Then he surprised me, and everyone else in the room, with a sudden bang on the table as he brought down his fist. “We’re not delaying the funeral. The Scribe-Guilder will prioritize which messengers are sent where. Next issue?”
Everyone stared. Bradomir stroked his moustache, his eyes cold and evaluating. Credola Nara scowled, her bitter slash of a mouth working as if restraining the urge to criticize an impertinent child. I thought I glimpsed the acting Warrior-Guilder, Marco, burying an approving smile. Budua, the elderly Scribe-Guilder, regarded him with pursed lips. One half of her deeply lined face from eye to chin bore a slight slump, the mark of a long-ago illness; the asymmetry made her resting expression as inscrutable as ever. “Of course, Honored Heir,” she murmured. “I think that—”
“With greatest respect, Honored Heir,” Bradomir interrupted smoothly, once again leaning in front of Jovan as if he were invisible, “that may be a mistake. There are many important people who will need to travel for the funeral. I am aware that custom is to hold it within three days, but only for outdated religious reasons. In our modern times, few would object to a sensible delay for reasons of state.”
“My uncle may not have been a religious man, but he was a great believer in custom and tradition,” Tain said. “Every Chancellor since we built this city has been buried in the Bright Lake. I don’t think he’d have wanted an accident at the cote to delay an important ritual. The city will be in mourning until we farewell the Chancellor properly. Do you expect every merchant in the city to stop business for weeks while we wait for our relatives to arrive?”
“But—”
“Next issue, please,” Tain said.
I winced. Bradomir’s family was one of the richest and most honored of the Credol Families and easier to manage as an ally than an enemy, regardless of his difficult personality. Tain needed to assert himself, but he didn’t need to be combative.
“Is anyone going to tell us the risk of this illness, whatever it is, spreading to half the city?” Credola Nara asked, not bothering to wait to be invited to speak. “And what’s being done about this Talafan fellow?”
Tain rubbed his forehead, looking drained. “The hospital cleared everyone else who touched the animal. Whatever it was seems to have died with the creature. As for Lord Ectar, he’s our guest at the moment.”
“Lock him up! You can’t trust those Talafan. Probably here on the Emperor’s orders.”
“Now, now, Credola,” Bradomir said. “The Honored Heir has said there is no indication—”
“They’ve been complaining about paying our duties for years. Whingeing, cunning bastards. They’d cut us out of the equation altogether if they could, I’ll give you the drum.”
“No doubt this animosity has nothing to do with your business competing with the Empire, Credola,” Javesto said, eyebrows raised. “Just a coincidence, I’m sure.”
I adjusted, trying to restore blood flow to my lower legs and beginning to regret my impulse to use the spyhole. Transparent self-interest seemed to be the only thing motivating the childish squabbles below. Perhaps we were being paranoid.
“We’ll have a report from the hospital after they’ve … after they’ve finished examining the bodies,” Tain said. “We’ll know more then. For now, there’s nothing much we can do.” He looked around the table. “Is there anything else pressing that needs to be discussed today?”
Eliska, the Stone-Guilder, cleared her throat, twirling her simple necklace between nervous fingers. In her forties, she was one of the youngest Councilors. Her tone and expression were tentative. “If I may, Honored Heir? I know this is not an important matter by comparison, but you may not have heard that we’ve been having trouble with harvest and other deliveries failing to arrive to the city in the past few weeks. I believe a number of the Credol Families’ stewards have sent word that deliveries have left the estates, but they’ve yet to arrive. While no one has reported trouble on the main roads at the gates, I’m concerned that there may be bandit activity on the estate tributary roads.”
A few heads nodded around both sides of the table. Etan had been investigating that very thing on the day he died. Clearly our own deliveries weren’t the only ones that had been affected.
Marco cleared his throat. When he spoke, his soft voice came out a gentle contrast to his grizzled exterior. His foreign background was more apparent in his physical appearance than in his faint western accent. “I could send some men out to look into it, Honored Heir, but with the army away, we have a very limited garrison in the city.”
“Well, what about sending some Order Guards, then?” Credo Javesto asked. “Surely they can deal with bandits if that’s the problem.”
Marco’s visible uncertainty increased. “Silasta does not maintain the army at full readiness all the time,” he said. “We could not afford to. Our soldiers have ordinary jobs in the city and one of the most common occupations is Order Guard. When the Council sent the full army away, most of our Order Guards were required to go with it, as soldiers.
“Rather than send Order Guards we need here, if the Council agrees, I could send word to Warrior-Guilder Aven and ask her to siphon off a small force to investigate. The army is south near the spice mines, not too far from Moncasta or the Ash estate. When we inform the Warrior-Guilder of the death of—of the tragic news, we could also ask the army to send a force to check the roads and surrounding countryside.”
Credola Nara, head of the Ash family, gave an indignant snort and exchanged a look with the Craft-Guilder, her nephew Pedrag. “No bandits on my estates. My steward runs a tight operation out there. She’d know about it if there were trouble on my roads.”
“Not if messages are being intercepted or delayed on those very roads, my dear Credola,” Credo Javesto said. “That’s rather the point.”
Jov’s fingers tightened in sequence. This was his first Council meeting, and he must be hating the assessing gaze of all those men and women. “What about the safety of our messengers to the estates, then?” he asked. “If there might be bandits preying on the roads, do we need to send an Order Guard with each courier for protection?”
“I do not know if we have sufficient Guards in the city to spare so many,” Marco said with a frown. “We will still need to keep the peace in the interim.”
Budua, the Scribe-Guilder, was the formidable stick insect queen of my own Administrative Guild, but she had once been a teacher and it still showed; she might even have taught some of the men and women around this very table. The ailment that affected the right half of her body had not noticeably limited her movements or her charisma. When she rapped a bony hand lightly on the table, the whole Council snapped to attention. “Since the safety of the couriers is my responsibility as their Guilder, it is my opinion that they should be adequately protected. It would only be for a few days.”
“I agree,” said Bradomir. “Our city—and ourselves, of course—may be in mourning, but we cannot neglect our duty to keep our own roads safe, not when our country’s reputation is built on safe trade.”
“While you’re sending messengers to your steward, you just make sure she’s not burning that south field we spoke about.” Nara pointed a thin finger at Javesto. “I could swear I saw smoke on the horizon in that direction this morning, and we agreed that would have to wait until all the summer winds were past. If that smoke affects the taste of my kori crop this year you’ll be hearing about it.”