The Will of the Empress Page 15

  Sandry caught up to Ambros. I hope he learns to take odd magics in stride, she thought. He’ll be seeing them all summer, and they aren’t all going to be nice, quiet ones like redirecting the rain.

  Given the early hour, there was very little traffic on the streets around the palace. They found more as they wound down into the commercial parts of town. There the big wagons that supplied the city came in to unload their burdens of produce, meat, eggs, and cheese. Their party slowed still more approaching the gates, and on the roads that led from them. Once they had traveled some miles from the city, however, the traffic thinned. They made very good time overall. Sandry wondered at the amount of room they were always given on the road, until she realized that anyone who had the time to notice that invisible shield over their heads moved as far from their party as they could while still remaining on the road.

  At midmorning they halted at a good-sized inn where Ambros was recognized and given prompt service. The riders dismounted for hot tea and fresh-baked rolls, while the hostlers rubbed the horses down. Once they were back in the saddle, everyone was awake and feeling more cheerful, despite the gloomy weather. Caidlene took Sandry’s place next to Ambros, talking about court news and about Ambros’s four lively children. Jak rode with Sandry, pointing out landmarks. Fin and Briar rode together, talking about horses. With Tris absorbed in her book and Zhegorz inclined to huddle between the packhorses and the rest of their guards, Rizu and Daja soon fell into conversation. Rizu had an endless fund of court stories. It wasn’t long before Daja realized many of the stories were also cautionary tales about different figures at court, particularly the empress. The picture Rizu drew of Berenene was one of a woman who was determined to have her way.

  “Are you afraid of her?” Daja demanded as they reined in at a second inn. It was well past midday by then. Everyone was starved. “You sound like everyone fears and loves her at the same time.”

  “Because they do,” Rizu explained. “She is a great ruler. Like most great rulers, what she wants, she will have.”

  Sandry, dismounting nearby, heard this. “But that must be dreadful for her character,” she remarked. “No one can have everything they want. It gives rise to overconfidence, and arrogance.”

  Daja looked at Sandry’s round chin, which was set at its most mulish angle. “I don’t think she’ll appreciate a lesson from us,” she warned, letting a hostler take her horse. “I’d as soon not have to leave in a hurry, thank you. It’s a long way to any border.”

  “I don’t care to leave places in a hurry, either,” Briar said as he followed the ladies into the inn. “One of these days I won’t be fast enough on my feet.”

  A woman bustled forward to guide them to tables. “Remember old Saghad Gurkoy?” Ambros asked as they took seats in a private room. “Beggared, him and his entire family.” His blue eyes glinted as he looked at Fin. “Your father was the empress’s chosen beneficiary in that matter.”

  Fin shrugged. “If you want to try to stand between her and what she wants, Saghad fer Landreg, I will wish you well. I promise to burn incense in the temple of your choice when you’re gone,” he informed Ambros, who was not at all offended. “She was going to do as she willed. And if it pleased her after that to give what she had taken to my father, well, she really didn’t like it when Gurkoy told her no, either.”

  “No one is all-powerful,” insisted Sandry.

  “Maybe, but you’d be surprised how much damage can be done by someone who thinks he is,” Briar said bitterly as maids put mushroom and noodle soup and herring salad in front of them.

  “What on earth happened to you?” demanded Tris, glaring at Briar. “You’ve done nothing but hint since you came home. Either tell us outright or stop hinting!”

  Briar glared at her. “What do you care? You don’t bother with what’s real—only with what’s in books.”

  The Namornese were good at pretending they hadn’t heard an outburst from one of their companions. They must have a lot of family dinners like this, thought Sandry. Or maybe even imperial ones.

  The rain continued as they took the road again, still mostly dry under Tris’s shield. Now the courtiers were truly awake. Soon everyone but Zhegorz and the guards were playing silly games like “I See” and “Fifteen Questions.” The group continued word games as Ambros led them off the main road at last onto a smaller, well-kept road paved in stone like the main highway to keep wagons from making ruts.

  After another hour, Briar demanded, “So when do we get to these precious lands of yours?”

  Ambros looked back at him with a smile. “You are on Clehamat Landreg,” he told Briar. “The extended estate, at least. Grazing and farming lands. We’ve been riding over them since we left the highway.”

  Briar looked at Sandry. “You never said.”

  “I didn’t remember,” she answered. “The last time I was here was ten years ago. All I remember was that I was bored to tears. Nobody would play with me.”

  At last they reached a stone wall that stretched as far as the eye could see. Another road led through a framed stone opening in it. This new route was stone-paved as well, but only the center was as well-kept as the roads they had followed to get this far. Stones were missing from the edges, and stones in the roadway were cracked and broken. As Ambros turned onto it he called back, “Now we are on the Landreg lands that are part of the main estate.”

  It was another hour before they saw more than isolated houses, or fields green with the spring’s planting. Eventually they came upon a massive herd of cows at the graze, then shepherds and goatherds with their flocks. They passed apple and pear orchards that already showed small green knobs that would become fruit, and cherry orchards where the fruit was starting to turn orangey red. At one point Briar reined up and squinted at a distant field where glossy brown animals grazed.

  “That’s a lot of mules,” he said to no one in particular.

  Ambros replied, “It’s only one herd. The entire Landreg family is famed for the mules we breed and sell.”

  “It’s been a family specialty for more than two hundred years,” Sandry added with pride.

  Briar, Tris, and Daja exchanged glances. It was Daja who grinned and said it aloud: “That certainly explains more than it doesn’t.”

  “I am not listening to you,” Sandry told them loftily as the courtiers laughed. “Do you notice that I am not listening to you?” she continued. “Mark it well. I ignore you.”

  “And I feel ignored,” said Briar, rejoining them. “I am so ignored and unheard that I know it won’t matter if I say, Why does it not surprise me, that the Landregs breed mules?”

  When they came to a river spanned by a bridge, Ambros led their party onto a small, muddy, rutted track that bore away from the bridge. Sandry drew her mount up. “Wait a moment,” she called, frowning and confused. “I remember this bridge. We ride over that and we come to the village not long after, and the castle after that.”

  Ambros turned his mount. “In better times we would,” he said heavily, something like shame weighing down his shoulders. “But the bridge is not safe. It’s old, and it’s needed work for some time, replacements on the roadbed and the supports. Then two years ago we had heavy flooding that weakened the supports more. It’s not safe. We must ride six miles downstream to the ford.”

  Sandry didn’t like the sound of that. “I don’t understand. This is the main castle road. Why hasn’t it been repaired?”

  Fin said, “Are those ripe cherries over there? It’s early, but I want to see. I’m a bear for cherries.” He rode toward an orchard nearby, passing out from under Tris’s shield and into the rain. Without a word, the other three courtiers followed him. The group’s men-at-arms drew back out of earshot. Zhegorz fidgeted, obviously not knowing what to do, while Briar and Daja exchanged glances. What’s going on here? Briar seemed to ask Daja with his eyes. Her shrug said, I have no idea. Tris hadn’t seemed to be paying attention, but she closed her book, holding her place with a finger
.

  Ambros rode back to Sandry’s side. “Forgive me. I didn’t know what else to do,” he said, his cheeks slowly turning red. “I’d put off doing the work, that was first. And then we had so much flood damage everywhere that year, and late that summer the taxes went up. I could not repair the bridge, pay the taxes, and send you the usual amount. Your mother’s written orders are clear. She, and then you, must receive that exact sum every year, without fail.”

  Sandry tightened her fingers on her reins. I knew Mother’s instructions for our income, she told herself, ashamed. I knew she didn’t leave any room for the steward to exercise his judgment. But I thought he would, anyway. I thought…

  She suddenly remembered those columns of dry, boring numbers: the ever-increasing tax sums, the estimated costs of the flood damages, and the profits from the estates. If she had done all of the additions, gone over the accounts entry by entry, she would have seen that there wasn’t enough money for everything.

  “I thought we could manage the bridge repair last year,” Ambros continued, his quiet voice strained, “but Her Imperial Majesty raised the taxes again, to cover fighting on the Lairan border. Again, it was a matter of repairing the bridge or sending what we are ordered to send to you. Our obligation to you comes first.”

  “What of the taxes?” demanded Sandry, her voice trembling. “You paid them.”

  Ambros looked surprised that she had even asked. “The taxes must be paid. I went to moneylenders last year. This year, the gods willing, I should be able to pay it back if I raise the mill taxes and the wool taxes on the tenants.”

  Sandry leaned closer to him. “You should have told me,” she said fiercely. “Not relied on me to refigure all of your accounts.” She could feel her cheeks blush hot with shame. “You should have said the problem in so many words! I have more than enough money for my needs. I could have foregone the payments both years and never even noticed!”

  Slowly, as if he feared to anger her, Ambros said, “Your mother, Clehame Amiliane, was most clear in her wishes. Those monies are always due to the clehame, whether the year is a good one or not. And I did not know you well enough at all to ask. I still don’t know you that well.” Very softly he added, “Cousin Sandry, the penalty for a steward who shorts his master—or mistress—is the lopping off of the thieving hand. Not only that, but I would lose the lands I hold in my own right. My family and I would be penniless.”

  “I would never insist on such a thing!” cried Sandry.

  Daja glanced back at the courtiers. If they had heard, they did not so much as turn around in their saddles.

  Ambros rubbed his head wearily. “Clehame—”

  “Sandry!” she snapped.

  Meeting her eyes steadily, Ambros said, “Clehame, imperial spies are everywhere. The imperial courts are all too happy to uphold such matters on their own, particularly if there is a chance they may confiscate lands for the crown. It is how Her Imperial Majesty grants titles and incomes to her favorites.”

  Taking a breath to argue, Sandry thought the better of it and let the breath go. “Let’s just ride on,” she said, feeling weary in her bones. I should have paid attention. I should have fixed this years ago. Thanks, Mother. You’ve shamed us both. And I have shamed myself. “Tomorrow, if it is safe, Ambros? Please start work on that bridge at once. Repay the moneylenders all that you owe. Don’t send me anything for the next three years. I’ll write a note to that effect, and have it witnessed.”

  This time she led the way down the muddy track to the ford, emerging from Tris’s shield to get wet. Briar turned. The moment he put two fingers in his mouth, Tris plugged her ears. Zhegorz and Daja both yelped in pain as Briar sounded the piercing whistle that he had once used to summon the dog who had stayed at Winding Circle. The courtiers heard, turned their mounts, and trotted back to the main group, the guards falling in behind.

  As Daja swore at him in Trader-talk, Briar grinned at Tris. “You remembered. How sweet.”

  She shrugged. “It’s not a sound I’m likely to forget. Besides, that’s how I could get Little Bear to come to me when he and I traveled together.” She tucked her book in a saddlebag so he couldn’t see her face. “It kept me in mind of you while I was away.”

  Briar rode over to elbow her. “You just reminded yourself how quiet it was without me to pester you when you were away,” he said, joking, actually touched. “You ain’t foolin’ me.”

  She actually grinned at him.

  In time they crossed at the ford and returned to the road on the other side of the unsafe bridge. Fifteen minutes after that, they crested a slight rise to find a good-sized village below them on both sides of the road. It boasted a mill, an inn, a smithy, a bakery, and a temple, in addition to housing for nearly five hundred families—a large place, as villages went. On the far side of the village and the river that powered the mill rose the high ground that supported the castle. From here they could see the outer, curtain wall, built of granite blocks. Behind that wall they could see four towers and the upper part of the wall that connected them.

  “Landreg Castle,” said Ambros as they rode down toward the village. “Home estate of the clehams and clehames of Landreg for four hundred years.” As they followed him, the rain, which had slackened, began to fall harder. Tris sighed and raised her shield again just as someone in the village began to ring the temple bell. People came out of their houses to stand on either side of the road. Others ran in from outer buildings and nearby fields.

  Sandry checked her mare, then caught up with Ambros. “Cousin, what are they doing? The villagers?”

  Ambros looked at her with the tiniest of frowns, as if a bright pupil had given a bad answer to a question. “You are the clehame,” he said gently. “It is their duty to greet you on your return.”

  “How did they know she was coming?” asked Briar.

  Ambros raised his pale brows. “I sent a rider ahead yesterday, of course,” he explained. “It’s my duty to send advance word of the clehame’s return.”

  Sandry’s mare fidgeted: The young woman had too tight a grip on the reins, dragging the bit against the tender corners of her horse’s mouth. “Sorry, pet,” Sandry murmured, leaning forward to caress the mare’s sodden neck. She eased her grip. Without looking at Ambros, she said softly, “I didn’t want this, Cousin. I don’t want it. Please ask them to go about their business.”

  “Bad idea,” said Jak. Sandry looked back at him. The dark-haired nobleman shrugged. “It is,” he insisted. “They have to show proper recognition of their sovereign lord. You can’t let them start thinking casually of us, Lady Sandry. Peasants should always know to whom they owe respect.”

  “I don’t need ceremonies for respect,” snapped Sandry, growing cross. Her cheeks were red again as they passed between the outlying groups of villagers; she could feel it like banners telling the world she wanted to crawl under a rock. As she rode by, the men bowed and the women curtsied, keeping their eyes down. “And it’s not me they should be bowing to,” she insisted quietly, feeling like the world’s biggest lie. “It’s my cousin here. He’s the one who works for their good. Do they do this for you?” she demanded of Ambros.

  “They bow, if they’re about when I pass, but I’m not the clehame,” Ambros told her, keeping his voice low so the villagers would not hear. “You don’t understand, Cousin. We have a way of life in Namorn. The commoners tend the land, the artisans make things, the merchants sell them, and the nobles fight and govern. Everyone knows his place. We know the rules that reinforce those places. These are your lands; these people are your servants. If you try to change the rituals for the way in which we live, you undermine all order, not just your small corner of it.”

  “He’s right,” said Fin. “Trust me, if they didn’t pay you proper respect—”

  Rizu cut him off. “Lady Sandry, custom isn’t just enforced by the landholders. Rebellion in one village is seen as a threat to all nobility. They would have imperial lawkeepers here in a few days, and
then they’d pay with one life in ten.”

  “On my own lands?” whispered Sandry, appalled.

  “Lords have been ill, or slow in mind, or absent,” Ambros replied, his voice soft. “Order must be kept.”

  “I can’t tell them not to do that again?” Sandry wanted to know.

  “Only if you want to weed the cabbage patch,” joked Fin. Caidlene poked him in the ribs with a sharp elbow. “Well, that’s what we call ’em at home,” the young nobleman protested. “Cabbage heads. All rooted in dirt, without a noble thought anywhere.”

  Weed the cabbage patch, thought Sandry, horrified. Kill peasants.

  She looked at the villagers, trying to glimpse their faces. It took her a few moments to realize that while the rain was falling heavily, the people on the ground were not getting wetter. She looked up. The space covered by Tris’s magical umbrella had spread. It was so big, she couldn’t see the edges, only the flow of water overhead, as if the village were covered by a sheet of glass. She’s still reading, thought Sandry, looking back at Tris. She can hold off all this rain, and still keep reading.

  A smile twitched the corners of Sandry’s mouth. She thought, Somebody’s been practicing.

  They crossed the river, passed through the fringe of houses on the far side, then began the climb up the hill to the castle. Halfway up, they heard the rattle of a great chain. The portcullis that covered the open gate was being raised. The drawbridge was already down, bridging a moat too wide for a horse to jump. On top of the wall, men-at-arms in mail and helmets stood at every notch, watching her. One of them, standing directly over the gate, raised a trumpet to his lips and blew it. As Sandry and Ambros rode first over the drawbridge, golden notes rang out in the sodden air.

  Inside they found the outer bailey, where many of the industries that supported the castle household were placed. Everywhere men and women dropped what they did to line up along the curved road that led to the gate to the inner bailey. As their group passed, they bowed or curtsied.