When they finished dinner, Rudolfo led Jin Li Tam to the sitting room and brought a bottle of cinnamon scented liquor and two metal glasses with him.
Before sitting, he looked back at Isaak. “And you’re certain that you can do this?”
Isaak’s eyes shuttered. “My limited understanding is that in matters of Shunning, communication privileges are not withheld. Your request does not interfere with my adherence to Androfrancine protocol.”
Rudolfo nodded. “Very well.”
He’d spent days in this room, hating the cage, and writing out carefully coded instructions to his scouts,
to the stewards of his Ninefold Forest Houses and to the pontiffs. Of course, he’d assumed the messages would never be seen; it was more for his benefit that he wrote them. He would have burned them
eventually… until the old Gray Guard captain had poked his head in to say he would be dining with his betrothed and the mechoservitor that was not to leave her side.
Now, Isaak sat slowly reading each document. Then later, in the same way Rudolfo hoped to rebuild the library, Isaak would conjure back each page exactly as Rudolfo had written it. Truly a miracle of mechanics.
After Isaak reproduced them, Jin Li Tam could pass them to the Gypsy Scouts that arrived with her. They in turn would run them to the half-squad that Rudolfo had left outside.
Rudolfo sat and poured liquor into the glasses. He held one out to her.
She took it and he found himself admiring her long slender fingers. He followed them, then caught the line of her wrist and lower arm. The gown she wore accentuated the line and grace of her and he’d found it hard to take his eyes off her.
Her father’s acceptance of him as suitor and declaration of their betrothal had surprised him a bit, but more surprising was that he’d not reversed it when Resolute took power. Of course, it also said something about the man. He was a Whymer Maze, to be sure, and he knew something or he would not gamble with his forty-second daughter.
But even more surprising than all of that was the sheer fairness of her. And the fierceness, too, Rudolfo saw. It was not unheard of for a woman to be taller than him, but she towered-and she held that poise as power in her fists. Her red hair, now pulled back and pinned to reveal her long neck and the curve of her jaw, threw back the lamplight. She was not overly slim, she had musc›m,. Hle to her. But she also had curves and the gown played to all of them.
Beyond the beauty, intelligence shone in her eyes and wit played on her tongue and Rudolfo felt utterly charmed.
He studied her face, sipping the warm liquor. “How do you feel about this. ar. ra.ngement?” She shrugged. “I am a daughter of House Li Tam. I am about my father’s business.”
Rudolfo smiled. “A proper response.” He leaned forward. “Are you always so careful, Lady?”
She took a drink from the metal cup, then put it down on the small pine table nearby. “Are you always so direct?”
“I am known for it when it suits me.”
He watched her face, finding her harder to read in this instance, now that the reading went deeper than food and drink. “I am intrigued by my father’s choice of strategy,” she finally said.
Rudolfo stroked his beard. “Your father studied with the Francines as a boy, yes?” She nodded. “He did.”
“His move to humiliate Sethbert by so quickly aligning with his enemy-and so quickly endorsing our betrothal-shows that he learned well from them.” One of probably hundreds of actions Vlad Li Tam spun into his web in order to influence outcomes to his advantage. “I have always admired his strength.”
Jin inclined her head slightly. “My father has spoken highly of you and your house, as well.” “Then you are not displeased with his decision?”
Her words were careful again. “My father is a brilliant man. I trust his judgment implicitly.”
Rudolfo refilled their cups. Back in the Ninefold Forest, they called this liquor Firespice. It was a blended spirit his people had brought across the Keeper’s Wall when the first Rudolfo settled the Prairie Sea. It was strong, and if the night went where it could, he thought it might help prepare them.
He sipped it and put down the cup. He looked over to Isaak, who sat at the table, humming quietly as he read Rudolfo’s stack of notes. The mechoservitor looked up and their eyes met for a moment.
Jin Li Tam followed his eye. “He is a wo›822/p›nder to behold,” she said.
Rudolfo leaned forward. “He is amazing, to be sure. But truthfully, Lady Tam, you are the only wonder in this room.”
She blushed, then went redder when she realized it. She shifted uncomfortably in the seat, her poise lost for just a moment. But she recaptured it, and her blue eyes narrowed. “You flatter me, Lord Rudolfo. And yet you do not need to. I can assure you that I will-”
He raised his hand and she went quiet. “It is not required,” he said in a quiet voice. Her eyes narrowed even further. “I recognize,” he said, “that you are well versed in the rites of kin-clave and the highest machinations of statecraft. But these are dark days upon us, and your father’s strategy is sound. We do not need to invoke our flesh in these matters.”
Her mouth opened but he continued. “I am fully aware of the expectations upon you as a daughter of
House Li Tam. I am fully aware of the Articles of Consummation in the Fourteenth Overture of
Kin-Clave by Betrothal. You do not need to bring those to bear in this conversation. It is the two of us,” he gestured to Isaak, “and a metal man. If you wish it, we can go into the bedchambers, close the door to Isaak and let the world believe what it will. We need do nothing but sleep, yet we can both claim it to be the most rewarding and exhausting night of passion either of us have ever known.”
He did not think it was admiration on her face. It might have been surprise or perhaps even uncertainty. But for the slightest moment, he thought he saw relief there. Then it became amusement, and she smiled. “You are a kind man to ask after my feelings on the matter.”
He inclined his head. “I believe some journeys are best taken slow. The Desolation of Windwir has changed us all. It has changed the world and we do not know what will come of it. It is enough; I would not add more change to it, strategy or no.” He paused. “Though, I must tell you that I am pleased with your father’s work so far.”
Jin Li Tam stood and walked to him. “Change,” she said, quoting the Whymer Bible, “is the path life takes.”
Rudolfo stood, and when he did, she bent down and kissed him softly by the side of his mouth. He placed his hands on her hips, feeling the solid warmth of her, and stretched up on his tiptoes to return her kiss. “A fortuitous undertaking,” he said quietly. Pressing his fingers into her hip, he sent her another message, and she blushed again.
You will ever be my sunrise, he told her.
Then, because he knew that it was important to her that it be her own idea and that she lead in this particular dance, he let her take him by the hand and guide him into the waiting bedchamber.
Rudolfo looked into the hallway at the body of the Gray Guard, stretched out on the floor. Already, one of the scouts pulled at it. Under any other circumstances it would be comical, watching the corpse slide-seemingly of its own volition-across the threshold and into the Prisoner’s Quarters. Once it was in the room, he stepped over the body and into the hall.
Invisible hands closed the door and locked it.
A belt was pushed into his hands, and he felt the sheathed scout knives, magicked with the oils that kept them as silent and invisible as the scouts that danced with them. He pulled the belt around his narrow waist and buckled it.
“What of Isaak?”
Jin Li Tam’s voice was near his ear now, her breath warm on the side of his face and smelling like apples. “He is with the archbishop.”
“Excellent.”
Rudolfo let the Gypsy Scouts lead the way, staying to the sides of the long, wide halls, finding the shadows where they could, and quickly dowsing lamps where the light was most likely to betray them.
They slipped past acolytes and scholars, guards and servants. Once, he and Jin Li Tam waited in an alcove while the two scouts found a better route. Once more, when no better route could be found, they waited while another Gray Guard was killed.
The Palace went to Third Alarm just as they reached the middle point of the stairs that swept up to the Papal Offices. Below them, the main doors burst open and a squad of Gray Guard, led by that ancient captain, poured in. They locked the door behind them, posted sentries, and scattered.
Rudolfo grinned at the danger of it. When two guards pounded up the stairs, he crouched and pressed himself against the hand carved railing. Once they passed, he continued up, feeling Jin Li Tam’s hand on the back of his knife belt.
The four Gray Guard at Oriv’s door did not have time to shout. Blades whispered and two of them fell, their shouts muffled by the scarves shoved quickly into their mouths. Rudolfo felt Jin Li Tam move past him quickly, and watched as the third guard’s throat opened to her knife in a red line that moved with a quick, careful stroke. Blood spilled onto his gray uniform.
When the fourth guard hesitated, his mouth opening, Rudolfo danced forward with his own blades, pushing one into the soft tissue beneath his chin and the other through the left side, into the heart.
He heard scrambling behind the door, and pushed it open quickly. Oriv was on his feet behind the wide desk, fumbling with a drawer, his eyes wide with terror. The archbishop raised a strange cylindrical device«ricqui212;a metal tube bound to an ornately carved pearl handle-and worked a small lever on it with his free hand.
Rudolfo saw the spark and ducked, feeling the heat from it as it singed the left side of his head. Behind him a heavy form fell, and he heard the sound of bubbling blood and the drumming of soft boot heels on the floor.
Roaring, Rudolfo pounced across the desk, pulling the archbishop to the floor. The weapon fell to the carpet, and the archbishop resorted to his feet, his nails and his teeth. Rudolfo fought back, keeping his grip on the archbishop as well as his knife. Finally, he worked the tip of the knife into the would-be Pope’s ear. He shifted so that his mouth was close to the other ear. “We’ve done this your way,” Rudolfo whispered. “Now we do it mine.”
The others moved into the room, leaving the bodies where they fell and quickly working the locks of the door. “We’ve lost Rylk,” the remaining scout said. “Whatever it was, it put a hole through his torso the size of a child’s head.”
Rudolfo resisted the urge to push his knife farther into Oriv’s ear. “Is anyone else hurt? Lady Tam?” “Singed but otherwise fine,” she said.
Rudolfo looked around the room. He saw Isaak in the corner. “Isaak, are you well?” “I am functional, Lord Rudolfo.”
“Good. Ready yourself for travel. We’re leaving.” “But Lord Rudolfo, I am the property of-”
Rudolfo ignored him. He twisted the knife just a bit. “Release the mechoservitor into my care until this unpleasantness is past.” He felt Oriv’s muscles, tense and he pushed the knife. “You’ll realize soon enough,” Rudolfo said, “that my restraint has limits.”
“Killing me only reinforces your own guilt.” Panic laced the archbishop’s voice, and it pleased Rudolfo greatly.
“And yet,” he said through his smile, “you’d still be dead. Now do as you’re told.”
They stayed long enough to scoop the papers from the cluttered desk into a carrying pouch along with the strange weapon. Two minutes later, with Isaak bringing up the rear and Oriv under knifepoint at the front, they made their way down the stairs.
Soldiers waited at the bottom, swords drawn.
Rudolfo smiled and twisted the blade again, savoring the melody it made. Sweeter than any choir, the archbishop screamed for the Gray Guard to stand down, and they obeyed their so-called Pope.