Chapter Five
INNEL CAME AWAKE on his feet, half panicked, groping for his short sword at one hip, then the dagger at the other, not finding either.
There they were, sheathed, on the floor, by the cot on which he'd slept, in this small room of cloaks.
Innel stared at the closet doorway, where stood the reason he had awoken from this exhausted sleep: the queen's seneschal, whose words echoed meaninglessly in his mind.
The seneschal gave Innel a dour look at the lack of sensible response. Innel found this reassuring; the man's expression would doubtless change if disaster ever actually struck.
As it nearly had.
Marisel dua Mage had left the previous day, assuring Innel—repeatedly, and with increasing annoyance—that Cern and the baby were out of mortal danger, that there was nothing more she could—or would?—do, and that rest was all that mother and child needed.
Innel remembered offering her more money, then more, enough that Sachare's eyebrows rose.
Despite everything, the mage left. Then Innel stumbled back into the closet that had become his make-shift bedroom these last months. Judging by how disoriented he felt, he had indeed slept.
But he couldn't bring to mind the seneschal's words.
"What did you say?" he asked, wondering how the man managed to affect such a servile-yet-disapproving look. A lifetime of practice, no doubt.
"The House Passare delegation is here. To discuss the roads, Lord Commander. Again," repeated the seneschal slowly. "I trust that you recall this is the fifth time you have agreed to speak with them, and each time you have required the matter to be rescheduled."
Innel had not left the queen's antechamber in many days. He ran a hand over his unshaven face.
"I'll be along shortly."
"They will be so pleased to hear the good news, Lord Commander, as they wait patiently in the hallway outside your office," the seneschal said. Before he left, he bowed. Not very deeply, Innel noticed.
But never mind: the seneschal had brought Keyretura, who had kept Cern and the infant alive long enough for Innel to ride to the mountains of Perripur where he somehow convinced Marisel dua Mage to help, so Innel was prepared to forgive the old man any slight.
He blinked, recalling the seer's words: Release me. It will be worth a great deal to you to have done so.
Was that, somehow, how this had all come together? Surely it could not be coincidence.
Innel brushed aside cloaks to leave the closet. In the antechamber, to the side of the door to the queen's room, blankets lay heaped. When Sachare was not in with Cern, she slept by the door, as if taking over for the dichu dogs, who had not been happy to be returned to the kennels. But after demonstrating their willingness to protect Cern against the doctors, with lethal force, there was no choice.
"Sleeping," Sachare said at his questioning look.
"I have to see," he muttered.
Sachare nodded, opened the door and gestured him inside, closing it behind.
Innel stood at the door and stared at the two of them sleeping. He held his breath until he saw Cern's chest rise and fall.
Once might be wishful thinking. Twice it must be, before he would let himself inhale. No, make it three times. At last he took air.
Cern's eyes were closed. Dark, purpled hollows ringed them, her face tight and thin from months of pain.
But she lived. And in the crook of her arm lay the infant, her mouth open, tiny chest rising and falling with her mother's.
Rising and falling.
Such a near thing, that tiny life. Far too near.
Innel had let so much lapse these last months since that day when Cern had screamed in agony. Without Cern, nothing else mattered.
Drinking in the sight of them both now, Innel felt as if his own life had begun to be restored as well. Cern and the child had survived one near-fatal blow—the pregnancy itself—and Innel must see to it that no other threats came close.
And that meant that he must return to all the other matters that demanded his attention. The roads. The Houses. The tribes. The Charters Courts. The various intrigues and schemes.
House Etallan. The House of Metal had been quiet since that day in the queen's audience chamber, their palace liaison notably absent. Innel had no illusions that they had forgotten. Good—a charge of treason should not be forgotten.
They have been chastised and must be redeemed.
Not chastised enough, in Innel's view. But the matter could not be addressed until Cern had fully recovered.
He blinked eyes gritty from lack of sleep, and realized that his daughter was staring back at him.
Roads, Houses, and all the rest vanished from his mind, replaced by a conviction that he must increase the queensguard. He would send for Nalas and do just that, the moment he got back to his office.
No, a whole new contingent was needed. The Princess's Guard. A full set of thirty—no, forty, to be sure not one of them was ever as tired as Innel was right now, their judgment compromised in protection of the most precious child in the empire. His mind was alight with plans.
They would be sworn not only to Cern directly, but also to him, and to the infant child. Sev Cern. Sev Innel. Sev...
The unnamed baby girl blinked. Innel felt an unnerving but not entirely unpleasant fluttering in his stomach.
Her name. That was something only the queen could decide.
All at once it landed on him, almost like a hard blow, that she was the presumptive heir to the Arunkel throne, and he the father.
The evidence blinked at him again and he drew in a sharp breath, held it, and found himself unable to exhale until she did. Rise and fall, rise and fall, he only breathed when the infant did.
Innel had nearly failed her. He would not allow himself to fail again.
So much to do. He put a hand on the door behind him, his gaze on the child.
"Innel."
It was a near-shock to hear Cern say his name after so long.
"Your Grace," he whispered.
"Do you want to hold her?" Cern asked hoarsely.
The queen of the Arunkel empire was offering to let him hold her child.
His child.
She was so tiny. Born early, born small. She looked so fragile. What if he accidentally dropped her?
No. It could not be allowed.
"Your Grace, I am... late for a meeting with House Passare."
She nodded. "Go."
He ducked his head in a bow, did it again, and left.
As Innel left the room, then the antechamber, he felt as if a cord were tied from the baby to his own guts, tearing at his most tender insides with every step. His craving to go back was matched by his need to protect them.
He must return to tracking the plots against the queen that crawled and buzzed through the palace. Most were simple and short-lived, once light was shined on them. For the insidious ones, Innel put counter plans in place, with Srel's help, and arms-length hirelings, to contain them until they could be identified, isolated, and removed.
Quietly removed. The standard of law required three pieces of evidence, but acquiring those would slow down the removal of these dangers, and that could not be risked.
And the worst of the plots must be left to run a time. Only a fool yanked a weed, leaving the roots intact for the weed to grow back stronger. Those plots Innel must track to see how deep they stretched and where they led.
Etallan, he would wager.
As he walked the halls to his office, his daughter's gaze haunted him.
Innel sat, staring with increasing dismay at the fortifications of paper, envelopes, scrolls, sealed flats, and parchment cubes on his desk. Neatly stacked piles, like a display of some famous battle.
Srel, laden with a large basket of more papers, paused, looking for open space on the wood.
Had Innel really been away so long?
"Not to worry, Lord Commander. I can help."
But what Srel could do, he had already done. Another side table of neat piles and envelopes was testament to this.
"Tell me what they've been saying, Srel."
Srel put a parchment cube on top of the stack, like a child's plaything but for the formal seals on all sides, indicating the Great House and its various vassals.
"The queen has been on post-birth bed-rest longer than any other queen in Arunkel history."
That much was true. "Another few days," Innel muttered.
A few beyond that, more likely.
No one must know how close the empire had come to having the monarchy suddenly vacated with no clear succession. Innel's life would have been worthless. He wondered, if it had come to that, and he had to run, how far he would get.
He dismissed that path of thought. He didn't have time to muse on averted disaster. A miss by an inch was as good as a chasm.
On top of the nearest pile was an Account and Petition from House Elupene. All the Houses would send at least one to the crown. It was the pre-game of the Charters Courts, in which each House described what they had done with the charters granted to them at the last Courts, and the benefits to the queen and the public good of granting them again. It would include their plans going forward with the charters they hoped to keep or gain at the next Courts.
The reports were lengthy affairs, full of ledgers and records, calendars and diagrams. But when to send the document to the crown, and how many to send, was a political decision. Too early, the document might get buried in the mind of the monarch, who was required by the Charters Courts to read and affirm, or acknowledge, each one.
But too late, and she might already be biased toward another House's Account and Petition.
Fortunes were made and lost at the Charters Courts. If negotiations stalled at any point during a Court—and they almost always did—it was the monarch's duty to smooth the way and adjudicate as needed, for which she would be referring to the Accounts and Petitions.
Cern, of course, was not in condition to read any of this.
Next on the pile was a strident letter from Munasee's governor about the Great Road, which she wrote was becoming impassable, upsetting trade and travel.
Innel recalled yesterday's meeting with House Passare, which had not gone well. Between the limits of Innel's actual authority, and Passare's demand for more money, exactly nothing had been agreed to.
First Rider Passare had drummed his fingers on the table. "First Rider" was one of the many unique House titles that Innel must know, made more challenging by the Houses' habit of changing them at every House tiff and make-up kiss.
"It's the higher prices for bitumen and lava, Lord Commander. As you know, repair work is a net loss, one not covered under the current contract with the monarchy."
"I understand entirely, First Rider." Innel affixed what he hoped was a sympathetic look on his face. "The work of roads is essential."
As were a hundred other things.
The Second Rider spoke. "Across the empire, order is kept only by virtue of the roads. What far better work we might do, ser, if we held Lesser House Phaltos."
Ah, Phaltos. Phaltos made adhesives, mortars, and waterproofing compounds, all of which road-building relied upon.
"I understand entirely," Innel said again, "We all look forward to the possibilities that the Charter Court engenders."
It was, he decided, a very good phrase. He planned to use it again.
"Just so," said Passare's First Rider, his disappointed smile showing that he understood the message: Innel would do nothing.
"What else do they say, Srel?" he asked.
"Celebrations across the city for the birth of the heir, Lord Commander. Many follow the Blessing Doctrine."
Innel let out a long stream of air. "Tell me they are not exercising the Doctrine in the streets."
"Enthusiastically."
Well, it kept the people busy. There were worse ways to celebrate.
"Did this happen when Cern was born?"
"Day and night, I'm told," Srel replied. "It slowed only when the king revealed the princess publicly. Because the queen and heir have yet to be seen, the people assume this means they should continue."
"And in the palace and Houses, I assume even more."
"Yes, ser. The Princess's Cohort is on the minds of many."
"More than minds, no doubt," Innel muttered. He stood, took his wine in hand, and walked to the window, looking out at the new construction in Execution Square.
Innel had not yet considered the Princess's Cohort, but of course there would be one.
"What do they say about the provinces? Garaya?"
"Lord Commander, you must eat. Let me send for food, ser. You—"
Innel turned back. "I rely on you to tell me, Srel."
His steward pursed his lips. "Some say that the ore shipments and quieted rebellions are not to your credit, but Garaya..." he trailed off.
But Garaya was his fault. Of course.
But some truth to that. "I should never have sent Sutarnan to lead that force."
Srel snorted in disgust. An unexpected, and decidedly unservile sound.
"Lord Commander, forgive me, but you provided Sutarnan with a wealth of seasoned advisers. Either he ignored them—which would not have been at all unlike him—or there were no means by which the situation in Garaya might be redeemed. You've said it yourself across the years: not all battles can be won."
It was one thing to say it. Another to live it.
"Otevan—you returned from there triumphant, Lord Commander."
Otevan had very nearly been a complete disaster.
"I had help," Innel said quietly. Amarta dua Seer. Marisel dua Mage. The Teva themselves.
"Surely that could be said of any of us, ser?"
Innel looked at his steward's determined expression, and wondered what the small man saw in him. Someone very grand, no doubt. Innel took a large swallow from his wine.
In Garaya, Sutarnan had lost, to a man, the entire army that Innel had sent with him to quell that rebellion. That wretched failure reflected poorly on the queen. More poorly on Innel, of course, but it was his job to deflect blame from her where he could, so that she could protect him.
And now Garaya was trading with the borderlands of Perripur and ignoring taxes and tariffs in outright defiance of the law and crown. Beyond unacceptable. He considered sending another, larger force. A greater disaster in the making, if that were lost—other towns and cities would wonder if they could follow Garaya's lead.
Perhaps it was time to consider the unthinkable: negotiation. Hard to swallow, giving any ground to a rebel city. No matter how secret the arrangement, word would get out, and that would be even worse.
No—any response to Garaya would need Cern's backing, after she was fully restored to health.
He examined Srel a moment. "What aren't you telling me?"
The smaller man swallowed nervously, and looked down for a moment. "Some say that Cern's illness is reminiscent of the old king's."
"Meaning?"
Srel swallowed. "At your hands, ser. To put yourself in line for the throne."
"That," Innel said with a clenched jaw, "is absurd. I have as much chance of ascending the throne as..." he paused. "As you do. Less, really—you haven't made as many enemies." He gave Srel's face another look. "There's more. Something worse. Out with it."
Srel heaved a deep sigh. "Some whisper that a half-commoner child will break under pressure, like an ill-made sword."
Innel felt himself go hot. Srel watching his face, took a half step back.
"No, she will not. She will have every educational advantage that her position both requires and allows, and her Cohort will be full of the most capable and clever children in the empire. Not only spoiled House brats."
"Yes, ser."
"She'll be protected, every moment, until she is strong enough to rule. Then she will."
"Yes, ser."
Innel let himself sink back in to his chair. He took his cup in hand. It was empty. "More."
"And food, ser."
"And Nalas. We need to discuss a new guard. The Princess's Guard."
"If you say so, Lord Commander." Nalas's tone did little to hide his lack of enthusiasm.
Innel examined his second's face. "You don't approve?"
"If you want my opinion, ser."
"Speak."
Nalas shifted weight where he stood, stared into the distance. "You form a new guard out of—who? The old guard? Breaking them into two parts?"
"No, that would diminish the numbers. I want more guards in total, of course." Innel heard the edge in his voice. Wasn't this obvious?
"Going to be tension between the old and new, then."
"So?"
Nalas blew out a stream of air, gave one nod. "Respectfully, ser, not everyone was raised in the Cohort as you were, to compete. We've got truly loyal people in the queensguard, ones we've checked and trained, willing to put their lives between any threat and her majesty and the child. Make a new group, they'll wonder, did I do something wrong? Am I being replaced? Who are these newcomers? Can I trust them?"
"We are concerned about the feelings of the guards?"
"No, ser. Concerned about effectiveness. We replaced nearly the entire queensguard after the kennel attack. Anyone possibly connected to those traitors is gone. The guard is already plenty suspicious of each other."
"That's good."
Nalas tilted his head. "There's a balance between trusting each too much, and suspecting everyone at your side. Bring in new people, and that line changes."
"Then change the line! If there had been more guards around the queen, the kennel attack would never have come close to succeeding. Or happened at all. Quantity has a value all its own. Add more guards, Nalas."
"I will, ser. Of course. It's just that... we can't read hearts and minds, ser. Not really."
"I want the best, Nalas."
"Yes, ser."
"What of the Seer's sister and nephew?"
Nalas clicked his tongue. "The palace is not kind to commoners, ser."
Innel had lived that truth his whole life. The wedding would, he decided, be well-attended. He would tell Srel to make certain of it, and to be sure that they were convincing.
"Pas is good," Nalas continued, "but I think he'd be good anywhere. He always sees the bright side." Nalas grinned but it faded. "Dirina's doing her best, but I know she feels out of place. She must really like me," he said with a rueful smile.
Amarta dua Seer would come to her sister's wedding, and when she did, there could be no question that her sister and nephew were happy, so that she would return again and again.
"We'll see to it that she's content, Nalas."
"Gotta tell you, not sure how to do that, ser."
"I'll put the queen's seneschal on it."
Nalas's eyebrows rose slightly.
Innel met the other man's eyes. "My daughter is the presumptive heir to the throne. We need the best guard the empire has ever known. Make it so."
"Yes, ser."
"Five, Lord Commander," the Helata general said slowly. "We can have those ships ready by..." He was flipping between pages, then frowned deeply, sea-beaten lines furrowing his brows. "I don't see how we can have them ready by the Charters Court."
An irrelevant deadline, but this was not the first time Innel had encountered it.
"Take longer, then," he said.
The admiral sat back, regarded Innel. "Lord Commander, let me be sailor-direct with you. House Kincel has been lowering the cost of Phaltos's glues and sealants in anticipation of the Charters Court." He stroked one side of his thick mustache with his two smallest fingers. "Prices will rise after the close of the Courts, as they always do. Considerably. Now, if we were certain who would hold Phaltos, after the Courts, we could make accommodations immediately, as well as fashion a mutually favorable contract with the crown."
House Phaltos's adhesives and waterproofing compounds were essential to shipbuilding. Their patron house, Kincel—the House of Stone—would hardly give them up without a fight.
"Kincel has held Phaltos three Courts now," Innel said. "They are not going to..." No, he could not say that. Everyone knew that he had no standing to make promises about the Courts, but everyone also knew—or assumed—that he had the queen's ear, and could influence her decisions, so he must not say anything now to undercut her rulings in the Charters Courts.
How to be politic? He considered.
"I would be," he said, "unsurprised to find the queen willing to amend this contract in order to allow for changing costs, should circumstances likewise alter."
There, that lacked commitment.
The admiral blinked, making sense of the implication, cautiously pleased. "I will look forward to that conversation with the queen. Which might be when, Lord Consort?"
"Soon."
"The child is what? A month and ten days in life?"
"Yes."
"House Helata knows great joy at the birth of the heir. Does she have a name?"
"No," Innel said, in a tone that he hoped would invite no reply. For a long moment, it didn't.
"Always a pleasure doing business with the crown, Lord Commander," the admiral said at last, but made no move to stand.
"The pleasure is mutual," replied Innel, not pointing out that he was not, in any sense, the crown.
"Ah, one more thing," said the admiral, still sitting. "I admit to being conflicted about passing on what is probably only a jest. And yet..." He dug inside his coat, brought out a folded paper, held it between two fingers. "This note has passed through many hands to arrive in my possession. While it is true that I know what it says, I do not know, as I am certain you will, what veracity it might hold. I have every faith in you and the queen's retinue, and so it, as I say, is likely only good for a laugh, but surely even a laugh is worth—"
"Admiral."
"Yes. Well. Here." The admiral moved his fingers, the paper between them, closer to Innel, but only by a few inches, requiring Innel to come to him.
Innel stifled annoyance—he'd been dealing with such slights since he joined the Cohort. He leaned forward, took it, sat back, opened it, and skimmed.
Another sketch of another plot.
"Where did this come from?"
"Given to me, Lord Commander, by one of my captains. Came to him through another, then another. Sailors are like birds, you see, passing on information like splats of excrement-soaked seeds. Probably nothing, but I deemed it worthy of your attention."
The way the Admiral was smiling, it was clear he thought that Innel had just incurred a debt to him.
The note was specific, mentioning which window in the gallery under the queen's suites would need to be loosened to be opened from the outside gardens, and at what time in the early morning a person dangling there would be unlikely to be seen.
When Cern was eleven, the Cohort had gone on a binge of leaving small gifts for her, outside that very window. The described route had been a favorite to achieve the dangerous climb. Dangerous, but nowhere near impossible, as a good number of the Cohort boys had proved.
Innel remembered a tiny, cleverly woven straw falcon with spread wings. He'd found it in a down-city market. He and Pohut had strung it across her window as if it were in flight.
The next day in the yard, a twelve-year-old Cern looked at them both, smiled a little, then briefly spread her arms like wings.
They'd given each other a victory grin. He must remind Pohut of that. His brother would laugh. And it had been too long since they had...
His brother was dead.
Innel blinked and looked again at the note. Not a bad plan, but far out of date—Cern hadn't slept in those suites in years.
He thanked the Admiral, assured him that Helata's interest in the queen's safety would be remembered, and showed him firmly to the door.
Whoever had conveyed this set of instructions wanted money. They described how to wash it through a series of contacts, a plan that Innel could break easily, if he cared to put the men on it. Cohort? Maybe, but it was clumsy.
Or Cohort pretending to be clumsy.
Really, it smelled of a simple swindle, rather than a plan with teeth.
He went to the window, pulled back the drapes, and gazed down on Putar's latest work.
It had snowed lightly last night, and swirls continued to fall. A huge set of scales sat in the center of Execution Square, one side designed to shed snow, the other to collect it. Between them, the condemned man looked up at the sky, his face pale in the wan daylight, statue-like. A simple leather cord around his neck tightened, ever so slowly.
For a moment Innel was curious: what was he thinking? Was he remorseful for his crimes, or merely regretting having been caught?
There would be no public executions for the traitors Innel would lay hands on shortly. They were tiny weeds that could be yanked with the smallest finger.
The greatest traitors, though, Innel had every intention of giving to Putar for his clever extravaganzas. But he would need to accumulate more evidence, and wait for the queen to be healthy and ready to back him.
He wondered if the Eparch of House Etallan would be as quiet and dignified as the man in the square below. He doubted it.
In any case, it must not and could not be rushed. Those truly potent plots had deep roots, sunk far below, under blankets of snow.
Innel looked in on Cern and the baby as often as he could. Some days every hour, standing and watching them sleep for as long as he dared before returning to work.
He watched the guards in her quarters closely enough that they twitched, and kept watching until they stopped. He observed the quins—the five-men units in which queensguards were trained—replaced each other. He made sure Nalas varied the times.
Gifts arrived for the child. Congratulatory notes penned in high-form script, often with postscripts mentioning subtle—and not-so-subtle—favors that might be granted in return.
He read every one of them and had the gifts sent to a guarded inventory, for inspection, and to await Cern's recovery.
Which surely would not be long now. And then... He imagined Cern holding court, his daughter perched on her lap, and himself at her side.
His daughter. Her baby face swam into his mind's eye again and again. She stared at him. She blinked.
He looked around his office at the room that he nearly lived in. Weapons and maps on the walls.
It stank, he realized suddenly.
No, that was him.
Well, he could now at least see over the piles, and that must be considered a minor triumph. He reached for his wine, downed it.
"More."
Srel poured.
"The other business," Innel said quietly, opening a large drawer in which were bills, names, numbers, addresses. Money offered, demanded, proposed. Anything that had come to him through back-channels.
Anything to do with the queen.
Srel laid out two new piles onto the small open space on Innel's desk.
The first pile was probably nothing, but was kept in Innel's lockbox, in case it later turned into something. The second, Srel would look into, hiring arms-length agents to bring back reports.
The third pile was important enough that even Srel didn't know about it. It remained now in a flat pouch in Innel's vest, on his person at all times.
Innel looked at a new scrap of paper. It contained a tincture recipe.
Innel knew a great deal about poisons, because the rumors about what he had done to the old king were partly true, though he hadn't expected the old man to hoard the dose in quantity sufficient to kill himself. So it was obvious to Innel, at a glance, that this particular elixir would give someone a stomach ache and nothing more. More likely a half-hearted attempt to get back at a former friend or jilted lover, and nothing at all to do with the queen.
"Next?"
"This, ser. Seems a tad expensive for flowers."
Innel knew what it was. More than a tad. Many times too expensive. It had taken Innel some work to obtain the money without its lack being noticed, but Srel had found it anyway.
"A friend of my mother's," Innel said. "A favor. A small thing. I'll take it." He tucked it into his vest.
Most moves against the monarchy were obvious—bribes, attempts to foul food, accusations, lies—but some were more subtle. It was an open secret that some in-palace royals from a line descended from the Grandmother Queen were still nursing the hope they might move themselves up on the rumored succession list. The list Cern had yet to make.
Some of them had been on Restarn's list and felt they had a right to be on Cern's. But were they brazen enough to try to unseat a sitting monarch?
Probably not. Any cut to the monarchical Anandynar line was a cut to their own. Further, few of the royals were Cohort-hardened, so they didn't know how to see such schemes through to their end. Fearful enough not to want to risk what they already had for what they might yet.
Though if they thought Cern's recovery in doubt, they might take a shot.
One of Innel's most reliable down-city informants had delivered a rumor that some of House Elupene was, with serious coin, backing royals fitting this description. The informant had gone one step better and laid hands on someone from Elupene's vassal House Flore, a man discontented and ready to act against his patron house. Ready to talk. He only needed a nudge, said the informant.
So Innel had funded the matter. It began with a quantity of overpriced flowers.
"Where shall I have these flowers sent, ser?" asked Srel.
Innel had not considered the quantity of flowers he was buying at exorbitant prices until this moment.
"Sachare. She'll know what to do with them." She would check every one, is what she would do. Good. Keep her busy.
"Yes, ser." The next item was a plain envelope, addressed to Innel. "Probably another forgery, but you would know."
Innel read it, then again, more slowly. Like the note the admiral had brought, it was an offer to help.
Unlike that note, it referred to him as brother, in the flippant style of the Cohort.
He didn't recognize the handwriting, but at the bottom were a series of numbers that he did: the bell-times at which one quin of the Queen's Guard relieved the next. It was information that only the guards, himself, and Nalas were supposed to have.
The note offered to explain, but only if Innel showed up to meet the unsigned author, at the Broken Prayer, a mid-city inn.
"This I need to go to," Innel said, rubbing his face.
"I'll make arrangements, ser."
Hours later, Innel found himself staring at the many pages of a particular Account and Petition. As plots against the queen went, this one was singularly tedious. He set it down with reluctant admiration.
The rambling report began with a full three pages of praise for the queen, which was two pages longer than typical, then launched into a grindingly dull recounting of the produce of House Sartor since the last Charters Court. Lists and tallies, long descriptions, lengthy sentences.
One sentence spanned an entire page. Innel struggled to keep focus.
Then he'd found the buried nugget and perked right up.
No Account and Petition was binding on the monarch's decisions. But if she did not reject it—or parts of it—it could be used to support a formal argument during the insanity of the months-long Charters Courts, making Cern's job more complicated, which was why she must read every one of them. She could object to portions of them, and would, when it was worth the insult to the House to do so.
Sartor was clearly hoping to have the document approved by the queen, then use it to put a wedge between Kincel and Passare, who, for Houses, got along rather well.
"Clever," he said aloud. "Sartor's attempt to reinterpret Kincel's vassal charter with Phaltos would have the crown paying a hundred times more for every road."
It was hard to understand the Cohort if you hadn't gone through it. Even the families of the Cohort often failed to grasp how grueling and effective the education was.
King Restarn had a team to handle these reports. Cern did not, as of yet. So it fell, like so much else, to Innel. House Sartor probably thought it would slide right past him.
"Tired, not stupid," he muttered.
His head ached. He reached for his wine glass. It was empty. "Srel?"
A soft snoring sound from the cot in the corner told him it was quite late, and that meant it had been hours since he'd last looked at Cern and the baby.
His heart sped. There was too much hallway between his office and the queen's room, but his body felt too heavy to stand.
"Srel."
The smaller man, popped up to his feet, swaying slightly. "Ser?"
"In the morning, I want you to—"
"I think it is morning, ser."
Innel glanced at the drawn red drapes. A line of light limned the edges.
"So it is." He reached automatically for the wine, fingers hesitating just short. No—that would not make him feel more awake. Sometimes it was hard to remember that he had money. "I need to think clearly. Can you get me qualan?"
"White or bronze?" Srel asked, stifling a yawn. At Innel's sharply questioning look, he said, "Oh, I don't use it, ser. I could never afford it. But I've been with you through the Cohort, when it was my duty to know what the others were doing when they weren't studying."
Qualan was astonishingly expensive, but Innel had tried the white once, and it had given him a rich sense of easy confidence and clarity that he could use now. Bronze qualan was only rumor. "Where would you get bronze?"
A dismissive gesture. "It doesn't matter, ser. Phapha is what you want, not qualan. I'll find you some. What about that, ser?" he nodded at the document Innel had been reading.
"It's shit with nails," Innel said, too tired to summon more eloquent language. "But must be responded to."
"I will fashion a reply, ser."
Innel looked up. "You?"
"A first draft only," Srel said. "For your review."
"For the queen's review, you mean."
"Yes, of course, ser."
Innel pushed himself to stand. "I go to check on them."
"You should sleep, ser."
"Later."