Spy's Honor

have made, at best, a mediocre emperor, and the same goes for Mathian. I know it was Riorcan assassins who did it, but . . . sometimes I wonder if the Vagabond may have meddled with us, just a bit.”

“Calling on the gods now? You’d better keep those treasonous thoughts to yourself,” said Rhianne.

“Well,” said Morgan with a twisted smile, “I don’t work in the palace anymore. To treasonous thoughts!” He raised his mug, apparently with no expectation that Rhianne should raise hers, and drank deeply.

Sometimes Morgan frightened Rhianne with his bitterness and plain speaking, but at least he came by his faults honestly. He was former Legaciatti, once the personal bodyguard of Sestius, Lucien’s eldest brother, who had been heir to the Imperial Throne. Assassins had attacked the pair of them, killing Sestius and leaving Morgan for dead. Morgan survived, but his injuries were crippling; he could not continue in his duty as a Legaciattus. He was entitled to a lifetime pension, but Emperor Florian had been so furious at his failure to save Sestius that he’d dismissed Morgan from the service empty-handed.

Morgan, during his service, had always been kind to Rhianne. He’d tipped her off a couple of times when Sestius was in a rage so that she could stay out of his way, and he’d always seemed to be conveniently blind when she and Lucien had played their childhood pranks. She and Morgan hadn’t been close back then, since in his service he’d been attached to Sestius. Nonetheless, she’d perceived him as family, as a sort of distant uncle. He had no real family, of course; none of the Legaciatti did, and after his disability, he would have been destitute had she and Lucien not come up with the scheme to support him with their personal spending money.

“You tell your cousin to keep his head down,” said Morgan. “Florian is not a man to be crossed. He bears grudges.”

“You would know, I suppose,” said Rhianne.

“Lucien’s goal right now should be to sit back, quietly learn as much as he can about governance, and survive. He’ll have his turn to run the empire, in time—if his father doesn’t kill him first.”

“Lucien’s afraid there won’t be an empire left for him if Florian governs so recklessly.”

“Such dramatics,” said Morgan. “He’s, what, seventeen? A difficult age.”

“I have news too,” said Rhianne. “Apparently I’m to be married.”

“Are you?” Morgan sat up straighter. “Who’s the lucky fellow?”

“Augustan Ceres.”

Morgan’s eyebrows went up.

“I didn’t choose him,” Rhianne added quickly. “Florian simply informed me I was marrying him. He’ll have the governorship of Mosar when it’s conquered.”

“Mosar? You’re leaving, then.”

“Yes, but don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll find another solution for your pension. Maybe Lucien can deliver it. Or I can send it from overseas.”

“You’re a good woman,” said Morgan. “But don’t involve Lucien. The poor boy’s got enough to deal with.”

Rhianne swallowed. “Do you know anything about Augustan?”

Morgan shook his head. “Seen him around the palace a few times, but he wasn’t there much—always out on assignment. A great legatus, I’ve heard. Handsome fellow.” He smiled tentatively.

Rhianne waved a hand. “I don’t care if he’s handsome.”

“Sure you do,” said Morgan. “You wouldn’t want an ugly old man like me.”

“You’re not ugly, and thirty-six is far from old,” said Rhianne. “It’s nice if a man is handsome, but that’s not the most important thing. The most important thing is what sort of person he is. Is he kind? Is he generous? Is he loyal?”

“Those are the second most important things,” said Morgan. “The first most important thing is how big his cock is.”

“Oh, be quiet,” said Rhianne. “So, what’s the news from your corner of Riat?”

“Nothing of import,” said Morgan, but he filled the next hour with tales of the crazy widow next door and the fortune-tellers across the street, plus a story about a donkey that sat down in the middle of the road and refused to budge until someone scared it off with a squealing pig. For that hour Rhianne managed, at least for a little while, to forget her own worries.

3

Infiltrating the Imperial Palace as a garden slave turned out to be easier than Janto had expected. There were a couple dozen such slaves, and when Janto joined the horde at the back gates of the palace in the morning, dressed in a single-belted gray slave tunic so that he blended in with the group, no one remarked on his presence. The head gardener, a creaky Kjallan fossil, didn’t know the slaves by name or even seem to regard them as individuals, so the biggest problem Janto faced was having no gardening skills, nor any experience with manual labor. That and having to hide Sashi, whom he concealed with his invisibility shroud and instructed to stay close while disturbing as little ground in the garden as possible. He could see Sashi himself, since the shroud was his own creation, but the ferret looked faded, almost ghostly, behind the veil of his magic.

He took instruction from Iolo as he went. The garden itself was stunning. Janto had never seen such a variety of trees and plants in one place. Most of them were leafless, which he found creepy and strange. Mosari trees never lost their leaves while they lived, and walking through a forest of bare trunks made him feel as if he were walking through an arboreal graveyard. But he understood they were only dormant, waiting for the spring, and as he spread mulch around the tree trunks, he tried to imagine what each tree would look like when it came to life again.

This is a terrible forest, complained Sashi, scampering invisibly at his heels and keeping to the dirt paths, where his passage would not bend grasses or stir leaves.

How so?

No rats, no voles.

Are you certain? asked Janto. It seemed plausible that rodents might find places to nest in the thicker ground foliage.

Can’t you smell? Sashi drawled with a look of condescension.

Janto smiled. His ferret loved to lord his superior senses over Janto when he could. I’ll take you hunting later. In a real forest.

As he wrestled a wheelbarrow of mulch from one section of the garden to another, with Iolo trailing after him, he discovered the garden was divided by country—here were Inyan plants, there were Sardossian ones—and he was astonished when he arrived at a Mosari section. It was warm, wonderfully so, with heat-glows strategically placed to simulate Mosar’s tropical climate. He recognized many trees and plants. There was an avocado tree, fruitless and pruned rather strangely, but he recognized its distinctive leaves. He spied a Poinciana and a lemon tree, along with other familiar plants whose names he did not know. Most of them looked a bit odd, and some were unhealthy. He felt as if he were looking at a copy of a copy of a Mosari garden, recognizable but not quite right in its essentials.

This forest is sick, fussed Sashi.

You’re quite right. I wish we were at home.

Sitting on a bench beneath the Poinciana tree was a woman—a Kjallan noblewoman, no doubt, since a uniformed bodyguard, female but substantial-looking, stood watchfully at her side. The noblewoman was perhaps twentyish, of average height, pretty, with walnut-colored hair that hung in ringlets. She wore the feminine version of the syrtos, which flattered her figure, and over it was draped a loros, a thin band of jewel-encrusted brocade. At the sight of the loros, Janto adjusted his estimation of her rank upward by several degrees. In all likelihood, she was a member of the imperial family.

“Who is she?” he whispered to Iolo.

“Don’t know,” he whispered back. “Very high rank. Stay away.”

Janto pushed his wheelbarrow closer to the woman. He’d come here to spy on the imperials, and here was an imperial, although he doubted a sheltered Kjallan princess knew much about the war.