Vlad Li Tam smiled. “I cannot say. He remains…
Resolute sat back in his chair. For a moment, he looked deflated. Beyond him, framed in the glass door, dark clouds broke open and rain fell. “This is highly irregular,” he said. “And you claim he has clear rights of succession?”
“It is not for me to make that claim. I simply say it is a more
Resolute’s face went red. The surprise is wearing off, Rudolfo thought. Anger touched the edges of his voice. “Certainly, there will need to be further investigation,” the Pope said. “Meanwhile, I have an Order to rebuild and that requires access to funds. How do you propose I handle that?”
“I would not presume to tell you,” Vlad Li Tam said. “I am merely fulfilling my obligation to convey this information to you.”
Resolute glared. “This is entirely unacceptable. You can’t-”
For a third time, Lord Tam dismissed him with a gesture of his hand. “It is,” Vlad Li Tam said slowly, “what it is.” He paused and Rudolfo knew that it was not to choose the right words but to set the stage for them. Vlad Li Tam’s words were chosen before he’d left his office on the eighth patio of his seaside manor. “You of all people should appreciate the importance of taking great care with what little remains of P’Andro Whym’s Order.”
The Pope looked from Vlad Li Tam to Rudolfo. Then he looked at Jin Li Tam. Rudolfo watched him calculating, saw the hardness growing in his eyes. “I understand entirely,” he said, his jaw tight.
Vlad Li Tam inclined his head. “Excellent. I have urgent matters to attend to. I’m afraid I must return to the Emerald Coast immediately.”
Without a word to his daughter, Vlad Li Tam spun and strode out of the room. Rudolfo caught Jin’s bemused look out of the corner of his eye.
Resolute looked again at Rudolfo and Jin Li Tam. “I will have you escorted to your quarters, Lord Rudolfo. I’d speak with Lady Tam about this unexpected turn of events.”
Rudolfo stood and smiled. “If Lord Tam speaks true, your Writ of Shunning has no teeth.”
But the two Gray Guards that stepped quickly to either side of Rudolfo, hands on the pommels of their short swords, were all the teeth this pretender required.
Jin Li Tam
Jin Li Tam waited for the archbishop to speak. Her father’s sudden arrival had surprised her. His sudden departure had not. He was a man given to a strange blend of effectiveness and attentiveness. He would ride the length and breadth of the Named Lands, deliver his message and then ride back.
And the news of another Pope also surprised her, though it was no shock at all that her father knew of it. He was ever at the center of the web-and often, the web was of his own design.
“This i?'› amp;eb s most unexpected and unacceptable,” the archbishop said. “How are we to resolve it?”
Jin Li Tam pushed a strand of hair back from her face. “I am my father’s daughter, always about his business. But the matter of succession is not my matter to resolve. My interest lies with Lord Rudolfo and the Ninefold Forest Houses. I want him released immediately.”
Resolute chuckled. “When I needed your father’s good favor that might have had clout with me.”
The insolence stunned her momentarily. When she spoke, her voice was low, even menacing. “You will
“Regardless,” Resolute said, “Rudolfo remains with me. As does the mechoservitor.” When she opened her mouth, he continued, not giving her a chance to interject. “Do you dispute that this mechanical belongs to the Androfrancine Order? Matters of succession aside, I am at the very least an archbishop of the Order and the ranking member accounted for thus far.”
She looked at Isaak, then back to Resolute.
“Very well. I think given the strained relationship that presently exists between House Li Tam and the Androfrancine Order, it would be best for you to leave the Papal Summer Palace. The Gray Guard will escort you and your Gypsy Scouts to the gates tomorrow morning. Until the matter is resolved, you will not be permitted to return. Do you understand?”
She nodded and stood. “I do. Thank you, Archbishop.”
He flinched when she said it and she was glad for it. The more she dealt with him, the more she thought he must be Sethbert’s puppet. He probably was not in on the plan to destroy Windwir, but he was certainly a part of it. Sethbert had ensured his cousin’s survival somehow, and now pulled the strings that made him dance.
Once more it brought her back to the question that had plagued her since she’d first learned of Sethbert’s act of genocide. Why? Madness, she thought, and yet the plan was better conceived than she had initially thought.
Jin Li Tam left the room, her eyes darting left and right at the Gray Guard who stood in the shadows just outside the open office door. But they did not move as she walked quickly past.
The Gypsy Scouts were waiting for her in the guest barracks on the back of the palace. She slipped out the servant door and into the cold rain, knocking lightly on the door. The lead scout opened it. “What news, Lady Tam?”
She pushed past him and into a spacious room lined with bunks and chests. “House Li Tam has suspended all fiscal transactions with this so-called Pope,” she said. “My father claims there is a more direct successor. The pretender intends to hold Rudolfo and to enforce his Writ of Shunning. Sethbert intends to ride on the Ninefold Forest.”
The scout nodded, his face hard and unreadable. “What about the mechoservitor?”
“He is Androfrancine property. And Isaak will not dispute that, Pope or not.” Unless, she thought, someone with more authority than the archbishop directed otherwise.
“Very well,” the lead scout said. “I will send word to the others.”
He whistled and a scout stepped forward, pulling parchment and ink-needle from his kit. Another drew a small brown bird from a belt cage.
Jin Li Tam smiled. She had read Rudolfo’s instructions before passing them on to the scouts. Having nothing but time on his hands, he’d written up instructions for every possible circumstance he could imagine. She’d spent most of a day reading them, her respect for the man growing with each page. He was perhaps the most strategic thinker she’d ever known. He wasn’t quite as meticulous and careful as her father, but he was very close.
“So tonight, then?” she asked the Gypsy Scout.
“Tonight,” he answered.
Leaving them to their work, she returned to her quarters. She locked the door first, then went to her bed. Reaching below the pillow, she drew out the note she expected to find there.
It was a simple letter-the kind one would expect a father to write a daughter. It even included congratulations for her betrothal, and she smiled at this. It had been her father’s work and will-yet he congratulated her for it. But buried within the banality of the letter was another message. She read it twice to be sure. Then she read it again before crumpling it and pushing it into the furnace.
Neb
It took three days for violence to erupt on the plains of Windwir. Neb watched the tension grow for those days, working quickly as the first of the rains fell. The ruins became a treacherous soup of wet ash and Neb slipped and slid behind the wheelbarrow as he jogged it to the nearest open grave.
When the snows came, he wondered what they would do. Surely Petronus didn’t intend for them to work when the bones wer?n tsize frozen to the ground and buried beneath a foot or two of snow.
“Riders,” someone shouted.
Neb looked up in time to see a line of horses, the soldiers they carried riding low in the saddles. He drew a line out from the horse’s noses and saw that they were riding for the Entrolusian line. They were Marshers by the
