City of Lies - Lian Tanner [61]
Aunt Katerin sniffed the bowl and wrinkled her nose. “I cannot imagine that doing my brother any good. Take it away, Hoff.”
By now the stoves were packed with wood and the room was growing hot. Frisia could feel the sweat running down her back. At the same time, her hands felt cold again. She looked at Physician Hoff, and at Kord and Smutz, standing to attention on either side of her, and knew that there was something she must remember. Something important. But what was it?
(A day and a night. Be ready for when it stops.…)
What? wondered Frisia. When what stops?
“Where is Grand Duke Karl?” growled the king. “Bring him to me. Bring all of them. There is much to be done”—cough cough—“if the army is to sail for Halt-Bern tomorrow morning.”
“But Your Majesty,” said Physician Hoff. “Surely you cannot go to Halt-Bern now?”
“No doubt that was the—purpose of this attack,” rasped the king. “But we are not so—easily beaten. Karl will lead the army in my stead.”
“And I will be there to help him,” said Frisia quickly.
The king grunted. “Not without me. Not—this time.”
Frisia’s heart beat like a war drum in her chest. It was her destiny to fight von Nagel. She must go!
“Father,” she said, as calmly as she could, “the troops are expecting me to be there.”
“Then they will be disappointed,” growled the king. “But they will fight nonetheless.”
And although she pleaded with him, he would not change his mind.
Frisia had first heard the rules of warfare when she was six years old. Since then, she had come to realize that one of them was more important than all the others put together.
Know your enemy.
The king was fascinated by the fates. He liked to consult them whenever possible, especially on the eve of war. And so, as soon as the grand dukes and margraves were gathered around his daybed, muttering to each other in shock and outrage, Frisia took a deep breath and stepped forward.
“Father, may we have a fate-telling for the campaign ahead?”
The king dragged himself up to a sitting position. “Good”—cough cough—“idea. Who will do it? The Wilm lad?”
“Yes, Father.” Frisia raised her hand, and Ser Wilm strode forward, with his servants fluttering around him.
“You will find this—interesting,” said the king to the gathered nobles. “I had not seen a telling done this way—before last week. It is even better than a goose’s entrails.” He waved weakly at Ser Wilm. “Get on with it.”
Ser Wilm’s servants dragged a number of books and manuscripts out of the various cabinets and laid them open on the long table. Then one of them took Frisia’s hand. “Close your eyes please, Highness, and put your finger on each book, anywhere you please. But do not peek.”
Frisia closed her eyes and stretched out her hand. Once again she had the feeling that she was sharing her body with someone else. And that the other one, the one who was not Frisia, had as much riding on the fate-telling as she did.
“Thank you, Highness,” said the servant, when Frisia had touched all twelve books. “You can open your eyes now.”
“Is that it?” growled the Margrave of Numme.
“No, the interesting bit comes next,” said the king.
Ser Wilm handed six of the books back to his servants. The others he moved around according to a pattern that Frisia could not see.
“But this is not the fates,” protested the Margrave of Numme. “He could turn it any way he wished.”
The king laughed. “That is the beauty of it. The lad cannot read. He does not know what the fate is, any more than we do. There now, he has finished. Frisia, tell us what it says.”
Frisia approached the books cautiously. Ser Wilm put his finger on the first word she had chosen. “Fire,” she read.
The second one was destroy the household. The third page listed all the weapons in the royal armory, but the bit that Ser Wilm pointed to was one longbow, inlaid with silver. The fourth was an illuminated drawing of a snarling wolf cub. The fifth was another drawing, of a ship this time, sailing toward the horizon with no land in sight.