The Seer - eARC (52 page)

In his future she saw him slam a fist against a desk, furious with someone. With many someones. With a town. Many towns. People would die under this fury, but still he would still not get what he wanted. And what did he want?

Smithies stand idle
, he spat,
waiting for ore.

“There is a mine, ser,” she said, struggling for elusive detail, forcing herself to sound more confident than she was. “More than one. But one in particular.”

“Go on.”

His voice revealed nothing. She hesitated, then pressed ahead.

The rails
.

“The rails.” She had never seen a rail-wagon or the rails it rode on, had barely heard of them until one of Maris’s long stories in one of the many inns.

“What about them?”

Rocks. Large rocks.

“They will break the rails. With rocks.”

“That would be astonishingly reckless of them. The mines and the rails are all that stand between them and my troops razing the town to the ground.”

“They want control of their land and future. They want it badly enough that they will sacrifice the mines, their homes, everything they have.”

“No, they won’t. No one goes that far.”

Amarta thought of her journey here.

“Tell me how to put this rebellion to rest, for good and for all, Seer.”

An impossible question; nothing could be that certain. She licked her lips, trying to see his future and those around him. What they might say. What they might do.

Too much detail.

What path took him to an ended rebellion?

“Give them ownership of the mines, ser.” Part guess, and it wasn’t quite right, but she could not see more.

“Impossible. The mines were opened by the crown at great cost. Find me another solution.”

Another solution? And this one already so hard to obtain? She must have looked as lost as she felt, because he said, “But later. First we come to an understanding. Who convinced you to come here? The man who found you, perhaps?”

He meant Tayre. “No.”

His eyebrows drew together. Clearly he did not believe her. “Despite your lack of contract, the crown will pay you for your service.”

“No,” she managed.

“No?” He sat back, seeming startled. “You refuse the queen’s gold?”

“Yes, ser.”

“No pay and no contract puts you entirely at the crown’s mercy. Is that really what you want?”

Surely she was already at his mercy? What was this game?

And what to say now?

He made a thoughtful sound. “You are tired after your journey. We will discuss it tomorrow. If you are, as you say, here to help the crown, the crown will take care of you. That is why you’re here, isn’t it, Amarta al Arunkel? To serve the queen?”

To change the future. To change this man’s intention.

“Yes, ser.”

“Then we are, at long last, aligned in our purpose.”

Amarta looked at him. At his wide smile she felt a chill.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Innel looked out the large windows onto the gardens below from the huge and high map room, his thoughts darting from one issue to the next, fitting together like pieces into puzzles.

Failing to fit.

Sinetel. Troop movements. Supply lines. Ore production.

The seer.

Outside, the gardens were bright with spring greens, dotted with rich blooms of red and white roses. Orderly and neat, a quiet contrast to the pictures in his head sketched from reports of bloody skirmishes on the borders and along the Great Road.

Innel was acutely aware of Keyretura sitting by the windows, a striking figure in his dark skin and black robe. Innel found it oddly reassuring that the mage seemed willing to sit for hours, listening and watching, his expression seeming to say that little could surprise him.

Good. He had not hired him to be surprised.

A knock at the door. Amarta was brought into the room. The simple green and white servants’ dress made her seem almost as if she belonged at the palace. He had thought it best to clothe her as if she were unimportant, though the guards surrounding her rather belied that implication.

Years of searching, handfuls of hires, and exorbitant expense, all to get her in hand. It was time to see what he had bought.

She looked around the room, at the walls of maps and ornamented swords and daggers, her wide-eyed expression one of bemusement. He waited while she walked the room, staring at the various gifts he’d been given by the Houses, from Helata’s extraordinarily detailed miniature sailing ship to the ornately carved rosewood and ebony box from Nital. At the painted shaota figurine with its lines of chestnut and amber, she stopped, reached out her fingers to touch the horse’s head.

The figurine put him in mind of the Arteni campaign two years back. That town, at least, had continued to behave well—very well, indeed—since he had replaced their leadership and explained to them in detail how Arunkel justice was applied.

Sufficient force. A willingness to make swift examples.

She turned to the huge table that dominated the center of the large room, covered with sculpted mountains and valleys, green and brown and white-tipped, small red markers where the troops were located.

“The empire,” she breathed, eyes lighting with understanding. He watched her gaze travel down the coast to Kelerre, inland, and back.

Catching on quickly. Interesting. When at last her gaze found Keyretura, it stayed there.

“Keyretura dua Mage al Perripur,” Innel said. “Amarta al Arunkel.”

“Blessings of the season, High One,” she said.

Innel was a little surprised at this. Where did she learn the formal address for mages?

Keyretura smiled. “Good manners for one so young, in a country so full of loathing for my kind. Warmth of spring to you, Amarta.”

She looked at him intently. Foreseeing for him? Keyretura looked back, expression flat.

“Amarta,” Innel said, gesturing to the table, “do you see these markers? These are troops. Do you understand what I want?”

“You want predictions.”

“Yes. You are safe here,” he added, hoping to reassure her.

She stared back at him. “You have wanted me dead for a long time.”

“All in the past, Amarta. Tell me your visions and I guarantee your continued safety here.”

She put a clenched fist to her mouth, doubt across her face. Understandable, he supposed.

“I have a suite of apartments set aside for you and your family. Quite a nice one. All you need do is cooperate with me.”

“I want my family safe.”

“Yes. As I said, I have a suite and—”

“From you.”

She had interrupted him. With a demand, challenge, and an implication. He suppressed his desire to explain to her how to speak to him respectfully. There was no time to teach her proper manners.

“Simply tell me your visions without evasion and—”

“My sister and my nephew remain safe, even if you don’t like my answers.” She held her arms across her stomach, as if she were in pain.

He wasn’t liking her answers much now. But he was understanding her, better and better. “I will agree to that.”

“Then I will have a contract with you, ser.”

“You will, will you?” he asked, finally letting his annoyance show. “Do you have a list of terms for this contract you now require?”

Her shoulders hunched at the force of his words. Perhaps he had spoken too sharply.

“I will answer your questions about my visions, ser,” she said. “As long as my sister and nephew are safe.”

“It is hardly in my power to look after the welfare of a woman and child at some mysterious location,” he said evenly. “But tell me where they are and—”

“Safe,” she repeated, again interrupting him. “From you. From the queen. From anyone you command.”

Clever, he thought, reassessing her, but she had left out key details. No mention of compensation. Or, glaringly, her own safety. Oversight? Or foresight? “Is that the entirety of the contract you require?”

Convenient if it were; under such a contract he could go so far as to have her killed and not even have to break the agreement.

Uncertainty flickered across her face. She looked at Keyretura, who was watching with more interest than he had yet shown. “Safe,” she said softly.

“So you said. But it is beyond my power to account for the actions of every person, horse, dog, or bird who marches under the banners of the empire, Amarta. Surely you can see this.”

Her eyes flickered between Innel and Keyretura as if looking for answers.

“What should I say to that?” she asked the mage.

Keyretura’s brows drew together. Was he actually surprised?

Innel certainly was. He was not used to a negotiation that involved asking the opposing side for guidance.

“I have no bond with you, Seer,” Keyretura answered. “Why would you give credence to anything I might say? Would you not expect me to lead you astray?”

“Yes,” she said. “But whatever you say, and however you say it, I will know something more than I know now.”

The mage made a sound, half thoughtful, half amused. “In some lands they say the advice of an enemy is gold. Perhaps you should ask the Lord Commander himself. I am merely his advisor.”

She glanced at Innel, then back at Keyretura. “But I ask you, High One. Please.”

The mage looked a question at Innel, who nodded slowly, not quite sure he liked where this was going.

“Then I will advise, Amarta al Arunkel.” He considered a moment. “It is clear the Lord Commander’s will stretches far beyond his words and touch. Perhaps you wish the contract to say that whether by action or stillness, through his hand or another’s, his power permitting, he has an obligation to keep your sister and nephew whole of body and to refrain from putting them at risk or harm.”

“Yes.” She looked at Innel. “That is what I want.”

“Good,” Innel said, “then—”

“But also you must give them food and water and shelter, if they ask you or those you command.”

“Ah. Anything else?”

“For their entire lives.”

“You ask a lot, Amarta al Arunkel, in return for something whose worth has yet to be proved.”

She lifted her chin, met his gaze. “You said I should charge more.”

And so he had. He remembered that night in Botaros keenly, when she had given him the advice that had brought him to this position, and this moment.

“Very well; I agree to all you have said, and I agree on behalf of my queen. Are there other terms?”

“No matter what I say, no matter how I answer your questions.”

“You repeat yourself,” he said, fighting irritation. This much challenge he had not expected.

She turned to Keyretura. “Will you witness, High One?”

Innel’s mouth opened in surprise. Where in the seven hells had she learned about mage-witnessing of contracts? It was a rarefied enough practice that he himself had yet to see it done.

Keyretura looked a him, eyebrows raised in question.

“Go ahead,” Innel said.

“I will witness, Seer,” the mage responded.

Now she looked entirely lost. Capable of negotiating a contract, of this complexity, with someone of his standing—even to ask for witnessing—but she had no idea what to do next? She was a fascinating mix.

“Are you ready to make this contract with me and the monarchy of Arunkel, Amarta al Arunkel?” he prompted.

Her eyes flickered around the room. “Yes.” She looked terrified.

Innel walked to the door, spoke with a guard, and returned.

“A contract of this importance is typically sealed with gold, gems, or other such valuables. Since you refuse payment, the queen will not insult you with those things. Instead I offer this simple nals as a token of value to seal our contract. Will you accept it as such?”

She nodded, still looking like a misplaced lamb.

He held out his hand, the shiny copper nals on his palm. She did not move.

“Now,” he said, “you put your hand on mine and say: ‘Our contract is made.’”

Hesitantly she stepped close to him and put her hand palm down on top of his. At the touch, her eyes opened wider. What, he wondered, was she seeing now?

“Our contract is made,” she whispered.

“Our hands turn, together, thus, so that the coin is left with you.” His hand now facing down, he drew it back.

She looked at the coin as if she didn’t know what it was, then looked back at him.

“And now, Seer, you will answer every question I have, for as long as it takes, and with no more objections. Do you understand?”

Mutely, she nodded.

“What do they say, Srel?” Innel asked.

His stomach was grumbling. Again he had forgotten to eat. Srel held out a platter from which Innel took a bite of something fried and crunchy, salted and peppered, that tasted mildly of fish. He took another.

“That she is the king’s bastard daughter. Your bastard girl. The queen’s . . .” he paused, clearly not wanting to finish that sentence. Innel gestured for him go on. “The mage’s bastard daughter—though looking at them both, I don’t know how anyone could think that. That she is the seer of rumor, or that she is not, but you are pretending she is. That she is next on the succession list. That she is going onto the hanging wall next week. That you are using her to test loyalties—though I can’t quite sort that one out either. Shall I go on?”

“Enough.”

Notably missing was the rumor he had deliberately seeded, about her being a distant cousin of his, orphaned in the recent unrest south. Not salacious enough, clearly.

Nalas entered. “Colonel Tierda has arrived,” he said. “On her way to report, ser.”

Innel sighed and looked out the window to Execution Square, considering what Tierda would see this time.

“How long have they been dead?” he asked of the odd arrangement of limbs suspended on various ropes above the cobblestones of the square.

“Ah . . .” Srel said. “Six days, I think, ser.”

“Enough. Clean it up. Close the curtains.” No sense in making the colonel fear for her life on top of her child’s life.

“Yes, ser,” Nalas said. “Oh, also—the queen. She’s stopped watching. She’s in with them now.”

“In with the king’s dogs? Again?” Innel stood. “Do I need to—”

Nalas shook his head. “No. Sachare knows to send word if Her Majesty gets any sort of murderous look in her eye. The keeper’s in there with her and has a new litter of pups she seems to have taken an interest in. No blood has been spilled yet.”

He had warned Cern that the king’s dogs were unpredictable, that they could be violent. “I know, Innel,” she had said, “but it’s time I understand what my father sees in them.”

“Eat more,” Srel urged him. Innel accepted a tiny roll with a curl of green-herbed cheese atop, washing it down with warm, spiced wine.

A knock. Tierda. He pushed the food away.

Her expression as she saluted was dour and resolved. She knew what was coming.

“This,” he told her, “is turning into a very expensive problem.”

“Yes, ser.”

“And still the smithies stand idle, waiting for ore. Sinetel was supposed to be in hand. Last year.”

“It was in hand, ser. Truly it was. Then word came about Erakat’s mining towns demanding a bigger share. Then Rott and Lukata started to complain, and—” She fell silent. She had the miserable look of someone who had run out of ideas as well as words.

“And?”

“Masked riders, carrying torches, spooking the horses. Riding off before we could catch them. Attacks on the rails. Large rocks rolled onto the tracks in the night. But we put out the fires,” she added, as if hoping that might pass for good news.

“Rocks on the rails,” he muttered, recalling the seer’s prediction of this problem. Now, if he could only get her to deliver a solution. The foundation of the empire’s wealth was being chewed away, mine by mine. Town by town. “What do you need—a soldier at every cross-brace of track to keep it secure? What does it take?”

Correctly sensing from his tone that he didn’t want a response, she stayed silent.

Sufficient force. Swift examples. He rubbed his head.

“I’ll get you more troops and cavalry, but then I expect you to see to it that the wagons go through on schedule. Make it known to all the towns that anyone who approaches the rail without authorization will be executed. Then do it. Publicly and with a lot of noise and blood.”

“Yes, Lord Commander.”

He gave her an assessing look. It was one thing to attack an opposing force well-equipped with weapons, but another to take the lives of townspeople who carried nothing more dangerous than rocks.

And another thing entirely to make people howl for mercy and continue to cause them to suffer and die. This was why the old king had so often forced the Cohort to long observation of interrogations and executions. To make sure they understood the difference.

Tierda, he judged, was exhausted, not only in mind but also in spirit. This problem needed someone with resolve. Casting his mind over the members of the Cohort who had seemed most keenly interested in those particular lessons and who might currently be free of House obligations, he said to Nalas, “Find Putar. See if he wants a captaincy and the chance to cause some pain.”