Barbara Ann Wright [Katya & S A Kingdom Lost [Bold Strokes FF

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.Random duels were a luxury they couldn’t afford.They found a modestly reputable bar, the seat of all gossip no matter the town.They mingled with the middle class, posing as merchants and keeping away from the wealthier taverns and anywhere low-rent enough to be dangerous.No information would come from any establishment too discreet or too wary for questions.Talk of what had happened in Marienne had just reached Pomanse.Katya took that as a good sign.News traveled faster than troops.Maybe Roland’s reach wouldn’t extend this far for quite some time.Of course, sympathy for the Umbriels might not extend this far either.Most of the people who lived and worked in Pomanse had been born there, and news of Marienne might as well have been news out of Allusia for all it affected them.“Is he going to increase taxes, this new king?” one merchant asked.He twisted a gold ring on his finger as if afraid Roland might march through the door and snatch it away.“Depends on who’s in charge,” one of the laborers answered.She stuffed an olive in her mouth and didn’t wait to chew before she spoke again.“Think we’ll get a new noble?”The merchant leaned away, picking olive bits off his coat.Katya shrugged as if she was as ignorant as they were.“What’s wrong with the one you’ve got?”The laborer laughed, making the merchant back farther away.“Oh, nothing, except she gallivants off to court instead of sticking around and keeping up her own estate.”“That’s what henchmen are for,” the merchant said.“Ha!” The laborer poked him in the arm.“Sounds like you want to be nominated, eh, Master High and Mighty? Want to be Count Nose In the Air?”Katya drifted away as the two fell to bickering.Duchess Skelda owned Pomanse and the land surrounding it, and she hadn’t made it out of Marienne with Katya’s party.She was likely dead, unless she’d convinced Roland that she stood with him.Katya nearly snorted at the thought.Roland wouldn’t settle for words.The more she learned about how he’d wanted to operate the Order, the more she thought he would simply change minds via pyramid rather than believe what anyone said.Katya started a few rumors, just to make things difficult should Roland try to spread propaganda.She called him a monster and described some things she’d seen in Marienne—as a merchant, of course.She told of how people were slaughtered and brought back to life as Roland’s soldiers.Few believed her, but that didn’t matter as much as the opportunity to sow doubt.After Katya and her friends left their second bar, they paused, backs to a closed shop where no one could eavesdrop.“What do you think?” Katya asked.“We could put ashore here,” Brutal said.“And go inland.Roland hasn’t come this far east.”“But where are we going to get an army?” Castelle said.“These people haven’t felt Roland’s monstrous side.They have no reason to rebel.”Katya stroked her chin.That was the truth.With barely any muscle behind her, she couldn’t conscript people.She and her family would have to convince them to leave their families and risk their lives.Even the local Watch would have more loyalty to their own people than to some crown hundreds of miles away, and Da had no local noble to back him up.“We have to convince them that they can’t let Roland get more of a foothold than he already has,” Katya said.“They didn’t believe us when we told them what he’s capable of,” Castelle said.“We’d have to tone him down a bit.”Brutal snickered.“We’re the, ‘the usurper is not as bad as all that’ party?”“You could probably get the local strength chapterhouses on our side, Brutal.”“Maybe.If we let the local pyradistés pry around in our brains, they could convince people we’re telling the truth.”Castelle grimaced.“That can’t happen to you or your family, Highness.I guess that leaves Brutal and me.”Katya frowned, both at the “Highness” and at the thought of someone picking through her memories.“No, you and Brutal know things other people can’t have access to.And if you can’t bring yourself to use my real name, use my cover.”“Miss Marchesa Gant, then, begging your pardon.”Katya swallowed her temper.“Let’s tell my father what we’ve found out.The ultimate decision is his.” Brutal and Castelle followed her to the docks.As they neared the slip for the pilot ship, they heard Captain Penner’s raised voice from the small customs shack near the water.“What in all the spirits’ names is a writ of declaration?” Captain Penner yelled.“I’ve been sailing these waters for twenty years, and I’ve never heard of the damn thing!”Katya crept to the edge of the shack and peeked in a dusty window.Captain Penner had her fists on her hips, staring down the harbormaster.The purser was nowhere to be seen.The harbormaster wore the badge of office around his neck, but the resemblance to every other harbormaster Katya had met ended there.His coat was far too nice, and he had lace at his cuffs.He wrung his hands and sweated.The harbormaster of Lucienne-by-the-Sea, where Katya and her family had started their journey, had been a huge man who didn’t take guff off of anyone, ship’s captain or no.And he didn’t dress like a dandy on his way to a ball.How could this sweaty, shaking man run an entire port if he couldn’t take being yelled at by one captain?“It’s a new policy,” he whined.“Just…just came down a few days ago, in fact.”“Came down from whom?”“The…duchess.”Katya slipped her rapier free and heard Brutal and Castelle draw their weapons.Duchess Skelda couldn’t have beaten them back to her home port.And if she’d sent orders after the uprising in Marienne, it wouldn’t have been for writs pertaining to docking ships.Captain Penner narrowed her eyes.She knew all that as well as Katya.She stepped close to the sweaty harbormaster [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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