The Will of the Empress Read online

  Tris raised nearly invisible eyebrows. In here, with more control and fewer drafts, she wore her clear spectacles. “You drink it?” she asked, skeptical. “You never did before.”

  Daja shrugged. “I just thought, you being all fancy with fresh bread…” She peered inside one pitcher, nodded, and poured out cider for herself. “No, you know wine meddles with my magic. But maybe Briar can drink it.”

  “Maybe time runs backwards,” Tris called over her shoulder as she went back into the kitchen. With practiced skill she collected the roasted chicken stuffed with dried fruits, a plate of cheese pastries shaped like small pots, and a bowl of leeks cooked with eggs. The foods had all been among Briar’s favorites when the four had lived at Discipline.

  It seemed Daja had remembered Briar’s fondness for pomegranate juice, since she had filled his cup with that. “Hakkoi pound it, do you want us to roll away from the table?” she asked, amused, as Tris set down the food.

  Tris scowled at her. “He’s too skinny, if you didn’t notice,” she said tartly. “What was he eating all this time, leaves?”

  “No, there were some grubs, too.” Briar leaned against the door, watching Tris. “Daj’, what, you’re too cheap to hire a cook?”

  Tris stuck her tongue out at him—as if she would let a hired cook fix his favorite dishes!—and returned to the kitchen. Going to answer a knock on the door she heard Daja say, “My cook left three days after Tris moved in. I have a kitchen maid who helps during the day, and I’ll need to hire a second housemaid. Whom you’re under strict orders not to frighten,” she called after Tris.

  “Not if she does the work right,” muttered Tris. She opened the kitchen door to find Sandry, wrapped in an oiled cloak against icy rain. “Why couldn’t you come in the front like a civilized person?” Tris asked as she let the other girl in. “And wipe your feet. Don’t tell me you walked from Duke’s Citadel.”

  “No, but your manservant’s showing my guards where to stable the horses, and this was easier,” Sandry replied quietly. She let Tris take her cloak and hat. “Is he here? I thought so, but he’s closing me out, just like you and Daja.”

  “And you’re wide open, are you?” Tris asked, hanging the dripping clothes on pegs. “Yes, he’s here. And my supper is getting cold.”

  Sandry turned up her small nose and sniffed the air. “I smell fresh bread,” she said happily. “Have you headache tea? I’ve been reading dull old reports from Namorn all day.”

  “I’ll make you a cup. Go say hello to him,” Tris urged. “How could you be doing reports? No mail comes from Namorn this time of year.”

  “Uncle suggested it. He thinks it’s wise to do a review of the last three or four years all at once, to see what’s changed. I know he’s right, it’s just so tedious.”

  “I thought it was you,” said Daja from the doorway. “Didn’t you come here to say hello to our boy, not talk about reports?”

  Sandry looked past her and saw Briar. “Oh, you’re so thin,” she said mournfully, and walked past Daja with her arms held out.

  Tris poured the tea water, noticing that her hand on the grip of the pot trembled. It’s all wrong, she told herself. We should be in Discipline, with the kitchen and the table all in one room, and Lark and Rosethorn…Stop it! she ordered herself tartly. She put down the teapot and slid her fingers behind her spectacles to wipe away tears. When she could see again, Daja had taken charge of the teapot.

  “Things change,” Daja said softly. “We change with them. We sail before the wind. We become adults. As adults, we keep our minds and our secrets hidden, and our wounds. It’s safer.”

  2

  The 29th day of Carp Moon, 1043 K. F.

  Number 6 Cheeseman Street

  Summersea, Emelan

  Duke Vedris, riding into the courtyard followed by his guards, was dismounting when he heard Daja’s familiar voice raised in a bellow. “Tris! That little flying glass monster of yours just stole fish roe pearls!”

  A moment later the duke heard Briar shout, “Tris! Tell this creature it cannot roost in my shakkans! Lakik’s teeth, I’d have her guts for string if she had guts!”

  From the top of the house, booming on a mad swirl of wind, they heard Tris yell, “I’m meditating up here!”

  The duke looked at the sergeant of his guard. “Did you know that the magical rune for discord is the combination of the rune for house and two runes for mage?”

  The woman grinned. “I wonder what it would be for a house with three mages?”

  “Number 6 Cheeseman Street,” murmured one of the other guards.

  The shutters on a third-floor window slammed open, and a red head poked out. “Mila’s blessings! One moment, Your Grace!” Tris called. The shutters closed with a snap.

  “Your Grace is lucky,” said the guard who had just spoken. “That one likes you. It could be so much worse for us all if she didn’t.”

  The duke frowned briefly at the man. “Tris is sharp-tempered, it’s true, but she is a good friend to those in need.”

  The man bowed his head. “Yes, Your Grace.”

  Within minutes a manservant had taken charge of the guards and the horses and Tris had settled the duke in the sitting room. “I’d like to speak with the three of you, if I may?” asked Vedris when she had served him tea. “I know you’re busy, but I have a rather large favor to ask.”

  Tris curtsied, blushing slightly. “Of course, Your Grace,” she said. “The others are on their way. They just need to tidy up.”

  He smiled at her. He had long known that the younger Tris had admired him, as a young girl would admire a polished older man who talked of books with her. From the color on her cheeks it seemed that some of her old feeling still remained. “Did you summon them from here?” he asked. “Sandry told me you had all closed your connections to one another.”

  Tris’s blush deepened. “I sent the maid. We’re not who we were, Your Grace,” she explained. “Would you like it if Sandry walked freely in your mind, among all the things you have been and done?”

  “Shurri Firesword, I would not!” The very thought gave Vedris gooseflesh.

  “They say travel gives you a world of experiences.” Briar came in, still drying his hands. “Well, I have plenty of experiences I wouldn’t share with my worst enemy.”

  Vedris raised his eyebrows. “Not even with the girls, who understand you best?” he asked mildly.

  Briar grinned. “Particularly not with the girls.”

  “I know about the cookmaid,” Tris muttered. “You’re lucky she’s too silly to think you’re serious.”

  “What are you worried about?” snapped Briar. “I make sure any girl I go walking with knows I’m not serious.”

  “Walking?” asked Daja. She entered the room and kissed the duke on the cheek before she looked at Briar and raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you call it?”

  Vedris saw that all three of the young mages frowned, despite their jokes. The discord Sandry had told him about still continued, it seemed. “Please spare me what any of you call it,” Vedris said delicately. At the sound of his voice, they all looked at him. Briar grinned and shrugged, taking a chair. Daja followed suit, while Tris poured out tea for the others.

  As she did so, Chime sailed into the room on wide-spread wings. She dropped the bag of tiny, fish roe pearls in Daja’s lap—one pearl floated in her glass body where a real creature’s stomach would be—and continued on to settle gracefully on the duke’s shoulder. Emitting the musical glass croon that was her purr, Chime rested her head against Vedris’s cheek.

  “Like any beautiful creature, you live for worship,” he said affectionately as he stroked her neck with one finger. They had met on Tris’s first visit to Duke’s Citadel after her return home. Vedris never tired of looking at Chime. “I brought you something that will agree with you much better than pearls.” Reaching into his belt purse, he brought out a small packet of parchment and opened it on his silk-clad knee. A small pile of gold dust lay insid
e it.

  “You spoil her, Your Grace,” Tris said as Chime walked once around the duke’s neck, purring, before she walked down his chest to the offered treat. Neatly she began to eat the gold dust as if it were grain. Despite their earlier anger with her, Daja and Briar watched, fascinated, as the dust flowed in a ribbon down Chime’s clear gullet.

  Once Chime had finished, she flew to the window seat and curled up on a cushion to nap. Tris settled next to her.

  Vedris folded up the empty parchment, satisfied that the interlude with Chime had relaxed these three prickly young adults. “I understand that I am about to ask a great deal. I am certain that you three have had your fill of travel. However, I have been presented with a…situation. You are aware that Sandrilene inherited considerable estates from her mother in the empire of Namorn.”

  “One of her mother’s cousins administers them for her,” said Tris.

  “And she’s a clehame—what they call a countess—from her mother’s inheritance there,” added Daja. “The women inherit titles on their own in Namorn.”

  “But even without all that, she’s still awful rich.” Briar was watching vines move around the deep scars on one of his palms. “From all the investing and things she does here.”

  “Yes, but she has neglected the Namornese side of her affairs. In part the fault is mine,” confessed the duke. “We have tried to play down Sandrilene’s financial situation, your teachers and I. Her magical abilities seemed more important at first. You know what the world is like. Heiresses are normally pawns, unable to live their own lives or to make their own decisions. It is not a life that Sandrilene would enjoy. Here, we have protected her from that.

  “But in protecting her, we also kept her from doing her duty to those for whom she is responsible in Namorn,” Vedris continued. “The people on her lands, who farm them and reap the profits for her to live on. Her cousin Ambros has looked after her interests for all of these years, managing them as well as his own lands. I know that it was wrong to encourage Sandrilene to stay here when she has responsibilities elsewhere. Berenene, the empress of Namorn, is also a kinswoman of Sandrilene’s. She has expressed…displeasure that I made no effort to force Sandrilene to go to her Namornese family.”

  Briar tapped a flower on one knuckle, turning it from yellow to blue. “Your Grace, her displeasure—was it military, or money?”

  Vedris chuckled. “I have truly missed you three. It is so agreeable to be understood. The threats have been financial. If Sandrilene were to remain in Emelan much longer, Namorn might find other sources of saffron and copper. Certain goods that pass through Emelan would be more highly taxed in Namorn. Those who pay those taxes would be told it would cost less to ship their goods through other countries. Debts owed to banks in Emelan would be repaid more slowly, or frozen. Last year, interest paid on Emelan’s loans to the Namornese empire never reached our banks. Her Imperial Majesty has indicated to me that there are ways to make our friendly relations even less friendly.”

  Briar leaned over and spat in the empty hearth. “Imperial language,” he said, his voice quiet but savage. “Imperial double-talk. They speak pretty and sharpen their knives. The Yanjing emperor is just as bad.”

  “Then he and the empress must have a wonderful time together,” remarked Daja casually. “They’ve been at war off and on for eight years.”

  “It is the language of diplomacy,” said the duke. “I use it myself.”

  “I’ll venture a guess,” said Daja, tugging her lower lip. “Sandry found out about the blackmail.”

  Nodding, the duke said, “My seneschal let it slip. Sandrilene was quite outraged. She insists on making that visit to Namorn, to satisfy the imperial request so that Emelan—that our people—are no longer way inconvenienced on her account.” Vedris leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. Here comes the difficult part, particularly in light of what I heard on my arrival, he thought. “My next step is troublesome. If I send guards, it would be perceived as an insult. As a suggestion that I do not trust Sandrilene’s relatives to care for her, that I fear for her safety within the empire. A very few guards would not be taken as an insult, but they would be too few to help her, should she need help.”

  He stopped to sip his tea and sample one of the pistachio crescent cookies, biding his time. They would guess what he wanted, but they would also want him to say it aloud. They wouldn’t want to seem childishly eager or interested in front of each other. Inwardly, the duke sighed. He liked them all, and hated to see them unhappy. Daja’s homecoming had been a bitter experience, and remained so. Tris had run into the kind of professional jealousy that adults found hard to deal with. Both girls had confided a little to him in their Citadel visits, even if they could not talk about those things with Sandry. He had not spoken much with Briar, but he had with Rosethorn. He had also seen that same haunted look of Briar’s in the eyes of countless soldiers and sailors who had survived battle. Vedris hoped that if he could persuade all three of them to help with his plan, it might heal some of their wounds. The difficulty was that they had never been easy to persuade.

  “I would be easier in my mind if one, or two, or even all three of you were to go with Sandry,” he admitted. “Empress Berenene has great mages at her command, but they are all academic mages, drawing their power from themselves and channeling it through learned rites and spells. In my experience, academic mages underestimate ambient mages like you, who draw your power from your surroundings.”

  Briar snorted. “You bet they do,” he muttered scornfully.

  The duke continued. “They will not expect you to be formidable guards for her. Moreover, you three have lived with more facets of the adult world than Sandrilene has. Daja, I understand that you may feel you have not completely made this place your home, and I shall not hold it against you, should you refuse me. Tris, I know you have plans to attend Lightsbridge next spring—”

  “Lightsbridge!” chorused Briar and Daja. The university at Lightsbridge was the rival school of magecraft to Winding Circle. It was a citadel of learning, particularly for academic mages, as Winding Circle tended to specialize in ambient ones. Apparently, thought Vedris, Tris had not shared her plans with her housemates.

  “You’ve got your mage medallion,” added Briar. “You don’t need Lightsbridge!”

  Tris scowled. “I do if I need a license to practice plain street magic,” she informed him. “Talismans, charms, potions—that kind of thing. Don’t you understand how much people resent us for having medallions? People don’t even usually have a license at eighteen, let alone a medallion. Well, I mean to study at Lightsbridge under another name, an ordinary name, so I can get an ordinary license, so I can earn my living as an ordinary mage!”

  “You’re going to lie about who you are?” asked Daja, shocked.

  “Niko’s set it up for me,” Tris said shortly, naming her teacher. “I’m going to do it, and that’s final. Unless…” She looked at Vedris uncertainly.

  “After this summer you will be free again to do as you please,” the duke reassured her. “Either Sandrilene will return home, or…” He looked at his hands. He did not want to speak the possibility aloud, but he owed his young friends honesty. “Sandrilene may feel that her duty requires her to remain in Namorn. In that case, I hope you would feel yourselves under no further obligation, and return to your own lives.” He looked at Briar. “I am most reluctant to ask you, of course. You have come home so recently. I will understand if you refuse. But—forgive me for saying it—Empress Berenene is a famed amateur gardener. With your own reputation having spread in the time you have been away, I suspect she will be quick to admit you above all to her inner circle.”

  “Does Sandry speak Namornese?” Daja wanted to know.

  Vedris felt hope stir in his chest. “I suspect it is quite rusty. I know Ambros fer Landreg’s reports are in Namornese, so she reads it well.”

  Daja nodded. “But I speak it.” She smoothed one hand over the metal that coated the
other. “You’re really worried, aren’t you, Your Grace?”

  “I know that Sandrilene is capable of extraordinary feats. And they will think the less of her because her magic works through thread,” Vedris replied. “But she is only one mage, and there are ways to deal with mages. She is extraordinarily wealthy in Namorn—I don’t believe you know to what extent. Heiresses are always in great demand. Empress Berenene is a powerful woman who has made it clear that she thinks Sandrilene belongs in her court. Few people tell Her Imperial Majesty no.”

  Briar smirked. “Sandry will. Sandry tells everyone no, sooner or later.”

  Daja grinned; Tris smiled.

  Vedris put down his teacup. “I know you will need time to consider it.”

  Tris stared into the distance. “At least Daja and I should go. Two of us will be harder to distract than one.”

  Briar made a face. “You need me, too,” he said. “In case all those hot-blooded Namornese noblemen make you girls addled.”

  “I have yet to be addled by any man, Briar Moss,” said Daja. “Believe me, a few have tried. Dazed a little, but only because they reminded me of you. I had hoped you were one of a kind.”

  “You’ll come?” asked Tris, startled.

  “You aren’t the only one who owes His Grace,” Briar informed her. He looked at the duke. “Sir, even if Sandry weren’t our sister, you helped us along a lot, the four years we lived at Discipline. It would be an honor to ease your mind.”

  The duke sighed with relief. He hadn’t been sure all of them would be willing, particularly not when they were at odds. “Getting to Namorn will be easy,” he said. “Third Caravan Saralan is here, and will leave for Namorn on the tenth day of Seed Moon. Their guards will protect you on the road. I will cover all of your expenses, and I consider myself to be deeply in your debt.” He smiled at them. “Thank you. I feel more comfortable with this than I have felt since Sandrilene told me she would go.”