He glanced over at Isla; their youngest boy had fallen asleep in her lap. She smiled at him.
“Pass the wine,” said Ponu.
The entire top of the barge had been covered in rugs and cushions, and was full of people. Isla, Hakkon, the boys, Delia, Merrin, Ponu, some of the Dolls, Beltran . . . most old friends, some new.
“Well, now what do we do?” he asked the mage.
“What we’d planned to,” Ponu told him. “Let almost everyone settle in. Not that many non-Valdemarans came through, and most of those were the dissidents and the hostage children.” He squinted at the late-afternoon sun. “I think the Dolls have the children separated into a single group, and the dissidents in another.” He glanced over a Doll that was standing at his elbow. It had pleasant features sketched on the canvas of its face with sepia ink, and a straw hat with a feather on its head.
“We do, Ponu,” said the Doll. “We should decide what to do with them.”
“I think we should at least send the hostages back to Valdemar. From there they can go home.” Kordas let out his breath in a gusty sigh. “Although things are not necessarily going to be good at their homes, either.”
“No,” Ponu agreed. “There’s a huge power vacuum now, and all those subject Kings are going to be trying to fill it. And I imagine there’s a general or two in the south, or with one of the legions nearer to what’s left of the Capital, that will be getting some lofty thoughts in his head. Still. They should be with their families, unless their families are so dysfunctional they don’t want to go back.”
That triggered a thought in Kordas’s weary brain. He turned to the Doll. “Please let the other Dolls know that fighting or bullying among the hostages is to lead to the offender being shoved into a half-empty grain barge and locked in for a couple of candlemarks. And if he misses a meal, too bad. He can chew on some wheat.”
“Oh,” said the Doll, sounding . . . happy. “It will be done.”
“ . . . and they’re not coming after us,” Isla repeated for the third time, still sounding dazed. “Not even for revenge.” The littlest boy stirred in her lap, looking like he was perfectly accustomed to being there. The other two were cuddled up against Kordas, listening wide-eyed to every word. Isla had told them a few days ago who their parents were, back when he was still in the middle of being Healed. The littlest, she had told him, had said “Hooray!” and nothing more. The eldest had looked straight at his sibling and said, “Told you so.” They all had taken the news in stride, she’d said; the only thing that distressed them had been his condition, and when Alberdina assured them he would be all right, they settled in to their new reality a lot better than he had. The fact that they were settling right in as if they all had been a perfectly normal family was, he thought, a good sign.
“No one knows it was me, Beltran, and Merrin,” Kordas reminded her. “Only the Dolls, and they’re all here with us. Nobody is going to come looking for us. Why would they?”
It was growing dark, now, and the stars were coming out. Feather had brought Kordas another bottle of wine from the Valdemar cellars, and Star had brought him a bowl of stew. It tasted better than anything he had eaten in the last several weeks.
Merrin had been back to Valdemar just long enough to make himself known to the people who had refused to leave, assured them that he was not going to punish them, and cemented his position as the new Duke.
He’d also taken over the Ducal manor, and had been relieved to discover there were no bats after all.
Then he’d come back once he’d gotten word of Kordas’s recovery, to find out what Kordas had planned.
Although I don’t know why I should plan anything. Plans never last for long once you put them in motion.
In the water was an echo of stars, and of the lights on the barges and the shore in the form of lanterns, mage-lights, and a few campfires.
Out there, among all those barges and campfires, the Dolls were circulating, giving an abbreviated version of what had just happened, and eliminating the fact that Kordas, Beltran, and Merrin had killed the Emperor. None of them wanted to claim that. Not because people would be angry with them for it, but because they were likely to be made into Great Heroes of the People, and—and that was just wrong.
Let them all think the Emperor fell into the lava when we released the Child. That will do.
“There is going to be chaos,” Merrin predicted. “There’s going to be some fighting and probably a bloodbath or two. Well, let them fight it out. When I get back to Valdemar, I’m going to make sure we sit this one out. Keep us out of it completely. Take in refugees, because there’s going to be a lot of perfectly good farms and houses empty, but otherwise—Valdemar doesn’t have a dog in this fight.”
“About that,” Kordas said. “I evacuated everyone who would agree to leave because the Emperor was surely going to take it out on Valdemar when some of us fled. But now—that’s not true. And I feel very good about leaving Valdemar in your hands, Merrin.”
“Wait—” said Merrin. “What? I thought you’d want—”
Kordas shook his head. “You say Valdemar doesn’t have a dog in this fight, but someone might try to take the fight to the dog. You know more about Imperial politics than I did. You have a better head for deciding who to back and who not to.”
“Well,” Merrin said, rubbing the back of his neck, “I’m not bad at it.”
“What’s more, tomorrow I’m going to tell everyone that anyone who wants to go back and reclaim their home is welcome to,” Kordas continued. “I think some of them are going to stay, some to stay here at the lake, and some to go on with me to find a new home.” The Squire, for one. I think that little village is the kind of place he’s been wanting for a long time. “But I think a lot of them are going to want to go back. The ones who are going to stay here probably will because they don’t trust that someone isn’t going to turn up to strip Valdemar bare—and no matter how hard you try, Merrin, you probably aren’t going to be able to stop that if someone turns up with a hungry army. But some only came because staying was worse than leaving, so they’ll want to go back with you, now that I’ve vouched for you.”
Merrin didn’t look unhappy about this, as the light from the mage-lights hovering over them all reflected on his face. “You’ve got a point. Several of them, actually. You’re right about all of it. So you really don’t want the Duchy anymore?”
Kordas hugged the two boys next to him. “I think I’m ill-suited to navigate the waters that are coming,” he admitted. “I am many things, but I am not as skilled at—all of that—” he waved his right hand vaguely at the Gate “—as you are. Star, I would like you and the other Dolls to spread the word in the morning that it is safe to return to Valdemar and everyone who wants to can, and that their new Duke is the former Count Merrin and I trust him completely to keep them as safe as anyone can in the troubled times that will come.”