Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ISOLDE
Unfortunately, even your Black Borough Trackers weren’t impervious to the Cursed attacks.
Current death count is twelve. It appears the enemy knew the goal of your men.
Since, I’ve identified a woman I suspected was one of the Cursed and put her to death.
She was posing as a camp follower for the junior men, so she hadn’t been thoroughly looked at.
She’d got close enough to hear, though. I know you’ll understand these things happen in war, and I know you appreciate repayment as much as I.
How many heads would you like, or would you settle for their silver?
—in a letter from General Victor, Duke of La'Angi to General Dieudonné, Count of Black Borough
La’Angi Keep
The glint of light off Brian’s glass hit me right in the eye.
“Healthy, happy equinox, Audrey! If you’ll permit me for being so bold, my lady,” he said, pouring cordial into Audrey’s cup, “Not even your father could be dissatisfied with the plans you’ve set in motion for this coming year.
I know there’s much water yet to go under the bridge, but you’ve taken a sow’s ear and turned it into a silk purse. ”
“Mayhap I’m a mage,” she said, with an awkward wink. She was pale, and the smile sat woodenly on her face.
Brian laughed all the same but did her the service of putting the latest part of whatever scheme they were refining to the side while they ate. “I’d almost believe it,” he told her.
There was no magic to it. He knew she’d been focused on restarting La’Angi’s economy.
That was no secret. But he didn’t know that she’d been pacing her room, working on her grip strength and twisting her hair between her fingers while double-checking ledgers.
He didn’t know she slept with a quill beside her bed for low-candle thoughts.
He didn’t know she bathed with a scroll in one hand.
He didn’t know she dreamt about faire layouts and contracts.
When Thomas had told me she was sending him and Chay away, I’d been grateful she’d given herself that reprieve, though the new guardsmen posted at her door were unfamiliar and their presence awkward when we left the tower.
Then she’d devolved into a living, breathing economy-igniting spell.
I watched as she picked up a slab of bread without making the roast meat spill over the side, her eyes sliding to the plans Brian had put aside.
“There will be things to do as we go,” he said, smiling still, “But I think for now, it’s all under control. We should revisit this draft of the faire’s layout once we know at least a few of the larger vendors. For now, it’s as good as it can be.”
Under the table, her legs bounced. She nodded and bit into the food.
So, he was trying to slow her down. Interesting. I licked a crumb off my lip and spotted a runner slip through a small staff door, clockwork sleeve in his hand. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sight now.
The plague had hit hard from La’Angi to the Brannough, carried no doubt along the major roads.
The big cities had gone one of two ways: either they were in the shocked chaos of their own grief like La’Angi, or utterly untouched—sometimes because they’d quickly embraced the ruthless measures required to stop anyone from contracting the illness within their walls.
La’Rea and Triple Peak had both taken serious losses.
Only Raa’shi had suffered some casualties, but not horrific ones.
And wasn’t it interesting that now news was arriving?
Audrey and I had already had that conversation. Luca was one man. There was no way he could’ve stopped all those birds, nor would he have had a reason to. But who?
Who benefited from Audrey’s isolation?
She accepted the note with thanks as the boy set it beside her, dusting off her fingers delicately. Brian shot her a disapproving look that could’ve come straight from an older sibling. She sighed and picked up the bread again to finish her meal.
He wasn’t the worst of them.
“I’ve thought more about your ideas about a city-wide basic allowance,” Brian said. I immediately regretted giving him even a sliver of goodwill.
That one had been a topic of much debate during our training sessions. I’d had her in my grips in a potentially lethal choke, and she’d been arguing with me about markets stabilizing and price gougers as if I knew or cared. Albeit she’d only made that mistake once, but I hadn’t forgotten it.
“And I just can’t see a way to make it work without extending it to the provinces. Then you’ve got all the issues of delivering the allowance and the corruption we both know you’ll always have to fight against.”
She nodded, holding up a single finger to ask him to wait as she finished chewing.
He did so, biting into his own dinner. I considered getting up and hunting myself some pie, but knowing what I did about the value of every single one of those apples—knowing she was so set on getting this wheat that it’d happen, somehow—I didn’t.
But next harvest, I wanted the biggest, most liberally spiced pie.
I would put it in front of her. We’d dig into it together and talk about this time of chaos and upheaval.
She’d wince when I reminded her of her dreams about how wide to make the walkways.
Just like she did now when I reminded her of the dreams she had about road drainage.
“The only way around I can see,” she said, “is instead of providing money, we provide access to basic services.”
“Resources,” he reminded her. “Maintenance. Responsibility.”
“I have responsibility regardless,” she said with a wave of her hand. “That’s why I’m doing this. Maintenance provides jobs. As for resources…” She winced. “My coffers are healthy, Brian.”
He shook his head a little, but it was with resignation. “The elite hate you already.”
It was a reminder Brian uttered many times a day.
“You’ll still have issues with corruption, waste,” he added. “Which is why we favored allowance.”
My head ached. I resisted the urge to rest it on the table.
I needed to shoot, stab or otherwise murder something, or I’d turn into a merchant too.
“We have clean water, access to the bathhouse,” she said, ignoring him. “All I’d need is community kitchens, housing, healing, and education.”
“‘All I need,’” he repeated, grinning.
“Healing and education will come with the mages,” she said, ignoring him again.
“Meanwhile, I have houses sitting empty. If I get in now and take control a majority of the housing—any properties where the landlords have died, I’m thinking—it reduces the scuffling.
I can pay carpenters to keep them in good repair.
They won’t be fancy, but they just need to be warm and safe. That’s all.”
He sighed. “You don’t have carpenters.”
“I’ve got people who can learn,” she said stubbornly. “And if I have jobs for carpenters, and they know they’ll be fed and warm…”
He shrugged. “Either way, my lady, you’re making a rod for your own back. And it’s made of gold.”
“It’s fortunate her posture is good, isn’t it?” I asked, because she was starting to look disheartened. “It’s easier to check on a house or soup pot than a bag of coins,” I told her, and she blinked at me. “You can always change tactics later.”
Brian considered that, frowning. “It would be easier to sell off the land you seize later. You’ll find the keep’s kitchen doesn’t work when people are spread throughout the whole city, though.”
“I don’t want people coming to the keep for their meals.” She tore off a little bit of bread and sat it to the side. “I want there to be neighborhood hubs, overseen by community leaders. I shouldn’t need to do more than make sure they all get bread and meat.”
He shrugged. “I don’t like it. But you know that.”
“I do.”
“Prove me wrong.” He smiled at the challenge. “It won’t be the first time you’ve done so.”
The sun had fallen while they’d been talking, and by the time Brian left the moon hung heavily in the sky, lighting our way through the big, arching windows. Two guards trailed after us, irritating, unsubtle reminders of the Butcher’s influence.
In her tower, Audrey relaxed, opening up the clockwork sleeve and withdrawing the message. “It’s Raider’s Ban,” she said, surprised. “I didn’t expect a response for quite some time.”
“Mayhap they’re planning a rebellion,” I offered, then regretted it when her expression fell.
“Oh, stop it.” I took the roll from her hands, unravelling it.
“Chay was staggering around like a deer shot, Audrey. You did the right thing and you know it. He’ll probably be terribly sorry when he comes back.
” Or he wasn’t the man either of us had thought he was.
That Audrey had never told me what he’d said made me suspect the worst of the young knight. She knew I’d gut him if he needed to be gutted. Lucky for him, she was a forgiving woman.
How cruel that he played with her after she’d opened her heart to him with the abandon only the young possessed.
As for the accusation of Luca being a rebel…
“I wonder if he believed it,” she said, letting out a breath. “At least some of it. And thought exaggerating other parts might help sell the tale to me. He never did like Luca.”
“No one likes Luca.” Except her. He was like a worm, chewing its way into the core while the apple was small.
“Exaggerations and lies aren’t needed. There’s plenty of real reasons to dislike him.
And there’s no reason to follow him into a rebellion.
” I’d seen men fight for plenty of ridiculous reasons.
Luca wasn’t charismatic enough to get such thick-skulled beings to follow him.
Whatever Chay believed, it was irrelevant.
The danger from Luca was never from him; it was the attention he could bring and the dreams he could sell. For now, she was safe from both.
Despite all of that, which I’d reminded her of already only a few days ago, Audrey had her overthinking face on. I held back a sigh. “What does the horselord have to say?”
She sighed, turning her eyes to the sheet. I liked that sigh. It was full of resignation, not the storm of sadness and rage that had gripped her after she sent Chay away.
She’d get over him. That’s what young hearts did. They healed, and they hardened.
I put a hand on her shoulder. She glanced up, surprised.
“You’re doing well,” I said, and her expression softened. There was no need for more than that, but she rested her cheek against the backs of my fingers, just for a moment.
Would that she could still be the little child able to climb into my lap when she had nightmares. Those I’d been able to chase away.
Now she chased her own dreams.
“Thanking you,” she said, straightening.
I let her go, waving a hand. “Well? Does he have wheat?”
“Of course he has wheat,” she said, amusement in the statement. “By the time it got here, I could’ve grown my own. We didn’t want his wheat.” Then she frowned. “I did mention it. I mustn’t have explained my reasoning to you when I realized the flaws.”
I ignored the clarification. “I’d happily have his wheat if it meant you stopped talking about how many barrels of apples we have and what their value is.”
She wasn’t listening, though. The leather ball full of sand was back in her hand, moving between her fingers as her eyes skimmed over the parchment. She paced slowly in the pool of light, angled to catch it across the writing.
I turned away to get her bed ready and then saw, across the bay, three tall masts attached to a ship, outlined by the light of the moon.
There had been two other ships into port since the Siren’s Ally. Neither of them had wheat, but their goods had been purchased all the same, just to encourage trade. Crates of peaches from the east and bags of wool were what Audrey had been most excited to see.
“They’re coming,” she said, sounding shocked. “Darrius said they’d love to attend, to show everyone their misgivings lie with my father and not the city.”
I tore my eyes away from the ship. “To the tourney.”
“Yes.” She stood there, frowning. “They can’t promise they’ll be able to get a tribe to do a display, but they’re going to pass on my offer and they think it’ll be tempting.”
Her archery segment was going to look like the atrocity it was if a tribe sent a few trick riders to entertain the crowd.
It was something she’d had her heart set on, much as she’d tried to manage her own expectations. But she didn’t look happy.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, wary of conversations about costs and balances.
“Nothing.” She blew out a breath. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m happy.”
She wasn’t.
“I miss him,” she said, tossing the letter onto her desk. “I’ve missed him since he told me he wanted to be nothing but my knight. It doesn’t matter if he’s here or not.”
I nodded, trying for patience. “I know.”
“They’re his family,” she said, sadly. “He’ll be so happy.”
“He can still be happy. Or sad. Or purple in the face.” I lifted a hand, waving at the bay. “And look. You might have wheat.”
Her eyes lit up. “By the Wife—is it the Ally?”
Now that she was suitably distracted, I managed to herd her into bed.
I heard her tossing and turning into the night, but I suspected it was due more to the promise in that hull than because her favorite knight might have some feelings around Raider’s Ban being her first confirmed competitor in the tourney and tentatively booked entertainment.
He wasn’t worth losing sleep over.
She was starting to figure that out.