All the beds lifted up on hinges; there was more storage under them. Every tiny bit of space had been used.
This is not going to be horrible, she thought with wonder. “Let me wander around in here and decide what I need to start bringing,” she said, and the workman nodded and left her alone.
Kordas would without a doubt want all his personal magic books at hand, and since he wasn’t here to need them, she could start by bringing those. And bedclothes; in winter they would want as many as they possessed, given that the tiny stove wasn’t going to put out a lot of heat. Bedclothes were bulky, but rather than waste storage space, they could all be piled on the beds in layers, giving them storage and covers at the same time—layers of sheets and coverlets, and you could bury yourself beneath as many or as few as the weather required. She’d have the maids put their own clothing in the storage under their beds. She wandered from prow to stern and back again, envisioning things in all the places where they could be put and fixing them firmly in her mind. She could start by stripping her own quarters and sleeping in one of the guest chambers.
In fact, I can start stripping the entire manor. Most of everything brought down from the manor could be put in storage boats. I’ll need to make sure there is an inventory on each one so we know where to find things. Her heart actually rose, as she understood—if Isla would allow it—how useful she could be.
She left the boat and sought out one of the workmen. “There should be a lot of people who kept care of the manor that will need to be seen to. Please put aside living-barges for them; I’ll send them here to decide who will live with whom and where. Can you outfit one whole barge as a kitchen?” she asked. I bet Isla hasn’t thought of that. But the cooks and kitchen staff can sleep on pallets on the floor there, and we’ll have a place out of the weather where we can make hot food. She didn’t think actual ovens for baking would be possible, but perhaps those ovens could be constructed outside.
The workman scratched his head and his brows wrinkled in thought for a moment. “I don’t know why not,” he said finally. “It’d be several stoves. They’d hold about one big pot each. Then counters to work, and a place to wash pots if the weather’s bad. Reckon it can be done.”
“Please do,” she said, taking it on her own to order it. Worst came to worst, she could cancel the order tomorrow.
She rode Sundrop back to the manor in the late afternoon, having committed everything she needed to do on her own barge to memory.
She caught Isla just parting from Hakkon, and ducked out of the way so she could watch them without being seen. She had not suspected either her sister or the Seneschal of being such good actors! They parted with lingering hand touches and longing looks; Hakkon headed for parts unknown, Isla for her quarters. Delia decided to play her part in this deception as well. She hurried to catch up with her sister.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she hissed, doing her best to feign outrage.
Isla started, and furrowed her brow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, ice in her voice.
“I saw you and Hakkon!” Delia choked out. “Don’t try to deny it! I saw you two together!”
Isla had to work to suppress a twinkle in her eyes as she caught on to Delia’s act. “That’s none of your affair,” she said, still with ice in her voice. “You should mind your own business. I will tend to my own.”
“Funny business, that is!” Delia squeaked. “I should find a way to tell Kordas!”
Isla seized her by the arm and shook her. “You will keep your mouth shut and your thoughts to yourself,” she spat. “Or this is what is going to happen to you!”
And she bent and whispered in Delia’s ear. “Well played, love. Meet me in the cellars after dinner. Now run up to your room and pretend to cry.”
Delia ripped herself away from her sister’s grasp and hid her face in her arm as she raced to her rooms, where she flung herself on her bed and shook with what should look like sobs.
But they weren’t sobs, of course. She was laughing herself sick.
17
Well, if the reason the Emperor brought me here was to keep the Court amused, I am certainly doing that, thought Kordas, as he moped in the rear of the afternoon Court in the Great Hall. Muted chatter swirled around him, like the perfumes that covered up the ever-present faint chemical taint in the air.
When he had been presented with the accusation that Isla was having an affair with Hakkon, he had decided to stretch his reactions out as long as he could. So he started with angry denials. He didn’t go so far as to challenge the person who had told him this over dinner to a duel—he really didn’t want to complicate the Plan still further with the repercussions of killing Prince Morthas of Halengard—but he flew into a rage and stormed out of dinner and tried to get an audience with the Emperor to demand he be sent home.
That would have been ideal, but alas, he couldn’t get that audience, and none of the dozen messages sent to the Emperor were answered. Nor was he permitted to bring a petition up at Court. He tried, but all the Court clerks refused his petition, and even the Dolls were forced to tell him that it would not be accepted. He continued to deny that Isla would betray him.
That ate up about four days of time, time he spent alternately shouting at people and shouting at the closed doors of the Emperor’s quarters.
Then he was presented with scryed records, and his first thought was that Isla was a brilliant actress, and Hakkon was pretty inept. She managed to make his flubbings look like the bumbling of a lovestruck dolt. That was ideal for the ploy, and he mused that it was also why he loved and valued Hakkon. The man simply didn’t have it in him to lie enough to be a danger, and he was much smarter than anyone might think.
Kordas locked himself away for a day, ostensibly to sob into his pillows—but actually to refine the Plan. And despite his anxiety, he did rest. Drugged tea helped. Wisdom from his father was, it is better to rest before exertion, than after. Sleep after exhaustion is inefficient, because it tries to heal body and mind at once; better to be well-rested, to be sharp-minded and react quicker, than to try to catch up or just drop where you stand. Good bed, deep sleep, big breakfast, and one could outpace anything except a Night Person. Their ways were mysterious and full of cats.
Kordas slipped away whenever he was not being scryed and Gated into the records complex. He had unprecedented latitude in using the City’s stores and resources, thanks to the Dolls. He’d begun, early on, by grilling the Record Keeper on what he could do as a Duke without attracting anyone’s attention. It was stunning just how bad the Imperial way of doing things had become. The Record Keeper revealed to Kordas that its function was not to interpret nor verify the origin of orders, but rather, to follow the authority of the seals—and the Record Keeper had full sets of seals. Talking quickly, Kordas prepared requisition forms via the Dolls—all of whom worked nearly blindingly fast when they wanted to—then sat at the Record Keeper’s desk, and had the Dolls turn away. By using the seals there, Kordas could impersonate a King, if he dared. The Record Keeper would turn around to find a stack of properly sealed orders to be carried out, and no Doll could claim to have witnessed anything awry. The materials requisitioned by the sealed order would be located, neatly packed, labeled, inventoried, and carried by Dolls to the so-familiar-as-to-be-unnoticed plain barges and boats that plied the canals of the City, with the inventory attached just inside the door. And off the barge would go to the refuge.