“Yer a good girl,” said the general. “Empress is lucky to have ye.”
So lucky she’s sending me back to Port Lorsin,Linna thought bitterly. But she flashed a smile at General Alric anyway and headed out of the Empress’s chambers.
It took Linna two hours after delivering General Alric’s cider to make up her mind. Two hours of wrestling with the decision, two hours of alternately pacing in her room and trying to listen at the Empress’s bedchamber door. But finally, Linna climbed the spiral staircase to a tower room and knocked on the heavy oak door. The tower, the staircase, the door at the top all reminded her somewhat of Wise Man Norix’s old quarters back in the palace.
The door cracked open about six inches, revealing a sliver of Udolf’s acne-splattered face. His expression was cautious, even suspicious, but as soon as he saw it was Linna, his face morphed into pleasant surprise.
“Well, hello,” he said. “What are you doing here? It’s nearly midnight.”
“I know.” Linna hated it when people stated the obvious, probably because the Commander seemed to hate it, too. “I want to speak to Brother Rennus. Is he here?”
Udolf hesitated, glancing over his shoulder. Linna heard a muffled question, to which Udolf replied, “It’s Linna, Master Brother.”
“Let her in,” Rennus said.
Udolf opened the door wide and swept out an arm to usher Linna inside. She hadn’t ever been inside Brother Rennus’s room. She’d always known where it was – she made it her business to know where all of the castle’s most important inhabitants stayed, just in case she needed to fetch them or carry a message from the Empress to them on short notice – but she’d never seen the interior.
It was plain inside, arranged with the kind of military efficiency that made her think it had probably belonged to one of the commanders of the Lord of House Pellon’s militia in the past, with a narrow bed beneath a window set high in the wall, a sleeping mat left of the door that must have belonged to Udolf, a wash basin, a round table, and shelves built into the curved wall that Rennus had filled with his own Wise Man and Brotherhood books, along with bottles, vials, and assorted other trinkets. Across from the shelves was a fireplace. A cauldron hung over the fire, logs crackling cheerily beneath it.
Brother Rennus stood in front of the round table, his back to the fire. A rack with several vials sitting upright within it sat on the surface in front of him. To the left of the vials was a large piece of parchment paper piled with a mountain of dried flowers.
He looked up as Linna stepped inside. “Welcome to our humble abode, L’Linna,” he said, smiling. “What brings you here at this late hour? A message from the Empress?”
Linna shook her head. She’d learned from the Commander not to waste her time with small talk. It was better to say exactly what needed to be said as clearly and concisely as possible. She swallowed, trying to tamp down her nerves. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and not just from the long flight of winding stairs.
“Send me to infiltrate the mountain men’s camp instead of a beastwalker,” she said.
Brother Rennus had been holding one hand over a vial, something pinched between his thumb and forefinger. Now he lowered his hand and cocked his head curiously at Linna. “The Empress made it clear you were not to embark on that kind of errand the last time I suggested it. Has she changed her mind?”
“The Empress doesn’t know I’m here.”
“Oh. I see.”
Linna was proud of herself for not stammering. She blurted out the rest of the speech she had prepared in her head before she could start stuttering like an idiot. “It’s like you said before, when we discussed poisoning the mountain men in Bawold. I’ve already proven that I can enter a camp undetected, add a draught to a stew pot, and leave without being seen. Your beastwalkers aren’t well-suited for this task – you said as much yourself. One of General Alric’s spies may be successful, but then again they may not be. I’m small, I’m quick, and I’ve spent my entire life practicing not being seen. I’m the best person in Pellon to do this.”
Well, there was someone else who would be good at it, too, Linna knew – a certain pirate captain. But she very much doubted that Akella would be interested in risking herself on behalf of the Empire.
Brother Rennus was staring at her. The look in his eyes made Linna uncomfortable, but she wouldn’t let herself look away.
“Why?” he asked at last. “Why go against the wishes of your mistress?”
“Because the Empress wants to send me home,” Linna answered. “She worries I’ll get hurt out here once the real fighting starts. She trusts me, but she still sees me as a child – delicate, like her little sister the princess. But I’m no princess. And I want to show her – I want to show both of them – that I belong here as much as any other member of her guard.”
“By ‘both of them,’ I assume you mean the Commander?”
Linna nodded.
Brother Rennus glanced over his shoulder to where Udolf was standing. When Linna followed his gaze, she saw that Udolf wore a smirk that took up his whole face.
Udolf knows what it’s like to be overlooked,Linna thought. He would do the same thing I’m doing if our places were reversed.
Rennus turned back to Linna. “You do realize that if you fail – if you get captured, injured, or, Mother Moon forbid, killed – the Empress will have my head?”
“She’ll be mad, but she won’t hurt you.” Linna had expected this objection, and she’d already planned for it. “You’re too valuable to her. Even though no one says it out loud, everyone knows you’re in charge of all the Brothers. And the Empress needs the Brotherhood, not just to defeat the mountain men, but when she goes to the Kingdom of Persopos to face the deathless king. If she loses you, she knows she might lose the entire Brotherhood.” She paused and added, “Besides, I’m not going to get caught.”
Brother Rennus was silent, considering.
“I can do it,” Linna said fervently when several seconds had passed with no response from the Brother. “I’m sick of everyone treating me like I don’t belong here. This will prove I belong, will prove I’m no child. And then they’ll have to let me stay and fight.”
She wanted to say more. She wanted to say: I’ve already killed.They sent someone after the Empress, but I killed him in Tergos. Then I killed mountain men who got too close. And when the Empress got sick on the journey here, I was the one who had the good sense to fetch a Wise Man.
But she held her tongue. She’d said enough, and she’d only seem childish and petty if she listed off all that she’d done since she’d snuck aboard the Rooster’s Comb and sailed east with the Empress. Childish and petty was exactly the opposite of what she needed to be in this moment.
Just when the silence was about to be unbearable, when she didn’t think she could hold the Brother’s penetrating, dark-eyed gaze a moment longer, he spoke. “Very well.” He gestured at the ingredients before him, which must have been the components of the poison he was making. “I’m getting close to finishing this. Can you be ready in two hours – just before the crier calls two of the clock?”
“Yes.” Two hours would be plenty of time, she thought, to find what she needed – a lantern, extra oil, and some kind of tool to open the iron grates that protected Pellon’s sewer tunnels.