Lamentation

Chapter 14

Rudolfo

Rudolfo prowled the high-windowed prisoner’s quarters in the western tower of the Summer Palace. They’d removed his shackles at the door, marching him through the compound in chains for show more than anything else. They locked the door behind him, and he noticed immediately that there was no way to open it from inside. The windows were set high enough and deep enough into the stone that there was no way a man could squeeze through. And the colored glass blocks looked too thick to break.

The suite of rooms was more than adequate. The living area contained a full bookcase-a treasure of books, Rudolfo saw from a glance, ranging from the tragic dramas of the Pho Tam Period to the mystic poetry of T’Erys Whym-along with an ornate desk and a sitting area near a Zancgolden furnace.

His boots were hushed by thick carpets as he strode across the room and opened the door to the bedchamber. The bed was large, with heavy timber posts and heavy wool blankets and quilts. Once he’d seen the entire suite, he returned to the desk and sat at it. He found paper and started crafting messages that he doubted he’d be allowed to send. Still, it kept him focused to write them.

He was finishing his fifth message when he heard a key at the lock. He looked up and watched as an older man in white robes trimmed with blue stepped in, accompanied by two taciturn guards.

“Lord Rudolfo,” the man said with the slightest nod.

Rudolfo stood and then bowed. “Pope… Resolute, is it? I wish we met under more favorable circumstances.”

The Pope nodded, then gestured to the sitting area. “Let’s sit and talk for a while.” He walked to a large, plush chair near the furnace and waited until Rudolfo joined him.

Rudolfo walked to the chairs and then sat. He adjusted himself until he was comfortable. “You’ve issued a Writ of Shunning against me, and your guards arrested me on sight,” Rudolfo said. “I would know why.”

The Pope’s eyes narrowed. “You know why. You know damned well why.”

Rudolfo kept his voice low, his tone calm. “I did not destroy Windwir.”

Resolute’s next question was edged with urgency and anger. “Where is the metal man?”

Rudolfo hoped his next words were truthful. “Somewhere safe.”

“I’ve issued orders for all Androfrancine resources to be gathered for inventory here at the Summer Palace. All resources, including the mechoservitor.”

“I understand this.”

“Yet you ride to me alone and empty-handed?” The Pope leaned forward. “You are harboring a fugitive.”

Rudolfo matched his posture, leaning forward himself. “I’m safeguarding the Named Lands-and you, I might add, the Last of the Androfrancines-from the most dangerous weapon conceived in recent history.”

The Pope smiled. “So you admit it?”

amp;“es mil#8220;To holding him? Yes.” Rudolfo’s eyes narrowed. “But I did not destroy Windwir. Your cousin did that.”

Resolute sat back, his mouth open and his eyes wide.

“Certainly I know Sethbert’s your kin,” Rudolfo snapped. “I make a point of knowing.” But the disdain-much like the cockiness-was a sham intended to provoke.

Inwardly, he felt grateful for the look of surprise on the Pope’s face. It meant he did not know what Rudolfo knew. Of course, the Androfrancines no longer had the intelligence resources available that they had once had. To be sure, the Order maintained a vast network of operatives, but it would take months to pull it back together under the vastly different circumstances.

If it could be pulled back together. Rudolfo suspected that it would be an impossible task.

Do I press or hold? He pressed his hands together, forming a tent beneath his chin. Hold, he thought. Wait.

Resolute’s face flushed. “And you say my cousin Sethbert destroyed Windwir? Those are lofty charges.”

“And yet I imagine he made the same allegations to you regarding me,” Rudolfo said.

“He did.”

“With what evidence?”

The Pope didn’t even think. “You do happen to have only one of the fourteen mechoservitors. And the one you happen to have is the one that supposedly brought down the city. We also have the body of Arch-Mechanic Charles’s apprentice, allegedly killed by your men.”

“All of these are true enough,” Rudolfo said. “I do not hide it. And tomorrow, I will tell you my tale and you may judge for yourself.” Rudolfo offered an apologetic smile. “I am tired and would present my best case to you, not the mumblings of an exhausted general.” He stood. “I will also have messages to send,” Rudolfo said, “in accordance with the Rights of Monarchy spelled out in the Rites of Kin-Clave.”

More surprise. Whatever kind of archbishop he’d been, this Oriv hadn’t learned the subtle dance of kin-clave politics.

Finally, the Pope stood and smoothed his robes. “Tomorrow, then,” he said. “And I will consider your request.”

Rights are not requests, Rudolfo wanted to say, but didn’t. Instead, he waited, counting the steps, until Pope Resolute the First reac“ thRomhed the doorway and raised his hand to knock.

“Excellency?” he said, stepping forward and raising his hand.

The Pope turned. “Yes?”

“I would just have you ask yourself one thing on my behalf.”

The Pope’s jaw clenched but he forced the words out. “What is that?”

“I do have the metal man. And I did kill the apprentice-or rather, I had him killed. But how would I have known anything about the discovery of the Seven Cacophonic Deaths?”

Pope Resolute frowned. “Spies. Someone in the upper echelons. Anyone can be bought at the right price.”

Rudolfo smiled. “Even a cousin?”

Resolute’s face went white. He turned back to the door and knocked on it three times. When it opened to him, he left without saying a word and his guards followed after.

Rudolfo watched them go, and inventoried everything he had just learned.

Vlad Li Tam

Vlad Li Tam’s summer office was on the eighth patio of his seaside estate. The building was layered like a pyramid, each level smaller than the one before it until the eighth and last-the highest point in a hundred leagues or more. There, reclined on cushions and smoking his pipe, he asked questions and gave answers as he saw fit each day, every day.

“What news have we of my forty-second daughter?” he asked, drawing in a lungful of the kallaberry smoke.

The aide found a string on his stack of pages and followed it to the appropriate message. “She comes under the color of knotted blue.”

Ah, he thought. An admonition couched in inquiry. She was a clever one. He’d named her for the water ghosts that once raced the oceans-the Jin of Elder Times. Quick and unseen and too deep to be caught.

She’d lived up to her name.

“What is her admonition?”

The aide shuffled papers about. “Her admonition is that the metal man is returning to Pope Resolute.”

Of course, Vlad Li Ta“ rse Rem thought. He is dangerous and in danger all at once. He didn’t need for her to say that she would accompany the metal man. He knew that she would. “And what is her inquiry?”

“Do you still mean for her to wed Rudolfo?”

He knew his daughters well, and now he smiled. Once the new Pope issued his decree, Vlad Li Tam had known she’d write and ask. Not because she thought his strategy might’ve changed-though she’d tell herself that. She would ask because there was a part of her, deep down, that saw marriage as the hunter’s snare-something to poach but not be caught in.

He laughed. “Of course I do. Resolute the First will come to nothing.”

“Lord?”

He inhaled from his pipe and watched the green waters of the Inner Emerald Coast. “What else do you have?”

The aide pulled the dark purple thread-a color not on any message scarf but known to be that of silent kin-clave. “I’ve word from Resolute,” said the aide, “ordering significant credit transfers of guardianship custom to Sethbert.”

“How significant?”

“Certainly enough to offset part of the impact from destroying the major pillar in the Delta’s economy. For a short while, anyway.”

Vlad Li Tam smiled. “He only needs it for a short while. The Writ of Shunning coincides nicely with Sethbert’s guardianship of Windwir. It’s not a stretch to assume he intends to take the Ninefold Forest under his care as well.”

But why? Vlad Li Tam did not ask this question out loud, though. He did not want his aide to know that he did not know-it was better for them to believe he knew everything.

Most days, he did know everything. But today, he did not know why Sethbert had turned on Windwir, why he’d brought her down so utterly without any warning or posturing.

The plan was well conceived. The cousin conveniently away at the Papal Summer Palace. The apprentice paid for. The metal man’s script rewritten. Sethbert had managed to bring down the city, prop up his economy and position himself to annex the Ninefold Forest and provide the muscle for an Androfrancine Remnant.

But why?

“Rudolfo also rides for the Dragon’s Spine,” the aide said, pulling another string. “His Wandering Army’s vanished.”

Vlad Li Tam sighed. He’d known the army would vanish. He’d wondered whether or not Rudolfo would go to face the Pope. Now he knew something more about Rudolfo.

The aide shuffled paper. “That is all of the unquiet business of the day.”

“And the quiet business?” Vlad Li Tam said.

“Pope Petronus has voided our letters of credit in the Windwir Effort, with apologies.”

Vlad Li Tam leaned forward. “Because Sethbert is tending to it?”

The aide nodded. “Yes, Lord.”

“Good. Tell Pope Petronus that I will keep his secret. For now.”

“I will send the message immediately.” The aide stood, bowed and left.

Three days, he thought. In three days I will tell everyone that I am going to the Dragon’s Spine as well.

Vlad Li Tam inhaled the deep salt air. It was nearly as soothing as the kallaberry smoke.

“I wonder what we are making, daughter,” he said to the sea below.

Jin Li Tam

Jin Li Tam approached the Gray Guard at the gates of the Summer Papal Palace before any of the Gypsy Scouts could.

“Hail, keepers of the light,” she said. “I would speak with Pope Resolute.” She cantered her mount closer. “Tell him it is Jin Li Tam, former consort of his cousin Sethbert, forty-second daughter of Vlad Li Tam, and most immediately, betrothed of Lord Rudolfo of the Ninefold Forest Houses and General of the Wandering Army.” She inclined her head to them. “Tell the Pope I have personally escorted his metal man home.”

Getting in, she realized as the gates creaked open, is never the problem.

The Pope insisted on seeing her immediately, personally escorting her to the guest quarters. He did not understand the taking and giving of kin-clave, she realized. And he did not understand that because of this, she knew everything there was to know about him in less than seven minutes.

“My father was very specific,” she told him, smiling through the lie, “that I was to personally escort and supervise the mechoservitor until this matter of Windwir is “ ofcifresolved. He said that you of all men would understand why this was so important in light of recent events.” Her tone was dark and she lowered her voice. “House Li Tam has acted as a neutral party in many negotiations of kin-clave.”

The Pope nodded. “We will accommodate his request.”

She nodded. She knew full well it had nothing to do with anything other than money. This new archbishop’s only bridge to what remained of the Order’s treasury was her father, and doing what her father wanted was prudent for him. “Also, there is the matter of consummating my betrothal to Rudolfo.”

The Pope stammered. “Yes. I did not know until today.”

“My father only recently announced it. I’m assuming that the Order does not forbid conjugal visits of their prisoners?”

“It can be arranged, certainly.”

“My father would appreciate that,” she said. Already, the betrothal was working in her favor. It had to be her father.

After the Pope left her, she bathed and perfumed herself and oiled her hair. She unrolled the one gown she’d found among the clothes laid out for her at the seventh manor and she hung it near the hot water so that the steam could lift the wrinkles.

She moved easily and naked around Isaak as she prepared.

“We will see Lord Rudolfo tonight then?” Isaak asked.

“We will,” she said. “We have much to discuss.”

She arranged to have her dinner served in Rudolfo’s chambers, and ten minutes before, she and Isaak went to the staircase that led to the tower where the Gray Guard waited. They did not bother to search her, though they looked Isaak over thoroughly, exchanging furtive glances of trepidation between themselves. Still, her father’s wishes-even those she manufactured-would be followed. Of this, she had no doubt.

Finally, they worked a large key in the door and opened it for her. She walked in, Isaak close behind, the thick carpets shushing his metal feet.

The Prisoner’s Quarters were nearly indistinguishable from her own. Wall hangings of hunting scenes woven in tapestry took the place of a wide glass window-this room’s windows were set high and narrow in the ceiling. She saw a desk with scattered sheets of paper filled with cramped script in at least three languages, and behind it, a bookcase. A door led off the main room into what she supposed was the bedroom and bathing room. Across from it, a small dining table was set for three, and in the “ee,e. center of the room stood a golden furnace surrounded by a low couch and three armchairs.

Rudolfo stood from the couch and bowed. She watched his eyes move over her quickly, pausing in the right places. “Lady Tam,” he said, “you are a vision in my desert.”

She curtsied. “Lord Rudolfo, it is agreeable to see you again.” And it was. It surprised her just how agreeable. He was dressed in a pair of dark green trousers and a loose-fitting silk shirt the color of lightly cooked cream, tied together by a crimson sash. A matching turban accentuated the midnight of his eyes. He looked at the metal man, and his smile widened.

“Isaak,” he said. “Are you well?”

“I am not, Lord,” the metal man said. “I fear-”

Rudolfo raised a hand. “After dinner, my metal friend.”

He walked to Jin’s side and offered her an arm. She let him take it. He seemed taller than she remembered, but certainly shorter than she was. She felt his fingers moving along her arm, pressing and releasing.

I hoped to spare you this, he tapped. “Let me seat you,” he said aloud.

She nodded and smiled as he moved her toward the table, placing her hand on his wrist. My father had other plans it seems, she replied.

He pulled out her chair and pushed it in as she sat. Then she watched as he circled the table to stand behind his own chair. “Come and sit with us, Isaak,” he said, pointing to a third place at the table.

“I do not eat, Lord Rudolfo,” Isaak began, but Rudolfo waved his words away.

“Join us anyway.”

Isaak limped to the table and sat, staring down at the place settings arranged before him. He looked up at the dome-covered dishes and the bottles of chilled wine. “May I at least serve, Lord?” the metal man asked.

Rudolfo shook his head. “Certainly not.” He winked at Jin. “Tonight is our betrothal dinner, and I intend to do all of the serving.”

Jin watched him as he moved from one side of the table to the other, now by her side again and holding a dripping bottle of wine wrapped in a white cotton towel. He raised his eyebrows and she nodded. He filled her glass, then filled his own and sat.

He raised the glass and leaned in. “I wo“ in./p›uld have cooked,” he said, “if Resolute had given me free run of the kitchen.”

Jin smiled, shifting easily into another nonverbal language. She sipped her wine, moving her fingers and shrugging. Resolute knows little of statecraft, she signed to him. She licked her lips, wishing the wine were tart and a bit drier. “This is an excellent choice,” she said.

I concur; we can use that to our advantage, he signed back. He returned her smile. “I’m glad you approve.”

He turned to Isaak. How has he been? Rudolfo signed to her, moving his fingers along stem of his glass while touching the table cloth with his right forefinger. “How have you been, Isaak?”

Remorseful, she answered.

“I am functioning properly, Lord Rudolfo.”

He nodded and turned back to Jin Li Tam. “It’s a tradition in my house that the groom-to-be prepare a feast for his betrothed. When my father took my mother into his house, he spent a week in the kitchens and three weeks before that in the Great Library poring over recipes to make the perfect selections for her.” Rudolfo chuckled. “He spoke of it often as his greatest test of strategy. He sent runners across the Named Lands gathering the ingredients. A bottle of apple brandy from the cave-castles of Grun El. Peaches from Glimmerglam, of course. Rice and kallaberries from the Emerald Coasts.”

Her father had spoken of Lord Jakob. He’d not spoken of the lady, though. Under better circumstances, her father would have fully briefed her on the history of Rudolfo’s house. When she’d accepted the role of consort to Lord Sethbert, she’d spent nearly a month locked away with everything her father had gathered on that man and his family.

Now, the stakes were higher-a full betrothal-but she knew far less about this man she was to marry.

She shifted in her seat, suddenly feeling the weight of those stakes. Perhaps her father had changed his strategy.

She doubted it. If he’d intended to do such a thing, word would’ve waited for her here and she’d not have been allowed to see Rudolfo.

Your father must protect Isaak, he signed to her as he stood again. “Alas,” he said, “we’ll celebrate our occasion with less glamour.”

Rounding the table, he took her plate and served her. He watched the look on her face as he lifted each lid, and she noticed how well he read her expressions, leaving off those dishes that elicited a less than favorable response from her.

He reads people well, she thought, as he speared asparagus onto her plate. He left off the drizzle of butter and roasted garlic and continued.

She smiled at him as he put the plate in front of her. “You are quite good at that.”

He nodded. “I am a student of the masses.”

He served himself quickly, and filled fresh wineglasses with something red and unchilled. She lifted it to her nose and knew already it would be tart and dry on her tongue.

Rudolfo raised his glass. “To formidable partnerships,” he said. His other hand moved slightly, but she followed with her eye. May we find happiness in one another despite the circumstances that bring us together.

She raised her glass as well and repeated the words that he had spoken aloud. She was too surprised to reply to the words he had not spoken, the words he’d signed in the nonverbal language of House Li Tam.

She’d not considered happiness as something important to this Gypsy King. She wondered what else would surprise her about him.

Petronus

Two days after Sethbert’s visit the first supply wagons pushed their way along the ash-strewn road, delivering tools, food and clothing to the workers.

Petronus tasked Neb with inventorying and assigning them. The boy was quick with a pencil and ciphers. Over the days, as word spread to the outlying villages, more workers drifted in. A few refugees-tradesfolk who’d relied on Windwir for their livelihood-showed up. And at least two Androfrancine caravans had stopped, en route to the Summer Palace to heed Pope Resolute’s call. When those wagons-and their Gray Guard contingents-stopped, Petronus marked his face with soot and talked to the ground, though he knew it was unlikely that anyone would recognize him.

But the boy recognized you, some part of him chided. Of course, the amazing thing about boys was that they actually paid attention to busts and portraits even when it seemed like they didn’t. But someday, he thought, someone who really knew you will recognize you. You were lucky with Sethbert, the same voice said.

Now that Introspect was dead, there were no other Androfrancines who knew about Petronus. And back at home, in Caldus Bay, the few still living who knew his secret were too grateful to have their limerick master back to ever break it. And of course, Vlad Li Tam had known. He’d helped locate the roots and flowers that Petronus’s particular poison had required, and had arranged for and financed the runaway Pope’s escort home after an appropriate period of time in hiding at House Li Tam on the Inner Emerald Coast.

The past hounds us all.

After leaving Neb, Petronus walked north, away from camp. When he’d first seen the wagon, he’d felt a surge of anger far more powerful than he expected. As if all his rage towards Sethbert for this senseless act of genocide was focused into one white-hot flame that could only see a wagon of tools and supplies. The anger was so powerful that it shook him, and now, at least thirty minutes later, he still felt the tension of it. As he walked, he found himself suddenly moving into a Francine meditation he used frequently when he’d been in Windwir.

He stopped and chuckled.

“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.