Lora of Two Worlds

Lora had to hand it to Leon, his scheme was sharp.

If the tarocchi game spread into the Silver Shield, it would speed the garrison’s rot. The King could move sooner against the chamberlains who held the military’s purse purses, and the Silver Shield could be reformed before it was too late.

Maybe, fifty years from now, they’d never see the day when a rebel warlord’s army reached the royal ferry and ten thousand Silver Shield men scattered overnight like smoke.

”Ten thousand guardsmen laid down their arms, and not one was a man. The eastern gate fell without a blow, and the old capital burned to ash and dream.”

Lance the festering sore, let it rot through, and then cut it out.

Lora quickly drew up a design sheet: the shape of the tiles, the suit symbols, the number of tiles needed.

”Use wood veneer first, or bone blanks, and make a set. I’ll write out the rules over the next couple of days. Once you’ve learned them, I’ll teach you how to play.”

After the brothers saw Leon out, Carl lingered, thoughtful. He caught Lora’s arm:

”I don’t care where you learned all this. I don’t care if another soul has moved into your body. You’re my sister Lora.

From now on, if anyone asks how you know these things, you say: Carl told me. I’m a man. I can protect myself, and I can protect you. You can’t. You’re still a girl. Sometimes you can’t handle it on your own...”

”Carl...”

His words startled her, and moved her. ”Another soul moved into your body”, that was as close to the truth as anyone had ever come.

In that moment, Lora felt that her brother truly understood her. As if, in this world a thousand years from her own, she’d finally found family. She threw her arms around Carl. He froze, body and face both locked.

In their house, it wasn’t as if brother and sister couldn’t touch at all, but a hug like this was a first. After a few breaths, Carl’s expression softened. He rested his hand lightly on her shoulder:

”How old are you? Still carrying on like a baby.”

”Thank you, Carl.”

”He’s your own brother, what’s there to thank? If you want to thank me, re-knot me a new tassel for that pomander.”

”All right!”

Between struggling with the formal script and needling Norton, Lora also had to learn braid-knotting from Lucy. Her days were full to bursting.

When Leon received the little booklet Lora had written, the questions that had nagged him for two days evaporated:

Each letter was the size of an egg. Two words were missing letters entirely. Handwriting that atrocious couldn’t possibly come from someone who’d lived two lifimes.

He spread out vellum and quill and recopied the whole thing. By the time he closed the booklet that had given him such a headache, he had the rules of the tarocchi game down cold.

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He slid Lora’s booklet onto the shelf, out of sight:

They said the hand reveals the man. This was his good deed for her, shielding her from the embarrassment. He couldn’t let anyone know the rules had come from a young woman’s pen. That would only invite trouble.

The wooden tiles were finished quickly. Bone took longer, they’d need more time.

When Leon saw the prototypes, he ordered two more sets: one in white onyx, one in ivory. Both from his own materials.

These were destined for Valentin Voss. The lord chamberlain, a man who loved nothing more than having one up on everyone.

”Lyle.”

”My lord, Lyle’s up a tree again, loafing. Should I call him back?”

Green popped his head in. He’d have loved to climb up and see for himself, but he lacked the skill. Seeing Leon at his writing desk, he lolled in the doorway, basking in the sun.

”That monkey... don’t bother. Nothing urgent. Wheel me to the colonnade, I’ll take some sun too.”

Green pushed the chair out. Then, casually:

”How come Linn’s been gone so many days? It’s been a while now.”

”You know the biggest hiring fair in the Empire is in Augustburg, right? I sent him to Augustburg. You have to pick good people. If I bring home a bunch of slackers, always wanting time off, or worse, bullies who’d take advantage of a cripple, who do I complain to?”

Perfectly reasonable. Green could only smile and nod.

Linn had indeed gone west, just a bit south of due west. Three hundred leagues to Stillmount, carrying the Abyssal Token, seventy years old, never activated, to find the Frost Ravens.

Near Lohenheim, the one place you could hide an army in secret was Stillmount. The old King and the King before him had probably searched it already, but Leon figured it was worth a try.

In his view, a place where you could hide men in plain sight was more promising.

That was Linn’s second destination: the Cliff Sanctuary.

In Augustburg, Leon had a cousin whose family had managed the Cliff Sanctuary’s stone-carving works for generations. The project was vast, it had been under construction for centuries, and it required many craftsmen, relatively stable, with new apprentices brought in each year to expand and replenish the workforce.

That cousin had once complained to Leon about the recruiting standards:

”I don’t know what those foremen are thinking. Short men, rejected. Family history of illness, rejected. Only sons, rejected. This isn’t recruiting craftsmen, it’s stricter than the Silver Shield.”

Then he’d caught himself: ”Though, to be fair, carving saints on cliff faces, even Silver Shield men might wet themselves up there.”

Could those stonemasons be Frost Ravens, generation after generation?

Green’s only job was to watch Leon and keep him from getting his legs treated. Where Linn went to hire servants didn’t matter. Besides, the man had watchers on him too. Young man on an errand, who wouldn’t find a way to do himself a favor? Taking his time was normal.

Two more months, and Leon’s legs would be a chronic injury no miracle worker could fix. The King would neatly remove a brother who threatened his throne, and Green could go back to Augustburg to report.

Leon was dozing in his chair when Lyle came pelting back, bursting:

”My lord, I’ll bet you a copper penny. Was the little mute faking it all along?”

”Pay up. Roland grew up with him. He says Norton was deaf and mute from infancy. One or two to sixteen, you try faking that.”

Leon’s voice was level, his words casual. But his mind was churning:

Impossible, could Norton really hear and speak?

Sure enough, Lyle pressed a copper penny into his palm and grinned:

”He doesn’t just hear, he can talk. I heard him say: lady, Papa, my lord, master... Every word he got out, the young lady clapped and bounced up and down like a little rabbit.”

”A little rabbit?” Leon paused, then laughed softly. ”Quite a keen eye, from that distance.”

”Not far at all, right from the tree in their courtyard.”

Lyle scratched his head, sheepish: ”I forgot to tell you, I’ve made two new friends in the trees. One’s called Shawn, the other’s Keane. So I can sit in their tree now.”

”Your own lord you can’t be bothered to look after, can’t even get someone to wheel him into the sun, but you love being a monkey in someone else’s tree?”

Leon, exasperated and amused, slapped the recopied sparrow-game manual into Lyle’s hands and gave him a look:

”Get lost, go see if my supper’s ready.”

”Oh.”

The two of them watched the silhouette on the parchment window shade move away. Leon said quietly:

”Learn this: when sunlight slants through a window, don’t stand next to it and eavesdrop.”

Lyle’s face broke into a grin. He imitated Lora’s rapid clapping, but didn’t dare bring his palms together. He clapped air.

Leon watched his retreating back, half-laughing, half-aghast:

So this is how she’d turned his bodyguard into a monkey.