Page 11 of Into the West

He had learned early not to fling himself on the bed as was his habit; any sudden movement rocked the barge, and since the barges were all jammed up against one another, had the potential to make it knock into the neighbors. So he slid down onto it instead.

It might have seemed more logical to put the “master’s” bedroom at the rear of the barge rather than the front, because this certainly did limit privacy, but he was glad the builders had not. He knew what he had been like at the boys’ age, sneaking out in the middle of the night to have adventures . . . but he had mage-locked the sliding glass in place in their room, and to get out, they’d have to get past him and Isla.

“What are they doing back there?” he asked her, a little awkwardly. This was literally the first time since the boys were born that he and Isla had actually lived with them. In order to safeguard them, they’d been passed off as Hakkon’s bastards and had been living under the auspices of a nurse and tutor with the other youngsters of the manor; otherwise the Emperor would have demanded their presence at the Capital as hostages, as he had been. The children that the Emperor demanded weren’t openly called hostages, of course, but that was what they were.

Special students.

He had been one. It had been bad then, and he had gotten the feeling conditions had only gotten worse since he’d been allowed to go home at the death of his father.

“Playing three-man marbles with that set that uses pegs in a tray, that Petrof whittled for them,” she said. “I thought it would be a disaster with Jon always losing and crying, but he beats his brothers almost as often as they beat him.”

Petrof was the oldest man in his Guard, and by rights he should have been enjoying his old age in a snug little cottage, perhaps with an equally snug little widow to marry and keep his bed warm.

But at least he could put Petrof on the light duty of keeping an eye on the boys and supervising their chores—everyone had chores—and letting him bed down in the second of the baronial barges with some of the other servants.

Still . . .“I hope he doesn’t mind what I’ve assigned him to do, because I never asked him, I just ordered him,” Kordas sighed.

Isla laughed. “He loves it. He’s teaching them archery already, and getting them to do their letters by reading to him.” He piled pillows against the wall and reclined against them. She snugged in next to him. It occurred to him that if only they could stay here, this was probably the happiest he had been in his entire life. Even with having to fight with his temper. All his life the Plan had been hanging over him, like a wave that never fell, or a black storm that moved in but never opened up with a deluge. And so had the Emperor and the Empire loomed, a maze of knives he danced through. Now both of those were gone. He’d done it. He’d saved his people, and foiled the Empire. He was under no illusion that the Empire was no longer a threat, it was just no longer an immediate threat.

“Do you think the Empire will forget about us?” she asked, as if she was following his thoughts.

“Well, I’d like them to—but the Emperor was just the most rotten of the barrel of bad apples,” he replied frankly. “And we would be stupid to assume that once all the infighting sorts out, and a survey of all of the territories is made, whoever is in charge is going to overlook that the population of Valdemar is something significantly less than half what it should be.”

“But—” she frowned. “Aren’t the top men literally going to go to war over who sits on the throne?”

“Not if they’re smart, they won’t,” he replied, creasing his brows as a headache started between his eyebrows. “So, they’ve probably begun it, right? No, the likeliest things to happen are an end to the southern war, followed by the generals down there deciding amongst themselves who to make their leader. The Princes and Grand Dukes are going to start making alliances, but the Emperor kept them short of weapons and soldiers. So what’s most likely to happen, at least according to all the strategic things I learned, is that there will be one man from the blooded royals, and one general, and if they are smart, they will work out some way to share power between them. Then they’ll go consolidate and survey everything else. That’s what they’ve most likely been doing since we got here. Merrin Sends me regular reports, and he hasn’t got much to tell me, since his information agents either died in the Capital or have been back at the Duchy with him. All he knows for sure is that things are very quiet. Quiet is not good for us. Actual fighting among the factions would be good for us.”

“Actual fighting among the factions would be disaster for the people caught in the middle,” she said after a while. “No one suffers in war like the common folk do.”

He took her hand in both of his and kissed the back of it.

“So the sands are trickling through the hourglass,” he continued. “Now, what I hope is, because the alliances are all so fragile, and because they are all involved in an incestuous dance of power, they’ll put off looking at the borderlands like Valdemar long enough that by the time they go pay a visit to Merrin and find out that things are not what they are supposed to be, the Gates here will be long gone, and all the people who remain here at the lake will be able to pass themselves off as natives. I won’t leave any Golds with them, just a couple of heavy horses, enough to start their own breeding herd, enough to put enough land under a plow that the whole village can stay fed. So there won’t be anything overt to identify anyone here as Valdemaran.”

“Can the mages trace us here?” she asked.

“What I said about the Mage War territories was true—we found Crescent Lake by luck. If we’d actively looked for it, the territories would have confused targeting. So that helps us. We left more than enough things behind that they could come after us using those objects as links to locate us,” he reminded her. “Now . . . do they still have mages good enough to construct an entirely new Gate to here? I don’t know. But I’m not willing to tell anyone that they can’t. There were still plenty of competent people in the Empire, even with the Capital destroyed. If anything, the most competent ones stayed out of the Capital.” He made a motion as if he was tipping an hourglass. “Time is not on our side.” He thought a moment longer. “But Merrin will warn us if he learns anything.”

“That’s a comfort. I take back every evil thing I ever said about that man.” She kissed his hand.

He laughed. “Oh, he’s ambitious, and he’s tickled to be a Duke after all, and we didn’t exactly strip the countryside bare when we left. He’s got the barge-makers, who all stayed. That’s a reliable source of income. There were still crops in the fields, and plenty of herds that stayed there—he’s in a very good position to make some shrewd alliances himself. Fundamentally he seems to be a good man, and the Dolls agree with me on this. Hellfires, for all I know, he has some plan to throw anyone who figures out we deserted off of our track. He gulled me for years, so I expect he can pull the wool over other eyes than mine.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said slyly. “I’ve always found it quite easy to gull you.”

“Wench.” He took a moment to cast his ear in the direction of the end of the barge—and sadly, could still hear talking and giggles. Alas. He settled for kissing the top of her head, a private signal that said I would really like to have some fun with you, but three large-eared imps would be certain to break out of their room wanting a snack or a drink.

She sighed. And as if on cue, the door to the last room slid open. “Mama!” called Restil as he tumbled out, followed by the other two. “Can we have some clover tea?”

“You can have some water,” she countered. “Remember what I keep telling you. We need to be careful about the things we use. Wood, food, everything. You won’t want to be shivering in the cold later because we burned wood to heat the water for tea now.”

“Yes, Mama,” Restil said with resignation, and although Kordas could not see them from where he was lying, he could certainly hear the boys when they went to get their water. And they were surprisingly mannerly. Restil remained firmly in charge of the water jug, and insisted they use only one cup, each in turn, to keep from dirtying more that would have to be washed later.

“Who kidnapped our children and left changelings?” he asked her, although he could practically feel his heart swelling with pride and joy. The boys had accepted the information that he and Isla were their real parents, and not Hakkon, with a matter-of-fact attitude that made him think the two oldest at least had figured it out on their own and had realized that the deception was keeping them safe. And they had flung themselves into being a family with all the enthusiasm he could ever have dreamed of.

“It’s exhaustion. They spent the entire day gathering deadfall with Petrof, and every day they have to go farther to find any. Just like everyone else.” She patted his cheek. “But at least that leaves all the children run off their feet by the end of the day.”

They didn’t say anything else as the children put everything away, went back to their room, and slid the door shut. And when the murmurs grew sleepy, and then grew silent, with a single thought he extinguished the rest of the mage-lights and turned his attention to much more pleasurable things than worries about the Empire.

Quietly.