A Crown for Cold Silver Read online

  “That’s all a bit much, isn’t it?”

  Sister Portolés’s heart stopped, a half-birthed sob aborted in her throat. The queen had spoken. She sounded tired, her bare feet still dangling off the edge of the throne she lounged across.

  “Sister Portolés, I wonder if we might hear from your lips what transpired in Kypck, and how Baron Hjortt’s son met his doom there.” Queen Indsorith shimmered, bathed in celestial radiance… or so she looked through the lens of Sister Portolés’s tears. “My Askers have interviewed dozens of the deceased colonel’s cavalry, so I have established a certain chain of events, but would have you enlighten us with your account. Mother Cradofil recounted the basics from your last confession for us, but I am interested in a more detailed telling.”

  Sister Portolés swallowed, willed her venomous tongue to work as her queen commanded. Finally, it managed, “If it pleases Your Grace?”

  “Whether or not it pleases Y’Homa means less than nothing here, in my throne room, in my capital, in my province, in my empire,” said Queen Indsorith, reclining farther into the ebon seawolf furs that bolstered her throne. “Whatever your station before you entered into the service of the Crimson Empire’s armies, you are bound to heed my will. Unless you disagree?”

  Sister Portolés was unsure if this last was directed at her or the pontiff, but when no response came from Pope Y’Homa, she steadied herself and began her confession, sparing no detail of her own failings. This time she would tell it true. And so she did, from her hubris to her disrespectful tongue, from her reluctance at carrying out her colonel’s orders to her guilt and self-loathing at staving in the heads of the soldiers who wouldn’t assist in the slaughter, and finally her doubts over the righteousness of killing the villagers in the first place. Yet just when she reached the climax, as she was about to confess how she had returned from the cleansed hamlet to find the mayoress’s hut likewise aflame, the trapped Sir Hjortt wailing for help, and her own heart hard to his pleas, the queen cut her off.

  “—And so when you returned to the mayoral house it was already on fire, and Sir Efrain Hjortt along with it. This is as I had heard from the men in Sir Hjortt’s command, and those whom you previously confessed to. Please explain, Your Grace, how exactly does Sister Portolés’s faithful enactment of the orders given her by Sir Hjortt qualify as sedition or”—the queen gasped dramatically—“deviltry?”

  None spoke in the Crimson Throne Room, and then Baron Hjortt cleared his throat. When no response was elicited he tried again, and this time the queen snapped, “What do you have to say for your idiot son, Baron? Before I gave you permission to pass your command down to your boy, you always struck me as a worthy colonel, one well versed in the Crimson Codices. I believe you taught him to uphold my laws of war, did you not?”

  Baron Hjortt was obviously at a loss for words, and the queen went on, finally leaning forward in her throne as she berated the retired colonel.

  “Everyone in my armies from drudge to colonel knows better than to sack a single farm without my express orders, let alone an entire town, so what, pray tell, could inspire the dearly departed Sir Hjortt to commit such an atrocity? Did you accidentally tutor him in the ways of ancient barbarians instead of the civilized Empire? When you gave him your command, did you forget to mention the commandments of his queen, laws which were old when he was young?”

  “Your Majesty!” Baron Hjortt finally spluttered, and then, clearly stalling, said it again: “Your Majesty!”

  “Perhaps this creature blasted him with some geas or hex,” supplied Pope Y’Homa, keeping her dark gaze on Sister Portolés. “That would certainly explain how a crone, as the anathema so eloquently put it, could murder both an experienced war monk and a knight of Azgaroth. It would be a pretty trick indeed to have Colonel Hjortt commit such evil and then dispose of him and her brother-in-chains when the crime was done.”

  “No!” cried Sister Portolés, surprising even herself with the outburst. “Never! I… I am not pure, I have never been pure, it is true… But I strive to be as good as the Allmother allows me to be! I am no witch, nor a conspirator—I am nothing if not loyal to you! To both of you, my pope! My queen!”

  “Loyal to both of us?” the queen asked, exchanging a queer smile with the pope, and Sister Portolés blushed at her own folly. “Tell me, Your Grace, do you think this wretch tells honest, or do you still believe that the rust of corruption has eaten so deeply into the Chain that even the holy soldiers you place in my service are compromised?”

  The wind picked up, roaring over the high wall of the volcano and stirring the queen’s long auburn hair around her haughty face. Again, none spoke for a heavy moment, the two women staring at each other, and then the pontiff threw up her hands. It was an oddly petulant gesture, and for the first time Sister Portolés appreciated that the Voice of the Fallen Mother was decades younger than the queen, the pontiff sixteen years old if she was a day.

  “I leave her future in your most capable hands, Your Majesty,” said the Black Pope as she rose from her throne. “For now I must away and counsel with the abbotess and my cardinals, but as always you and I are of one mind on the judgment.”

  “As always,” said the queen, slumping back in her high seat. “Take the old man with you before I decide to attribute his son’s exceptionally poor judgment to bad parenting. Rest assured, Baron, if Sister Portolés had returned in time to rescue your offspring I would currently be flogging him in Diadem’s square—already his actions have polluted our relations with a dozen outlying provinces. I will not see the Empire fall back into the savage cruelty of old. I never would have let you retire had I suspected your son would prove such a pitiful imitation of his father.”

  “Your Majesty,” Baron Hjortt managed a final time, and then he quickly backed away toward the portico as the pontiff approached.

  Abbotess Cradofil knelt until Pope Y’Homa III stopped before her and extended her jet-ringed hand for the superior to kiss. To Sister Portolés’s bafflement and delight, the pope then offered her hand to the kneeling anathema. Sister Portolés kissed the ring with more love and tenderness than she had ever kissed Brother Wan, and then the Black Pope strode out of the room, Baron Hjortt stumbling backward before her, Abbotess Cradofil scurrying after.

  The doors creaked shut behind them, leaving Sister Portolés alone with her queen in the Crimson Throne Room, only the dim stars, the looming moon, and the chill wind party to what came next.

  CHAPTER

  13

  From Linkensterne, it was a long and rocky coach ride to the coast. When they eventually hit the end of the Norwest peninsula there came the worst leg of the journey, Zosia, Choplicker, and Bang crushed together in the back of a rickshaw and carried along the miles and miles of nauseatingly high boardwalks that linked the closest of the Immaculate Isles to the mainland. When they ran out of wooden roads they rented a boat, and after a long voyage Bang finally delivered Zosia to Hwabun, the last isle before the Haunted Sea, and the family seat of her old crony Kang-ho.

  Both smaller and taller than its neighbors, Hwabun did indeed resemble the flower pot it was named for, grey stone cliffs laced with pink mineral deposits rising hundreds of feet above the waves before leveling off into a plateau of variegated vegetation. Bang steered their small catamaran directly at the walls of the island, and only when they were rapidly closing in on the rocks did Zosia make out the sea cave that housed Hwabun’s modest harbor. Their way lit by an enormous blubber chandelier that hung from the ceiling of the subterranean cove, Bang maneuvered the vessel around to the docks, where a dozen craft of various sizes and makes were already moored.

  A white-gowned old woman helped them tie off, and after a quick Immaculate exchange with Bang, the harbor keeper directed them down the dock and up a wide staircase built into the wall of the cove. They passed through a carven tunnel and emerged into a gazebo, where they were greeted by another servant along with a pair of armed guards, all of the staff dressed in the same brigh
t white livery as the harbor keeper. Zosia couldn’t remember if white was the traditional Immaculate color of mourning, of death, or of public shame, but none of the options boded well. They were led out of the gazebo and onto a black gravel path that led through the gardens to the main house.

  Kang-ho had done well for himself—he had told her at length of the sorry state his ancestral home had been in when he left, as well as the improvements he planned to make if he ever returned. The structure before her, like most of the newer Immaculate estates she had glimpsed on her voyage, fused traditional island architecture with foreign designs. Unlike many of those attempted, the castle before her actually worked as a conglomeration of Gothic Crimson, Classical Immaculate, and Modern Raniputri… though the Usban onion domes on the outbuildings might have been a bit much. At least the wind chimes were old-school Ugrakari, singing sweet songs of better days to come in the soft sea air.

  A pair of servants slid open the massive bamboo screens of the main hall, and a heavyset man dressed in a starched white overcoat scurried down the wide walnut steps to intercept Zosia, Bang, and Choplicker. Another staccato exchange in Immaculate, during which Zosia heard Bang mention her alias of Moor Clell no fewer than three times. The man must have been Hwabun’s majordomo, to take such a snotty tone with guests. The majordomo gestured emphatically at Zosia, who, glancing down at her raggedy attire, allowed that it would have been a good idea to buy some more appropriate clothes during her passage through the country rather than spending all of her leisure time reacquainting herself with peated rice liquor, rare tubāq blends, and spicy pickled cabbage. The majordomo spun away, his cape slapping Bang’s chin, and hurried back inside.

  “That could have gone better,” said Bang. “But I think he’ll take your request to King Jun-hwan’s husband anyway. You’re just lucky I know the family names this far out; nowadays most Immaculates seem to think the Isles end at Othean.”

  “He was always just Kang-ho to me,” said Zosia, though to be honest she had probably known his full name, once. Was this how old age made itself known—the sudden, embarrassing realization that you have forgotten little niggling things, like the names of your closest friends?

  “Let’s just hope he remembers your name, then,” said Bang, kicking idly at the gravel. “Here’s a thought, though—if he doesn’t, and they kick us out, what do you say about a little detour before I take you back to Linkensterne? It’s a beautiful trip down and around to the Cuttlefish Cays where my family’s from, and there’s no sense in rushing back to the wall when we’ve got a cat just—”

  “That didn’t take long,” said Zosia, noting the majordomo’s almost genuine smile as he came back out.

  “Hwabun welcomes the lady Moor Clell,” said the majordomo with a bow, his Crimson better than Zosia’s. “My Elegant Master King Jun-hwan Bong cordially invites you and your warden Bang Lin to take kaldi with his family upon the Mistward Balcony. I will have a servant house your hound in the kennels until your departure.”

  “Trust me, squire, you don’t want him anywhere near your dogs or your servants.” Zosia patted the majordomo’s shoulder as she walked past him up the steps, Choplicker at her heels. “Don’t worry, though, his paws are clean, and I won’t let him out of my sight.”

  Cosmopolitan as the exterior of the castle was, the inside was strictly Immaculate, with the foyer nothing more than the intersection of three sparsely decorated hallways. Before the majordomo had even caught up with them, the sound of slippered feet swiftly gliding over polished hardwood floors came to Zosia from the central passage. She tried in vain to keep the smile from her face as Kang-ho slid to a stop in front of her, eyes bulging.

  The Second Husband of Hwabun looked a sight better than she’d expected. His cheeks sagged a little and his hair might have been thinning, but otherwise it was Kang-ho as he’d been twenty years past. For all his whinging about how bad he looked in Immaculate fashions, he cut a dapper figure in his square horsehair hat and silk robe, the black roses embroidered on the garment’s shoulders and the owlbat on the chest clearly copied from his tattoos. The only thing missing was Fellwing, but knowing Kang-ho, the devil was hiding under his hat.

  “It’s really you,” Kang-ho breathed, looking from Zosia to Choplicker and back again. “You’re alive!”

  His eyes filled with tears, and Zosia felt an unexpected tightness in her throat. The presence of Bang on one side of her and the majordomo on the other quickly helped her to suppress the awkward emotion, and she said hurriedly, “Yes, well… After my warehouse caught fire I knew rumors of my demise had spread, but I didn’t expect they should have reached all the way here, to the home of one of my old customers. Fear not, good sir, the pipe you commissioned all those years ago is safe, as am I.”

  “Of course,” said Kang-ho, blinking his eyes clear as his face brightened into a winning smile. “Moor Clell, as I live and breathe. Let us away to a private spot where we can discuss the matter at our leisure.”

  “His Elegance has extended an invitation to our guests for kaldi, and anticipates us directly,” said the majordomo, in Crimson rather than Immaculate. “And as your annual allowance was exhausted shortly after the New Year, sir, I suspect he will want to be a party to any and all discussions you and this merchant have on the matter of new acquisitions.”

  If Kang-ho was irritated to have his servant call him out so blatantly in front of a guest, he didn’t show it. “Ah, but this commission was paid for in advance, many years before our marriage, and so it will be of less than no interest to my husband—isn’t that right, Mistress Clell?”

  “Quite,” said Zosia.

  “Now, Hyori has been reading all sorts of military tales of late, so perhaps Mistress Clell’s warden here can entertain the family at kaldi,” said Kang-ho, bowing to Bang. “My youngest daughter would be delighted if you could occupy her, dame. I can assure you that your charge will be quite secure in my company.”

  “It would be my privilege,” said Bang, bowing in return. “I am humbled to be a guest in your home. Word of Hwabun’s beauty is just that; words, however poetically chosen, can never hope to match the glory of the thing itself.”

  The majordomo rolled his eyes but nevertheless escorted Bang away into the house, while Kang-ho took Zosia back outside and across the gardens to where a green hill rose up almost as high as the lower towers of the manse. At the summit a bench looked out over the island and the greener waves beyond, and not even the perpetual pillar of thunderclouds to the north that marked the grave of the Sunken Kingdom could cast a shadow on the serenity of the setting. So long as that drowned isle didn’t choose today to fulfill the mad prophecies of the Burnished Chain and reemerge from the Haunted Sea, it was shaping up to be a lovely afternoon.

  As they settled onto the seat a flock of servants came scurrying after, carrying trays of food and drink and a little table. As the staff erected the table and set it with an Usban sand bowl for the kaldi, Kang-ho and Zosia made small talk about her crossing from Linkensterne, each of them trying not to break out in another stupid grin. When the servants finally retreated back to the base of the hill, Kang-ho raised a mug at Zosia and said, “Wasn’t Moor Clell what you used when we were in Brackett, just before everything went to the devils?”

  “That’s the one. You’ve got a better memory than me, brother; I couldn’t even recall your family name. Hwabun stuck in the grey stuff since you looked so panicked the time you let it slip.”

  “The oversight in my name might be because I never told any of you what it was,” said Kang-ho. “If I ever needed to betray the gang, I didn’t want to make it too easy for you to find me.”

  “Oh, I would have found you,” said Zosia, admiring the scenery. “You may live at the ends of the earth, but that’s not far enough to hide from me.”

  “It’s not you I was worried about! I’d double-cross the others, if I really had to, but I’d never be crazy enough to turn on you. Do I look like I want to die?”

  “
No more than usual,” said Zosia, leaning down and rooting through the backpack she had fought the servants off of carrying for her. “You have a coalstick? Mine died in the mountains, and I don’t think I’ll be able to get a match going in this damnably refreshing sea breeze.”

  “It’s all in the jade box there, along with my go-to mixture these days. I call it ‘Thunder of Immaculate Hooves.’ ”

  “That’s a terrible name for anything, especially a tubāq blend,” said Zosia.

  “Bah, what’s in a title!” said Kang-ho. “The point is it smokes well. It’s an Oriorentine sort of mixture, and the leaf in it’s as old as we are—Azmir leaf, orange and lemon vergins, and prerevolution Usban lat. Stuff’s hard to come by, ever since Linkensterne got snatched by my beloved nanny state. While you’re in there, why don’t you pass me my—ah, thank you, Zosia.”

  It was the first time she had heard her true name spoken by anyone but her husband in twenty years, and even then Leib only whispered it in the dark of their bedroom as they made love. Well, there, and in their kitchen, and on their deck, and in that meadow of wildflowers above the house, and all the other places they had made time for one another… Zosia’s hands shook as she removed from the velvet-lined case the long-stemmed pipe she had carved Kang-ho a quarter century past and handed it over. “You were always the cleverest, brother, so tell me—why do you think I’m here?”