*
After such an emotive meeting sleep was hardly an option, but Eleanor went to bed anyway. Daniel had gone back to studying his mistflower harvest, and for once she was glad that he was preoccupied. She wrapped her arms around her children and hugged them tightly to her, glad that they didn’t understand what was going on – and gladder still that they couldn’t read the thoughts going through her mind.
Laban had warned her, and it had happened just like he’d said: she could imagine no other pain even approaching the magnitude of what she’d felt at the very idea that she might lose Bella. It had blinded her to anything else. There was no question, if she forced herself to think about it rationally, that her love for them was clouding her professional judgement. They’d all agreed long ago that the revolution didn’t rescue people: the end was worth more than any individual lives. And yet she’d gone running to Violet and talked her friend into helping her do the one thing that, logically, they shouldn’t have done.
Isabelle and Martin were sleeping soundly, so Eleanor tucked the blanket around them and tiptoed through to the little study where Sally was still examining her charts by lamplight.
“I’m sorry,” she said, pushing the door closed behind her. “I realised I haven’t said that yet.”
“Sorry?” Sally looked genuinely puzzled at that.
“I asked Violet to help me when I shouldn’t have. It’s my fault she’s sick.”
“Only the gods can decide when our time’s up,” Sally said. “I hope they’ll give her back to me, but if they don’t, it won’t be your doing.”
Eleanor nodded. Sally had been one of the least devoted of the rebels right up to the point where Violet had been injured, but now she prayed every night.
“Anyway, it worked,” Sally said. “You got her back.”
“But the price was too high,” Eleanor said. “I can’t let that happen again.”
“You’d better keep those kids safe, then.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. It was a mistake to try and keep them with me, wasn’t it? My life just isn’t safe.”
Sally poured an inch of dark spirits into a chipped beaker and passed it across the table. “Here.”
“Thanks.”
“There are good people who’d take care of them if you ask, here or in Almont. What about Rosie?”
“I don’t want them to be revolutionaries.” Eleanor took a long swig of the drink. “I want them to be safe.”
“Do you think we’re going to lose?”
“I think we’re not stupid enough to go and decimate the Imperial schools if we win – whereas they’ll kill any rebel child who crosses their path.”
“And you’d really give them up to keep them safe?”
Eleanor nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I think I have to.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“No.” Eleanor wiped her eyes and downed the rest of the spirits. “I think I’ve had quite enough help. Just... don’t tell anyone where I’ve gone. Daniel won’t approve.”
Sally offered to top up her glass, but she shook her head.
“I need to move tonight,” she said. “I’d better stay sober.”
Next she summoned Tal to meet her down in their makeshift council room. She’d expected him to ask why she’d sent for him, but he just sat, waiting.
“Have you worked out why you’re here yet?” she asked when it became clear he wasn’t going to break the silence.
“I assumed you’d tell me, eventually.”
“I don’t mean here in this room. I mean here, fighting this war, rather than back there with your schoolmates trying to defend the Empire from our insurgency.”
He thought about it for a moment. “You gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
“Indeed.”
“So what?”
“It’s time I told you how I did it.”
“Why?”
“It’s almost that time of year again, and I’m not going to be able to do it myself this time. I was hoping I could persuade you to take my place, especially when it comes to Venncastle.”
“Well, I’m sure I could...”
“Oh, anyone could go,” she said, cutting him off, annoyed at his casual tone. “But you have to be prepared to do the real work. And that means you need to know how I did it.”
“Don’t you think I can recruit from my own school?”
“Simple methods work for most of the kids, but if you turn up and suggest this directly to Venncastle boys, they’ll just say no. Yours isn’t like other schools.”
“No.”
“So you’ll have to be a bit more subtle.”
She wished, not for the first time, that she was having this conversation with Gaven. But Gaven was trapped on the island, and Tal was the next best thing. It certainly beat the idea of sending Lukal to Venncastle.
“And now you’re going to tell me what you did?”
“Something like that.”
“What makes you think I won’t tell the school about your techniques?”
“You’re welcome to – they already know. I’m not doing anything very different to Venncastle’s own imprinting.”
“Their what?”
“The way your school generates such legendary loyalty. And they’ve probably guessed that’s what I’m doing. Some time when you have a spare moment, you might want to consider why they’ve never told you their own secrets. But first, tell me what you think I did to win you over.”
“You...” He hesitated. “You arranged for us to ambush you. You made us fall into our own ambush. I still don’t quite know how you did that.”
“I can tell you if you like, some time, but it’s not very important. I couldn’t force an ambush more than once.”
“But that is what you did. You manoeuvred us into a position where we had to fight for our lives.”
“Well, we’re at war now, there’ll be plenty of natural opportunities to bind the recruits together. That comes later. The first thing you have to do is find a way to make them turn up, when you haven’t got an ambush to tempt them out of their beds.”
He nodded, just waiting for her to go on.
“You’ll start with two or three names. Anyone that comes to your attention is going to be good, but you have to pick out the one you think is slightly less good than the others. The one who’d be flattered if you tell him you think he’s the best.”
“How will I know?”
“Read the records, and use your instincts. Venncastle students are famously overconfident, but you usually have a fairly good feel for how you fit into the order of things, don’t you? Like you’ve always known Gaven was slightly better than you.”
He blushed, and blustered, but she waited out his temper and he managed to contain it without saying anything he might come to regret.
“So when you’ve got one boy in your sights, take the usual approach – visit in the middle of the night, memorise his records first, make sure you know his weaknesses as well as his strengths. Be prepared to fight if he doesn’t want to listen, but in time, he’ll listen. When the time is right, make it clear you’re only approaching him.”
“But you just said to pick out the weakest.”
“Exactly. The others will be so affronted when they find out that they’ll have to make their own attempt to get your attention.”
He nodded. “They’ll come to me.”
“Then you ignore them, and they’ll become even more determined. You’ve got them all then – the one through flattery, the others through the insult.”
“I see.”
As she went to collect her things together, Eleanor realised there was one advantage to dealing with Tal. It hadn’t even crossed his mind to wonder why something like that would suddenly have become urgent. And she was glad he hadn’t asked, because the fewer people knew she was leaving, the fewer could try to stop her.