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“I am afraid that’s the wrong answer.” William picked up the middle-aged knight and hurled him over the old trestle table, sending fruit and crockery and half-eaten eggs across the worn tile floor.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” blubbered the man, raising his hands to protect his balding head as William slowly rounded the table and approached. “Lord Broderick—I mean, his majesty—needs to give me more time.”
“Twenty Sovereigns or twenty men-at-arms,” William repeated for the third time. He rubbed the knuckles of his left hand—he’d opened up a scab there, blast it all.
“It’s...it’s too much.”
“There is another alternative, of course.”
“Yes?”
“There’s a list of Trahernshire landowners who still support the Sigors. King Broderick keeps that list with him all the time. He checks it regularly. I can put your name on that list, if you’d like.”
The knight’s face went so pale he almost faded into the whitewashed wall behind him. “N-no. No, please, Lord Aitken. Please, don’t put me on that list.”
William slowly, deliberately extended his hand, inch by inch. The knight cowered lower and lower, clenching his eyes shut. William slapped him lightly on the cheek.
“Two more days, Sir Horace. Then you and your men—or a purse of gold—had better be at the king’s headquarters in Bestandan. There is a war on, and we must all do our part, I’m afraid.”
Sir Horace Pinchard blubbered out something that seemed like agreement, and William left the little half-timbered manor house by the kitchen door. Pinchard’s wife, an apple-shaped woman in a worn silk dress, cowered near the bean patch, holding her son tightly to her. The boy looked about 4 or 5—almost exactly Robby’s age—and was regarding William with a mix of horror and awe. His mother’s eyes, of course, burned with pure hatred. William could hardly blame her for that.
Before he could reach the barn, a voice hailed him from up the lane, and he saw a rider gallop straight over the front lawn. It was Ned Slorcus, another of the king’s scouts. Ned reined in and jumped down, fanning himself with his wide-brimmed leather hat. They exchanged quick greetings, and Ned noticed the knight’s wife and son.
“Need me to work over these two for a while?” he asked, tapping the knife in his belt.
The lady looked as if she were about to faint. Or possibly throw up.
“You know, Ned. There is such a thing as an excess of zeal.” William stepped in front of the lady and the boy. They weren’t involved in any of this. It wasn’t their fault the king needed more men. And even if the lady had looked as if she wanted to put a knife in William’s back, there were some things a man didn’t do. Not if he wanted to look at himself every morning.
“You’re needed back at headquarters,” Ned said.
“What for?”
“Because the king asked for you,” said Ned, in his most obnoxious tone. “Some people from the Empire came through our lines, and his majesty wants to talk to you about them.”
William’s heart almost stopped. Visitors from the Empire, being held at King Broderick’s camp? That could be very, very bad, indeed. That could be someone who knew a little too much about William—someone who knew about his little arrangement. Someone who knew what he’d done to make sure his Gwen and little Robby were safe from people like Ned Slorcus...and from people like himself.
All the way to headquarters, he worried about who the visitors might be, and what they might be induced to tell, with the right persuasion. Ned could barely keep up as William urged his horse along farm lanes and through forest glades and sleepy little hamlets.
Finally they came over the last hill, and he saw the prosperous market town of Bestandan, nestled in the crook of a slight turn in the great River Trahern. On all the hills around, acres and acres of farmland had been trampled flat by marching men and buried under thousands of army tents. Most of the soldiers were here willingly, because they believed in the Gramiren cause. But a few, like Sir Horace up the road, had to be convinced to see their duty. Those men had their tents closer to town, surrounded by loyal units from Severnshire, where people like William and Ned could keep an eye on them.
William didn’t have time for that, though. He spurred his horse through the last few lines of tents and into the broad, dusty lanes of the town. He turned right at the somber, gray stone church, then left at the nearly deserted market square, and stopped at the largest and grandest house in town.
It was a mansion of middling size but endless pretension, with merlons and embrasures around the roof and a fanciful little turret on one corner. It belonged to a local nobleman who had sided with the Sigors, which made it forfeit to the crown. Like everything was, eventually.
A staff officer led him through the front hall and the downstairs parlors, which were decorated in a singular style with Immani statues, Shangian vases, and bad watercolors of the Wislicbeorgs in winter. On the back veranda, overlooking a rose garden, a fountain, and the river, he found the king entertaining the visitors, two men and a woman, with some kind of story about his schooldays, while several staff officers looked on.
William knew the two men instantly, even though it had been a decade since he had seen them last. The one with the dark hair was Sir Presley Kemp, onetime treasurer to the dukes of Leornian and the late King Edgar. The blond fellow was Grigory Sobol, formerly Minister of Mines to the Queen of Loshadnarod. The two of them had fallen in love together, long ago during the queen’s last visit to Myrcia. Then Myrcia had gone to war with Loshadnarod, and for reasons of policy (and perhaps a tender spot for romance on the part of Queen Rohesia of Myrcia), William had ended up going to Loshadnarod to help Sobol defect.
He still considered it one of the most interesting missions he had ever undertaken, and he probably would have told it often in bars and taverns, if he were the sort of person who bragged to strangers in bars and taverns. His partner on the mission had been Robert Tynsdale, and that alone made it remarkable.
Perhaps Sir Presley and Grigory remembered the experience differently, because their eyes grew wide with alarm when they saw William.
“Ah, gentlemen,” said the king smoothly, “surely you recall Lord William Aitken—knight of my retinue and the finest scout in my army. And William, no doubt you remember Sir Presley Kemp and Professor Sobol.”
William bowed. Looking at Sobol, he couldn’t help asking, “Professor?”
“Of engineering at the Imperial University in Presidium,” said the king, when Sobol didn’t seem quite able to find his voice. “The good professor has taken a sabbatical, and has been engaged to lecture at the university in Leornian for the coming year.”
“That is...unfortunate timing,” said William.
“I’m sure things will work out for the best,” said the king, smiling around at everyone. “Our friends in Leornian will see reason soon. And in any case, I would never hinder any of Emperor Tullius’s subjects.” He snapped his fingers, and a young lieutenant jogged up. “See to it that they’re given letters of safe conduct through our lines, will you?”
The lieutenant ran off to obey the order.
“But where are my manners?” Broderick went on. “My wife would be ashamed of me for forgetting our lady visitor. Domina Stylianos, Baron Aitken. William, meet Intira Rufa Stylianos, who happens to be Professor Sobol’s research assistant.”
“Stylianos?” said William, raising an eyebrow.
“You must have heard of her father,” said the king.
“Indeed, your majesty,” said William, bowing to the woman, whose father was Crispus Rufus Stylianos, one of the wealthiest men in the world.
“And now that we all know each other,” said his majesty, “let’s have a drink and a little food, shall we?” He clapped his hands, then started giving orders to his staff officers and the house servants to begin setting out wine, cold ham, and cheese in the garden.
Moments later, a servant ushered in Flora Byrne, Duchess of Keneburg, and Lukas Ostensen, Duke of Severn. William had no idea whether they, too, had been summoned to meet the travelers from the Empire, or if they had been scheduled to meet here on some other business, already. They were both among the king’s closest advisors and oldest friends. In any case, they both remembered Sir Presley well from his days at court, and acted as if he was a long-lost sibling. Duchess Flora, in particular, practically tackled him in a hug, which he did not seem entirely pleased to receive.
Miss Stylianos politely gave up her seat so the duchess could settle herself between Sir Presley and the professor. And then, as the king and Duke Lukas stepped inside to choose bottles of liquor for the little impromptu party, the Immani woman came over and planted herself next to William.
“Do you like roses, Lord Aitken?” she asked, nodding at the nearby garden.
“A bit, miss,” he said, hoping she wasn’t really going to talk about flowers.
“Or do you prefer...lilies?” she whispered.
Ah. So that was why she was here. That made a lot more sense than some pretense about a scholarly sabbatical with a lovely research assistant.
“Perhaps we could take a quick turn around the fountain,” she suggested.
He offered her his arm, and she took it with a surprisingly firm grip.
When they were down the steps on the lawn, out of earshot of the mansion, he said, “You’re a friend of Lily Serrana, then.”
“Let’s say that Lily and I have the same employer. Or employers, plural, rather.”
“Oh. Them. Of course.”
“Of course. They trust that you are still finding Lily’s arrangement satisfactory.”
“Yes.” What else could one say to the people who were keeping his wife and son safe in hiding?
They rounded the far end of the little fountain, and he paused to look back at the veranda. Sir Presley seemed increasingly uncomfortable in the grip of Duchess Flora’s overwhelming personality. Professor Sobol looked even worse, like a rabbit that found it had been seated next to a fox at a dinner party.
“What about them?” he asked. “Are they part of the game, or are they merely your cover?” It was the most important question he could possibly ask her—a literal matter of life or death, in fact.
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of them. You and I need to arrange a time and place to meet regularly.”
“Rather than sending notes to Lily now and again.”
She smiled brightly. “Yes. Isn’t it so much more convenient this way? Oh, look. Broderick and the Duke of Severn have finally settled on a wine. Let’s go have a glass, shall we? My throat is utterly parched from the road.”
They headed back to the veranda, but halfway up the steps, the king came down to meet them. “Miss Stylianos, Flora was dying to ask you a question about ladies’ education in the Empire.”
The Immani woman went up the stairs to join her comrades with the Duchess of Keneburg. Broderick watched them go, then turned to William and said, in a low voice, “They have to be spies, right?”
“The odds would seem to be in favor of it, your majesty,” said William from the corner of his mouth.
“I see you were ingratiating yourself with the woman already. Well done.” He put an arm around William’s shoulders and drew him even closer. “Keep an eye on them. Even if you have to cross enemy lines to do it.”
That would make meeting Miss Stylianos a lot easier.
“Naturally, your majesty.”
“Good. I knew I could count on you, William.”