Izel waited until evening, after the others had gone to bed. Song did not need to be told that they must talk, making time and tea without prompting. He returned the courtesy by refraining from wasting time or measuring his words when telling her about the situation. He laid it all out.
How the patent for the lenslight would soon be contested by a workshop on Khalkea, the face of it a sergeant by the name of Garci Calvo. That Professor Achari had been told it was a front and Lieutenant Ulyses Vargas was behind it. How the latter man was the father of Helena Vargas, the tinker he believed to have sent lenslight plans, and also the head of the Lucierna weapons workshop. How Izel now believed that Musa Shange had been ordered to join the battle against the ketos to ascertain for Marshal Camaron whether the lenslight was worth the bureaucratic fight to secure.
When he’d finished, Song sipped calmly at her tea and set it down with tightly controlled evenness
“I must confess I am not conversant in the process of disputes over Watch patents,” Song said, sounding like a woman already planning to remedy that. “What will it look like?”
Izel had not been all that familiar himself. It was not encouraged for tinkers to get quarrelsome with each other. Professor Achari had known, though, and freely shared.
“It depends on who the disputing parties are,” Izel said. “In this case, the sergeant on Khalkea that will be disputing the patent is also of the Umuthi Society so it will be a society tribunal.”
He paused, gathering his thoughts.
“Since we’re not part of the same workshop or command, where a higher-ranked tinker could settle the matter, it will be kicked up directly to the Wednesday Council,” he said. “Normally they would appoint someone to handle it for them, but this case is important enough they might elect one of their own instead.”
Or so Achari believed, anyway. He’d been of the opinion that even had the lenslight not sparked interest the involvement of Marshal Camaron behind the scenes would have guaranteed the Wednesday Council would pay close attention to the dispute.
“And this adjudicator will have full authority to decide on the matter?” Song asked.
“Yes and no,” Izel hedged. “First there’ll be a hearing to state the cases, to make sure neither is so egregious it can be outright dismissed, then if there can be no cordial resolution they call for a full tribunal. And even after that tribunal gives their verdict, either side can still appeal the decision to the Conclave if they believe there was something unjust or corrupt about the process.”
Song’s brow rose.
“Directly to the Conclave?”
Izel smiled wanly.
“You noticed it fast,” he said. “Yes, it’s to the general assembly so there’s no guarantee that the petition will be added to the next docket. And even if it is, there’s no guarantee it will be tabled for a vote that same session. It could stay pending for months or even years.”
Professor Achari had frankly told him that this was occasionally used as a way to bury cases that would cause unrest within Watch ranks until the worst of tempers had cooled.
“And what happens to the patent while the appeal is pending?” Song asked.
She’d been taught by a colonel based on the Rookery, hadn’t she? Her uncle Zhuge. It showed: she kept homing in on the right details.
“Production is suspended, but making models for research purposes is still allowed,” Izel grimaced. “Which would be bad for me, Song.”
Because should a prototype be built in Khalkea and sent out for field testing then achieve something impressive, pressure would mount for the patent to be awarded to the Khalkean workshop. After all only one of the claimants was capable of establishing a production chain to make these on a large scale, or for that matter willing.
“You believe that getting a buried petition will be their plan,” Song said.
He nodded.
“Camaron can’t bully the Umuthi Society into doing what he wants,” he said. “So to prevent them bullying him, he’ll bring a flock of high-ranking officers at the hearing to warn off the Wednesday Council. Then he’ll push the matter into becoming a pending Conclave petition and keep it there until field test results and favors have secured him a voting majority.”
“And then he finally has the petition tabled,” Song murmured.
Izel nodded, then cleared his throat.
“Your uncle on the Rookery, do you think he could help?” he asked. “A peremptory dismissal of the petition would kill the appeal, kicking the matter back to the Umuthi Society.”
Who Professor Achari expected to side with him. Izel had expected a thoughtful look out of Song, or perhaps even some satisfaction at there being a clear path to ending the matter. Instead what he got was Song Ren’s fingers closing around the rim of her cup of tea as if she were trying to leech away some of the warmth. She was silent for a long moment and did not break her silence in the way he had expected.
“Conclave politics can be split into two broad camps,” Song abruptly said. “Philosophically speaking, I mean. There are dozens of factions and voting blocks over particular interests – taxation, expansion and isolation, harder or more accommodating lines of diplomacy – but typically these factions will broadly fall into one camp, save for temporary voting blocs over a single matter that draw members from both camps before collapsing.”
She paused.
“That is not to say those camps cover the entire Conclave ranks, or that they command voting majorities,” she said. “There are swaths of votes best described as unaligned opportunists or limited interests. Still, the dominant political currents in the Watch of our time are the opposing answers to a single question: should authority in the order centralize, or should it devolve?”
That was not an unfamiliar tune to him. The Calendar Court against the Sunflower Lords, the Maharaja against lesser kings and leagues. He was even vaguely familiar with the Watch’s own version of the pull between the heartlands and the regions.
“The Garrison against free companies,” he summed up.
“It is not that simple,” Song said, shaking her head. “You might be surprised to hear that some of the largest free companies are ardently in favor of the Conclave creating offices meant for more direct rule, so long as they are guaranteed seats. Meanwhile, some regional Garrison commanders are just as ardently against consolidation since it would cut into their independence and authority.”
She paused.
“Those against centralization are generally called ‘charterists’, as their most basic legal argument is based on the original charters the Watch was founded on,” Song said. “Those who are in favor of centralization are usually called ‘monocrats’, a word that means the advocacy of rule by one. That is because their leading political project is achieving the election of a Grand Marshal who could push through their desired reforms.”
“Marshal Camaron is the head of a strong regional command,” Izel slowly said. “So he is a charterist?”
She shook her head.
“He is actually one of the leading lights of the monocrats,” Song said. “I know this mostly because my uncle has monocrat sympathies himself – though he does not wear them openly, as that is unwise in a Rookery officer.”
She looked a little sick.
“I tell you this because it means that many of my uncle’s closest allies are monocrats,” Song said. “Marshal Camaron will also be a friend to several, and openly of their party besides. They are likely to side with him instead, and should Uncle Zhuge muster his charterist acquaintances instead the conflict becomes... unpredictable.”
Izel’s lips thinned.
“Because it’ll become charterists against monocrats, and at that point it doesn’t matter what the petition is actually about: they’ll both pour coin and influence into it just to thwart the other faction.”
She nodded.
“So there’s nothing we can do to stop them,” Izel said, swallowing drily. “Because they have allies up high and we do not.”
He paused. There was one friendly officer they’d met.
“Admiral Zokufa,” he said. “Do you think...”
She shook her head.
“He is no ally of Camaron’s, but the admiralty faction in the Conclave is a voting bloc that stays out of most politics,” Song said.
To be able to play both sides, Izel guessed. The monocrats would be in favor of funding the fleets because they were an arm of the Garrison, while the charterists would back the admiralty’s relative independence in the face of the Conclave to ensure no such fleet was ever used against them. But it means they can’t afford to offend either side over small matters.
“Is there no one we can appeal to?” Izel asked, throat tight. “There must be someone who will look at this theft and be willing to do something about it.”
He knew, objectively, that in this matter the Watch was still a cut above the other great powers. In Izcalli, if a great lord wanted something he had built and a greater lord did not protect him then the choice was between acquiescence and the grave. In Malan he would simply be forced by law to sell, the noble making a show of the generous payment offered no matter that he’d not wanted to be paid at all, while in Tianxia great trading cartels would simply blacklist and bankrupt him to force a sale.
That in the Watch this theft would be worked against by those in power, take years of gathered influence to accomplish and would still likely tarnish the reputation of the thieves for life... well, it did not make them good but it made them better than most.
Izel tried to tell himself that, but it was hard to believe it when choking on dark, impotent anger.
“This is on my head.”
His eyes swiveled back to Song. He was given physical pause by the absence of composure on her face. It didn’t last long, but the flash or rage fading into self-loathing struck him like a fist. Izel knew what those looked like; he saw them in the mirror often enough. Song rose to her feet, and to his horror began to bow. One of those waist-low Tianxi formal things. He caught her shoulder.
“Don’t,” he rasped. “That only makes it worse.”
“I am the one who pushed you to reveal the lenslight,” Song said. “Had it never been used, Marshal Camaron might not have deemed it worth the fight.”
“Plans of it had already been sent off,” Izel said. “It would have happened anyway, sooner or later.”
“But not like this,” Song tightly said. “It is on me to mend this, Izel. And I will do all I can.”
He grimaced. Kind words, but what could a student captain on Tolomontera really do against a marshal? She read it on his face.
“I can write to the Obscure Committee, at least,” Song darkly said. “Fenhua He should be no admirer of ours, but theirs is still the College seat at the table. I hold no great expectations for Lord Asher or Brigadier Laghari, but we might be able to garner the support of-”
She paused.
“Izel,” Song said. “I need you to test something with the lenslight.”
He cocked his head to the side.
“Why?”
“So I can write a letter,” Song Ren said.
And there was a gleam in those silver eyes, Izel thought, that reminded him of nothing so much as a sword.
--
It was turning out to be a pleasant night in a year that had counted too few of them.
Old Horvat – Angharad had thought it rude to call him this, but the man insisted – had found what he called ‘an almost passable brew, if the brewed by a one-armed blind lackwit’, which was apparently the highest compliment he had paid any beer since coming to Tolomontera. He’d invited the Thirteenth to try it, and Angharad had been intrigued enough to be among those who took him up on it when Maryam passed along the invitation.
It turned out to be a millet beer. Dark, malty and quite light in texture. It was from Dragada in the Someshwar, and quite unlike the millet beers from Uthukile that Angharad knew from back home – those were pale and thick instead, sold in traditional calabash gourds. Old Horvat’s find was also rather strong, which was why a very drunk Izel was currently dancing with Ester as Poltava and Young Koval valiantly tried to show them the steps to the tune the elder Koval was playing on the flute, a laughing Captain Wen slapping the table in accompaniment.
Orel Bolic had all but fled Angharad’s company after she politely inquired how the free knights of Zarla’s Drift had paid to maintain their arms and ships, muttering something about ‘fishing out treasures’ before finding a sudden and pressing need to help Old Horvat with the drinks.
That man, Angharad thought, had most definitely been a pirate.
The third tankard had her feeling a little hot around the collar, so when she saw Maryam slipping out in the courtyard she took the opportunity to follow her and take a breather in the cool night air. You almost couldn’t smell the smoke on the wind, these days. The rain had helped.
Her friend stayed close to the door, though out of the light, in deference to the lasting unpopularity of the Unluckies in town. Since the altercation at the market they all moved in pairs and avoided side streets.It would have driven Tristan mad, were he still on his feet. The Sacromontan was almost magnetically attracted to suspicious back alleys.
“Feeling the drink?” Angharad asked, joining her on the grass.
Maryam chuckled, shaking her head.
“It’s the noise and heat,” she said. “I get headaches. I’ve always been this way. I was not glad when my father had feasts either, even if the food almost made up for it.”
“I loved a good ball, myself,” Angharad wistfully said. “I missed quite a few for the dueling circuit – the society seasons in Peredur and Malan are not the same, so the tournament dates were an impediment – but those I attended were almost universally lovely.”
Maryam eyed her.
“Well, you’re,” she gestured at the whole of Angharad. “While I’m...”
She gestured at herself.
“I don’t follow,” Angharad admitted.
“We are built differently,” Maryam said, in the voice of someone who had just made a diplomatic decision. "Besides, practice of the Craft tends to instill a fondness for silence and solitude. It is the same with Navigators.”
It was an impulse to ask and she feared to be rude, so she held back. Not quickly enough to avoid notice, though.
“Ask,” Maryam said.
“I do not-”
“If I think it was rude, I’ll tell you as much,” her friend said.
Angharad cleared her throat.
“Did you ever regret it?” she asked. “Choosing to become a craftswoman instead of a princess. Many highborn would have balked at the choice.”
Herself among them.
“I was to be my mother’s apprentice and she was one of the Ninefold Nine, so I didn’t lose as much as you might think,” Maryam said. “Besides, my father still hosted us for a month or two every year and he made a point of giving us public and lavish gifts. Otherwise his rivals might think he could no longer call on my mother’s Craft should he be challenged.”
She had mentioned her parents married largely for politics. Her mother had needed coin and support, her father the ties to a fearsome witch. The arrangement sounded like it had been cordial, which for some matches was the best one could hope for.
“But you went from a princess living in a court to a witch wandering the wilds and woods,” Angharad insisted. “You set aside a life of power and luxury to follow your duty.”
Maryam looked surprised.
“I didn’t see it as a duty,” she said. “Just a path. It only became something like duty when I was one of the last practitioners, when there was suddenly a tradition to preserve.”
“I am not sure I would have made the same choice in your place,” Angharad freely admitted. “I fought joining the Watch as long as I could even when my uncle urged otherwise, and after I put on the black I still clung to old trappings.”
The last society evenings left to her, the informal noble circle of Allazei. She had been more concerned with being at those dinners than what was being said during them.
“I’m not one to cast stones about holding on to one’s past,” Maryam said, glancing at the lit door and the musing drifting through it. “But this doesn’t sound like a fresh thought. What brought this on?”
Angharad folded her knees, lay her back against the wall.
“I suppose I am trying to understand why,” she said.
“Why?”
“Why someone would choose to side with the Machinist over the Watch,” Angharad said. “I have found I often make selfish choices when pressed, Maryam, so I thought to get insight from you – who so often sacrifices for duty and principle. You must have a different perspective.”
Maryam choked.
“Excuse me?”
“You chose your sister’s life over the ability to use Signs, Maryam,” Angharad reminded her. “And you chose your duty to your countrymen over ease, coin and almost your closeness to Tristan. Of us all I think you most often choose principle at your own expense.”
She was red in the cheeks. Had she truly not noticed?
“Izel,” she choked out.
“Izel broke an oath of betrothal and ran, then schemed to seize and sell a man to repay his debt to the Ivory Library,” Angharad flatly said. “He is my friend, and I respect his ideals, but he most often lives up to them when it is comfortable. You hold the same ember when it is still red.”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Maryam closed her eyes, face still red.
“I am going to pretend you never said that, and that I never heard it,” she announced. “We’ve had a few drinks. And you don’t know how close I came to making the wrong choice, Angharad. If it hadn’t been Ester, I’m not sure I would have. So I suppose I can understand where she comes from, Cai Wei.”
Angharad decided not fight the first half of that. Simpler to outright ignore it, and agree to nothing.
“I am relieved to hear you can,” Angharad said, leaning in. “How could she find the Machinist worth fighting for?”
She could see nothing honorable about his cause, nothing that made it worth taking up his banner. It was not as if the spirit were trying to restore the Kingdom of Sologuer, and he did not appear to be founding a cult either.
“She doesn’t give a shit about the Machinist,” Maryam said. “She’s afraid to die, Angharad.”
She blinked.
“We all are,” Angharad carefully said. “It does-”
“No, not like that you aren’t,” Maryam disagreed. “Becaus she doesn’t find any of it worth dying for, Angharad.”
Her friend gestured around them.
“The oaths, the school, the promises and the coin,” she said. “Your Skiritai rites down below. The Watch as whole – she cares about it less than she does about living. None of it is worth dying to honor, in her eyes, and to be honest I’m not sure she’s wrong.”
“You can’t mean that,” Angharad said, appalled.
“Not that we should fight for the Machinist instead,” Maryam dismissed. “But the way you described it, the Marshal tried to shoot her in the head the moment he could and she had decent odds of getting executed if she came back to the Watch. So she didn’t come back, and the Machinist was offering so she took up with him instead..”
“Him is a monstrous god that butchered many of us with his works,” Angharad harshly said.
“How long was she really here, before she became a ghost?” Maryam asked. “A few weeks, a month or two? She didn’t buy into this place, probably not even into her old brigade. She had no reason to care about Scholomance or any of us.”
Her friend paused.
“She’s a villain to you,” Maryam said. “And I won’t say that it isn’t entirely deserved. But when you tell me about Cai Wei, Angharad, I’m left to wonder too.”
Eyes looked up at the colored Orrery stars, one dead and the other not. A price paid for the life of the sister they could hear laughing inside as Izel stepped through her feet.
“Would I have made the same choice, if it wasn’t my own sister on the other side of the knife?” Maryam asked the night. “I’m not sure. Most nights, I fear not.”
“You can’t know that,” Angharad quietly said.
“No,” Maryam said. “But then I think about how much easier it is to care about what a black cloak means, when wearing it means I get to have you – all of you. That I get to help the Orels and many more. That I get to live under a roof with people I trust, that I get to learn what I’ve wanted to since I was a girl, get to laugh and drink shitty beer that Old Horvat dug up in port and then sit with you under the stars.”
She folded her arms over her chest.
“And then I think about how that cloak would just be dyed cloth, without all of it,” Maryam confessed. “She’s not the Ecclesiarch, Angharad. She didn’t choose to burn a nation to play god-king. Wei, she made a bad call and followed it down to the bitter end.”
“It doesn’t change what she did,” Angharad said.
“No,” her friend agreed. “But I don’t think she’s a monster, either. Her being an asshole and trying to do you harm doesn’t make her one either. The Machinist isn’t her friend, he’s her owner. And her being an asshole and a deserter who tried to siphon out your life doesn’t mean she’s not also on the wrong side of that thing’s boot.”
Angharad looked up at the sky, eyes chasing the same distant stars.
“No,” she softly said, “I suppose it doesn’t.”
Sometimes, Angharad thought that the most frightful thing about Maryam Khaimov was not her Signs but her compassion. The way it pierced through false faces and anger to get at the bone of things, even when that cast was unkind.
But, Angharad thought as they sat together looking at the stars, sometimes she thought it might be the most admirable thing about her instead.
--
Tristan found that they all visited their own particular ways.
Song was regular and punctual: every day the first week then every other day, usually for around an hour. More if she was bringing him notes and coursework. Angharad went by sentiment, either accompanying another or coming by when she’d thought of something. News she thought he might be interested in, a book they’d discussed, food they both enjoyed. It was regular only in the sense that she never let too long pass without a visit.
Maryam and Ester came together, and the way it went was... mixed. Sometimes they stayed so long they spent the night sleeping in a chair, other times they were gone in a quarter hour. Tristan had thought them sensitive to his moods – he was not always of a mind for company – but he’d eventually come to realize they were chewing on a conversation. Not mustering up courage for it, as he’d thought, but instead holding back on having it.
They brought the Orels sometimes. More surprising had been that the Orels sometimes came on their own. Old Horvat thrice, to bring him some pasty vegetable dish he called duvec that was like a chunkier Sacromontan pisto, and Poltava twice to ask questions about from which shops she should try to source the materials for replacement parts she was working in.
Bolic came once, to have a look at him. Up and down, like a man taking the measure of a rival.
“Skinny,” Orel Bolic said.
“Diminishingly useful,” Tristan replied with a pleasant smile.
Bolic did not visit again.
Izel’s visits were in some ways the oddest. Today he’d stumbled in dragging a satchel of small parts and tucked set of tools he’d used to assemble small clockwork mechanisms while talking. We owe a certain amount for the mechanics assignment and I’m helping Jingyi since he hurt his hand, Izel had explained. Last time he’d brought paper prints that needed marking for errors, the time before that a full jar of honey he’d not so much dipped bread in so much as outright immersed.
In a way Izel’s visits were the easiest on him, because the tinker was not really here as a visit. He was just company, and there was something soothing about that.
“-and Ester’s a fairly good dancer,” Izel laughed. “Had to hand her off to the little Orel after a few dances, though, that drink had more kick than I’d thought.”
There was a faint click and the tinker yelped, shaking his hand before he sucked at his finger. No blood, Tristan saw, but the skin was red. The gears had ticked the wrong way and pinched him.
“Dirt-Eater, that stung,” Izel muttered.
Tristan blinked.
“Dirt-Eater?” he repeated, just to be sure.
“Goddess of forgiveness, among other things,” Izel said. “She takes upon herself the sins and sorrows of others.”
Well, that explained why he’d not really heard of her before. Most Izcalli he had encountered were light on asking for forgiveness. Or permission, for that matter. He leaned forward off the cushions, openly amused.
“So you just tried to pass off the pinching onto that poor goddess?” Tristan asked.
“It is her role to redeem all things into herself,” Izel replied, perhaps a tad defensively.
“And to think we call you the most religious of us,” Tristan tutted, sadly shaking his head.
“You are an actual high priest,” Izel indignantly replied, pointing his wrench like a finger. “How is this even a matter of debate?”
“You might have noticed that Fortuna ran a little thin on the ground, theologically speaking,” Tristan said, and her name wasn’t even enough to wipe out his good mood entirely.
Not so long as he didn’t let himself keep thinking about her.
“I always assumed you held your rites privately,” Izel said. “It is uncommon in Izcalli, but not so elsewhere in Vesper.”
It was difficult to get any less private than painting your patron god’s colors on your face, Tristan conceded.
“I never did much before the shrine,” he said, feeling a pang there. “Though in all fairness I had no idea I was her celebrant for most our time together.”
“And yet you are quite popular with gods,” Izel noted. “Scolomancia took a shine to you as well, insofar as that can be said to be a boon.”
He grimaced.
“It isn’t,” he said, then to his own surprise added more. “She’s trying to elbow out Fortuna.”
Izel breathed in sharply.
“Forgive me, but I was under the impression that after the Lady of Long Odds was imprisoned you lost access to both her and your contract.”
“I did,” Tristan said. “But when she first saved my life, she left something in me.”
He licked his lips.
“And then again, when we fell into the layer together. I don’t know if it was to guide where I fell or more, but it felt... larger, the second time. I sensed it in a way I did not the first. And since then the vultures only got hungrier for it.”
“That is remarkable,” Izel quietly said. “Most gods struggle to achieve anything outside of their immediate domain. I hesitate to call what you describe a boon, either.”
“I don’t think it’s given me anything,” Tristan agreed.
Unless it had not been an accident that Fortuna’s last gift had prevented Scolomancia from simply sinking her claws into him. It was possible, but he doubted it. No one who lost so commandingly often at dice games could have any form of foretelling.
“Then I wonder what it is,” Izel mused. “Because it cannot simply be a blessing of nothing, Tristan. A god is made of a particular aether taint, if they give part of themselves...”
“That taint is still in it,” Tristan muttered. “But I haven’t really gotten anything from it, Izel. No strange thoughts, no instincts, no powers.”
“That is odd,” Izel said. “Although...”
“Although?”
“Perhaps the gift is simply that it is a part of her,” Izel said.
He cocked his head to the side.
“Like she handed me her heart while it still beats?”
“Smaller than a heart, else you would be a Saint by now. But if the part in you is still alive, and she is as well, then that open possibilities. The two parts would still be linked, Tristan.”
His fingers clenched.
“And you think you can do something with that?” he asked.
“Use it for pathfinding, at the very least,” Izel muttered. “Like a compass. And maybe a little more.”
He cleared his throat.
“Have you ever given a blessing before?” the tinker asked. “As a priest, I mean. And I don’t mean mumbling Orthodoxy words either."
"No,” Tristan slowly said.
Izel leaned in.
“Would you like to try?”
Tristan met his eyes.
“You think it will help?”
“I think it cannot hurt,” Izel honestly replied.
His fingers clenched.
“All right,” Tristan whispered. “Let’s try.”
There was a pause.
“I’m going to have to sell so many aether spike dispensers to pay for this,” Izel mourned.
--
Maryam steadied her arm, exhaled to empty her lungs and pulled the trigger. The flint struck and sparked, the powder caught and a heartbeat later the pistol spat out a plume of smoke a shot that...
“Oh, come on,” she complained. “That should have hit the chest.”
The target at the end of the shooting range, a large bale of straw with a person’s silhouette painted on it in red, was sporting a fresh shoulder wound. If it’d been the right shoulder at least Maryam would have understood, she tended to drift rightwards since she’d lost her eye. It was, unfortunately, squarely in the left shoulder.
“I believe the trouble might be with your stance,” Angharad shared. “Song described it as-”
“If I hear Song Ren’s description of the proper shooting stance one more time, I may well go mad,” Maryam warned.
There was a pause.
“Duly noted,” Angharad said, visibly trying not to be too amused.
“Oh, just take your turn,” she groused.
Unforgivably, Angharad actually landed the knee shot that she’d called. It was heinous how quickly she was becoming one of the better shots in the Thirteenth, considering she’d barely ever used guns before enrolling in the Watch. At least Maryam could blame her stalling skills on her dead eye, even though she was keeping it dead on purpose. She felt it safer to practice for the eventuality of Ester being unable to lend an eye, and it wasn’t like practice didn’t help for when she could see properly.
They reloaded together, then fired again. Maryam called and caught a stomach shot, going for the lowest branch in the tree to preserve her pride, while Angharad took the opposite knee.
“You know, it never occurred to me,” Maryam said. “But didn’t your household hunt? I’d expect you to be familiar with fowling guns.”
The caliber of most muskets used in war was likely to pulverize any bird it hit, so hunting guns were usually smaller bores with longer barrels.
“Some of us did,” Angharad said. “Mother was not fond of hunting, but my father’s falconry was widely admired. There are few game birds near Llanw Hall, however, so ours were usually honor hunts – boars, bears and wolves.”
Honor hunts, she mused, were probably the same as jezik hunts. One of the legal obligations of landowners to their tenants across the coastlands: to ride out and slay any beast that damaged kin, crops or livestock then bring back the tongue as proof. All the animals Angharad had named were dangerous to men, and all too willing to attack them.
“A fowling piece won’t do much more than tickle a boar or a bear, unless you get the eye,” Maryam conceded. “And reading between the lines you didn’t use muskets either. Don’t tell me you went a-sabering after bears?”
She painted in her mind the image of Angharad Tredegar facing a large brown bear and granting it a duelist’s salute, that fancy little shoulder tap she liked to do. Alas, the thought could not be as comical as Maryam would have wanted when she’d seen the mirror-dancer kill monsters that large using the weapon in question.
It was still a little funny, though.
“Maryam, really,” Angharad sighed. “It was done from atop a horse, using hunting spears. Pereduri do not thirst after prize hunts like the Malani do, but we’ve our own traditions.”
“I’ve never seen you use a hunting spear,” Maryam noted.
“The climbing spears we used on the false dantesvara and the ketos are modeled after the Malani standard,” Angharad told her. “Though I confess I take after my mother in this – I never took much joy from the hunt, and learned only as much as I must.”
She cleared her throat.
“Hunting is not as prestigious as it once was, but any noble of good standing is expected to be able to at least ride with a spear in hand,” she said.
Maryam cocked her head to the side.
“What did your mother have against hunting?”
“She was very fond of birds,” Angharad quietly said. “She even forbade commoners to hunt puffins in our lands, since they are seabirds.”
The commoners had probably been less than charmed by that whim, Maryam thought, but she did not feel up to spoiling was what obviously a fond remembrance. Best to change the subject.
“And seabirds are special why?” she asked.
“It is an old superstition,” Angharad admitted, “but it is said that the spirits of slain sea birds will ride storms to come take their revenge on mariners.”
Finally a proper spirit story out of Peredur! The Isles were usually dull in that regard, since the priests of their Sleeping God tended to come down hard on ‘idolaters’.
“So even you monotheists have your superstitions,” she smirked. “Good to know.”
“It is seen as provincial,” her friend replied. “Mother was made fun of in court because of it. A poem was circulated that made Maraire rhyme with a slang word for credulous.”
Maraire? It took Maryam a moment to place the surname.
“Right, because Pereduri nobles need to have a Malani name as well,” Maryam muttered, then cleared her throat. “What’s with the double names, anyhow?”
“The peerage list is the register of the noble bloodlines of the Duchy of Peredur,” Angharad said. “But it is held and penned by the Pereduri themselves, taking no guidance from the royal court.”
“Sounds wise,” Maryam said.
The royal court should be burned and salt sown where it’d stood, as far as she was concerned, but keeping their distance was probably the best the Pereduri could hope for. The strait between Peredur and Malan was a lot shorter a swim than making it all the way to Juska.
“The last duke of Peredur thought so, when he knelt to Queen Perpetual,” Angharad said. “It was one of the boons that let him convince the lords and ladies of the High Isle that peace should be sought. The issue is that for one to obtain further titles, honors or incomes from the crown they must be recognized as noble on Malan’s own rolls of nobility.”
“So why not use the same name for both?” Maryam asked.
It seemed the obvious solution.
“It is forbidden by the crown,” Angharad said. “Else our peers would be recognized as noble by law twice, and thus set above the nobles of Malan and Uthukile. It is largely a formality for one on the peerage list to be recognized in the rolls, though it does require traveling to Isasha in person.”
Maryam hummed. ‘Largely’ a formality meant sometimes it was not, which sounded like a very useful threat for the crown to wield. Back home the Staresine would have never stood for a king having that sort of power, but then there was a reason the Recnigvor word for the royalty across the water translated to ‘tyrant-king’. Crowns in Aurager tended to have a lot more power than they’d ever been allowed to gather in the coastlands.
“It sounds like being on those rolls from the start is an advantage for the Malani,” she said.
“It is,” Angharad darkly said. “Some of the smaller houses must start saving up for the journey to Isasha as soon as their lady grows older, else the unplanned expense of a sudden death could push them into debt. And it is costly in a different way to avoid the journey: any house not on the rolls will be subject to the burden tax as if they were common-born, and often the war tax as well.”
“So why not end the peerage lists outright?” Maryam asked.
More to prod than because she endorsed the solution.
“It would be a decision without pride,” Angharad stiffly said. “A renunciation of our heritage. It is...”
She paused. Maryam raised an eyebrow.
“Well, it is one of the reasons that Nkosinathi Morcant is frowned upon by other Pereduri,” Angharad said. “His first name is already Malani, as if he were trying for the list from birth, and it is said his mother attempted exactly what you described.”
“Getting the Morcant title moved from the peerage list to the nobility rolls,” she said.
Angharad nodded.
“The great families of the duchy would never lower themselves thus,” she said. “But I hear that Lady Morcant is ambitious. Hers was not always considered a powerful house, and she cannot compete in land or blood. I suppose she sees cleaving closer to the royal court as a way to rise.”
“That and the colonies are run by royal governors,” Maryam evenly said. “I expect the crown buys at least half the slaves out of Juska, so she’s putting her allegiance where her wealth flows from.”
“It is grasping of her,” Angharad scorned. “Most of the great families curry some favor with the crown, but none are quite so shameless about it. I am told she sent her sons to attend the isikole in the capital.”
Maryam blinked.
“Nathi Morcant was raised in Isasha?”
“The isikole lasts only four years,” Angharad corrected, “so I would not say raised, exactly. He was clearly meant for court, though. Thando once told me that his departure for the Watch was the subject of much gossip back home.”
“So sending him to the Watch was not the plan from the start.”
Angharad shrugged.
“I will not claim to know the secret thoughts of Lady Morcant,” she said, “but that seems unlikely. The point of the sending her sons to an Isasha isikole should have been to foster ties with other noble scions in those classrooms, and those ties are of little use on Tolomontera.”
“So why did he get sent here?” Maryam asked.
She chewed at the inside of her cheek a bit.
“Maybe he angered someone from a better family,” she mused. “Or killed someone.”
“His family would not still be supporting him openly had he slain in an unlawful manner,” Angharad said.
“So whatever it is, he left without trashing his reputation first,” Maryam said.
She crossed her arms, pistol resting empty against the crook of her elbow.
“It could have been his contract,” she said. “We’re still not sure what the ubunjalo he takes from people to fuel his fleshcrafting actually is. Maybe he tried it out and harmed someone without meaning to.”
“That would have been seized on by the Morcant’s enemies and become scandal,” Angharad said. “Or, if the matter was buried, he would now be in the service of the great noble who did the silencing.”
“Then maybe the contract itself is borderline,” Maryam tried. “We know that the Watch sometimes presses into service people with dangerous powers or prices. Normally they get assigned somewhere an eye is kept on them, but since he’s from a powerful family...”
“They leveraged that into Scholomance instead,” Angharad thoughtfully said. “I balk at the notion for the same reason you deem it credible: the Morcant are not nobodies, Maryam. The Watch would find it difficult to take a son of theirs for a contract does not actually break the Iscariot Accords.”
Angharad paused.
“And even should Lady Morcant be heartless, an ambitious woman would not easily throw away a contract as useful as Nathi’s.”
It was arguably even more powerful in Malan, where Maryam suspected few would think twice at feeding the bastard a steady flow of slaves to let him work his craft.
“That’s true,” she muttered. “So whatever got him sent here, it made him unfit for court but without disgracing him. That’s a pretty narrow line to walk.”
Some kind of private disaster, a succession conflict that could be nipped in the bud by placing a black cloak on Nathi’s shoulders?
“I hesitate to wish that Song had read his full contract,” Angharad said, “since it is something of a breach of privacy. And yet.”
Maryam snorted.
“It’s inconvenient she never found out his price,” she agreed. “Mind you, it feels swinish to complain of that when no one else would have the part that she read.”
There’d been few opportunities for Song to get a good read on Morcant contract at the start of the year, when he’d still seemed a lesser threat – their captain couldn’t just stare five minutes above someone’s head in public without outing her own very perilous contract - and by the time he was trouble enough to warrant the effort there had been none. He must have been read in on the suspicions about Song’s contract because he’d very carefully avoided being in her presence for more than small moments. Now he was outright in hiding.
“I knew he’d be a problem,” Maryam said. “But I underestimated how much. What Song suspects, that he’s the one who provided the oil and tar to Cai Wei? It’s a few lines past what I expected from him.”
She’d had him pegged as dangerous and cruel, someone who would keep hounding them until accord was reached, but this was almost manic. If he got caught, the Watch would hang him for it.
“Agreed. He acts like a courtier about to be disgraced,” Angharad absent-mindedly said, beginning to clean and reload her pistol.
Maryam followed suit.
“Meaning?”
Angharad seemed surprised, then thoughtful.
“The royal court in Isasha is not like the Calendar Court or Indulkapur,” Angharad said. “If a courtier is proved to be dishonorable, there is no way back. No going into exile and returning, no pilgrimage or flower war to clear one’s name: there can be no blemishes on the honor of the High Queen’s court.”
She tapped the pistol against her shoulder.
“I did not realize it then, as I never attended court myself,” Angharad said. “But as you once pointed out, Nathi followed the traditional methods of a courtier in dealing with us: he offered a private bargain that would make some restitution while ending any notion that he had been in the wrong.”
“I don’t see how arming Cai Wei fits in there,” Maryam pointed out.
Trying to get Izel to kill someone had been a pretty bloody plot to get the Unluckies disbanded – and would have succeeded, if not for Yaotl Acatl – but even if he was caught red-handed it shouldn’t get him worse than expelled. Handing an enemy the means to raid a Watch town was going way, way further. And if we’re right, he did it mostly as a way to position Cao to oust us when his second plot rolled in!
“It does not,” Angharad said. “He is taking the kind of ruthless measures that a courtier does when they are on the verge of being dishonored – when their time at court is finished if they do nothing, so risks and a hard hand become more palatable.”
Maryam frowned.
“I mean, your promise of daily beatings did pretty much corner him but it seems a disproportionate risk for him to risk being hanged when you left him an out.”
Angharad had specified she would no longer hunt Morcant if he either left Scholomance or turned himself in to the Garrison and confessed all lawbreaking. The second out had been viciously clever on Angie’s part, since it forced everyone to ask the question of why he didn’t simply do that if he had nothing to hide. It’d be an egg on her face if he turned himself in, confessed to nothing or very minor infractions and then walked out after paying a fine. Pereduri honor would make it very difficult for her to start jumping him again afterwards.
That he hadn’t done it had been confirmation he was involved in things that would get him real trouble. It was as good as a confession he’d had a hand in the attempted abduction of the Orels, as far as she was concerned.
“It could be that whatever saw him exiled from Malan forces him to remain at Scholomance,” Angharad frowned. “And thus he cannot leave?”
“Then he’d have involved his influential commodore patron in the dispute,” Maryam said. “If leaving Scholomance is liable to get him killed, then it’d be breaking one of the three rules. No, it shouldn’t be that.”
It’d all changed, she thought, after Angharad trounced him in a fight. And it shouldn’t have, because she and Song and Ishanvi had gotten beaten as well so it shouldn’t be like the humiliation was driving him mad or anything. The balance had just swung back his way.
“I don’t like that he’s getting more unpredictable,” she muttered. “If something’s making him desperate that we didn’t know about, he could lash out if it looks like we’ve gotten through the storm.”
“We have no real idea where he is hiding,” Angharad said. “And if he can have oil and tar brought in, I doubt he will need to buy supplies in town.”
And, to be blunt, the only one of the Unluckies who might be able to sniff out the location of Morcant’s lair was currently in a hospital bed.
“We could try to hire another Mask,” Maryam said. “But then even if we can afford their price, I’m not sure that right now we’ve got the…”
She vaguely gestured.
“Our reputation has been better,” Angharad agreed, then paused. “But it occurs to me that there is one lead we can follow.”
Maryam’s brow rose.
“I’m all ears.”
“We know the name of the spirit he contracted with, the Tender-of-Reeds,” she said. “And while I would not count on the Watch having much knowledge about some petty spirit…”
“The Tender is one of the greatest spirits in Malan,” Maryam finished. “The Arthashastra Society are sure to have something about him in their library.”
And would you look at that, they were acquainted with a Laurel. Ishanvi had been getting antsy, what with her last room test being pushed back indefinitely because of the fire and the siege.
No doubt she’d appreciate getting a bit of research done for her good friends in the Thirteenth.