“What are you talking about?” Taniel rubbed his eyes and for the first time felt the tension in his shoulders, the ache in his legs. Perhaps it was past dark. “The sun must have just gone down.”
“It’s almost midnight,” Vlora said softly.
There was concern in her eyes, and it made Taniel angry. Why did she care? He thought to tell her off and keep the men moving, but a glance around the group found them all bleary-eyed and stiff. “We’ll camp here,” he said. “Norrine and Flerrier, take first watch. I’ll take second. Vlora and Doll, you take third. We move again at dawn.” He dismounted, putting his horse between him and Vlora, glad to hear her trot off. He’d assigned only powder mages to watch, a technique he’d learned from his father for smaller missions. Though the mages were ranking officers, they needed less sleep than the regular soldiers.
It was twenty minutes before he’d finished rubbing down his horse. He made his camp a little ways from the rest of the men and built a small fire using dry branches, igniting it with a flash of powder. He held his hands to the flames, trying to work the ache from his fingers, regretting the three days straight of clutching his reins.
The pressure still pushed on the inside of his rib cage, like some kind of wild animal clawing to be free. His own exhaustion was but a shadow in the back of his mind and he had doubts that he would get any sleep until Ka-poel was free.
“Norrine and Doll made a quick sweep,” Gavril said, emerging silently from the darkness of the forest and dropping down beside Taniel. “No one lying in wait down the road. It’s safe to make a fire.” He glanced wryly at the flames over which Taniel still held his hands.
Taniel’s throat was suddenly dry. Pit, what would Tamas say about this? Taniel was supposed to be in command. He should have seen to the scouts, checked with the sentries, then told the men whether they could make their own fires. “Thanks,” he croaked.
“Don’t mention it.” Gavril shifted around until he was comfortable, his back up against a tree trunk, and produced a flask from his vest pocket. “Drink?”
“No.”
Gavril took a sip. “You eaten yet today?”
“Of course.” Taniel couldn’t recall. The last dozen hours seemed like a distant memory, a barely remembered dream.
Gavril produced a paper-wrapped parcel and tossed it into Taniel’s lap. Marching rations, by the look of it.
“I’m fine,” Taniel said, handing it back.
“Eat, you stubborn bastard. By Adom, who the pit you think you are? Your father?”
Taniel bit back a reply and unwrapped the dried beef and biscuits. He was halfway through the meal when he realized that the big Watchmaster had elicited exactly the response he wanted with the comment about Tamas. Taniel sniffed and tried to pretend he hadn’t just been manipulated. “You don’t know anything about my father.”
Gavril made a choking sound and rolled onto his side, coughing. “Oh pit, I just snorted Fatrastan rum up my nose.”
“What was that about?” Taniel demanded. He had a vague memory of someone mentioning that Gavril had served with Tamas, but though that conversation may have happened just months ago, it felt like years.
“I said I accidentally snorted rum.”
“No, I mean when I said, ‘You don’t know anything about my father.’ ”
“Nothing, nothing. Some other time.”
Gavril fell silent and Taniel chewed on the road rations, swallowing mechanically, the hard biscuits having no flavor. Gavril was watching him eat. The effect was rather unnerving, especially from such a bear of a man. “Did you want some?” Taniel asked.
“Ate hours ago,” Gavril said, taking another sip at his flask. His gaze shifted to the small fire.
Taniel finished the meal and fumbled about for his canteen. Gavril offered his flask again and Taniel took it. The rum burned the back of his throat, leaving a slightly sweet aftertaste. “Where’d you get that scar?”
Gavril’s eyebrows rose for a moment, then he looked down to his uncovered wrist. A pink line stretched across his broad forearm and ended on the back of his hand. He shook the sleeve of his jacket down to cover it. “You’re too hard on your old man,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“He’s a tough old bastard, but he has tried to be a good father.”
“That’s really none of your damn business.” Taniel felt the color rise in his cheeks.
Gavril held up his hands in peace. “Sorry, sorry. Just making an observation.”
They sat in silence for several minutes while Taniel let his anger cool. The pleasant feeling of a full belly made his eyelids droop and he reached for the hope that maybe he would actually get some rest.
“You were on campaign with him?” Taniel asked. “In Kez? Caught behind the lines?”
“Aye,” Gavril said.
“Was it bad?”
Gavril was silent for several moments. Taniel watched the side of his face, realizing only now that Gavril weighed at least two stone less than he had all those months ago on South Pike. There was a new scar on his right cheek, faded in a way that spoke of healing sorcery, and the hint of healed bruises around both eyes.
“It was,” Gavril finally answered. “Killing the horses for food. Being dogged by Kez cuirassiers. Gathering up powder and food from the men so we could ration it back out wisely. I had to shoot a man because it was found he had stolen two weeks’ worth of rations.”
It sounded like stories Taniel had heard from his father about the Gurlish campaigns. Except those were decades ago, half a world away. This had just happened in the very heart of the Nine. “Tamas put you in command?”
Gavril shrugged his big shoulders. “Sure. He needed someone like me. You see the worst of humanity up on the Mountainwatch. Convicts and debtors, thieves and fools. Pit, you remember. Not Adro’s finest, by a long stretch. If I could keep that lot in line, I could keep Tamas’s infantry going with one hand and manage the scouts and cavalry with the other.”
“You’d never boast about it, though,” Taniel said with a snort.
“A boast is something you have to back up with your fist.” Gavril raised one ham-sized hand. “I could let the results do the talking, there.” His sleeve fell, revealing once again the long scar. Gavril examined it for a moment, then said, “I got this from the Kez. They were wearing Adran blues and I was ranging too far ahead of the main army. They caught me, beat the shit out of me, and took me to Alvation. That’s where they really went to work on me.”
He raised his shirt to show several other scars across his belly. “Snapped my wrist when I wouldn’t give them the information they wanted. The bone sheared clear through the skin. God, I haven’t screamed like that since my leg was run over by a wagon as a boy.”
“Alvation?” Taniel asked. He’d spent just a little time with Olem, Tamas’s bodyguard, on their way to the parley, and Olem had told him some things about the Seventh and Ninth’s disastrous trek through Kez and Deliv. “This just happened?”
“The Deliv Privileged healers are good at their craft. I told them to leave the scars. Gives me more stories to tell.” He paused. “I heard about Bo. If they can get him to the Deliv healers in time, he’ll come out practically unharmed.”
Not with his leg practically burned off, he wouldn’t. And that was a big “if.” Taniel felt his voice catch in his throat. “Don’t you blame Tamas?”
“For what?” Gavril belched loudly and took another swig from his flask.
“For getting you caught by the Kez. You were tortured.”
“Let’s get one thing straight,” Gavril said, a darkness passing across his face. “The only one who got me caught by the Kez was me. And when I did, Tamas came for me. He pushed his men through the pit and made a deal with an old, spurned lover to get me back. Boy, I’ve spurned a few lovers, and let me tell you, making good with one of them can be harder than moving a mountain. Especially for a man as proud as Tamas.”
Taniel was surprised at the outburst. He opened his mouth, but
Gavril cut him off.
“I’ve blamed Tamas for a lot of things in my lifetime. He’s guilty of some of them, but as far as the very worst—well, I’ll just say he’s innocent. Besides, getting caught by the Kez allowed me one thing I thought I’d never get the chance to do.”
“What’s that?”
“I spit in the face of the man who murdered my sister.”
The crack of a twig brought Taniel’s attention around to a shape in the darkness. Squinting at it, he realized that his powder trance was starting to wear off. A moment later, Vlora stepped into the firelight.
“Can I have a minute, Gavril?” she asked quietly.
Gavril gave a mighty sigh and climbed to his feet. “Have to take a piss anyway,” he muttered, lumbering off into the darkness.
Vlora did not take Gavril’s place, instead settling opposite Taniel across the small fire. Taniel stared into the flames. He could feel her gaze upon him, prickling the back of his mind like a sixth sense. The feeling brought back memories of thin sheets and shadowed bedrooms, and he felt his cheeks begin to warm in spite of himself.
He took a twig and poked at the fire. “What do you want?”
“To talk,” she answered softly.
“Well,” he grunted, “go ahead.”
“I…”
“Why are you here?” Taniel demanded, cutting her off. The urge to be off, riding fast after Ka-poel, had finally found its outlet, and his words came out much louder than intended. Heads were raised at the other small campfires. “Why,” he asked, tempering his voice, “do you insist on haunting me?”
“Haunting you?” Vlora was taken aback. “I’m here to help you.”
“Why? Did Tamas send you? No, I think not. He would have wanted you for the next battle with the Kez. You and I are his best marksmen and he wouldn’t have sent you away at a critical time like this.”
“I asked to come.”
Taniel leaned forward until he felt the heat of the fire on his face. “Why?” Were those unshed tears in her eyes? It didn’t matter. He needed an answer. Everything else in his small world seemed unimportant suddenly. “We’ve been friends since we were kids. We were lovers. You pulled out my heart and tossed it on the ground.” He gestured violently. “Sprinkled some salt on it and cooked it over a fire!” He thought he heard a chuckle from the woods, but he paid it no heed. “Why are you mocking me like this?”
Vlora’s face seemed to melt and re-form, the sorrow dripping off and being replaced by steely-eyed determination. Her jaw clenched and her cheeks seemed to tighten, and he could sense the fight in her the way an old sailor can sense a coming storm.
“You think I wanted to be left alone for two years? Until that night you found me, I’d never had a lover but you. Bo kissed me once, when we were young, but I didn’t let it go farther than that.”
“He what?” Taniel felt like he was riding a horse that had just thrown a shoe.
She talked over his agitation. “I took no other lover, but I heard the rumors. Taniel Two-shot. Hero of the Fatrastan War for Independence. Killing Kez Privileged left and right. Wooing hundreds of women. Tended night and day by a little savage sorceress.”
“I was never unfaithful.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
“Lies! I saw you in the arms of another man. With my own eyes!”
“I’m sorry!”
Taniel surged forward, carried halfway across the fire by his own fury, then pulled up short. “What?”
Vlora’s nostrils flared. “That’s the third time I’ve tried to tell you. It was a horrid mistake. You going to Fatrasta. Me taking that prig to bed. Mistake after mistake after mistake.”
Taniel returned slowly to his sleeping roll. There was a part of him that wanted to rush to her, take her in his arms and comfort her, but he knew that would make things more… complicated. They were done and nothing would change that. He had Ka-poel still. If she was still alive.
She thinks I’m lying. The thought hit him like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky. She thinks Ka-poel and I have been lovers for these last two years. “Vlora,” he said. The name seemed foreign on his lips, as he’d refused to say it for so many months. “Me and Ka-poel. It’s just been recently, it…” He trailed off. “I just need to get her back.”
“We’ll get her back,” Vlora said.
Was it her way of apology? Some kind of self-sacrifice? “Why?” He had to know.
“Because she still loves you, you daft tit.” Gavril’s voice came out of the darkness to Taniel’s left, and Taniel realized it had been his laugh he heard earlier. Taniel surged to his feet, reaching for his sword, swearing to cut the big man in two.
Vlora was faster. She leapt into the darkness and dragged Gavril back to the fire, throwing him to the ground like a child, though he was twice her size. Her jaw was set in anger.
Gavril squirmed on the ground, and it took a moment to realize that he was laughing so hard that tears streamed down his face. Vlora planted a boot in Gavril’s ribs, eliciting a single “Oof” and then another chorus of laughs. “What’s so funny, you fat bastard?” She grabbed him by the hair, lifting him to his knees, and his laughter suddenly ceased. A dangerous glint entered his eyes.
“Vlora…” Taniel stepped forward, ready to throw himself between them.
“You like putting your nose in someone else’s business, do you?” Vlora said in Gavril’s ear. “Well, how’s this: Taniel, this hairy ass is your uncle. He didn’t tell you on South Pike because he was too ashamed of being the Mountainwatch drunk, and he doesn’t tell you now because… well, I don’t know.” She kicked Gavril in the small of the back and stormed into the darkness.
Gavril caught himself over the small fire and deftly rolled to his feet. He wiped the tears of laughter from the corner of his eyes and watched Vlora go, then turned to Taniel. Catching Taniel’s gaze, he gave a sheepish grin and held out his flask. “Drink?”
“My bloody uncle?” Taniel asked.
Gavril bowed at the waist. “Jakola of Pensbrook, at your service, nephew.”
CHAPTER
27
Adamat shuddered at the memory of the last time he had been to Skyline Palace. It had been in the middle of the night over six months ago when Field Marshal Tamas summoned him in order to investigate the last words of members of the Adran royal cabal. The gardens of the great palace had been dark and unguarded, and instilled him with a deep sense of unease that flowed through him even now.
Though, he acknowledged to himself, his unease this morning was likely of a different sort.
Lord Claremonte was the late Lord Vetas’s employer. And anyone who employed such a monster would surely be a monster himself. Every fiber of Adamat’s being told him to turn around and run, to return home and lock his door and never take a job in the city again—and bugger Ricard and Tamas and Claremonte and everyone else involved in this deadly dance.
But he’d made a promise to Ricard, so he straightened his jacket and dusted off the brim of his hat.
Most of the gardens had become overgrown, untended over the summer, and dozens of sentries in the colors of the Brudania-Gurla Trading Company were posted about the grounds. Adamat’s carriage traveled up the front drive, past the immense, silver-plated doors and along the front of the palace until they rounded one corner and proceeded to the servants’ entrance.
Adamat emerged from his carriage just as three policemen and the commissioner of police stepped out of theirs. The commissioner tipped her hat to Adamat and then strode up to a rather ordinary set of double doors and rapped twice.
The door opened a crack. Words were exchanged, and then the commissioner headed inside, with her officers on her tail. Adamat followed.
“Keep close,” Adamat said to SouSmith as the big man emerged from the carriage behind him. “I don’t trust Claremonte in the least.” He jogged to catch up with the commissioner. “What the pit is Claremonte doing here?” he asked.
“Running for First Minis
ter,” Commissioner Hewi replied, straight-faced. Hewi—a sharp-eyed, soft-spoken woman with light-brown hair curled tightly beneath a small hat—was wearing a loose-fitting day dress that managed to look both utilitarian and elegant at the same time. She had been appointed by the Iron King not long before his death and had, from the rumors, been one of the first people informed of the coup. Upon hearing that the Iron King’s son was to be executed, her words had famously been, “It’s about damn time.”
“I meant here. In the palace.”
“He’s rented the space from the city,” Hewi said. “Housing his troops and Privileged here.”
“And we just let him rent it?”
“The Reeve agreed to it, from what I hear,” Hewi said. “Better than letting it sit empty. Claremonte’s paying an astronomical fee for use of the building and grounds, and the city needs the money.”
“I’m surprised Tamas didn’t have the place burned down,” Adamat said.
“I’m not. It’s part of our cultural heritage. Over four hundred years old. Many of the walls and ceilings are works of art in and of themselves. I think Tamas knows better than to destroy all that out of spite.”
Adamat conceded to himself that the commissioner had a point. He noted that even the walls of the cavernous kitchens, as they passed through them, were covered in bright murals.
“Still,” Hewi added, “Tamas had most of the art and furniture removed to the national gallery. Some of it was sold to pay off debts, from what I heard. The rest will be put on display for the public. Laudable, I think.”
“Though it would have been far safer to destroy every vestige of the nobility.”
“Right. Seems Tamas is something more than simply pragmatic. Who would have thought?”
They left the kitchens and went up the servants’ stairs to the main floor. Adamat had heard that the passageways behind the palace were a labyrinth all to themselves, but this was his first time experiencing them. They ducked around so many corners, led by one of Claremonte’s servants, that Adamat imagined that men without his Knack could very well get lost. He frequently stopped to urge SouSmith along so that the boxer didn’t get distracted gazing at all the art.