Lamentation

The Gypsy Scouts lingered at the edge of the clearing, waiting. Jin Li Tam bit her lip. There was still time, even after this, for minds to change. But her father’s strategy seemed clear to her. “I doubt you’ll have seen this particular powder,” she said quietly.

“That will be quite unlikely,” the River Woman said. “But let’s discuss it over tea.”

She led Jin into the small hut and put water onto the stove. The River Woman’s home was crowded with cats and books and jar upon jar of herbs and powders, dried mushrooms and berries, crushed leaves and lengths of root. The house smelled sweet and bitter at the same time.

Once the tea was poured, Jin Li Tam slipped the recipe from her belt purse and palmed three square House Li Tam coins. She passed the recipe across the table, and the River Woman studied it, her eyes narrowing and widening intermittently. When she finished, she pushed it back to the center of the table. “You are correct. I’ve never seen such a thing. How did you come by it?”

Jin Li Tam shrugged. “The Androfrancines guard their light.” She waited, willing herself to ask the question. “Do you have the ingredients to make it?”

The River Woman nodded. “Aye. Or at least, I can. I may need to send away for some. Caldus Bay may have what I lack.”

Jin Li Tam brought the three coins out and placed them on the recipe. “I will require your utmost discretion in this matter.”

“You shall have it. A woman’s body is a temple of life, and she must open or close that gate as she pleases.” The River Woman glanced at the recipe again, clucking at it. “And you think this will work?”

She smiled. “We will see for ourselves soon enough.”

“Finally, an heir,” she said. The old woman chuckled. “You know,” she said, “I delivered both of Lord Jakob’s boys to him.”

Jin Li Tam leaned in. “Both?” The room, again, with its small boots and its small sword hanging on its wall.

“Lord Isaak and Lord Rudolfo,” the River WomA; tighan said. “Both strong, beautiful boys.” She must have seen the realization dawning on Jin Li Tam’s face. She blushed. “No one’s mentioned Lord Isaak to you?”

Jin Li Tam shook her head. “I did not know Rudolfo had a brother.”

“A twin brother,” she said. “Just two hours older. He died rather… unexpectedly… in his fifth year.”

Jin Li Tam felt something she could not name. It pulled at her, and she felt the knots in her stomach tighten. “How?”

The River Woman looked around as if there might be other ears within hearing. Her voice lowered to nearly a whisper. “They said it was the red pox that took him. They cremated him immediately.”

It wasn’t uncommon, though it was unnecessary. They’d had the red pox powders for over a thousand years now. Still, some children did not respond to the powders and, of course, they weren’t available to all children. Just to children of privilege. But the River Woman’s tone suggested doubt. “You do not believe it was the red pox?”

“I do not. I gave him and Rudolfo both the powders. I do not think it likely that it would work on one but not the other.” She paused, looking around again. “I think he was poisoned. Though I know of no poisons that hide behind a mask of the pox.”

Her stomach clenched again, and she wrestled to keep her composure. She looked at the recipe again and thought of her elder sister.

She felt a shadow stirring in her heart, and wondered how deep the layers of her father’s strategy might go.

Petronus

Petronus’s bellowing nearly drowned out that of the Marsh King and his War Sermon. “I will not,” he roared, shaking his fists at the west.

He could tell by the bird’s markings that it was a Tam courier. And by the fact that it came straight at him to drop lightly onto his shoulder with a chirrup, in the dark of night, as he patrolled the outskirts of the city for the boy.

If you do not declare publicly, I will declare you myself in three days’ time.

It was code within code buried in the text of a message regarding a House Li Tam donation of foodstuffs for the gravedigging effort.

Buried alongside the coded threat, there was another message. A generous petition from Lord Rudolfo to assist in the establishment of a new liAentes brary using the memory scripts of the mechoservitors in Sethbert’s camp to rescribe as much of it as was stored within their scrolls.

But not even that was enough to hold his anger at bay.

If you do not declare publicly, I will declare you myself.

He bellowed again, his fists clenched, kicking at the ground. “Damn you, Tam,” he shouted.

Of course, he’d known he would have to. There would be no getting around it. Nothing would be left if he stood back. And if his suspicions about Vlad Li Tam’s strategy were true-and he did not doubt them-he did not know if he could be a part of that game of queen’s war. But he had no choice now, and he’d known that it would come to it when he’d written the proclamation.

You’ve done this to yourself, old man.

Yes, he thought. Yes, I have. And he would pay the price for that and come back from the dead because it was the only honest thing he could do. But he would name the time and place.

He drew his needle and ink and wrote his reply on the back. I will do it myself in my own time and if you do not honor this, you do not honor me or my house.

He tied the message to the bird and threw it at the sky.

As he walked back to the city, he heard the War Sermon and listened to the Marsh King prophesy about the dreaming boy. He finally calmed enough to think about the other aspects of the message. Rudolfo’s petition intrigued him. The idea of the Great Library-or what could be saved from it-sparked a hope within him that he had not expected. He’d remembered that first mechoservitor, and wondered if it was possible that they had come so far as to remember an entire library? It might be possible. But it didn’t seem likely. There would be the vaulted knowledge-everything that had already been cataloged, translated and cross-referenced against other fragments.

But how much of the library could they bring back?

Anything that they could build would be a miracle more than he had expected. And positioning it in the far north put it out of reach of the masses, kept it safe. Its only nearby threat would be the Marshers, and recent events suggested an unexpected alliance there. And it was not too far from the upper gates of the Keeper’s Wall, beyond which lay the Churning Wastes. It made far more sense than the Papal Summer Palace, where the first Popes had thought to build their library, huddling against the Dragon’s Spine as far from the Named Lands as possible. It had not worked then and it would be the same now. The bitterly cold winters precluded any commerce whatsoever for a large portion of the year, and they were quickly realizing that a waterway would be necessary if they were to trulyAy w pr shepherd the Named Lands through its sojourn in the New World.

He had no difficulty agreeing to the petition and issuing an order for Sethbert to surrender the mechoservitors in his care. But he could not do this without proclaiming himself, and he was not ready to go back to honoring that lie on behalf of a backward dream.

Ready or not, Petronus knew he did not have much time.

Neb

After they ate their stew, the Marsh girl led Neb back to the Marsh King’s cave. She passed him a pile of tattered blankets and pointed to a corner in the damp, earthen room. He rolled himself up into the corner and watched her do the same thing across from him. The idol glowed dully in the dark, offering light and heat. From where he lay, he saw that the idol clutched at a mirror, the face of P’Andro Whym contemplative as he modeled self-examination.

Once she was beneath her blankets, she propped her head up on one hand and looked across to him. “I can’t imagine what it was like,” she said in a quiet voice.

He wasn’t sure what she meant, but he had an idea, and he swallowed back the sudden terror that gripped him. He felt a lurch in his groin, a squeezing ache that made him want to throw up.