A Draw of Kings Read online

  When the ship glided into dock, Adora spied more of Duke Weir’s men lining the piers. The sight of the blue-clad men affronted her as if the change in attire had been designed to expunge the memory of her uncle.

  When the guards brought Errol and the others from belowdecks, she edged close to Martin as they crossed over from the ship to dry land. “How many men does Weir have?”

  The ex-benefice shrugged, but lines of worry creased his bluff face. “By all accounts, the duke has nearly fifty thousand under arms.”

  Adora tried to school her features, but shock pounded through her chest like a second heartbeat. The garrisons of the kingdom totaled one hundred thousand, but few of those men could be pulled back to the Green Isle. The troops were needed to safeguard the provinces bordering Merakh and the steppes. Weir could exert total authority over the island with half the men under his command.

  She looked up to see Martin watching her. “I see you’ve grasped the problem, Your Highness. The duke may not be Deas’s choice for king, but he may end up being the Judica’s. The idea of martyrdom is stirring in the tales and histories, but few men have the constitution for it in the present.”

  “We are undone, Martin,” she whispered. Desperation constricted her throat.

  “Not yet, Highness,” the priest said. “Deas has surprised me too much of late for me to surrender to hopelessness. And do not forget Errol.”

  At the mention of him, her heart skipped. She turned to spy him some ten paces back under heavy guard.

  Martin nodded. “The hand of Deas is on him. Would that I had known it sooner.”

  They ascended the long winding incline toward the imperial compound. Absence and circumstance made the familiar lines of the palace strange, as if the next turn might place her in a location she wouldn’t recognize.

  Once in the palace, the guards escorted them toward the king’s—she corrected herself, the regent’s—private audience chamber, where they separated them—most leading Errol, Martin, and Luis away while the rest hemmed her in.

  Massive doors swung open. The echo of her footsteps warned Adora before she lifted her head to survey the nearly empty hall. Long stone benches to each side were devoid of the usual crowd of courtiers and functionaries, but at the far end, Weir filled the chair on the dais, flanked by eight blue-garbed soldiers. A jolt shot through her chest. Where were the watchmen? Granted, Weir was not king, but as regent he should have been guarded by the king’s elite.

  Adora noted the closed ranks of the soldiers and shook her head in disgust. Her uncle had never used more than four watchmen at a time. Perhaps it was a sign of Weir’s vanity or insecurity. Either way, she chose to view it as weakness. She would not let him see her tremble.

  Duke Weir, regent of all Illustra, beckoned her forward.

  2

  A Cast in the Dark

  A HARD KNOT OF RESOLVE formed in Errol’s midsection as the guards led him away from Adora. Benefice Dane remained with the princess, and the soldiers didn’t appear to be in the mood to provide information. Martin and Luis walked ahead of him, their feet barely clearing the ground before shuffling forward.

  Errol coughed to clear his throat. “Where do you think they’re taking us?”

  The butt of a spear in his back propelled him onto the granite floor. Errol rolled with the fall, came to his feet facing his antagonist.

  A hint of a smile played around the guard’s mouth, suggesting a desire to strike again. “No talking.”

  Errol rolled his shoulders, his hands grasping for a staff he didn’t have.

  They left the palace compound and walked across the broad expanse toward the watch barracks. Errol craned his neck to peer at the openings and windows as if he’d never been to the isle before, but despite his efforts, no trace of men in black could be seen. Not one watchman transited the grounds on the kingdom’s business. When they passed through the large archway leading to the practice grounds of the watch, the clash of swords came, and a knot of tension between his shoulder blades eased. The watch remained.

  A cold gust deepened his shock as they entered the courtyard and he saw men in Weir’s livery facing each other with naked steel. A broad-shouldered man at the far end towered over them, his smile cruel. Here and there among the ranks, splotches of red discolored the blue uniforms.

  Errol hadn’t realized he’d stopped walking until a guard prodded him forward. They passed through the yard to the sound of strike and riposte, then moved into the quarters of the watch. The halls teemed with men whose faces were unknown to him. Of Liam, Captain Reynald, and the rest of his friends, there was no sign.

  At a signal from the leader of their escort, the men around Errol separated him from Martin and Luis. A net of swords surrounded him, leaving him no choice but to watch Martin and Luis disappear into the confines of the barracks.

  In moments Errol and his guards entered the sprawling complex that headquartered the church. By habit, he made the turn toward the broad granite stairs that led down toward the halls and offices of the conclave, but instead the guards directed him toward the cathedral proper, where the Judica met to decide the fate of the kingdom.

  Were they going to try him immediately?

  But they turned aside, and the hallways and staircases grew smaller until they entered a long corridor populated with plain wooden doors: the postulates’ wing. Hundreds of men, young or old, who wished to take orders could have been housed there, but the sound of their footsteps and the stale smell of the air told him the rooms were empty.

  The guards shoved Errol into an empty cell close to the middle of the hallway, then locked the heavy door. He grimaced. His cell contained even fewer comforts than the quarters on Tek’s ship. Against one wall lay a cot with a hard pallet and a small blanket. Opposite that was a small desk and chair with a candle. He struck flint to light the candle, watching as the flame grew in the dead air, tapering to a point a handsbreadth above the wick.

  He settled himself to wait.

  Martin followed Luis down a broad granite stairwell through air chilled by the assault of winter cold enough to raise gooseflesh on his skin. They passed a guard station, a cavernous room populated by heavily cloaked men who diced at rough oak tables or sharpened weapons. A few of the guards paused to spare them a glance. One gave a raucous laugh. “About time to let the headsman thin out the populace a bit.”

  They marched down a long hallway lined with doors showing barred portholes and narrow slits for food and water. Through the bars Martin caught glimpses of black-robed watchmen. Farther on he stumbled at the sight of a benefice behind one of those stout doors, still wearing the deep red of his ceremonial robes, and later, a flash of a blue reader’s cloak in a cell completed his grief.

  They turned a corner, and the parade of colors continued. The guard hadn’t jested; every cell they passed held an unwilling occupant.

  Around another corner, light from the last torch faded, forcing them to continue into deepening gloom. The echo of bootheels against the floor seemed louder, and it became difficult to see. Rough hands propelled him with Luis through an open door into a cell. The door closed with an echoing boom, bringing darkness so thick it repudiated any memory of light. The smell of must and ancient decay filled Martin’s nose.

  “Unexpected,” Luis said. His voice sounded hollow in the confines of their prison.

  Martin grunted in the darkness, the tenor strange to his own ears. “Captivity hasn’t lessened your gift for understatement, my friend. I am a fool. I should have at least suspected Weir would attempt to usurp the throne upon Rodran’s death.”

  They shuffled toward the hint of light that came through the small barred grill in their prison door. Martin slid down the rough-cut granite wall to seat himself, trying not to think about what might be on the floor. Cold stone sucked the heat from his back through the thick wool of his cloak. His thoughts roiled like a boiling pot. “Why didn’t Aurae warn us?”

  A chuckle that failed to disturb the air in th
eir cell preceded Luis’s reply. “I remember being impatient with Karele’s refrain about how the solis served Aurae and not the other way around. Now I begin to understand his meaning.” Mist from his sigh ghosted across Martin’s vision.

  “I am too new to this, old friend. In the last six months the primacy of lots and the unassailability of centuries-old doctrine of the church have both been overthrown. I find myself without what we believed to be the foundations of our faith.”

  Martin grunted as he tested the strength of the door. “Weir is foolish in the extreme to squander the kingdom’s power in a fight for the throne. The Merakhi and Morgols will come flooding across our borders as soon as winter breaks.”

  “If he is foolish and we are his prisoners, what does that make us?” Luis asked. His wry tone blunted the sting of his words.

  “Dangerous,” Martin said. “If they bring us before the Judica, the truth of what we saw in Merakh would be enough to send Weir to the headsman.”

  Silence greeted him for a moment before Luis spoke. “They will not bring us before the Judica, my friend. They dare not. Weir fears discovery. They will keep us here until they are sure of their power, and then they will kill us.”

  Luis’s dour pronouncement stood at odds with the note of abstraction in his voice. Something besides the likely outcome of their fate wandered through his friend’s thoughts. Now that Sarin Valon was dead, Luis Montari possessed the second finest mind in the conclave, behind Primus Sten.

  “Something more troubles you.”

  As his eyes adjusted to the dim light from the door grate, Martin thought he saw his friend shake his head in the gloom.

  Luis sighed. “I forget sometimes how well you know me. It is the same question that has bothered me for months, and I am no closer to finding an answer. Why did the cast to reveal our future king fail? Despite my protests to the contrary, the preliminary cast in wood should have foretold the draw in stone.” He flung his hands up in surrender. “Yet the query in wood appears to have succeeded while a cast of stones, which should have been incontestable, failed. If the account of this time is ever written, Martin, I will be recorded as the reader who failed in the most important task in the history of the conclave.”

  The depth of Luis’s self-doubt echoed his own, but he had few words to offer, for the lore and training of the conclave lay outside his expertise. Martin sighed. “You were born for your craft. No reader outside of Enoch Sten possesses greater skill at discerning the question. What did you ask?”

  “It was always the same. Who will be king? I held the thought of the soteregia in my head for years.”

  Martin nodded. In all the writings of the church and the conclave, the king was referred to as soteregia, the title Magis earned for himself by taking the crown and becoming Illustra’s savior through his death.

  Since he could not comprehend the workings of the cast, Martin offered no succor for Luis’s failure, turning his efforts instead to diverting him. “If you could cast now, what question would you ask?”

  His friend’s eyes might have twinkled in the dim light as he reached into the pockets of his cloak and withdrew a pair of wooden cubes.

  Surprise and suspicion warred within Martin. “They left you with blanks? Are they so foolish?”

  Luis shrugged. “They’re soldiers . . . not churchmen. They considered the blade the bigger threat.” He paused. “What is it we most desire to know?” Luis rose to peer through the small barred window of their cell. Martin had done so earlier. Little could be seen. A man could conceal himself in the hall just outside without their knowledge. “Does he still live?” Luis whispered.

  He nodded. Names were unnecessary. The two men who mattered most to the kingdom’s survival were Errol and Liam, the lots Luis pulled times without number for his cast for king, and they knew Errol was imprisoned.

  But did Liam still live? A whisper in his mind told him he would have known if Liam had died, but doubt warred against the thought. He stared through the dusk of their cell at the blocks in Luis’s hands. “You can’t cast without a knife.”

  “I can . . .”

  A noise like the scrape of cloth against stone froze him, and he held his hand out for silence. He rose to press his ear against the barred opening of their door, counting fifty beats of his heart before putting his mouth next to Luis’s ear.

  “There may be guards in the hall,” he breathed. “Keep your voice low, but tell me.”

  Luis nodded assent and pointed with his free hand toward the walls of their prison. “The roughness of the stone and mortar will suffice to grind the lots to shape.”

  Martin stared. “Deas have mercy. How long will that take?”

  His friend shrugged in the darkness. “Hours, but it has been done before.”

  Luis’s suggestion daunted him. A reader held the question and its possible answer within his mind for the duration he crafted a lot, usually taking only ten to twenty minutes for a single sphere—after which, the reader could stop to clear his mind of distractions before repeating the process with the same question and another answer. Readers trained for years to extend their ability to produce lots with shorter breaks, but this . . . ? “Do you know what you’re suggesting? You will have to hold the question and answer for hours.”

  Luis stiffened as if he could redeem his inadequacy. “I failed before. If I must, I will hold the question for days.”

  If the secondus had any say in it, they would know if Liam was safe. Only Deas’s will could block the truth. He squeezed Luis’s shoulder. “I’ll keep watch at the door.”

  A pause in the air, as if the entire prison held its breath, settled over their cell as Luis stilled. Then he took a cube of wood no wider than half the length of his hand and scraped it against a seam of mortar.

  The scratch fractured the silence, and Martin winced. A second later he chided himself. This far from the guardroom, only screams would alert Weir’s men.

  Endeavoring to treat the armed men at her side not as guards, but as her escort, Adora moved forward, her back tense, to face Weir. He smiled. With wide-spaced brown eyes and a cleft chin, the most powerful man in Illustra would have been considered handsome by some, perhaps even herself at one time, but perpetual arrogance had twisted his features. She doubted whether the duke could gaze upon anyone or anything without the look of condescension he now wore.

  His hair, cropped just above his eyebrows, held most of the light brown of its youth. She amended her assessment. Some women would consider him attractive still, but she fought to keep from clenching her fists in disgust under the baleful gaze of his regard.

  “Welcome home, Princess.” Weir didn’t bother to stand or even offer a bow from his seat.

  At the bottom of the dais, Adora was forced to look up to meet Weir’s eyes. “Your hospitality fails to warm me.”

  His mouth compressed at the absence of his title, and he nodded to the guard on her left. Her head whipped to the side, and her cheek burned from the impact, but days of sparring with Rokha had inured her to such small hurts. Her eyes remained dry, but she allowed her hatred to blaze in them.

  The duke’s gaze widened a fraction at her silence, but he settled himself deeper into his seat. “You will remember to address me as Your Grace, Princess.”

  Laughter bubbled from her before she could prevent it. “And when did I become your inferior, that I should address you so, my lord?”

  Weir glowered at the insult and flicked a finger. The guard on her right struck her other cheek. Adora straightened from the blow, fixed her smile on her face. Did he think to break her with such treatment? She savored the surprised look on the face of her guards.

  “You became my inferior in name when your uncle did Illustra the favor of dying.” The duke’s eyes flared with anger. “You became my inferior in truth when my son died at the hands of your peasant.”

  Adora tossed her head. “Your son died a victim of his own pride and arrogance in the hall of the ilhotep. That peasant, as you
call him, saved the kingdom while your son preened through the palace like a peacock in love with his reflection.” She let the scorn she felt twist her face into an expression of contempt. “Do you intend to kill me, Weir?”

  Weir’s mouth compressed into a line, and she took the blow across her temple. Spots swam in her vision.

  Blood rushed into Weir’s face. “What makes you think I would find you deserving of such favor? You owe a debt to my house, Princess. Since I currently have no heir, you will spend your days repaying that debt, with interest. After I deem it paid, we shall see what kind of end can be devised for you.”

  “I think you should make for your province now, Your Grace.” She added the title not out of fear, but from a simple desire to finish speaking. “The hand of Deas is on Earl Stone. You will find yourself outflanked by circumstances beyond your ability to predict or understand.”

  The strike across her cheek took her by surprise, and she stumbled.

  “Let that be a lesson, Princess,” Weir said. “Every breath you take from this point is mine to give. Every moment you have without pain or punishment for the death of my son is by my whim.” Weir nodded to the guards. “Escort the princess to her quarters. I want a pair of soldiers outside her room at all times.” He waved a hand in dismissal, then signaled the guards to a halt. “Before you leave, Princess, there is a piece of information you could provide that might make your stay here in the palace more pleasant.”

  Weir’s posture betrayed no hint of tension; if anything, his relaxed pose suggested his change of conversation carried mere idle curiosity, but the gleam in his eyes told her a different tale. They had at last come to the point of his questioning and threats.