There are several schools of thought regarding the proper balance between the rights of monarchs and the rights of their subjects. There are those anti-monarchists, such as Li and Francher, who advocate for a legal system maintained independently of the monarch himself, so that the law of the land (or ship, or station, as the case may be) applies to all citizens more or less equally; and indeed, this practice is the one most widespread in regions of void belonging to the Merchants League. But there are still traditionalists (particularly Herrick) who insist that the right of the monarch must be absolute, and supersede any other laws or customs. The monarch becomes, in Herrick’s system, a de facto deity, wielding the power of life and death, with no other legal check on his behavior than his own will. It is an appealing theory if one is the monarch, and rather less so if one is anybody else. It is also no accident that the historically preferred methods of dealing with this sort of monarch have been violent and rather permanent.
The late King Sergei Valenko had been a strange combination of progressive and absolutist. On the one hand, he had attempted, via legislation, to codify the law of the Free Worlds, favoring the rights of individual stations and planets to self-govern under their own laws and customs. But at the same time, he had been famous for overriding the wishes of his own Council in other matters, the most infamous of which was an edict forbidding the establishment of an elected Free-Worlds-wide Tadeshi Parliament. The proposals (for there were many) included provisions for elections based on colonial population, economic significance, and longevity of membership in the Free Worlds. King Sergei’s edict objected to those proposals as invitations to tyranny, and castigated members of his Council by name for their transparent self-interest in promoting the power of their own houses or homeworlds, while limiting the powers of others.
It may be that Valenko’s future biographers will posit that the King was, by being a tyrant himself, attempting to eliminate the politicking and maneuvering among his nobles—using tyranny to combat tyranny, if you will. They will almost certainly notice that Vernor Moss is not one of the council members named in that edict, but whether his ascension to Regency is attributed to a general inoffensiveness, or to the cleverness of his maneuvering (or whether the King is portrayed as doomed idealist or ravening despot), will depend on the prevailing political winds at the time of the writing.
It will almost certainly not be noted that, among the works in the Regent Moss’s office, was a copy of Herrick’s Treatise on the Rights of Kings.
Although Rory had been in Moss’s office, and had in fact glanced over his shelves, including the one on which Herrick’s Treatise resided, she was unfamiliar with the work itself, or with its author. The fault for this, if fault it was, could be laid at the feet of the Vizier. There are only so many hours in a week, and because the Vizier himself was quite familiar with Herrick (and several dozen more political theorists of whom no one has ever heard except other academics), and because he had taken for granted that he would be available to advise Rory, he had elected to leave Herrick off her reading lists.
Had he chosen otherwise, perhaps Rory might have noticed the book in Moss’s possession, and drawn the obvious conclusions; and perhaps she might have mentioned its presence to the Vizier. Then they two together may have been better able to see the pattern in Moss’s Regency thus far, and to make predictions about its future trajectory.
Or they could have asked Grytt’s advice, which no one ever did, at least on matters of politics.
While this seems like a logical decision, it should be noted that, while she was not familiar with Herrick, or with Li and Francher, Grytt was very familiar with Kreshti history, and by extension, with seminal Kreshti writers. She would have recommended Rory read Kahandir, who, as one of the revolutionary founders of Kreshti, had a great deal of advice about tyranny, and the varying stages and methods of dealing with it.
Grytt would also, if asked, have shared her opinion of diplomatic immunity and the likelihood of Regent Moss adhering to rules which he had not made himself (in that, she might have been in agreement with the Vizier); and she might have been able to verbally prepare Rory for what she foresaw as inevitable.
But, as we have noted, no one asked her.
Grytt was not offended by that oversight. She proceeded with the preparations anyway. She made certain that she had the unauthorized ’slinger, loaded and charged, slung around her hips on the following morning. She also made certain that she briefed the morning’s escort personally, reflecting as she did so that it was a pity that Stary and Franko were not a better representation of the original purpose for which militaries had been designed. Oh, those men were adequate at their martial skills, even competent. But it seemed to her that those soldiers in service to the royal household had achieved their positions largely because of familial influence, or because they were especially good at polishing boots and keeping their uniforms crisp; and it was not Grytt’s personal experience that the actual business of fighting (which was often attended by bleeding) had much to do with shiny footwear or creased trousers. When Samur had granted her free choice of the barracks on Thorne, Grytt had selected the best of the lot, and sacrificed to her ancestors that she never need use them in a manner to which they were unaccustomed.
Grytt, like the Vizier, did not place a great deal of faith in the intervention of ethereal beings; she also knew that, under unusual circumstances, soldiers, like weapons, might surpass all expectations, or fail dramatically. It was her responsibility to predict the outcome. Stary and Franko were the most experienced of the staff and the ones Grytt would want at her back in a pitched battle. They were the best at following orders: told to hold the corridor, they would do so or die trying. But they also possessed the same mental acuity and flexibility as a bag of wet mice. Some days, the Princess would need well-armed, violent wet mice. But this was not one of those days.
And so, this morning, Grytt selected the two most junior staff. The first, Thorsdottir, was a big-boned farmer’s daughter from Thorne’s northern continent. She was painfully aware of her common birth, and apparently unaware of her uncommon talent. She was also much smarter than anyone gave her credit for (except Grytt).
The second, Zhang, came from a comfortably connected upper-middle-class merchant family. Her mother in particular had expressed great dismay when she enlisted in the royal guard instead of becoming a lawyer. Much of Zhang’s unflappable composure, for which Grytt had selected her as much as her martial skill, had developed as a bulwark against constant maternal disappointment. Zhang, in her turn, harbored an unsecret worship of all things Grytt. The reason for Zhang’s fascination had nothing to do with the several rumors circulating around the barracks (ranging from lascivious to aggrieved), and everything to do with Zhang’s own paternal grandmother, who had been a Kreshti marine killed in a skirmish with pirates. To Zhang, Grytt was the nearest thing to Grandmother she might ever meet.
Grytt collected Thorsdottir and Zhang in the antechamber. She pretended to inspect their uniforms; and indeed, the pair were polished and crisp. They were also armed, to the limit of the treaty, with ’slingers of the same make and model as Grytt’s own. Grytt had seen their marksmanship scores, and had no doubt of the steadiness of their hands; she had also seen their service records, and knew they had never fired a weapon in combat.
She was counting on both of those things. She explained—with capital letters and complete sentences—the scenario she predicted would take place that morning, or if not that morning, sometime Very Soon. She outlined several possible outcomes, identifying which of those she, Grytt, considered optimal, and which ones—indeed, all the others—were Completely Unacceptable. Zhang and Thorsdottir did not interrupt, which Grytt had expected. They also did not blink, which she found disconcerting, not least because she could see the doubts crowding behind their eyes like children at the sweet-shop window.
She waited through several moments of rigid silence, after she had finished, before she asked, “Are there questions?”
Zhang looked at Thorsdottir, who winced a little. “No, Guard-Commander.”
“It’s just—” Thorsdottir blurted, and stopped when Grytt looked at her. “Nothing, ma’am.”
Grytt made a grinding noise in her throat reminiscent of large, ill-used machinery.
“Just say it,” said Grytt. “Whatever it is. However stupid.”
Thorsdottir did not look happy, and for a moment Grytt thought she would refuse to answer and make another apology. That might have been the prudent response, for an ordinary guard to an ordinary captain on an ordinary day. Indeed, Stary or Franko would’ve done exactly that. Grytt held her breath, just a little. The Princess did not need ordinary.
Then Thorsdottir’s jaw squared off into a stubborn angle. “You’re asking us to defy the Princess, Guard-Commander.”
“I am.”
“That’s treason.”
“It is, if you’re strict on the meaning. Seems to me it’s our job to keep her safe, even if she’s determined otherwise. All goes well, she won’t give any orders. If not—our job is to keep her alive and unharmed.”
“Right,” said Thorsdottir. “I hope it does go well, then.”
Grytt almost smiled at her, and stopped it just in time. The smile sighed and went back into seclusion. The more familiar grimace took its accustomed place, perhaps a little smugly.
“Huh,” she said. “So do I.” But she didn’t really expect that it would.
And, of course, it didn’t.
There were six Tadeshi security waiting in the corridor in front of the Thorne embassy. The morning crowds eddied around them in the same way fish avoid rocks in a stream, and the security paid the crowds exactly the same attention as rocks pay to fish. They were placed at intervals so that they might observe every possible approach to the embassy’s big front doors, over which protruded a single, smooth black hemisphere: the security camera, with Thorne security personnel somewhere behind the walls watching its feed. Grytt was familiar with the range on that particular model, and was not the least bit surprised that the Tadeshi security ranged themselves just at the edge of its limit, where they might not be noticed by personnel inside.
Nor was she at all surprised to see the security; the Regent’s men patrolled the station at regular intervals, and residents (of which she only grudgingly considered herself) grew accustomed to their passage. Near the embassies, the concentration became somewhat higher. And truthfully, Grytt had anticipated an increased presence this morning. But six. Well. That seemed excessive. Or flattering, if she was fool enough to imagine the quantity of armed men waiting near the door was any reflection on her, or on the skill of the Princess’s guard.
As we have noted, Grytt was no fool (although the battle-wise portion of her wits insisted otherwise, if she continued walking into what was clearly an ambush). The six were more likely a reflection of the importance of their task, both as gesture and advertisement. Moss, Grytt reflected grimly, had probably calculated exactly how many security one could dispatch to arrest a Vizier to both intimidate and ensure compliance. He wasn’t a fool, either.
That Rory’s entire guard detail numbered two fewer than that half dozen, no more than two of which were permitted, by treaty, to accompany her (Grytt counted as body-maid, rather than guard), indicated to Grytt that Moss intended his six—of the more massive sort, this time, thick-limbed and tall—to remind Rory of how very powerless she was, in Urse.
As a general tactic, Grytt approved of intimidation. As a specific tactic pointed at Rory, well. It would not have been a method Grytt herself would have chosen, unless she actually desired the opposite result; teenagers, in her experience, possessed a near universal tendency to defiance. She was surprised that Moss, who had dragged two sons through their teen years, would discount that tendency. Then she wondered if it was merely Rory he discounted.
And then she gave up wondering at all for the meantime, because the Tadeshi security had finally noticed their approach. They drew together and ranged themselves in front of the embassy’s entrance—inside the camera’s range, now, so close to the doors that no one might get round them. Now the passersby noticed; they scuttled and darted, clearing a nearly perfect half circle of conspicuously empty deck.
“Oh, dear,” murmured Rupert.
“Hell,” muttered Rory.
“That took long enough,” said Grytt, with her usual tone and volume. There was a small chance the Tadeshi might hear her, but they were not her audience. She couldn’t see Zhang, bringing up the rear as she was, but she thought she heard a little snort. Thorsdottir, on point, grew a bit straighter, and her shoulders a bit more square, until she appeared as formidable as any one of Moss’s bully-men.
Grytt spared a moment’s regret that she did not have six Thorsdottirs before remembering that it wasn’t just Rory and teenagers who responded poorly to intimidation. She took a pair of deep breaths, held them, let them go, and looked over the opposition. Six Thorsdottirs or sixty: this wasn’t about numbers (which was fortunate; one need not be an arithmancer to see who had the advantage) or firepower (which was also fortunate, as the Tadeshi had ’slingers with greater range and capacity), but strategy.
Grytt played a wicked game of chess, but she preferred the pieces to be wood or metal or plastic, and not flesh and bone, particularly when the opponent had only pawns on the board. Moss might be willing to sacrifice. She was not.
One of the Tadeshi differentiated himself by stepping forward and raising his hand in an archaic, universal gesture (among bipeds; the same gesture had, early in relations with the k’bal, nearly resulted in an unfortunate incident).
“Please stop,” he said, in a tone that indicated he expected compliance, as a figure of authority speaking to an ordinary citizen.
Rory, of course, would have ignored the order, but to do so would have entailed treading on Thorsdottir’s heels. So she stopped and looked directly at the security officer.
“Good morning,” she said, in a tone that clearly conveyed get the hell out of my way.
The senior security officer frowned down at her. He made no attempt to look at his fellows; clearly he was in charge, and had no doubt of his orders. How nice, Grytt thought, to be so certain. She could see what he could not: there were nervous glances darting among the men in the back row. They were truly remarkable for their sameness. Broad shoulders. Dark hair. The same solid cheekbones and jaw that suggested a skull perhaps thicker than average. A matched set of toadies, all with the same strict orders and marked lack of imagination.
Grytt revised her opinion of Moss. He was not trying to avoid a conflict. He was trying to provoke one. Pawns ranged against a future Queen.
“Mm.” Rupert cleared his throat. He sounded a little bit hoarse. “Is there a problem, Lieutenant?”
Senior Toady hurled his full attention at Rupert like a drowning man lunges for a rope.
“Lord Vizier Rupert of the Thorne Consortium,” he said too quickly. “You are under arrest for acts of sedition and treason against the Free Worlds of Tadesh. If you will come with me.”
“He will not,” Rory snapped, before Rupert could say anything. “He is a member of my staff, and out of your jurisdiction. Now move aside.”
The Vizier’s hands stretched and knotted at his sides. Grytt fancied she could hear the creak and pop of tendons. He was trying to catch her attention; Grytt felt his stare pulling at her, willing her to look back.
She ignored him.
“The Princess needs to stand aside,” said Senior Toady, after what appeared to be a moment’s strenuous thought. He sounded faintly aggrieved. “We are here for the Vizier.”
Rory raised her chin and tossed her braid back over her shoulder. “And I have said already, you won’t have him.”
She started forward, as if expecting the Tadeshi security to turn into smoke, or at the very least, step aside. Since neither was likely to happen, and because there is a certain loss of dignity if one’s sovereign runs into armed and armored men, and because Grytt had prepared her for just this eventuality, Thorsdottir stuck out an arm. Rory swatted it with all the effect a kitten might have moving a stone lion—which is to say, not aside, as she had planned. She was forced to stop a second time.
Grytt, now a bit behind Rory, watched irritation creep redly up the back of the Princess’s neck, and watched her shoulders expand around a deep breath. There was a chance that breath, when released, would be quiet and take all Rory’s anger with it, but Grytt was not willing to take that gamble.
“Your Highness,” she said.
The title, rather than the tone, struck Rory like a small sack of stones. The Princess turned, yielding up a meter of space, and Grytt moved into that gap as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Thorsdottir’s arm dropped, and Grytt found herself chest to chest—or rather, chin to chest, as she did not possess Thorsdottir’s prodigious height—with Senior Toady. She squinted her living eye at his uniform as if inspecting for lint.
“I need to see your orders . . . Lieutenant. Before I will even consider permitting you to take the Vizier into custody.”
Rory let out a tiny gasp. Grytt braced for an argument, for a counter order, for a scene of such drama that ’cast writers from five systems would request the security footage for inspiration for the next generation of entertainment programming.
Then she heard the Princess’s teeth grind together, and the moment passed. Grytt wondered if Rupert had whispered something to her, or whether Rory was just saving up for a spectacular outburst.
Senior Toady, oblivious to the nearness of his miss, twitched a little, whether from revulsion (Grytt wore her best ugly scowl) or apprehension (she was within easy reach of his person and his sidearm), Grytt could not guess. She did know he could not retreat any further without stepping on his own men. They worried her more: five hands hovering over their ’slingers with an eagerness which suggested they were not just ready for action, they were expecting it.
Grytt was no arithmancer. She could not read auras. But her metal eye had a web of hexes that welded it to her flesh and her nerves, and it provided information a plain, human eye couldn’t. Right now, it was displaying thin translucent cyan lines plotted over the standard visual input, probable trajectories for ’slinger bolts fired from each of the Tadeshi, to their most likely targets.
Grytt did not like what she saw.
“Orders,” Grytt snapped. “Surely you have them.”
“I. Yes.” Senior Toady retained enough wit to raise his left hand in a wait and hold gesture. The other five retained enough discipline to freeze exactly in place while he fished into his breastplate with his right hand and produced a wafer-slim, flexible tablet.
Grytt made a great show of reading it over, although she got little more than the Vizier’s name and title prominently displayed at the top, and Regent Moss’s name, title, and elaborate signature at the bottom, and a great morass of Tadeshi legalese in between. The ancestors and Rupert might understand it; Grytt could only hope Rory could figure it out, given time.
She rolled the tablet into a tube, tight as the plastic would permit. “Thank you,” she said. “Lieutenant—what’s your name?”
He blinked. “Malvar.”
“Malvar.” She made a face as if the name tasted bad. “Fine. We’ll expect you to treat the Vizier with every possible courtesy, you hear me? Because this”—and she pointed the rolled tablet at his face like an angry finger—“this is someone’s very serious mistake, for which the Princess and the Vizier will expect a very serious apology. A personal apology, Lieutenant.”
Senior Toady Malvar jerked his chin down in what might have been a nod, if every cord on his neck had not been standing out like steel cables. Then he broke stares with Grytt.
“Lord Vizier,” he said. “If you will come with me.”
There was a shuffle behind Grytt that sounded like a tall, slight man trying to come forward, and a significantly smaller and more athletic young woman perhaps holding his sleeve or otherwise impeding his progress.
“It’s all right,” Rupert said quietly. And added, “Princess.”
Then he brushed by Grytt, glancing down as he did so. She marked the pulse beating in his throat, and the beads of sweat on his lip. And she saw the message that flashed across her metal eye, hexed there by an arithmancer trying to walk, surrender, and hex at the same time. It was not up to Rupert’s usual eloquence, but the sentiment was clear.
Grytt nodded, to show him she understood. And then he was past her, and past Thorsdottir’s broad-shouldered perimeter, and surrounded by Tadeshi uniforms.
“Tell the Regent,” said Rory in a brittle, spiky voice, “that we are displeased with this action. Tell him that we will expect an explanation immediately, Lieutenant Malvar. Do you hear me?”
“Your Highness,” said Malvar, and bowed a little more than the requisite angle. He seemed quite happy now to retreat, leaving the embassy doors unobstructed.
It was a long walk from those embassy doors, through the gathering knot of distressed embassy personnel, through a small labyrinth of embassy corridors. The Vizier’s office lay at the end of the main floor corridor, beside a tiny arboretum with a slender little copse of Thorne-native trees, hexed within a centimeter of their genome to survive in the canned air and cold light of Urse.
Rory waited until the office door whisked shut before she said, “Grytt,” in a voice that immediately filled the room, crowding into corners and the gaps in the decking, snatching every scrap of warmth and replacing it with a chill more profound than deep aether. Her mouth worked around what she meant to say next, trying on half a dozen demands, exclamations, and accusations.
Grytt watched as how dare you and what the hell were you thinking and what have you done tried, and failed, to be the first words out Rory’s mouth. She was mildly surprised when Rory turned instead to Thorsdottir and Zhang.
“Out,” she said.
“Stay,” said Grytt. “You’re going to yell at me, they can hear it.”
“I was going to yell at all of you, but it’s not their fault. It’s yours.”
Thorsdottir looked at Zhang, who looked at Grytt, who grimaced. “If you mean they followed my orders, then yes.”
“I don’t need guards who follow your orders, I need guards who follow mine.”
Thorsdottir’s cheeks reddened. Zhang flinched. Grytt wished the damned fairies had given Rory a blessing about think-before-speaking. But even fairy gifts might be powerless before teenage tempers.
Grytt, however, was not. “And you’d’ve ordered what, Princess? That we fight back? Say we had. Then what? A firefight in front of our embassy, three on six.”
“Moss’s men would have stood down.” But Rory did not look so certain, now. Her brows crowded together. “They wouldn’t have risked me.”
“No. Not you. They’re good enough to miss you completely. But Rupert, now. You think a bolt in his skull wouldn’t solve a few of Moss’s problems? So sorry, Princess, we didn’t mean to kill him. Firefight. Accident. This way, he’s alive and unhurt.”
Rory’s face resembled a Kantarin deathmask, gone smooth and blank. Only her eyes flickered, like a tesla with a short in the wire. “And a prisoner.”
“Alive,” Grytt repeated. “Which he wouldn’t be, if you’d got your way. Or your guards, either. I’m half metal. Hard to kill. But Thorsdottir and Zhang have all their original parts. Best for you, and for them, if they keep them.”
Rory said nothing.
Grytt blew her anger away in a gale-force sigh. “Listen. Moss set you up. That lieutenant wasn’t any diplomat. He was greener than five-week-old cheese left in the sun. He was supposed to provoke you. And me, I imagine.”
“It worked.”
“It did. It would’ve worked better if you’d gotten your way and started a fight. Moss is good at this game. You need to get better.”
It took Rory a moment to swallow whatever retort had lurched up her throat. It took her a moment longer to blink her eyes clear. She held out her hand. “Let me see the orders.”
Grytt handed them over, with small swell of pride.
We did okay with this one, Rupert.
But of course Rupert was not here to see it. Cold fingers stirred through Grytt’s guts. Rupert, in Tadeshi custody. She came as close as she ever did to fidgeting, while Rory scanned over the arrest order.
“Conspiracy against the sovereignty of the Free Worlds of Tadesh. That’s suitably broad and dramatic-sounding, isn’t it? And treason’s a capital offense. They wouldn’t dare execute him. But they could exile him. Or.” The Princess glanced up at Grytt. “Put him on an unlucky, accident-bound ship. Perhaps malfunction during the tesser-hex. Perhaps even pirates.”
“Rupert would hate pirates.”
“He would.” Rory almost smiled. Then the moment passed, and the shape of her jaw reminded Grytt entirely of Samur. “I’m certain he’d never make it home. Moss doesn’t want Messer Rupert here, but he damn sure doesn’t want him back with my mother. I mean, that’s why he came with us in the first place.”
Grytt found a sudden fascination with the desk, scrupulously organized and deliberately impersonal and, therefore, obviously and entirely Rupert’s. “He came to advise you, Princess.”
“Of course he did. He also came because my mother couldn’t keep him on Thorne, with all the rumors around. Not after she was married.”
Grytt pretended to study the spines of the books—real books, dear ancestors, a small, heavy, expensive-to-transport fortune right there—on the single shelf behind the desk. She gave up, being unable to read half the titles, bloody pretentious script—and shifted her attention to the paneling on the bulkhead. The wood—synthetic, highly polished—threw back reflections which, to a normal eye, would be only ghosts. To Grytt’s mecha eye, however, such details were easily resolved. Rory’s faint, rueful smile. Zhang’s plain horror. Thorsdottir’s credible attempt at blank-faced.
“Rumors,” Grytt repeated. She wasn’t doing as well as Thorsdottir. Her own reflection told her that.
“Grytt.” Rory’s lips quirked. “I’m sixteen, not seven. Everyone knows about my mother and Messer Rupert. Which means Moss does, too.”
The cold fingers in Grytt’s gut turned into fists. She caught herself considering the logistics of forcibly retrieving Rupert from the detention block, and gave herself a stern scolding for even entertaining the idea. Drop that spark in this environment, she’d have the whole lot of them planning something magnificently stupid.
Rory was nodding slowly, as if she could hear what Grytt was thinking. “Moss will expect some kind of reaction out of us. So what do I do, Grytt? File a complaint? Call my mother?”
“What would Rupert tell you?”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Nope.”
“He would say, try diplomacy. No.” Rory shook her head. “He would say, ‘Be sneaky, Princess. The Regent will expect you to act like a child and throw a tantrum.’” Rory laughed, softly and breathlessly. “Which I damn near did. Which I still want to do.”
Grytt, who shared the Princess’s desire for inappropriate, emotionally driven action, found herself momentarily without any wise—or unwise—advice.
The moment should have passed, silent and unnoticed, except that Thorsdottir cleared her throat.
“Ah. If I might interject. There’s something to be said for tantrums, your Highness.”
Rory stared at her. So did Grytt. Only Zhang seemed unsurprised; she might have been smiling, just a little, but with Zhang, it was hard to tell.
Rory frowned, in a manner which indicated concentration, rather than ire. “What do you mean?”
Two spots of carmine appeared on Thorsdottir’s cheeks. “Only—it’s the audience that matters. For some people, seeing the Princess very upset might seem like an opportunity.”
Rory blinked. “For what?”
“For intimacy,” said Zhang, and startled everyone. “To gain your confidence, your Highness.”
“People,” Rory repeated. “You mean Merrick and Jaed.”
Thorsdottir forgot to be nervous. “I do, your Highness. Or rather—one of them. Both might cause a different problem.”
A moment of quiet passed, and then another. Then a slow, sly grin crept across Rory’s face. “They won’t come within a meter of me with you around, Grytt. Fortunately, I am so angry with you that I am ordering you to go—oh, elsewhere. The detention block, so that you can keep an eye on the Vizier’s well-being. You are to return there every day until he is released.”
“Huh. That news will travel.”
“Yes. Straight to Moss. And he’ll think I’m being a child, throwing a tantrum. Also, you being there will probably annoy him, especially when you do return every day. And then.” Rory looked at Thorsdottir and Zhang. “Then I will go for a walk somewhere Merrick will be—the arboretum, maybe?—so that I might just happen to encounter him in my vulnerable state.”
“That’s a dangerous game. Relies too much on coincidence. And the boy’s not stupid.”
Rory snapped a glare at Grytt. “I don’t care about his brains. I care about his ambition.”
“Your Highness,” said Zhang. “Jaed may be a more opportune target.”
Grytt looked at her. Rory looked at her. Then Rory said, “What makes you say that?”
Zhang cast her gaze at Thorsdottir like a cat scrabbling for balance on an unexpectedly narrow windowsill.
Thorsdottir uncurled a little smile. “Your Highness, let me explain. We see Jaed in the exercise facilities when we’re there. He’s usually alone. Merrick, however, is never alone, anywhere.”
“The second son,” Grytt said thoughtfully. “Might be jealous of his brother. Maybe you could use that.”
“Jaed.” Rory performed a credible imitation of Grytt’s grimace. “Jaed,” she said again, as if sampling an unsavory dish for a second time, to confirm the initial opinion. Then she clamped her jaw tight. “You said usually alone. Who comes with him?”
“Young men of his age. Nobles’ sons, I’m guessing, Highness. But there appear to be no particular bonds among them.”
“And no women. No girls.”
“No, Highness.”
“Oh, stop that,” Rory muttered. “My name is Rory. In private, when it’s just us, call me that. And if you can’t stand the informality, at least leave off with the your Highness business. Grytt only calls me that when I’m being a fool.”
Thorsdottir and Zhang traded a look that partners only develop after some time working together—or more rapidly, if they are the junior-most members of an elite detail.
Thorsdottir cleared her throat. “Should we do that also? Call you by title when we think you’re being unwise?”
“Yes,” said Grytt. “You should.”
Rory strangled a laugh in the back of her throat and stuffed it into a dark corner where its body would never be found. “Yes. Although be very sure I’m being stupid, first.”
Zhang and Thorsdottir traded solemn stares.
“Yes,” Zhang said, after a moment.
Grytt worried that a smile might stage an escape and take up residence on her face, where its very incongruity would attract unwanted attention. So she scrubbed it away with the back of her hand, under the guise of scratching her chin, and cleared her throat.
Three pairs of eyes landed on her and waited, expectantly.
“Since you lot appear to have the tantrum-planning well in hand, I suppose I should begin my exile from your favor, Princess.” Grytt glanced at the chronometer on the wall. “They’ve got him in detention by now.”
She did not add, If they took him there. If they didn’t just dump him out an aetherlock, but something of the thought must have leaked onto her face. Whatever brief relief Rory might have been feeling evaporated. The Princess looked as if the last traces of childhood had sloughed away.
“Keep him safe, Grytt. Hear me? That’s not an order.”
“I know what it is,” said Grytt. She stabbed a nod at Thorsdottir and Zhang, who snapped a pair of matched salutes.
Ancestors have mercy, they were young. And Rory was even younger. Grytt felt every one of her years settle into bone and joint, where she still had them, and into the borders between meat and metal, where she didn’t. The alloy replacements, wrapped in arithmancy and alchemy, remained oblivious, impervious. Not unlike the young, she thought.
And may these particular young be just as resilient.
Then Grytt took her leave, making certain to hit the door on her way through—as it opened too slowly—and to stomp through the foyer, past the same knots of personnel as had heralded her entrance. She was no thespian, but she had never found it particularly difficult to mislead people if you simply fulfilled their expectations.
If anyone had asked Grytt, she might have admitted that Rory’s adoption of Thorsdottir and Zhang—the beginning of her own staff, of people who would be hers, first and foremost—had been her goal all along. But as usual, no one did.