Call of Duty

Papers thumped onto her desk. Dust billowed, momentarily obscuring Fensin’s leer. “Three copies each,” the Senator said. “Did you distribute the news?”

Bethniel pasted on a pleasant smile. “First thing this morning.” Fensin sent every Heralds’ pamphlet critical of the monarchy to the entire Senate. Delivering the copies was a near-daily task for Bethniel.

With a satisfied chuckle, the Opposition returned to his office, and she dipped her quill and began copying a speech decrying tariffs on Caleisbahn goods. “Not here to spy,” she muttered. “I didn’t send you to work for the Opposition so you could spy on him,” her father would say whenever she complained about Fensin giving her nothing to do but run errands and make copies. “I sent you there to learn from him. He’s the wiliest, most ruthless politician you’ll ever face.”

Knuckling her back, she set aside the final copy and rolled her head and shoulders. Neck tendons ground and popped, and she longed for a hot bath. A cleared throat stilled her exertions, and her eyes blinked open to find a tall Caleisbahnin. Two silver rings adorned one ear. A red sash fixed a sword to his waist. The steel was worth a ruler’s ransom.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“I have an appointment.”

She glanced at the Senator’s schedule. “I don’t see anything in the book. The Senator has some time next week—”

“Commander, welcome.” Fensin appeared in his doorway. “Forgive my junior clerk’s impertinence. My dear, you can go home for the rest of the day.”

“Your Highness.” The Caleisbahnin bowed, a mocking grin revealing a gap between his front teeth.

After leaving the Senate, she wandered in and out of shops, perusing laces and gloves, hats and jeweled brooches. Nothing caught her fancy, and the anxious smiles of the shopkeepers set her teeth on edge. It was a bright, fine day on the cusp of spring, yet few shoppers browsed alongside her, and even fewer carried purchases.

The shortest way home from the market took her through squalid streets where the guildless crowded into ramshackle tenements. In alcoves, figures huddled under threadbare blankets, and refuse slimed the walkway, forcing one to step carefully or risk a slip into muck. Dirty faces melted into shadows. Cats growled in reeking alleys. Passersby glared at her fur-lined cloak, and one, then two blocks passed without sight or sign of a constable. The neighborhood had always been poor, but the nervous quiver quickening her steps was a new sensation.

As she passed a tavern, shouts erupted and glass shattered. Someone screamed, and a tangle of fists and boots boiled out of the doorway. Bethniel scurried clear of the brawlers as more tumbled out.

A hand locked round her elbow, and the cold, hard edge of a crystal blade pressed into her chin. A hiss demanded her pouch. Her eyes slid along a greasy sleeve to a filthy young woman wearing a tattered army uniform. “I’ll take that cloak,” a second footpad growled.

She had been to war, but she was no warrior and didn’t trust her skills against desperate discharged soldiers. “All right, just let me unhook it.” Nervous fingers fumbled with the clasp. Why were there no constables about?

A rod rapped the first robber’s head, and the woman dropped.

“Geram!” Bethniel cried as the lieutenant swung his staff at the other assailant. The man hit the cobbles. Geram grabbed her hand, and they ran, turning this way and that down side streets until they reached a lane bustling with shoppers and wagons.

“Thank you, lieutenant, and thank Elesendar you were nearby!” She studied the milky clouds covering his eyes. “How did you do that?”

He stumbled, catching himself on the staff. “Would you mind keeping your gaze on the street, Highness? It helps me see.”

She noticed a pressure behind her eyes, an urge to scan the cobbles ahead and the path through the bustle. It was an intrusion, but she didn’t mind, not from Geram. She trusted him, even though he was a Listener—one able to Hear the thoughts Lathans chose not to express. He’d been captured and imprisoned in Lordhome with Ashel, where he’d lost his sight and somehow had become psychically linked to her brother. “The vision-stealing—is that how you beat them off?”

“It’s borrowing, Highness, not stealing. We use what tools we have. May I escort you home? The streets aren’t as safe as they were.”

She took his arm, and they paced toward the gate. “I suppose it was foolish of me to take that shortcut home, but I’m awfully grateful Elesendar put you in the same neighborhood.”

“I was visiting some old comrades from the Dagger.”

“Vic’s friends, the ones who had a baby?”

“The same. I’m afraid they’re having a rough time. Neither has found work, though Maynon hopes the Potters will take him back. He was apprenticed with them before he became a soldier.”

“So many of the Guilds are culling ranks. I’ll put a word in with the Kiln. It isn’t right that two decorated heroes and their child should go hungry.”

“It isn’t right that anyone should go hungry, Highness.”

“True. How is Ashel? I hope he’s in Mora by now.”

Geram grinned, his teeth bright in a dark brown face. “He says to try wearing plainer clothing next time you go slumming.” After a moment, he added, “He also wants you to know there are rumors of squatters in the eastern Kiareinoll.”

“Squatters?”

“He heard about it at several way stations in the east, and the cavalry outpost on the Mora road was going to investigate.”

“Who are these people?”

“Culled from Guilds, he’s heard. Whoever they are, they’re cutting trees for homesteads.”

“What? You can’t just farm the Kiareinoll willy-nilly! There are rituals, sacrifices, rules to follow, or they’ll get themselves killed!”

“I’m from Alna, Highness. The way of trees is a mystery to me.”

“It’s a mystery to all of us, lieutenant, which is why the forest must be treated with respect and reverence. Those people are putting themselves in danger, and if too much land is cleared, Fembrosh’s retribution will strike more than the squatters. I must speak with the Ruler.”

He stopped, a hand on her arm, concern etched deeply over milky eyes that fixed on her face, as if he could see her. “Ashel doesn’t want the queen to know about our connection.”

“Honestly, Ashel—forgive me, lieutenant, but this is directed at my brother—I don’t understand this sudden animosity you have for Mother! She’s never been very, well, motherly, but that never used to bother you any more than . . . than it ever did. I wonder sometimes if you left town just so you could get away from her. In any case, it’s silly to hide this ability from her.”

Geram’s face hardened. “It’s not an ability, it’s a curse.”

“Is that from him or from you?”

“Both of us. And both of us ask you to keep this secret.”

“Selcher probably knows already.”

“I can hold my own against her.”

She laughed, and Geram winced in a way that made her think Ashel’s shoulders were jerking toward his ears too. “Selcher has been our family’s Listener since my grandfather reigned, and there’s no one she can’t Hear. Ashel, you’re a fool if you think she doesn’t already know about you two, and you know that what she knows, Mother knows.”

“Please, Highness. Do not be the one to tell the queen about us. Ashel says, tell her you heard about the squatters in a tavern, or saw it in a report to Fensin—anything, but do not admit how you learned it.”

“If I lie, Selcher will Hear it.” She calculated the distance to Mora. “I’ll say I learned it from Ashel, but imply it was in a letter. A fast courier could have come from the eastern Kiareinoll. Mother won’t be surprised he wrote to me instead of her.”

As they passed the city’s east gate and trudged along Manor Road, the seed of an idea took root. Bethniel had climbed this hill to and from the city since she was seven years old. She knew the roads and countryside around Narath as well as she knew the city itself. She had traveled the verdant lands west of the Lathalorns and frolicked in the surf of the Yuslobna Kein, but she had never trekked into the vast wilds of the eastern Kiareinoll. She had visited the Eldanion court, traversed the Kragnashian deserts, and climbed the Lorn oc Re, yet she’d never seen the ancient, massive groves where Elesendar joined with the old mothers, or heard the lupears howl, or felt the thunder of a steed herd’s approach. If she were going to rule all of Latha and rule it well, she should know the greater half of it.

Determination and certainty settled her mind. “If there are squatters in Fembrosh, they must be dealt with. I’m going east, lieutenant.”