The Will of the Empress

Her soft mouth hardened. And Briar and Tris can just go and do as they like. Obviously we had something wonderful as children that we can’t have now we’re grown. I was a fool to think we could, and now I have more important things to worry about.

Tris climbed up the flights of stairs to her room and proceeded to shed the clothes she had worn to court as Chime fluttered around her in welcome. All of them had decided Chime was too excitable for their first day at court. Although her mind knew that Sandry had woven all kinds of protections against stains, wrinkles, and mishaps into the fine cloth and seams, Tris could never be as comfortable in her dressup clothes as she could her other garments. Now she tugged on a linen shift and a blue cotton gown with a sigh of relief. Her court shoes came off to be replaced by leather slippers.

Comfortable at last, with Chime on her shoulder, Tris was on her way downstairs again when she nearly ran into Ambros fer Landreg. “Excuse me, Saghad,” she said, curtsying for what felt like the hundredth time that day. They had been introduced briefly over breakfast that morning.

“Viymese Trisana,” he said, with a bow. “Did you enjoy your visit to the palace?”

As much as I’d enjoy a rat pasty, she thought, but she did not say it. “Please, it’s just Tris. I’m not much for titles as a rule.”

“Then you must call me Ambros,” he said in his quiet way. “You are Sandry’s sister, after all, which makes us kin of some kind. At least we are better than acquaintances, or should be.”

Tris smiled at him, appreciating that tiny hint of a joke. She liked this man; she had thought she might. Everything she had heard of him from the duke and from Sandry had spoken well of him. Sandry called him prosy and picky all the way here, but in her shoes, I’d want someone meticulous and careful looking after my affairs, Tris thought. Someone I could trust to check everything.

She realized she had a piece of information that he might want. “I’m afraid there are going to be a few more of us visiting Landreg than you had expected,” she explained. “Her Imperial Majesty invited four of her courtiers to bear us company, and I think—I’m not sure—Daja met a friend she means to invite to stay for a while.” It had been interesting to see Daja go all protective over someone as unendearing as a crazed beggar in the street.

Ambros grimaced. “I had anticipated the noble company,” he admitted. “Her Imperial Majesty won’t want Sandry to forget the attractions of life at court if it can be helped. I am grateful we have only four extra nobles. I half-expected Her Imperial Majesty herself to come to call.”

“Shan fer Roth mentioned something about a cousin from Lairan coming to visit the palace,” Tris offered.

“Ah. That would explain it. Thank you for the warning, though, Viy—Tris.” Ambros smiled at her. “You’ll find Landreg can house all manner of guests. My family is already there.” He bowed and headed on up to his rooms, while Tris continued down to the kitchen.

Wenoura, the cook, looked at her from where she chopped onions and gave a leopard’s grin. “Someone I can trust to chop without dismembering herself,” she said. She and Tris had gotten acquainted the day before, when Tris had needed something to do with her hands. “Aprons are on those hooks. I sent the maids out to shop and they aren’t back. Take over for me while I warm soup for that one.” She jerked her head toward the table at the end of the room.

Daja sat there with her friend. Her face might as well have “don’t ask” written on it in light, Tris thought, helping herself to an apron. Chime unwrapped herself from Tris’s neck and glided down to the floor to curl up under the worktable. Onions had no charm for the glass dragon. As Tris tied the apron over her dress, she yanked a thread of breeze from the back door to carry the scent of the onions away before they reached her sensitive nose. She yanked a second, fatter thread of air from the front of the house past Daja so that she could eavesdrop on what she said to the bony man. Only when those bits of business were taken care of did she begin to cut up the peeled onions that awaited her attention.

“Zhegorz, why are you here?” Daja asked the man as he drank from a heavy mug. “I thought you’d still be in Kugisko—”

“Locked up,” said the man—Zhegorz, Tris repeated to herself—when Daja fumbled her words. “I got out of the hospital. I told them I was cured. I acted cured. I can do that. They didn’t have the kitchen witch look at me. She always knows the truth, see, and she would have told them. Maybe she smells it on me, I don’t know, but I pretended to be like them for a whole week. The locked wing was crowded and there were more like me waiting so they asked me questions and gave me an argib and new clothes and let me out.”

“That green robe you were wearing isn’t new,” Daja said as Wenoura set a pot of soup to heat on one of the small stoves. “That’s the robe you wore when you helped me get the others out during the fire. It’s still got scorch marks on it.”

“I told them it was my lucky charm,” Zhegorz replied. “It is my lucky charm. I wore it and even though I knew the governor saw me at the fire and I knew his torturers would come for me, I pretended to be like the outside people and fled Kugisko, and it worked. So the robe is lucky because the torturers didn’t get me. I truly was better outside the city, in the grasslands, or they’re grasslands when there’s no snow. But it’s hard to eat grass and I’m no hunter, so I go back to the cities and towns and I leave those places when the voices get to be too much but I have to eat.” He hung his head. “I made my way here alone with my, my…” He sighed, his bony shoulders slumped. “Madness.”