He’s making sure they all have their say, she thought. I just hope it doesn’t come back to bite him.
Althorn tapped the table. The room fell silent.
“We appear to be caught in a bind,” he said. “If we stay where we are, we risk total defeat. If we go on the offensive, we risk defeat, too. We need to play for time.”
“He will not give us the time,” Jair predicted. “Or he will give us the time by cutting us off completely and waiting for starvation to take its toll.”
“Perhaps,” Althorn agreed. “Let us not forget, however, that he is short on time too. He has good reason to come to terms with us. I propose, then, that we continue to exchange messages with him, in the hopes of coming to proper terms, while pushing out foraging and subversion parties as far as possible. If he doesn’t lower his tone within a week or so” - he picked up the letter and made a show of sneering at it - “we’ll send out troops to raze the estates. He can fight on our terms, as you said, or let us wreak havoc in his rear.”
His lips twitched. “Let us not forget he’s pretty short on supplies, too.”
“Don’t count on it,” Scribe Bajingan warned. “His men will have no qualms about taking whatever they need.”
Nor will you, Emily thought, curtly.
Althorn smiled, tiredly. “Is there any dissent?”
Emily waited. No one spoke. She half-expected to be asked to leave the city, perhaps leaving Prince Hedrick behind to face revolutionary justice. Instead, she heard Althorn dismiss the rest of the table while asking her to remain behind. She tried not to yawn as the rebel council left the chamber, heading for their beds. Her body was aching so badly she wanted to get into the bath before it was too late.
“Thank you,” Althorn said, when they were alone. “I wasn’t expecting much from the Crown Prince, but... we had to try.”
“Yeah.” Emily nodded, forcing herself to sit upright. “He did have one request. Please don’t harm his stepmother.”
“An interesting request,” Althorn said. “Did he mention his half-sisters?”
“No,” Emily said. She kicked herself, mentally, for not asking about the young princesses. “What... what happened to them?”
“Nothing much,” Althorn said. “We arranged for them to be held in a somewhat more comfortable cell, for the moment. When things settle down, we’ll be putting them up for adoption. I dare say they’ll do well for themselves if they put their heads down and work.”
Emily shuddered, torn between horror and a grim relief the princesses simply hadn’t been murdered. They might not be able to rule in their own right, but - even if they couldn’t - their husbands could certainly make a bid for the throne. Anyone who wanted to cause real trouble could just sell them to a handful of other royal families, tangling the bloodlines still further. It would be impossible to sort out the mess of claims and counter-claims before everyone involved was safely dead.
And they might do just that, if they lose, she thought.
Althorn leaned forward before Emily could respond. “I’ll do my best to keep the queen alive, as you wish,” he said. “But things may get out of control.”
“Yes, Emily agreed. “They might.”
Chapter Twenty
“DID YOU SLEEP WELL?”
Emily made a face as she stumbled into the dining room. She’d been so tired when she returned to the house that she’d simply collapsed into bed without bothering with a bath or even to take off her clothes. Her muscles were insisting, loudly, that it had been a terrible mistake. She felt as though she’d been beaten black and blue. Lady Barb’s cheer was the last thing she needed.
“I feel terrible,” she said. “Can I just go back to bed?”
“I don’t know,” Lady Barb said. She sat in front of a pile of letters, some of which she’d opened. “Can you?”
Emily allowed her expression to darken as Silent put a mug of bark tea on the table. “It would be nice,” she said. Her muscles ached as she sat down. “It feels as though I’m not getting anywhere.”
She took a sip from her mug and grimaced at the taste. “Where’s the prince?”
“Still in bed, I assume,” Lady Barb said. “He’d already gone to bed when I got back to the house last night.”
Emily rubbed her forehead. “Lucky bastard,” she said, curtly. She knew it wasn’t true, but... it was hard not to feel a twinge of envy. “I want to go back to bed, too.”
“Then go,” Lady Barb advised. “Or is there something on the agenda for today?”
“I don’t know,” Emily said. “It feels like I’ve already failed.”
She stared into the mug of brown liquid, then looked up at Lady Barb. “The royalists want the rebels to surrender, unconditionally,” she said. “The rebels want the royalists to surrender, also unconditionally. Both sides have offered minor concessions, none of which will guarantee the terms will actually be kept. There’s no way they can come to terms unless one of them backs down and I don’t see either of them doing it.”
“Perhaps not,” Lady Barb said.
Emily nodded. “The royalists cannot accept the complete loss of aristocratic power,” she said. She grimaced. “They want the return of their lands and titles - they’re not even prepared to accept compensation for the loss. And even if they did, who’d pay? Who’d be willing to pay? One might as well pay ransom for the return of a kidnapped child!”
“There are people who would do so,” Lady Barb pointed out.
“It was a terrible
