Lora of Two Worlds

They took only a brief rest at the station, and pushed on for Augustburg.

Roland climbed up into Leon’s carriage — the two of them had no end of things to say.

Lohenheim was a standing pool with its faint ripples; Augustburg ran in waves that rose and fell every day:

The marcher domains’ mutinies were a ladle pressed down under water — no grand flood came of it, but the driving-out of a crown-appointed commander was no rare thing.

In the southwest, the Southern Realm raided the Western Riverlands’ marches without pause — the two realms rubbed sparks off each other constantly — and Lord Darcy, commissioner of the Western Riverlands, petitioned for a war edict.

In the north, the steppe khanate’s own feuds had woken the Kirghiz’s appetite to swallow it outright; the khan had Princess Constance — his treaty-bride of the Empire’s own blood — write home begging for aid. The King had no strength to send.

And the Highland Clans went on nibbling the Empire’s borders, and never once stopped.

Leon had been out of the capital eight months. Roland’s account served him well — it laid his last-life memories out in order.

The King had sent Voss himself to meet the sixth lord at the Thornsgate. He came with his face all spring weather, walked a hundred paces out beyond the gate, and bowed with folded fists:

”Baron of Charnwood — you’ve kept well since we parted? His Majesty thinks of you often, and sent me out to bring you in.”

Leon lifted the carriage curtain a finger’s width. ”Then I’ll trouble the Grand Marshal to show the road. Had you not come, I’d not have known where in this city I might stop.”

When he had left the Princes’ Quarter, it had been with no thought of ever coming back; the King had granted him a mansion in Lohenheim besides — and by rights the old ”Duke of Zahn’s mansion” ought to have gone back to the crown’s Household.

And now, he was back.

Voss took his meaning whole. He bowed again, all smiles:

”The Baron jokes. How should so great an Augustburg lack a place for you to stop? The Baron’s mansion stands ready — your own former residence, and not one thing changed in it.”

”The stars swing round; the things stay, and the men are gone — how could nothing change? The steps before the baron’s mansion, at the least, I can no longer climb for myself.” Leon’s voice was level, neither glad nor sore in it. He saw Voss’s eyes drift toward the carriages behind, and added:

”The carriages behind carry General Odenheim’s womenfolk. No man of their house to escort them — they came in with me.”

”Womenfolk, is it. Then I shall not intrude.”

Voss had already had his reports on Leon. Of the outside men sent out to prove whether the legs were truly lame, only a handful had come back — and it set his teeth on edge. But the King, hearing it, had laughed till he roared:

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”One word for it: perfect! The man’s a cripple beyond all doubt — else he’d never have spent his wits building that inconceivable weapon-chair. This brother of mine is not like the third or the eighth — the man lives too earnestly by half.

A prince of the blood — a prince of the blood, I say! Who ordered him to live so earnestly? Well — if he’s in earnest about being a cripple, then I, as his elder brother, must show the more care. I can’t have the whole world laughing at me for bullying a cripple.”

The wheelchair Lora had designed for Leon had, by roundabout accident, sunk the King’s doubts.

Voss held to that judgment too: legs not truly lame, and no man squanders thought on a chair built for the lie.

To frame Chancellor Sidney, he had twisted Sidney and the sixth lord together in one rope — and had Lord Darcy’s party not stood howling against it, Leon would have gone to the block with Sidney’s whole household long since.

No working with the sixth lord — and for himself, Voss could not have been better pleased; his guard came down by three whole parts.

Leon, wearing the face of a man whom none of it concerned, let the curtain fall:

”Lead on, Grand Marshal.”

Voss saw Leon honored back into the Princes’ Quarter. Lora went home to the Odenheim house in the Goodfaith Quarter.

The Countess had kept house in the capital a while not long since, and had put the whole place in order that time; bringing Lora back now, she went about it at her ease.

Lora walked on her mother’s arm, hearing her tell off the uses of every little court.

The Augustburg Odenheim house was a tighter fit: the rear quarters were all small courts boxed in by roofed galleries, the five brothers’ five courts cheek by jowl, gallery lacing gallery between — a deal more pinched than the Lohenheim house.

Lora kept her old room, the court across the little garden; and her mother, fearing she’d be lonesome alone in it, added a few more maids to her court.

”They all say the Western Capital’s bigger than the Eastern. But the sky they’ve dealt me is this one square little patch.” Lora stood in her court and sighed at the sky boxed in by eave-corners on four sides.

Lilac was just marching the maids in and out with the baggage. Hearing the sigh, she laughed:

”Augustburg holds twice the folk of Lohenheim and better — wider streets, bigger markets, more wards by the dozen. Once you’ve walked it all till you know it, you’ll know how big Augustburg is.”

Lilac had grown up inside Augustburg herself, and only gone east with the Countess’s dowry. Back after twenty-odd years, her own heart was racing. She saw Lora standing moonstruck and gave her a nudge:

”You can’t get indoors yet. Go stroll at your mother’s — the fourth lord will have had the news, he’s sure to be back.”

Lora nodded and took Lucy over toward her mother’s court. And there, sure enough, was her fourth brother.

”Brendan!”

He had only that moment come in himself, and he lit up at the sight of his sister: ”Sister — your brother got in five days ahead of you. I’m the Eastern Capital’s liaison officer now, and the two-tax commissioner to boot. What do you say — hasn’t your brother made something of himself?”

Lora curled her lip: ”Five days early — and so you wouldn’t escort Mother to the capital. We were ambushed on the road, did you know that?”

”Your brother couldn’t have known the like would happen. Don’t be hard on him.” The Countess was glad enough to see her fourth son making his way — anything beat idling about the house as before. She added:

”Fourth — have you been to call on your grandsire and your uncle these two days? If not, come with your mother and your sister tomorrow.”

”I truly haven’t. This week’s had me so busy I clean forgot. Good — tomorrow I’ll walk you both over, and teach Lora the road while we’re at it. And now I’m off — I’ve got a dinner to attend tonight, and I won’t be back to eat with you.”

Fearing his sister meant to go on tallying up his crime of leaving them behind, the fourth lord oiled his soles and slid away.

A liaison officer’s grade was low — but the matters under his hand were many, and as the knot tying a domain to the court, the post was often the one thing that mattered.

Only, Legard had a web of his own in Augustburg, and needed no liaison officer to run his private errands there — which was why he’d given way to Cedric Salt’s asking so easily.

But in other men’s eyes, the Eastern Capital’s liaison officer stood for the Eastern Capital itself. If the Eastern Capital caught fire, the liaison officer would never come clear of it.

Not yet twenty, Brendan Odenheim had no notion of the weight of it. But his old father, out in the camps at Thornford, felt a shackle clamp round his leg the day he heard.

Leon had said as much to Roland on the road in: nothing of theirs, great or small, could touch Brendan.

And that would not be enough. They must get him shifted out of the post, and quickly — before the Salts could put him to use.

The third lord came home to eat with his mother and sister, and told them tales of the things he had run into, till his sister could not get her dinner down for giggling — and it took their mother’s scolding twice over before brother and sister pulled their faces straight.

Dinner done and Mother gone in, Roland told his sister the affair of the broken pin:

”It was Heaven helping the Odenheims, too. That brothel-man took Mother’s pin to our new vault to pawn. Our vault is in the Longlife Quarter off the West Market; his Rouge House is in the Pleasance Quarter off the East Market...”

”The Pleasance Quarter — I know that place. Brothels and wine-shops, wall to wall. Come night, it’s red lanterns and green wine, money-bright and drink-mad. The brothels run in rows, and their back courts all have little doors between them — and all so that when a wife comes hunting, her goodman can bolt out the back.”

It was all down in the history books. Lora said it with a grin plastered on.

Roland: What on earth does that little head of yours keep in it?