Ninefold Forest Houses, did subject the former Overseer to tortures and coercions forbidden under Entrolusian law and conducted its matters of prosecution without regard to common law and reasonable civility.”

Erlund yawned at the flatness of the recital and looked around the room. Petronus followed his gaze. Finally, the Overseer moved the proceedings forward. “The council will now hear the plea of the accused before establishing a date of trial.”

Esarov stood and Petronus stood with him. “Advocate defers to his client and presents him to council.”

Erlund nodded. “Proceed.”

Petronus took in the eleven men before him and pulled himself up to full height. “I choose no plea,” he said in a loud clear voice, “and offer instead a Declaration of Circumstance.”

The Overseer frowned, but Ignatio’s face was unreadable. Behind them, the governors’ faces were a mixed lot, though disinterest appeared most prevalent. Certainly, in Petronus’s mind that made a certain sense. Their own Overseer had been disinterested in this action; they had a nation to rebuild-one with changes looming that formed far more pressing matters. A system that had served Erlund and his family for generations now threatened to topple beneath a wave of democracy that even gave Petronus pause. “Make your declaration,” the overseer said.

Petronus made eye contact with him again. Then, he scanned the room and made eye contact with each of the governors seated before him. “In the circumstance of Sethbert’s execution, we declare it to have been a matter of Androfrancine procedure carried out in accordance with the original Articles of Kin-Clave by ourselves as Holy See and Monarch of Windwir upon confirmation of the accused’s guilt by his own mouth and without coercion, offered, observed and documented as such. We do not recognize the predominance of Entrolusian law in this matter, and we petition-as is our right by monarchy-for the case to be heard and decided by Council of Kin-Clave.”

Petronus wasn’t sure what he’d expected. In one of the dramas Esarov had once acted out upon the stage, at this point there would be indrawn breaths and shocked faces. But instead, his declaration sounded out into the nearly empty room, echoing slightly as it did.

Erlund sighed. Surely, Petronus thought, he saw it as a small price to pay for bringing his civil war to an end and reuniting his city-states beneath him. Now, it was simply a matter of establishing venue and waiting for the council to convene. As such, Erlund would become one voice among many as the heads of state came together to hear Petronus’s case and rule.

Certainly, it could still go badly. The war had rubbed kin-clave thin between many of the Named Lands’ houses and nations. But now the odds were with Petronus. And what came next would further establish those odds.

“Very well,” Erlund said in a dry voice. “This court recognizes kin-clave and your right as monarch to a trial before your peers. A date shall be established and arrangements shall be made to convene the Council of Kin-Clave that they might hear this matter.”

Petronus waited until the gavel was midway between the air and the podium before speaking again. “If it pleases his Excellency,” he said, “we would continue.”

Now Erlund looked surprised and interested suddenly. You didn’t see this coming, young pup. His eyes narrowed and he put the gavel down. “We apologize. We had believed you had made your declaration.”

“The Articles of Kin-Clave specify clearly that choice of venue falls to the accused,” Petronus continued, “that their protection might be assured by the hosting nation.”

Already, Ignatio’s fingers flew through an old volume kept beneath their table. He found a passage, passed the book to Erlund and pointed. Erlund nodded. “It is within your purview.”

Petronus smiled, and it was grim there in the morning light. “It is indeed within our purview. The venue of our choice is our own nation, the free state of Windwir.”

Now there was noise in the room. Now came the indrawn breaths and the uncomfortable shifting upon those wooden chairs. A dark cloud passed over Erlund’s face. “Windwir is no more, Petronus. There is no nation there.”

“Regardless,” Petronus said, glancing to Esarov and taking in his broad smile, “it is the venue we choose. We petition for it as such and petition as well that the Ninefold Forest Houses be contacted for the arrangements of council as named protector of Windwir.”

The room became silent, and all eyes went to Erlund. Finally, he sighed. “Let the record state that Council of Kin-Clave will be held as petitioned,” he finally said, bringing the gavel down.

Petronus wasn’t sure what he’d expected next, but it happened quickly enough. The guards returned for him. He and Esarov stood, inclining their heads to the council and its Overseer, and prepared to go their separate ways. As Esarov shook his hand, he pressed a message into Petronus’s wrist. Well done. I will come soon to prepare for the council.

He nodded. “Thank you.”

Esarov offered a grim smile. “Thank you, Petronus.”

As he crossed the room, Petronus glanced once more to Erlund and saw the anger on his face again. He’d not expected this turn, and he resented the loss of control, both over his Council of Governors and over his trial. His apparent frustration did not rankle Petronus in the least. Erlund might not have fully anticipated Petronus’s strategy, but Petronus had certainly expected the Overseer’s anger over it.

But when his eyes next found the face of Erlund’s spymaster and prosecutor, he saw something there that he did not expect. It was brief and it was meant for Petronus alone, of that he had no doubt.

There, in that moment as Petronus passed by the bench, Ignatio offered him a slight and secret smile.

And above that smile, something satisfied and smug danced behind the man’s eyes.

It was the satisfied gaze of a hunter happening upon a sprung snare. The smug look of a fisherman hauling in his overflowing net.

Petronus shuddered and forced himself forward, but even late into that night, that smile and those eyes stayed with him and promised something soon coming that he could not quite place.