Poisoned Blade

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Your Holiness,” he says to the crow priest, “you will accompany Sergeant Oras. I charge you in particular with making sure the holy Akheres tombs are properly guarded from any impiety.”

  The crows bob their heads.

  “The rest of us will march south to Port Selene. We leave as soon as every spider and scout has been inspected for repair and injury.”

  He taps his fist twice to his chest, just as my father does to pass on an order. As one, all of us, even the priests, respond with the same salute. The two crows on the priest’s shoulders open their wings and furl them again. From far away comes an answering caw from a third crow.

  “Spider, come along!” commands Sergeant Oras. In his voice I hear the anger that will scald me once we are alone because I disobeyed his direct order not to follow him.

  “Sergeant Oras, sit down and let me inspect your wound,” says Kalliarkos.

  The sergeant turns, surprised.

  Kal goes on in a lighter tone and with a wry smile that makes my heart twist with longing. “I have made it my practice to examine all injuries sustained by the men under my command, to determine whether they are fit to fight. General Esladas taught me that he used to do the same when he commanded a small enough company of scouts that he could see to every soldier in it. Even now he tours the army hospital every day.”

  “Of course, my lord captain.” Sergeant Oras sits gingerly next to Kalliarkos.

  Kalliarkos beckons to an officer lingering in the shadows in the manner of a military aide-de-camp. “Bring me my medical pouch, Captain Helias. I’ll need lint, grease, and honey.”

  I can’t bring myself to walk away from him, not when we’ve been reunited so unexpectedly, so I stay, watching how deftly his hands unbind the crude linen bandage from Oras’s neck wound, how he precisely moistens the driest spots of the cloth so as not to cause more damage as he peels cloth away from the skin to expose the injury. Flakes of dried blood drift through the aura of lamplight. The wound shines ghastly, two holes gashed through the neck, oozing fluid out of raw pink flesh.

  Maybe I blanch, because Oras cracks a smile even though he is clearly in pain. “Can’t stand the sight of blood, eh, Spider? General Esladas was exactly the same.”

  “He was?” I croak.

  “He always threw up at the sight of blood. That’s why he taught himself to treat injuries. He refused to look away from what made him uneasy.”

  Kalliarkos smiles in a way that makes me catch in a breath, but he isn’t paying attention to me. He’s concentrating on smearing grease and then honey on the wound with a tiny brass ladle, each movement precise and delicate. “He still throws up after every tour of the army hospital. He just makes sure to do it out of sight of the wounded.”

  How can it be that after only a few months with my father Kalliarkos knows things about him that I was utterly ignorant of? Mother dealt with the sick and injured at our house, never Father. We just thought it was something mothers did.

  “Don’t speak or move, Sergeant. I’m going to bind it up so the gashes can knit back together. Here, take this.”

  He holds out the ladle, clearly meaning any extra pair of hands to take it from him. The aide holds the lamp, so I reach for the tool. As I grab it, Kal’s fingers brush mine. He winces. The ladle presses against my palm right where the splinter is lodged, and I grunt from the pain. He glances up at me, and for an instant I think he thinks I’m repelled by the contact, but then his gaze drops to my hand and his eyes narrow.

  When he finishes sewing up Sergeant Oras he says, “Let me look at that hand.”

  “It’s nothing, my lord.”

  “Don’t say it is nothing when something is clearly paining you.”

  You are paining me, I want to say, but instead I answer, “It’s just a splinter, my lord.”

  “My lord captain, I can take care of it,” says Oras, rising quickly to hustle me away.

  The crow priest says, “It is not fitting that you touch one such as—”

  “I did not ask for comment or counsel. Sit down!”

  I sit.

  “Your hand!”

  I hold out my hand, palm up.

  This close, I see how he puffs out a little breath in resolve as his eyelids flutter from thoughts he isn’t speaking. After a pause, he firmly takes hold of my fingers and studies the reddened palm. I study him. His face is leaner. A scar cuts a white line just below his lower lip. His hair is as short as ever, the only practical way to wear it on campaign as my father always says. The dry air and sandy grime make the strands stand up every which way. Probably we both reek, and yet all I sense is the warm press of his fingers on my skin as he gently probes closer and closer to the entry point.

  “Ouch!” I jump.

  His mouth twitches like he wants to laugh.

  “Tweezers,” he says in a cool voice, and the aide, Captain Helias, hands him tiny brass tweezers perfect for prying out splinters or stingers.

  He tests the entry to see if he can get hold of the end of the splinter. Pain flashes up my hand and I blink back tears.

  “Does it hurt?” Satisfaction edges his tone.

  “More than I can say,” I reply in a low voice, then grit my teeth as he teases apart the skin.

  “General Esladas says that pain is the measure of a man, that we can let it defeat us or we can teach ourselves to live with the pain we have no control over.”

  “General Esladas is a wise man.”

  He looks me full in the face. We are so close I could lean forward and kiss him on his dry lips, and I see by the flare of his eyes that he is having the same thought. But under the scrutiny of the men standing around us, I do not let even the merest attempt at a propitiatory smile touch my lips.

  He doesn’t smile. If anything his expression grows more stony and distant.

  “General Esladas is the most honorable man I have ever met. He has made it clear what he expects of me, and I would never do anything to lose his good opinion of me, now that I have it.”

  He bends over my palm, neatly inserts the tweezers to capture the end of the splinter, and slowly pulls.

  I hiss at the pain, and then it’s out. He holds up a sliver of wood.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “On a Fives court.”

  He stiffens, releases my hand, and stands.

  I jump up at once, for no Commoner or lowborn Patron may sit where the highborn stand.

  He busies himself with the medical pouch. “I thought I was dreaming when I came to, out there, and saw a face I certainly never expected to see in such circumstances.”

  “It will not happen again, my lord,” says the crow priest.

  “The fault is mine, my lord captain,” says Oras, “but the girl did save a spider we’d otherwise have lost.”

  Even though I know I should not speak and must not ask, I say, “Were you going to let sunstroke and dehydration kill those soldiers rather than allowing them a noble death in battle?”

  This is not the Kalliarkos I knew in Saryenia. He looks at me with bleak, brutal calculation. “Our battered army is retreating along the coast hoping to reach Port Selene before the combined armies and navies of the three kingdoms of old Saro can cut us off, surround us, and obliterate us. This isn’t a Fives court, or a play in which nobility is a fine costume an actor can take on or off. This is war, and we are fighting for our lives. We are fighting for Efea itself.”

  21

  At the end of the first long march we take a break in the last cool shadows of night with dawn a rosy promise in the east. I do my best to copy the others, settling my spider in formation. I use the shelter of the spider to pee, then come out from under and stretch.

  “What is this braying mule who hauls alongside us?” Four soldiers circle in.

  They look as filthy and exhausted as I feel but that’s no comfort. My hand fixes around the hilt of the short sword Oras left me, but I can’t outfight them with a blade. That’s not my
skill.

  “I’m one of Lord Gargaron’s adversaries. A Challenger, if any of you want to take me on at the nearest Fives court, not that you can beat me.”

  The one with the biggest sneer and the meanest eyes steps in on me, pressing me back against a spider’s leg. “There’s more than one way to beat mouthy girls, sweetheart.”

  “Muster!” cries Captain Helias.

  The four men give me the kiss-off sign in the most obscene way possible and hurry away to form up. I cautiously follow, keeping to the back of the pack. Kalliarkos hops up on a rock and brandishes his captain’s whip.

  “We have wiped out the enemy cavalry! You have displayed your determination, skill, honor, and courage.”

  They cheer. I cross my arms, glad I’m standing at the back because I know he’s not talking to me and I wish he were. He has a voice that catches at the heart and makes people want to like him.

  He extends the whip, pointing south. “We’ve a four-day march to the coast on short rations and short of sleep, but we bring news of a victory to an army that will be cheered.”

  They nod, liking his upbeat tone.

  He pauses long enough to look each man in the eye and get an acknowledgment in return, marking each man, studying his mood. When he goes on his voice is more serious, quiet enough that we all lean forward to make sure we don’t miss a word.

  “We bring something more important even than this. We will bring General Esladas and Prince General Nikonos the crucial news that King Kliatemnos in Saryenia was sent false intelligence about the defeat at Pellucidar Lake. Do you know what this means?”

  He waits. The silence draws out so long I can’t bear it.

  “There is a traitor in the Royal Army,” I say. “Someone with access to the royal messenger pigeons.”

  “The cursed mule can’t stop braying,” mutters one of the men who accosted me earlier.

  “Mules will kick,” adds his companion, and many of the men laugh in a mocking way that may as well be them spitting in my face.

  Kalliarkos slashes the whip through the air three times so fast its whistling shuts them up. “Yet it is this Efean woman who risked her life to save a precious spider from the attack on Crags Fort even though she has had no training as a scout. Did any other run into the battle not knowing if he would live or die and yet bring out a spider? Are you the sort of men who cast dishonor on an act of courage?”

  They shuffle their feet, glancing at each other.

  “This adversary offered us the crucial confirmation that the message delivered to the king and indeed to all the garrisons in Efea was a lie. This adversary uncovered the enemy plot to steal the royal gold! Are these not acts worthy of our respect?”

  They scratch their heads. A few glance at me.

  “I call us fortunate!” He cracks his famous grin, and his men begin to relax. “What other spider patrol can boast of its own kicking mule, I ask you? None but ours.”

  That easily he hooks them, even as I hide a flinch because I know better than to let them see my pain. And of course his speech works, for he will be listened to when others would be shouted down. A few of the scouts nod at me like we are chance-met drinking companions and they are inviting me to sit down at the table.

  “Inspect your spiders, drink, and eat. We won’t rest again until the afternoon. At each rest stage our mule will lead us through the menageries to keep our bodies supple and strong. At ease!”

  As we break ranks I have more friendly comrades than I can manage, men wanting to show me how to oil the joints of my spider, share food, ask if I really am a Challenger. They line up behind me when I lead menageries, and my skill at the forms and the flips impresses them.

  Lord Captain Kalliarkos does not speak to me. He’s merely done his job: smoothed out a source of potential conflict within his unit.

  He called me a mule to my face. The humiliation stings more than blown sand, even while I understand why he uses language they can hear and will respond to. Even though I understand why he won’t talk to me or show me the least measure of preference, the slightest hint that we already know each other, it still hurts. It really hurts.

  I don’t have anyone to talk to about Amaya, Mis, Dusty, and Tana, and the grief grinds with every step, with every passing day. Bettany’s betrayal stabs at my every breath, but I’ve no one to pour my troubles into. I miss Mother so much.

  Four days later we finally march into sight of Port Selene. The road winds down a long slope with the shoreline laid out below.

  The sea shimmers beneath the afternoon heat, ships floating offshore like so much flotsam tossed onto the waves. Orchards and fields spread on either side of the road in narrow strips of cultivated land along the sea, fed by wells and cisterns. It seems so peaceful, except for the massive army camp boiling like a nest of termites set up outside the city walls. That the Royal Army has been forced to retreat this far into Efean territory, fleeing the enemy invasion, means things really are much worse than I realized.

  The military encampment is huge and neatly laid out in four quarters, tidy and organized just as my father likes things. As he once said, discipline is even more important in retreat. The command compound sits at the center, the official tents flying circular banners that spin in the sea breeze like Rings on a Fives court. Our spider camp sits at the farthest remove from the cavalry quarter, since horses generally fear the clanking spiders.

  A surprising number of people rush out to greet our company, flocking around Kalliarkos as if he is an Illustrious sauntering through the Lantern District to the accolades of the crowd. We leave the spiders to the care of support staff who will oil and repair them. A woman with Saroese features works on a spider alongside a white Soldian man, her small hands easily getting inside the tightest crevices of the articulated joints. A sleeping baby is tucked up in a sling on her back. She glances at me as I walk past and offers a smile, woman to woman, and I am suddenly sure she is from old Saro because no Efean-born Patron woman would smile in such a friendly way at a person like me. Like my father, she has traveled far to make a different life for herself.

  A two-wheeled carriage is brought, drawn by two horses and attended by twelve cavalrymen as a mark of respect for Kalliarkos’s rank. He takes the reins from the driver and then, to my surprise, calls me up to sit on the passenger bench beside him.

  The encampment is so large it’s no wonder Kalliarkos prefers to drive rather than walk. Each unit has a separate compound fenced off with canvas walls and marked with its badge, giving the camp the feeling of a town.

  “I appreciate what you did to get the soldiers off my back,” I say in a low voice.

  He does not look at me as he expertly guides us through the foot and wagon traffic. “My apologies, Jessamy Garon.”

  “For what?”

  “For calling you a mule. It was a hurtful thing to say, and I’m sorry for it.”

  I can’t think of a reply because I’m so gratified at his apology that my chest feels tight with emotion, even as the insult still stings.

  He frowns, glances at me, then goes on. “I did not mean to humiliate you, but it was the only way I knew to quickly make the soldiers accept you.”

  Yet instead of making me feel better, his explanation grates. “Was that really the only way? If they respect my father so much, why didn’t you just tell them who my father is?”

  “Because it’s one thing to know a man has kept loyal company with an Efean woman and another to actually see his child walking around acting like she is Saroese.”

  “I am as much Saroese as I am Efean,” I say recklessly.

  “But that’s not how they see you.” His rigid back does not relax. “They just see you as a mule with too much kick.”

  “They treated me like their pet,” I mutter, watching his shoulders brace with embarrassment. I can tell so much about him by the way he holds his shoulders. “And you let them.”

  His expression turns tight even as his hands stay light on the reins. “We’ve ha
d a grueling and exceedingly bitter few months. These men have served with loyalty and courage. It seemed better to turn their hostility into camaraderie rather than punish men already pushed to the end of their rope. I know it came at your expense, and I truly am sorry for making you endure what must seem hateful to you. But I considered my options and made the best choice, just as you do on Rings.”

  “It’s true it would have been much worse for me if you hadn’t intervened.” I pause. I’m torn, not sure how to react, so I settle on changing the subject. “You’re good at command, my lord.”

  “How fortunate I’m good at something, considering my lack of skill on the Fives court.”

  But his shoulders don’t seem as angry as they should be, given his words. He has relaxed, as if getting the apology out was the part that scared him the most. As if he was afraid I would reject him. And here I sit, close enough to touch him after I thought I would never speak to him again. A big grin creeps onto my lips however desperately I try to hold it back. How Amaya would laugh if she could see me!

  “You know how to talk to people,” I say, and allow myself a teasing thrust. “Except maybe to me.”

  “Please remember that I am taking you to your father. He made it clear that any particular attention I show to you will hurt you, not help you.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “You have to care. I’m trying to protect you, Jes.”

  He glances at me again, but this time his expression has opened and the warmth I’ve been hoping for gleams in the vehemence of his gaze. He still cares. Before I can answer, a cheer rises from soldiers along the road as they recognize him.

  “All hail Lord Captain Kalliarkos, hero of Pellucidar Lake!”