Nathan Free, Natalie Bound Chapter 141: War Camps

For the rest of that evening, nobody ca to pester . The room was buzzing, especially over in the Freckentop corner, but I just moved within the cocoon of my own extended family and trusted the relations around to get rid of anyone who wanted to co after with so trivial bullshit. The word I put out was "If Natalie wanted to speak with you, she would have approached you by now". That line of argunt was enough to deflect every designer who wanted to prove they're more influential than Gharie. It got rid of every scavenger that wanted a deal after the adwhites fled, or that thought they should get into my face to hear specifically what is going on between and the Freckentops. Periodically one of the few aunts or cousins-removed that I had designated to take ssages would approach . "The publisher of the Cliffside broadsheet would like a word, milady", or "the Aurje castellan would like to make an appointnt for your ti", things like that. If soone was important enough, and had a legitimate enough need, they would get a ssage to , through channels. I was absolutely not going to let myself get boxed into a one-on-one with anyone; not tonight. I sent return ssages that the broadsheets could go dry in the sun without any help from , and that the Aurje castellan was welco to leave a card and I would pass it along to my social planner. Take note: I did not give anyone permission to contact Lady Hanje on my behalf. Once you open that door, you no longer have an effective vendeuse, you just have a dressmaker and secretary. And with these strict asures, I did not need to knock anyone out all night long. I was in a mood to punch soone out but I could ill-afford it at this function. However the wall of silence I built to keep the other Houses out did not stop the other Harigold relations from wanting to know everything. And I did not have any good reason not to tell them. And the news is going to get out anyway, no sense trying to be secretive about this. And speaking to them myself let make sure that as many different permutations of the story as possible were being circulated. So from ti to ti one of my hand-picked ssengers would bring word, and I decided what to do about that. And the rest of the ti, I slowly percolated the family about and brought them up to speed. adwhite, Sisa, the Blight. I lifted up my veil and pressed it back to show my face, and with that my throat, my collarbones, and my necklace. I leaned in a bit for this baroness, and lifted the pendant up with my fingertips. "I've worn this necklace for a while. Not every day, but most days. It's a reminder, and it's important to . A reminder to think about people, to keep perspective. Soone that was taking care of during a vulnerable ti thought I needed a reminder that the things we do matter, and the people around us, and to stay grounded in the present. And you see, these tiny slivers of ruby and citrine. It's a cut grapefruit. This is the symbol I've worn more often than not. Because a grapefruit, cast from gold and gemstones, is the perfect way to remind that there are people who would release monsters across my holand and sabotage our trade routes and ruin our people just to increase the demand for their fruit exports so they can raise the prices without competition." The baroness was flushed with anger, looking at my necklace. "I've seen you wearing that. For months. Your egg party, even. I wondered about it. But you're saying that you knew? Then? You have been wearing that this whole ti?" "Yes. And I have been hoping that every day every Freckentop that sees that necklace understands what it is, and that when they see they understand that I know. I've been hanging this threat around my neck so they could see that I'm on to them. If they look closely enough. If they know." And so people were having a hard ti seeing the whole story. "But, for grapefruit?" "There are two main sources of citrus in this kingdom. The tart berries from adowtam, and the citrus orchards of Jangale. For years, the Freckentop house has been buying up more and more of the orchards, especially the royal family. This was a major investnt for them. And if prices for exports stayed low, it would be an unprofitable investnt. People need citrus. It's one of the least negotiable food requirents. So, when sothing tanked all of the tart berries all at the sa ti, the price-per-bushel for fruit out of Jangale has been climbing every week. This ti next year, ten tis what it is now." "Well, that's a lot of money but-" The man was a judge, he should be faster on the uptake than this. "Your Honor, that's every year. The bushes we're destroying now to get rid of the blight are not going to be there next year. If we can find seeds that are not corrupted, it will take close to five years for us to have a crop. And every year, the demand for those grapefruits will be higher. We lose money with planting and cultivation, they reap enormous profits every year. And, if nobody ever figured out what was causing the blight, they'd be able to do it again. And more than money: if they just stopped shipping to a duchy, a protectorate, a march... then scurvy would start killing their people wholesale. This is the power of life and death, as well as a lot of money." It's bad enough that there's a crop pestilence ruining all those families and villages. And that this is endangering lives. Worse that this is actually spawning monsters to attack people. But this was all planned. This was part of soone's business strategy and quarterly profit projection. Word circulated through Harigold. And many of the family also had family in other houses. Hell, Nathan and I are second cousins, once removed, from Princess Lachel. My mother, the Duchess Thamsin, has the sa great-grandmother and great-grandfather as the princess. It's the reason I'm like thirtieth in line for the throne. So people from my throng would slip over to their other families and other relations and play a ga of "did you hear? did you hear?" and spread the news. The later we got into the night, the more the general tone of the room seed to be a rumble of discontent. Nobody was happy about the information going around. The implication that the royal family would doom hundreds of thousands of their citizens, our vassals and retainers, for the sake of their personal enrichnt... it did not play well to this audience. "I've just been told that the royal family has left the premises early," my ssenger murmured to . "They have stated that this was the ti they had always been planning to leave. Few here are taking that at face value." "I don't think they should," I said. "Hell of a thing to drop at Fashion Week, isn't it?" By universal acclaim, this was the week that everyone would reset and re-establish their strategies. Political bickering, social maneuvering. Businesses targeted, enemies ruined, alliances sealed, relationships formalized. We worked a six-month cycle, and twice a year the whole aristocratic community would pause what it was doing, evaluate their progress, and then form new plans. These would be worked out with one's vendeuse and social secretary, determining which parties were to be thrown, which attended, which ignored. It influenced what events were given priority and which were to be shunned. Since this is a community that does not have telephones and the majority of social interaction is at planned, large-scale events, almost everything hinges on the system of invitations and RSVPs. First we lay out our budget, figure out what events to host, and then as the weeks play out we respond to invites, arrive and socialize, and reorient from there. Having to RSVP a few weeks or a few months in advance ans that preparation and planning are key- only fools would just play it by ear and proceed without deep contemplation. As an easy example: Nathan had gotten himself shut out of any significant decision-making capacity for his own house by not attending this event. Not just for the next six months, possibly much more long-term. And none of us are particularly combative or conniving about this. We're the shallow end, barely out of training wheels. The machinations in elder Grennick circles or Aurje hierarchy is just diabolical. I'm still learning enough that I can feel competent for short conversations with them. Fashion Week is the war room. It's the mont that the ground thaws and the planting is done and the generals start looking at maps and setting markers on the board. This bridge. That chokepoint. And right in the middle of everyone's plans, right when they're getting ready to decide what happens for the next half-year- I dropped my j'accuse against the royal family. The king and queen had to hear their plans exposed, dozens of tis over, from all parts of the room. That'll make a fucking splash. For months now, my problems have been multiplying, stacking up, and taking more and more of my ti. Now, I start knocking it down, reducing the variables. But it's sure going to look a lot like revenge. There were a few other monts. I sent a ssenger to go scout the Brunbling periter and check to see how Elica was doing. She and Rinnie were not being locked out at the periphery again, and seed to be embroiled in the center of things, as befitting an earl. The Brunbling house is a Greater House, their leader is the Lord Protector, equivalent to a duke. Elica is only one step shy of that, so it is fitting that she's embedded near the center of the action. Just to be sure, I opened my sorcerous senses and tuned them to my affinity for Nathan, because I had to know. This ga had a Disguise skill he could acquire, and he was a master of deception. He could be infiltrated into - but no. Nowhere in the building. My worries were unfounded. And that ans I don't need to interrogate why I was worrying about that so much. And after that, most of my night was just cycling in Harigold relations that needed to hear from and only that the blight was from Freckentop, that adwhite was being led by a lich, and that Sisa Wellen helped the plan to burn down Harigold Manor in adowtam. The only thing that kept from falling into a numb, sing-song rote repetition was that I had decided to put tiny variations in whenever I could, mixing and matching so that nobody had entirely the sa version of all the stories. It helped keep things fresh enough that I did not quite feel like I was losing my mind. This did not go unremarked. After all, Bruce and Petty are my new tight inner circle, the three of us collectively managing the House. Of us, I'm the highest-stationed and so the best-positioned as spokeswoman. But the two of them were never more than two arm's lengths away for the rest of the night. And while they might otherwise have gotten bored as hell with endless repetitions, they are not dumb and they did notice that they were not being bored by verbatim recitations of the sa stock story. During a breather, during which I sipped my water, Bruce leaned on a high-top table next to with a rakish insouciance to his posture. "I can't help but noticing that this ti you credited Nathan as having uncovered Sisa's plot. Before, it was your visions. Or a tearful spontaneous confession. An anonymous tip that you investigated to exhaustion." "It's not that stark," I said. "I ntioned that Nathan ntioned sothing that started investigating. Or that soone ntioned sothing. Or that it was all settled when Sisa confessed. I'm not just blurting out what you said." "No, but you are couching it. You're still a miserable liar, and I don't think you get any help from 'that's technically not a lie', you're not even good at trying to mislead. But that's not what you're doing, is it? You're just emphasizing things differently so they'll think different parts are important. As close to prevarication as you're able to get, it seems." As usual, I was annoyed by this. It's not like there's a disability or sothing. I'm not like compulsively honest. And I am frequently put out by these people that like to joke and insist that I am. I'm not good at it, but I'm not that bad. I think people just like to seize on it and make a big deal because there really aren't that many things that I'm not exceptional at. But putting aside my usual reflexive knee-jerk defensiveness about that subject, I still need to reply to his central premise. "It helps keep things from getting too stale," I said. "No that's not the reason," he said. "Rude." "Whatever. Why are you really telling everyone sothing different?" Petty was not hounding or harassing , but she was standing nearby, visibly interested, waiting to see what I said. It was easier to look at her eyes than his when I answered. "For reasons that I could explain but really should not, it is beneficial to all of us if we start as many rumors as possible, and that they conflict in important ways, and that they are circulated widely." "That seems pretty weird," Petty said. "I've been weird since day one," I said. "You know this. I've been explaining about visions and cryptic missions since I first t you all." There was a tiny hitch in my voice at the end. That sentence didn't end in "all" when I started it. It had started with "since I first t you three". But there's not three anymore. Bruce heard my catch, and his eyes went dark and brooding again. There was a lightness and a carelessness to him that would never co back, but he sotis pretended at it. He was angrier, lonelier, a harder man than he had been before I t him. Fair enough. I've beco darker and colder in just the past several weeks too. Petty caught it too, but she was quicker than I was to smooth the mont for us. "All right, princess, it's been great hanging out and backing your moves, but we do deserve so real answers. What's up with this blight. Co clean." "Might as well," I said. "I'm going to spill most of this in the next few weeks anyway. The pestilence was created by fusing a necromantic curse with a very ordinary crop smut. The curse in its original form will make flesh lt off of bones, it's quite horrid. Their plan had been that this would cause the fruit's flesh to slough away instead of ripening, so that the berries would not be viable. They did not adequately test the results. Instead, their plague dog traveled the length and breadth of adowtam through the past year, blasting this spell out. Now it passes from plant to plant like a pestilence, but travels from fruit to feeder like a curse. The strong are sickened, the feeble die. And everywhere it infects, it breeds monsters. He told the Freckentops that it would be easy to control like a spell, and would be safe to be around like a crop blight. It was neither." Bruce listened carefully, his thumb rubbing over the head of his cane like a worry-stone. "Hm," he said. "Either he lied to them to get their resources for his own evil reasons, or he underestimated his magic abilities." He was turning in, thinking, examining this. "Either way, all parties are culpable to the extre, there's more than enough bla to go around. Maybe the Freckentops agreed to a risky proposition with an unknown necromancer, which still carries a death penalty, or maybe they actively commissioned a death-mage and generated this plan, but either way the outco is the sa. I could see so devious caster approaching them with a dastardly plan to earn them tons of money while he secretly seeds monsters and evil across our fair lands. Or maybe they put out feelers, explored for a death-cultist in hiding, and offered him a way to test his powers and paid him enough that he could find sowhere better to hide and foster his powers. In either case, they would be knowingly trafficking with a necromancer. That's a charge that even the royal family would have a hard ti slipping free of." Petty caught my eye. She did not wink but managed to convey the wink anyway. Bruce was not an easy man to manage, but Petty had the trick of it. He would not be distracted by light subjects, pleasant issues, or pretty distractions. No, if we wanted to get Bruce away from his deep-set grief, we needed to keep him thinking about sothing else, sothing a little bleak and grotesque. That's just who he is, he enjoys his negativity. "Hey," he said. "Cousin Natalie?" "Yes?" "When you do get your hands on them," he said, and glanced over his shoulder. The carpet, the moved table. "Don't bother making them suffer. Suffering only matters if they live afterwards. Make it fast and don't take chances." "I've got a thod of killing that turns soone into a uniform layer of blood sprayed onto every facing surface, with nothing else left over," I told him. The sun ca out in his smile. "Brilliant."