“I also wished to ask you,” Tavi said, walking over her words. “Maximus’s injury is really rather unusual given that we haven’t seen any actual combat. The healers in my last Legion favored strong wine and rare meat to restore an injury with so much blood loss, but I’ve read others who favor an herbal tea and increased vegetables.”
“Read whom?” Lady Antillus demanded.
“Lord Placidus’s treatise on common military injuries and complications, Your Grace.”
Lady Antillus rolled her eyes. “Placidus should stick to tending his cows and leave the healing of nonedibles to those who know better,” she said.
Tavi frowned at her, tilting his head. “How so, lady?”
“To begin with, Placidus rarely has to deal with injuries sustained upon a strenuous campaign,” she said. “His forces are generally deployed on a short-term basis, and their provender reflects that fact. His herbals are fine for men who are eating fresh meat every day or two, but for men marching on jerky and hardtack, the dietary requirements for…” She frowned at him for a moment, her eyes narrowed. Then she waved one hand in a dismissive gesture. “Though I suppose Maximus is hardly the victim of a winter’s privation, is he? Give him whatever is the most cost-effective.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Tavi said, bowing his head. “Is there anything I should know about the preparation?”
“Why, Subtribune,” Lady Antillus said. “If I didn’t know better, I would think you were trying to interfere with my visit to my stepson.”
Tavi lifted both eyebrows. “Your Grace? I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
She gave him a prim little smile. “I’m sure you don’t know what you’re playing with, Scipio.” She glanced at the tent, then back at Tavi. “How long have you known my Maximus?”
Tavi fixed her with the same cheerful smile he had always used when his aunt Isana had asked him loaded questions, relying upon her empathie senses to gather information from the answers. He had learned to baffle her before he turned thirteen years old. He certainly wasn’t going to allow this creature to do what his aunt could not. “A season or so. We traveled here together from the capital.”
She frowned faintly, narrowing her eyes. “You seem quite close to him for such a brief acquaintance.”
Tavi threw in a bit of truth in order to confuse the issue. “We were attacked by armed bandits on the way here. We fought them together.”
“Ah,” Lady Antillus said. “A bonding experience. Are you sure you didn’t meet him before that?”
“Your Grace?” Tavi said. “No, I’m certain that I’d have remembered it. Max is the sort to stand out in one’s memory.”
Crassus snorted quietly.
Lady Antillus glared at her son, then turned back to Tavi. “I was told he was quite close to a page in service to the Crown.”
“Could be, Your Grace,” Tavi agreed. “But you’d have to ask him about it.”
“Would I?” she pressed. “Are you sure you are not the young man from Calderon, Subtribune?”
“I was only stationed there for a week or so before the battle, Your Grace. After that, I was based at a town named Marsford, about twenty miles south of Riva.”
“You are not Tavi of Calderon?” she asked.
Tavi shrugged his shoulders at her and smiled. “Sorry.”
She answered his smile with her own, wide enough to show her sharply pointed canines. “Well. That’s cleared up. Now be a dear for me, Subtribune, and light this campfire? ‘
Tavi felt his smile falter for a second. “Beg pardon?”
“The campfire,” Lady Antillus said, as though speaking to the village idiot. “I think an herbal tea would be nice for all of us to enjoy if Maximus is up and about. You’ve had your basic furycrafting. I’ve seen your record. So, Subtribune Scipio. Light the campfire.”
“Mother, I’ll get it for-” Crassus began.
She flicked her hand in a slicing gesture, and her smile grew wider. “No, darling. After all, we are Legion, are we not? I have given dear Scipio a lawful order. Now, he must follow it. Just like all the rest of us.”
“Light the fire?” Tavi asked.
“Just a little firecrafting,” she said, nodding. “Go ahead, Subtribune.”
Tavi squinted at her, then up at the sun and chewed on his lip. Til be honest with you, Your Grace. Fire isn’t my best subject. I haven’t practiced it since my tests.”
“Oh, don’t sell yourself so short, Scipio,” Lady Antillus said. “It isn’t as though you’re some kind of freak with no crafting at all.”
Tavi made himself smile as naturally as he knew how. “Of course not. But it might take me a moment.”
“Oh,” she said, gathering her skirts and stepping away from the campfire, laid but not lit, before the infirmary tent. “I’ll give you a bit of room, then.”
“Thank you,” Tavi said. He went over to the fire, squatted, and drew his knife. He took one of the more slender sticks lying in an upright tent-shaped stack, and struck a small mound of shavings from it in rapid order.
Tavi glanced up to find Lady Antillus watching from ten feet away. “Don’t let me distract you,” she said.
Tavi smiled at her. Then he rubbed his hands on his thighs and stretched them out over the tinder, narrowing his eyes.
Behind him, Max emerged from the tent and walked toward them, his steps growing louder. “Oh,” he drawled, his voice still a bit weak. “Hullo, stepmother. What are you doing? ‘
“Watching your friend Scipio demonstrate his firecrafting skills, Maximus,” she said, smiling. “Don’t spoil it by helping. He’ll miss the chance to prove himself.”
Max’s steps faltered for a second, but he kept walking. “You can’t take his basic fieldcraft on faith?”
Lady Antillus sounded like she was almost laughing. “I’m sorry, darling. Sometimes I just need to have my trust in others vindicated.”
“Scipio…” Max said, lowering his voice.
“Leave off, Max,” Tavi growled. “Can’t you see I’m concentrating, here?”
There was a brief silence in which Tavi’s imagination provided him with an image of Max staring openmouthed at his back. Then he set his shoulders, let out a quiet grunt of effort, and a wisp of smoke curled up from the tinder.
Tavi leaned over and blew gently on the spark, feeding it more shavings, then small pieces, then larger ones, until the fire was going strong and set to the prepared sticks of the campfire. They took in short order, and Tavi brushed off his pants, rising.
Lady Antillus stared at him, with her smug smile frozen stiffly upon her lips.
Tavi smiled at her again and bowed. “I’ll fetch water for the tea, Your Grace.”
“No,” she said, her voice a little too clear and sharp and polite. “That’s all right. I’ve just remembered another obligation. And Crassus must return to his cohort. “
“But-” Crassus began.
“Now,” Lady Antillus said. She dismissed Max with a glance and shot Tavi a spiteful glare.
Tavi dropped the false smile he’d been wearing. Suddenly, he found the memory of Max’s pale face, the water pink with his blood, growing in his mind. In the space of a breath, it became painfully sharp and clear. A breath later, Tavi recalled with sickening clarity the cruel, vivid scars that crisscrossed his friend’s back-the marks of a many-tongued lash barbed with bits of metal or glass. To leave such vicious scars, the injuries had to have been inflicted on him before Max had come into the power of his furies, when he was twelve years old. Or younger.
And Lady Antillus-and her son-had been responsible for it.
Tavi found himself planning quite calmly. The High Lady had enormous power of furycrafting, and so would have to be the first target. If she did not die all but instantly, she might be able to prevent an injury from killing her, or to strike out with power enough to slay Tavi as she died. Where she stood, the lunge would be a little long, but so long as she did not absolutely expect a physical attack, he should be able to drive his slender poniard up through the hollow of her throat and into her brain. A twist, a ragged extraction to tear the wound wider, and he would be left with only Crassus.