Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
AUDREY
That the plague was created by one of our own was so obvious I’d intended to let it go without wasting the ink to declare it.
All I care about is who sent it. Are you able to supply me with this information, or must I look elsewhere?
—High Magelord, Bearer of All, Gautier the First, in a letter to the First Guidelord, Luis
La’Angi Keep
The buzzing in my head hadn’t abated and neither had the questions.
“What if we run out of rooms before I can get my old mum to the castle?” a haggard man asked me. “Is there a list we can go on?”
My toes pressed hard into the ground. “There’s no list, master, no. I believe, with the current population of the city, we could house everyone. If that fails, then you come to me. I won’t forget you.”
“What about when we leave?” a young woman asked.
“We have us a good, honest, ground-level place. We only got it ’cause it was my husband’s papa’s before him, and our landlord took pity on us.
” The child against her shoulder rested peacefully, but she rocked them as if they were squalling.
“What if it’s claimed by someone else, and then we have to move out of here ’cause the Duke comes back? ”
“Until the Spring, I’ll freeze all sales and leases of property,” I said, and, the Wife bless her, the Inker apprentice mage scrawled out what I’d said.
Not for the first time, I found myself painfully grateful she’d survived the plague…
even if the list of promises on that page in front of her made me feel physically sick.
“Enough!” Ettie said, her walking stick hitting the floor.
The noise was muffled by the thick layer of straw, but everyone around her jolted all the same.
“We’re all worried, and they’re new worries, so we don’t have a place for them yet.
You!” She pointed toward a group of women opposite her.
Her finger was so twisted with age I wasn’t sure who it was directed at, and, from the looks they exchanged, they weren’t either.
“Go get the lady a bite to eat. You can try to talk my ear off for a minute. I’ve got as much power as she does, unless all you want is a pretty face! ”
Since I’d met her the day after the plague was lifted, I’d thanked every deity I could name for Ettie’s existence. I’d been able to focus on the big-picture issues and leave day-to-day running of the castle and kitchens in the capable hands of Bernadette and Ettie.
The steel in my spine was brittle, so I couldn’t relax.
Movement beside me made me glance over. A young woman was passing Chay and me a bowl, her smile directed at both of us.
I took it out of habit, looking down at the hunk of bread on one side and the thick soup held within, topped with melting cheddar from the deceased Master Jacques’ stores.
I should’ve been celebrating our survival.
“Eat,” Chay murmured.
The bread was already going soggy. I picked it up, and a piece plopped back in. A drop splattered my dress.
“Why her?” demanded a middle-aged, well-dressed man, waving a hand at Ettie, who sat almost regally in the oft-repaired shawl I suspected she’d knitted decades ago.
“Because she knows what people need,” I told him, simply.
“What does she know about me and my business?” he demanded.
“What business is that, master?” Isolde asked, the question perfectly courteous…and most certainly a trap.
“I’m a cider trader,” he said, drawing himself up.
“Ah,” Isolde smiled sweetly. It never touched her eyes. “Cider. We’ll contact you when that’s relevant again, master.”
I allowed her to steer me away. Most of the bread had turned into a soggy, threatening lump.
“Well struck,” Chay said, under the rise and fall of voices around us.
“Thanking you,” Isolde responded, with a gracious inclination of her head. “But ’twas low-hanging fruit. Over here, Audrey.”
Thomas was there, too. I felt his presence behind me. His hands were empty of food, like Chay’s. Unlike Chay, he wasn’t limping.
I was the weakest link.
The reality of that statement made my eyes burn. Isolde pushed me into a chair, and I went.
They closed ranks around me, blocking me from everyone’s sight for a few moments, their bodies shielding me against the waves of noise.
I’d inventoried, organized, assessed and reassured. I’d solved so many problems today I was terrified I’d created myself another huge problem with all the solutions I couldn’t possibly see through.
And the looming threat over our heads: what will the Duke say?
Well, the Duke could say whatever he damned well wanted. We were all going to die if I didn’t make it work. I didn’t have the skills to do that alone, nor the resources to pander to the cruel but influential merchant class.
They didn’t like that what they were taking was being remarked upon.
“Eat,” Isolde said, and my body responded, lifting the bread to my lips and choking down the soggy mess of it, though the texture made my skin crawl and my belly churn. Or mayhap it was the edge of treason I was dancing on.
“Can it wait?” Chay asked.
I glanced up to follow the direction of his question and saw Kaelson striding over, looking as tired as I felt.
Thank the One for that man. Kaelson was busier than I today, overseeing the guard and defending the resources we were rehoming. If he was here, it wasn’t to exchange pleasantries.
“Sorry,” Kaelson told Chay, resting his hand on my guard’s shoulder a quick informal apology. “My lady, we’ve a small issue.”
We had a great many small issues. Most of them stemmed from much larger issues. If they only tied back to the plague, we’d have had it all sorted by now. People weren’t sick, and still nothing was as it had been.
I waved a hand at the chair beside me and he slid in with a half-swallowed groan.
“I’m feeling every one of my years,” he said, with a wince.
“Begging your pardon, my lady.” He didn’t wait for the apology he knew I’d give for the hours spent on his feet.
“Sir Dwain had words with us today over the estates of several deceased families. I understand he’s taken a number of squires and servants into his home from the survivors. ”
I set aside my spoon. Dwain was quite firmly on my list of people I’d love to make an example of, as he was both a selfish fool and not especially close with my father. They were different kinds of cruel.
“I understand Sir Dwain is demanding to send a bird to the Duke,” Kaelson said formally. “He will not leave his estate and has barred the gates.”
That meant the problem was contained, at least, but those around Dwain were greater threats to me.
That level of the city was a mix of lower nobility who had planned on wintering in the city, and exceptionally well-connected merchants, most of whom could buy and sell the nobility who shunned them.
Of the people to make an example of, Dwain’s connections were to the steel trade.
Also, I really disliked him.
“Did he threaten any of us?” I asked Kaelson.
Kaelson, knowing what I was thinking chiefly because it was his recommendations that we show no mercy to the first few who pushed back, smiled a little. “He did not, my lady. He did, however, refuse your commands.”
The buzzing in my head eased a little, which surprised me. I’d known this would happen, and mayhap a little predictability was all I’d needed today.
“Kill him and any who stand with him, then,” I told Kaelson, with a nod. Then, “Can we get into his estate?”
“We can, m’lady. One of the men, well…he’s already asked how he can help us.”
The fear of my house had soaked into the stones this city was built upon. Right now, it served me. I felt dirty all the same. “You have my blessings. Chay, Thomas? I’ll remain in my tower while you’re both out.”
“Tonight?” Kaelson asked me.
I waved a hand. “I don’t know, Captain. I trust you to see it done the best you can, whenever that is.” I just wanted an excuse to abandon the soggy bread that had ruined the entire stew.
“Tonight would be my recommendation,” Kaelson told me, and his expression softened just a little, the barest hint of a smile touching the corners of his eyes. “Before others begin to follow suit, my lady.” He nodded once, standing. “I’ll see it done.”
I knew he would. But I hated the tug of fear that pulled low in my belly as Chay and Thomas both followed him, shields on their backs and eyes clear. We were shorthanded. They were needed.
“We could’ve taken that arrogant cumstain ourselves,” Isolde muttered, quietly. “I owe him.”
“The people need to see normalcy,” I reminded her, pushing aside the bread and scooping out some meat before standing.
Isolde snorted. “No one needs more of what’s been normal around here, Audrey.”
She wasn’t wrong. Yet the trappings of day-to-day life and well-functioning power structures were reassuring.
I walked beside her, going in the opposite direction to Kaelson, Chay and Thomas.
My head was full of bees again. My guards return to my tower when they could.
If I hadn’t thought she’d take the offer seriously, I’d have asked Isolde if she’d like to deal with the next group.
But the jest would not work, and right now we needed to calm people, to reassure them that the rules were still being followed.
The number one rule in La’Angi was that nothing was mightier than the sword.
“Thomas is right, you know,” she told me, jolting me from my thoughts. “You are the weakest link.” The fierce light in her eyes somehow stopped me from dying of humiliation right there. I waited, my heart thundering, for the rest. “Not all chains should remain intact.”
The shame flooded from me, leaving gaping wounds in its wake. Isolde continued walking, her pace unchanged as if this was an everyday occurrence. Simultaneously aching and freed, I followed.