Chapter Twenty-Four

 

 

Laeder set aside the financial reports as Telm walked into the study. Jer’s study, the one which the warrior would be using come spring once Aren and Av were mated, and Laeder had been granted access. Unfortunately Laeder could not recall if Telm had been told that he had been granted access.

“I know he hasn’t the right to yet, but Jer said he’d offer me a position of scribe to the court, once he is steward,” Laeder said.

He began shuffling papers about, to hide a few things, to reveal the financial reports from the previous month, and to look errant-minded as he searched for the missives that had arrived that morning. A clear few days meant that messengers could reach certain well-travelled roads.

“The pathways are clear of ice and snow, and are dry,” Telm said, sounding hollow as she took the seat across from Laeder.

The head of house looked years older than she had at dinner a few nights before. Laeder wondered if the change was in connection to Aren’s little adventure, or if something else had happened.

“Lady Telm, you look weary,” Laeder said.

“It happens in the winter,” Telm said with a slow nod. “I feel my age.”

“You also look concerned. If you ever need someone to speak with, confidentially, I can be an ear to listen,” Laeder offered.

Would it be that easy? Or would that confidentiality mean that not even Jer could know? Laeder could keep such a secret, if necessary. He wouldn’t have to tell Jer what he knew, only that he knew.

“No, thank you for the offer,” Telm said. She motioned to the financial reports. “The coin master said you had those. Those are mine. I need them to do my budgets.”

There was no strength behind the words. Only weariness. Laeder would have to ask around, to see if Telm had weakened in previous winters, or just this one. If Telm’s health was failing, the healers had to be sent for, and Ervam at the very least had to be notified so that he might return to the palace and see to her care. The trainer was probably the only one, barring Aren, who could keep Telm in bed long enough to recover.

“Oh, this?” Laeder asked, handing over the reports. “Jer asked me to review them, learn about the finances of the palace.”

“Did he really?” Telm asked.

After a long moment, Laeder decided to go with the truth, “No. He wanted to know how much your income was. Aren wishes to increase it by some percentage when she returns.”

“I see,” Telm said.

“Perhaps my math is rusty, but ten percent of nothing… That equals nothing, doesn’t it?” Laeder asked as Telm stood.

The woman sank back into the seat ever so slowly.

“What do you mean?” Telm asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Getting the words out would have been easier if Telm had shouted, raised her voice. Something besides giving up.

“The house is always under budget. You were promoted to head of house upon the death of the previous head because, as house master, the house was always on or under budget. Under only so much as you are allotted in income,” Laeder said.

“I am very good with numbers,” Telm said.

“As am I,” Laeder said. “Removing your income from the equation, if I assume you pocketed it, I don’t know how. By burying it in the yard? The coin master has no account or records for you. But if I remove your income and look at expenditures versus budget, there are often times where you were over budget. Thus. Where did the surplus come from, if not your own income? And how did you convince the coin master that you were taking your allotted income without him being in on the whole thing?”

Telm remained silent as Laeder waited for an answer to his question. She offered nothing but a blank stare.

“When you became head of house you were put in charge of the balancing of the entire palace. That’s actually the job of the coin master, if I’m not mistaken?” Laeder paused, but the blank look did not change. “He said to me that he didn’t lodge a complaint because you found a way to balance the books and he went over them very carefully to make certain you were not syphoning funds.”

Still nothing. Laeder was worried, though not for his own safety. He was worried about Telm’s stability. Worried about the possibility that he had just broken the head of house. The woman who Aren took to above most others. If Ervam and Jer didn’t tear a strip off Laeder, Aren surely would when she returned to the palace. Whether by the order of Jer or not, the one who sat the throne wouldn’t care.

“Since taking over the budget, the palace has seen balance and small surpluses that were immediately given over to the coin master to ensure that the debt the palace owes to local lords has begun to be paid back.” Laeder sighed and set his hands in his lap. “Lady Telm, there is no way, in this economy, that the palace could balance a budget, even if the spirits have blessed you with an understanding of numbers. Yet still, no less than four times in the past decade the surplus has equalled two hundred less than your income.”

“What is your point, Lord Laeder?” Telm asked.

“I’m not a lord,” Laeder said gently. “Only a scribe given a duty. It is my regret to inform you that Aren will not accept you working for free. She may even insist that you be paid in full for your years of service.”

“That is a ridiculous notion,” Telm responded. “The throne would be bankrupt.”

“I have to report this to Jer. He will, in turn, report it to Aren. Unless…” Laeder hesitated, reaching for the missive sent from Av, to Telm. His hand paused on the missive when he saw the flair of emotion finally.

Hatred. Telm thought Laeder was about to blackmail her. Very carefully, Laeder picked up the missive and held it out to Telm, who snatched it from him. Emotion was good, but not that sort of hatred. This was the sort of hatred a man could not return from.

“Unless Aren does not return,” Laeder added, trying not to sound as fearful as he felt. “If your missive says what I think it does, it is the same as mine. An inquiry as to whether or not you told Aren in no uncertain terms that she is infected, and what it means to be infected.”

He entwined his fingers and set his hands on the desk as he waited for Telm to read the missive. The woman’s hatred dissipated slowly. A frown creased her brow.

“In the throne room, I mentioned the change of Aren’s strength and Av said it was because of queen’s stone,” Telm said. “Of course she knows.”

“She knows that when infected, the throne calls more strongly to her?” Laeder asked. “That the house cleaning, as many queens call it, is stronger and wider spread? That if she bonds truly with the stone, there’s a possibility that she will never need a healer? Of the madness that some claim come over those who are infected? How the world will simply… change... around her? You know for a fact that Aren knows all that?”

Telm hesitated, then said, “You’re the one who told Ervam about the infection, didn’t you also tell Aren?”

“No. I didn’t tell him about it, I simply shared with him a piece of history. Ervam already knew about the infection, he knew that it can create ones who speak in riddles and alter the house cleaning, but he didn’t understand the extent until I showed him the journal I brought with me,” Laeder said.

“Why are they asking now? It does us no good, with her across the land to who-knows-where.”

“Jer’s missive to me was a little more detailed and said that the throne seemed to say that we are all stupid and deserve what is coming our way, because we neglected to inform Aren,” Laeder muttered.

“The throne?” Telm asked. “The throne said that?”

“They got Av drunk and started asking him questions,” Laeder said quietly. “In the morning, he didn’t recall threatening to skin us all alive because we’ve now put her in danger.”

“Did it say anything else?” Telm asked.

“As to where Aren has gone or why? No.” Laeder gave his head a shake. “A small village that Av will raze to the ground and make certain it stays razed this time. The village has a low population, few casualties. Also allows them to plan the retrieval of our wayward queen.”

“How low is the population?” Telm asked.

“Two,” Laeder said. “I’m guessing that’s two plus Aren, as she doesn’t live there, therefore she wouldn’t count towards population.”

“Like as not, they’ll set Av loose on those two,” Telm said.

“Like as not they’ll pray the two are enough to sate Av’s bloodlust,” Laeder said.

“What do you mean?” Telm asked.

“Are you aware that Jer and Av are capable of taking to the fields?” Laeder asked in turn.

Telm went quiet and very still. A tremble ran through her suddenly and the woman adjusted in an uncomfortable fashion.

“I thought their rank was no longer capable of that,” she said finally.

“Do you know what that means?” Laeder asked. “The saying, I mean. Ervam led Jer to it through some exercise, whatever that means, and told Jer what it was, but not…” Laeder struggled for the right way to say what he wanted to say. “… But not what it actually was.”

“I’ve seen it a time or two,” Telm said. “When I was a child a warrior came to my village and purposely took to the fields. He killed everything that moved, including several of his own men, before they realized he was out of control and took him down. It cost them several more men to bring him down.”

“Strong warriors can make quite a mess,” Laeder muttered.

Telm gave Laeder a dirty look, then said, “He wasn’t strong. The others referred to him as a muddied one, half a rank, not quite a warrior. He was weaker than them by far and they were all full, trained warriors. He still cut through them like a grown man through cripples.”

Laeder contemplated the wording. Jer had described the fields as a rage, as a queen’s rage, but for warriors. Obviously this was not the case.

“Fallen,” Laeder said suddenly, the term coming to him in a flash of brilliance. “Texts from before the short-lived queens sometimes said a warrior died by falling, they’d then refer to him as fallen in any later texts. They didn’t fall in the battlefield, they fell into the fields.”

Telm nodded. “And probably killed a great many innocents before they went. When warriors were plentiful, a man could stand toe-to-toe to a warrior, could fight him and keep his own. But with few warriors, the rules changed. Too few ranks to risk that sort of anger, to risk crippling the few that we had left. It became even more dangerous. Only the north knows how to bring a warrior back from the fields. In every other land, at every other time, when a warrior falls, it is his demise and the deaths of tens or hundreds of people, unless a stronger warrior is clever enough to dance that edge between the madness of falling and sanity.”

“Lovely,” Laeder muttered. “Whatever happened to your village, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“They razed it to the ground after raping the women and slaughtering everyone they could find,” Telm said quietly. “The village rebuilt and was later razed again.”

“Maybe this time Av can make certain it stays razed,” Laeder said without thinking.

The pair stared at one another. Laeder felt the life draining out of him. Fear kept him rooted in place even though he wanted to bolt for the door. If he moved, he was certain Telm would kill him.

“Perhaps you and I should have a talk,” Telm said, standing to move to the door.

Laeder swallowed the lump in his throat as the woman locked the door. A frustrated queen turned back to look him over, ending any thoughts of fleeing. He wasn’t certain the words had been his own, but either way they had come from his mouth and he would be held responsible for them.

Spirits, have mercy.