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Quintus had always liked Gina; she was cheerful and very hard-working. And though he respected that she was in love with Faustinus, it couldn’t be denied that she was a very pretty girl and quite elegant in her own, skipping, dancing, bouncing way.
He had never spent more than a few hours with her, however, and by the time they got into Odeland, her persistently upbeat attitude wore slightly thin. For several days, he gritted his teeth and plugged his ears with little nobs of sealing wax whenever she started singing Solstice carols. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings by telling her that she was getting on his nerves.
Then the snow got heavier, as they rode through the rolling farmlands of Newshire, and he gained a whole new respect for her. Absolutely nothing—ice storms, high winds, balking horses, inns with no rooms for the night—could dampen her spirits.
Late one night, when they stopped at a post station to change horses, and Quintus felt rubbed raw and frozen straight through, she tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Hey, Quintus, watch this.”
He put back on his frost-covered spectacles, turned, and saw her fall backwards into a snowbank. Giggling, she waved her arms back and forth, pushing away the top layer of the snow around her. Then she bounced back up to her feet and pointed at the shape she’d left.
“Niveis aquila,” she cried. “A Snow Eagle. I always loved making them as a kid. Want to try?”
He declined to join her, but there was something about watching her do it, while he sipped hot mulled wine, that made him feel a little less exhausted and miserable.
They went up the Styrung Pass, using post stations so new they were only tents and little rope corrals for the horses. Then across the forbiddingly bleak Cruedruan Plateau, where sometimes the rippling snow drifts faded right into the falling snow and the clouds, and gave Quintus the unnerving feeling that he stood on the edge of an abyss, about to fall, even when he knew the road lay directly in front of him. He stopped wearing his glasses after a while, because they got so covered in frost and snow that for the first time since age 12, he could see better without them.
Sometimes he worried that they might have left the caravan road, but among Gina’s other gifts was an unerring sense of direction. When they arrived at the city, the snow was coming down so heavily that Quintus didn’t even see the gate until his horse shied back from the guards. But Gina had known right where to find it.
The storm abated as they made their way through the frigid streets. On either side stretched long arcades, hung with icicles, and here and there, evergreen boughs and holly had been posted in store windows for the Solstice. Gina led him to an inn, but before they entered the courtyard, a bright, new sign across the street caught his eye—gold letters on bright, imperial red: “Argentaria Verri.”
He turned to Gina. “Since when do we have a branch in Terminium?”
“Since...last Thursday, I believe.” She smiled. “I’m sure you signed the lease and the invoices.”
“I...probably did.” He shook his head and turned to follow her to the inn. If nothing else, this trip was giving him a completely new appreciation for the scale of Moira and Faustinus’s ambitions. The bank wasn’t really his at all, any more than a ship belonged to the helmsman.
Up in his room, he was about to fall asleep when Gina picked the lock and leaned her head in to say she was heading out again, “to check on a few things.”
“Do you need me to go with you?” he said, praying that she didn’t.
“No, rest. I’ll be back.”
He collapsed into the bed, and he only realized that he hadn’t bothered taking off his boots or even finding the pillow with his head, when Gina shook him awake and said, in a breathless squeal, “Oh, you won’t even believe who’s downstairs!”
Quintus rolled out of bed and staggered after her, down the darkened hall and down the creaking old staircase, to the common room of the inn, where he found Moira, Faustinus, and Hamon chatting happily over bacon and eggs. A cold winter sun shone through the wide window; apparently it was morning again.
Hamon and Moira rose from the table to embrace Quintus. Faustinus, still seated, poured a cup of steaming coffee and pushed it over toward him. “Hurry up and drink that. We’re going to visit royalty this morning, and we can’t have you yawning.”
Quintus drank the coffee so quickly that he scalded his mouth. And then they headed out into the street. Gina and Rossana, another of the Emissariae, rushed ahead of them, checking every corner and looking down every alleyway. Beside a little Leorniac-style church, with tiny buttresses and slim, dark windows, they met a young man. He was clearly a knight by his bearing and his courtesy when he greeted Moira and the other ladies.
This young man took them through the gate of a little churchyard, with the headstones of those Ivich believers who, following their tradition, had been put in the ground to rot, rather than being cleanly cremated like the Immani. Quintus had heard of the tradition and understood it, yet he still felt queasy about walking over ground with corpses only a few feet below.
They went down a narrow flight of stairs, half-hidden by a naked barberry bush, and came out in the low crypt of the church, where Moira, Faustinus, and Hamon waited with a small and rather pathetic-looking group of refugees. These wretched creatures wore rough homespun cloaks and knitted wool hats in place of furs. But then the oldest man of the group stood. With perfect poise, he swept away his knit cap and bowed to Quintus.
“My lord Quintus Verrus,” the man said, “I am honored to at last meet our financial benefactor. If you could please kneel for a moment.”
He was slightly below average height, with bright blue eyes and unruly light brown hair. A long, bushy beard covered his lower face, which almost managed to conceal his youthful appearance. Quintus had never met the man before that instant, but the regal bearing was unmistakable, as was the look of deference that everyone in the room, even Faustinus, was giving the man.
“Your majesty,” said Quintus, dropping to one knee.
Above him, he heard some rustling and then, in an apologetic tone, “I am so sorry, but I don’t seem to have a glove or gauntlet with me.”
There was a sound of rustling fabric, and Faustinus said, “Here, your majesty. Use mine.”
Quintus looked around and saw a flash of black leather. Something struck him hard across the left cheek. He gasped, appalled at the sudden insult, and then, before he started swearing, he remembered what this was. He remembered his childhood reading, which had included an awful lot of Kenedalic and Leorniac romances. This was the accolade—the last time a knight could be struck without response and still keep his honor.
“I name you Sir Quintus, Baronet Verrus,” said the exiled king.
Gina nearly knocked him over with an enthusiastic hug when he stood up. “Oh, you have to write a message to Lily and tell her,” the girl said.
“Lily?” said Quintus. “Why her, particularly?”
“Oh, no reason,” said Gina, batting her eyelashes innocently.
Moira gave him a more measured embrace, and then Hamon and Faustinus shook his hand. Gina found a bottle of Rawdonian cider and started pouring out cups for everyone, and Quintus found himself alone with Broderick Gramiren, second of that name, King of Myrcia and of Leornian, Prince of Rawdon, and Sovereign Lord Protector of the Shrine of Uleflecht.
Quintus bowed again. “I am truly honored, your majesty, and yet....”
Broderick smiled. “And yet?”
“And yet I don’t feel I’m worthy. I’ve done nothing except to take your account.”
The exiled ruler let out a distinctly un-regal burst of laughter. “Do you think I asked to be the ‘king over the mountains,’ Quintus?” His voice lowered and he gave a gesture around the crypt at his family. “I would just as soon run away and be a farmer or a...a soldier somewhere in Shangia or the Empire. Or a mason. Or anything so I could do an honest day’s work and come home to them every night. But we don’t always get to be what we want, do we?”
Quintus watched the “royal” family. Here was Broderick, a gentle, kind man, probably the best person to rule Myrcia or Leornian in a thousand years, except that he didn’t rule Myrcia at all. His realm extended no farther than the flickering firelight in this old crypt. And his little daughter, chasing a tiny, floating magysk light that Faustinus had conjured—in a better world, she would meet some handsome, foreign prince and go off to be the queen of some happy, peaceful land. But she wasn’t in a better world; she was in this one.
And “Queen” Therese, so beautiful and gentle and kind. She would be the greatest queen of Myrcia since the days of Maud, consort of Edmund Dryhten. Except she wasn’t really the queen at all. And the baby in her arms named Alfrick would be lucky if he survived to manhood. He had no idea that he belonged to a doomed lineage. And even if he lived, even if the Gramirens somehow won this war, then they would be rulers of an ashen wasteland, full of hollow, ruined cities.
What would Lucius say in this situation? Well, obviously he had never believed in the Gramiren loan. But supposing he had made it, what would he do? Well, first of all, he would remember his duty to the board, and to the investors. That’s what Lily would tell him to do, too, if she were here. Lily, who was skeptical to the point of cynicism when it came to investors, and was fiercely protective when it came to the Emissariae.
“I’m very sorry, your majesty,” he told Broderick, “but the truth is that I really need to know where your collateral is.”
“It is safe,” said Broderick. “You can be assured of that.”
Quintus sighed. “I’m sorry, your majesty, but I am not assured at all. I need to take possession of your collateral. I have...,” he thought of all the Emissariae, especially Gina and Lily, and of the postriders he’d met on his ride out from Presidium. “I have a duty to our investors and our employees. I have to know where this treasure is located. I’m sorry, but I really must insist.”
“We know it’s in Rawdon,” said Moira, coming over to join them. “We have people looking for it, with magysk assistance. They will locate it eventually. The troublesome thing is that if Finster’s book has been set down anywhere, then it can’t be moved without knowing the right spell.”
Broderick looked aghast. “You can’t be serious. Are you asking me to tell you the spell? A spell that has been the most closely-guarded secret of the Leorniac and Myrcian royal families for more than twenty-two centuries?”
“The bank needs to take possession of the treasure,” said Moira. “So, yes, I’m afraid I need to know.”
Queen Therese, overhearing the conversation, came to join them. “That spell cannot be revealed to anyone other than the king, his wife, and their heir. I am sorry, but I would sooner die than surrender the trust that centuries of kings and queens have placed in us.”
Moira rolled her eyes. “Well, would you like to come back to Myrcia with us, then, and pick up the fucking book and move it to one of our vaults?”
The queen gasped and fanned herself at this use of vulgarity by one of Earstien’s angels.
“Wait, I have an idea,” said Quintus. They all turned, waiting. “No one—I mean no one—other than the Myrcian royal family knows this book spell, right?”
“That’s correct,” said Broderick.
“But that includes the Sigors, too,” said Moira.
“Except the Sigors don’t know where the book is,” said Quintus. “Right?”
Faustinus nodded. “Indeed. That little magysk help Moira mentioned before, well, it hasn’t proven useful.”
“Well, in that case, it’s no different than...say, a parcel of land. It can’t be moved, but it still can be used as collateral. Let it stay where it is, and let it stay secret. As long as the bank’s directors know where it is, more or less, then we can still use it. It’s as safe as if it were in a bank vault.”