They all thought about it for a moment. It was the best Kip could do without scouts or any real idea of the enemy forces.
“Well, it sounds great,” Conn Arthur said. “Of course, plans usually do.”
Chapter 28
“How did the High Luxiats take it?” Andross asked, pitching his voice low and quiet. Teia was walking beside Karris White as they crossed the delicate green bridge between Little Jasper and Big Jasper toward the execution platform, so she couldn’t help but overhear.
“As well as we expected they would,” the White said.
“But they’ll not rebel?” he insisted.
“We’ll find out presently, won’t we?” Karris said.
Teia was glad she’d already applied the dark eye caps. Karris was working with Andross Guile?
Of course she has to work with him, T. She’s the White, and he’s the promachos. But this sounded like more, like they were on the same side. Andross Guile was an open sewer. He was the human embodiment of evil. Teia didn’t want Karris any closer to him than was absolutely necessary.
But the promachos was already taking his leave. “I despise not knowing beforehand exactly how others are going to react.”
“And imagine,” Karris said drily, “some of us always live that way.”
“The horror,” Andross said, but Teia thought he seemed secretly pleased that his daughter-in-law was making fun of him.
Ugh. Teia didn’t like it when the old man acted human.
As the Blackguards emerged from the tunnel that was the Lily’s Stem, Teia saw the crowd for the first time. The muffled roar of their murmuring washed over her as if she had suddenly slipped into a full bathtub of their speculation. Though she was second in the line of Blackguards, it felt as if every eye were upon her.
The entire Embassies District was packed from building to building with bodies. The large execution platform had been built against the wall, beneath the great mirrors that were known as Orholam’s Glare. Nearest to the platform in the plaza were Chromeria officials, nobles, soldiers, Lightguards, and Blackguards, but as Teia mounted the steps, she saw an ocean of humanity.
Teia had thought that there would be a big crowd. She hadn’t guessed the half of it. Nearly every man, woman, and child living on Big Jasper had turned out for this event. Slave, free, Parian, or Tyrean, it didn’t matter. A bobbing mass of humanity filled the plaza and the great avenue and every street that converged here throughout the Embassies District. Balconies of mansions and embassies and roofs of shops were filled to bursting with onlookers.
Everyone wanted to see what would happen. Everyone wanted to hear what the Chromeria had to say. With the death of the old White, the ascension and near murder of the new White, the unveiling of the secret escape lines from the Chromeria, and the explosion of the cannon tower, it seemed the Big and Little Jasper Islanders’ veil of safety had been torn away. Everyone had heard the reading of the lists of the dead. They’d heard about the battles. But all this, plus the arrest of traitors, here?
Suddenly the reality of war had come home.
The Chromeria hadn’t played off the explosion of the cannon tower as a mistake. It hadn’t lied, exactly. It had merely said, ‘It wasn’t an accident.’ Everyone assumed that the Color Prince had attacked.
Believing themselves to have been attacked, the people wanted assurances. Many wanted blood. That the people to be executed today had nothing to do with the attack seemed not to matter. This was the people’s chance to hear the new White and judge her, to be soothed or to be inflamed—or to be disheartened.
No wonder Karris was nervous.
The Blackguards spread out across the platform. Teia and Stump, being the shortest, would flank Karris so as not to make her appear smaller than necessary. The commander would stand among the Colors and High Luxiats behind Karris.
The crowd fell silent as Carver Black stepped forward to introduce Karris as the new White. Teia didn’t pay attention; it was all titles and trivia. She was doing what she was here for: scanning the crowd for dangers, alternately in paryl and in the visible spectrum. She had already looked through the clothes of everyone on the platform. With paryl she could see through cloth but not skin, and the very bodies of the men and women already in place could conceal weapons.
It was a discomfiting thing, being able to see through people’s clothes. Most people, she decided, looked better with their clothes on. She now knew things about the High Luxiats that probably no one else knew.
From the fresh cuts and welts on his back atop old scars, High Luxiat Amazzal obviously practiced self-flagellation. It was a practice frowned on, though not explicitly forbidden unless it impeded the penitent’s performance of his or her duties. High Luxiat Mohana had the stretch marks of at least one pregnancy, which might or might not be scandalous. Certain orders of luxiats were allowed to marry, but generally not those who wished to progress high into the Magisterium. Perhaps Mohana had lost her child and joined the luxiats late? Or switched orders at some point?
Secrets, secrets everywhere, and Teia didn’t want to know most of them, and couldn’t use others that lay open to her eyes.
It seemed unfair. Godlike. How did she have this power? This power to see, and to kill? How did she have the right?
And a year ago, I was whining that my color was useless.
Suddenly everyone was bowing, and Teia flinched. She hadn’t even noticed that Carver Black was finishing his introduction. Throughout the plaza, everyone bowed or curtsied as deeply as possible.
Standing in front of those tens of thousands, Karris waited until everyone had risen. Then waited some more. Then more, until it was painful. Had she frozen up? Did someone need to do something?
Just when Teia was sure one of the Colors was going to move to rescue her, Karris began speaking in a strong, clear voice that carried well. “War is here. Would it were not so. Too many of us have thought of this war as something far away. The proclamations have meant nothing to us, for our own people are near. Our loved ones have been safe. So we have turned deaf ears to the widows keening at the lists. We have turned hard hearts to the weeping mothers of boys and girls who will never come back. What is some distant war to us?
“But war is here. Would it were not so. You have noticed the shortages in the markets. How long has it been since you’ve had a Tyrean orange? But an orange is a luxury, surely we can let that go. Then, cotton is expensive, too, from the loss of Atash, is it not? And wool, as the Ilytian traders have reconsidered the journey. But so what? What is this war to us? Perhaps more patches on our clothes, and our children having to make do with tunics and dresses they’ve outgrown. Builders, have you not seen the price of lumber double? Why? Because our brothers in the Blood Forest have laid down their saws to pick up swords, or turned their axes from hewing wood to hacking wights. So what? What is this distant war to us? The rest of us will put off those repairs our homes need until next year. You builders will have to charge the rich double, and pray they will pay so you can feed your families. You shipowners and fishermen, you’ll be paying double for wood for the repairs without which your ships will sink, so you’ll have to charge double for your goods, for your fish. But what is this distant war to us? We will pay in coin, lest we have to pay in blood. For those with money, that sounds like an acceptable trade.
“But we’ll notice that a certain kind of cargo comes to our island more frequently, not less. Slavers. Starving mothers will think, better my starving daughter live as a slave than die howling here. Better that I eat from the coin of her misery than die and leave all my children orphans to fend for themselves. Tell that mother she’s paying in coin, and not in blood. But what is this distant war to us?”
She paused, head bowed. And no one said anything. It was not like any rallying speech Teia had ever heard.
Karris said, “My friends, beloved under the light, war is here, and would it were not so, but we are not innocent in its genesis. After the False Prism’s War, our sisters a
nd brothers in Tyrea begged us for the eye of mercy, and we delivered only justice instead. We took the holy command to ‘Love mercy and do justice, and walk humbly before the Lord of Light,’ and we ignored the parts we didn’t like. We took our own vengeance. When we take a command and obey only the parts that profit us, that’s not obedience.
“We have thought that because Orholam has blessed us, that his love and blessings belong to us, regardless of what we do. We have treated our lord as a slave to our desires. Where is the walking humbly in that? We, your leaders, are guilty.”
There was some uneasy shifting among the Colors and the High Luxiats. Karris, newly risen to her exalted position, hadn’t been among the ‘we’ she was so pointedly impugning now. They, on the other hand, all had been. And from the rapt attention on their faces, they didn’t know what she was planning to say next, either.
Except for Andross Guile, who was a cipher, as always.
“Therefore,” Karris said, “those of us here before you, the Colors and the High Luxiats, will be mourning and fasting for the next three days. I invite those of you who are able to do so to join us, to pray for us, and ask Orholam’s blessing and wisdom in our endeavors. For though we have erred, there is yet work to be done. We may repent, but the consequences of our sin remain. Would it were not so, but war is here.
“We cannot fight and take it for granted that Orholam is on our side. We must fight to make sure that we are on Orholam’s side. And that means cleaning our own house first.
“Don’t misunderstand. There’s no time to lose in proclaiming new festivals and holy days of repentance. If we hesitate, we shall lose all of Blood Forest and Ruthgar, too. As we cleanse ourselves, we shall also prepare our armies. Those who pray will pray, and those who fight will fight, but those who lead will do both.
“So let us turn to the work before us today. The first is a symptom of our emptiness. An emptiness that has reached even into the Magisterium itself. Where there is a vacuum of true worship, it will be filled by our own venality, our lusts, our cupidity, and our pride. It is a stain upon the Chromeria and the Magisterium itself.” She slowed down. “It must be… purged. And one way or another, it will be purged.”
That word, used twice, used so deliberately, sent a shiver through the ranks of luxiats. When they were commissioned, the luxors always began their purges among the luxiats first. Any luxiat with heterodox beliefs or personal failings would have much to fear if the Office of Discipline was commissioned and empowered again.
“And indeed,” Karris said, “to my great horror, our first guilty party today hails from the Magisterium itself.” The crowd booed and hissed, and Karris seemed taken aback for a moment. Teia felt the same. It wasn’t easy to distinguish boos and hisses directed at you from those directed at your subject.
But then she forged ahead. “Quentin Naheed distinguished himself early. Among the many brilliant scholars in the Chromeria, from his earliest days here, he stood out consistently as one of the brightest. Barely one year since taking his vows and donning the black robe, he is already acknowledged as an exemplary scholar, a gifted historian, hagiographer, and translator. His excellences are many, and his mind is peerless. However, Brother Quentin Naheed is also a murderer.”
She beckoned, and Quentin was brought forward by the tower soldiers. He had been stripped to his underclothes, and he resembled a small bird drenched and shaken from its time in a cat’s mouth, feathers limp, dignity taken.
Teia’s heart dropped. She realized too late that though she had sworn to meet Quentin’s eyes, to be his strength, with her wearing the hard, angular, opaque eye caps, her gaze would be no comfort at all. And the glue holding the caps on didn’t reattach well, so she couldn’t take them off and put them back on.
But an oath is an oath. She tore them away.
One of the High Luxiats, Brother Tawleb, was shifting peevishly. He murmured something to High Luxiat Selene next to him, but she said nothing.
“Brother Quentin Naheed,” Karris said. “Are you guilty of murder?”
“Yes, High Lady,” he said, wretched. “Murder and attempted murder, and violating my oaths before the faith and Orholam himself in so doing.”
“Has this confession been compelled from you? Have you been beaten, or threats made against your family?”
“No,” he said, puzzled.
“Louder, please,” she said.
High Luxiat Tawleb shifted again, clearly agitated, but not wanting to cause a scene.
“No, I wasn’t beaten. In fact, when the soldiers showed up, I was terrified, but I was also relieved.”
Karris turned to the crowd. “In my time, I’ve hunted unrepentant wights and fought rebels. You hardly seem the normal criminal. Are you giving your confession in a bid for clemency?”
Again, the shock on Quentin’s face couldn’t have been feigned. “Clemency? I shot a girl in the throat while I was trying to murder your stepson, High Lady. If I seem resolute in the face of my death, it’s only so I don’t weep and shame myself further.”
“High Lady,” High Luxiat Tawleb interjected, “many pardons, please. But did we not agree that it’s a terrible idea to let this traitor, this, this loathsome pagan heretic, spread his lies to the people here who might be vulnerable or misled? A platform is exactly what these traitors hope to get. Look, even now, this—this posturing, as if the man who shot a young girl so she could die on the street like a dog is somehow heroic. As if there were anything noble about him. Let us put an end to this.”
“I understand why you want him silenced,” Karris said, loudly.
He blanched, but shot back quickly, “Yes, because he was once dear to me, and I’m furious that my own discipulus would turn out to be a traitor. It is a stain to my honor, and my judgment, and, yes, an embarrassment that—”
“No, Brother Tawleb,” Karris said. She shook her head sadly.
But his words rode right over hers. “—that anyone so near to me should harbor such bile in his heart, and I not notice it. But if you’re going to try to say that—”
“Enough!” She held up a hand, and he finally stopped.
What was happening? Teia looked at her commanders for a hint about what to do, but they simply seemed ready for anything. Watch Captain Blunt looked at her and threw his eyebrows up.
Oh shit. With paryl, despite the pain of widening her eyes so far in this bright noon light, Teia double-checked Tawleb for a weapon.
Oh many shits. She’d missed it earlier. He had a dagger, held tight under his armpit with cloth, so no straps had stood out to her. Why would a High Luxiat arm himself? Should she do something now? Do you tackle a High Luxiat for being armed? He’d made no move with it.
She made the hand sign for ‘knife’ and tapped her armpit. The watch captain and the commander and Stump caught it.
Teia missed some bit of Karris’s saying this wasn’t a court, but that the High Magisterium had met and discussed some kind of evidence. Karris produced some papers, asking Tawleb to explain them.
He stepped close to examine the papers. This would be the moment he would attack, if he was going to. Teia saw the commander tensing, about to give the order to take him down regardless rather than risk it, but then Karris gave a very subtle wave-off.
Of course she knew the Blackguard hand signs, and she’d caught them going around even as she spoke. She knew.
The commander gestured a stop.
“These are worthless!” High Luxiat Tawleb said, and Teia knew then that he wasn’t going to attack. “Forgeries. You’re trying to become a tyrant, Karris Guile. You’re putting the Spectrum above the Magisterium. You’re a heretic, an apostate, a pagan whore.”
Gasps went though the crowd. Murmurs, a frisson of danger. What did he say? Did he really just—
Karris held her hand up as—of all people—Carver Black moved forward to strike High Luxiat Tawleb to silence him. She said, “No, please, High Lord Black, I’ll strike him myself if need be. And I will, if, on this
day of truth, he tells one more lie—”
“A lie?! Which?! That you’re a heretic or that you’re a whore—”
Teia had seen Karris train. She had fought with her and against her. The speed with which Karris moved shouldn’t have been surprising.
It was.
Despite her huge amazing dress, she kicked—kicked—Tawleb. Not in the knee, or the gut. She kicked this man who towered over her in the side of the head. He went down instantly, and by the time everyone’s gaze had bounced from the blur that was Karris to the big man bouncing off the wood at her feet, Karris was composed again, standing calmly, straightening her dress, as if nothing had happened.
Balls! Guarding this woman is either going to be really, really easy, or really, really hard.
“Brother Tawleb,” Karris said, “stand forth and accept Orholam’s judgment. The High Magisterium has voted, and the Spectrum has adjudicated the penalty. You are guilty of treason. Your penalty is death.”
He stood, shakily, and Teia and the others were twice as alert now. But again Karris waved them off.
“If you repent, and tell us of others involved in this and any other murders, you may have a private execution by the method of your choice tomorrow. If not, the time is—”
He spat on her. Or tried.
Fast as a serpent strike, Karris blocked his spit with a gloved palm.
“I have no master! I did it for all of us! All of you! You ignoramuses! I did it to save you from the Guiles’ tyranny and apostasy!” He turned to Quentin. “You incompetent! You failed me! I was going to give you everything!”
Karris gave a signal that the Blackguard was on duty to defend her once more, and a bare moment later, Tawleb scrambled to draw his dagger. It was tucked too deep for him to draw it quickly enough, especially given that they knew it was there.
The others had him down practically before Teia moved. She’d been trying to enervate his joints with paryl as Murder Sharp had done so often to her, but she was too slow, and she ended up doing nothing—standing still while her brothers worked. Dammit!