Forty Seven: A Petition

"Nova, there's something happening."

Nova resurfaced gratefully from a dream in which she trained with her sister, as she had so many times when she still lived in the palace. There had been nothing blatantly sinister about it, a simple sparring session with her teachers watching and Mercy offering her usual jibes as they lunged at and dodged each other. Her teasing had always had a bite to it, but Nova had had no idea how deep the resentment ran.

"Nova." This time it was accompanied by a shake to her shoulder. She opened her eyes, wincing at the bright glow of firelight behind Grace. The girl was fully dressed, and it dimly came to Nova's attention that they were no longer alone in the room.

She sat up, and found the kitchen staff sitting around in varying states of dishevelment. Some hadn't even changed out of their nightclothes or found slippers to wear. She looked around at them in bafflement, and then turned to Grace for an answer.

"A guard came and roused everyone," Grace said. "Sent them down here. I heard shouting in the courtyard not long ago, but no one seems to know what's actually going on."

"Shouting?" Nova repeated stupidly. She still had one foot in her dream, could still see Mercy's face when she closed her eyes, so horribly similar to her own.

"I think there's a protest of some sort," one of the maids said. The rest of the room was quiet, so her voice carried to everyone. "I saw a group of men in the courtyard through the window on the way down. There were guards all around them, like they'd been trying to break in."

"Protesting what?" Jan asked. The housekeeper sat against the wall near Nova and Grace in her dressing gown, but somehow the woman still managed to look like she was in charge. "His Lordship froze all his tax rates when the dark season fell, and hasn't withheld any financial support for damages."

"Some seasons that still ain't enough," a man said from near the grounds exit. Nova dimly recognised him as one of the garden crew. "All very well us up here, boarded and paid and fed. No tax cut's going to soothe the sting of not being able to feed your children."

"If it weren't for those bastard Devils," someone else put in, to a general murmur of assent.

"Those dark-damned demons started it," someone added. "They had no right showing up in those numbers. Fucked the crops for miles around. Devils didn't help, but they aren't where it started."

"And now they're spreading plague."

A silence fell after this pronouncement. It was the silence that drew their attention to the faint sound of approaching footsteps, as they drew closer to the kitchen door the rattle of metal accompanied the noise. Guards. Several people straightened in their seats with interest. The kitchen door opened and the captain of the guard stepped through, his eyes immediately falling upon Nova. Her heart sank; that meant that whatever was going on, however unpleasant, she was going to find out from a much closer vantage point than she'd have liked.

"Anarabelle," he greeted her. His gaze flickered over her shoulder and she tensed, but Grace had already found the presence of mind to move back. "The Lord has requested your assistance in this matter. Someone must find her some outdoor clothes, please."

Nova didn't laugh, but it was a narrow miss. By 'requesting her assistance', he meant 'ordering her compliance', but why split hairs? She got up without speaking. She didn't know what would come out if she opened her mouth, but she suspected it would be something to do with how little involvement she wanted or needed in a civilian revolt. She'd tried to lead one of those before, and look where that had got her. Chained and wingless, with fewer rights than the horses in the stable. She didn't think trying to prevent one was going be much more fun.

Jan found her a thicker shift to wear and padded it with a worn-out gardener's jacket. It smelled and was full of holes, but the lord would consider anything more an undue extravagance and force her to go out in the cold in just her shift. She ran warmer than most people, but she couldn't draw on Nictaven the way Unspoken could to keep herself warm.

She was led to the entrance hall, where the lord, Nika, and a contingent of guards already waited. Harkenn was pacing and even his guards looked restless. The Unspoken, in contrast, was a patch of calm in a sea of agitation. From his aura, Nova could tell it wasn't that he was less nervous, just that he had better ways of hiding it. There was also annoyance there, and she suspected it had something to do with the fact that Harkenn appeared to be ignoring his presence. If it had been Yddris there, they would be strategizing, not standing apart from each other like they'd never met.

"Finally," Harkenn snapped, though the time between sending the guard to get her and their return couldn't have been more than a handful of minutes. "Let's go."

Nova took her cue and followed the lord out of the doors as he strode away, leaving his contingent to scramble after them. Horses waited outside in the courtyard, held steady by the stable hands as they skittered nervously at the crowd. They were all labourers, Nova saw, most looking like they worked in the steel district and the mining quarter. They put up quite an intimidating front, consisting of mostly big, burly men. Harkenn strode to his horse as if he didn't see them and swung up into the saddle, waiting impatiently for one of the hands to help Nova onto the back of the horse with him. In his agitation he had forgotten to truss her up as thoroughly as normal, but if the atmosphere in the city was like this Nova was quite happy to stay on the horse and use the lord as a shield.

The captain of the guard drew up on one side, and Nika rode on the other side. Nova had assumed they would be addressing the crowd in the courtyard, but at that moment the castle guard shunted them a path through the shouting masses and they galloped through. She knew better than to ask questions, especially with Faellian in such a foul mood, so she held on and tried to ignore the curiosity and nervousness coiling in her gut. All kinds of possibilities crossed her mind; that the city was in full riot even now, that the Devils had committed another high-profile murder, or even that Angels had been sighted. That last one stopped her cold. She stopped speculating before she turned herself into a nervous wreck over something that might not even come to pass.

They rode down the hill into the city proper, which was quieter than she had expected it to be. It was possible that this wasn't about a civilian riot, but in that case, why send all the castle staff down to the kitchens? She steadied herself against the cantle as the horse turned sharply down another street. They were heading to the Orthanian quarter, then. She very much doubted that Harkenn planned a day trip into the dead quarter. As the houses became bigger and more opulent and the streets narrowed, the horses were forced into double and then single file. The captain rode in front of the lord, one hand on the reins and the other at the hilt of his sword. As they were released from the deep shadow of another narrow, winding street, Nova heard raised voices.

She risked a peek around Harkenn's arm and gasped, mostly at the unexpected blaze of light in the courtyard ahead. Orthan's temple was always lit unless the weather made it impossible, braziers flickering on every layer of the tower brickwork and all along the walls of the halls and cloisters. That in itself was bright enough; it was easy to forget how blindingly it glowed between visits, so that one could almost believe the Orthanians were as blessed as they thought they were. That day, though, it was accompanied by the light from a sea of handheld torches raised towards the sky from what looked like the entirety of the Orthanian clergy.

Nova looked down and blinked, blue and green shapes continuing to shimmer and shift behind her lids. She wasn't sure whether to be relieved or not.

"I want to get to that priest at the front," Harkenn growled to the captain. "Can we do so without making a scene?"

Nova braved the light again and squinted through the blaze. Dimly she could see a figure that stood higher than the others, as if standing on a box or a pedestal.

"Unlikely, my lord," the captain said, after scanning the courtyard. "There are too many here. We'd have to force a path."

Harkenn sighed. No one in the courtyard appeared to have noticed their presence yet, focused in prayer as they seemed to be. The sounds of their approach must have been covered by the low chanting that rumbled through the space, echoing off the buildings.

"We are not free of the dark season yet," the lord said, and his voice boomed through the courtyard. The chanting stopped immediately, and many turned to look at them. "At this very moment, the whole city is engaged in clearing up after the storms and the flood that followed. I myself have been at several sites today to lend financial aid and extra hands. As a house of the clergy, I am surprised to find you all still here."

Some of the priests nearest the back, who were most likely to catch the full force of the lord's glare, had the good grace to look ashamed of themselves. Others only looked angry at the interruption. At a sign, the captain gestured a few guards forward to make them a path through the crowd, which parted easily around them. From the windows of houses around the square civilians watched with poorly concealed curiosity, and some had even come to their doors to peer out.

"I would like to know," the lord continued, before anyone present had gathered the wits to speak, "why I have a group of angry workers in my courtyard telling me Orthan has claimed that I am holding back food rations. As we all should know, my stores were attacked by the Devils not too many weeks ago, and despite my best efforts much was lost. It was already going to be a challenge to get us through to the harvest." Harkenn looked ahead as if he was talking to the priest at the front, but he was really addressing everyone in the crowd, including the civilian audience that had gathered. Nova straightened in the saddle, trying not to look like the presence of so many Orthanians made her nervous. There was no chance that this wasn't linked to Ethred in some way, and both his infatuation with her and her abhorrence of him were probably not very secret in temple circles. If things turned grim, she wasn't sure what would happen to her.

"Our sources were perhaps mistaken, then," the priest at the front finally spoke. He was a thin, imperious-looking man, with small round eyeglasses and a frosty stare. His frown looked like it had been engraved onto his face.

"Your sources were perhaps not actually sources," Harkenn returned, equally cold. "And if they were, you may want to find more observant ones. My warehouses were on fire on the tallest peak in the city, and the criers took the news to every neighbourhood. I have not prevented access for the Lady Kerrin or Medra or the women of the Medica, yet no one else has made such claims. I give out what is available to give out, at a rate that won't leave us with nothing by the time the crops start recovering. I do not recall that any representative of Orthan has been to see me at all for these matters." He leaned in as if to keep their conversation more private, but his words still carried. "I have to confess myself disappointed, Areon. I've had much more imaginative release petitions than this, and none of those refused to attempt the orthodox route first."

Areon drew himself up. Though he was clearly angry, he couldn't match Harkenn's disdainful iciness. "Would you care to discuss this inside, my lord?"

"With this rabble outside? I think not. If you are not going to contribute to the clear-up efforts, then I'll have to ask you all to follow curfew guidance and stay out of everyone else's way."

"We are fully rune-protected here, my lord," Areon countered stiffly.

"Yes, I'm sure it's very effective with someone standing on every square inch of space," Faellian drawled. "Gatherings of this magnitude are highly discouraged before the light season. Unless you can give me a dark-damned excellent reason for doing it, disperse it. Now."

"Lord Ethred..."

"Baron Ethred is not here. He is languishing in my prison because he will not refrain from lying to me. If you can convince him to stop doing so, and it turns out he has not committed treason, I will gladly release him to you."

Nova watched with interest as the two men glared at each other. A small part of her wondered what would happen if Areon continued to push, but like everyone else he folded before Harkenn's burning glower. Whichever freakish ancestor had passed down the orange eyes of the Harkenns had done his descendants a huge favour. It was easier to stare down an Unspoken than a Harkenn. Still, the priest seemed hesitant to disperse his demonstration.

"I would hurry, sir," Nika said. Areon jumped as if he'd only just noticed that an Unspoken was present. "I dealt with two Marrowhawks on my rounds already today."

"You're not Yddris," the priest said.

"Well observed," Nika replied, with a dryness that would have made his old teacher proud.

"Fine, fine," Areon said, looking flustered suddenly. He moved past them and began giving instructions, but before he could get too far, Harkenn spoke again.

"Thank you, Areon. I may take you up on that drink. There are some matters I wish to discuss further with you." A guard helped Nova down so the lord could dismount. Once standing, he frowned at her, considering. "She can stay out here. Nika, ensure these clots did not actually do any damage to their nets. You, you and you," he pointed out three guards, "keep an eye on her. The rest of you, with me."

He strode off without another glance at any of them, preceding the slowly dimming crowd of Orthanians flooding from the square. The space dimmed as their braziers were extinguished in buckets of sand, until the small huddle Harkenn had left behind were the only ones outside. Horses shuffled and snorted, calmer now that the crowd was gone. Nova frowned at the temple doors. Harkenn had brought her here and then left her outside for what she presumed was the main point of the visit – she would much rather have spent the time near the kitchen fire with Grace, if she was just here to stand around. Not that she had ever had a choice in the matter before.

"Would it really weaken the net if too many people stood on it?" she asked Nika, as he alighted from his own mount. She hadn't felt a difference on entering the courtyard, but she wasn't particularly attuned to Unspoken runes.

"This net is not particularly vulnerable," Nika replied lightly. "It is well-surrounded by other nets, and I daresay the Orthanians are very rigorous with paying for maintenance. I suppose there is a chance that having so many bodies standing on the net might dull the effect of the runes, but again, this quarter is so thoroughly covered I doubt any demon would get close enough to take advantage."

"So that was political."

"Oh, yes." Nika sighed. "I'm starting to feel very glad I never took up this post."

Nova patted the nose of Nika's horse. Harkenn's always ignored her, just like his rider did. The animal snuffled at her hair and snorted its disinterest when it became apparent she had no food. She glanced towards the temple doors again. She supposed she was only there for show, then. She had got too used to actually being of any particular function when things happened; in the past, more often than not, she was simply there for Harkenn to show off. She could perhaps see his logic in bringing an enslaved Angel to a meeting with potential Caelumese sympathisers. It wasn't like many ever remembered that she was just as unsympathetic as most Nictavians – it was the outward appearance that counted.

She glanced around; her guards were standing in a cluster a little way away, assuming the Unspoken had his eye on her. She dropped her voice anyway. "Has Grace mentioned a note to you?"

"A note?" Nika asked. "No, she hasn't."

Nova paused. She doubted Nika had been told of Jordan's involvement with the Devils, but he was a clever man. She was unlikely to say anything that would surprise him. "I think there is a member of the Devils attempting to meet with her. I know she goes out to visit you sometimes. Could you keep an eye out?"

Nika was quiet for a long moment, and then said, "Does Thorne know?"

"Not yet."

Nika nodded slowly, as if he'd expected as much. "And are you privy to the full picture?"

His tone was strange, and Nova went on guard. If neither Yddris nor Jordan had told Nika the full extent of what was going on, she didn't want to be the one who broke it to him. She just hoped that wasn't what he was expecting, because Nika was kind to her and she didn't want to ruin it.

"As far as Harkenn allows me to be aware of it," Nova said. "Thorne himself seemed very reluctant to have me more than peripherally involved, if that makes any difference to you. And he hasn't told Grace anything."

"That part doesn't surprise me," Nika said. There was a dry humour in his voice. "I suppose I should be glad that Thorne and Yddris at least have this much to bond over." The bitterness in the words could cut. "For a while I thought Yddris was going to throw the whole thing over."

Nova cocked her head. "Why?"

Nika glanced at her, as if suddenly remembering who he was talking to. He appeared to think carefully for a moment. "It was a rocky start. He threw Thorne in at the deep end, which is a hard enough thing if you've grown up here. I think he had some idea that Thorne resented him for what Harkenn forced him into signing, though I really don't think Thorne ever saw it that way. And his way to deal with that is to get very busy." He sighed. "I know this has been a strange season, but at least some of it could have been set aside to make time for his new apprentice. I do fervently hope that this Guildtown visit does them both some good. Thorne deserves the quality of training I know Yddris can offer, if he puts his mind to it."

Nova nodded. She'd had some idea of the issue before, and couldn't say she was all that surprised. Being contractually forced together by Harkenn wasn't necessarily going to do their dynamic any good. The temple doors opened again, revealing Harkenn's rigid form. The meeting had not gone well, then. She smiled slightly as she drifted back towards Harkenn's horse. "Do you think Yddris and Thorne know how similar they are to each other?"

Nika laughed. "I think they've not got a single idea."