The White Tree (47 page)

"Surely an idiot could never attain a position as lofty as theirs," Dante said, suspicious he was about to be told what to do.

"Indeed. So I'm going to entrust you with your toughest challenge yet: keeping your damn mouth shut. If you try to toss your pair of pennies into the hat, they're just going to laugh at you. Have you ever heard the sound of eleven corpses laughing? It isn't pretty."

"I've been writing on bones with my own blood for the last three days."

"And that will seem like a beautiful dream."

"I'll be good," Dante promised.

"Good. I don't like making threats."

Dante fell silent, pensive rather than with the moodiness that had consumed him for the last few days. What was Larrimore doing? Was he grooming him for leadership? No doubt he thought this was funny, in his perverse way, but the man's eyes sparked with something more. Dante'd gotten the impression no one around the keep really liked Larrimore. They feared him more than they derided him, granting a grudging respect to the undeniable efficacy of Samarand's Hand, no matter how slapdash a demeanor he wore on his cool brown face while executing his many charges. But they did laugh behind his back, imitating the sharp tone of his words, perhaps thinking he used too many or thought himself too clever; they muttered obscenities and the kind of mild threats that carried no weight. They did what he said, but they didn't like him. Perhaps the only one who did was Samarand, and she was so busy handing down orders from on high Larrimore was all but autonomous. As far as Dante knew the man had no pull with the council—clearly he hated them, resented them for his own obscure reasons. His lot was wholly thrown in with Samarand, and if for any reason she lost her seat, he would lose his as well. Was that it, then? He was snagging up Dante before anyone else noticed his potential? Shaping him up into an ally to help Larrimore carve out his own tiny piece of the empire inside the Citadel's gates?

Dante thought so. Larrimore had kept a close eye on the long leash he gave his pupil. His attention had gone beyond the way all adults had of trying to turn the younger people they had influence over into shorter versions of themselves, that strange instinct they had to stamp any sign of youth into their own mold, as if the existence of different opinions and methods threatened their very lives. It was like old people were terrified of dying without duplicating their minds on those who would replace them.

That instinct, too, was in the things Larrimore did. But unlike most men, it wasn't his driving force. He had other intentions for Dante. He wanted the boy to be able to hold his own. Perhaps, in time, to be able to watch Larrimore's back. That's what this sit-in with the council was about, Dante decided. The council was his weak point. He wished he had a little more time to build Larrimore's loyalty to him. There would come a time when it would be tested against the man's ties to Samarand. Maybe with another couple months, half a year, Dante would pull harder than her. He hoped when that moment did come it would at least cause Larrimore to hesitate long enough to lend Dante the advantage.

"Care to share the thoughts twisting your face up like that?" Larrimore said, spitting Dante with a severe look.

"What insults an old man most? Calling him withered, weak, or impotent?"

"Why not try all three?" Larrimore said. They reached the landing to the floor of the council chambers and he took Dante aside before they went into the hall. "I want you to pay close attention to the individuals," he said, voice low. "It would be a huge mistake to think their minds are united. The most important thing you can learn is what divides them. Pay special heed to the oldest man there—Tarkon Vastav. He's the nominal voice of what you might call the men of moderation. Doesn't speak his mind as freely as he once did, but perhaps that's a sign he's starting to lose it. This meeting might rouse him."

"Are you expecting a fight?"

"Not from him. I expect more trouble from Olivander. Brown-haired, ogrish-looking, ten or twelve years my senior. You'll know him by the way he fawns on Sama's every word."

Dante filed away the nickname. "If he's so taken by her, why would he be causing trouble?"

"Because she plans to leave him behind while she's off earning the glory."

"What? Why would she do that?"

"You'll see," Larrimore said, and would say no more. He opened the dark-stained door and took them down the corridor that led to the chambers, brushing past servants too busy with preparations to give him and his protege a second glance. Larrimore paused outside the council's double doors, the ones imprinted with the stylized tree of Barden, then cleared his throat and straightened his collar. He opened the door, revealing the long, simple table Dante had seen through the eyes of his rat. Sunlight spilled through the north-facing window. A half mile distant, the gray waters of the bay foamed against the shore. Dante counted eleven taken seats: ten men and one norren, enormous as a rampart, his brows and hair and thick gauzy beard looking white and tempestuous as a storm around a peak. The seat at the head of the table was empty. Servants stood frozen against the walls, eyes and ears trained on the deep, deliberate chatter of the assembled council. Dante looked at Larrimore for help and the man jerked his head and circled around the table to stand behind and to the right of the empty chair. Dante moved to take his left, and with a discreet tug of the boy's cloak Larrimore shifted him behind and to his own right.

About half of the council were white-haired and in varying degrees of personal antiquity, but from the look of resigned martyrdom on one of the old men's unbearded face Dante took him to be Tarkon, dissenter. He sat silent, unheeded. Olivander was one of if not the youngest, a bare hint of gray in his well-trimmed brown beard, and when he spoke the men around him turned their heads to listen. A few of the council cast glances Dante's way, examining this novelty in their cloisters—the norren, Tarkon, a middle-aged man with a long nose and his hair in a queue. All outsiders in their way, Dante guessed. Before he could parse out any more details the talk died off and Samarand emerged into the airy chamber. Larrimore stood straighter, tilted his chin. By reflex Dante did the same. She made her way to the head of the table, giving Dante a distracted look as Larrimore pulled out her chair.

"Anything new about the rebels, Olivander?" she said, and already Dante was lost. He'd expected a prayer or something to start it off. They were priests, right? She did speak in Mallish, at least, and he didn't have to trust his spotty Gaskan. He'd come to learn almost every man of means in the dead city was bilingual while many men of the south never bothered to learn the tongue of the north, with the result being most conversation in mixed company took place in Mallish. It was almost a point of pride among the Mallish men to speak no other language but that of their birth.

"Our scouts are nipping around their heels," Olivander said in a steady baritone. "They have a few hundred, four at the utmost. Good men, but they've been living in the wilds for weeks. No official backers, from what I've seen. Just rabble."

"Do they look especially schemish?"

Olivander frowned, as if he didn't recognize the word. "I don't expect they've come all this way to shake their fists at us. Best prepare for something."

"Right." Samarand put her hands flat on the table and met the eyes of each man in turn. "I'm not going to waste words. I'm only taking six of you."

"Six?" the old norren rumbled after a general exchange of looks.

"That's all we need. I'm not going to triumph in the field and then return here to find a smoking crater."

"We do have a few soldiers," the norren said. "Not to mention a tall set of walls."

"Look," Samarand said, and pressed her lips together. "We need seven. Anyone else would be lace frills. Nice to look at, not terribly functional."

"And wearing all your lace at once doesn't usually leave you open to invasion," Olivander added. Dante watched Samarand smile with half her mouth.

"Who's to come?" said the man with the long nose and longer brown hair.

"Walter, Baxter, Vannigan, Vaksho, Fanshen, and Pioter," Samarand ticked off on her fingers. None of the men Larrimore'd named for him.

Olivander's nostrils flared. He pinched his brows together. "My lady—"

"Stow it," she said. "I need you here overseeing the Citadel. Take pride in that responsibility."

The men who'd been named exchanged smug looks while those left off struggled with their shock. After a few moments a general babble arose as they marshaled their arguments and Samarand held up her hands for peace.

"I know this must feel arbitrary to some of you. Try to remember we're not here for individual glory. Arawn knows your hearts and minds. He'll know those who ensure the safety of this keep are no more important than those who'll be with me at Barden. Can you understand that?"

"And how did you decide who goes and who stays?" said the long-haired man.

"With great trouble, Jackson, and anticipating all the arguments." Samarand leaned back in her seat and touched her braid at the back of her neck. "Don't take that to mean I just dismissed them. You know I'm anything but unreasonable."

"Granted, but neither infallible."

"I'll assume you wish to argue why your presence at the tree will be necessary. Let's hear it, then."

Jackson didn't hesitate. "I've spent less time in service than most of the men here. Maybe that should count against me. But if this truly isn't about rewarding service or whatever other favor with glory, and is instead a matter of who's most vital to which limb of the body, I'd argue my grasp of the nether is second to yours alone. To leave me behind, then, when it's uncertain how much skill we'll require, and would thus be safer to err on the side of abundance, appears to me as an oversight."

"Perhaps," Samarand said slowly. She cocked her head and stared at Jackson a few moments the way Dante imagined she'd stared when she felt the presence of his rat. "I'll give that its due consideration."

"Samarand—" Jackson started.

"Are you about to forward another argument, or just repeat the first in different words?"

Jackson's face darkened, then he nodded. "Well enough."

"Anyone else want to educate me on the unfairness of my decision?" she said, raising her brows at the others.

"I assume the wisdom of my long years isn't considered crucial," old Tarkon said.

"Honestly, I don't dissemble when I say I'd prefer to have it with us, Tarkon. My fear's you may falter on the way. It's even colder that far north. The trek will take days. If we leave you here, we risk missing out on some knowledge that could help us, but I've judged it a smaller risk than that of your health if you went. We can't stand before the White Tree with a gap in our seven."

He nodded, some of the resigned irony gone from his face.

"Anyone else?" No one spoke up, perhaps knowing she'd handle them as swiftly as she had the others. She pushed out her lips, impressed. "Good. Don't try to assign any slights or whimsical boons to my selections. We're all working toward the same end. Those of you I named, be ready to leave on the morning of the eighth day. Everyone else, you've got your duties here, and they'll be doubled with the rest of us out. Make sure you're prepared." She waited to see them nod their understanding, then set her elbows on the table. "Loath though I am to get ahead of ourselves, what's the latest from the south, Jackson?"

"Whetton's still the only city in Mallon where we might be said to have gained a lasting toehold," he said. He reached up for his chin and seemed surprised to find it beardless. "Fewer have come back to the old ways than we'd wished. The less said about Bressel the better. The devotion of our loyalists can't be questioned, but their ability is another matter—though nor can it be said they face no obstacles."

"And the Collen Basin?"

"There we may safely forecast a more optimistic outcome," Jackson said. "We've taken a number of the outlands and negotiated a treaty that will hold for the rest of the winter. That should leave them free to aid us with direct action elsewhere in Mallon, should that be our course. Olivander would know more about that than I."

Samarand nodded his way, and Olivander, who'd been lost in his own thoughts since he'd heard he'd be left behind, creased his brow and leaned one elbow on the table.

"Won't be easy," he said. "Still, with support from Collen, and if Hart's got the sway he says he does with the norren"—here he nodded at the norren priest—"I think a late spring strike through the pass at Riverway would work. It would certainly hearten the locals to know they've got our support."

"Especially if it comes on the heels of our success at Barden," Samarand mused. "Set it in motion. Prepare for a mid-March march."

"You're going to invade Mallon?" Dante blurted. A few of the priests gave him dubious glances. Larrimore elbowed him in the ribs amidst the awkward silence. Dante ignored him. "What about the Parable of Ben?"

"From the mouths of babes," Tarkon chuckled.

"Oh, that's not even relevant," Samarand said.

The old man twisted his mouth at her. "Is he wrong, then? Raising an army hardly suits your delicate words about the wrongs of vengeance."

"We're not talking about revenge, we're talking about liberation," Samarand said, meeting his gaze. "This has nothing to do with the Third Scour."

"You say that with almost enough conviction for me to believe it."

"Tarkon. You're old enough to remember when those people would kill you if you dared worship Arawn. Burnings, hangings—that sits fine with you?"

"Of course not," Tarkon said. He cleared some phlegm from his throat. "The physicians have an oath about not applying the cure when it would be worse than the disease. Surely in our wisdom, deriving as it does from a far higher source, we're able to apply that credo here."

Samarand touched her lips. "Unfortunately, we don't have the physician's experience to know when that cure would be worse. All I know is what I see."

"What I see's a woman more driven by her own vision of justice than what we're given by the heavens," Tarkon said. The table was still and silent as Dante's days below the dungeons. Olivander coughed into his fist, as if that would be enough to make the moment pass.