but not before he saw agreement in her eyes. She’d suggested the same to him not long after they’d returned from the Council of Kin-Clave, and it had led to the first strong argument in their marriage. Her mouth was tight now.
He looked from her to the child in the built-up pine chair beside her. He, too, wore his green turban of office and his rainbow-colored scarves of rank.
Change, he remembered, is the path life takes. But at what point did that change rob life of its value? A standing army in the Ninefold Forest? A kept and guarded border? It was far beyond the life he’d inherited from his father and his father’s father before him. It smacked of everything they’d disdained about their joyless neighbors, everything they’d vowed they would leave in the Old World when they’d left its ashes and madness behind them.
What are you inheriting, my little late-coming prince?
Rudolfo sighed and finally spoke. “I do not wish it—and I do not accept that it is the only answer.” He paused, stared at the food on his plate that he knew he would not eat. When he looked up again, he glanced first to Aedric. In the young captain’s fuming, Rudolfo saw the boy’s father, Gregoric, in the tightly clenched jaw and the narrow eyes. Then, he turned to Lysias. “Draw up the plans for it. But it is to be kept secret at all costs. Our kin-claves are tenuous at best, and this is not the Gypsy way.” Even as he spoke, his hands moved in the sign language of House Y’Zir. Work with him, Aedric.
Aedric did not answer at first. Then, his hand moved, though with reluctance. Yes, General.
Now Jin Li Tam’s face was troubled. Do not ask me, Rudolfo willed, but she did it anyway, her fingers moving along the side of her wineglass. Are you certain, love?
Rudolfo stood and looked to her, hoping his eyes would not betray his answer. “I beg your forgiveness,” he said. “Please excuse me.”
Then, turning, he left the dining room. He stepped quickly past the Gypsy Scouts assigned to guard him, ducked around a corner and slipped into one of dozens of passages kept hidden for just these reasons. He walked at a brisk pace along the narrow corridors and slipped through a hidden door into the garden.
His Whymer Maze towered in the moonlight, and the frogs raised their voice to the blue-green moon. Looking over his shoulder to be sure none followed him, he moved past the maze and into a copse of trees he rarely visited these days.
There, near a white stone marked simply with three names, he sat upon a marble meditation bench that none had sat upon for decades. After a long silence, he finally spoke, and it was the voice of a frightened boy.
“Father,” he said to the stone, “I do not know this path.”
Then, in silence, Rudolfo sat still and begged answer from the ground of Jakob’s Rest.
Chapter 4
Petronus
Petronus raised his eyebrows and looked at the man who rocked to and fro before him. “So what you’re proposing”—he glanced to the report from Grymlis in his hands, looking for the name once more—“Geoffrus, is it?” At the man’s hurried nod, Petronus continued. “What you’re proposing is that you and your company of men supply our entire outpost with hunting, trapping and scouting services for—” He scanned the report again, but the numbers ran together into a blur. “Well,” he finally said, “for significant barter, primarily in metal goods and fabrics from the other side of the gate.”
Geoffrus nodded. “Yes, Luxpadre. I—or I should say we—are prepared to execute on a time-is-of-the-essence basis, immediately, that is, to give you and your Ash-Men the best our Madding Lands can offer.”
Petronus sat back in the wooden chair and rubbed his eyes. Here in the shade, the afternoon sun still kept the day warmer than comfortable for his tastes, accustomed more to the cool seaborne breezes on Caldus Bay than the hot wind of the Churning Wastes. Already, his robe was damp from sweat, though the man across the table from him looked dry and comfortable.
The Waster was a slight man, dressed in tattered clothing shored up with patches and bits of leather. He’d sought audience at least three times before over the past several months, and Petronus had managed to hold the meeting at bay. But finally, he’d relented and agreed to see the man when it became obvious that this Geoffrus was not going