The Crimson League (The Herezoth Trilogy) (40 page)

They joined the two nobles in the loft. “Where did Neslan go?” asked Hal. Lanokas said the library. Bidd turned to Laskenay, and whatever it was he had planned to say he lost at the sight of her face.

“Your eyes are red.”

“It’s the pollen in the air,” she said.

Hayden shared a skeptical glance with Hal, and insisted, “It looks like you’ve been cry—”

“I’m perfect as a peach.”

“Well then, I have something I need to ask you.”

Hayden proposed his gambling scheme. Lanokas listened with interest, nodding from time to time. Next to him, Laskenay was not impressed. Bidd mentioned his cousin’s winning streak, to which she responded he was clearly due a loss, but when Lanokas suggested that they sit a match, as Bidd carried a deck of cards among his things—that if Hayden came out on top, it proved his skill—Laskenay had to give in. Lanokas told her, “Gambling’s always a risk, I realize that. Where else will we get funds now?”

The sorceress sighed. “I’ll send Hayden to the inn, just this once—
if
he can demonstrate that he’s talent enough. We can’t afford to squander a single coin. Get Bidd’s cards. We might as well play now.”

Lanokas asked Hayden, “What’s your game?”

“Cradle.”

The prince had once stomped Kora playing Cradle at an inn north of Podrar. It was a complex game and responsible for teaching much of Herezoth’s uneducated population arithmetic. With aces worth eleven points in a hand, and kings, queens, and knaves holding a value of ten, addition was a necessary skill to participate. Basic subtraction featured as well.

All the Leaguesmen present had played before, or at least knew the rules, because Cradle was one of the most popular games in Herezoth, thanks to a carpenter from Yangerton. Eighty years before, the woodworker had augmented his income gambling merchandise (cradles) with expectant mothers and their husbands. If the clients won, they received a cradle free of charge. If the carpenter won, he received a sixty percent bonus on the price. Other artisans soon copied his business model with varying degrees of success.

Per Laskenay’s order, Bidd supplied a deck of cards. As the Leaguesmen lacked sufficient coins, they bet with blades of grass. Kora, largely due to what she had just learned from Zalski, paid little attention and became the first to lose. She watched Laskenay for the rest of the game from the corner of her eye, wishing she could speak to her. Bidd played more conservatively than usual, but still followed Kora. Hal dropped out next, then Laskenay, her departure leaving Lanokas in much better shape than Hayden.

Hal dealt the cards, six to each player. Hayden studied his for a moment and threw two to the side, as he had to, to later count against his hand. He said, “I’m betting everything.”

“That’s about half of what I have.”

Hayden proceeded to throw his dagger in with the pile of grass. “That should cover you,” he said. “Or it would, in an actual game.”

Rather than discarding as Hayden had done, Lanokas laid down one of his cards: the Ace of Fortune, its large black circle prominent. The prince’s opponent did not react, but Bidd groaned.

“He gets to see the cut.”

“So let’s have it,” Lanokas prompted.

Laskenay cut the deck near the middle and revealed the Nine of Knowledge, which would act as a fifth card for both players. When Lanokas then tossed out two cards from his hand, Hayden remained composed, but Bidd could hardly contain his nerves.

“Come on,” he urged, “let’s see them!”

Besides the Ace of Fortune and its eleven points, Lanokas held the King and Queen of Blades for ten each, and the Seven of Sorcery. With the nine that had been cut, he scored forty-seven points total, plus an additional five for each grouping of cards that added to twenty-one. He had two: the ace and king, and the ace and queen. That made fifty-seven points before he subtracted the value of the cards he set aside, a four and a deuce. Final score of fifty-one.

Hayden held the other sevens, each of which doubled in value because of the three-of-a-kind, for forty-two points. With his last card, the Three of Fortune, and the Nine of Knowledge Laskenay had randomly selected, he had fifty-four. The triple sevens, which summed at twenty-one, scored five additional points. He had thrown out a pair of sixes, because pairs only counted as a single card in value. Hayden was too nervous to calculate, so Bidd did the math aloud: fifty-four plus five, minus six….

“Fifty-three. He has fifty-three.”

“Yes!” cried Hal. He slapped hands with Bidd. Hayden looked an odd mixture of frightened and ecstatic.

“You played well,” Laskenay told him. “You did get lucky. But people set themselves up for luck, I’ve always believed that.” She folded her hands in her lap. “It must be tonight or tomorrow, Hayden.” Hayden chose tomorrow.

“Would five silver pieces do?”

“They should.”

Hal asked, “What do we tell Menikas if he loses?”

“That’s on my head,” said Laskenay.

“Oh no it isn’t.” Lanokas, cleaning up, shifted what cards he had collected to one hand. “You need to be on good terms with him, and Menikas won’t be pleased should Hayden triple his money. He’d never approve a scheme like this.”

“I’m the one who’s assenting. I take the fall.”

“Menikas won’t be happy with me in any case, not after the conversation we’ll have. It makes no sense to have him frustrated with the both of us. I know how to handle my brother. He can blame me.”

Laskenay threw up her hands. “Fine, Lanokas, do what you will. Do whatever strikes your fancy. I know that tone of voice. There’s no point discussing this further. Didn’t I give you an assignment, Kora?”

“What?” Then Kora remembered. Zalski. It had been three, four hours since she had used the chain. What had she missed? “What time is it?”

“Close to one I think,” said Bidd.

Lunch with Zacry. Kora flew down the ladder and out the barn.

The two sorcerers were eating in Zalski’s parlor, their plates filled with rice and a rich-looking gravy, carrots, peas, and steak. Zalski was drinking wine. Zacry raised a cut of meat to his mouth, what looked to be the first, but did not eat it. His hand shook, hanging in midair.

“Is something on your mind?”

“What happened to Kansten and Bendelof? Where are they?”

Zalski put down his glass, his voice gentle, genuinely so, if firm. “I’m afraid that does not concern you.”

The boy lowered his fork to his plate. “You killed them. Both of them.”

“Listen to me, Zacry: you’re approaching that time when a young man realizes his knowledge of the world is vastly superior to that which adults will credit him. The age when a boy imagines he knows all. I was the same. The sad truth is, you know next to nothing, especially of war. You’re simply too young.”

“I know you had them defenseless. That killing them after that is murder.”

“What makes you imagine I killed either of them? Why shouldn’t I arrest those who break the law, have them tried in court? I’m sorry, Zacry, I won’t discuss this. You’re twelve years old. You don’t understand justice. Leave your sister’s cohorts to those who do.”

“What about my sister, then?”

Zalski asked calmly, “What of Miss Porteg?”

“What do you plan to do with her when—
if,
I mean,
if
you capture her? You’ll just murder her like the others. Like Sedder.”

“So there lies the sting behind this interrogation. I’d imagine you were fond of Mr. Foden, am I right?”
I should have foreseen this
. “Kora told you I killed him. Sedder Foden was locked in combat with the captain of my guard when I acted to defend my officer. Did your sister tell you that?”

“No.” Zacry shrank away from him. “No, actually, she didn’t.”

“As far as Miss Porteg’s concerned, if she persists in her obstinacy you understand I can make no exception of her? She chooses her own course.”

“Yes. Yes, you would see it that way.” Zacry turned his eyes to his plate, shaking.

“You’ve no reason to be frightened of me,” said Zalski. “Neither would your sister, if she’d simply cease upsetting the public order. I told her t
hat myself. Now eat something. Y
ou hardly took two bites of food yesterday. Then, if you’d like, you may clarify your last remark.”

Zacry ate a few pieces of steak, chewing slowly, staring at the crystals set beside the door. After that, he turned to Zalski. “What I meant is, you remind me a bit of a woman I know, Mrs. Woodson. A firm believer in rules.” The woman who ran the orphanage. “She has a system, and she follows it. Policy’s policy. Each law has its penalty if you break it, no exceptions. You said that yourself.”

“I did make an exception in your sister’s case. Or attempted one. Before she ingrained herself in the heart of the revolt we had a short conference in this very room, where I offered her an olive branch. Security. The chance to make a life for herself.”

“Because she’s a sorceress, that’s why. If she wasn’t—”

“Weren’t,” Zalski corrected.

“—you wouldn’t have cared a jot about her. Or me. And she knew it, didn’t she? I bet she turned you down flat.”

“Those of one kind flourish best when they unite,” said Zalski. “Don’t you agree?”

“I know Kora. She isn’t your kind.”

Zalski tried a different approach. “I wonder, exactly why do you think I brought you here? There might be some misunderstanding.”

Zacry looked his host in the eye. “What I think? You’re asking what I think? I think you’re angry my sister walked away from you, from your particular brand of magic. You knew what it would do to her to suspect I was here, and she has to think it’s possible, ‘cause I wouldn’t just run away and not come back. She knows I wouldn’t. You want to pain her, pure and simple. Pain her as much as you can.”

“Dear boy, your tutorship has nothing to do with your sister or with anyone besides yourself. It’s about my disgust to think of talent such as you possess squandered: which it would have been, rest assured.”

“According to you.”

“You don’t wish to learn magic?”

“Not from the man who used magic to kill Sedder Foden.” Zacry paused. “That’s how you did it, isn’t it?”

“Mr. Foden’s was a young life wasted, something tragic in any circumstance. Yes, tragic’s the only word. I regret his decision to take up arms against the government, but the decision was his own, and he made it under no misconceptions of the power that he stood against.”

Zacry pushed his plate to the opposite side of the end table it sat on, disgusted.

“Sedder knew what you are, all right. And so do I. I can’t make you let me out of here, but that doesn’t mean I belong in your palace. I’m not learning a single incantation from you, not one, you understand? I’m no more your kind than my sister was.”

Zalski crossed his arms, his eyes blazing but his voice suddenly cool. “You may have a point, Mr. Porteg. A quite valid one. You see, my kind respects our craft.”

Zacry leaned forward. “Do you really think it’s sorcery I don’t respect?”

“Enough.” Zalski rose to his feet. “Enough, I’ve done nothing but try to help you feel at ease here.”

“And that excuses kidnapping me?”

“You appreciate what I offer you? Its significance?”

“I’m no ox.”

“Then you’ll study beneath my tutorship, with a diligence worthy of your talent. The great power of magic, as you’ll learn, is its ability to unite above petty differences the rare human to possess it. Or, you can languish in confinement.”

Zacry rose in his turn. He had no idea what
languish
meant, Kora was almost sure, and he did not seem to care. “Petty differences? Petty? Sedder Foden was like a brother to me!”

“I await your choice, Mr. Porteg.”

“I’ve made my choice clear. I’m not your pawn, and I won’t learn magic from you, not even for revenge. Sedder wouldn’t want me killing anyone, that includes you.”

Zalski grabbed the boy’s arm, and Zacry winced. The two transported to the landing at the top of a spiral staircase, one surrounded by three metal doors with slots, horizontal and thin, that opened outward to allow trays to pass. The confidence Zacry had mustered in the parlor disappeared in an instant.

“Where am…? Where are we?”

“The Northeast Tower.”

“Zacry?” A female voice issued from the room to the right. Its occupant collided with the door. “Zacry, is that you?”

“
Bennie
?” Zacry jerked himself toward her, but Zalski pulled him back by the neck of his shirt.

“Miss Esper’s a fellow guest of mine. Your new lodging matches hers, with some additional precautions.”

“No,” said Bennie. “No, don’t lock him up. I told you, I swear to you, he doesn’t know a thing! He….”

“That will do, Miss Esper.”

“He hasn’t done a thing!”

“
Golpay Mayhia!
”

Zalski magically struck her cheek—Kora could not see it, but he had done the same to her at the Landfill—and Bendelof fell silent for a moment. Then she asked, her voice shaking, “What precautions?”