The Road to Hell

Chapter Seven

December 13

“Excuse me, Your Highness, but what are you doing at my desk?”

Her Imperial Highness, Crown Princess Andrin Calirath, started guiltily and dropped the page she’d been trying to read in the dim pre-morning light. Her elbow barked the edge of the desk and nearly toppled one of the stacks of paper filling the half dozen in-boxes of her father’s first councilor, Shamir Taje.

The man himself stood in the doorway to his offices in the Tajvana palace, and she felt a flash of guilt go through her. He wasn’t merely her father’s first councilor; he’d also been her tutor in many things related to the power and might of the imperial government back when she’d merely been studying to support her brother’s eventual reign.

“Did you need something?” Taje cradled his first cup of dark morning tea and blinked groggily at Andrin. “Why isn’t the lamp lit?”

Because I was trying to sneak a look at these papers without drawing any attention, Andrin thought but did not say. Lazima chan Zindico, her personal guardsman, stood at the side of the room and waited quite politely for the crown princess to explain. She looked up at her old teacher’s tired face, feeling her face heat, and drew a deep breath.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “Too much to worry about-I needed to see for myself.”

Taje looked at her, sleepy, and suddenly very old to her eyes. He’d see a young princess with a mess of Calirath black hair shot with gold strands, too tall for proper elegance, and with deep bags under her eyes, she thought, and brushed her hair back with one hand in an automatic attempt to smooth it.

Miss Balthar would have seen to making Andrin’s appearance sleek and regal if not actually beautiful and elegant…if Andrin had actually woken her staff for proper dressing before slipping off to check on the Privy Council’s work. She knew she really should have, but she’d been too impatient, too jumpy within her own skin, to worry about “should haves,” and she’d seen no reason anyone else should be dragged out of bed at such an unholy hour. Even Finena, her imperial peregrine falcon, was still back in the rooms resting with her night hood on-the poor bird would squawk enough to deafen a full wing of the Great Palace if she woke with Andrin missing from the room-although at least she hadn’t quite been foolish enough to go anywhere without an armed guard.

That much of the duty of a Calirath she’d not failed at this morning.

“Never mind, Shamir. I shouldn’t have come out here.” She rubbed her own eyes feeling the weight of the lost hours of sleep. “I’d hoped to see the list of marriage candidates, but it was probably foolish for me to come involve myself. I’m sure your council has everything well in hand.”

The concern didn’t leave the first councilor’s face. “Did you have some reason to think it wasn’t? Did you have a Glimpse?”

“No.” Andrin hastened to reassure him. “Just simple marriage jitters. It’s nothing, really. Please, forget I came.” At the deepening furrow in Shamir Taje’s brow, she added, “I just needed to be sure there’d be at least one good choice on the list.”

She lifted her eyes to the first councilor, hoping he would understand all the things she couldn’t articulate, sometimes even to herself. Janaki had trained to be her father’s heir all his life. Andrin hadn’t, and she felt horribly ill-prepared. At this particular moment she felt more like a little girl than a woman about to turn eighteen and make a dynastic marriage to secure the Empire of Sharona.

Taje nodded slowly and took a long sip from his cup, regarding the crown princess with more understanding-and sympathy-than she might have believed he could. But the list she was looking for, the list of all the eligible Uromathian princes from which she must select her future consort, wasn’t in the unprotected open on his desk.

The office’s security was good enough he could probably have left even so important a document and all its related notes in plain view, but he had far too much concern for Andrin’s future-and Sharona’s-to do anything so careless. Even in an interior office in the Calirath Palace, with windows that opened only to the secure courtyard and hallways patrolled by the Imperial Guard, some horrible mistake might happen.

So he used the heavy oak cabinets that lined his office study and wore the key to their locks on a chain around his neck.

“One moment, Your Highness. I’ll show you the draft. It isn’t final, you understand. But I can show you what we have so far.”

He made a quick circuit of the room, dropping the window curtains and securing the door while Lazima chan Zindico moved deftly out of his way with the sure experience of a man who knew exactly which security moves to expect. Taje produced his key and opened the largest of the cabinets. For this project, the Privy Council had amassed great piles of notes…and all of them had either been carefully burned and stirred in the study’s fireplace or banded and filed here in the wall cabinet. He proffered a few sheaves, and the crown princess snatched them eagerly from his hands.

“This isn’t the complete list yet. There are likely a few more names we might add.”

Andrin wasn’t listening. Her eyes had stopped a third of the way down the second page: Howan Fai Goutin, Crown Prince of Eniath.

“Oh. Oh, good! I suppose there was no reason to worry at all.”

She handed the list back to the first councilor, who checked the sheet and smiled at her choice.

“We weren’t going to forget the Eniath prince, Your Highness,” he said gently.

“Well, no, I suppose not.” Andrin acknowledged, ducking her head just slightly. The motion conveyed sheepishness, but, Taje noted, the crown princess’s Calirath spine had stayed regally straight. Lady Merissa Vankhal would have approved. “I just wanted to be sure. There might have been concern about his family being too easily pressured by the Busar line, or maybe there were others that would look better on paper, or he could have already been married but not mentioned it when we spoke, I mean, I think he might have mentioned that, but-”

“He is certainly not already married.” Taje broke in to soothe the crown princess’s concerns. “The Privy Council will be reviewing all the details of these candidates to provide dossiers to you during this week before you meet once more with the Conclave to announce your choice.”

“To me?” The surprise in Andrin’s tone reminded him just how new his crown princess was to the heirship. She had the backbone to fight Uromathia on the Conclave floor, but demanding her due from the Winged Crown’s staff didn’t yet come naturally.

“Yes, Your Highness. We’ll be making our report to you. Nothing we may find will lessen the importance of your choice, but we hope to provide as much clarity on the candidates as we may.” An idea occurred to him. The crown princess’s schedule was absurdly busy, but perhaps a few things could be moved. “You’d be welcome to come to our deliberations if you’d like to hear the details.”

“Yes.” Andrin nodded, slowly. “I’d very much like to hear the details.”

Taje responded with a decisive nod of his own. “We’ve been working through lunch and some of the staff have been all but sleeping in my office. It’s a tight fit when we all get in here, but I think it would do the council well to get to know you better anyway. We are your council as well as your father’s.”

Andrin agreed wholeheartedly, and felt a touch of chagrin as she realized this was exactly the sort of thing Janaki would have done. She should have thought of it for herself, and a part of her scolded herself for failing to do so. But another part of her understood exactly why she hadn’t. Intellectually, she knew her brother was dead and gone, leaving her suddenly in the role of heir. She’d managed to accept that much, terrible though the shock had been, but all the other bits and pieces, like sitting in on Privy Council deliberations, still felt foreign and a touch like usurping her older brother’s prerogatives.

Andrin quashed the thought. That was a perspective Chava Busar would want her to have-a way of thinking that he could use to keep her ignorant and uninvolved in the workings of the empire-while one of his sons sat in Janaki’s place instead of Janaki’s blood. As Janaki’s sister, she owed it to him to become the kind of empress Sharona needed.

“I’d be very pleased to attend the Privy Council’s deliberations. And also-” Andrin caught the First Councilor’s eyes. “I apologize for sneaking into your office. I should simply have asked.”

Taje bowed. “To be sure. But perhaps the Privy Council should have thought to invite you. We still, myself included unfortunately, think of you too much as our Emperor’s young daughter and not enough as our future Empress.” He bowed again more deeply. “I, too, apologize.”

The First Councilor had a few minutes more to consider his crown princess’ face as she waited for her guardsman to clear the hallway. The extra security in place in Tajvana felt extreme compared to Ternathia, and yet it was necessary.

The Great Palace had been occupied by the Order of Bergahl for over two hundred years. Outwardly, the turrets, walls, and towers appeared unchanged to the point of disrepair. Inside, the changes were random-likely chosen for modern opulence with little thought for either architectural cohesion or imperial security. Hundreds of years of excess hadn’t been and couldn’t be put to rights in an instant…and there was always the possibility that the present Seneschal or one of his predecessors might have made changes which had nothing at all to do with modernization and quite a lot to do with less savory considerations. At the moment, however, Taje was more concerned with his princess’ emotions than any questions about her physical security.

“Your Majesty,” he asked, “are you reassured, truly?”

Andrin looked at him and allowed her expression-for a rare moment-to show her deep concern. “I don’t know if I can be reassured, Shamir.”

“It’s a good solid choice. One that can and will hold the new empire together.”

“Yes,” his crown princess agreed. “And I should probably be grateful there’s just one Howan Fai Goutin. Imagine if there were three good Uromathian princes and I had to roll a die to pick between them. This is how it is though, isn’t it? You dance with a decent seeming prince once, politics force the situation, and then you need to marry and hope he’s up to the task.”

“He should be, but we’ll study his background. And there may be others we can find if there’s a significant problem with him.” The first councilor spoke firmly, his tone confident and reassuring, but Andrin’s lifted eyebrow showed he hadn’t quite pulled it off. Well, he’d already known she was no one’s fool, and the truth was there weren’t any others to find, really. A few more Uromathian princes existed with less firm ties to Emperor Chava than the man’s own sons, but if something were to happen to Howan Fai Goutin, the council would be looking to Howan’s brothers, not to some other family.

“I don’t need everything coated in honey, Shamir. In fact I think I’ll do better if I can hear from the outset if we find any problems,” the crown princess said, straightening her shoulders. He bowed in response and secured the precious list before chan Zindico opened the door.

A quartet of night shift guardsmen in thick protective suits wearing braces of throwing knives in addition to their usual gear stepped to the side of the hallway as Andrin came through the door, and the first councilor frowned in surprise.

“Is this a new security measure?”

Chan Zindico shook his head. “No, My Lord, just a practice session. We’ve been doing these exercises down in the training salles for weeks, but the guard commander decided we should move them to some of the actual hallways we defend.”

At the first councilor’s startled look, the armsman added, “But only at night. We wouldn’t want to skewer one of the staff. And our practice blades aren’t poisoned, so it wouldn’t be much of a wound anyway. Thrown blades of the type the Order of Bergahl use in their knife dances aren’t much of a threat without the poison.

“And the commander’s added a few more effective weapons to the training in case local troublemakers decide to be creative.” Chan Zindico gestured down to the cross hall away from the direction they needed to go. Something black and feathery shot across the perpendicular hallway.;, it was followed almost immediately by a yelp.

“They aren’t our usual tools,” he said, “but we need to be ready to defend against them.”

“I see.” Shamir Taje rubbed his head, looking distinctly like he could use a second cup of morning tea. “I just wish your definitions of night aligned more closely with mine, Master Armsman chan Zindico.” He cast a look at the steadily brightening morning light now spilling in through the window.

“Dawn does some interesting things to shadows in the halls and makes the deflections more challenging, My Lord,” the guardsman said, but he also inclined his head in acknowledgement of the first councilor’s point.

“So of course you lot had to try it then.” Taje shook his head. “You might try just dodging.”

“Sometimes, yes, My Lord.”

Chan Zindico, the first councilor noticed, didn’t point out that none of the guards would be ducking if they thought doing so would let a missile through to any member of the imperial family they’d sworn to protect.

Andrin took in that reminder also. She wasn’t the only one in danger if Emperor Chava learned about their subterfuge, and after they announced her marriage, the threat to her father’s guards and her own would only increase.

On that sobering thought, Andrin and chan Zindico returned to her suite to face the coming day.

* * *

A pair of men had been following Howan Fai Goutin for a day and a half. The Crown Prince of Eniath was certain of that. Well, almost. He was only almost certain because the men kept changing. And there were whole hours at a time when he was very nearly certain that no one but his own personal guardsman, Munn Lii, was consistently with him.

Last night Howan Fai had decided it was all in his imagination, born of spending too much time in close proximity to the Uromathian Emperor. Chava VII had no fresh reasons-that Howan Fai knew of-to attack him or any representative of Eniath, but history abounded with enough old reasons to make anyone uneasy, whether Chava had something actively in mind or not.

Chava Busar was certainly not the sort anyone wished to cross lightly, and the avaricious emperor tended to offend with excruciating ease. Eniath had proved too tough to be swallowed easily by the Busars during King Junni’s reign, but it was always possible another attempt would be made in this same generation.

Last night’s dinner had been at a small Ternathian cuisine restaurant tucked in an out-of-the-way corner of Tajvana. Just a group of his fellow small kingdom princes together in a rented back room for an evening of simple food and very fine beer straight from the tap. The bartender had displayed healthily muscled arms and an even more impressive belly as he regaled the group with stories and elicited the most remarkable outpouring of their own worst childhood antics. The entire room had been laughing at Howan Fai’s tale of attempting to induce a stolen goat to eat his tutor’s lecture books and instead having the side of his trousers slimed and gnawed as the goat tried to get at the grain and molasses mix which he’d used to attract the beast and then absently stuffed in his own pockets.

If the bartender had somehow lost the gut overnight and grown a nose a size or two larger, he would be the prosperous man of business who’d trailed him through the last three jewelry stores, seemingly just another shopper. A shopper who was always interested in storefronts and stalls that which just happened to keep him on the same meandering path as Howan Fai and Munn Lii. He would have pegged the man as a thief except for the similarly muscled spotter set up at a corner cafe at an uncovered table with a full view of Gem Street. The table should have been empty in the cold winter drizzle, and the spotter should have been a child, or at most a poverty-slimmed man, if he’d truly been dealing with thieves desperate enough to try a snatch in broad daylight in this wealthy part of Tajvana. So if Howan Fai wasn’t simply imagining things, simple thievery wasn’t on the table.

He would have ended the shopping trip early and returned to the somewhat safer apartments being used by all the Conclave members, but family experience taught him not to trust a rented safe house. Besides, Uromathian intimidation tactics were usually much more blatant. These watchers seemed to be merely tracking his routine, so Howan Fai saw no reason to stop what he was doing just to let them get out of the cold.

His mother’s birthday was coming up in a few months, and she was far too valuable as a potential hostage to ever leave the security of Eniath. Trapped at home, she always loved it when he picked up something from his travels for her, but everything he’d seen so far could be bought in the flourishing stores of his father’s kingdom. He knew how much she’d longed to travel to Tajvana for the Conclave, and we wanted something truly special for her this year.

If Chava VII had him kidnapped, Howan Fai knew with white-knuckle certainty that it would be his duty to do his best to suicide. Unfortunate family experience had shown that tactic worked. One of Howan’s own great uncles had proven it.

All the Eniath royals knew how it would go. His father, King Junni, would pronounce him dead and transfer the inheritance to Howan’s younger brother, and Chava would get nothing from Eniath. They’d made certain the Uromathian emperor knew their deadly serious intent, because the knowledge granted the family a small measure of security from abduction.

His mother had every bit of the inner strength necessary to do the same, but she knew what the loss of a beloved wife would do to King Junni, his father. And so she’d put aside her love of foreign places and stayed safe at home for their entire marriage. The least Howan Fai could do was to find her an exotic bit of jewelry for her birthday.

If it weren’t so hard to focus, he’d have selected any of a dozen pieces by now, but he couldn’t blame his distraction on the shadows. A certain grand princess newly elevated to Imperial Crown Princess had been filling his thoughts. Which, he knew, was unforgivably stupid of the thoughts in question…or of the man thinking them, at any rate. He’d probably only ever see her again a handful of times during the rest of his lifetime, so why was his back brain incessantly thinking up ways he might snag an invitation to official events likely to be graced by her presence?

He remembered the reception where they’d first met. Her elegant height, nearly a foot and a half above his own, and her stunning gold-threaded black hair had drawn him across the room, for his mother was not the only one to find the exotic enticing. But then he’d been distracted by Finena her falcon, fallen into real conversation, and been stunned to discover he really, truly liked her.

More than just liked her, he admitted to himself. Oh, Andrin!

Howan Fai glanced down. The matched pair of teardrop rubies he fingered now were an utterly inappropriate present for his mother. She liked darkest green jade that brought out the warmth of her skin and the occasional turquoise or other semiprecious stones for their uniqueness. She didn’t like getting precious gemstones. His mother considered those only appropriate for wear at the most official state occasions when, as Queen of Eniath, she’d be expected to don the crown jewels passed down from his father’s mother instead of recently purchased gifts from her children.

Still, Howan Fai couldn’t help wondering if Imperial Crown Princess Andrin might not like a pair of earrings made up with these. There was no way he could make such a present without also making himself a fool, but he imagined she might very much like them. They weren’t the absolute highest quality rubies, so maybe to a Calirath they wouldn’t seem so expensive and could be worn almost everyday. And a certain something about the way the fire glinted inside the gems reminded him of her spirit.

With a sigh, he pushed away the beauties and selected a broach formed in the shape of a butterfly with a clever combination of worked silver and dyed pearls.

As he handed the shopkeeper his choice, Howan Fai examined the glass behind the jewelry counter to check his human shadow. The suspicious man was standing in front of a set of ladies’ bracelets in a large glass case with a mirrored back side. The man showed remarkably little interest in similar bracelets laid out on velvet without mirroring. And when Howan Fai produced his wallet to pay, the man seemed to decide he couldn’t afford the jewelry and wandered out of the store. If the trend continued, the man would find a nice outdoor spot and pass the tail on to a less familiar face.

The shopkeeper wrapped the purchase carefully in a dozen layers of fine cloth, and Howan Fai tucked the package into an interior pocket secure from the quick fingers of the city’s clever street criminals. Then he leaned in to exchange a few words with the shopkeeper.

“Master Jeweler. Did you see the large man behind me by the gold bracelets? He was not a regular customer, I don’t think?”

The owner shook his head with wry disgust. “Haven’t seen him before, Your Lordship. Not someone I knew, but begging Your Lordship’s pardon, there’ve been customers come for this Conclave with the look of desert bandits who turned out to be foreign princes. That one had the look of a thief, so I kept an eye out. My goods are all still here.”

Howan Fai nodded and didn’t correct his title. Tajvana was teaming with foreign nobles these days, and most in the gemsellers’ district had taken to greeting everyone as a lord, just to be safe. Some of his own ancestors had become sea nomads to avoid the land wars which had raged between some of the other Conclave attendees’ ancestors-and many of those attendees did look like desert bandits even in Eniathian eyes, far less from the perspective of cosmopolitan Tajvana.

Thievery wasn’t an explanation Howan Fai had considered likely, but it made sense from the shopkeeper’s perspective, so he adjusted his story slightly.

“That man seems to have been following me, and I’d like to keep the fine jewelry I just bought. There was another one-his partner, perhaps-across the street.…

The shopkeeper lifted the side of his coat to reveal the revolver that looked like the shorter-barreled, lighter civilian version of the Ternathian H amp;W. It had a well-worn grip, and there were two speedloader pouches on his belt. Howan Fai had expected the owner of a shop with so much valuable merchandise to have guards on staff, and he’d wondered why he hadn’t seen any; now he knew why.

“They won’t rob Your Lordship in my store. But I could send for an escort if you’d like?”

Howan Fai caught a blatantly skeptical glance from his own guardsman, Munn Lii, which made Lii’s opinion about the value of city police for dealing with the brutes the Empire of Uromathia usually hired as intimidators quite clear. A few extra bodies would make it easier for the two of them to escape a bruising if that was all they faced, but unsuspecting men on the police force could easily be maimed or killed in a serious attack by the kind of criminals Uromathia could buy.

Howan Fai shared his guardsman’s views in that regard and demurred as politely as he could.

“I’ll stay out of dark alleys and my own guard should be sufficient. I just worry that the next customer might not be so wary. Do you think you could provide the city watch with the man’s description? If you come to the front I can point out the watcher too.”

The shopkeeper readily agreed, and Howan Fai hoped it would at least make this particular criminal’s life more difficult if he continued to sell his services to the likes of Chava Busar. Of course when they came to the front of the store both the possible thief and the shivering cafe man were gone.

The shopkeeper claimed the police must have already run them off, but he added after an uncomfortable pause, “At least I hope they did.”

He seemed less than certain of that, unfortunately, and Howan Fai found himself regretting that he’d raised the specter of thieves operating with impunity in such a prosperous area of the city. Tajvana might not be the glorious city it had once been under the Old Ternathian Empire, but he began to wonder just how thoroughly the Order of Bergahl had undermined respect for justice in the city if even gemsellers weren’t certain criminals would be stopped by the police.

He didn’t think his shadows were regular criminals, but now he wondered if the shopkeeper hadn’t also noted the excellent musculature and guessed at some more professional organization than the loose bonds avarice would form among common criminals. A check at the doorframe showed the Bergahl emblem was affixed with gold wire next to the certificate of business sealed by the Seneschal.

The establishment certainly seemed paid up with whatever tithes or taxes the Order demanded. Howan Fai’s own variant of the Uromathian faith placed the onus for piety on the individual, but some church fathers charged civilian leaders to mandate externally imposed religious observances instead. The quarterly stamps around the Bergahl emblem hinted strongly at a fiscal piety extracted from the well-to-do of Tajvana with the force of law.

“We all pay our dues to the Seneschal, Your Lordship.” The shopkeeper acknowledged Howan Fai’s careful inspection of the posted certificates. “It’ll be better for all of us when this Conclave is over,” the man said. “We dearly love the city’s visitors, of course, but the Seneschal is Tajvana.”

Munn Lii stepped quickly out the front door to check the street more thoroughly. Howan Fai stayed inside, waiting for his guard’s all clear and intrigued by the shopkeeper’s comments.

“Visitors? I suspect many of us will be staying for quite some time. After the Conclave, we’ll have to set up residences for officials coordinating with the unified empire. I’ll likely be going home soon, but it’ll be good for Tajvana to grow don’t you think?”

“As Your Lordship says, that’d be well enough, of course. But the Caliraths, won’t they want to get back to Hawkwing in the Ternathian Isles again? They left once, you know.”

Through the shop’s broad windows Munn Lii gave him the sign to wait and Howan Fai examined the shopkeeper’s face. The man didn’t seem to believe his own words, quite, but the way he leaned in and pressed his lips together did seem to imply he hoped Howan Fai would confirm them.

“I believe Tajvana should prepare itself to be the imperial seat for the Winged Crown once again,” he said finally.

“Oh.” The man deflated. “And Your Lordship is quite sure?”

“Yes.” He read fear in the shopkeeper’s eyes, so he added, “The Caliraths will be good for Tajvana. You’ve seen the carpenters and masons repairing the Grand Palace.” He seized on a point he expected a local merchant to appreciate. “There’ll be more fine work ordered after the worst of the damages are seen to. The gilding over the common entry way to the audience hall is missing for instance.”

“They’d gild the commoner’s entrance?” The man dry swallowed. “Would Your Lordship have heard when the tax for that is scheduled to begin?” When he didn’t have an immediate answer, the man continued, “I’ll need to sell my gold work before the confiscation. Perhaps Your Lordship has a few friends who’d like to come buy at a discount?”

“The Caliraths aren’t thieves,” Munn Lii put in as he re-entered the shop. “And our thieves are long gone, Highness.”

The shopkeeper flustered through an apology that left Howan Fai wondering what sort of policing Tajvana was accustomed to under the Order of Bergahl. He didn’t have to wonder about the tax burden the Order had imposed, though, and he supposed it was inevitable that the shopkeeper would be anticipating the worst. It would be too much to expect him to realize how utterly different from Faroayn Raynarg, the current Seneschal, a man like Zindel chan Calirath truly was. Besides, Zindel wouldn’t need to inflate his treasury just to repair the palace. The Imperial Suite had suffered an explosion of gilded surfaces under the Order of Bergahl stewardship. A few chairs from that chamber would provide more than enough gold leaf to set the entire main entranceway to rights; if the bathroom fixtures were replaced with mere solid silver, the Caliraths could build an entire new facade for the north wing! He seriously considered pointing that out, but the proprietor clearly had too many negative experiences to believe him.

Howan Fai gave up calming the man and left the store.

“There’s little difference between banditry and taxes in some places, Highness,” was all Munn Lii had to say about it.

“This won’t be tolerated for long.” Howan Fai couldn’t help giving a pair of city guardsmen patrolling the street a look of disgust. “I wouldn’t tolerate it, and I don’t believe Emperor Zindel will accept it either.”

Munn Lii was right about their tail and his watcher having disappeared. Howan Fai wasn’t sure the two men hadn’t simply realized they’d been recognized and left. The crowd filling the street now showed no one who stood out or appeared to be lingering anywhere too long. He sincerely hoped the shopkeeper wasn’t too frightened of the criminals’ possible Order affiliation to make a report when the city guard eventually stopped by.