“How long did it take you to do the face?”
“Three weeks, give or take, several hours each day. I’ve never been particularly strong at watercraft.” They both fell quiet again. Then Marcus sighed. “Crows take it, Sextus. If only I’d known.”
Gaius chuckled without much humor. “If only I’d known.”
“But we can’t go back.”
“No,” the First Lord agreed. “We can’t.” He turned to Marcus, and said, “But perhaps we can go forward.”
Marcus frowned. “What?”
“You recognized him, when you finally got a good look at him. Don’t you think anyone else who ever served with Septimus might do the same?” Gaius shook his head. “He’s grown into a man. He won’t go overlooked for much longer.”
“No,” Marcus said. “What would you have me do?”
Gaius looked at him and said, “Nothing. Marcus.”
Valiar Marcus frowned. “She’ll find out soon enough, whether or not I say anything.”
“Perhaps,” Gaius said. “But perhaps not. In either case, there’s no reason it couldn’t slip your notice as it has everyone else’s. And I hardly think she’d be displeased to have an agent as Octavian’s trusted right hand.”
Marcus sighed. “True. And I suppose if I refuse, you’ll take the standard measures.”
“Yes,” the First Lord said, gentle regret in his voice. “I don’t wish to. But you know how the game is played.”
“Mmmm,” Marcus said. Both were quiet for perhaps ten minutes. Then Marcus said, “Do you know what the boy is?”
“What?”
Marcus heard the faint, quiet wonder in his own voice when he spoke. “Hope.”
“Yes,” Gaius said. “Remarkable.” He reached out a hand and put several golden coins on the stone siding, next to Marcus’s hand. Then he took another one, an ancient silver bull, the coin worn with age, and placed it beside them.
Marcus took up the gold. He stared at the silver coin for a long moment, the token of a Cursor’s authority. “You and I can never be made right again.”
“No, “ Gaius said. “But perhaps you and Octavian can.”
Marcus stared at the silver coin, the token of a Cursor’s allegiance to the Crown. Then he picked it up and put it in his pocket. “How old was Septimus when he started crafting?”
Gaius shrugged. “About five, I think. He set the nursery on fire. Why?” “Five.” Marcus shook his head. “Just curious.”
The man in the grey cloak turned to walk away.
“You didn’t have to show me this,” Marcus said to his back.
“No,” he answered.
“Thank you, Sextus.”
The First Lord turned and inclined his head to the other man. “You are welcome, Fidelias.”
Marcus watched him go. Then he drew out the old silver coin and held it up to let the distant fires shine on its surface. “Five,” he mused.
“How long have we known one another, Aleran?” Kitai asked. “Five years this autumn,” Tavi said. Kitai walked beside Tavi as he left the hospital-the first building Tavi had ordered the Legion’s engineers to reconstruct. A clean, dry place to nurse the injured and sick had been badly needed, given the numbers of wounded and the exhaustion of Foss and his healers, particularly during the final hours of the battle, when the healers had barely been able to so much as stabilize the dying, much less return them to action.
Tavi had spent his evening visiting the wounded. Whenever he’d been able to find a few moments, he would visit a few more of his men, asking about them, giving them whatever encouragement he could. It was exhausting, to see one mangled legionare after another, every one of them wounded while obeying orders he had given.
He brought Kitai with him whenever he visited-in fact, he brought her nearly everywhere he went, including staff meetings. He introduced her as Ambassador Kitai, and offered no other explanation whatsoever for her presence, his entire manner suggesting that she belonged there and that anyone with questions or comments about her had best keep them to himself. He wanted the men to get used to seeing her, to speaking her, until they got the idea that she was not a threat. It was a method adapted from his uncle’s lessons in shepherding, Tavi had thought, amused. It was the same way he would train sheep to accept the presence of a new shepherd or dog.
She had discarded her beggar’s outfit to wear one of Tavi’s uniform tunics, leather riding breeches, and high riding boots. She had shorn her long hair Legion style, and what remained was her natural color, silver-white.
She nodded as they walked. “Five years. In that time,” she said, “have I ever attempted to deceive you?”
Tavi put a finger on the fine, white scar he had on one cheek. “The first night I met you, you gave me that with one of those stone knives. And I thought you were a boy.”
“You are slow and stupid. We both know this. But have I ever deceived you?”
“No,” he said. “Never.”
She nodded. “Then I have an idea you should present to the First Lord.”
“Oh?”
She nodded. “We will be facing Nasaug and his people for a time, yes?”
Tavi nodded. “Until the First Lord can put down Kalarus’s forces, we’ll have to be here to contain them and harass them-hopefully to keep as many of them as possible pinned down here, not helping Kalarus, while avoiding another pitched battle.”
“You will need many scouts, then. Forces for small group action.”
Tavi grimaced and nodded. “Yes. Which isn’t going to be fun.”
“Why not?”
“Because of their speed, for one thing,” Tavi said. “It’s too easy for scouts to be seen or tracked, then run down-especially at night. But there just aren’t enough horses to mount them all. If I can’t find some way around it, we’re going to lose a lot of good people. “
Kitai tilted her head. “Are you to remain the captain, then?”
“For now,” Tavi said, nodding. “Foss says that Cyril’s going to lose his left leg. Crown law forbids any Legion officer who cannot march and fight beside his men. But I’m almost certain he’s going to be added to the Legion as an attachй from the Crown or made into a regional Consul Strategica.”
Kitai arched an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”
“That he’ll give me orders and advice, in how and where to move. But I’ll be the one making the calls in action.”
“Ah,” Kitai said. “A war-master and a camp-master, is what my people call it. One makes decisions outside of battle. The other inside.”
“Sounds about right,” Tavi said.
Kitai frowned, and said, “But are you not subject to the same law? You cannot march with the men. Not using the furycraft of your people’s roads.”
“True,” Tavi said, smiling. “But they don’t know that.”
Kitai’s eyebrows shot up in sudden surprise.
“What?” Tavi asked her.
“You… you aren’t… “ She frowned. “Bitter. Sad. Always, when you spoke of your own lack of sorcery, it caused you pain.”
“I know,” Tavi said, and he was somewhat surprised to hear himself say it calmly, without the familiar little ache of frustration and sadness at the unfairness of it all. “I suppose now, it isn’t as important to me. I know what I can do now, even without furycrafting. I’ve spent my whole life waiting for it to happen. But if it never happens, so be it. I can’t sit around holding my breath. It’s time let it go. To get on with living.”
Kitai looked at him steadily, then she leaned up on her toes and kissed his cheek.
Tavi smiled. “What was that for?”
“For forging your own wisdom,” she said, and smiled. “There may yet be hope for you, chala.”
Tavi snorted as they approached the second stone building the engineers had constructed-a command center. They had built it out of the heaviest stone they could draw from the earth, and set most of the building so far into the ground that its lowest chambers, including its command room, were actually below the level of the river. Tavi hadn’t wanted that building to get priority, but Magnus and the rest of his officers had quietly ignored his authority and done it anyway. It would take more than one of the Canim’s vicious bolts of lightning to threaten the building, the engineers had assured him.