Cursed by Fire (23 page)

“He is
my
lord, begging your pardon.”

Grannish frowned but decided he had better things to do with his time than teach the lumbering ass about etiquette. “Page Tonkin, I will get straight to the point. You know who I am, correct?”

“Yes, your lordship. Everyone knows who you are.”

“Very good. I am here to make you an offer. And before I make the offer, I want you to take into consideration what I might do if you choose to refuse the offer.” Grannish smiled when Tonkin went suddenly still, like a deer in the woods that had heard a sound and knew something dangerous was lurking about. “I know you are a farmer, with lands beyond the walls. I also know you have not cultivated your fields this year. That is a direct violation of your deed agreement with the grand. Technically I could default your lands right now and you’d never be able to set foot on them again.”

“B-but I … I didn’t have the money for seed this year ’cause the Redoe took all my crop last year. They took a lot of the crops last year. I’m not the only one—”

“I really do not care about any of that,” Grannish said, trying with difficulty not to yawn in the other man’s face. “The law says a farmer must farm his fields or he will be in default. You are in default.”

He let Tonkin stew on that a moment.

“What’s your offer?” Tonkin ground out. It was clear
the man was trying to rein in his temper. There was anger in his eyes and tightness around his mouth.

“You are angry. Good. I want you to be angry. And I want you to remember that had your new master not singled you out and made you his page, I would never have known about your farm. Now, while you think on that … my offer is thus: You tell me anything and everything of significance your master does and I will not only overlook your breaking of the rules but I will give you enough money to buy seed for next year’s crops.”

Grannish truly wanted to laugh. It was all Tonkin could do to keep his jaw from dropping open. So easy. It was all so easy. All it took was knowing where they were most vulnerable and where they were most greedy.

“So? What is your answer?” Grannish asked needlessly.

Selinda was not an idle grandina, Dethan thought as he watched her from a distance. When he had left her this morning shortly after breaking their fast, she had been called aside to handle a domestic squabble of some kind. Then before noon meal he found her in the common room presiding over matters of law and arguments between the commoners or general grievances. She listened to every one very carefully and her quick mind always seemed to come up with the perfect solution. She was fair but stern when necessary. Kind and altruistic when it was called for. A ruler to her very core. This was a proceeding her father should be officiating over, in Dethan’s opinion, and a remark questioning that made Tonkin tell him that it was indeed supposed to be the grand’s duty, but he was dealing with other matters of state. It was often the case, it seemed, for the
grandina was usually the one presiding on any given grievance day.

Later on, she came into the courtyard, and as Dethan stood behind the drafting tables, he watched her stop and have a conversation with nearly every commoner in the bailey. She had ordered kitchen wenches to bring water to the men standing in line in the sweltering sun, then she walked slowly down the line greeting them, many by name, and thanking them for their service to the crown. Telling them how vital they were and how appreciated they were. It was by far the best thing she could have done.
There she is, the grandina, reaching out, touching, and feeling gratitude toward me …
 What man alive wouldn’t want to be touched by something so ethereal in both station and actual beauty. She believed they thought her ugly, and that may be, but it was just as clear they were readily willing to look past that fact and see the inner beauties she had to offer.

Yes, he thought, she would be a phenomenal ruler in his stead. Oh, he had his doubts that so kind a heart had the toughness needed to keep a city safe. He would have to leave a proven and trusted lieutenant behind to support her rule. But who? As it was, he was in need of captains to marshal all these men. The men needed to be organized into work details, put to the task of building their own barracks. They needed to know there was a watchful eye above them. Until they proved themselves together, there would be little cohesion. Right now all that drove them was the promise of a hot meal and a roof. Providing those things would take time, effort, and, more important, money.

And that was why he was standing in the office of the grand’s coin handler, fuming at being made to wait a full twenty minutes while the coin handler tallied a seemingly endless amount of numbers.

“Now, what is it you want?” he said at last, peering
down his nose at Dethan from his raised dais. Behind him, behind a significant guard detail—one that Dethan hadn’t noticed the first time he had come here—was presumably the vault holding the grand’s coin. It was a massive metal door surrounded by thick stone. It was locked in no less than five different places. But the coin could be under a thousand locks and it wouldn’t be any safer from the potential invading force outside the gate. Once the castle was overrun, it would be nothing at all to get at a vault.

“I told you,” Dethan said, impatient from having stood under the hot sun all day. His burn scars, what few were left by then, had not liked the heat at all. “I will need significant coin in order to build the men’s barracks and pay them their first wages.”

“Pay wages? What for? They haven’t done anything yet!” the man scoffed. “We don’t have the money to cast at every lowborn piece of trash out there on the promise of what they
might
do.”

Dethan stepped forward, his expression dangerous. “You do your job your way and I will do mine my way. Let us agree on that.”

“I do agree. And my job is to hold the grand’s coin as tightly as possible! I will not allow it to be spent frivolously.”

“But the grand has charged me with this task and this task requires money,” Dethan said, his fist clenching as he resisted the urge to climb up the dais, grab the pinched-nose little fiend, and shake the wax out of his ears.

“That may be, but until Jenden Grannish tells me to release a specified amount of coin, I am not able to do so. As it stands, the jenden has allowed for …”—he peered at a piece of paper—“twenty gold sovereigns.”

“Twenty—! That won’t even pay for the building of the barracks!”

“That is the sum allotted. Do you wish it or not?”

Dethan ground his teeth. Grannish. He should have realized. The entire household, the entire granddom, was run by Grannish, held hard in his fist. He would have to tackle this another way.

“Very well. Twenty sovereigns. It is a beginning.”

He stood there waiting while the coin was doled out to him and then he turned to Tonkin. “I’m in need of many things and have no idea how to find them. I will need your help most of all in these matters.”

“You can count on me, my lord,” Tonkin said.

“First, I need a ledger. I wish to track this coin as closely as possible.”

“A wise idea,” the coin handler said, suddenly eagerly interested in Dethan. “I have an empty ledger for you.” Something resembling a smile touched his thin lips. “Perhaps if you show the use of your coin thoroughly the grand will issue you more.”

As Dethan accepted the ledger he could tell that the coin handler had acquired a sort of respect for the new general that had not been there moments ago. As though he was impressed that Dethan would be keeping books on his expenditures. But why wouldn’t he, Dethan thought in puzzlement. Any good army was run with good bookkeeping. Without well-managed coin a campaign could fall apart. It was one of the many underpinnings that held an army afloat. Food. Coin. Leadership. Strategy. These were key. And Grannish knew this as well, Dethan realized. Grannish was going to attack his efforts by attacking his underpinnings. So not only was he expected to battle the Redoe, he was expected to do it while Grannish kicked away as much of Dethan’s support as he could.

Dethan would have to figure a way around this, and the key to that would no doubt lie in completely winning over the grand.

But wait. If Selinda was acting in her father’s stead in matters of state, then clearly she had the ability to delegate coin. But should he use her in this way? It might draw unwelcome attention to her by Grannish.

No, he would need to do this another way. As he left the room, he drew Tonkin beside him.

“I need lieutenants. I can second some from the city guard, but I would much prefer an untapped resource.”

“Well, usually the nobles lead the forces of an army,” Tonkin provided.

“Why? Are they better skilled at it?” Dethan asked sharply. “Birthright does not make for the best generals. The man in charge of the forces at present is a fine example of that. No. I need strong leaders that the men will want to follow. Men with brains enough to handle strategy and direction, who are not slaves to impulsivity.”

“Then I know just where to find them,” Tonkin said with a toothy grin.

Selinda moved down the hallway, just a few rooms away from her own, to the nursery. She pushed into the room and found her young brother sitting on the floor in the sunshine playing with a rag doll.

“Linda!” he cried, reaching his arms up to her. He still couldn’t quite get her full name right. But that hardly mattered. It was one of the things that endeared him to her. She hastened to kneel beside him and gathered his frail little body into her arms, pressing him close to her heart.

“So, Drakin, how are you feeling today?”

“Oh, he’s having a good day, my lady,” the governess said fondly. She had been sitting in a rocking chair watching over the young boy.

Selinda didn’t quite know if the nanny could be trusted.
Grannish had been the one to hire her, yet the nanny seemed entirely devoted to Drakin. She spoiled him, to be honest, and it was clear he was the apple of her eye. But Selinda couldn’t escape the feeling that the nanny might be a viper in disguise, poised to strike the innocent child down at Grannish’s command.

“Feel good!” Drakin confirmed. “Play wif me?” he asked, holding up the doll.

“Of course I will,” she said with a smile. She sat him back on the floor with no little reluctance. She always felt he was safer while in her arms. But she couldn’t watch over the child every single minute of the day. Had she been free of her duties as chatelaine she might have, but there was no one else and so many people depended on her.

She sometimes felt guilty for that. Even though she frequently snuck away to play with her brother, she still felt guilty that she could not keep better watch over him.

“Come, now. Let’s find me a dolly and we shall play together,” she said, scooting over to his toy chest.

She would play with him, and for a little while they would be safe and happy together.

“The grand sits up there in his pretty fortress eating his elegant food with his elegant daughter while we are down here starving! Our farms are overrun with the enemy. Every year the money we invest in seed is in danger of being thrown away should our fields be the ones the Redoe savage before they leave! And yet we are required to till and seed every year or we risk losing our farms entirely! Where is the fairness in that?” the lead speaker demanded, setting up a roar from the crowd stuffed into the large room.

Dethan stood in the back of the room with Tonkin,
leaning against the wall with his arms folded over his chest as he listened to the speaker. There were six of them altogether, standing at the head of the room. They stood on top of a table. So that everyone could see them, Dethan thought. And so that they were perceived as being bigger than they were. Very clever. As they spoke, reeling off points of why their lives were unbearable and who was most to blame, the crowd became more and more riled up. Shouting and surging as one. It was a powder keg, Dethan thought. It was the way revolutions were born. Was that the goal here? Or was this just a way of venting frustrations? Dethan knew of a sure way to find out. He took a step forward, drawing in a breath, readying to speak up.

“And the grandina,” the man said suddenly.

Dethan stiffened, his words freezing on his lips.
What of her? What did they think of Selinda?

“A good heart means nothing when trapped in a gilded cage,” the speaker said bitterly. “She tries and we can all see it, but as long as she is controlled by others, she has no true effectiveness. And others
will
control her for the rest of her days. Her engagement to Grannish has seen to that.”

Instead of roaring approval this time, the crowd fell deadly silent. A wave of discomfort rippled through the crowd and one of the other men stepped forward to say something with haste in the speaker’s ear.

“I don’t care,” he said, shrugging off the man who was clearly warning him, his voice swelling over the crowd like a wave. “You see? I am not afraid to speak his name! Grannish! We all know he is the poison that is killing this city! We are just too afraid to do anything about it!”

“Kyran, please,” the other man said, this time more loudly. “You know anyone who speaks against Grannish does so at risk of his life. We need you here, alive,
not in Grannish’s dungeons or dead from a mysterious illness. Grannish has the power to see into even the most hidden corners. You must be careful!”

“Let him come for me. Let them all cart me away. At least I will know I spoke my true heart and wasn’t afraid to do so.”

The crowd went absolutely wild, cheering in support, gaining courage from the man’s blatant bravery.

“But can you temper that recklessness?” Dethan shouted above the ruckus.

The room turned as a single entity toward Dethan when he’d shot out the query.

“And who are you?” Kyran asked warily, eyeing the make of his clothes, which stood out in the crowd of mud farmers and commoners.

“A man looking for men who wish to make a difference,” Dethan said.

“You mean you’re a noble looking for peons to do your dirty work,” the leader scoffed.