Peter Brett - The Skull Throne

If he returns, Rojer thought.

Amanvah sipped her tea, watching Araine and Leesha coolly.

“Ask,” she said at last.

“Ask what, dear?” Araine asked.

Amanvah set down her cup and saucer. “Even if the dice had not told me your question, it is obvious, given the gossip in your court.”

Araine did not rise to the bait. “Do enlighten us.”

“You want to know if I will use the alagai hora to determine the cause of the duke’s inability to father, and if I can cure him with hora magic.”

Araine stared at her for a long time. “Will you? Can you?”

Amanvah smiled. “I have already determined the problem, and yes, I could cure it.”

“But you won’t,” Araine guessed.

“Would you, in my place?” Amanvah asked.

“Why tell us to ask, if you have no intention of helping?” Leesha asked. “Why cast your dice at all?”

“Even dama’ting cannot resist a mystery,” Amanvah said. “And I have helped you, by telling you it is possible. The rest you will have to learn for yourselves. I am here as Rojer’s Jiwah Ka, not a spy … or a ginjaz. ”

“ Ginjaz? ” Leesha asked.

“Turncoat.” Araine’s face had darkened. “You’re a long way from home, Princess. We may yet convince you.”

Amanvah shook her head. “Nothing you can offer will change my mind, nor torture pull from my lips what I do not wish you to know. Solve your own problems.”

“If we fail to, you may be handing Angiers to Duke Euchor,” Leesha said. “He’d declare himself king, and make war upon your people soon after.”

Amanvah shrugged. “You seek that as well, or you are a coward. It does not matter. My father is the Deliverer. When he returns to claim your people, they will bow to him. I have no interest in your politicking in the meantime.”

“And if your father does not return?” Araine asked in Krasian. “If the Warded Man killed him in Domin Sharum ?”

“The dice would have told me if my father was dead,” Amanvah said. “But if it were so, then the Par’chin is the Deliverer, and your people will be claimed all the same.”

“You don’t know Arlen at all, if you think that,” Leesha said. “He has no interest in thrones.”

“So long as your spears are pledged to him in the night,” Amanvah said. “As with my father. But deny this, as the Andrah and Duke of Rizon did, and the Deliverer will take them from you.”

“You’ll forgive me,” Araine said, “if I need more convincing than that before I hand over my duchy to an invading army, or a farm boy from a hamlet the size of my sitting room.”

Amanvah bowed. “It is not my place to convince you, Duchess. It is inevera. ”

“Is that Everam’s will, or your mother’s?” Araine asked mildly.

Amanvah gave a gentle shrug of her silk-clad shoulders. “They are one and the same.”

Araine nodded. “Thank you for your candor, Princess, and for your help, such as it was. Will you excuse us, now? I wish to speak to Mistress Leesha in private.”

“Of course,” Amanvah said, her tone and bearing making it seem her own idea to leave as she rose and glided from the room.

Wonda peeked her head in as the woman left. “Need anythin’?”

“All is well, Wonda, thank you,” Araine said before Leesha could speak. “Please see we are not disturbed.”

“Ay, Mum.” Wonda seemed to nod with her whole body as she backed out and closed the door.

“Insufferable woman,” Araine muttered.

“Wonda?” Leesha asked.

Araine waved in irritation. “Of course not. The sand witch.”

Leesha dipped a biscuit in her tea. “You don’t know the half.”

“Can we trust her?” Araine asked.

“Who can say?” Leesha lifted the biscuit, but she had soaked it too long and the end broke off in the cup. “This is the same woman who slipped blackleaf into my tea on her mother’s orders.”

Araine raised an eyebrow at that. “No wonder you’ve a distaste for weeds. So she’s more interested in politicking than she claims.”

“She’s more than she claims,” Leesha agreed, “though she’s proven trustworthy enough since marrying Rojer. I don’t think she’s lying now, but neither do I think we have the whole truth. She may have hinted us toward a cure because the dice tell her it will weaken the North to keep the duchies divided. Or hidden the cause of Rhinebeck’s problem because Euchor will overreach and bring civil war to Thesa even as the Krasians press north.”

Araine squeezed lemon into her tea, though it seemed her mouth could wrinkle no farther than it already had. “I don’t suppose you can make a set of these dice yourself?”

Leesha shook her head. “Even if we stole a proper set, I haven’t a clue how to read them. It takes years of study, as I understand it, and is more art than science.”

Araine sighed. “Then for all our sakes, I hope you can succeed where every other Gatherer in my employ has failed. It’s pointless to guess at prophecies, even if I believed in such things.”

Leesha awoke with a start at the knocking. Her face was numb, and as she rubbed it she could feel the imprint of the book she had fallen asleep on. There was drool on the pages.

What time was it? The room was dark save for the glow of the chemical lamp on her table, illuminating the pile of books of old world medicine she had been studying. Wonda had turned down the lamps when she retired.

The knocking came again.

Leesha cinched her dressing gown tightly as she went to the door, but she had put on weight in recent months, and it strained in the front. She clutched the top in one hand to keep it closed.

Who could it be? She thought to call for Wonda, but they were in the center of the palace, with guards everywhere. If she wasn’t safe here, she wasn’t safe anywhere.

But her free hand slipped into her pocket, clutching her hora wand as she let go her gown to open the door.

Rojer stood there, and looking haggard. “We need to talk.”

Leesha relaxed instinctively, but Rojer had a look about him that filled her with dread. What was he doing back so soon? Everyone had expected the duke and his entourage to be away in the hunting lodge a week at least, but they had been gone but a single night.

“Is everything all right?” Leesha felt her chest constrict. “Is Thamos …”

“He’s fine,” Rojer said. “He led the party to bring down a rock demon last night. Hunting rockbirds and boar had little allure after that, and I think everyone wanted to be back in the city to ponder what they saw.”

Leesha breathed out her sudden panic. Thamos had sworn not to wed her with another man’s child in her belly, but with Araine’s support, she had begun to hope once more. If anything happened to him …

“Mistress Leesha?” Wonda was in the doorway to her chambers, rubbing sleep from her face. The knife in her hand was the size of Leesha’s forearm. “Heard voices. You okay?”

“Fine, Wonda,” Leesha said. “It’s only Rojer. Go back to bed.”

The woman nodded, her shoulders drooping as she turned to stumble back to her pillow.

Leesha opened the door to admit Rojer, and he walked in a little too swiftly, jerking his head this way and that as his eyes searched the room. “Is anyone else here?”

“Of course not,” Leesha said. “Who else …”

Rojer looked decidedly uneasy. “Thamos hasn’t been to see you?”