Empress of Dorsa (The Chronicles of Dorsa)

12

Joslyn woke before dawn, as she did regardless of what time she’d fallen asleep. Tasia snored softly beside her, one arm still slung over Joslyn’s middle. Joslyn moved the arm as gently as she could, dressed, and exited into the antechamber. Linna was there, asleep on the cot that had once been Joslyn’s. She must have come in during the night after Joslyn and Tasia had fallen asleep. Joslyn was surprised she hadn’t woken at the sound of the key in the antechamber’s lock. But Linna could be silent when she wanted to be.

Joslyn put a hand on Linna’s shoulder and the girl started awake, then yawned and rubbed both eyes with balled fists like a child. Sometimes Linna seemed like she had forty summers instead of fourteen; other times she looked a child of five. But that was what happened to children of hard upbringings – old beyond their summers in some ways, still hatchlings in other ways.

“Did you sleep well, Commander?” Linna asked in Terintan. The two of them tended to slip into their mother tongue when alone.

“I did. You?”

Waking Linna in the antechamber was a part of Joslyn’s morning ritual. Technically speaking, the cot in the antechamber still belonged to Joslyn, and the servant’s quarter off Tasia’s bedchamber, the one Mylla once inhabited, belonged to Linna. Normally, a handmaid would stay in that bedchamber, but after Mylla, Tasia could not bring herself to trust the highborn young women who served her as handmaids to sleep within her apartments.

“I went to bed later than I intended, but the Princess was restless last night,” Linna answered.

“Restless?”

Linna nodded and yawned again. “We left the ball just after you and the Empress did, but instead of going back to the royal wing, she took me through some of the hidden passages that lead to the storerooms and the old kitchens. Did you know about those?”

“I did.”

Linna hesitated and broke eye contact. “The Princess wanted me to help her steal a cask of wine from one of the storerooms. I convinced her not to.”

Joslyn smiled. “A wise choice.”

She’d almost said, A wise choice, kuna-shi, because that was how Joslyn had come to see Linna – as the apprentice she would train in the dance of the Seven Cities. But calling Linna kuna-shi would make Joslyn a ku-sai, and that title didn’t fit as comfortably. Nevertheless, she would continue to train Linna, kuna-shi or not, and when she was old enough and skilled enough, Joslyn would appoint her as personal guard to Princess Adela. In truth, the girl practically held that position now, but at fourteen summers, she was too young for the palace guard. Besides that, Joslyn’s position as commander was still new, new enough that it would cause significant grumbling amongst the Palace Guard if yet a second female – and perhaps more importantly, a second Terintan – was appointed to one of the Guard’s most coveted positions.

Joslyn hated politics. But she’d learned she had a natural talent for it, a kind of intuition. It was, in a way, just another dance, but a dance performed with minds and tongues instead of hands and swords.

“No training this morning, right?” Linna asked.

“Correct. Yesterday was a late night for everyone.”

Linna gave a single nod – a gesture that Joslyn was fairly certain was an imitation of herself – then rose from the cot, arranging the bedsheets and blankets quickly before padding on bare feet to the bedchamber door. She slipped into Tasia’s room quietly, closing the door softly behind her. When the chambermaids arrived a few hours later, they would find everything as it should be, with Linna asleep in the servant’s chamber, Joslyn’s undergarments ready to be laundered atop her cot, and the Commander of the Guard already out and about on her duties for the day.

Joslyn made her way down to the kitchens, not to break her fast, because she typically only had tea in the mornings, but because she knew she’d find Alric and Brick breaking theirs, tucked away at a servants’ table in the corner.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” she said when she arrived, pulling out a stool at the end of the rough servant’s table to sit adjacent to Brick.

Alric and Brick stopped chatting, exchanging a glance before turning to Joslyn.

“Did she just call us ‘gentlemen’?” Brick asked around a mouthful of bread. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy from lack of sleep; he typically managed the night guard and slept during the day, but yesterday he’d worked all morning to help manage the executions, then still had his normal night shift once Joslyn retired after the coronation ball. “I don’t see no gentlemen ’round here. D’you, Ric?”

“Naw,” Alric drawled. He stretched one leg out beneath the table, rubbing his bad knee. “No gentlemen. Only a coupla old ruffians with a penchant for trouble.”

Brick elbowed his friend. “Who ye callin’ old, old man?”

The corners of Joslyn’s mouth twitched into a partial smile. Thirty minutes from now, Tasia would wake as servants came in with her breakfast and handmaids came in to help her dress. Not long after that, she’d be sitting in her office behind the great oak desk that had once belonged to her father, conferring with her advisors. Instead of an office, Joslyn had this servants’ table in the palace kitchens; instead of Brothers and Wise Men, she had these two.

And she preferred these two “old ruffians with a penchant for trouble” to any Wise Men she’d ever met.

“Now ye’ve done it,” Brick said. He tore off another hunk of bread. “Ye made the Commander smile.”

“What news, ruffians?” Joslyn asked.

Brick snorted out a laugh.

“Aye, well, M’Tongliss’s ship was spotted just past Easthook,” said Alric, sopping up what was left of his egg yolks with a hunk of bread. “Means the boy will arrive today, probably before noontide.”

“I arranged for a larger guard than usual for his arrival,” Joslyn said.

Alric grunted. “Maybe ye should arrange for a smaller one.”

They both turned to him.

“How ye figure?” Brick asked.

“House Paratheen is a minor house,” said Alric. “Ye give the boy a Great House greeting, word will get around. People will wonder, maybe even suspect why he’s here. Wouldn’t be much leap o’ imagination. Everyone knows M’Tongliss sheltered the Empress when she was in exile, an’ everyone’ll know he asked for something in return. Treat the boy like a prince, pretty soon everyone will figure out that’s exactly what he is.”

“He’s not a prince,” Joslyn said.

“Aye, but he will be, won’t he?” said Brick. He scratched his scruffy, rust-colored beard ponderously. “A Terintan married into the House of Dorsa. Yer people’ll dance in the streets when that happens, won’t they, Joz?”

My people?Joslyn wanted to say. But she only lifted an eyebrow in reply.

“T’other nobles won’t be happy about it,” Alric stated, frowning into his breakfast. He didn’t see Joslyn’s raised eyebrow.

Brick elbowed Alric playfully. “Ye sound like a noblewoman, always frettin’ over how things’ll look.”

“’Tis my job now, ain’t it?” Alric retorted. “Chief o’ Spies, Senior Military Advisor, all that. I’m just tryin’ t’keep the crown on our girl’s head. An’ her head attached to her shoulders.”

“Aye, aye,” Brick said, nodding like it was a conversation they’d had before. “But the more I know of nobles, Ric, the more I realize they ain’t ever happy ’bout much of anything. Always findin’ something to whine about. If it ain’t the Terintan boy marryin’ the wee princess, it’ll be something else.”

Alric turned to Joslyn. “Has the Empress told her sister yet? ’Bout the boy?”

Joslyn shook her head. Tasia had been putting off telling Adela the real reason for Darien of House Paratheen’s arrival because she felt guilty about it. Norix had maneuvered Adela like a game piece when he and Lord Hermant betrothed the girl to Theo of House Farrimont; Tasia was fully aware that she’d done the exact same thing by promising her sister to Lord M’Tongliss’s son.

Brick chuckled. “See, this is why it’s good to be lowborn. Ye marry who ye please, politics be damned.”

Some of us marry whom we please,Joslyn thought bitterly.

“Oi, royal weddings, don’t remind me,” Alric said, wiping a hand down his face. “I don’t even want t’think ’bout the wedding comin’ at the end of this –”

“There is good news to share,” Joslyn interrupted, changing the subject before Alric could start in on the topic of Tasia’s wedding. “I was with Milo and the Brothers yesterday, just after the coronation. We tested two new rune-marked blades, one dagger, one short sword.” She paused. “They both work.”

“Finally. Took ’em long enough, didn’ it?” said Brick.

“How soon can they be makin’ more?” Alric asked.

“Not soon enough,” Joslyn admitted. Just talking about the new blades made her fingers itch for Ku-sai’s sword, which was still in the hands of the Brotherhood for now. She felt naked without it. “Apparently, engraving is one of the rarer shadow arts. Very few Brothers are engravers. They are training more as quickly as they can, but it will take at least a fortnight just to engrave enough to equip a single shift of the palace guard, another fortnight for the rest of the palace guard.”

“Palace guard first, aye,” Alric said, nodding his approval. “Makes sense – protect the Empress and the Princess and the other highborn skulkin’ around here first.”

“Yes. And after the palace guard, the city guard,” Joslyn said.

“So we don’t have another Battle of Port Lorsin,” said Brick.

Joslyn nodded. “Once the city guard is equipped, Alric, the Empress is going to need you to coordinate with the Brotherhood to figure out the best way to equip the Imperial Army and Imperial Navy.”

Alric let out a low whistle. “Even with our troops depleted, that’s thousands upon thousands of weapons.”

Joslyn nodded. “Daggers are smaller. Faster to make and engrave, so that’s what they’ll be focusing on instead of swords. The Empress’s advisors are suggesting roughly one rune-marked dagger per ten soldiers.”

“So squad leaders and officers,” Brick guessed.

“Right,” Joslyn said. She leaned back against the wall behind her.

“Still,” Alric said. He gazed at the ceiling for a moment, looking like he was mentally calculating how many rune-marked daggers would need to be forged and engraved. “Yer talkin’ months before ye got enough.”

“I know,” said Joslyn. “The Empress is pressing Brother Evrart to convince the Brotherhood to train women as engravers – recruiting witches and shamans from the Central Steppes, Terinto, even parts of the Northeast. With women generally having more natural talent for the shadow arts, it could greatly speed the process.”

Brick chuckled. “Our girl ain’t the best at makin’ the highborn happy, is she?” He waved a hand at Alric and Joslyn. “Got herself a Terintan Commander of the Palace Guard, a lowborn Military Advisor, bringin’ the boogeymen Brotherhood on like they’re equal to Wise Men, an’ now she’s askin’ for witches?” Brick threw his head back, turning his light chuckle into a full-throated laugh. “Balls. For a royal lady, our new Empress has got great big balls on her.”

Joslyn pursed her lips and Brick held up a hand.

“No offense, Commander.”

Alric shook his head at his friend before saying to Joslyn, “It ain’t just the lords whose beer she’s pissin’ in, if you’ll excuse the sayin.’ House o’ Wisdom ain’t gonna take kindly to the Brotherhood bein’ so public about bein,’ well, the Brotherhood.”

Joslyn nodded. The Brotherhood of Culo, after the Battle of Port Lorsin, had negotiated the right not only to practice their shadow arts in the open without fear of persecution, but also the right to operate partially independent from Imperial law, a right previously reserved only for the House of Wisdom itself. It was one of Tasia’s more dangerous decisions, a decision that set the House of Wisdom and the Brotherhood of Culo on a path of almost inevitable conflict. Yet after nearly the entire populace of Port Lorsin had been inhabited by shadows, even the House of Wisdom couldn’t claim that the Brotherhood’s knowledge and skill was unnecessary.

“House o’ Wisdom workin’ hand in glove with the Brotherhood,” Brick muttered. “Now there’s a fire waitin’ to happen if I ever saw one.”

Alric frowned. “If the Wise Men and the Brothers are independent from Imperial law, how come the Empress made that pretty speech durin’ the execution yesterday ’bout nobody bein’ above the law?”

“Members of the House of Wisdom – and therefore of the Brotherhood – are still subject to prosecution for capital crimes,” Joslyn said. “But they have a right to dole out justice internally as they see fit provided they did not commit a capital crime.”

“Lookit our Commander,” Brick said, giving Joslyn’s arm a light punch. “Two months on the job and soundin’ like a regular magistrate already.”

Joslyn made a show of rolling her eyes. “You two are skilled at nothing so much as distracting me. Let’s get back to Darien of House Paratheen’s arrival.”

“Aye, that,” said Brick. “Between all this talk o’ Brothers and witches and rune-marked blades, I think I already forgot he was comin’.”

Alric looked at his friend askance and shook his head. “Ye need to get yerself to sleep.”

“I’ll stumble home to me wife as soon as I finish me evening meal here,” he said, nodding to the bread. “But knowing my Martha, she’ll insist upon some task or t’other that needs doin’ before I can lay me head down.”

“I think I’ll reduce the guard, as Alric suggested,” Joslyn said, bringing their attention back again. “Draw less attention. Brick, pass the word before you go home this morning.”

“Aye,” he said, finally serious.