“But that sounds like something bad.” As if puzzled. Patronizing.
Her eyes flashed, but she rolled her shoulders and finished her drink instead of striking him. “You’re many things, Gavin Guile, but you’re neither credulous nor stupid. You’ve got some plan.”
“And now that you have threatened me at length, in what insane world would I tell you about it?”
“This one.”
“Clearly you think so. The point is that you need to convince me of that.”
“If you don’t tell me, I kill you. Right now.” Her tone was flat and insulted and more than ready to kill, and less than remorseful. It was the voice of a woman who’d killed before, and attached no particular significance to the deed. He thought of a boat full of men who might die at her word. Could she get away with such a thing? In Rath? Unlikely. But it wouldn’t do those men or him any good after the fact to be proven right. What really mattered was if she thought she could get away with it, or if she simply didn’t care.
“Well. That isn’t very creative of you,” he said.
She didn’t even crack a smile. His charm was dust here. “Brutality oft accomplishes what creativity cannot.”
“I see that—”
She said, “I don’t want to hear another word out of you, unless it’s—”
“You really must—”
“That counts as another word. And don’t you dare tell what I must or must not do. I will not tolerate another interruption.”
Gavin stopped.
“Test me on this. One word out of turn.” She leveled a flat gaze at the man who had made satraps and Colors tremble, and he saw that she hoped he would test her.
She laughed as if she’d been joking. “Ha! You should have seen yourself just now, Gavin Guile!”
He smirked uncertainly.
“In fact, perhaps you should see yourself!” She looked around in an unconvincing search. “But I see no mirrors here. Why, you know, I know a torturer who claims that he can pluck out an eye with the sinews still attached, and that a man can be made to see his own face. Ought we try?”
A snake turned over in Gavin’s guts, and he felt that fear he’d felt in the war when he’d had to face drafters who’d broken the halo, who stared at him with eyes full of desperation that told him they might do anything. He remembered a man holding a burning slow match in his hand, sparking and spitting, as he sat in the middle of camp on a barrel full of powder, quietly, absently singing, while Dazen and four hundred men crowded into a little cave, hiding from his elder brother’s passing patrols. None of his men could leave without alerting Gavin’s troops and dooming them all, but if the madman moved that slow match to the powder, most of them would certainly die. Gavin—then Dazen—had talked his way out of that. Carefully, and with no magic.
Giving her a moment to make sure she actually meant this to be a question, and that he now had leave to speak, Gavin said, “I’m sure I would be quite a sight for a sore eye.”
Her eyebrow twitched, but she didn’t smile.
“By which I mean, no thank you,” he said.
“So the question is simple, Gavin Guile, but I am not a simpleton to be taken in by your breezy charm and a smile that once weakened hymens for ten leagues around. Tell me less than the full truth, and you will die. Tell the full truth, and I will do all I can to make your victory almost impossible, but totally empty. What say you?”
I say you’re fucking insane and I’m going to ram a sharpened spoon through the side of your neck.
“So you want me to tell you my plan so you can make it nearly impossible, but not quite impossible?”
“And then I will do all I can to make it an empty victory once you achieve it. You see, I believe in you, Gavin Guile.”
She kept saying his name. It unnerved him as much as her flat, hating gaze.
“Perhaps your time in the galley has dulled your wits,” she said. “Let’s say your dream is to father a line of satraps and Prisms and Colors. I’ll let you leave here alive, rather than kill you. But I’ll cut off one of your testicles and crush the other. You’ll live thinking, perhaps, perhaps you can still father sons. And if you do, on your deathbed, I’ll let you know I’ve gelded your son. Do you understand now?”
Gavin said, “You seem to be angry with me for some reason.”
She looked down, shaking her head, incredulous. Then she cracked a grin. “You really are quite charming. I see why you get your way. But not here, Gavin. I’m waiting.”
“How about you show me yours, and I’ll show you mine?” Gavin said. “I don’t even know why you hate me.” That was, of course, a lie.
“Everything’s a competition with you, isn’t it?” she asked. Her tone was almost sad, and Gavin got a premonition that this was a very, very bad thing. “It’s all about will, and Gavin Guile is will incarnate. Is that what you think? Is that how you see the world? Even broken, in a cage, you think that if you act like the bars are nothing, they will be nothing. Perhaps that was true once. You’re not the Prism anymore, Guile. You’re a husk. You’re a broken galley slave is all. Just another man, demanding my surrender. Do you know what your weakness is, former Prism?”
“Women. Especially glamorous women. A woman who knows how to not just wear a ball gown, but really own it is rarer than hellstone. And fit women. And women with an ample bust. Or slender women. Let’s not forget intelligent women. You can’t dismiss the value of a wicked mind in the bedchamber.” Or one woman who is all of that and more. Gavin’s heart ached suddenly under a stupid grin mask.
“Put your hands up on the bars,” Eirene said.
Gavin did.
“Spread your fingers.”
Not a good sign. But she was standing back far enough that he could certainly snatch his own hand back before she could reach out and hurt him. He did it.
“Pick a number between one and ten.”
Didn’t like where this was going. With his hands held up in front of his face… “One,” he said, as if picking that because he would always pick number one.
She started at the right. “One,” she said, pointing to his little finger on his left hand. She smiled unpleasantly. “I’m going to give you a choice that I think will demonstrate to you your real weakness.”
“I admit, when I have to count beyond ten, if my toes are in boots, I do have trouble.”
“Here’s your choice, Gavin Guile.”
Orholam have mercy, she said his name so many times it was driving him crazy. It was like she knew.
“Would you prefer to have the word ‘FOOL’ tattooed across your face in as big of letters as we can fit, or would you prefer to lose your little finger? Your choice,” she said. She crossed her arms.
“That’s a terrible test. It doesn’t even remotely show what you think it shows,” Gavin said.
She said, “You say one more word other than ‘finger’ or ‘tattoo’ and I’ll have you suffer both.”
She was going to say he was being vain, if he chose to lose the finger. That vanity was his weakness. But what army in the world would follow a man with ‘FOOL’ etched across his face? He had hurdles enough to overcome with the loss of his drafting to try to lead. A constant humiliation would make leadership impossible. There would be no covering such a thing. Gavin had seen people who’d tried to cover unfortunate tattoos. It would make an even bigger joke out of him.
He looked down the hallway, where a pair of servants stood, looking through the open door, watching for any sign from Lady Malargos. He took a deep, slow breath. With his cracked ribs, it hurt like hell. Which meant this next was going to be ten times worse.
“My name is Gavin Guile!” he roared, shouting toward the servants, toward the open door. “And my father will give a fortune to whoever reports my presence here! My father is Andross Guile! Any who aid in this torture will pay the price!”
As soon as he started shouting, the servants panicked. They didn’t immediately see Eirene’s sign to slam the door, and he got al
most all of it out before they did so.
For his part, Gavin sank to the floor, tears leaking from his eyes. He tried to breathe in tiny little gulps. Maybe not cracked ribs. Maybe fully broken.
“What the hell was that?” Eirene demanded.
“That was me giving you the finger.”
Chapter 47
Teia couldn’t stop looking at her bloody hands. Half under her breath, she said, “Wasn’t right.”
“Huh?” Kip asked.
“What we did. That wasn’t right,” she said. She looked up at him, and felt shame cover her like a snowdrift blowing off Hellmount itself. She said, “I murdered a man.”
The safe house where they’d gathered wasn’t even a house. It had been a chicken coop built onto the side of a cooper’s shop. None of them knew when the Blackguard had acquired the place, but it had been walled off from the cooper’s, had a few tools propped up around the low front door, and was made to look like a shed. Inside, the ground had been excavated to make the single room far bigger than looked possible from the outside. Half a dozen bunk beds, three high, lined the walls. A stove cleverly piped to share the cooper’s chimney rested on one wall. Stores of food and weapons and clothing took up most of the rest of what little space there was.
“You—we—killed a man,” Kip said.
“Oh, what difference is there? He’s dead! I messed up!”
“We’re warriors, Teia,” Kip said like she was being stupid. “That’s what all this is for.”
“I know! I know,” she said. She looked around at the rest of their squad. She shook her head. She was letting them down. She should just shut up. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll be fine. Can you throw me the fucking towel already, Ferkudi?”
“You’ll get it when I’m done, bitch,” Ferkudi said. He was usually good-natured, but when he wasn’t, he was an ogre.
Kip moved faster than Teia would have believed he could. He grabbed Ferkudi by the front of his tunic in both hands and lifted the young man off his feet and slammed his back against the wall. “That’s my partner,” he said. “That’s your squadmate. I know you’re shaken up. But. Don’t.”
Ferkudi’s feet weren’t even touching the ground—and Ferkudi was one of the biggest boys in the squad. Holy shit. Kip was getting strong.
Kip released him. “Towel. Please.”
Ferkudi handed the towel over. Looked away. “Sorry,” he grumbled.
“To her.”
“Sorry, Teia,” he rumbled. “Didn’t mean to be such a flesh protuberance.”
“I’ll take it outta you in training,” Teia said. She hit him in the arm, not too gently. But she was glad he’d apologized. She liked Ferkudi, but that had infuriated her, and she didn’t have it in her to take him down a peg herself. Not right now.
Kip handed her the towel. “You were saying?”
She took the towel angrily, which he didn’t deserve, and she knew it, and it made her angrier. “Get off it, Breaker. You’re not my father.” It wasn’t fair. She’d felt gratified that he’d come to her defense, but she was suddenly just so angry, so close to tears.
“No, but I’ve killed men. Spit it out.”
Teia began wiping her hands off. Stared firmly down at the towel, her hands, the task. “What if… what if they have a point? The Blood Robes, I mean.”
“To hell with them,” Winsen said. “Kill ’em all. Let Orholam sort ’em.”
Teia had heard similar statements before, but they’d been boasts. Childishness. With Winsen, it didn’t seem like a put-on.
“No,” Kip said. “Teia… Of course they have a point.”
“What are you saying?” Cruxer asked, speaking up for the first time. He’d been content to let his squad work through things themselves, but Teia could tell he didn’t want the conversation to veer into heresy.
“No one’s saying the Chromeria is perfect, Teia. There’s a price for law, and we see that all around us. The Chromeria has power, and in places, it abuses its power. Welcome to the human race. Lawlessness has a price, too. I grew up in Tyrea, the closest thing to the kind of lawless paradise that the Blood Robes hold forth. Tyrea is a lot of things, but paradise?” Kip gave a derisive snort.
“Think about the Blackguard. Think about its leadership. Commander Ironfist may be the best man any of us know. Watch Captain Blademan, a good, good man. Not very imaginative—”
“Breaker, you can’t—” Cruxer began, but Kip ran right over him.
“Of course I can!” Kip said. “We’re Blackguards! We’re not afraid of the truth! Remember? Not very imaginative, but dutiful, hardworking, loyal to a fault. An excellent second-tier leader. We lost Watch Captain White Oak, obviously, but she was totally capable, too. Watch Captain Tempus? Bookish but clever, better in charge than in a charge, but competent. Watch Captain Beryl? She’s a little too friendly for an officer, but good. Blunt? Not quite friendly enough, but again, good. Then I look at the squads above us, and for the most part, I admire them. I look at us, and we’re the best I can think of. Am I right, Captain?”
“It’s why I gave up my promotion,” Cruxer said quietly. “Half of it, anyway.” Teia and the squad knew the other half. It was the same as theirs. Lightbringer.
“What’s your point?” Teia asked Kip.
Kip said, “If Cruxer hadn’t been willing to risk throwing away his own career, Aram would be in this squad right now. He was a rat, and despite all our good leaders, he was this close to getting in. Maybe he would have been discovered before he made full Blackguard, but with how undermanned we are, I doubt it. He probably would have taken final vows within a year’s time. And that’s with the Blackguards doing almost everything right. Even with us, let’s be honest. Some of those who have made it in aren’t squeaky clean. Some of us—even us inductees—have had blackmail or bribes tried on us. Why? Because we’re powerful and we’re going to be more powerful soon; because we have what others want. Some of us stumble, and some of us are downright rotten—despite every advantage, right? I mean, we’re respected, we’re paid well, we have all we need, we have extra attention paid to us, we have the best the Chromeria can give us—and we still have weakness and venality and betrayers among us.”
“It’s not that bad,” Ferkudi said.
“Yes it is,” Kip said. “You just don’t want to face it yet.”
“No one’s tried to bribe or blackmail me,” Ferkudi said.
“Ferk,” Kip said, exasperated. “It’s because they think you’re too dumb to bribe and too unpredictable to blackmail and too apt to talk to be charmed. They’re wrong on the first count.”
Ferkudi blinked like a dog whose nose had been swatted.
But Kip went right on. “But that’s not the point. If a group with the small size, the wealth, the good leadership, and all the advantages of the Blackguard can have its members go bad, how could we possibly expect a group that’s so much larger, and more powerful, and spread out over all the satrapies—with poor leadership in some areas—to be more virtuous than we are?”
“You mean the Chromeria,” Teia said.
“I do.”
“I expect it because they made vows before Orholam,” Big Leo said, speaking up for the first time. “Because they are Orholam’s hands on earth. They shouldn’t fail that kind of a holy trust.”
“No,” Kip said. “They shouldn’t. Men and women should never violate their oaths.”
“But they do,” Ferkudi said. Bless him, always stating the obvious. But then, sometimes the obvious benefited from being dragged out into the full glare of the light.
“The Blood Robes are liars leading naïfs,” Kip said. “They don’t want to live up to the oaths they took that when they became a danger, they’d end themselves. They’re afraid and unfaithful, so they say their vows don’t count. They want to lord their power over others, so they say the Chromeria unfairly lords its power over them. The Chromeria says that every man is equal in Orholam’s sight, that our powers and privileges make us the greater slaves
of our communities. I don’t admire Magister Kadah, but she’s right about that much. On the other hand, the Color Prince says drafters are above other men by nature—and at the same time talks about abolishing slavery. Tell me, if drafters are above other men by nature, why would you abolish slavery?”
Silence reigned for a few long moments.
“Because he needed an army,” Cruxer said. “And coming from Tyrea, he had to pass the mines at Laurion and the tens of thousands of slaves there.”
“To divide your enemy,” Daelos said. “Armies afraid of what their own slaves will do when they’re gone won’t go far from home.”
“Understand that everything the Color Prince does, he does for power, and you’ll understand everything he does,” Kip said.
“It can’t be that simple, can it?” Teia said. “If so, how come you see it, and no one else does?”
“Because I’m a bad person, so I understand how bad people think.”
What the hell did he mean by that? Was he fishing for compliments?
But Kip was still speaking. “Don’t judge a man by what he says his ideals are, judge him by what he does. Look at what the Color Prince has done. They’re wrong, Teia. They’re liars and murderers. It doesn’t mean everything we do is right. It doesn’t mean our house doesn’t need a thorough cleaning. I just don’t think we need to burn it to the ground to do it.”
Ferkudi nodded his head. “My folks had a saying: the fact your dog has fleas is no reason to open your home to a wolf.”
“My dad used that one, too. But he said, wife, rash, bed, and whore,” Winsen said.
Goss said, “A lesson he had to learn the hard way, no doubt.”
Ferkudi laughed with them. Then he said, “I don’t get it.”
“It’s one of those things, Ferk,” Goss said.
“Where if you explain it, it doesn’t work?” Ferkudi asked. He was familiar with those. “Flesh protuberance!”