Canticle

He felt the wind grab the sails as the ship moved downriver toward the open sea. Then Rudolfo pushed all other thought from his mind and gave himself to the notes he needed to send.

But even as he did so, he felt something grow within him that he was not accustomed to. It grew greater and stronger with each league of river they put behind them. Soon, he would be leaving the Named Lands for the first time in over two decades to find a mouse in a hayfield and leaving his Ninefold Forest Houses and their complex bonds of kin-clave in someone else’s hands for the first time since he took the turban at the age of twelve.

Rudolfo named the emotion he felt and sighed.

“I am afraid,” he said quietly to the empty room.

Jin Li Tam

Jin Li Tam cursed beneath her breath and felt the anger prickling her scalp. “He’s done what?”

Second Captain Philemus shifted uncomfortably. “He’s fled with Isaak and the Waste Guide Renard.”

She forced herself to breathe. Last night had been her night with Jakob, and he’d not slept at all. That had meant sleeplessness for her as well, until Lynnae came for him just as dawn tinged the sky pink. Not long after, she’d been summoned for this audience. She reached out for the note, and the Second Captain placed it in her waiting hand.

She was incredulous. Neb had run off over a week ago-along with Isaak and that Waste mongrel Renard-and she was just now finding out. “And why,” she asked, laying the message aside, “are we just learning this now?”

“There have been problems with the birds,” he said. “They’ve lost several over there, and their magicks don’t seem to hold. We’re not sure why.”

“So Aedric is back at the Gate now?”

The Second Captain nodded. “He awaits your orders.”

She looked down at the other two messages that had brought Philemus tapping at her door and sighed. One was from Winters, the other from Rudolfo. Her eyes went to Winters’s. The girl gathered her army and marched for the Summer Papal Palace in response to the distress birds that had flooded the Named Lands two days before. To the south, Pylos and Turam also sent soldiers north. If Jin’s geography was correct, the young queen would reach the Palace later today. The other armies would be days behind, though, slowed by the harsh weather.

She vaguely recalled that Rudolfo had kept a small contingent of Gypsy Scouts at the walled mountain fortress until the work had been taken up by a handful of surviving Gray Guard just before winter fell upon them.

At the time, it had been sound strategy: The Foresters had their hands full at home and the Gray Guard were capable. No one could have foreseen this.

Her eyes moved now to Rudolfo’s message, and she read it again quickly. Beneath the casual wording of a personal message to her lay the coded script of a competent though worried general. Bring Aedric and party back, the note said. Send him west with the Wandering Army to honor our kin- claves.

But here she was faced with a hard choice, she realized. Rudolfo did not know about Neb and Isaak. And as highly as she thought of the boy-and having heard somewhat of his quiet romance with Winters the Marsh Queen- she knew that were it simply the boy, her decision would not be so hard.

Jin Li Tam had watched her father sacrifice the children he loved for what he considered to be a higher gain. She could sacrifice Neb, she knew, though it would break her heart to do so.

It was Isaak she could not give up, and for reasons only she and Rudolfo were privy to. In her early days with the Gypsy King, on the night they had fled the Summer Papal Palace and Resolute’s guards, Isaak had told her that he still retained Xhum Y’Zir’s spell, buried within his memory scrolls.

It meant that the most dangerous weapon in the world was fleeing for unknown reasons across the Wastes. And she could not abide that.

She looked away from the messages and rubbed her eyes. “How did you fare during the war?”

“My company took three Entrolusian battalions and two companies of Pylosian rangers,” he said. She looked to the scarf of rank, knotted around his left shoulder with multicolor threads woven in to signify battlefield accomplishments. She noted the pride in his voice.

Now a frank question for frank times, she thought. She met his eyes with her own. “Will you lead the Wandering Army under my direction or will that be. challenging for you?”

He paled, and she saw the sudden discomfort on his face. “Shouldn’t First Captain Aedric-”

“Aedric,” she said, “has other work to do.” Outside the room, she heard the movement of servants as the Seventh Forest Manor woke up and came to life. “When we’re finished here, send the birder in. I’ll send word to both Aedric and Rudolfo.”

At the name of his lord and general, she saw resolve take root in his jawline and his eyes. “I am honored to serve my queen.”

She nodded. “Good.” She paused a moment, trying out the next words in her head before speaking them. When she spoke them, they were solemn and clear: “Rally the Wandering Army to the Western Steppes. We ride for the Marshlands in two days’ time.”

“It will take four to reach their southern reaches. Seven to reach the Palace if we push hard.”

We won’t be going to the palace, she thought but did not tell him. “Yes,” she said.

Already, her mind composed the messages she would write and code. One to Winters to keep her army north. Another to Pylos and Turam to keep their armies south. Another to Aedric that he should find Isaak and Neb at all costs.

And last, a message to Rudolfo to let him know that Second Captain Philemus would lead the Wandering Army west, as Aedric was delayed in the Churning Wastes.

She saw no need to tell him that she intended to take their son and accompany his army with Lynnae and the River Woman in tow. It would add needless worry to him at a time when he needed his wits about him.

She forced her attention back to the present moment.

Jin Li Tam stood, and her mind wandered to the knives in Rudolfo’s desk drawer. I will take them with me.

She inclined her head to Philemus, and he returned the bow. She thought carefully about her next words and what they might mean for the tenuous bonds of kin-clave that loosely held the Named Lands together during this time of disconnection. There had been no open hostilities between the Gypsies and the other nations since Resolute’s so-called suicide. But with the assassinations, the targeting of refugee caravans and now this attack on the Summer Papal Palace, it was obvious that they were at war with someone.

The pattern was too perfect, and the strategy was better crafted than even her father could conceive.

She looked to the officer, and there was authority in her voice when she spoke. “Magick the Scouts,” she said. “Send two companies immediately to Queen Winteria’s aid. Send a company to the Keeper’s Gate with supplies for an extended search.”

“Understood, Lady Tam.” He bowed again and she returned the gesture.

After he left, Jin Li Tam opened the drawer to the desk and lifted out the old set of scout knives she’d been dancing with of late. Setting the belt aside but with within eyeshot, she took up the needle and started crafting her messages.

She took the longest with Rudolfo’s, and she was surprised at how badly she did not want to deceive him.

But more surprising than that, she realized, was how badly she did not want to disappoint him.

Still, despite her new life, she was the forty-second daughter of Vlad Li Tam, and she was once more doing what she’d been made for.

Calling loudly for the servants, Jin Li Tam scooped up her knife belt and stormed into the corridor. Strategies of war and statecraft played out behind her eyes, and her stride was deliberate and brisk.

As much as she felt fear now buried deep within her, she felt something else as well. It shamed her to name it, because she knew how wrong it was to feel this while taking an action that put her son so blatantly at risk. She