The Painted Man bowed. “Apologies, Your Grace,” he said. “No disrespect was meant.”
Rhinebeck seemed somewhat mollified by the response, but his reply remained gruff. “Euchor will try to find a way out of the Pact like a coreling longs for a gap in the wards, but without support from him, Angiers cannot afford to commit to attacking the Krasian host.”
“You would violate the Pact yourself?” the Painted Man asked.
“Intercede in unity, the Pact says,” Rhinebeck growled. “Should I clash with the desert rats alone, only to have Euchor sweep in and destroy both our weakened armies and declare himself king?”
The Painted Man was silent a long time. “Why me, Your Grace?”
Rhinebeck snorted. “Don’t be modest. Every Jongleur in Thesa sings of you. If your arrival causes half the stir in Miln that it has in Angiers, Euchor will have no choice but to adhere to the Pact, especially if you sweeten the call with your battle wards.”
“I won’t withhold them for political gain,” the Painted Man said.
“Of course not,” Rhinebeck said, grinning, “but Euchor need not know that, ay?”
Rojer edged closer to the Painted Man. A skilled puppeteer, he could shout or whisper without moving his lips, even making the sounds appear to come from another place.
“He’s just trying to be rid of you,” he warned, so the others did not hear or notice.
But if the Painted Man heard him, he gave no sign. “Very well, I’ll do it. I’ll need your seal, Your Grace, so Duke Euchor knows the message is authentic.”
“You’ll have whatever you need,” Euchor promised.
“Your Grace,” the lady-in-waiting said, “the Lord Janson bade me to inform you that the duke’s audience with the delegation from Cutter’s Hollow is at an end.”
“Thank you, Ema,” Araine said, not bothering to ask how things went. “Please inform Lord Janson that we will meet them in the antechamber when we have finished our tea.” Ema curtsied smoothly and vanished. Wonda threw back the rest of her cup and got to her feet.
“There is no need for haste, young lady,” Araine told her. “It does men good to have to wait for a woman now and again. It teaches them patience.”
“Yes’m,” Wonda said, bowing.
The duchess mum got to her feet. “Come here, girl, and let me have a proper look at you,” she said. Wonda came closer, and Araine walked around her, examining her worn and patched clothes, the jagged scars on her homely face, and reaching out to squeeze her shoulders and arms like a butcher examining livestock.
“I can see why you chose to lead a man’s life,” the duchess mum said, “you being built like one. Do you regret missing out on a life of dresses and blushing at suitors?” Leesha got to her feet, but the duchess mum raised a finger at her without even turning, and Leesha kept her tongue behind her teeth.
Wonda shifted her feet uncomfortably. “Ent never given it much thought.”
Araine nodded. “What’s it like, girl, to stand among men when they go to war?”
Wonda shrugged. “Feels good to kill demons. They killed my da and a lot of my friends. Some of the Cutters treated us women different at first, trying to keep us behind them when the demons came, but we kill as many as they do, and after a few of them got pounced on for looking out for some woman instead of themselves, they wised up quick.”
“The men here would be worse, by far,” Araine said. “I had to abdicate power when my husband died, even though my eldest son was an idiot, and his brothers little better. Creator forbid a woman sit the ivy throne. I’ve always been a little jealous of the way old Bruna dominated men openly, but that sort of thing just isn’t done here.”
She eyed Wonda again. “Not yet, anyway,” she allowed. “Stand tall in the night for me, girl. Stand tall for every woman in Angiers, and never let anyone, man or woman, make you stoop.”
“I will, Y’Grace,” Wonda said, making a proper bow at last. “I swear it by the sun.”
Araine grunted and tapped her chin for a moment, then snapped her fingers. She snatched up the little silver bell on the table and rang it. In an instant one of her ladies-in-waiting appeared. “Summon my seamstress immediately,” Araine said. The woman curtsied and scurried off, and moments later another woman arrived, assisted by a young girl with a leather-bound book and a feathered quill.
“The girl,” Araine said, pointing to Wonda. “Take her measurements. Everything.” The royal seamstress nodded and produced a series of knotted strings, calling the measurements out to the girl, who noted them in her book. Wonda stood awkwardly while the woman worked, moving Wonda’s limbs about like a doll’s, and running her hands over places that made the girl blush furiously. The white scars on her face became even more prominent as her cheeks colored.
The seamstress came over to Araine and Leesha when she was finished. “It’s a challenge, Your Grace,” she admitted. “The girl is flat where a woman should be curved, and broad where a woman should be narrow. Perhaps a few ruffles on the dress to distract the eye, and a fan to help her hide the scars…”
“Am I an idiot?” Araine snapped. “I’d as soon put Thamos in a gown as that girl!”
The woman paled, and dipped into a curtsy. “Apologies, Your Grace,” she said. “What did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know yet,” Araine said. “It will come to me, I’m sure. Run along now.” The woman nodded, quickly gliding out of the room with her assistant in tow.
Araine turned to Leesha as she and Wonda prepared to go. “Bruna and I were great friends, dear, something that was of great benefit to both of us. I hope we can be friends, as well.”
Leesha nodded. “I hope so, too.”
CHAPTER 18
GUILDMASTER CHOLLS
333 AR SPRING
“WHY DID YOU AGREE to go?” Rojer asked in a low voice after Janson had escorted the men back to the parlor and left them alone to wait for Leesha and Wonda. “Rhinebeck is just trying to be rid of you because he’s afraid his own subjects will flock to you.”
“I don’t want that any more than he does,” the Painted Man said. “I don’t want people to start thinking of me as some kind of savior. Besides, I have my own reasons for wanting to visit Miln, and going under Rhinebeck’s seal is too good an opportunity to let slip past.”
“You’re going to give them your battle wards,” Rojer said.
The Painted Man nodded. “Among other things.”
“All right,” Rojer said. “When do we leave?”
The Painted Man looked at him. “There is no ‘we’ here, Rojer. I’m going to Miln alone. I’ll be traveling at speed through the nights, and I don’t need you slowing me down. Besides, you have apprentices to train.”
“What’s the point?” Rojer asked. “Whatever it is I do to the corelings, it’s not something I can teach.”
“Demonshit,” the Painted Man snapped. “That’s quitting talk. You’ve only been training apprentices for a few months. We need those fiddle wizards, Rojer. You need to find a way to get them ready.” He took Rojer’s shoulders, looking into his eyes, and Rojer saw the endless determination that burned in the man and, more, his confidence in Rojer. “You can do this,” the Painted Man said, squeezing his shoulders. He turned away, but that stare remained with Rojer, and he felt as if some of the man’s determination had passed on to him. If he couldn’t train the apprentices, he knew who could. All he needed to do was swallow his fear and go to them.