Gamble surprised her by acceding without protest. “As you wish, Ma’am,” he said.
“That’s it?” exclaimed the pale man. He wrung his cap even tighter. “That’s no fair price. If I sold them in any market, they’d—”
She could not contain herself any longer. “Yes! You’d get more. But I happen to know that Master Gamble cannot afford to give you the chickens’ full price, as I’m the one who provides his salary! As I do yours. You forget that if I decided to acquire your poultry for the good of the Varden, you’d get no more than a copper a chicken and be lucky at that. Am I understood?”
“He can’t—”
“Am I understood?”
After a moment, the pale man subsided and muttered, “Yes, Ma’am.”
“Very well. You’re both dismissed.” With an expression of sardonic admiration, Gamble touched his brow and bowed to Nasuada before backing out of the stone room with his sullen opponent. “You too,” she said to the guards on either side of the door.
As soon as they were gone, she slumped in her chair with an exhausted sigh and reached for her fan, batting it over her face in a futile attempt to dissipate the pinpricks of sweat that accumulated on her forehead. The constant heat drained her strength and made even the smallest task arduous.
She suspected she would feel tired even if it were winter. Familiar as she was with the innermost secrets of the Varden, it still had taken more work than she expected to transport the entire organization from Farthen Dûr, through the Beor Mountains, and deliver them to Surda and Aberon. She shuddered, remembering long, uncomfortable days spent in the saddle. Planning and executing their departure had been exceedingly difficult, as was integrating the Varden into their new surroundings while simultaneously preparing for an attack on the Empire.I don’t have enough time each day to solve all these problems, she lamented.
Finally, she dropped the fan and rang the bellpull, summoning her handmaid, Farica. The banner hanging to the right of the cherrywood desk rippled as the door hidden behind it opened. Farica slipped out to stand with downcast eyes by Nasuada’s elbow.
“Are there any more?” asked Nasuada.
“No, Ma’am.”
She tried not to let her relief show. Once a week, she held an open court to resolve the Varden’s various disputes. Anyone who felt that they had been wronged could seek an audience with her and ask for her judgment. She could not imagine a more difficult and thankless chore. As her father had often said after negotiating with Hrothgar, “A good compromise leaves everyone angry.” And so it seemed.
Returning her attention to the matter at hand, she told Farica, “I want that Gamble reassigned. Give him a job where his talent with words will be of some use. Quartermaster, perhaps, just so long as it’s a job where he’ll get full rations. I don’t want to see him before me for stealing again.”
Farica nodded and went to the desk, where she recorded Nasuada’s instructions on a parchment scroll. That skill alone made her invaluable. Farica asked, “Where can I find him?”
“One of the work gangs in the quarry.”
“Yes, Ma’am. Oh, while you were occupied, King Orrin asked that you join him in his laboratory.”
“What has he done in there now, blind himself?” Nasuada washed her wrists and neck with lavender water, then checked her hair in the mirror of polished silver that Orrin had given her and tugged on her overgown until the sleeves were straight.
Satisfied with her appearance, she swept out of her chambers with Farica in tow. The sun was so bright today that no torches were needed to illuminate the inside of Borromeo Castle, nor could their added warmth have been tolerated. Shafts of light fell through the crossletted arrow slits and glowed upon the inner wall of the corridor, striping the air with bars of golden dust at regular intervals. Nasuada looked out one embrasure toward the barbican, where thirty or so of Orrin’s orange-clad cavalry soldiers were setting forth on another of their ceaseless rounds of patrols in the countryside surrounding Aberon.
Not that they could do much good if Galbatorix decided to attack us himself,she thought bitterly. Their only protection against that was Galbatorix’s pride and, she hoped, his fear of Eragon. All leaders were aware of the risk of usurpation, but usurpers themselves were doubly afraid of the threat that a single determined individual could pose. Nasuada knew that she was playing an exceedingly dangerous game with the most powerful madman in Alagaësia. If she misjudged how far she could push him, she and the rest of the Varden would be destroyed, along with any hope of ending Galbatorix’s reign.
The clean smell of the castle reminded her of the times she had stayed there as a child, back when Orrin’s father, King Larkin, still ruled. She never saw much of Orrin then. He was five years older than her and already occupied with his duties as a prince. Nowadays, though, she often felt as if she were the elder one.
At the door to Orrin’s laboratory, she had to stop and wait for his bodyguards, who were always posted outside, to announce her presence to the king. Soon Orrin’s voice boomed out into the stairwell: “Lady Nasuada! I’m so glad you came. I have something to show you.”
Mentally bracing herself, she entered the laboratory with Farica. A maze of tables laden with a fantastic array of alembics, beakers, and retorts confronted them, like a glass thicket waiting to snag their dresses on any one of its myriad fragile branches. The heavy odor of metallic vapors made Nasuada’s eyes water. Lifting their hems off the floor, she and Farica wended their way in single file toward the back of the room, past hourglasses and scales, arcane tomes bound with black iron, dwarven astrolabes, and piles of phosphorescent crystal prisms that produced fitful blue flashes.
They met Orrin by a marble-topped bench, where he stirred a crucible of quicksilver with a glass tube that was closed at one end, open at the other, and must have measured at least three feet in length, although it was only a quarter of an inch thick.
“Sire,” said Nasuada. As befitted one of equal rank to the king, she remained upright while Farica curtsied. “You seem to have recovered from the explosion last week.”
Orrin grimaced good-naturedly. “I learned that it’s not wise to combine phosphorus and water in an enclosed space. The result can be quite violent.”
“Has all of your hearing returned?”
“Not entirely, but. .” Grinning like a boy with his first dagger, he lit a taper with the coals from a brazier, which she could not fathom how he endured in the stifling weather, carried the flaming brand back to the bench, and used it to start a pipe packed with cardus weed.
“I didn’t know that you smoked.”
“I don’t really,” he confessed, “except that I found that since my eardrum hasn’t completely sealed up yet, I can do this. . ” Drawing on the pipe, he puffed out his cheeks until a tendril of smoke issued from his left ear, like a snake leaving its den, and coiled up the side of his head. It was so unexpected, Nasuada burst out laughing, and after a moment, Orrin joined her, releasing a plume of smoke from his mouth. “It’s the most peculiar sensation,” he confided. “Tickles like crazy on the way out.”
Growing serious again, Nasuada asked, “Was there something else that you wished to discuss with me, Sire?”
He snapped his fingers. “Of course.” Dipping his long glass tube in the crucible, he filled it with quicksilver, then capped the open end with one finger and showed the whole thing to her. “Would you agree that the only thing in this tube is quicksilver?”
“I would.”Is this why he wanted to see me?
“And what about now?” With a quick movement, he inverted the tube and planted the open end inside the crucible, removing his finger. Instead of all pouring out, as Nasuada expected, the quicksilver in the tube dropped about halfway, then stopped and held its position. Orrin pointed to the empty section above the suspended metal. He asked, “What occupies that space?”
“It must be air,” asserted Nasuada.
Orrin grinned and shook his head. “If that were true, how would the air bypass the quicksilver or diffuse through the glass? No routes are available by which the atmosphere can gain admission.” He gestured at Farica. “What’s your opinion, maid?”
Farica stared at the tube, then shrugged and said, “It can’t be nothing, Sire.”
“Ah, but that’s exactly what I think it is: nothing. I believe that I’ve solved one of the oldest conundrums of natural philosophy by creating and proving the existence of a vacuum! It completely invalidates Vacher’s theories and means that Ládin was actually a genius. Blasted elves always seem to be right.”
Nasuada struggled to remain cordial as she asked, “What purpose does it serve, though?”
“Purpose?” Orrin looked at her with genuine astonishment. “None, of course. At least not that I can think of. However, this will help us to understand the mechanics of our world, how and why things happen. It’s a wondrous discovery. Who knows what else it might lead to?” While he spoke, he emptied the tube and carefully placed it in a velvet-padded box that held similar delicate instruments. “The prospect that truly excites me, though, is of using magic to ferret out nature’s secrets. Why, just yesterday, with a single spell, Trianna helped me to discover two entirely new gases. Imagine what could be learned if magic were systematically applied to the disciplines of natural philosophy. I’m considering learning magic myself, if I have the talent for it, and if I can convince some magic users to divulge their knowledge. It’s a pity that your Dragon Rider, Eragon, didn’t accompany you here; I’m sure that he could help me.”
Looking at Farica, Nasuada said, “Wait for me outside.” The woman curtsied and then departed. Once Nasuada heard the door to the laboratory close, she said, “Orrin. Have you taken leave of your senses?”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“While you spend your time locked in here conducting experiments that no one understands — endangering your well-being in the process — your country totters on the brink of war. A myriad issues await your decision, and you stand here blowing smoke and playing with quicksilver?”
His face hardened. “I am quite aware of my duties, Nasuada. You may lead the Varden, but I’m still king of Surda, and you would do well to recall that before you speak so disrespectfully. Need I remind you that your sanctuary here depends on my continued goodwill?”
She knew it was an idle threat; many of the Surdan people had relatives in the Varden, and vice versa. They were too closely linked for either of them to abandon the other. No, the real reason that Orrin had taken offense was the question of authority. Since it was nigh impossible to keep large groups of armed warriors at the ready over extended periods of time — as Nasuada had learned, feeding that many inactive people was a logistical nightmare — the Varden had begun taking jobs, starting farms, and otherwise assimilating into their host country.Where will that leave me eventually? As the leader of a nonexistent army? A general or councilor under Orrin? Her position was precarious. If she moved too quickly or with too much initiative, Orrin would perceive it as a threat and turn against her, especially now that she was cloaked in the glamour of the Varden’s victory in Farthen Dûr. But if she waited too long, they would lose their chance to exploit Galbatorix’s momentary weakness. Her only advantage over the maze of opposition was her command of the one element that had instigated this act of the play: Eragon and Saphira.
She said, “I don’t seek to undermine your command, Orrin. That was never my intention, and I apologize if it appeared that way.” He bowed his neck with a stiff bob. Unsure of how to continue, she leaned on her fingertips against the lip of the bench. “It’s only. . so many things must be done. I work night and day — I keep a tablet beside my bed for notes — and yet I never catch up; I feel as if we are always balanced on the brink of disaster.”
Orrin picked up a pestle stained black from use and rolled it between his palms with a steady, hypnotic rhythm. “Before you came here. . No, that’s not right. Before your Rider materialized fully formed from the ethers like Moratensis from his fountain, I expected to live my life as my father and grandfather before me. That is, opposing Galbatorix in secret. You must excuse me if it takes a while to accustom myself to this new reality.”
It was as much contrition as she could expect in return. “I understand.”
He stopped the pestle in its path for a brief moment. “You are newly come to your power, whereas I have held mine for a number of years. If I may be arrogant enough to offer advice, I’ve found that it’s essential for my sanity to allocate a certain portion of the day for my own interests.”