“He—”
“Look at me, grandfather,” Kip snapped. “I am Guile. Body, blood, and will. Deny it.” If you dare, his attitude added.
The very air seemed to vibrate with the tension as the men locked gazes. No one said a word. Even Kip’s dagger of a sentence wasn’t a boy’s complaint: he hadn’t said, ‘I’m a Guile.’ He’d said, ‘I am Guile,’ as if he summed up everything that it was to be part of that family. As if he were the culmination of it, which was true in some ways, Karris supposed. He was the only Guile heir.
The only heir they knew about. There was still a Guile bastard out there they didn’t know existed. Must never know. Her stomach knotted up.
The Blackguards standing outside guarding the room looked uncertain. Blackguards never look uncertain.
The air changed. Karris couldn’t tell how she knew, but she knew that Andross had been convinced. Now he was holding the moment purely to buy time—or perhaps for his own perverse amusement, but Karris thought the former. He hadn’t planned for Kip to return. He was turning cards in his brain, three rounds ahead of everyone else.
Finally, a hint of a smile touched his lips. He made a slight gesture of acquiescence. “Please share this news with us, grandson.”
“What did Grinwoody tell you happened? On the ship, I mean? After all, you were wearing those spectacles, and it was dark.”
What was Kip doing? Why did he care what Grinwoody had said? Why offer the cover to Andross Guile, his enemy? Karris’s stomach sank. Kip was offering an out to the old spider, offering to help him cover up. Cover up what?
There would be no cover-up necessary if Andross Guile hadn’t done something wrong. That meant he was at fault for Gavin’s disappearance. Orholam damn him.
“I don’t think you telling us the truth should require any rehearsals of what others have said,” Andross Guile said. Not accepting the olive branch.
Kip shrugged. “Grinwoody and I were quarreling. I’d come along with my father, whom you’d summoned to meet with you. Grinwoody didn’t want me to be there. I’m sure he believed you didn’t want me to be there. He—a slave—laid hands on me, so I pushed him down the steps. Uncouth of me, and I apologize for it, grandfather. I shouldn’t manhandle your property so. With the strains of the battle that day… regardless, he ran back toward us, and…”
Kip hesitated. Grinwoody’s eyes looked dead. The slave couldn’t even speak for himself. He knew that when millstones like the Guiles came together, even the most trusted slave might be sacrificed without a thought, ground to meal in an instant if Andross thought that he might gain something by sacrificing him.
“And he stumbled into me. I stumbled into my father, there was some scrambling as we all tried to save him from falling overboard. But he fell in the water. I jumped after him. I know Grinwoody doesn’t swim, so though he offered, it would have been pointless. It was my father’s own fault that he’d dismissed his Blackguards, insisted on them going to bed. Otherwise he might have been saved easily. Instead, I pulled my father out of the water, and tried to light a signal. But instead of being saved by you, we were pulled out by Captain Gunner. He said some prayers to the sea, and threw me back in afterward.”
“But you saw that my son was alive?” Andross was intense, seemingly honestly disbelieving.
“Yes, sir. I’m certain of it. I’m surprised you haven’t gotten ransom demands. Gunner recognized the Prism, sir.”
The White nodded. “Gavin has mentioned this pirate before. Said he’s quite the character, but not quite sailing with a full crew, mentally, as it were.”
“Grinwoody,” Andross barked, turning around in his seat. “I thought you said the Prism was unconscious when he plunged into the waves.”
Grinwoody fell prostrate. “My lord, mercy. I—I thought he’d hit his head on the way down. I believed he had already sank before the boy went after him. My lord master, I am so sorry. I have shamed myself and you.”
A silence. Cards turning. “No,” Andross said. “The shame is mine. I should never have given up on my son. In this year when I have lost so much…” He trailed off as if overwhelmed with emotion. Then he put his hand to his heart and made the sign of the four and the three. “Orholam be praised.” He actually sounded sincere. Perhaps the old man really did love Gavin in his own way.
The words were echoed around the table.
Andross continued before anyone could interject. “I should never have taken a slave’s word on something so important. I’ll punish him appropriately later. Kip! You have saved my son twice, and brought me news of his life. You warm an old man’s heart. I shall have to reward you properly.”
“He’s my father. No reward is necessary,” Kip said.
“I insist. Come to my quarters later. Now you’re excused,” Andross Guile said.
The rest of them just watched as Kip struggled with the dismissal. He didn’t want to leave, but he clearly saw no way around it. He bowed after a moment, and left.
Karris was certain she’d just seen one or the other of them bought off, but she wasn’t sure whom. Maybe both. The sheer gall of them to do it in front of the whole Spectrum. And the sheer brilliance, to be able to get away with it.
If it had thrown Andross Guile off, though, he didn’t show it. “Well, this is marvelous. There will be some real challenges in getting my son back before anyone else does, but I think we can overcome those difficulties.”
As Kip stepped out, Arys Sub-red came in the door, heavily pregnant and winded.
“What are we talking about?” she asked, moving past Karris to her seat. She didn’t have her youngest child with her this time, but she did reek of luxin and sex. Karris was no naïf, everyone knew that greens, reds, and sub-reds most of all liked to mix drafting and sex. It heightened the sensations and the emotions. Karris didn’t care who Arys bedded, but coming to a Spectrum meeting sex-flushed and stinking wasn’t something Arys would have done when she was in full control of her faculties.
The strain of rule kills us all.
Karris had thought that Arys had at least two years left, but now she wasn’t so sure. Sub-reds tended to get territorial and fiercely, passionately protective of those they loved as they reached the end of their natural spans. And, of course, libidinous, but a woman in Arys’s position shouldn’t be showing that. Not publicly.
Andross pointedly looked at Arys, and then ignored her.
Delara Orange said, “If the Color Prince ransoms the Prism instead of us, we’ll be destroyed. It will utterly cripple morale. They would hold him hostage as guarantee that we wouldn’t attack, and then—”
“No, no, no,” Andross said. “Do you not understand what the sea chariots mean?”
Blank looks. Andross smirked. He loved it when his superior intelligence found such undeniable expression.
“How is a pirate to hide for long from us? How is he to fight us? We dominate the seas, even if no one knows it yet.”
“If we can dominate the seas, why don’t we go after the Color Prince directly?” Delara asked.
“Because he’s on land,” Andross said.
“I’m not stupid, thank you very much. I mean, if the seas are ours, why not land our men in whatever place is most advantageous? Behind enemy lines, perhaps, and—”
“Have you even looked at the sea chariots? We’d burn out a thousand drafters trying to move a single transport ship. We can deny the seas to others; we can search the seas for my son, and with grenadoes and other arms, we can sink the Color Prince’s pirate mercenaries, but until we rebuild our own fleets, our armies can only approach by land.”
“So they don’t really change anything,” Klytos Blue said.
“Other than assuring that we can’t be attacked unawares and that we will know exactly where the Color Prince is at all times weeks before he knows where our armies are, yes, I suppose they change nothing,” Andross said, dripping contempt. “What matters for the moment is that Gavin will be ours before long. We can’t guarantee we ge
t him alive, of course. But no one else will get him instead.”
And there was the serpent in him. That what he said was true didn’t make it any more comforting. The White would have said the same, but she would have spoken to the emotions of the fact first, the thought of losing Gavin through some accident or through some pirate’s fury.
But then all of what she’d been hearing hit Karris. Gavin was alive. Gavin was alive. The tears of relief blindsided her, and then blinded her. She didn’t want to cry in front of Andross Guile, didn’t want to show weakness in front of the Spectrum, but a single sob escaped her lips.
Everyone on the Spectrum looked at her, and Karris had to bow her head and clamp her eyes shut to avoid breaking down entirely.
She should keep her eyes open. She was a spy now. She should be paying attention. She should be of use.
Alive. It was hope and light and life and mercy. It was Orholam himself, reaching through the gathering darkness.
For once, Andross Guile didn’t bludgeon Karris for her weakness. Instead, he said, “Let us all go and send out our scouts and our messages and report to our satraps about this news. But most of all, let us all pray. For without Orholam’s hand, our situation is dire indeed. Let us meet again soon, but for today, I think we’ve seen and said enough. High Lady Pullawr?”
Let us pray? This was Andross Guile saying this? How shaken was he? The man made a mock of the faith at every chance.
The White made the sign of the four and the three, and the rest of the Spectrum followed her lead. They lay their hands, palms open, on the table in front of them, receptive, open to the light, open to truth. “Father of Lights, Holy One, Orholam.” She aspirated the h, giving it the old pronunciation. “Righteous Father, Strong Tower of Kalonne, All-Merciful One, Comforter of the Downtrodden, Guardian of Orphans, Good Teacher, Deliverer, Unfailing Defender, Savior, Warrior of Justice, Supreme Magistrate, Worthy of Honor, Mighty to Save, Bright Morning Star, Fire in the Night, Hope of the Last Tribe, Indefatigable Healer, Restorer of the Broken, Father, King, and God.”
That last sent a shiver through Karris, even through her tears. Even as Parian men covered their hair from respect, that their glory not compete with Orholam’s, so were there ways one rarely addressed Orholam—that name itself was but a title, a euphemism to show supreme deference, to show how high above the pagan gods he was. In speaking that small word, huge in implications, the White was revealing just how dire she thought the situation was.
“God,” the White breathed.
The room fell utterly silent. Karris fancied she could feel the play of light across her face.
“God, you are God alone. God, please save us.”
After the long introduction, Karris expected more eloquence, more beseeching, more… words. The salutation had been longer than the letter.
Then she realized that was the White’s point exactly. The eloquence, the focus, should be on Orholam. His was the beauty and majesty and the power. He knew their need. He knew how best to help them. This heresy was not only a threat to an earthly order, it was a threat to the worship of Orholam throughout the Seven Satrapies, it was a defiance and renunciation of him. The White was merely declaring her loyalty and begging the help of their lord, as loyal vassals. What else, in the end, was there to say?
It was a mirror to the very help that the Blood Foresters in those border towns would beg, and that the Spectrum had silently agreed to deny. You must die, they had agreed without so much as a vote: you must die so that our purposes can be accomplished.
Karris only hoped Orholam was not so callous and practical with them.
Chapter 21
Teia hesitated outside the door of the Prism’s training room, deep under the Prism’s Tower, looking at a band of blue light illuminating the floor. She had never seen the room illuminated with colored light before. She hadn’t even known it did that.
She heard the unmistakable percussive action of someone punching combos against one of the dummies, and oddly, that violent sound eased her mind. Whoever was here was training—and thus, wasn’t an enemy. Though she knew from how he moved that Murder Sharp must train often, it was somehow impossible to imagine him doing it. He was only the finality of action, not the preparation for it.
Opening the door with the key that Commander Ironfist had given her, Teia went inside. She was just in time to see Commander Ironfist burst into action. His fists snapped out, punching the fraying leather heavy bag full of sawdust: stomach, chin, kidneys, and back up and down, too fast to follow, then he darted off to the side, running toward an obstacle course. He drew two practice swords while he ran.
Maneuvering with even one sword in hand or at your belt was part of Blackguard training that Teia’s class hadn’t even started yet—and that she’d noticed immediately during her brief participation in the battle at Ruic Head: trying to run and fight while carrying even a scabbarded weapon was hard work. Corners you knew your body could slip around suddenly caught your hip, threw you off your step. Carrying a blade openly was even worse, because you had to maneuver it by hand—if your blade stopped on a doorframe and you kept moving into it… not good.
So watching Commander Ironfist move through an obstacle course with two full-length swords was an education in itself. The commander was shirtless, wearing only his tight black trousers and the boiled-rubber-tree-sap-soled boots full Blackguards were issued: sticky, and nearly silent. Watching him explode from a full standstill was like watching a lion pounce—a ripple of muscles, a flash of flesh, and he was off, near full speed in barely four steps.
He hurdled an obstacle that came up higher than Teia’s chest, ran straight at a wall that had only a circular hole a pace across on it and leapt—diving, swords stabbing through, shoulders barely clearing the narrow opening, body not even nicking the edges. He rolled to his feet smoothly, blades flourishing.
He ran at another wall, barely losing speed, and ran up it. His momentum seemed to flow into the wall, all of it completely at his legs, his hands and swords coming into his chest, waist cocking. He leapt off the wall, twisting, the blades flashing out to hit a dummy on either side, each of them held in a box ten feet off the ground, everything below their necks protected.
The momentum of swinging both swords left-to-right meant Ironfist landed sideways. He tumbled, taking the fall, and popped back up to his feet. He looked irritated. Teia saw the problem. Without maintaining his speed, Ironfist had no way of leaping the chasm that was the next obstacle, at least not without stopping and backing up and losing precious time.
He saw Teia, of course, but he saw that she had no pressing business, so he said nothing. He went back to his starting spot and repeated it again.
This time, as he ran up the wall, he slapped the swords against the wall, each wrapped in blue luxin, released them, twisted his body, grabbed them with the opposite hands, and leapt straight from the wall, slashing in from both sides, cutting through the dummies, and landing flat. He charged the chasm, not losing any speed, and jumped it, skipping off a platform that was too small to stop on and then regaining speed, leaping for a rope that hung over the next chasm.
He lost a sword on that maneuver, but he spun down to the ground and laughed.
“The Prism’s own obstacle course. Of course, he cheats outrageously with luxin at every turn. He challenged me to beat his time before he left. I think I may just.”
As he approached, Teia was suddenly aware again of the sheer size and physicality of the commander. Her glance at his naked, scarred chest seemed to make him aware of his own half-dressed state. Oddly, he seemed embarrassed, the old habits of Parian modesty not totally overcome even after many years in the Blackguard. He grabbed his tunic and pulled it on.
“Here to train?” he asked Teia. “I can get you started on drills.”
Teia stared at him, somehow unable to speak. She thought of telling him everything. But Murder Sharp could be standing in this very room.
“Turned in your papers, did yo
u?” he asked. He’d seen her coin sticks.
“Oh. Yes.”
“Are you going to leave?”
“Can I really?” Teia asked. It still seemed impossible.
“If you turn in the money to the Blackguard, you’re free. You’ll be able to make more money as a mercenary if you stay in and leave right before final vows, but some leave at your place. If you’ve grown up as a slave, sometimes the thought of real freedom is too sweet to put off for even one more day. Others just talk about it. I’ve known Blackguards who talked for fifteen years about buying their commission back—fifteen years after final vows, you understand—and traveling the world. Treg was in his last year before retirement and was still talking about buying that commission back.” Ironfist grinned, but then the grin faded. “He didn’t make it back from Garriston.”
“I want to be a Blackguard more than anything in my life, but…” Teia’s nerve failed her.
Commander Ironfist said nothing, just folded his beefy arms and waited. It was a patient silence, though, not demanding. Here was a man so busy he rarely slept more than five hours a night, but when he dealt with his Blackguards—even the nunks—he had a way of being present, unhurried. Teia had never really noticed how generous he was with his precious time, but now that she was experiencing it, she realized how often she’d seen it before, and she added it to the long list of things she admired about the commander. But…
I’m not a slave. Not anymore. And I won’t be made a victim. I won’t sit and let it happen, even if by moving I die. “I’m being blackmailed,” Teia said.
“What’d they get you for?”
She was so startled by his total lack of surprise that she simply said, “Theft.”
“How?”
“I’ve been trained as a pickpocket for years. It wasn’t really my choice, you understand? My master? With my paryl vision, I can see where coins and scroll cases and the like are hidden. Half the time, I’ve been stealing from trainers who worked for Aglaia Crassos—who I just learned was my real mistress all along. But I just figured out today that they were smarter than I’d given them credit for.”