A woman rose from where she sat on the stool in a grey dress that bore the First Aleran’s red-and-blue eagle over the heart. She was slim, of medium height, and her long, fine, straight dark hair clung to her head and shone as if wet. Her features were narrow and vaguely familiar to Tavi.
Beside him, Max sucked in a startled breath.
Captain Cyril bowed politely to Lady Antillus, and she gave him a grave inclination of her head in response. “Her Grace has offered her services as a wa-tercrafter and healer for the duration of our first deployment,” Cyril continued. “You all know that this is not her first term of service with the Legions as a Tribune Medica.”
Tavi arched an eyebrow. A High Lady, here in the camp? That was anything but ordinary for a Legion, despite anything the captain might have said to the contrary. The high blood of Alera wielded an enormous amount of power by virtue of their incredible talent of furycrafting. A single High Lord, Tavi had been told, had the strength of an entire century of Knights, and Antillus, one of the two cities that defended the great northern Shieldwall, was renowned for its skill and tenacity in battle.
“I know it isn’t traditional, but I’ll be meeting with each of you separately to take your oaths. I’ll send for each of you over the next day or two. Meanwhile, Lorico has your duty assignments and will show you to your billets. I would be pleased if you all would join me at my table for evening meals. Dismissed.”
Those seated on stools rose, and the men parted politely to let Lady Antillus leave first. There were a few murmurs as they left, each taking a leather message tube from Lorico.
“Go on, lads,” Magnus murmured to them without even opening his leather tube. “I’ll get started here. Good luck to you both.” He smiled and stepped back into the captain’s tent.
Tavi walked away with Max and read his orders. Simple enough. He was to report to Tribune Gracchus and assist with the management of the Legion’s stores and inventory. “He was different than I expected,” Tavi said.
“Hmmm?” Max asked.
“The captain,” Tavi said. “I thought he’d be more like Count Gram. Or perhaps Sir Miles.”
Max grunted, and Tavi frowned at his friend. The big Antillan’s face was pale, and his brow was beaded with sweat. That was hardly new to Tavi, who had nursed Max out of hangovers more than once. But now he saw something different in his friend’s face, behind the distraction in his expression. Fear.
Max was afraid.
“Max?” Tavi asked, keeping his voice low. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Max said, the word quiet and clipped.
“Lady Antillus?” Tavi asked. “Is she your…”
“Stepmother,” Max said.
“Is that why she’s here? Because of you?”
Max’s eyes shifted left and right. “Partially. But if she’s come all this way, it’s because my brother is here. It’s the only reason she’d come.”
Tavi frowned. “You’re scared.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Max said, though there was no heat in the tone. “No, I’m not.”
“But-”
Something vicious came into Max’s voice. “Leave off, Calderon, or I’ll break your neck.”
Tavi stopped in his tracks and blinked at his friend.
Max froze a few steps later. He turned his head a bit to one side, and Tavi could see his friend’s broken-nosed profile. “Sorry. Scipio, sir. “
Tavi nodded once. “Can I help?”
Max shook his head. “I’m going to go find a drink. A lot of drinks.”
“Is that wise?” Tavi asked him.
“Heh,” Max said. “Who wants to live forever?”
“If I can-”
“You can’t help,” Max said. “Nobody can.” Then he stalked away without looking back.
Tavi frowned after his friend, frustrated and worried for him. But he could not force Max to tell him anything if his friend didn’t want to do so. He could do nothing but wait for Max to talk about it.
He wished Kitai was here to talk to.
But for now, he had a job to do. Tavi read his orders again, recalled the camp layout Max and the Maestro had made him memorize, and went to work.
Chapter 5
Isana awoke to a sensation of emptiness in the rough, straw mattress heside her. Her hack felt cold. Her senses were a confused hlur of shouts and odd lights, and it took her a moment to push away the sleepy disorientation enough to recognize the sounds around her.
Boots raced on hard earth, the steps of many men. Grizzled centurions bellowed orders. Metal scraped on metal, armored legionares walking together, brushing one another in small collisions of pauldrons, greaves, swords, shields, steel armor bands. Children were crying. Somewhere, not far away, a war-trained horselet out a frantic, ferocious scream of panic and eagerness. She could hear its handler trying to speak to it in low, even tones.
A breath later, the tension pressed in on her watercrafter’s senses, a tidal flood of emotion more powerful than anything she had sensed in the dozen or so years since she and Rill, her water-fury, had found one another. Foremost in that vicious surge was fear. The men around her were terrified for their lives-the Crown Legion, the most experienced, well-trained force in Alera, was drowning in fear. Other emotions rushed with it. Primarily excitement, then determination and anger. Beneath them ran darker currents of what she could only describe as lust-and of another emotion, one so quiet that she might not have noticed it at all but for its steady and growing presence; resignation.
Though she did not know what was happening, she knew the men of the Legion around her were preparing to die.
She stumbled up off the mattress, dressed in nothing but her skin, and managed to find her blouse, dress, and tunic. She twisted her hair into a knot, though it made her shoulders and back ache abominably to do it. She took up her plain woolen cloak and bit her lip, wondering what she should do next.
“Guard?” she called, her voice tentative.
A man entered the large tent immediately, dressed in armor identical to that worn by the rest of the legionares, save perhaps for sporting an inordinate number of dents and scratches. His presence was a steady mix of perfect confidence, steely calm, and controlled, rational fear. He stripped his helmet off with one hand, and Isana recognized Araris Valerian, personal armsman to the Princeps.
“My lady,” he said, with a bow of his head.
Isana felt her cheeks flush and her hand drifted to the silver chain around her throat, touching the ring that hung upon it beneath her clothing. Then she moved it down, to rest on the round, swollen tightness of her belly. “I’m hardly your lady,” she told him. “You owe me no fealty.”
For a moment, Araris’s eyes sparkled. “My lady,” he repeated, with gentle emphasis. “My lord’s duties press him. He bid me find you in his stead.”
Isana s back twinged again, and if that wasn’t enough, the baby stirred with his usual restless energy, as though he heard the sounds in the night and recognized them. “Araris, my sister…”
“Already here,” he said, his tone reassuring. The unremarkable-looking young man turned to beckon with one hand, and Isana s little sister hurried into the tent, covered in Araris’s own large grey traveling cloak.