The Will of the Empress - By Tamora Pierce Page 0,128
of the Namornese Mages' Society put spells on you and guaranteed to keep them there until you signed the contract. It would have been harder to escape under those circumstances, don't you think?"
"Then how did you escape?" Berenene asked coolly. The beginnings of a headache pounded in her temples.
"I found her," Briar said flatly.
"But how?" insisted Berenene. What she really wanted to know was, Did you use that magical connection my spies told me was closed? She could not ask that, of course. They trusted her little as it was. Adults understood that people spied on one another, but these young people were idealists, not realists. She doubted that they would understand that everyone spied on everyone who might be important.
"I... forget," Briar said coldly. "I have a terrible memory when it comes to secrets I don't wish to tell."
Berenene glanced at Tris. The redhead had undone a third of the braid she had pulled from her hairstyle. Now Tris ran her fingers through the loose hairs over and over, her attention locked on them.
"She's working magic," Ishabal said. "I cannot tell what kind, but she is cloaked in power."
"Then stop her," ordered Berenene.
Tris looked up, grey eyes glinting through her loose tresses. "I wouldn't do that."
"Tris, you'll never be a success as a diplomat," announced Briar. "You may as well put that right out of your mind." He turned his own bright green eyes on Ishabal and Berenene. "We all swear on our medallions, this isn't something that would affect Your Imperial Majesty in any way," he said, his voice as bland as cream. "In fact, Tris here is actually doing you and your devoted servants a favour."
"And if they stop me now, I can't promise the cliff under the palace wall won't drop into the Syth," muttered Tris.
"Pay her no mind," Briar continued as Sandry glared at Tris. "It's not a threat she's making, just a warning. You know how it is with mages and interruptions. Anyway, I suppose you didn't know it, or you'd have seen for yourself, but your palace has rats. Big ones. Doesn't it, Clehame fa Landreg?"
"Big ones," Sandry replied. "I don't know how she missed them, but anything is possible."
"She's an empress," Briar told her, his tone pure conciliation. "You can't expect her to know every rathole that opens up."To the empress and her mages, he explained: "This one is a real beauty. It opens in a northeast wing of the palace — I don't think anyone's dusted in there in months. And it tunnels all the way down through the cliff. Through solid stone, even under the curtain wall, can you believe it? Down at the bottom, it opens onto a cove of the Syth."
Berenene's veins filled with ice. The Julih Tunnel, she realized, horrified. How in Vrohain's name did Fin — his uncle. Notalos dung-grubbing fer Hurich. The Mages' Society is said to have the plans of the palace from its first construction — and I shall have his skin.
Briar continued, "Energetic little nalizes, rats, aren't they? To dig all that way. We stumbled on their hole purely by chance. Well, Sandry didn't stumble entirely by chance. So Tris here got all alarmed, because she hates rats, so she's stopping up that hole at the foot of the cliff. She's getting the lake to help. Some of the stones she's using are pretty big."
Tris looked up, her face relaxed and at ease. "It really is in your interest, Your Imperial Majesty. Who could sleep, knowing rats could get in at will? With that rathole closed, Your Imperial Majesty may sleep easily."
Berenene clenched her hands against her skirts. If the wench is doing what she claimed to do, she is trying to close the secret exit that saved my life in that assassination attempt years ago. Of course, it's no good to me now if Viynain fer Hurich has decided he need not obey his vow to keep those plans secret. "Can she do it?" she asked Ishabal. There were magical wards on the tunnel.
Ishabal watched Tris for a long moment. Finally, she nodded. "She is doing it." She asked Tris, "What if anyone is in the chamber at the base of the cliff?"
"I won't weep a tear if they drown," Sandry snapped, her voice rough. "But they could always climb. Tris is just stopping up the exit. You ought to put maids with brooms at the other end of the hole, to beat the rats when they come out."