and the darkness and kept the walls from leaking even after the deaths of the men who cast the spells. The room was fifty paces wide, ten paces high, white plaster walls covered in wall hangings long thought lost by those who care about such things. There were tables and chairs, lounges that could be used as beds, crates of canned food, and barrels of water hidden behind silk curtains.
Not even Manhouch had known about his father’s emergency shelter; only a few of the Iron King’s closest advisers, Tamas included, knew about the place, or how to reach it beneath the House of Nobles. The Iron King had been paranoid that the people would rise up against him, or that his spies would turn their knives to his throat. Tamas thought it fitting, then, when it was clear that the place had been in complete disuse since Manhouch XII took the throne, that it should be used to plot the king’s fall.
Since the coup, Tamas’s council of coconspirators had moved their meetings to a less wayward place, far above on the third floor of the House of Nobles, as befitting a government, but Tamas still used the room as a place to find quiet and solitude. None of his staff knew where to find him here, not even Olem and Sabon. He would head back up soon enough.
Tamas sat in the most comfortable of the chairs, his stockinged feet up on a hassock, a bowl of squash soup in his lap—the only thing Mihali would let him have from the kitchens when he passed through—and a miniature map of Surkov’s Alley in his hand. The other hand gently scratched the head of one of his hounds, receiving a periodic lick of affection for his troubles.
He examined the map closely. It had been three days since he’d thrown Duke Nikslaus into the Adsea. It was a three-day ride, trading horses and without sleep, from Surkov Alley—the thin valley through the mountains connecting Adro and Kez—to Adopest. Tamas had received word not an hour ago that the Kez army was gathering outside of Budwiel, the city on the border of Kez at the entrance to Surkov Alley.
Nikslaus and the delegation was a feint, an excuse for a war Ipille had banked on. Preparations had already begun. The Kez meant to invade. Yet it would take them a hundred thousand men to break through Surkov’s Alley. The whole corridor was staggered with troops and artillery placements. Unless Surkov’s wasn’t their target.
He set the map down and repositioned his bowl of soup to a nearby table. Pitlaugh crept away with a light growl. “Hush,” he told the hound. Tamas fetched a bigger map, this one of all south Adro, and looked it over.
South Pike was the only mountain pass big enough for the Kez to bring a whole army through without it taking all summer. Could they be trying for that? Would their commanders decide that the smaller choke point with fewer men was a better target than Surkov’s Alley? He glanced at the bottom of the Adsea on the map, where one small corner of it touched the only Adsea harbor in Kez beside the river delta. They might try coming over water, but the Kez had hardly any navy to speak of in the Adsea. Tamas sighed, folding the map, and sat back in his chair. He looked down at Hrusch. The hound gazed back up at him, head tilted to the side, panting jowls forming a smile.
What could Ipille possibly be thinking? Kez outnumbered Adro five to one in soldiers, yet Adro had so many advantages: industry, more capable military commanders, the Mountainwatch. Adro held all the choke points.
“I should bring Olem down here,” Tamas said to the dog. “I think better when I have someone to muse to.” Then the place would smell of his cigarettes. Tamas leaned over for a spoonful of Mihali’s soup. He’d never tasted anything like it, milky sweet with a hint of dark sugar.
Tamas heard a click on the other side of the room, near the door. The hallways leading to the room formed a series of dead-end corridors and false walls, switchbacks and trap doors, enough to confound and discourage even a determined individual, so it was with some surprise that Tamas sat up and pulled on his boots. He stood up and turned toward the door, straightening his shirt, a hand out to silence Hrusch’s whines.