23. Summoned
Chapter twenty-three
Summoned
Rerdas sat in one of the inn’s uncomfortable, high-backed chairs, trying not to gulp his tea too quickly. He and Etiana were keeping up appearances as best they could, taking tea and mingling with all the other on-edge patrons who would rather leave the city.
None of them were permitted to go. Drida was flooded with the Guard and locked tight. The battlebox and half the surrounding neighborhood had been reduced to ruins, with a few wooden beams still standing like charred bones among piles of blackened rubble.
The investigation had gone on for a long while, and the Guard had finally blamed the destruction on an unlucky group of extremists who opposed the monarchy.
They’d been executed. But the supposed end of the affair did nothing to amputate the rumors, and Drida’s gates remained locked.
People outside lined the walls and roads into the city, yet even pleading residents were turned away.
Rerdas thought it still might be better than being locked in.
The whole place had the sensation of clinging to the edge by fingernails alone.
One of the inn’s servants approached their table and held out a silver platter toward Etiana. “This just arrived for you, my lady.”
Etiana plucked the letter up. “Thank you.” She glanced across the table at Rerdas and sighed. “Hopefully, this is some distraction, at least.” She flipped it over, and her eyebrows rose, staring at the seal.
“Who’s it from?” Rerdas tried to feign interest. Most days since Imalroc had gone, he felt like he was pretending to have emotions rather than actually having them. Walking around, play-acting the part of a feeling person when he was only shaped like one.
“We should retire.” Etiana shoved her chair back and stood.
“But we only just—”
She was already switching her skirts aside to get around the table, and she paused at his shoulder. “Come on. This needs to be opened upstairs.”
Glancing around, Rerdas surreptitiously folded one of the cream-and-jam ripple cookies into clean linen and tucked it up his sleeve. They were Aunt Uralta’s favorite.
They found Uralta sitting up in bed behind the screen Etiana had arranged to block the view from the doorway, scribbling away at one of her letters.
She couldn’t send any of them and tossed each one into the fire as soon as she finished, but it made Rerdas nervous all the same.
His aunt was trying to put all her thoughts in order and testing her memory.
Any of those pages would be damning if discovered.
“Back so soon!” Her voice burbled, uneven as rushing water, but her eyes were bright and there was a healthy flush in her cheeks. She smiled toothily when Rerdas gave her the prize he’d stolen from the tea table.
“Etiana’s being dramatic,” he said. “She’s got a letter that apparently couldn’t be opened downstairs.”
His cousin was too busy attacking the envelope with a slim opener to bother glaring at him. “Royal seal,” was all she said.
Rerdas sat heavily on the edge of his aunt’s bed, watching Etiana’s gaze skid across the page.
“We’ve been summoned,” she said, holding it out to him. “Kuraya wants us back in Kirinoll as soon as possible, and we’re to visit the palace.”
He passed the letter to Uralta without examining it. “Fuck,” he said flatly.
“It could be a good thing. We need a way out of Drida, and this’ll do it,” Etiana said.
“Careful,” Uralta warbled. “Consider why she might summon you directly.”
“Perhaps she wants our account of what happened the night of the fire. We’re under suspicion, you know. I had to report Imalroc missing,” Etiana said.
Uralta’s face pinched reflexively. She always got that expression when either of them mentioned Imalroc, and the course they’d undertaken to secure onyx.
There hadn’t been any extended lectures yet, but Rerdas thought that might be because she was saving up the energy for one.
Likely involving an agonizingly detailed journey through the history and practices of the bloodsport.
He hadn’t even confessed the worst of it.
As far as his aunt knew, Imalroc had never been more than an uneasy ally.
He couldn’t bring himself to explain how he actually felt, because it only made his actions less and less sensible.
How could he claim to be falling in love with someone he’d kept in a battleboxing contract?
“Or,” Etiana continued, giving him an apologetic look, “it could be that she’s writing on Umber’s behalf.”
Another disgruntled noise from his aunt. “Umber is exactly the sort of child who would go bleating to Kuraya about wanting his favorite toy back.”
“I never meant to get quite so far involved with him,” he said.
“I didn’t mean it’s your fault, dearest.” Uralta sighed. “I didn’t leave you with enough leverage to shut him out. I’m sorry it’s come to this. It’ll be difficult to extricate yourself without offending him, but I promise we’ll find a way.”
Etiana walked a slow circle around the room. “The more immediate question is what we do now. We can’t ignore a royal summons. But we’re not going to bring you right back into the queen’s clutches in Kirinoll, either.” She looked at her mother.
“We’ve managed so far. If we’re very careful and keep up the ruse that I’m still asleep, she won’t—”
“I think Etiana’s right, Aunt,” Rerdas said. “Bringing you back to Kirinoll is madness.” He shifted towards Etiana’s profile, darkened against the low fire in the grate. “We’ll have to split up.”
“No.” Uralta crumpled the paper in her hand.
“I could write to Hammond. Request that he meet us somewhere north of Kirinoll. And then…” Etiana’s brow furrowed.
“We’ve only just been reunited,” Uralta pleaded. “It’s too soon to part.”
He tried to reassure her. “It doesn’t have to be for long. Eti and I will make an appearance at the palace, fulfill the summons, and then leave right away. Although… where can we go that’ll be safe?”
“That I can’t say,” Etiana mumbled.
Uralta frowned down at the wrinkled letter she’d been writing. “I don’t like it.”
“Please, Mother.” Etiana dropped onto the bed and took Uralta’s hand. “We can’t risk the capital. But if all three of us could go anywhere outside Drida, where is safe?”
“Nowhere, entirely.” Uralta shook her head.
She squeezed Etiana’s hand and reached for Rerdas.
Her palm was warm and dry against his, and there was more strength in her grip than he’d felt from her in ages.
“But our best option is to go south. I admit I feel out of my depth with the political situation, but the Southern Felds are the only place with something of a bulwark against Kuraya’s reach at the moment.
Old friends might still be allies. And if we face more enemies there, we’ll face them together. ”
***
The queen’s summons got them through Drida’s gates.
Rerdas hoped he’d never lay eyes on the city again.
The Midlands town they’d chosen as a meeting spot was so small it didn’t have a waystation for coaches.
Rerdas left Etiana and Uralta in a ramshackle barn on the outskirts of what could barely pass for a village, and went in search of Hammond.
It was too warm and sunny to get away with wearing his cloak, but he tried not to make eye-contact with anyone.
In a small community like this, most folk would know each other by name.
At least that made it easier to find one of the two places that a stranger might linger: it was either the tavern or the tack shop that collected all the local post.
Rerdas nearly wept when he spotted the great bay horse roped to a standing post beside the tack shop.
Hastings’s head popped up, his ears flicking, and then he trumpeted a greeting that brought Hammond darting out of the shop.
Rerdas rested his head against the bow of Hastings’s neck, smiling through tears at their loyal butler.
“Are you alright, Rerdas?” Hammond rushed to him, gripping his shoulder. “I came as soon as I received her ladyship’s letter.”
“Better than I’ve been in some time,” he managed. This was only half true, but Hammond wouldn’t understand the other part of it. No one would. “Come with me. I’ve something to show you.”
He told Hammond most of what had happened in Drida as they walked, keeping his voice low and trying not to check the empty stretch behind them too many times for riders or watchers. Hammond said he’d been eagle-eyed for anyone who seemed to trail him, but had seen nothing suspicious.
“To be frank, sir, I’m more worried about leaving the house unattended. Prying eyes will have easy access to it.”
“True. But that might not matter as much as it once did. We don’t intend to return to the house for very long, if at all.” He smiled as he rapped twice at the barn door, and a narrow sliver of Etiana’s face appeared through the cracked wooden slats.
“Thank the gods above and below, you made good time,” she said, pulling the door open wider.
“Of course, my lady. I—” Hammond stopped dead. He’d caught sight of the stooped figure rising from her seat.
“Hello, old friend,” Uralta said.
Hammond stumbled forward. “You’re… you’re alright! Are you alright?” He seized Uralta’s frail hands.
“Alright as I can be, after what Kuraya attempted.” Uralta’s smile took on a steely glint. “She ought to have ensured the job done properly, because now I intend to become far more than an inconvenience to her.”
“Let’s not tempt fate, Mother,” Etiana muttered.
“Says the girl hauling me across the country in a coffin—”
“Would you please stop calling it that? It was a rug trunk!”
Hammond looked as though he couldn’t decide whether to break down in laughter or in tears. “Lady Toriem, it is so good to have you back.”
“You’ve been the truest friend my family could ask for, Hammond.” Uralta patted his clasped hands. “And there’s work to be done yet. Will you stay with me?”
“Anywhere you go, my lady,” Hammond said, his voice still thick.