Our Lady of the Islands (24 page)

Arian looked in astonishment at Viktor, then at Hivat. “Then … she is
not
a fraud?”

“It begins to seem so,” Hivat said. “During the past week, my agents have begun encountering tales of people miraculously healed from all sorts of ailments by this so-called Lady of the Islands. Until Sergeant Ennias appeared this afternoon, however, we had found no one who knew — or would admit to knowing, anyway — who this woman was; and, to be quite candid, my lady, the very suddenness of so many seemingly implausible tales led us to dismiss them out of hand as just one more manifestation of the religious hysteria that has gripped the islands since that would-be priest appeared.” His eyes, she noticed, wandered everywhere just then except toward her husband. “The rumors we were hearing just seemed far too overblown to merit serious consideration. This Lady of the Islands seemed to be everywhere at once, and yet never anyone identifiable.” He shrugged. “What were we to think?”

“Then, she might really heal Konrad?” Arian exclaimed, hardly daring to believe. “And Escotte has her?”

“So it would seem,” Viktor said, looking anything but happy. In fact, everyone looked extremely grim.

“But why is this bad news?” she asked, rising from her chair. “Why have we not —”

“Arian, my love,” Viktor said softly, “you are so much smarter at this sort of thing than I am. Can you really still not see it?”

“See what?” she asked. “If there’s finally a real healer on these islands, and Escotte has her safely in his …” Then she saw it, and sat down again. “Oh … Oh dear.”

Hivat nodded. “He’s had her there for nine full days, and not a word to either of you. Or to anybody else we know of. It would seem, my lady, that the Census Taker may want your son to die.”

“I’ve been telling you for months now,” Viktor sighed. “They want my head.”

“You’ve been telling me that
my
family wants your head,” she replied, trying to untangle the vast new knot of possibilities unfurling in her mind. “But this is
your
family, Viktor. That’s what I cannot begin to understand. Escotte is Alkattha too. If Konrad dies, you have no heir and would surely be deposed. Your cousin knows as well as we do that any family replacing us would trade out the Census Taker too. Why slit his own throat that way? It makes no sense.”

“Unless he’s been assured by someone that in exchange for his help securing the Factorate, they will keep him on,” said Viktor. He began fiddling with the bronze latch on his map-case. “The question now, it seems to me, is who, and how many others in our camp might be in league with this conspiracy?”

“If the Census Taker himself is turned against us,” said Hivat, “then, beyond the people in this room, I fear there may be absolutely no one we can trust completely.”

Arian looked sharply up at Sergeant Ennias. Deception might run in many directions. If someone wanted to drive a wedge just now between the Factorate and the Census Taker, for instance … “What exactly led you to come betray your own employer, Sergeant?”

He looked her in the eye this time, betraying no sign of nervousness at all. “After the boy had been healed that night, I was told to lock both of Domina Kattë’s companions up inside his private detention facility beneath the house — where they remain today. Lord Alkattha clearly did not want his cousin to know what he’d done with them. A chance comment from her just this morning leads me to believe she’s been told they’re off on some important secret mission on his behalf.” He gave Arian a shrug. “They did attack a detachment of duly appointed house guard, I guess, but only in response to the incorrect but well-intentioned assumption that we posed some dire threat to the Census Taker’s cousin. I have never understood why Lord Alkattha should want them locked away for that — in secret, even from his cousin — nor why a healer of her obvious power was being held in secret too, when all the world knows of your great need for her services.”

“You say held in secret,” Arian interjected. “Is she part of this conspiracy? Does she hide there willingly, or is she captive against her will?”

“Not quite either, I would say,” said Ennias. “I think she believes she’s being hidden there from the temple, but … Lord Alkattha has made it very clear that no one is to know she’s there, and I do not think she would be allowed to leave the hall, even if she asked to. She is very closely guarded, even inside the house; always accompanied by her maid during the day, and at least myself or Lord Alkattha at other times. She seems more a prisoner to me, however unwitting, than a guest. Which is why I thought I’d better come make sure I wasn’t being made party to some act I would be left to take the blame for later. I did not enlist to be anybody’s scapegoat, my lady.”

“But why come all the way to Domni Hivat, rather than to some more immediate superior?” Arian asked. This defection still seemed terribly convenient.

“My lady, none of my superiors are higher in the chain of command than the employer I had come to check on, and as there were clearly important secrets being kept at the highest levels here from someone, for some reason, I had no idea what I might spill into the wrong ears, even if Lord Alkattha’s motives were legitimate. Especially if they were legitimate.” He shrugged again. “I knew who the master of
all
secrets was, and assumed that if even he did not know what I had to tell him, I’d have been right to come.”

She nodded, impressed despite herself. “You are a perceptive man, Sergeant. Perhaps you would be better employed as a diplomat than as a soldier.”

“Soldiers are the front line of diplomacy, my lady, are they not?”

She could see him suppress a smile, and felt sure that if she were not the Factora-Consort, he’d have winked at her. She was developing a begrudging respect for him, despite his
hysterical woman
remark.

“To our good fortune,” said Hivat, “it seems he spoke to no one else before reaching me, my lady. I brought him straight here to the Factor. We may reasonably hope that none of this conspiracy suspects we are the wiser yet.”

“Which buys us some time, perhaps,” said Viktor. “Now we must decide what we’re to do with it — and quickly.”

“So, who has more to offer your dear cousin than his own quite powerful family?” Arian asked. “That’s what I still want to know.”

The room fell silent as everyone grew thoughtful — except for the sergeant, who just stared straight ahead, awaiting further instruction.

“Could Escotte think to make
himself
Factor somehow,” asked Arian, “once Viktor was deposed? That, at least, would make a little sense.”

“I don’t see how he could do it without some other substantial base of political support,” Hivat said. “And I can hardly imagine any of the other families supporting an Alkatthan candidate over one of their own house. Maybe House Suba, but …”

“What about the temple?” Arian parried. “Their support of Escotte might mobilize enough of the general public to overrule the wishes of any single house. Duon had this healer in his possession too, it seems, and said nothing to us either.”

Hivat shook his head. “If the Census Taker were in league with the temple, my lady, why not just hand Domina Kattë right back to them, and let her rot there? Far fewer of his fingerprints left on this that way, if it were discovered — as it has been. And why would Duon have spent the past week promising to deliver her to you if their intent were simply to withhold her? No, it seems more likely now that this mysterious healer Duon’s been promising was, in fact, Sian Kattë. They were probably planning to disguise her as a priest somehow, just long enough to use her gift to heal Konrad and restore the temple’s reputation, then dispatch her somehow. But it seems they lost her before she could be put to their intended use. I would guess Duon’s been vamping ever since in hope of finding and arresting her again.” He gave her a dry smile. “I’d give a small fortune to know how her escape was managed. That might tell us quite a lot about who else is really playing here.”

“Still …” said Viktor, staring inward. “Might there be members of this conspiracy even inside the temple — unknown perhaps, even to Father Duon?”

“Like whom, sir?” Hivat asked. “Have you some particular suspicion?”

“My son seemed to be healing for a time. Then, suddenly, his illness returned and he’s grown worse ever since — no matter what his priestly healers seem to try …”

Arian felt her jaw go slack as his meaning registered. “Are you suggesting he’s been
poisoned?
By the
priests themselves?
”

Hivat looked troubled, his gaze turned inward too now. “We do have reconnaissance suggesting that Duon is not much better liked inside the temple these days than he is here in this room. He is perceived by many of his own priests as … well, rather pampered and self-serving, apparently. He could be headed toward a coup of his own, I suppose, completely unaware. If the Census Taker promised to throw his own considerable resources into seeing Duon replaced — legitimately or covertly — by one of these conspirators, perhaps, that might explain the temple’s strange lack of success — as well as Duon’s apparent ineffectuality.”

“I want every priest removed from this house, immediately,” Viktor growled, turning as if to march to the door and make it so.

“My lord,” said Hivat, stopping Viktor with a placating gesture. “If this conspiracy has any reason to believe they’ve been discovered, they might feel forced to desperate measures. We could bring the coup down on your head this instant without any time to prepare ourselves.”

Viktor looked down at Arian. “I believe my wife has given us all the cover we need — for this, at least. How
did
your conversation with Duon turn out, my love?”

“I … He … When I realized he had been lying about all of it, I …” She looked down and shook her head. One more
hysterical woman
for the sergeant’s collection. “I told him we would have his head, basically. … In front of everyone this time.”

“There! You see?” Viktor raised his hands triumphantly. “How could we possibly continue to trust priests in Konrad’s chambers after such an altercation with their leader? Everyone may wonder if we’re crazy, but no one will wonder why we sent them packing so suddenly.” He gave Arian a grim smile, which she hadn’t the heart just then to return.

“It will be seen to, then,” Hivat said, still clearly very dubious.

“But what good will that do now, if Konrad dies anyway?” Arian protested. “There is someone in this city who can heal him, and we know exactly where she is. We
must
get her out of there and bring her to him while there’s time!”

“My lady, I see no ready way to do that without alerting the Census Taker that he’s been discovered. I can think of no better way to ignite whatever coup may be in the offing. We simply must have time to find out how badly your own household has been infiltrated, and then to formulate a plan for defusing the plot without launching Alizar right into civil war. For that is what’s at stake here. Civil war. The stars themselves have seemed aligned against this nation for some time now. All these islands need is one more shock, and the entire fabric could give way. We have no choice but to act more cautiously than ever.”

“Which means that I’m to sacrifice my son, our heir, to the slender hope that if we all just sit still enough and hold our breaths, this storm may dissipate?” She looked up at her husband, trembling with frustration. “You just told me that if there was any way to fight, even with our feet, you’d do it. Did you mean for our son, Viktor, or just for Alizar?”

“Arian … please. Don’t cast the difficult decisions before us in such a light. I exist —
we
exist — to care for Alizar. I too love our son. I would do anything within my power to save him, but I cannot plunge the whole nation I am sworn to serve into fiery chaos just to spare myself … or those I love. That would mean betrayal of all I’m sworn to do and be.”

“So you would betray instead the son who loves and trusts you?” Arian surged to her feet once more. “To accommodate a country that would throw you — and me and Konrad — to the sharks without a second thought? You said yourself, this morning, that they only endure us so they’ll have a …” she glanced at Ennias, “a scapegoat to spare themselves responsibility! Well, we’ve given them our best for half a lifetime, but we owe
no one
the life of our son. If there’s a woman out on Cutter’s who can save him, then I want that woman here! No matter what it costs this ungrateful nation.” She spun to glare at Hivat. “Find a way to get her here immediately. I am done waiting and waiting while he dies.”

“Arian,” pled Viktor. “If Escotte has the slightest reason to suspect —”

“Tell Escotte he can have the Factorate!” she turned to snap at him. “Tell him we will give it to him — or to whomever he’s been plotting with — and good riddance! What joy has it ever brought us?” She turned back to Hivat. “Wouldn’t that help even more to ensure an orderly transition? Why let Konrad die, when we can just make plain to these conspirators that there is no one standing in their way?” All three men were staring at her now, in speechless astonishment. The quintessential
hysterical woman
. It made her want to scream at them — as loudly and as incoherently as she was able.

All her life, she had allowed the disciplines of statecraft to define her — first in her father’s house, and then in this one. It felt sometimes as if she had spent every minute of every waking day holding her breath in the fearful service of whatever avatar of wealth and power might be looking down and judging her performance. And now they wanted her to hand them Konrad and just look away. For the greater good of Alizar and the Alkattha clan.

Well, she was finished serving at such altars.

“I know what you’re all thinking,” she said, with glacial calm now, “and I don’t care.” She looked at Hivat, then at Ennias, and finally at Viktor, holding each man’s gaze until it wavered from her own. “You ask me how one child’s life can matter more than all these vastly larger things at stake. Is it not possible, gentlemen, that such perspectives are precisely what has led our country to this impasse?” She gestured toward a window at her husband’s fraying kingdom. “Ask these threadbare islands what has rotted all the bonds that once welded them into a nation. You say the stars have been aligned against us, Hivat, but I’d say we have simply been aligned against ourselves. If Alizar had not sacrificed so many children over all its centuries, perhaps there would be less discontent seething in its streets today, less ruthlessness driving its most fortunate citizens to betray each other. Less fear of
civil war
to bind our hands.”