The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter (Riyria Chronicles #4)

“Because this city is a financial mess!” the duchess burst out with enough indignation to overpower the bells of Grom Galimus.

She sounded so sincere that Mercator forgot her sarcasm. She forgot her indifference as well, her shield against sympathy. Instead, she listened.

“An absolute disaster and I’m just the woman to fix it. I wasn’t always a duchess, you understand. Before coming here, I was a merchant. I helped run one of the most profitable businesses in the most successful mercantile city in the world. I may not know why the sun circles Elan, but I know how to make money. When you look like I do, it’s a necessity. Believe me when I say I love Leo, but the man knows nothing about finances. I asked to see his books and he showed me his library of poetry! Ha! Can you believe it? This city possesses tremendous untapped potential. Most people don’t see the downtrodden as valuable, but then they don’t think much of me, either, and I helped turn an illegal moonshine operation into a respected distillery. Other people’s ignorance is always a moneymaker, remember that.”

Mercator wasn’t certain she’d be capable of accurately remembering any of the duchess’s ramblings but didn’t doubt the truth of what she said.

“We are a port city with unique access to the exotic eastern trade routes, but we refuse to embrace our best resources. Instead, we force them to deal illegally, which not only denies the duchy tax on their profits, but it also lowers the income of legitimate businesses, depriving us of even more income.”

Genny’s blood was obviously up; Mercator could hear her walking back and forth in her little cell. “The situation is even more dire with the dwarves. Their neighborhood of Littleton should be a gold mine for this city. Raw goods arriving from Calis and Galeannon should be shaped into works of art by their hands. The results would be triple the profit when those finished goods are exported. With its wealth of natural talent and geographic position, Rochelle should be the crown jewel of the east, the powerhouse producer of Alburn. Instead, we flounder in debt.”

She paused, perhaps to catch her breath, then went on, “This is why I screamed at all those pasty-faced shopkeepers who were too locked in their traditions and too blinded by intolerance and idiocy to see that they would stand to double their profit as well. A rising sea lifts all boats. I demanded they grant acceptance to all Calians interested in doing business in our city, or I would triple their taxes—for the good of the people, you understand.”

“That’s why De Luda was with you.”

“Yes. While he didn’t agree with my ideas, he was obligated to make the introductions. Ironically, he was murdered by the very people who would have benefited from his continued assistance.”





Chapter Ten

Venlin Is Standing





Bishop Maurice Saldur of Medford stared in awe at the ceiling of the grand chapel inside Grom Galimus. The overhead fresco had been painted by famed imperial artist Elijah Handel. The beauty, the depth, the vividness of color displayed in the image of Novron receiving the Rhelacan from Maribor was the very definition of mastery. Several of the paintings on the walls of the cathedral were also created by Handel, who had been commissioned by Bishop Venlin in the years that directly followed the fall of Percepliquis. Venlin was famously quoted as saying, “Novron spared you from the destruction of the capital, Elijah, so you could decorate the new one.” What wasn’t painted was carved in marble. Three of the greatest sculptors of all time had worked on the cathedral: Burke Thatcher, who in his youth studied at the Art Academy of Percepliquis; his son Alrick Thatcher, who surpassed his father; and the greatest of all, Marley Layton, who was best known for creating the massive statue of Novron that graced the plaza outside.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Tynewell said. The bishop mirrored Saldur’s upward stare. “This is the closest thing we have to a piece of Novron’s empire.”

“It’s magnificent,” Saldur agreed.

“And this is my home,” he said with a self-satisfied smile, the sort a man displays after making a pig of himself at a feast.

This was a source of irritation to Saldur that he knew full well was pure jealousy, but he couldn’t help himself. Who could? Grom Galimus was easily the most sacred place in Elan. Why the patriarch and archbishop chose to dwell in that remote remnant of a castle built by that impious barbarian, Glenmorgan, who literally destroyed the last vestiges of the imperium, was beyond Saldur. Even so, the Crown Tower was a blessed relic compared with Mares Cathedral. Saldur was relegated to a cheap imitation of Grom Galimus built by childish thugs in the cultural desert otherwise known as Melengar. His church had been hastily erected with all the artistry of a blind cow with paint on her tail, and manifested all the sanctity of a whitewashed brothel. This, Saldur thought with a sigh while looking up at the marble and gold, is what religion is all about.

Catching Tynewell grinning at him, Saldur scowled and said, “Will we be dining here, or should we go out?”

“Rochelle does, indeed, boast numerous cafés and public houses that are a delight.” Tynewell was grinding it in now, twisting the dagger, relishing Saldur’s envious drool. “But I took the liberty of having meat and bread brought to my office. I felt that in private we could speak more candidly.”

Maurice Saldur had hoped for a meal at the pretty coffeehouse across the plaza that he’d passed on the way in. They didn’t have such places in Medford, not even in Colnora, but in Rochelle they were everywhere. While he preferred a good brandy to dark coffee, it wasn’t seemly for a bishop to linger in a local tavern. Coffee shops were a different matter. In the cultured east, they were seen as sites of intellectual discourse where a learned bishop was a welcome visitor. While Saldur didn’t savor the idea of chewing stringy meat across a battered desk in a cramped closet, he nevertheless resigned himself to accept his host’s decision. He followed as Tynewell led the way through an intricately carved mahogany door into the Bishop of Alburn’s private office.

The moment the door opened, Saldur was dumbfounded. This was just an office the same way Grom Galimus was just a church.

Tynewell led him into a series of rooms every bit as opulent as the cathedral proper. More frescoes, very likely created by Handel, adorned a ceiling never meant to be seen by the general public. They walked right by Tynewell’s meticulously polished desk and into a separate suite with plush furniture arranged in a semicircle before a massive marble hearth where a trio of giant logs burned brightly. One wall was a towering stained-glass window; the other another fresco, this one of Novron laughing, with a silver flagon in hand. He was seated in a chair speaking with an elderly man in suspiciously modern church robes. The background was a perfect extension of the room they were in. The illusion was amazing, and Saldur felt he could walk right through and into that other space.

“Venlin.” Tynewell pointed at the older figure in the painting. “He had Handel put Our Lord in his office and him in the picture. This is the most candid image of Novron you’ll find. It borders on the obscene, but no one ever sees it except the bishops. The story goes that Venlin ordered its commission to show Novron’s human side, and that here, in the sanctity of this behind-the-scenes refuge, we, too, can relax and be human.” The bishop sniffed contemptuously. “Personally, I think Venlin was an egotistical narcissist. I’m told that in his old age he thought Novron actually spoke to him.” Tynewell stared at the painting that ran from floor to ceiling, making Venlin and Novron life-sized. “Can you imagine His Holiness, the self-proclaimed patriarch, sitting in this room and talking to himself while believing he was speaking to Novron? Astounding, don’t you think?” He gestured at the couch. “Please, have a seat.”

Only then did Saldur notice there was a banquet of venison and quail on the table before them.