Vlad Li Tam was not even halfway to the Emerald Coasts when the bird found him. This bird always found him. He was riding when it settled upon his shoulder and nibbled playfully at his beard. He’d petted it and raised his fist to signify a halt. They helped him down from the saddle, and he pulled the message.
While he read it, his servants hastily erected a tent and chair for him to sit in. He summoned his master sergeant and his aide. “There has been a significant change in the course of events,” he finally said after leaving them in silence for a time. “I have in my hands a decree from our invisible Pope. Of course, he doesn’t name himself. But he has the tone of authority, the confident positioning of his words.”
Vlad Li Tam stopped, took the message and passed it to his aide, who sat quickly and began to study it, making ciphers in the margins. “He’s moved faster than we thought he would,” the aide said.
“But without his name,” Vlad Li Tam, “we have nothing but words.”
The aide went back to reading. “He encourages the continued gathering of resources at the Papal Summer Palace and commends Archbishop Oriv for his strategic effort on behalf of the Order.” Then he shook his head, amazed. “And then exercises his Right of King by way of kin-clave to declare war on Lord Sethbert, Overseer of the Entrolusian City States.”
“Note that,” Vlad Li Tam said, accepting his kallaberry pipe from the servant who was setting luncheon. “He does not declare war on the City States themselves.”
The aide chuckled. “He is allowing them a way out. They can deliver Sethbert or they can support him.” Vlad Li Tam nodded. “Mark him, Arys. Petronus is the wiliest of men.”
But, he thought, for all of his wiliness, he still hid himself from the world. Vlad Li Tam had spent a year fishing with Petronus when they were both young. Vlad’s father, Ben Li Tam, had insisted that his first son spend a year without privilege. Of course, every Tam father realized that a true first son would think beyond the edges of the light. So they offered the families that took them in a stupendous amount of currency to ensure that the experience truly was without privilege. Because these boys-the first
sons-would someday inherit the lucrative and invisible network that the Li Tam shipbuilders had created when they turned to banking both currency and information. And that inheritance demanded a broad range of experience to give a broad range of knowledge.
He’d lived with Petronus and his family, had eaten at the table with him, taken his share of beatings with him, fishing daily the wide waters of Caldus Bay.
Even then, he remembered Petronus’s love affair with the Androfrancines. He showed him the excavations he’d led to his own backyard forest, pointing out the holes he’d dug in search of artifacts that did not exist in the New World.
“Maybe someday,” Vlad Li Tam had said to Petronus as they mended their nets at the end of a day, “you’ll be Pope.”
Petronus had laughed and he had joined in. But he wasn’t surprised at all to read about a young Archbishop Petronus in his intelligence training with Father. By the time Petronus was made Pope, Vlad Li Tam had already seen his twenty-third daughter into the world, fully managing House Li Tam. They rekindled their friendship as if twenty years hadn’t passed.
Though they didn’t see each other often, they met occasionally at affairs of state. Three times, they met in conference at the Summer Papal Palace over Androfrancine accounts. Vlad’s most vivid memory was
the summer before Petronus’s so-called assassination. They were sitting in the office on the upper floor, the afternoon sun spilling into the room through glass doors wide open. They’d pored over the papers from morning until night and only had the afternoon left because of Li Tam obligations that called him elsewhere.
After a particularly challenging conversation on asset liquidation, Petronus paused, and a pained look crossed his face. “Do you ever wonder what your life would be if you weren’t Lord Tam of House Li Tam?”
“I can’t,” Vlad remembered saying. “I was made for this. I can’t imagine being anyone other than who I
am.”
Petronus had thought about this and nodded. “But do you ever miss fishing?” Vlad Li Tam laughed. “Every day.”‹«ry /p›/font›
Five minutes later, the staff and servants at the Papal Summer Palace did not know what to do when their
Pope came bellowing down the hall for bait and tackle and wine.
Now all these years later, Vlad Li Tam still believed the answer he’d given his boyhood friend. He had thirty-seven sons and fifty-three daughters, all honoring him in some fashion. At no time had he wondered what it might have been like otherwise.
I do not believe in otherwise.
It’s what he was made for. Somehow, he had to make his friend see the same thing for himself.
Vlad Li Tam turned to the Master Sergeant. “We will need the birder to order a flock. You’ll have a day to set up the bird-tents.” He looked over his aide. “You’ll have the same day to rescript the proclamation.” He drew in on the pipe as his servant held a long stick match to it. “The next day, we ride for Windwir.”
He dismissed them with a nod, and they stood to leave. I’m coming, Petronus, he thought.
I’m coming to remind you what you’re made for.
After they left him, not even the kallaberry smoke could lift his spirits.