Page 114 of Bitter Burn
It’s a little chiding, a little auntlike, because she is his aunt, the much younger sister of Governor Vivienne Moore of Washington. But it’s not the weight of blood, her years in the political maelstroms of Olympia and DC, or her marriage to the political powerhouse Merlin Rhys that layers her voice with authority.
It’s something deeper than any of those things, something older, and I think of the dream I had on my wedding night, of her standing in a forest with torches burning in a circle around her.
President Moore flicks a petulant look her way, but he does press his mouth together for a minute while he seems to master himself. He turns his head toward me and Tristan as we come to a stop, and his eyes, a blue I’ve only seen before on the petals of wildflowers, soften the tiniest bit as he looks at us.
“Don’t make me regret helping you,” he says finally to Mark. “You’ve been a good friend to us and to my aunt—and I haven’t forgotten what you’ve done for my sister and her husband—but a disgraced war criminal is not the same as a newly elected pope. You owe me.”
Mark bows his head. The gesture is courteous, completely conciliatory.
It doesn’t seem to make the president any happier, but there’s nothing else he can do, and he knows it. With an afflicted noise, he leaves, striding away on long legs and waving at the Secret Service agents who scuttle after him with flapping coats and gleaming shoes.
Lady Anguish smiles at us, a small, enigmatic smile. “My nephew can be skittish when it comes to protecting his family. The potential blowback from something like this isn’t something to be taken lightly.”
“They understand,” says Mark, straightening up. “Just as they understand that Palmer and Ferguson are the best at what they do. This won’t be laid at anyone’s feet at the end of the day, much less Embry’s.”
Anguish nods. “That’s correct, it won’t be. But he’ll still worry in the meantime. He’s never been as good at hiding his worry as Maxen. Or you.”
Mark grunts.
“And on that note, I’ll be in the lobby for the next hour or two, speaking with Ms. Lim. If anyone should need me.” The last part she says with a delicate emphasis, her eyes shifting to mine. Her gaze is penetrating and clear.
I can’t help the small shiver that races up my spine and then plucks with lingering fingers at the nape of my neck. It lasts even after Anguish has left the balcony and the hall altogether.
Mark watches her go and then looks down at his hands briefly, a war in his face, a man watching the enemy overrun his trench and choosing to stay anyway.
“Let’s take a walk,” he says.
Thirty-Nine
Isolde
“I don’t expect forgiveness,” Mark says. “I want to start there.”
He’s leading us to the end of the balcony’s horseshoe, angling to one of the small bar areas closest to the door. When he gets there, he leans over the counter and starts digging around. After some clanking and cursing, he emerges with a bottle of scotch. He’s drinking for real then. This feels ominous.
“And before I say anything else, it’s important to understand that Ys isn’t entirely finished just because your uncle is dead. There are the various war profiteers waiting in the wings and the diplomats and the captains of industry and whoever else still counting themselves as members.”
“And the saints?” Tristan asks, forehead wrinkled. “Will they still count themselves as members?”
“I don’t think so, but that’s an educated guess more than anything else. The saints are the Church’s, and Ys is a thing apart from the Church, even if churchmen have occasionally been recruited for its ranks. Cashel hadn’t yet fully grafted the two together before he died, and that makes us lucky, because I don’t think he invested much into the structure of Ys, knowing he’d eventually be using the Church’s. This is the trouble with crime, actually: administration. You wind up needing secretaries and accountants and interns just the same as you do anywhere else, and this is doubly true if your chief interests lie in starting and sustaining wars. Evil takes a lot more emails than you think. In this respect, Ys has been a thin and wobbly thing, since your uncle was the chief fulcrum on which it turned, but that also makes it a convenient tool to scoop up and turn to your own uses if you have the vision and the access. And there is one person in the Church Cashel did trust enough to give the keys to the kingdom.”
“The Scales,” I realize.
Mark pauses at the railing to unstop the bottle. The hall is always empty during the day, but there is something about how empty Lyonesse is right now that unsettles me. I’ve grown used to the constancy of guests and staff, to never being truly alone even when I felt lonely.
“The Scales,” confirms Mark. “A role indelible to the saints, and I think Cashel made the role indelible to Ys too toward the end. If the Scales is ambitious enough, then this is their chance to seize everything and finish what your uncle started. Fusing Ys and the Church together for good.”
Mark starts walking again, taking a drink while he moves and pushing through the double doors that lead to a hallway of playrooms. Tristan and I follow after exchanging another quick glance, each of us verifying the other’s uncertainty. I have no idea where Mark is going with this.
“Sir…” Tristan starts, but Mark just shakes his head.
“I know, this isn’t really new information, but I just wanted to be clear before my confession that Ys is still dangerous while the Scales is alive. For a very long time, I planned on keeping things as they were until I knew for a fact that the Scales was dead—but after Nemi, my appetite for secrets seems to have vanished.”
“Are there more secrets than me being the person to kill Eliot?” Tristan asks, and I’m surprised at the weariness in his voice, the defeat. He’s been so steady today, so quick to offer a soft smile or an arm around the shoulders. But of course, he has to be as exhausted as I am, as twisted into knots by all this. “More than having once planned to kill us?”
We pass the vacant playrooms on our way to the elevator, all of them with doors propped open, the faint scent of leather cleaner filling the corridor.
“This is a small thing compared to those,” says Mark. He glances once at Tristan’s hands and then away again as he stabs at the elevator button. The doors open immediately and we step inside. “At least I thought so. I thought of all my secrets, it might be the easiest. I thought it was not so bad a thing for me to…borrow…the two of you for a while. Especially if I planned on leaving you alive at the end. What was the harm in a little detour of your lives? Lives that were already being detoured by unworthy masters like the Army or Cashel?”
