Her lips twitched. She hadn’t sensed any glamor because there wasn’t one to sense.
She leaned forward, once they were well clear of the city gates. “What do you intend to say to the king?”
Althorn smiled. “We’ll give him our demands,” he said. “If he accepts them, well and good. If he does not... at least we tried.”
“What demands?” Emily had the nasty feeling they hadn’t changed. “Did you make any concessions at all?”
“We’ve been told he’ll make concessions, which will allow us to make some ourselves,” Althorn said. “We’ve been exchanging diplomatic notes for a few days now.”
Emily kept her face impassive as the couch rattled through the gates. “What do you intend to concede?”
“We’ll let the aristos keep their manors,” Althorn said. “But the rest of it is ours.”
“They’re not going to agree to that,” Emily pointed out. “There’s no way they’ll agree to that.”
“Their army is unsure of itself,” Althorn said. “The horse-lovers might be aristocrats, but the infantry is largely drawn from commoner stock. Many of them don’t want to serve the aristocrats. They admire Dater - I’ll give him that much - but they don’t want to die for the aristocrats. And Dater knows it.”
Emily frowned at the conviction in his voice. He might be right. She’d seen how the infantry was treated, in badly run armies. The aristocracy regarded soldiers as little better than serfs or slaves, men who could be expended at will. And yet... she wasn’t so sure. Poorly-led armies had often held together better than anyone expected, even when they were fighting against their own interests. Althorn might be right, or he might be completely wrong.
“Our people have been active in their ranks,” Althorn added. “They report that the majority of the aristocratic forces are ready to desert.”
“If that’s true,” Emily said, “why don’t they?”
“We have been asking them to wait and see what happens,” Althorn said. “If Dater surrenders control of the army to us, beyond a handful of royal guardsmen, we can retain the original units. If we have to fight it out, they’ll stab their former commanders in the back.”
The coach rattled again. “We’re nearly there,” Storm said. “They’ll be waiting for us.”
Emily glanced at him. If he was the enemy sorcerer... she studied him thoughtfully, trying to gauge his power. His magic was sloppy, something that was dangerously common amongst necromancers. And yet, he didn’t have the raw power of a necromancer. She felt a twinge of concern. Whoever had trained him hadn’t done a very good job. Unless, of course, it was an act. It wouldn’t be easy to slop magic about, and it broke some very strong social taboos, but it could be done.
Storm looked back at her. “Like what you see?”
Emily met his eyes. “Why did you join the revolution?”
“I should have gone to Whitehall,” Storm growled. “I could have gone, but the king barred me from going. He insisted I had to stay and learn from my father, who’d learnt from his father in a chain that stretches all the way back to the Dark Ages. I tried to run away, only to be returned to my father’s house. I joined the rebellion because everyone should have a right to try to reach their full potential. Does that answer your question?”
“Yes.” Emily nodded, considering what he’d said. “Why did he bar you personally?”
“My family has been apothecaries for decades,” Storm said. “The king didn’t want us becoming anything else. As long as he kept us small, we were in his power. We couldn’t leave the city or anything.”
Emily wasn’t sure the story made sense, although it had the ring of truth. The king wouldn’t give a damn about Storm personally, but... there were rules governing magicians in royal cities. Most powerful magicians moved out, sooner or later, yet... if they didn’t have the power or resources to establish themselves in a magical community, they might just come to regret it. Social mobility wasn’t as easy as some people made it look.
She tensed as she felt wards washing across the coach. The driver pulled the vehicle to a halt, then scrambled down and opened the door. Emily took a breath of fresh air as she jumped out, Althorn and Storm following at a rather slower pace. She looked around, noting the handful of empty or burnt-out buildings. There was no sign of any inhabitants, beyond a pair of horses beside a tent. The village had been devastated by the fighting. She wondered, grimly, what had happened to the survivors. Had they fled into the forest? Or the city?
“He’ll be waiting for us,” Althorn said. “Coming?”
Emily had to smile as they strode towards the tent. If there was one advantage to throwing the meeting together at breakneck speed, or what passed for breakneck speed among diplomats, it was a shortage of formality. She reached out with her senses, just to be sure Dater wasn’t accompanied by a small army of advisors. It would be easy for him to let his hair down if there weren’t a dozen witnesses. There were only two people in the tent, waiting for them.
She took the lead and pushed the flap aside. Dater sat at a table. Another man stood behind him, wearing an outfit so gaudy Emily knew he wasn’t an aristocrat. Councilor Triune? He didn’t look like Aiden, but that was meaningless. Aiden had gone to some trouble to hide her looks.
“Lady Emily,” Dater said. “Thank you for coming.”
Emily nodded, finding herself suddenly unsure what to say as the other two followed her into the tent. Address him by title? Address him by name? Perform introductions? Or... or what?
This could go very badly, she thought, as Althorn held out a hand for Dater to shake. And there’ll be no second chance.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“I AM NOT A DIPLOMAT,” ALTHORN said, with a self-deprecating smile. “I am a merchant, from a family of merchants. I
