Chapter 151: The Treasurer’s Glass

Aren was scraping out his cracked furnace with a spoon when Vivienne’s anchor went tight behind his ribs and began to hum.

It was a little after the third bell of the night. Seren was asleep in the back room. At the window bench, his Void Copy stood in the goose’s face, grinding tomorrow’s lily.

[Investment recorded.]

[Type: Hidden aid. Anchor unaware.]

[Anchor progressed: Vivienne Ashgrave (Primary). Rank D: Blood → Marrow.]

[Mirror Return triggered.]

He stopped scraping. ’She took mine over a prince’s card.’

The little wheel spun in the dark above the cold furnaces and fell hard into the wider band.

[Result: x100.]

[Return: the Anchor’s progress, x100.]

[New Moon. Mastery: 78% → 90%.]

[Strength: 2,140 → 2,390. Endurance: 2,450 → 2,720.]

It came into his right arm first, warm, then down his back and into his legs, and the spoon bent double between his fingers. He put it in his pocket before Seren could see it.

’Blood to Marrow is old news to my ring, so it paid in muscle.’

He took the grey blade out of the Deep Purse, went up onto the roof and set a split log on the tiles. He laid the edge on it and let New Moon go down into the steel.

At the forge it had taken him a heartbeat to fill the edge. Tonight it filled before he finished the thought. The blade went through the log and stopped a hair above the tile, and the two halves fell apart, flat and clean.

He carried both halves down and put them back on the woodpile, cut side in.

The summons came down early in the morning on thick white paper with a Sarkhane seal. Seren read it out at her bench in a flat, dangerous voice.

"’His Highness Prince Lucan requests that Mistress Seren Veil attend the Treasurer’s reading of the bride, and stand beside his gift.’" She threw the paper down. "Beside his gift! Like a prize hen next to the eggs."

Coin’s runner turned his cap nervously in the doorway. "It comes off your debt, mistress. Didn’t Coin tell you?"

"Then Coin can stand beside it."

She went anyway.

At the Kitchen that morning, Kesh got the seating chart off a Treasury clerk for a copper. The Sarkhane clerks stood on the east wall, and anyone running from that wall would make for the small side door. Nil paid the swordsman rostered on that door a second copper to swap posts.

The Treasurer’s court was a round white hall on the First Ring with a dome of glass. Coin’s hired swords lined its wall in grey and bronze, one every five paces. Nil stood by the small side door, with Kesh on his left.

Prince Lucan stood in Sarkhane colors with his silver band, and his soft-faced steward Benedek a step behind him. Prince Varek sprawled on a bench in an Oros coat, huge, with road dust on his boots.

At the end of the Sarkhane row of clerks stood Dunn.

Seren stood beside the empty gift table in her one good black coat, looking as if she would like to burn it down. Cardinal Sallow waited in white and gold, with his brass lantern on its chain.

Nil kept still and kept a prince between himself and the lantern.

Vivienne came in last, with her maid and Luna at her side.

The hound walked across the hall with her head low. She looked at the Cardinal and growled, and the clerks near her stepped back. Then she lay down at the bride’s feet, sixty paces from the side door.

The Treasurer was an old, thin man with ink to the elbows and a glass on a black iron stand. Vivienne laid her palm on it without being asked. The glass read her stage, and the purity of what had made it. Letters came up in the grey, and the old man read them aloud for the Emperor’s book.

"Marrow. Purity: grade six."

Lucan rose and went to stand beside Seren. He put his hand on her shoulder.

He turned to the hall. "House Sarkhane’s gift." He let it sit. "Grade six, pressed by Seren Veil."

Seren bowed stiffly.

’She’ll be sick about that for a year.’

"Your Highness is generous." Vivienne didn’t raise her voice. "Your gift is here."

Her maid brought out the jade box, and Vivienne put it in Lucan’s hands.

"I haven’t touched it, Your Highness."

Lucan opened the lid with a smile for the hall, to show the court the Heart Pill.

Vivienne nodded at the box. "The next stage is already in there."

Lucan looked down. Beside the Heart Pill lay a Marrow. His smile stayed where it was, and he went to close the lid, and the Treasurer put two fingers on it.

"May I, Highness?"

He lifted the Marrow onto his glass with brass tweezers and leaned on it.

The pill split across the middle with a small sharp sound and fell in two halves on the grey. In the heart of one sat the dark grain.

Seren took one step forward.

"That’s a leash, Your Highness."

Lucan didn’t even blink. "Then it’s your leash, mistress. Your furnace, your seal, your hands. Any blood can be ground." He turned to the white and gold. "My lord Cardinal, read it, and let the Church say whose hand set it."

The Cardinal looked at the two halves, did not open his shutter, and said nothing at all. ’Read one prince’s blood in public, and he has to read all three.’

Seren’s voice had gone quiet. "If I’d set it, she’d follow me around like a goat. Why would I want that?" She looked at Lucan’s hand. "Cut your thumb on the Treasurer’s glass, Highness. It reads blood too."

The Treasurer turned his glass on its stand toward the prince. "It reads what is given freely, Highness."

Lucan looked at the glass, and kept his hand at his side.

’Does it?’ Inside the helm, Aren watched Lucan’s face. ’She has no idea. Neither does he.’

Varek laughed once, loudly.

Vivienne stood with her hands folded.

"I took a Marrow, Your Highness. I never said it was yours."

Seren wasn’t finished. She turned and pointed down the Sarkhane row. "And only one stranger came near my boil this week. That basket boy. He set a basket by my press bowl."

Every head turned. At the end of the row, Dunn was already walking. He went fast along the wall toward the side door, with his right hand in his pocket.

’If he gets out that door, Lucan’s hand goes with him. If he’s stopped, he’s proof.’

Nil stepped into the doorway and filled it.

Dunn pulled up a pace from the grey plate. His hand came out of his pocket with a folded paper, and he shoved it into his mouth.

Nil caught his jaw in one steel hand and squeezed until it opened. He took the paper out with two fingers, wet, and let go. Dunn sat down hard on the white floor, and Kesh had him by the collar before he could get up.

"Sorry, friend." Kesh grinned down at him. "Door’s taken." He looked at the wet paper. "That’s a House receipt. Paid men keep theirs, or the House collects twice."

Nil unfolded it and carried it to the Treasurer’s clerk the long way, past Varek’s bench, with the ink up.

’Varek would sell his horse to see Lucan bleed. Let him see it first.’

On his bench, Varek leaned forward before the clerk had it open, and whistled.

The clerk took it and read it aloud. Dunn’s debt to the House, paid in full yesterday morning. The man who paid had signed in green ink with one letter. B.

"Green, and a B!" Varek slapped his knee. "Half the Seven Bells has one of those framed. Benedek signs his laundry."

Benedek went grey. Lucan didn’t look at him.

"My steward’s debts are his own, Treasurer." Lucan closed the jade box and tucked it under his arm. "Write that down too."

He bowed to the Emperor’s empty chair and walked out of the hall with his back straight. Benedek went after him, a little too fast, and the clerks went after Benedek.

’He took the Heart Pill with him. I was hoping he’d leave it as a tip.’

Dunn stayed on the floor with Kesh’s hand in his collar.

Nil went back to his doorway and kept his helm on the far wall until the shift bell rang. Once, the Cardinal looked at that doorway, and then away.

Seren came down to the Kitchen at dusk, and the whole cistern heard her on the stairs.

Aren was on a bench with a bowl of soup, in the goose’s face. He had let the copy go at the shift bell. She dropped down across from him so hard the bench jumped, took the cup Coin pushed at her, swallowed, and made a face.

"Lucan called it my leash! In front of the Treasurer!" She put the cup down hard. "And whatever she took read grade six on the Treasurer’s glass. I pressed my first grade six Marrow two days ago. Two days! And somebody else has pressed a grade six, and the bride ate it!"

She was looking straight at him the whole time.

"Somebody better than you," said the goose.

She threw the warm cup at him. He caught it, and she went up the stairs, swearing at every furnace in Aurem.

Coin leaned over the counter. "A Sarkhane clerk came down this afternoon. He’d been reading the Lamp Guard’s book, and he wanted to know whose face was inside the hired sword called Nil."

Aren kept eating his soup.

"I told him faces cost more than names." Coin went back to his pot. "He’s coming back tomorrow with more."