“Not much,” Amara said. “Compared to our allies, Kalarus’s forces only seem mildly threatening.”
Bernard blew out a breath. “And worrying about it won’t help.”
“No,” Amara said. “It won’t.” She turned her attention back to her dish. When she finished it, her husband brought her a second plate, from where the others ate near the fire, and she set to it with as much hunger as the first.
“It’s that much of a strain?” Bernard asked quietly, watching her. “The wind-crafting?”
She nodded. She’d broken the hard trailbread into fragments and let them soak up juice from the roast to soften them, and she ate them between bites of meat. “It doesn’t seem so bad, when you’re doing it. But it catches up to you later. “ She nodded at the fire. “Lady Aquitaine’s men are having thirds.”
“Shouldn’t you do that, too?” Bernard asked.
She shook her head. “I’m all right. I’m lighter than they are. Not as much to lift.”
“You’re stronger than them, you mean,” Bernard murmured.
“Why would you say that?” Amara asked.
“Lady Aquitaine doesn’t even take seconds. “
Amara grimaced. It was one more thing to remind her of Invidia Aquitaine’s abilities. “Yes. I’m stronger than they are. Cirrus and I can lift more weight with less effort than they can, relatively speaking. Lady Aquitaine’s furies are such that her limits are more mental than physical.”
“How so?” Bernard asked.
“Air furies are… inconstant, fickle. They don’t focus well on any single thing for long, so you have to do it for them. It takes constant concentration to maintain flight. Lady Aquitaine does that easily. It takes even more concentration to create a veil, to hide something from sight.”
“Can you do it?” Bernard asked.
“Yes,” Amara said. “But I can’t do anything else while I am-I can barely walk. It’s more wearying and takes much more focus than flying. Lady Aquitaine can do both of them at the same time. It’s something well beyond my own skills and strength alike.”
“She’s no more impressive than you are, in flight. She hardly seemed able to follow you when we dived out of that cloud the other day.”
Amara smiled a little. “I’ve had more practice. I fly every day, and I only have the one fury. She’s had to divide her practice time among dozens of disciplines. But she’s been doing it longer than I have, and her general skills and concentration are far better than mine. With some time to focus on flying, to practice, she’d fly circles around me, even if her furies were only as strong as Cirrus-which they aren’t. They’re a great deal stronger.”
Bernard shook his head, and mused, “All that skill, all those furies at her command, all the good she could do-and she spends her time plotting how to take the throne, instead.”
“You don’t approve.”
“I don’t understand,” Bernard corrected her. “For years, I would have given anything for a strong talent at windcrafting.”
“Everyone would like to fly,” Amara said.
“Maybe. But I just wanted to be able to do something about the crowbegotten furystorms that come down on my steadholt,” Bernard said. “Every time Thana and Garados sent one down, it threatened my holders, damaged crops, injured or killed livestock, destroyed game-and did the same for the rest of the steadholts in the valley. We tried for years to attract a strong enough windcrafter, but they’re expensive, and we couldn’t find one willing to work for what we could pay.”
“So,” Amara said, giving him a coy little glance, “your hidden motives are at last revealed.”
Bernard smiled. She loved the way his eyes looked when he smiled. “Perhaps you could consider it for your retirement.” He looked into her eyes, and said, “You’re wanted there, Amara. I want you there. With me.”
“I know,” she said quietly. She tried to smile, but it didn’t feel as if it had made it all the way to her face. “Perhaps one day.”
He moved his arm, brushing the back of his hand unobtrusively against the side of her stomach. “Perhaps one day soon.”
“Bernard,” she said quietly. “Yes.”
She met his eyes. “Take me,” she said. “For a walk.”
His eyelids lowered a little, and his eyes smoldered, though he kept the rest of his face impassive and bowed his head politely. “As you wish, my lady.”
Chapter 25
Max blinked at Tavi and then said, incredulously, "You took it?”
Tavi grinned at him and tossed a heavy grain sack up into the bed of the supply wagon.
“She’s been going insane about her purse. She hasn’t stopped complaining to Cyril since she lost it.” Max hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Of course. You took it and bribed Foss and Valiar Marcus to let you ride.”
“Just Foss. I think he handled Marcus’s cut on his own.”
“You’re a crowbegotten thief,” Max said, not without a certain amount of admiration.
Tavi threw another sack into the supply wagon. There was room for only a few more sacks, and the timbers of the wagon groaned and creaked under the weight of the load. “I prefer to think of myself as a man who turns liabilities into assets.”
Max snorted. “True enough.” He gave Tavi and oblique glance. “How much did she have?”
“About a years worth of my pay.”
Max pursed his lips. “Quite a windfall. You have any plans for what’s left?”
Tavi grunted and heaved the last sack into the wagon. His leg twinged, but the pain was hardly noticeable. “I’m not loaning you money, Max.”
Max sighed. “Bah. That everything?”
Tavi slammed the wagon’s gate closed. “That should do it.”
“Got enough to feed the Legion for a month there.”
Tavi grunted. “This is enough for the mounts of one alae. For a week.”
Max whistled quietly. “I never did any work in logistics,” he said.
“Obviously.”
Max snorted. “How much money is left?”
Tavi reached into a pocket and tossed the silk purse to Max. Max caught it and shook it soundlessly. “Not much,” Tavi said in a dry tone. “Not many Antillan-made crowns are floating around the Legion, so I’ve been getting rid of them a little at a time.”
He walked back through the dark to the steadholt’s large barn and traded grips with a gregarious Steadholder who had agreed to sell his surplus grain to the Legion-especially since Tavi was offering twenty percent over standard Legion rates, courtesy of Lady Antillus’s purse. He paid the man their agreed-upon price, and returned to the wagon. Max held up the silk purse and gave it a last, forlorn little shake before tossing it back to Tavi. Tavi caught the purse.
And something clicked against his breastplate.
Tavi threw up a hand, frowning, and Max froze in place. “What?”
“I think there was something else in the purse,” Tavi said. “I heard it hit my armor. Give me some light?”
Max shrugged and tore a bit of cloth from a knotted-closed sack in the wagon. He rubbed the cloth between his fingers a few times, and a low flame licked its way to life. Seemingly impervious to the heat, he lowered the burning cloth and held it a few feet over the ground.
Tavi bent over, squinting, and saw a reflection of the improvised candle’s light shine off of a smooth surface. He picked up a small stone, about the size of a child’s smallest fingernail, and held it closer to the light. Though it was not faceted, the stone was translucent, like a gem, and was such a brilliant color of red that it almost seemed to be wet. It reminded Tavi of a large, fresh-shed droplet of blood.
“Ruby?” Max asked, peering, bringing the flame closer.
“No,” Tavi said, frowning.
“Incarnadine?”
“No, Max,” Tavi said, frowning at the stone. “Your shirt is on fire,” he said absently.
Max blinked, then scowled at the fire, which had spread from the strip of sackcloth to his shirt. He flicked his wrist in irritation, and the flame abruptly died. Tavi could smell the curls of smoke coming up from the cloth in the sudden darkness.