“You see my predicament,” his voice said softly—and surely he was still speaking to her. “I had been sworn to secrecy by Sagorn, for ailments of kings are matters of high import. So I could not discuss my mission.”
She raised her eyes to meet his. She smiled her forgiveness.
She smiled that she had never doubted him.
He returned the smile, a little—thanking her for it—but his eyes remained grave.
“And so we went to Krasnegar. By Winterfest Sagorn had no doubt. The king commanded that the secret be kept, and the matter should properly have been no affair of mine. But now I knew Inosolan. I was his Majesty’s guest, and his daughter’s slave, but not his subject. Once again I found myself trapped in a conflict of honor, for I knew that Inos would want to know. So that was my penance for nosiness—that I must take her the doleful tidings. I bought a couple of horses, and here I am.”
Inos gasped in horror and disbelief. For her he had faced the frozen immensity of the forest—alone! So lightly! For her! Alone!
“A remarkable tale!” the duchess said acidly. “Kade, we should not detain you in your time of grief. Whatever we may do to aid you, you have only to ask, as you know.”
It was dismissal. The men rose as the ladies did. Andor was first at the door.
He kissed Inos’s hand and bowed to her aunt. “If you do decide to go, ma’am,” he said, and it was not clear to which princess he spoke, ”then I would beg of you to let me accompany you. It would be the least I could do to repair my folly.”
What folly? Inos floated out behind her aunt and, despite the wounds caused by the news of her father, some part of her heart soared like a skylark into the heavens.
6
The dowager duchess of Kinvale watched the door close. Then she unleashed her bleakest stare. “You are welcome here, Sir Andor. But tell me—I believe that the noble Senator Endrami died over thirty years ago?”
He did not even blink. “Twenty-six years and three months, ma’am. I was a posthumous baby, but not quite so posthumous as that.”
“So the Lady Imagina who married the Margrave of Minxinok must have been your cousin?”
“My oldest sister, your Grace. She died when I was very young. I never knew her.”
Endrami had been a distant—an extremely distant—relative, and the boy’s information was correct. So either he was genuine or he had done his homework well, perhaps even well enough to spring those traps she had just tried to set. The Endrami lands were all down in South Pithmot; it would take weeks to confirm his story. “What chance that the girl can reach Krasnegar before her father dies?”
He shrugged. “It is in the hands of the Gods.”
“But we must all help the Gods to aid the Good, mustn’t we? How do the king’s subjects feel about a queen of such youth, and unmarried?”
“I never heard the matter discussed, your Grace. The king’s danger was still a secret.”
“I see.” Feeling unusually baffled, Ekka turned to her son, who was staring at the rug, pulling at his lip in that childish habit of his. “Angilki, you forget your duties. Sir Andor must be weary from his journey.”
The duke awoke with a start and sprang up obediently. The door opened and closed again.
Ekka was left alone with Proconsul Yggingi, who sat with his helmet on his lap, regarding her impassively.
“It can be done?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She approved of his brusque manner. “A deal, then?”
“Name it.”
“Make me an offer.”
He shook his close-cropped head and his face was unreadable. ”You initiated this. You invited me. You have something in mind.”
She would crack that marble facade. “Gambling debts, mostly.”
He smiled grimly. “Mine, or do you also have a problem?”
It was she who was shaken. Such insolence she had not met in half a lifetime. ”Yours. You are rumored to have gone through your wife’s fortune in two years.”
He shrugged imperturbably. “A year and a half. And I now owe forty-two thousand imperials more.”
Incredible! It was much worse than she had heard. “You are in serious trouble, Proconsul.” He would he in debtors’ prison till the rats ate him.
“I am ruined.”
“Desperate?”
The twist of his lips was barely a smile. “I have no scruples, if that is what you mean. None at all. Have you?”
She laughed, surprising herself. “None. To business, then. There would appear to be a disputed succession in Krasnegar.”
“Or soon will be. Certainly the jotnar there will not readily accept rule by a woman.”
“It is a long time since my last history lesson, Excellency. You must know much more about such things than I do.”
He chuckled. “The Impire is a shark, and it eats minnows whenever it can catch them.”
He had a surprisingly apt turn of phrase for a brute soldier. Ekka had not needed to recall her school days to know that any trouble in other realms was usually turned to the Impire’s advantage—a disputed succession, a civil war, or even a minor border squabble, and the legions would march in on the pretext of guarding one side or the other. It didn’t matter which, because both sides were inevitably swallowed up promptly. They might fight loose again in a generation or so, but by then the looting had been done. And she certainly did not need to lecture Yggingi on this.
“If the girl cannot rule, then my son has the best claim.” The big man cocked an impudent eyebrow at her. “I understood that Thane Kalkor had a better.”
Ekka thumped her cane angrily on the rug—she was wearing a hole there, she reminded herself. It must have become a habit.
“He has a claim through his great-grandaunt. But if a woman cannot rule, then she cannot pass on the title! So his case is self-defeating. His argument would be meaningless!”
“Jotnar’s arguments are usually pointed.” Yggingi crossed his legs and wriggled himself into a comfortable but not very military slouch. ”Granted that your son has a claim, but your son is a subject of the imperor. The imperor cannot deny a woman’s right to rule, because his own grandmother was imperess regnant. So your argument is equally self-defeating. Interesting!”
She had not expected him to see that—it had taken her several days to work it out after Kade had let slip the tiger. Both sides ought to admit that the other’s claim was better. Of course neither ever would. “Mmm. But if the imperor decided to . . . to go to my niece’s assistance, then he would naturally dispatch you, as your precinct of Pondague borders on Krasnegar.”
He flushed slightly, which surprised her. “Not necessarily, but let us assume so for the moment. What exactly are you proposing, your Grace?”
“Take the girl back. If her father is dead—and if he isn’t I expect the shock of your arrival may well precipitate his demise—then proclaim her queen, and she will in turn name you as her viceroy. Send her back here to marry my son. It would please me to have my descendants be kings, even if the title is moot.”
He nodded and rose to begin pacing the room. That was a rank discourtesy, and the thump of his boots on her expensive rugs was extremely annoying, but she kept her face schooled as she had done for generations.
“That’s clever!” he said at last. “The imperor will have the ruler—whichever of them it is—here in his fist, and Krasnegar will remit taxes, to help defray the costs of the protection.”
“Moreover your creditors will be hard-pressed to reach you there, and you can loot an extra forty-two thousand imperials to pay your debts.”
He stopped by the fireplace and turned to regard her with a smile that was close to contemptuous. “Not without provoking famine, I’m sure. From what I hear, it is a bleak little spot.”
“Scruples?”
He shrugged. “I might become liable for impeachment, or at least replacement.”
“My family is not without influence in Hub, Proconsul.”
He chuckled. “True. Your son will not go to Krasnegar?”
“He would sooner die.”
“But why send the girl? Marry them now, while you have her in hand. She can sign my commission before I leave.”
This, of course, was the tricky part. She had foreseen this. “Being postdated, it would be a dubious document at best. The people might not believe, unless they saw her, and witnessed her willing signature.”
He chuckled again. “But what of the jotnar? Gnomes and goblins are good sport, but fighting jotnar would be red work. You think Kalkor would accept this convenient arrangement?”
She shrugged. “I doubt if he really cares. Looting and raping are his wont, and he could have taken Krasnegar anytime he wanted. You can buy off the thanes.”