Jin smiled, shifting easily into another nonverbal language. She sipped her wine, moving her fingers and shrugging. Resolute knows little of statecraft, she signed to him. She licked her lips, wishing the wine were tart and a bit drier. “This is an excellent choice,” she said.

I concur; we can use that to our advantage, he signed back. He returned her smile. “I’m glad you approve.”

He turned to Isaak. How has he been? Rudolfo signed to her, moving his fingers along stem of his glass while touching the table cloth with his right forefinger. “How have you been, Isaak?”

Remorseful, she answered.

“I am functioning properly, Lord Rudolfo.”

He nodded and turned back to Jin Li Tam. “It’s a tradition in my house that the groom-to-be prepare a feast for his betrothed. When my father took my mother into his house, he spent a week in the kitchens and three weeks before that in the Great Library poring over recipes to make the perfect selections for her.” Rudolfo chuckled. “He spoke of it often as his greatest test of strategy. He sent runners across the Named Lands gathering the ingredients. A bottle of apple brandy from the cave-castles of Grun El. Peaches from Glimmerglam, of course. Rice and kallaberries from the Emerald Coasts.”

Her father had spoken of Lord Jakob. He’d not spoken of the lady, though. Under better circumstances, her father would have fully briefed her on the history of Rudolfo’s house. When she’d accepted the role of consort to Lord Sethbert, she’d spent nearly a month locked away with everything her father had gathered on that man and his family.

Now, the stakes were higher-a full betrothal-but she knew far less about this man she was to marry.

She shifted in her seat, suddenly feeling the weight of those stakes. Perhaps her father had changed his strategy.

She doubted it. If he’d intended to do such a thing, word would’ve waited for her here and she’d not have been allowed to see Rudolfo.

Your father must protect Isaak, he signed to her as he stood again. “Alas,” he said, “we’ll celebrate our occasion with less glamour.”

Rounding the table, he took her plate and served her. He watched the look on her face as he lifted each lid, and she noticed how well he read her expressions, leaving off those dishes that elicited a less than favorable response from her.

He reads people well, she thought, as he speared asparagus onto her plate. He left off the drizzle of butter and roasted garlic and continued.

She smiled at him as he put the plate in front of her. “You are quite good at that.”

He nodded. “I am a student of the masses.”

He served himself quickly, and filled fresh wineglasses with something red and unchilled. She lifted it to her nose and knew already it would be tart and dry on her tongue.

Rudolfo raised his glass. “To formidable partnerships,” he said. His other hand moved slightly, but she followed with her eye. May we find happiness in one another despite the circumstances that bring us together.

She raised her glass as well and repeated the words that he had spoken aloud. She was too surprised to reply to the words he had not spoken, the words he’d signed in the nonverbal language of House Li Tam.

She’d not considered happiness as something important to this Gypsy King. She wondered what else would surprise her about him.

Two days after Sethbert’s visit the first supply wagons pushed their way along the ash-strewn road, delivering tools, food and clothing to the workers.

Petronus tasked Neb with inventorying and assigning them. The boy was quick with a pencil and ciphers. Over the days, as word spread to the outlying villages, more workers drifted in. A few refugees-tradesfolk who’d relied on Windwir for their livelihood-showed up. And at least two Androfrancine caravans had stopped, en route to the Summer Palace to heed Pope Resolute’s call. When those wagons-and their Gray Guard contingents-stopped, Petronus marked his face with soot and talked to the ground, though he knew it was unlikely that anyone would recognize him.

But the boy recognized you, some part of him chided. Of course, the amazing thing about boys was that they actually paid attention to busts and portraits even when it seemed like they didn’t. But someday, he thought, someone who really knew you will recognize you. You were lucky with Sethbert, the same voice said.

Now that Introspect was dead, there were no other Androfrancines who knew about Petronus. And back at home, in Caldus Bay, the few still living who knew his secret were too grateful to have their limerick master back to ever break it. And of course, Vlad Li Tam had known. He’d helped locate the roots and flowers that Petronus’s particular poison had required, and had arranged for and financed the runaway Pope’s escort home after an appropriate period of time in hiding at House Li Tam on the Inner Emerald Coast.

The past hounds us all.

After leaving Neb, Petronus walked north, away from camp. When he’d first seen the wagon, he’d felt a surge of anger far more powerful than he expected. As if all his rage towards Sethbert for this senseless act of genocide was focused into one white-hot flame that could only see a wagon of tools and supplies. The anger was so powerful that it shook him, and now, at least thirty minutes later, he still felt the tension of it. As he walked, he found himself suddenly moving into a Francine meditation he used frequently when he’d been in Windwir.

He stopped and chuckled.

“Why are you so angry, old man?” he asked himself aloud.

Petronus felt the stirring of wind and heard the voice nearby. “Do you often talk to yourself?”

Petronus squinted but saw nothing. “I see you’re still around, Gregoric.”

“I am,” he said. “We ran in with the wagon. We’ve been gathering what information we can on Sethbert’s strength here.”

Petronus thought for a moment he saw faintest ghost of a dark silk sleeve. “Do you think the Wandering Army will return?”

“Unlikely.”

Of course, Petronus thought. If Rudolfo wars alone against the Named Lands, he’ll not make a stand here in the open. He’ll force a fight where he is most likely to win it-at the end of his opponent’s long march into the Prairie Sea, with winter fast approaching and Rudolfo’s Wandering Army defending their home from a backyard they no doubt knew how to use as a weapon.

“But it is good to know what you are up against,” Petronus said.

“And I fear we’re up against quite a lot,” Gregoric said. “I’ve had birds that say there are two armies on the move in addition to Sethbert’s.”

“They’re marching here?” Petronus asked, a bit surprised.

“They’ll stop here,” Gregoric said. “A good leader shows his men what they fight for, gives them a night to get drunk and rage over it, then points his army like burning arrow straight at the heart of his enemy.”

“They’re riding east, then?”

“Aye,” Gregoric said. ?“ric/fo0;They are.”

Petronus chuckled, but it was a grim sound. “Then they’re fools.”

“Aye,” he said again. “They are. But they’ll come angry to our back door. We’ll still have all of the advantage… but also all of the risk.”

“Any word from Rudolfo?”

Gregoric didn’t say anything. After a moment, he changed the subject. “What were you so angry about?”

Petronus nodded slowly. “I was angry about Sethbert’s wagon of supply. The hypocrisy of it enraged me.”

He saw the faintest glimmer of a dark eye. “Perhaps it isn’t hypocrisy at all,” Gregoric said. “He’s burying his own dead-Marshers would hold him in high regard for such a thing.”

He felt another stab of anger that twisted into remorse. “Marshers are-” He stopped himself.

“In the end,” Gregoric said, “it doesn’t really matter as long as your men are fed and clothed. The rains are not so far away, afterwards the winds and snows. It’s already miserable work without the cold and wet. The outlying villages might be able to help some but that would be impossible to manage once the weather goes.”