Chapter One
"I REQUIRE A BODY."
Natun admitted to himself that his cousin Bolah's lack of reaction was impressive. He had timed his words to see if she might waver even the slightest. Mid-pour, she had been, the pink stream of tea forming a surface froth in his porcelain cup.
Her motion continued smooth and deliberate as she returned the tea cylinder to its place on the side table, then seated herself across from him.
"What sort of body, cousin?" she asked.
A body that could be viewed by thousands, yet still not truly be known. But how to say that, without revealing too much?
It was a terribly delicate matter.
Natun had been summoned to the queen's chambers, a tenday after Innel sev Cern esse Arunkel had been taken to a tower cell, accused of high crimes against his monarch.
Across the palace, anything that had relied upon the duties of the Lord Commander and Royal Consort was in upheaval and disarray. To make matters worse, Innel's steward was missing, gone since that moment in the hallway when Innel had tossed the man on his ass.
Natun had half expected him to attempt to flee, and had plans to stop him, but he was gone, like a clever mouse into the cracks. At a guess, the man had gone downcity, from where he had come.
So when Natun had been called to the queen, he assumed that her majesty wanted to give him instructions as to the reapportionment of the Consort and Lord Commander's wide-ranging duties.
But no, the queen had wanted something very different.
She had put her hands on Natun's shoulders—that, shock enough—then looked into his eyes.
"Are you loyal to me?"
"With all my breath, Your Majesty," he had answered, despite—or perhaps because of—the unnerving touch, the riveting stare.
No monarch had ever laid hands on him so gently.
"I am gladdened to know it," the queen had said. "Because I need you to do something for me. Something extremely important. And it must be an absolute secret."
From the side of the room, the heir to the throne wriggled and whined in Sachare's arms. She set the baby onto the floor where the unnamed child grabbed an amardide block and attempted to put the entire thing into her mouth.
"Your Grace," Sachare said. "Someone will need to know. As capable as he is, he can hardly be expected to produce it from thin air."
The queen had not taken her gaze from Natun. He felt the intensity of her stare like a hot sun. She was the great Restarn's daughter, all right, and truly the Grandmother Queen's powerful blood ran through her veins.
Natun had always believed that the spirit of the Anandynars took the finest attributes from every House. In this moment, Cern seemed to be a living scepter, as though a line of fire ran down a fine rod that had been forged in seawater. Foolish imaginings, perhaps. But staring into her green eyes, Natun felt it in his very bones.
"Seneschal," the queen had said, "across generations, you have defended my family's most crucial confidences. You have held them secure, to your very great honor. I regret that I must ask you to hold another."
"It is my privilege and my duty, Your Excellent Majesty," he said in objection. He would have bowed then, deeply, but in her focused regard, he felt that he could barely move.
"As for my chamberlain's sensible advice, Seneschal, yes: rely on who you must."
And so it was that Natun had again come to Bolah.
He took a breath. "I require a body. One that is..." How to say it? "still alive."
"Ah?" Bolah held her cup between two hands. White steam drifted upward to the magenta-red draped ceiling. "As it happens, that describes a good many of them, so you may be in luck. Is that all?"
"No," Natun said shortly. "Cousin, this is quite serious."
"Of course it is." She gave him a long look. "Let me risk a guess: you want a body that resembles the man locked in the tower."
The Royal Consort and Lord Commander, accused of treason.
The look Natun gave her now should have frightened her; it certainly had brought a good many aristos and royals and even some high-ranking foreign dignitaries who had taken a step too far, and crossed a line, back to where they ought to be standing.
But no—her return look was starkly sober, steady. Not a hint of fear.
Had he already said too much? He pressed his lips together. No one could know, not ever, what he was doing here.
"Calm yourself, cousin," she said. "Only a guess, and a risked one at that. It is my business to notice coincidences. It happens that I have such a body to dispose of. It would be very much in my interests to have both ends of my problem well satisfied. I could provide you with this body—"
"Alive."
"Alive," she confirmed, "but I require that it be kept quiet until such a time as it might no longer have the opportunity to speak. If it must be tongueless to achieve this, that can be arranged."
Tongueless. She knew. Damn it, she knew.
Without realizing it, he was moving his lips up and down over his teeth. He forced himself to stop, to think.
She would know the whole of the matter by the time it was over, anyway. And Sachare was right: someone would have to know; Natun could not produce a suitable body out of nothing.
Rely on who you must.
"Did you say you had wine?" he found himself asking. "Something strong, perhaps?"
Bolah's eyebrows shot up. "I do, indeed. A second pressing from Arapur-Bruent. But let us first conclude our business, cousin. If I can provide you with what you need, can you assure me of the silence I require?"
Easily. The right combination of kanna, duca, and kreathro would keep anyone from making sense, and a light gag would do the rest. It was hardly the first time the monarch's seneschal had needed to keep someone from speaking intelligibly while easing their way through a public performance in Execution Square.
He exhaled, then sniffed.
"Yes," he said.
There, it was done. He had said what he must and had revealed what he had to, in order to serve his queen and his country.
He heaved a heavy, shuddering sigh. Bolah put her hands on his on the table.
"They are fortunate to have you, Natun. They cannot possibly know how fortunate."
He made a grunting sound that, he hoped, would tell her nothing about how unsettled he really felt. But she was Bolah, so she probably already knew.
She patted his hands and stood, giving him a warm smile.
"Now, the wine. Wait until you taste this, cousin. I think you'll find it quite wonderful."
It was the queen's seneschal's duty to call the Ministerial Council to a meeting.
Usually, having gathered all of the ministers into the council chamber—also called the Amardide Room, though no one but Natun used the formal title any more—with its high ceilings, desks, and rounded table in the center, Natun would wait outside for the monarch, then open the door himself and step aside to allow the monarch to enter first. He would follow, then reverse course, exiting with his finest and lowest bow, to station himself outside the room to make sure the meeting was appropriately undisturbed.
This time, however, at the moment when the monarch might enter, he himself stepped into the room. The doors closed behind him.
This was so unusual that he immediately had the weighty regard of the full Council, their assistants, and secretaries.
Natun knew from his lifetime of service to the monarchy that for the seneschal to take the center of attention was an exceptional occurrence.
The seneschal did not find it entirely comfortable. He cleared his throat, then did it again.
"Her Excellent Majesty," Natun said in his most officious voice, "will preside over the execution, to occur five days hence. The traitor—his name never to be spoken again, by royal decree—will be gagged, to protect the queen's ears from his falsehoods, and hooded to protect the heir from the wretchedness of the traitor's visage."
Putar, the assistant Minister of Justice, stood. "Seneschal, our execution plans are nearly complete. I need a tenday, at minimum, to arrange all the materials so that I may begin construction of the—"
"There is nothing to arrange," Natun said, cutting him off in his best the-matter-is-done tone. "And nothing to construct. It is to be a simple hanging, followed by the traditional chopping off of the hands and feet, and the burning of the body to purify the dirty betrayals of his actions against the entirety of the empire."
"A simple... what? No!" Putar turned a shocked look on his superior, the Minister of Justice, still seated.
"Seneschal," the Minister of Justice said, his gaze firmly on Natun as he motioned Putar to sit down. "This is unusually mild for a crime of this magnitude."
Natun took a moment to appear to consider the minister's opinion, then affected a slight change to his expression as if to partly concede the point. "It may well be unusual. I would need to consult the entirety of the histories of the empire to be certain, Minister." It galled Natun, this implication that he had not already done so, which of course he had, but to smooth the way, he must pretend otherwise. "However, the queen, in her great and abiding wisdom, has decided the matter is best resolved simply and quickly."
"An extended hanging, then," Putar said, only lowering himself to half-sitting, as if he might need to stand again at any moment. "Give me a day to arrange the details, Seneschal. A water drip, connected to the traitor's—"
"A simple hanging, Assistant Minister," Natun said.
A small grunt of dismay emerged from Putar's throat. He sat, his expression one of agony.
The First Minister spoke up. "A traitor. Surely this is far too much mercy to show such a disgusting creature."
Natun had known the First Minister since the man was a boy, serving as boot-man to the fourth assistant of the Minister of Accounts. Natun gave him a raised eyebrow that the boy would have recognized as disappointment.
"Perhaps the queen does not wish to glorify his person any more than the vulgar wretch deserves," Natun replied.
"But he is Cohort," said the ruddy-faced Minister of Accounts, who had never been.
Cohort, which meant something, even to those who were not.
Natun made a flat sound, one that he hoped spoke of his own polite forbearance. "Should a rabid mutt be dressed like a pheasant for the table, Ministers? Better to end the misery we all share than waste more time in pageantry."
Putar looked shocked, and mouthed the word: Pageantry.
The First Minister, demonstrating the flexibility of his convictions, nodded adamantly. "A commoner, too. Haven't we squandered enough coin on him already?"
Around the table heads nodded, all but the Minister of Justice and his assistant. Putar's face was more full of emotion and passion now than Natun could ever remember, even when the boy had been Cohort, enduring bullying because of his strange ways. Natun wondered if he kept a mental list.
Putar urgently whispered in the ear of the Minister of Justice, who shook his head tightly, waving him to silence.
"But why," asked the Minister of Accounts, "is Her Royal Majesty not here to tell us this herself?"
Natun drew himself up as tall as he could, ignoring the sharp complaints this produced from his lower back, and gave the Minister a look that he hoped would carry meaning beyond words. He looked at the rest of them, recalling how young each of them had been when they first came to serve at the palace.
"Her Excellent Majesty," he answered coolly, "has entrusted me to convey her commands to you, which I have done in most profoundly grateful obedience, a privilege that I trust I share with each of you. Have I been clear, Ministers, or do you require further explanation of the queen's instructions?"
"No, Seneschal," said the Minister of Justice, his hand now gripping Putar's shoulder tight enough to wrinkle the young man's fine garments, keeping Putar from rising out of his chair again. "We understand. A simple hanging it is."