Rex Regis

45

For all his determination to make his way back to his forces, Quaeryt found that getting out of the hold house was more involved than getting in had been-at least getting out undetected, since there were two guards at the main entry. He also discovered that there were guards at side doors at the east and west ends of the long corridor, and that none of the chambers on the main floor had exits onto terraces or porches or verandahs. That left the serving and kitchen doors.

The main door from the side hall to the kitchen was closed, as was the one from the formal dining chamber. From the noise rising from behind those doors, Quaeryt was reluctant to open either, deciding to wait for someone else to open the one between the side hall and the kitchen. After what seemed a good two quints, but was probably less than half a quint, someone did, a footman who hurried out.

Quaeryt darted in, only to find himself in a small chamber filled with drawers and shelves, all of which seemed filled with platters, plates, serving pieces, goblets, and who knew what else. The chamber was empty.

But how were you to know?

The din came from the chamber beyond-and below-a long stone-walled room filled with tables and ovens … and at least four cooks and several assistants.

“… you send Deltryt packing?”

“… he was just hanging around…”

Quaeryt decided that no one was moving toward the stone ramp leading up to the pantry. He made his way down along the wall, just to be careful. His concealment seemed to hold. At least no one looked his way by the time he was on the lower level … and sweating from the overpowering heat in the kitchen.

“Use the old dried mutton … sauce it up and put it over anything … troopers will eat it…”

That was certainly true enough, reflected Quaeryt.

“… have to fix bread for all those troopers!”

“… could be worse, dearie,” cackled one of the older cooks.

“… woulda been … Kharst’s avengers at the door…”

“… or the three…”

“Enough chatter!” snapped a tall woman with a narrow face. “Fire up the old ovens! They’ll take twenty loaves each, and if you use all three…”

Quaeryt wondered how many retainers the hold had supported at one time if the kitchen could turn out sixty loaves at a time. Slowly, he eased along the side of the kitchen wall well back from the long battered preparation tables.

“What about the master’s and mistress’s dinner?”

“If you keep working it won’t be late…”

With all the cacophony in the kitchen and his primary purpose that of leaving the hold house, Quaeryt only picked up a few scraps of conversation as he made his way to the rear door. That posed another problem, because, even with all the bustling around, no one was leaving. They were going down steps to the cellars below, out to side rooms and pantries and cubbyholes, but not leaving.

Quaeryt kept waiting, but no one still departed.

Finally, he edged toward the door, and lifted the heavy latch, then gave it the slightest of pushes, as if the latch had not been closed, as though a gust of wind or a breeze had caught it, then slipped through. Behind him, he heard one of the cooks shout, “Who didn’t latch the door? Iliza! Close it, and make sure it’s latched firm!”

Even as Quaeryt stepped out onto the back steps, he had to dodge around a guard in blue livery, not so much on duty as spending a few free moments waiting for someone.

The guard stepped back and looked around, puzzled, then grinned at the kitchen maid who hurried toward the door. “Best not let it get unlatched again, Iliza.”

Iliza made a face and closed the door.

Quaeryt took his time walking across the courtyard toward the far buildings, looking around as he did. There was a fair amount of dust on the sandstone paving, but that was likely the result of wear on the soft stone as anything. At the same time, he had the feeling that as at several of the holdings he had seen or visited, the holding had once had many more servants and retainers than it did at present.

Kharst’s tariffs? Inability to compete against the factors in growing grains and crops? Quaeryt shook his head. It could have been any of those, or just a decline in the ability of the High Holders. Certainly, Daefol didn’t strike him as the brightest of High Holders, although his wife obviously had more perception than Daefol. But that doesn’t help if he doesn’t listen.

Quaeryt released the concealment inside one of the stables, where no one was looking, and then went to find Zhelan, who was in a dusty tack room at the end of the last and unused stable.

“Sir! I’m glad to see you.”

“Are there any problems?”

“No, sir. Not so far.” The major grinned. “I was very determined and very polite. I insisted on some rations for the men and some use of the kitchen for warm food. Elsior and Lhandor just drifted off, and no one noticed.”

“Are they back?”

“Lhandor is, not Elsior…”

“Once Elsior gets back, we all need to meet, all the officers, including the undercaptains. In the meantime, I’ll hear what Lhandor found out.”

Sitting on a short stool in the dusty tack room, he had Lhandor brief him.

“I didn’t find out that much, sir. I followed the stable hands and the assistant ostler. The old ostler talked about how the young ones should be thankful it wasn’t like the days before Kharst died, when the old holder had two hundred men-at-arms. He went on about how dealing with two hundred mounts was normal … and what a shame it was that they’d all died at Variana. He said something about imagers. I didn’t get it all, but it was something about imagers should be saved for dealing with rebels and disloyal High Holders, not for slaughtering honorable men following their master … One of the stable boys said his brother died there … another said it didn’t make much difference how a man died. If he was dead, did it matter whether he was frozen by an imager or run through with a sabre…”

“Did they say anything about Bhayar or Myskyl or Daefol?”

“The only thing anyone said about Lord Bhayar was that no one could have been worse than Rex Kharst. No one disagreed with that. No one said anything about High Holder Daefol, and the only thing anyone said about the submarshal was that they wished he’d just march his troopers back to Variana.”

Lhandor didn’t have that much to report, and before long, Elsior arrived.

“Sir … it took a while…”

“That’s fine. What did you discover?”

“I followed the guards, sir. They talk a lot, but they didn’t say all that much.”

Quaeryt nodded for him to continue.

“The guards don’t like Daefol that much. They call him Master DaFool, but not when the guard captain is around. He’s loyal to Daefol, I think.”

Or at least not overly disloyal.

“Did they say anything about Myskyl or Bhayar?”

“Not much,” admitted Elsior. “There was something about being more interested in rebuilding part of the hold house at Fiancryt than in patrolling anything except the east river road. One said that he didn’t see much difference between the Telaryn regiments and the Bovarian ones. Neither fought, and both ate too much. Several guards said they were happy to stay here as long as the Telaryn troopers were anywhere close to Rivages.”

“Anything else?”

“One of them did say that we were fighting troopers, not barracks boys. No one seemed to hear him. Or they didn’t want to. Besides that, they talked about the serving girls and the nearest alehouse … other stuff like that.”

Quaeryt nodded slowly. He hadn’t expected to find out much, but he’d hoped. He turned to Zhelan. “Bring in the others.”

“Yes, sir.”

Quaeryt stood, but he had to wait only a fraction of a quint before Calkoran, Ghaelyn, and Khalis joined the others and he began to brief them. “I did manage to overhear some interesting conversation between High Holder Daefol and his wife. What Daefol said seems to support what I thought might be happening. Here’s the problem we face. The submarshal appears to be telling the local High Holders that Lord Bhayar has been unduly influenced by an evil imager who has married and enchanted his sister. According to High Holder Daefol, this evil imager has also decided to reduce the power of the High Holders and factors and has already destroyed scores of holds and holders. Therefore … it is up to the submarshal and perhaps others to rescue Lord Bhayar. I’m fairly certain that at least some of the regimental commanders agree with that story. As I’ve told most of you before, we cannot afford to deal with this in a military fashion. Lord Bhayar needs those six regiments, but we also cannot allow the submarshal to control them and march them south, with the High Holders behind them.” Quaeryt stopped and studied the faces of the officers, then waited.

Calkoran snorted. “He wishes to be the rex … or lord.”

“Not in name. Only in fact,” added Zhelan.

“Do they want to destroy all the imagers, sir?” asked Lhandor.

“Only those that would support Lord Bhayar,” replied Quaeryt. “I think that the submarshal understands that if there is no unified body of imagers, Bhayar will have to pay much greater heed to the marshal and submarshal.”

“So it’s all a trap to kill you, sir,” said Zhelan. “They set it up so that you’d be sent…” He paused, then frowned. “But how…?”

“Do you remember what Daefol said when I mentioned the new bridge?” asked Quaeryt.

“He said that … the submarshal had imagers. Wouldn’t you know about that?”

“If they were Telaryn imagers,” agreed Quaeryt. “We never did find Kharst’s imagers, the ones that survived.”

“You think they’ve thrown in with the submarshal?”

“It’s the only explanation I can think of.”

“Sir, you can’t just walk in there,” protested Khalis. “It’s a trap.”

“Then we’ll have to spring it without getting caught.”

“You’ll have to take first company,” insisted Zhelan. “The men will be safer. Myskyl wouldn’t have any compunction about killing a hundred Khellans.”

“Eighty-nine, now,” said Calkoran.

“We’ll all leave here tomorrow … early,” said Quaeryt. “Very early. Then we’ll find a woodland or the like where most of the companies can wait, but be ready to move as necessary.” If necessary.

Quaeryt went on to explain what he had in mind. He also hoped that whatever the kitchen fixed, it wouldn’t be unpalatable. His stomach was growling.