Shadow Scale (27 page)

The road to Blystane was straight and well maintained compared with others we’d traveled in Samsam, but halfway there we lost half our escort.

We were camping. I was alone in the tent, naked from the waist up, washing the scales around my midriff, when the tent flap rustled behind me. I assumed it was Abdo coming in before I’d finished my nightly ablutions. I turned, intending to ask for a few
more minutes to myself, and met a different pair of black eyes behind me.

It was Rodya, staring in horror at the silver dragon scales across my back.

He screamed and scrambled backward away from me, knocking over the tent pole. The tent collapsed. My wash water spilled all over the bedrolls as I thrashed around. I kicked over the lantern, causing a brief flare-up, but the damp canvas smothered the flame. It seemed likely to smother me as well. Outside, Rodya screamed hysterically. Finally, a pair of calm, strong hands began pulling one end of the tent, dragging it off me. I rolled onto the wet ground.

I folded my arms, covering what I could, but my wide girdle of silver scales encircled me all the way around. Hanse stood over me, his creased face inscrutable, the canvas flung over his shoulder. Behind him, Rodya was practically dancing in the firelight. “There! See? What is she? A demon? A saar?”

“What are you,
grausleine
?” said Hanse in surprisingly clear Goreddi.

“My mother was a dragon,” I said, my teeth chattering.

Hanse raised his eyebrows. “And the boy?”

I nodded. “Is also half dragon.”

Then Rodya screamed again. Abdo had pulled a smoldering branch out of the fire and whacked him one-handed across the back of the knees with it. Rodya collapsed.

I saw him wander away from the fire. I should have hit him then
, Abdo said grimly, hitting Rodya again while he was down.

I scrambled to put on my shirt, which had fallen on the damp,
muddy ground. Rodya hadn’t brought his weapon into my tent, which was lucky; by the time I looked up again, he’d scrambled to his feet and was chasing Abdo around the fire. Abdo wouldn’t have stood a chance against the sword. Even now, Rodya came perilously close to catching him. Abdo dodged and rolled, trying to keep the fire between them.

Hanse watched in silence, sucking in his cheeks, coming to some conclusion of his own. As Rodya ran past, trying to catch Abdo, Hanse grabbed him by the shirt collar, wheeled him around, and punched him in the mouth.

“You saw her!” shrieked Rodya in Samsamese. “How can you take her part?”

“No, you saw her when you shouldn’t have,” said Hanse. “Did you not listen to your mother’s stories, boy? Never spy on strange maidies bathing.” He belted Rodya again. “They’re always the ones who turn out to be other than they seem.”

Rodya, his horse, and his things were gone by morning. Hanse would barely speak to me; that wasn’t new, but in light of recent events and without Rodya to fill the awkward silences, it was hard to take. It seemed we had one or two things we might have spoken about.
I just pray we don’t miss Rodya’s sword
, I told Abdo as we packed to go.

Rodya’s lucky to have a sword after last night
, he said, mounting his horse.

Hanse guided us toward the coastal plain, and the rain grew less constant. The drama with Rodya and the occasional appearance of the sun perked Abdo up for a few days, but it didn’t last. He wasn’t sleeping well; his eyes looked sunken. Around us the
landscape flattened into broad farms, cultivated with barley and flax; columnar poplars lined both sides of the road, their round leaves shivering anxiously in the breeze.

The crenellated walls of Blystane finally came into sight one afternoon. The cathedral spire rose above all, but I also discerned a fortress, bristling with towers, which I took to be the seat of government. The city had leaked out of its walls and puddled upon the surrounding plain. There was even a tent village to the north, which struck me as curious—and uncomfortable in soggy weather.

Hanse reined in his horse; I pulled up alongside and gave him a questioning look.

“Your destination,” said Hanse, his eyes unaccountably sad. “You’ll arrive within three hours, if you don’t dawdle. Well before sunset.”

“You’re not coming with us?” I asked.

He scratched his bristly chin. “I can tell you are a decent person,
grausleine
, and I could not abandon you in the middle of nowhere, with no idea of your way forward. But I also cannot …” He paused so long I wasn’t sure he was going to continue.

In fact, he wasn’t. He turned his horse around and motioned us to be on our way. Abdo and I rode on, incredulous, turning to watch him over our shoulders. He did not look back as he rode away.

So he took Rodya’s part after all
, said Abdo.

“He followed his conscience,” I said slowly, considering, “even when it went against his conscience.”

We spurred our steeds forward in somber silence.

The closer we drew, the less haphazard the tent village looked. The tents were laid out in an orderly fashion, many with identical blue and black stripes, many flying banners; there were horses and armed men and cook fires.
Abdo
, I said silently,
what’s going on here?

It looks like an army
, he said.

I thought so, too, but why was an army camped outside Blystane? I scanned the sky for smoke and strained my ears for cries, but there were none. A steady stream of farmers, merchants, and drovers passed us. The city seemed to be in no distress.

We were stopped at the city gate by guards in somber attire and questioned about our business. “We are envoys from Queen Glisselda of Goredd to His Grace the Regent of Samsam,” I said, fully expecting that to suffice. I had papers—only slightly damp—if he required more proof.

The guard, a mustachioed fellow with a distractingly pointy helmet, pursed his lips prissily. “Do you mean His Grace the Honored and Honorable Steadfast Servant of St. Abaster, Heaven’s Regent Until the Return, Harald Erstwhile Earl of Plimpi?”

“I suppose so,” I said. In Goredd, we never used his full title. I began to see why.

“You suppose wrong,” said the guardsman nastily. “He is no more—Saints judge him justly. Goredd won’t have heard that yet, it seems.”

The worst was confirmed. It took all my years of lying practice, plus the reserves of heraldic nerve I’d gained in Ninys, to
appear unfazed. I looked down my nose at him and arched an eyebrow superciliously. “I’ll trot home and tell our Queen then, shall I? See how she wants me to proceed?”

“I’m only telling you for your own good,” he said, backtracking on his nastiness now that I’d shown myself uncowed. “You wouldn’t want to exhibit unseemly surprise when you meet our new ruler, His Grace the Honored and Honorable Steadfast Servant of St. Abaster, Heaven’s Regent Until the Return, Josef Erstwhile Earl of Apsig.”

That news almost knocked me off my horse.

Two gatehouse guards escorted us through the city to the castle—for our protection, they said. It was just as well, because I was too shocked to listen to directions. It took me half the length of the city to regain my wits. We passed half-timbered shop fronts and brick houses, all reassuringly solid. The cobbled streets were mostly empty, but I saw no sign that violence had occurred, or that the people were afraid.

So why was there an army outside? Had it been a peaceful succession? Had the old Regent died of anything resembling natural causes? I remembered Josef’s words the last time I’d seen him, that he was going to “make the Regent see sense … the kind that puts humans first over animals.” I should’ve told Kiggs or Glisselda what he’d said to me that day. I’d been so intimidated that I’d inadvertently kept a secret. I hoped we weren’t about to pay for my silence.

Goredd had had an ally in the old Regent. Josef was not nearly so predictable.

Our pointy-helmeted gatehouse guards accompanied us into the castle, all the way to the throne room, obviously keeping an eye on us.

The throne room, like St. Abaster’s Church in Fnark, reflected a Samsamese sensibility: dark wood paneling, tall glazed windows, perpendicular lines. What decor there was consisted of hunting trophies, including a grand chandelier of interwoven antlers, like the nest of some unfathomable eagle. At the far end of the hall, upon a dais, stood an alabaster throne, reserved for the blessed bottom of St. Abaster, should he make good on his threat to return. Beside it squatted the Regent’s modest chair of burnished wood, and before that was Josef, erstwhile Earl of Apsig, St. Abaster’s current deputy in this world.

I recognized him at once, dressed in his usual austere black doublet and white ruff. His blond hair was longer than he used to keep it; he tucked an itinerant lock behind his ear while I watched. He stood facing a long side bench, intended for counselors but mostly empty now, speaking quietly with the two people seated there.

The guards did not traverse the room but positioned themselves on each side of the door, breastplates clanking noisily, and waved us along. They would be blocking our exit. My heart quailed, but I took Abdo’s hand and led him the length of the hall, toward Josef and the others.

One of the people sitting on the bench was a bald, paunchy hunchback, dressed in a short brown houppelande cut to fit his odd figure. He glanced at us; I knew those square spectacles. It was the Librarian, whom Jannoula had called Ingar. That was fortuitous.

The second figure was a woman in a plain green surplice. Her head, perched on a swan-like neck, looked strangely small because of her short brown hair. Her fine-boned frame and porcelain complexion made her look fragile.

She looked up, directly into my eyes.

It was Jannoula.

Impossible. My mind rejected the notion outright—she was in prison, she couldn’t be here.

I glanced at Abdo, who had let go of me and was waving a hand in front of his face, as if shooing away invisible flies. He noticed me looking and said sheepishly,
This close to her, I can see the line she’s caught me with. It doesn’t dissipate if I put my hand through it, though
. He gestured toward Ingar with his bandaged hand.
She’s got a line connecting him as well
.

What comfort denial might have given me turned cold. How was this possible? What was she doing here? Had she been imprisoned in Samsam, and Josef let her out?

Josef followed Jannoula’s gaze and saw me. His handsome face broke into a sneer. “Seraphina! Now this is a surprise,” he said in flawless Goreddi.

I gave long, slow courtesy, stalling. It was hard enough to face Josef again, but Jannoula’s presence rattled me even more. “I come as Queen Glisselda’s envoy,” I said.

“She must be terribly hard up if she’s sending you,” he said, sauntering toward us. Josef had the same pointed nose as his half brother, but Lars never flared his nostrils so disdainfully.

“What have you done?” I asked Josef, my eyes involuntarily darting toward Jannoula. Perhaps the question was for her, too;
I couldn’t get over the fact that she was here. I forced myself to focus on the new Regent. “Is that your army outside?”

“It is,” said Josef, smiling tightly. “And what I’ve done is very simple. I marched on the capital. The Regent, believing my troops were intended to help fulfill our promises to Goredd, let me walk right in. And now he is dead.”

“The capital, the court … had nothing to say about this?” I said.

“My brother earls might have been a thorn in my side, had they demanded consensus, but their Erlmyt was canceled due to rumors of plague in Fnark.” Josef exchanged a significant look with Jannoula. “By the time they learn what has happened, it will be a history lesson, not news.”

I stared hard at Jannoula, wondering what that look had meant. Had the rumor of plague been her idea? Was she advising Josef?

She stared back brazenly.

“I’ve sent messengers to the earls,” Josef was saying. “They’ll know in two days, and they’ll have no choice but to accept it. I can’t inform Ninys yet, since Count Pesavolta is bound to tell Goredd. Queen Glisselda is not to know until the time of my choosing.”

“Which is when?” I asked, tearing my gaze away from Jannoula. “When she needs Samsam’s aid and you’re not there?”

“Goredd has allied itself with dragons,” said Josef, tossing his hair out of his eyes. “A true follower of the Saints, any real Samsamese, cannot countenance that. I have Heaven on my side,
Seraphina. Not only the valedictions of St. Ogdo and the strictures of St. Abaster, but the endorsement of a holy hermit.”

I glanced at Ingar in some confusion. Josef noticed where I looked and said, “Not him. He’s her disciple. Allow me to introduce Sister Jannoula.” He held out an arm toward her. She lowered her gaze and rose with a bashful curtsy.

We came to it at last. I folded my arms, unimpressed by Jannoula’s bashful act. By the look in Josef’s eyes, he was clearly smitten—though religiously or romantically, I wasn’t sure. Maybe it was too fine a distinction to make.

She was no holy anything. I couldn’t fathom how this charade of hers connected to her gathering of the ityasaari.

“Well, you’ve thoroughly fooled the new Regent,” I said aloud, addressing her as if it were just the two of us, still in my head. As if we were old acquaintances. Josef would surely wonder about that. “Does a prison cell count as a hermitage now?”