Finding Destiny (16 page)

The talker boxes, she knew, didn’t project their sendings more than the distance a person could comfortably ride in half a day. They could also be interrupted by bad weather or heavy spellcasting. As a result, their operators tended to send back any and all messages for confirmation. The process was a little cumbersome, but much, much faster than even a scout on a motorhorse could ride. That redundancy meant the message was as accurate as its sender could make it, and she knew Pells Chartman to be quite levelheaded and reliable.

“That’s a very odd message,” she murmured, pushing to her feet. Dusting off her tunic, she eyed Stevan again. “Recite for me King Devin’s words again, please?”

“‘Tell your queen that what she does is right and just,’” Stevan repeated, checking his notes. “‘Seek it further from the west if you wish peace for longer than a day. If you wish the same from the east, send your friend, the girl in gray. From the south, the solution is a solution, otherwise you waste your breath. From the north, the solution is the resolution brought by a firmly faced death.’”

Marta looked at Gabria. As usual, the other woman was clad in silvery gray wool, spun by her western-dwelling, sheep-raising kin. “Well,
one
part is easy to decipher, even if I dislike the thought of doing without your company. That is, assuming you’re willing to head to Aurul, Gabria, and be our next envoy there?”

“I’m not trained for it. I’m not even trained fully as a ... mage ... but if it’ll secure peace on the eastern border, I’ll go,” Gabria said, lifting her chin a little. She lowered it after a moment, an uncertain look in her green eyes. “Except, I don’t speak Aurulan, and the message doesn’t say how much of a delay we can risk before I have to go.”

“You have a point. We’ll find someone to give you some rudimentary lessons at the very least. Stevan, send back this message to Envoy Pells Chartman,” Marta instructed the talker box engineer.

Tearing off the top page, he handed it to her. Stevan then fished a charcoal pencil from the pouch at his waist and poised it over the tablet.

She nodded and began, speaking slowly enough that he could scribe each word. “To Envoy Pells. Please inform His Majesty with due courtesy that we shall send the ‘girl in gray’ as soon as the spring thaws have made it safe enough for her to cross the eastern mountains. We wish her to arrive alive and unharmed in the Seer King’s court so that she may enact a peaceful treaty between our lands. In the meantime, and as ever, we wish His Majesty good health and a long reign. Send a reply if any, and continue to act as our envoy until instructed otherwise. Marta Grenspun, Consul-in-Chief.”

When he finished, Stevan read back her words to her to confirm them, then nodded crisply. “Right. I’ll get this sent out immediately. Milady Chief, sub-Consul ... Sir Knight.”

His tone wasn’t rude, so much as speculative, Marta judged. Particularly since he eyed the way Zeilas was still seated on the quilt spread over the floor, and the remains of their makeshift picnic. With a brief, wordless lift of his brows, the talker box operator spun on his heel and strode out of the room.

He wasn’t the only one to eye Sir Zeilas with bemusement. Gabria studied him and his position, too, before shaking her head slightly, visibly dismissing her curiosity. “Right. We still have three more Seer King verses to make sense of. I’d leave the two of you to do whatever you were doing, but ...”

“But this is important. Not that what we were doing wasn’t important in its own way, either,” Marta added quickly, glancing down at her picnic partner.

The Knight pushed to his feet, dusting off his blue velvet clothes. “Nothing wrong in what we were doing. It’s just that the needs of your kingdom come first. I understand completely.”

The words
nothing wrong
and
just
stuck in her brain. Marta wanted to chase them down, but Gabria had moved closer, attempting to peer at the tablet page in her hand. Tilting it, she displayed it toward her friend. “What I do is right and just, apparently, which is all to the good. I’m
trying
to do what is right and just. That’s what being Consul-in-Chief is all about. But this second sentence puzzles me—the start of it, I mean. ‘Seek it further from the west,’ that part. What is ‘it’ and how does it relate to what I’m doing, versus what I seek from our allies?

“Sir Zeilas, do you have any idea what this means?” she asked, turning to him. “Perhaps ‘further’ means I should offer more treaties?”

He rubbed his chin, which from its smoothness she suspected he had shaved just before their picnic lunch, then shrugged. “I haven’t much experience in dealing with prophecies, to be honest, but ... It seems to me they come in two types. Either they unfold their meaning when the events predicted happen,
or
they have meaning which pertains to the moment they are revealed to their intended target. This doesn’t seem to have any sort of specific date or goal in mind—not an actual month or day like, oh, Fevra 7th or Mars 14th. Prophecies are never that specific. But they do refer to an event, when they
do
refer to one. This one is more like a set of instructions. ‘Follow this, and such and such will happen.’”

“So, you think it has more meaning for the context of the moment in which it was heard?” Marta asked.

“Well, it did specify the ‘girl in gray’ who is your friend,” Gabria pointed out. “I’m not your only friend, and I’m not the only person wearing gray clothes in the palace compound. But I was the first person Stevan saw as he came out of the talker room, I am your friend, and I did know where to find you, the intended recipient of the message.”

“Exactly. So, what we were doing was ...
right
and
just
?” Marta looked up at the Arbran Knight, confused.

Zeilas smiled. Smirked, rather. “What we were doing certainly seemed right, though I don’t know how ‘just’ it was.” Catching a curious look from Gabria, he shook his head. “Just getting-to-know-you things, that’s all. Respectfully.”

His gaze slipped back to her mouth. For a moment, Marta could once again feel the touch of his lips against hers. Clearing her throat, she focused on the paper in her hands. “Well, maybe it means respect and a cultural or social exchange of some sort. Which would make sense, if I would ‘seek it further than a day’ since with understanding often comes acceptance, or at least greater tolerance.” She eyed the next verse. “Which means you’ll be in charge of some sort of cultural exchange once you get to Aurul, Gabria.”

“I look forward to it,” the other woman quipped wryly. “Seers are strange enough, I don’t see why someone as socially awkward as me should be entrusted with this task.”

“You don’t seem the least bit shy to me, milady,” Zeilas offered politely.

Gabria wrinkled her nose. “Not shy, awkward. I
am
a ... you know.”

“Ah, yes. Married,” he quipped.

Marta snorted. She quickly covered her nose and mouth to muffle her giggles, which were worsened by her friend’s confused look. Waiving it off, she mustered some composure and muttered, “It’s a private joke ... Well. We’ll load you with ideas for cultural exchanges, as well as lessons in Aurulan, so at least the Aurulans can understand you if you ask for the nearest refreshing room or what time supper will be served. As for the south ... the solution is the solution?”

“It might be something you already know they need,” Zeilas said, rubbing his chin again.

“Considering they’ve waited almost a full year after our Patron Deity Manifested to agree to sending us an envoy ... which they haven’t yet
sent
,” Marta returned, “we don’t know much of what they
need
. In fact, the only thing I know most Sundarans ‘need’ is water, and they get it for free from the River Ev ... oh. Right. The River Evada.” Lifting a hand to the bridge of her nose, Marta rubbed at the headache threatening to form. “Right. The tailings and runoffs from the south valley mines. Well. I
have
been after the Mining Guild to clean up after themselves.”

“If the miners want peace with Sundara, like the rest of us, cleaning up the mining pollution in the river water
would
go a long way toward sweetening their feelings about us,” Gabria agreed.

“I’d have to agree,” Zeilas chimed in. “In my time down in southern Sundara, I did notice the locals were rather keen on pure water. The cleaner, the better. They use it ritually to purify themselves, confessing their sins and cleansing their souls even as they scrub their skin. It may not have come up yet because they may not have noticed, or they may simply be waiting for their envoy to bring it up once the preliminary stuff is out of the way ... but they will notice. Anything you do preemptively to make the river water better will also be noticed, and appreciated.”

“I’m not too up-to-date on my alchemical knowledge, but I do know they use certain extracts in the refining process for certain rare ores,” Marta muttered. “Some are acidic, some are alkaline, and many require one or the other opposing kind to neutralize their effects. That could be the ‘solution’ the Seer King had in mind for us. I’ll pressure the Mining Guild to cooperate with the Alchemy Guild on figuring out how to clean up the river.”

“That leaves just one verse left. Two guesses as to what it means, and the first one’s already been used up,” Gabria quipped.

Marta wrinkled her nose. “The north, and Warlord Durn the Dreaded. Well, even an idiot child could tell we’d have to fight him at some point. If ‘a firmly faced death’ means facing him in battle, then we’ll face him. But not without provocation. We’re creators now, not aggressors.”

“Sir Catrine has promised to show the Mage’s Guild several varieties of long-distance scrying spells,” Gabria said. “Combine that with some extra scout patrols from the border precincts, and we should have plenty of advanced warning on when Durn starts massing his troops this coming spring.”

Marta started to comment, then caught herself. She gave her friend a lopsided smile. “I was about to ask you to contact them, and see if the Mage’s Guild can offer some enchanting assistance as well, since a lot of our magical style was sublimated into alchemy over the years. But you’ll have to select a replacement from among your fellow sub-Consuls before you leave. Now is as good a time as any to go pick one out, so they’ll have time to learn and train.”

Gabria returned the half smile, making it look more rueful than wry. “You’re right. I’d better get started on that. I’ll see you later. Sir Zeilas . . .”

“Sub-Consul,” Zeilas returned, giving her a polite bow. She turned and left the parlor, closing the door in her wake.

“We don’t have much time,” Marta murmured. Turning to face him, she found her next set of words cut off by the way he wrapped his arms around her body and caught her mouth in a soft, succulent kiss. He didn’t kiss her for long, and when he pulled back, it was with a slight smile.

“Sorry, but I figured we didn’t have much time left in our scheduled picnic. You were saying?”

“I was about to say, if this prophecy relates to our
current
circumstances ... then more of ‘it’ for her would be more of
this
,” she pointed out, slipping her arms around his ribs. Then she sighed and scrunched her nose in a grimace, though she didn’t let go of him. “From a political standpoint, it makes no sense.
This
isn’t politically wise.”

“Agreed. If we court openly, they could question our judgment. If we court secretly and we’re discovered, they’ll question our motives for every decision made,” Zeilas agreed. “Besides, the prophecy implies that whatever we do here, the ‘girl in gray’ shall have something similar happen to her. That in turn would imply that she’s being called to Aurul to court or be courted. People don’t actually conduct politics that way. Not in this day and age, at any rate.”

Standing in the circle of their interlaced arms, Marta gave in to impulse. She leaned into him, resting her cheek on his shoulder, and sighed. “I may have to go back to being Consul-in-Chief in a moment, but I’m not going to regret this moment. I’m a leader and a woman, and I’m very glad you’re enjoying the company of the woman.”

“It’d be easier if you weren’t a leader,” he agreed, dusting the top of her braid-wrapped head with a kiss. Squeezing briefly, he released her and stepped back. “But you are, and I still respect you, as both a woman and a ruler. If nothing else, you
are
an elected ruler. I need only wait patiently for your term to be up.”

“Except I might get reelected,” she pointed out, chuckling. Mock-posing thoughtfully, finger on cheek, she added, “
Unless
I deliberately befouled my reputation with, say, flirting openly with an honored envoy ... oh, but to truly foul it up, you’d have to be offended, wouldn’t you?”

He lifted her hands in his, bowing over them with a warm smile. “That, I think, would be very difficult for you to do.”

His words warmed her from the inside out. She
liked
feeling feminine around him, for he was not only sincere, he didn’t diminish her in any way. “Then to a Netherhell with what anyone thinks. What we would do is not
wrong
. Not if we mind the difference between our positions and our persons.

“You and I shall continue to get to know each other, and perhaps even to court one another,” she allowed, reasoning it out loud. “We shall do so discretely in the sense of separating it from our occupational concerns, and discreetly in the sense of not being overly blatant or disrespectful about it ... but we will still court. When we can schedule the time for it, since I do have to leave in a few moments to meet with the Consul of the Accountant’s Guild. Is this course of action agreeable with you?”

Pressing a kiss to the backs of her knuckles, he murmured, “Eminently.”

FOUR