decide by council or ask whoever Rudolfo attaches to you.” Then the old man had paused, smiled, and put a hand on Neb’s shoulder. “I know this is a lot. But I would not give you more than I thought you could handle.” And finally, he’d leaned forward, his voice low. “You of all people understand why we must finish this work.”
Neb had nodded, and from then on he’d spent every waking moment with Petronus, following him everywhere he went and asking him every question that he could imagine.
Now, three days later, he felt uncertain all over again. After Petronus vanished, he sent the workers back to their tasks. None of them balked. Then he checked the supply wagon schedule, the artifact wagon and the galley. While at the galley he had the cook pack him a lunch, and he started walking the line, surveying the effort remaining. Having to move the snow first was extending the time, and though the cold wasn’t yet unbearable, they’d still had to shorten the shifts considerably. One of Neb’s biggest hopes was that Petronus would issue a plea for help with the gravedigging effort.
Neb walked out each direction, trying to keep the hem of his new robes up off the snow as he went. They had carved Windwir into quadrants. The city proper-those parts within the walls-was the inner layer, quartered by north, south, east and west. Most of that section had been taken care of before the snow fell to take advantage of finding any artifacts while the ground was clear. Beyond the city itself, they quartered the outer layer. They’d finished the eastern and southern quadrants, but uncertainty about the Marsh King’s intentions-regardless of his words-had kept them from the north, and they were already digging trencey dut hes in the western quarter in preparation for the work beginning there.
By the time Neb reached the outer northern quadrant, he was ready to eat. He cleared a small patch of ground beneath a tree and pulled out two pieces of pan-fried bread and a slice of lamb. He ate the sandwich, sipping from his canteen between bites, and wondered for the twentieth time that day what the Marsher girl Winters might be doing right now and whether or not she wondered about him and when he would see her again.
He felt himself blush, and forced his mind back to the plains. She popped into his head more and more and he wasn’t sure why. He’d even dreamed about her twice. He was talking to Brother Hebda about the Churning Wastes and he saw her just outside the window, standing beneath a solitary pine tree in a vast wasteland, watching him with a strange smile on her dirty face.
Suddenly, someone sneezed, loudly, and Neb jumped. He looked around and saw no one.
“I know you’re there,” he said.
Silence.
“You are a Marsher Scout,” he said. And suddenly a thought occurred to him. “You are the same Marsher Scout that took me to your king.”
Still, no answer. Neb shifted, wondering if he should ask what he wanted to ask next. He tried to push it aside, but couldn’t. “Do you know the girl Winters?” he asked, feeling his face and ears go red.
This time, he heard a grunt. Neb decided to assume it was in the affirmative. “Tell her that Nebios ben Hebda saw her beneath the tree in the Churning Wastes.”
Another grunt.
Neb drew an apple out of his pouch and munched on it. Then, as if an afterthought, he pulled another. “Here,” he said, holding it up. “Catch.” He tossed it in the direction of the grunt and watched it melt into nothingness as the scout snatched it from the air.
Silently, they ate their apples. Then Neb stood up and stretched. “I have to get back,” he said. But as soon as he said it, he felt awkward. “Give her that message, please.”
One last grunt, and Neb turned and left the forest. All the way back, he stopped periodically and scanned the snow for other sets of footprints. There had been enough foot traffic with the fighting and the patrols that he really couldn’t tell.
Was it possible that the scout had followed him all morning? Maybe he was still out there, carefully walking in Neb’s own footprints, hanging back but never letting the boy leave his sight.
Could it be that the Marsh King had assigned Neb a bodyguard? Unlikely. More likely, he was a scout on patrol or posted on the perimeter.
Still, the thought of that level of attention from a king made him smile. It wasn’t so long ago that the only kings he knew were in books.
Neb looked to the sky, saw that it was growing white, and moved eastward toward the river, putting his mind to the work ahead.
Chapter 26
Rudolfo
Spring came early to the Named Lands in rare fashion, and war moved on around it. For Rudolfo, the months had been a blur. He’d divided his time between Windwir and the front as the war moved southwest and Sethbert’s allies fell back. He’d lost a good portion of his Wandering Army holding Rachyl’s Bridge on the second river, connecting Pylos to the Entrolusian Delta. They’d held their first true parley just after that, though no terms had been reached. And the two Popes were starkly contrasted-Resolute in his fine, white linens and Petronus in his simple brown hermit’s robe-as they spoke in voices that were sometimes hushed, sometimes raised.
Now, Rudolfo rode with Petronus from the seventh forest manor to Windwir so they could escort Neb back with that work finished. He’d spent three rather luxurious days with his betrothed, and he found it more satisfying than anything he had ever known. Since Gregoric’s death, her strength had become his own. It was a strange sensation. For so long, it had been Gregoric as his right hand and he’d never imagined this level of partnership possible. But there was a reckless joy in this new arrangement. She had the strength and spirit of a Gypsy Scout, the mind and strategy of a general. He admired her skills of statecraft and misdirection. And for all of that, she was a formidable lover as well.
Still, he carried the loss of his friend near at all times. They’d been like brothers for longer than he had memory, and the world did not make sense without him in it. Perhaps because it was combined with the loss of Windwir that this particular death had struck him so hard. Though the Francines would say that all loss connected back to earlier losses, and that Gregoric represented the last vestiges of a time in Rudolfo’s life when he was innocent and responsible for nothing.
As he rode, he looked up to the hill above the town. Most of it had been cleared now that the snow was gone, and he expected the workers he’d hired to level it and start digging the basements within the next week. The stones were already being cut in the shallow hills at the base of the Dragon’s Spine. He had deferred to Petronus on all matters regarding the library, but the Pope had been more concerned about planning the council of bishops than plodding through the details of the restoration. Isaak continued the work of identifying the resources that hadn’t already gone ticouo the Summer Papal Palace. They’d located a small private library on the Emerald Coasts that would now be en route with the passing of the snow.
Rudolfo watched the men moving on the hill and saw the glint of light on steel, the morning sun reflecting off Isaak’s metal head. He turned in his saddle to stare at the narrow glass door of his bedchamber’s balcony. Wrapped in a red silk sheet, Jin Li Tam stood in the doorway and watched him leave.
He smiled and whistled his horse forward to catch up with Petronus.
The old man had aged in the last handful of months, but it was no wonder. The skill with which he moved across the political landscape impressed Rudolfo, but it had to take a toll. The Named Lands were locked in its fiercest conflict since the settlers had come across the Keeper’s Wall.
Rudolfo saw that the Pope was also looking to the hill. “Three years by our best estimates,” he said. “But Isaak is confident that we can restore nearly forty percent. He’s having the mechanicals double check their inventories.”
Petronus nodded. “I’m impressed with his work.”
Rudolfo smiled at this. “He is a marvel. They all are.”
“Yes,” the Pope said, “but Isaak is different from the others. They’re more reserved. They don’t seem to have the empathetic capacity that he does.”
Rudolfo had noticed this as well. The other mechoservitors spoke when spoken to for the most part and kept
