goons and Lord Vetas all at once and cracked his knuckles like he did when he was ready for a fight. “I will pay you your money,” Adamat said, “if you have indeed taken over the loan. Or I will face the streets when you kick me out. I will not betray a client or my country.”
Lord Vetas examined his hands thoughtfully. He stood up and took his hat off the desk. “I’ll return when I have leverage.” The statement was matter-of-fact, yet the word “leverage” sent a chill down Adamat’s spine. “Meanwhile, as a show of my master’s good faith, we’ll suspend your loan.” He passed by Adamat and tipped his hat. “Consider our employment offer.” He gave Adamat a small card with an address printed on the back.
It was not until Lord Vetas and his thugs were gone that Adamat remembered the body in his favorite chair. He regarded SouSmith grimly. “Find us some lunch in the pantry. I’m going to figure out something to do with that.”
“Jakob has a great attachment to you,” the woman said.
Nila sat across from the woman at a cafe table and sipped from a warm cup of tea. The sun shone overhead, a stiff breeze moving through the streets, and she could almost forget about the barricades just around the other side of the building, where royalist partisans held a wary standoff with Tamas’s more numerous and better-trained soldiers.
“I can’t stay,” Nila said.
The woman examined her over a cup of tea. Her name was Rozalia and she was a Privileged. The Hielmen said she was the last Privileged left in all of Adro, but no one knew where she’d come from. She wasn’t a member of Manhouch’s royal cabal. Why she had any interest in Nila was impossible to say. Nila had no idea how to act in the presence of a Privileged. It was impossible to curtsy sitting down. She kept her eyes on her tea and tried to be as polite as possible.
“Why not, child?”
Nila sat up straighter. She didn’t consider herself a child. At eighteen, she was a woman. She could wash and press and mend clothes and she might have one day married Yewen, the butler’s son, if the whole world hadn’t gone to the pit with Tamas’s coup. Yewen was gone now, maybe fled, maybe killed in the streets.
When Nila didn’t answer, Rozalia went on. “We have a parley with Field Marshal Tamas in the morning. If he comes to his senses, if General Westeven can make him see reason, you may find yourself nursemaid to the new king of Adro.”
“I’m not a nurse,” Nila said. “I wash clothes.”
“That doesn’t have to define you, child. I’ve been many things in my life. A Privileged is neither the greatest nor the least of them.”
What was greater than a Privileged? “I’m sorry,” Nila said.
Rozalia gave a sigh. “Speak up, child. Look me in the eye. You aren’t a duke’s washerwoman anymore.”
“I’m lowborn, ma’am… my lady.” Nila tried to remember how to address a Privileged. She’d never even met one before today.
“You’ve saved the life of the closest heir to the throne,” Rozalia said. “Baronies have been gifted to the common folk for less.”
Nila swallowed and tried not to imagine herself baroness of some barony in northern Adro. This kind of thing didn’t happen to her. She could feel the Privileged’s eyes studying her.
“You think we’re going to lose,” Rozalia said. She waited a moment for Nila’s response, and then somewhat impatiently added, “Speak up, you can talk to me.”
Nila did look up then. “Field Marshal Tamas has every advantage,” she said. “He won’t execute half the nobility only to put Jakob on the throne. Within a few weeks he’ll have torn down the barricades and sent Jakob and all the nobles that backed him to the guillotine. I would like to be gone before that happens. I don’t want to see it.” She wondered, not for the first time, if it had been a mistake to bring Jakob to General Westeven. She could have fled with him to Kez. The silver she took from the townhouse would have more than paid for the trip.
“Smart girl,” Rozalia said, placing a finger on her chin.
Nila folded her arms across her chest.
“What will you do?” Rozalia asked. “Once you’ve gotten past Tamas’s blockade and made your way out of the city?”
What interest could a Privileged possibly have in that? Nila realized that she didn’t know what she’d do. She had the silver.