The Traitor Baru Cormorant

  But the man before her was a kind of answer.

  “Go,” she said, troubled and uncertain, petrified suddenly by the fear that she spoke in her sleep and that Purity Cartone listened. “Go guard the bottom of the stairs while I sleep. Suspire. Go.”

  She told herself the next morning that she’d dreamed of Taranoke filled with clockwork people, brilliant men and women who built beautiful things at her command and offered cogent truth without fear. Dreamed of the whole Ashen Sea ringed in them and made reasonable, like a well-kept account, everyone set in their ordered chosen place as the stars in constellations.

  But it was a lie and she knew it. It hadn’t been a dream. She’d prodded at the thought over and over again with the nauseating fascination of a child pulling scabs, unable to decide if what she felt was pain or glee.

  The duel was coming. She only had a little time before Cattlson cut her hand off, or worse, and left her bedridden and impotent. Only one course remained: answering the letter that had carried the trigger word.

  So she acted.

  Purity Cartone watched her write the note, watched her pass it to Muire Lo. An innocent thing: I would like to meet to discuss planning for tax season.

  Xate Yawa came that afternoon.

  14

  THEY took coffee and small cakes drizzled in date syrup under the eyes of Purity Cartone and Muire Lo, two silent attendants reporting to distant authorities, two men that Baru felt she could trust completely—within narrow, defined bounds.

  Bounds she was about to depart.

  Xate Yawa eyed the pale man with fascination. “He’s a spectacular specimen, isn’t he? Remarkably capable. When the Governor showed him off, I had him repeat the whole conversation word-for-word. He could replace all my recorders.”

  Baru heard the warning there, and almost smiled. She’d set Muire Lo to transcribe the whole conversation, to be sure that Xate Yawa understood how scrutinized it would be. She should’ve trusted the old judge to know. “With a dozen of him I could’ve sorted out Su Olonori’s books in a week.”

  “I doubt there are a dozen Clarified in all of Aurdwynn. They’re bred in the Metademe, where they’ve built these ingenious cribs out of levers and bells—oh, but that’s all rumor.” She chuckled with polite mirth. “I shouldn’t pass it on.”

  “Rumor is all I’ve had these past few days,” Baru said, marking Purity Cartone and then the door with her gaze: the guards?

  Xate Yawa’s bright eyes followed hers intently. “Yes. The matter of this … protective detail. Were it a formal house arrest I could lift it at once. But as the Governor sees the, ah, unknown intruder as a matter of provincial security, he has the right to conduct military action in your defense. If he can justify your confinement as short-term protection, I am—for the moment—powerless.”

  Not that she or her brother saw any reason to let Baru out of her tower. Not so long as they believed a rebellion had no chance.

  That was what Baru had to change. They’d backed Tain Hu. They could be swayed again.

  She spun her coffee cup on its plate and flopped back in her chair, overly at ease, screaming to Xate Yawa: now, this, this is the important part. “No matter at all. It’s given me a chance to focus on our tax program.”

  “How dutiful of you.”

  “With our collectors on the road and the coffers beginning to fill, I’ve started to worry about matters of security. In lean times like this, taxes put the people in a mood to revolt and the dukes in a mood to defraud. And Governor Cattlson—” She flicked her gaze to Purity Cartone. “He is most concerned that we offer Falcrest a healthy season. Parliament is frustrated with its losses here. They expect war with the Oriati federations, and that war will cost them.”

  Xate Yawa examined the decor idly, her gaze tracing a long anchor-and-chain motif. “I’ve made an example out of the fraudulent the past few years. Taught them that lean times are the times that most demand brotherhood. I think you’ll find rich yields.”

  What she really said: Play your role. Don’t make trouble.

  Muire Lo’s pen scratched away at the parchment.

  “Quite.” She caught the older woman’s gaze and held it. “But it’s occurred to me that we risk a different disaster. Rumor of the new Imperial fleet being built in Sousward will push pirates north along the trade circle. Their old haunts in the southwest of the Ashen Sea won’t be safe. They’ll be looking for new targets.”

  Xate Yawa’s gape of astonishment might have seemed a fake to anyone who didn’t understand her real allegiance, anyone who hadn’t met her brother in the night. Baru knew that it was real. That she’d intuited where Baru was going.

  Xate Yawa took a moment to regain her composure. “The tax ships headed to Falcrest, loaded down with a nation’s worth of gold … but surely the navy will guard them diligently. Surely these pirates will be turned away.”

  “I am confident no disaster will befall them. But I’d like to take steps to raise that confidence to surety.” Baru smiled blandly. “The markets run on confidence, you know.”

  In the background, Purity Cartone stood statuesque, his eyes focusing here, there, relaxed and inattentive and screaming danger from every pore.

  And Baru, too, wanted to scream: for in this instant she could feel her whole life, all her dreams and ambitions, every painful perfect memory of Taranoki water and seabirds calling, every hope of imperial power and subversion, balanced on a knifepoint, and that knife in the hands of Xate Yawa.

  I am a fool, Baru thought. She will keep to her brother’s word. It is too soon.

  He’d said: she’ll have you boiled alive.

  Xate Yawa sat in silence for a moment, and spoke again.

  “Of course we must take steps. I’ll have Admiral Croftare’s liaison bring you the necessary paperwork so that you can examine the schedules and reassign ships as you see fit.” Xate Yawa sipped at her coffee. “Perhaps the tax ships should be held until they can sail together in convoy. So they cannot be taken piecemeal.”

  “Just what I’d thought.”

  The Jurispotence frowned sharply. “There’s another matter to attend to, however, and one less pleasantly constructive. I am gravely disappointed that you and Governor Cattlson alike have elected to go forward with this juvenile challenge. I’ve worked for years to end Aurdwynn’s affection for trial by combat. Now here you are, stirring up the country with rumors of the commoner’s favorite gold-lender taking up sword against the Governor. I would insist that this ridiculous dispute be settled in court, but the Governor is fixated on the duel.”

  “As am I. It’s a matter of honor.” Baru tried not to overplay, tried to go along with Xate Yawa as she sailed the conversation smoothly away from the offer that had just been made and accepted.

  Xate Yawa tugged at her gown with convulsive irritation. “You could be badly injured. I insist that you find someone to stand for you. We can’t afford to lose your service.”

  “Or the Governor’s.”

  “Or the Governor’s.” She rolled her eyes. “I forgot. You are a duelist, too.”

  Baru spread her hands, helpless. “I’m in no position to search for a second while I remain under—” She laughed, spontaneously and genuinely, amused by the irony. “Under the Governor’s protection.”

  “Well, then.” Xate Yawa smiled irritably and gave not one hint of satisfaction, not one smug silent tic to indicate the pleasure she might feel at this deal so rapidly done. “I will have to find an appropriate swordsman to serve as your second. One who can ensure that neither party is damaged.”

  And surely Xate Yawa could—Xate Yawa, who in years long past had murdered the old Duke Lachta herself, who controlled every criminal enterprise in Aurdwynn by the fact of her station.

  Muire Lo and Purity Cartone made their respective records, pen and silent mnemonics, marking down the words and with any luck at all missing entirely the great pivotal stroke that Baru had ventured, the twin irresistible prizes she had offered to the twin m
asters of Aurdwynn’s simmering rebellion: gold and blood, arranged before them, waiting only to be seized.

  It was done. All the power had gone out of her hands. In a few days Xate Yawa would destroy her, or see the first spark of rebellion lit.

  And then Baru’s real test would begin.

  * * *

  THE day of the duel broke rainy and hot, the whole city steaming from pavestone and cobble after a midsummer squall. Baru came down to her office, already stretched and limbered, dressed in riding trousers and a heavy surcoat, to find Muire Lo standing at the windows behind her desk.

  “Cartone’s gone,” Muire Lo said, smiling out at the city. “The Governor recalled him to report on your activities. I’ve brought breakfast.”

  “I didn’t notice him missing,” she said, surprised at herself. Muire Lo had cooked fresh cod in olive oil, and onions for Aurdwynni luck. She wished she had an appetite. “He’s like furniture. Just slips right out of attention.”

  “Not mine.” Muire Lo spidered his hands against the windowpane, staring into the mist. Baru felt a little pang at the look on his face: a soft, graceful melancholy, as if he had decided he would do something that hurt. “I remember mornings like this used to smell like shit. We had awful sewers, and everything would back up into the streets when it rained.”

  “And now?”

  “The Masquerade rebuilt them while I was gone.” He shrugged. “No more sewage fog on summer mornings. But you have a hot bath at the top of a tower, so I suppose you’re not impressed.”

  “You can go on,” she said, picking at the cod.

  “Mm? About plumbing?”

  “With all the things you wanted to say while that man was attached to my side.”

  He set his brow against the glass and closed his eyes. She watched him, wanting to understand even as her thoughts circled back to the duel, to Cattlson’s plan to see her crippled and taken out of play. Would it hurt? Would she lose a finger, a hand?

  “What are you doing?” Muire Lo murmured, softly, as if to escape some hidden eavesdropper.

  “Well.” She swallowed and lifted her knife. “I can’t back down from the duel without issuing an official apology to Bel Latheman. If I do that I’ll compromise my ability to hold office, and I’ll be pushed into resignation. Cattlson sees the duel as a chance to repudiate all the harm I’ve done to his government. Xate Yawa doesn’t seem to care enough to stop the whole affair. So neither of us have a way out, and we have to fight.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” He peeled himself away from the window and the abstract slithering shapes in the fog (Baru thought, with a chill, of Purity Cartone’s slim muscled neck). “The tax rider. Your cryptic arrangement with Xate Yawa. Your meticulous scheduling of appointments six months in advance, like you’re trying to prove you’ll still be having appointments six months from now.” He came to the other side of her desk and stood there, hair sleekly oiled, his surcoat buttoned to full formality. He didn’t look so much like a finch now. Maybe a crow. “I know you. You wouldn’t stake your standing and career on this childish duel without some reason behind it. What are you doing?”

  She took another piece of cod, to buy herself and her heart a little time. “I’m going to need your help with a great deal of paperwork afterward.”

  “Or you’ll need me to nurse you.” His lips twitched, and then the smile fled. He spoke harshly, as if forcing himself to go forward. “If you’re going over, if you’re planning to cast in with them, I want a chance to warn my family before it happens. Enough to get them on a ship and out of port. Do you remember that huntsman who strangled me when I told him who I spied for? That wrath will come down on them, too.”

  Her heart cried out in her chest, full of sudden want to save this child of rebellion past, to warn him what was to come. And from where did that want come? He was older, a trained operative, a native. He could manage himself. But he was tethered to her, wasn’t he, under her power. He had been bound to her by Cairdine Farrier.

  She spoke in calculated defense: “I won’t hear treason spoken in my office. I’m under scrutiny enough.”

  Muire Lo bowed his head. “I am at fault. Forgive me. I presumed to know your mind.” He stumbled on his words. “I thought that if—in the event of—that is to say, under such circumstances, I thought you might need my…”

  Whatever he was after, he hadn’t found a way to say it yet, and Baru couldn’t do it for him. She pushed the tray away. “I want to be early. Call a carriage—and if the Governor’s already arranged one, have it changed.”

  Whatever he had wanted to venture, whatever confidence or daring, he packed it away in an instant. “Of course, Your Excellence.”

  Baru found Aminata’s boarding saber and buckled it on alongside her chained purse. If she needed it today she had already lost.

  Xate Yawa hadn’t written a letter about finding a second.

  * * *

  THE crowd roared like storm surf.

  It wasn’t productive to think about losing. To imagine that she might lose a hand, or take a festering wound, or faint from the unexpected immediacy of the pain. No, Xate Yawa would have a second ready to stand for her. She wouldn’t have to fight. If she fought she would lose to Cattlson, who had reach and strength and experience and confidence with a blade.

  But she wouldn’t have to fight.

  She stepped down from the carriage into the middle of the plaza and half the city shrieked their hate or adoration at her.

  A coded riot. Ranks of garrison blue trying to hold back the crowd. Banners of coin and mask flying on redwood poles, merchants hawking beer to ragged dock laborers and hollow-eyed rangers with scurvy teeth and Pinjagata spearwomen who stood shoulder to shoulder crying in terrible enthusiastic Aphalone: Gold from a fairer hand! A fairer hand! Even men under Ducal banner, Oathsfire and Lyxaxu and Unuxekome, knotted in uncomfortable separation from the common crowd, raised the same cheer.

  Cheering for her.

  She’d made her loan policy as a calculated move to buy the affection of the commoner. She’d made Bel Latheman’s insult to her honor public as a calculated move to buy their outrage.

  Apparently she’d calculated well.

  A fairer hand!

  But of course there was the opposition.

  Toward the Fiat Bank side of the plaza, horses jockeyed in the crowd. The riders wore armor or ducal finery. Baru found the stag banner of Duke Heingyl, and then the duke himself, armored and rigid on his black charger. He’d lost so much during Baru’s inflationary collapse that Governor Cattlson had stepped in with gold to prop him up. But his loyalties ran deeper than that. He’d pledged fealty to the Masquerade when Aurdwynn first fell, and his sense of honor ran so strong that he’d stood with Falcrest during the Fools’ Rebellion. His word was iron.

  He lifted a hand to her, and then drew something out of his saddle: a white seabird, bound but twitching. At her shoulder Muire Lo sucked in a sharp breath.

  Heingyl snapped its neck and threw it into the crowd. A volcanic roar erupted from the people there, and then a chant, overwhelming in its volume: she comes too cheap!

  “Crude,” Xate Yawa sniffed, coming to Baru through a file of steel-masked garrison soldiers. “What would his daughter say? I will stand judge today.”

  Baru tried to smile, tried to present calm. Her knees wobbled and her stomach turned storm-sick flops. “My second?” she asked, as quietly as she could manage.

  “Pardon?” Xate Yawa frowned, leaning in. “My old ears fail me when it’s warm.”

  Baru’s heart sank. Bile washed the back of her throat. There was no second.

  Courage, now, courage, courage. She’d been a good fighter in school. She’d kept up with her forms. Perhaps—perhaps—somehow—

  “Come, come.” Xate Yawa tugged at her wrist. “There’s a doctor standing by. Best to confront the pain, and find a way through.”

  Her offer had been rejected, coin and blood and all. Xate Yawa must have spoken to her brot
her, and they still judged the time too soon.

  The roar of the crowd fell away into nothing and she walked across rough cobblestone to the chalked circle at the center of the plaza, where Governor Cattlson waited in his wolf’s head mantle and sleeveless dark leather, a long two-handed blade at his side.

  “Cormorant,” he said. He tried to smile, as he always did, but there was regret in his voice. “Have you counted the crowd?”

  “It must be half the city.”

  “I had the docks closed and a holiday declared. The mob loves nothing like a show of strength. Aurdwynn must know who rules it, and why—it’ll do them well to see that their Governor can win on their terms.” He passed his blade to his left and offered his right hand to shake. “I’ll cut you light, if I can. And—I apologize for the chant. It wasn’t mine, or even Duke Heingyl’s.”

  Behind him, Bel Latheman stood with his chin erect and his hands clasped behind his back. Anger felt better than fear. She almost spat at his feet, but the chant—too cheap!—made her think of Latheman’s words in the longhouse. Don’t be hysterical. Whatever emotion she showed would be turned against her.

  She clasped Cattlson’s hand and shook. He frowned. “You’ve forgotten your mask.”

  She’d left it behind as a symbol. She’d left it behind because she wanted her Taranoki heritage to be an issue in this duel. Her second could fight masked.

  But she had no second. She had only the Naval System against Cattlson’s reach and strength.

  Muire Lo nudged her and pointed. She found the remora Purity Cartone, who stood among the Governor’s masked retinue, pale and obvious now that she noticed him.

  But whatever he was about to say was cut off.

  Xate Yawa raised her hands and the garrison troops pounded their shields. The crowd’s roar died and the plaza fell silent but for the nicker of horses and a low murmur. “I stand judge over trial to first blood,” she called. Garrison officers repeated the chant, word for word, a booming chorus that spread out through the lines. “Today Her Excellence Baru Cormorant of Taranoke, the Imperial Accountant, challenges His Excellence Bel Latheman of Falcrest, Principal Factor of the Fiat Bank. Baru Cormorant, what grievance do you bear?”