Tavi went back through the broken gates and past the two guards there, both of whom were on their feet again and looking surly. Neither met Tavi’s gaze or attempted to challenge him, though, and the ritualist-led mob was still a hundred yards off when Tavi went through and started back up the hill. It wasn’t until they were out of range of a Canim-thrown stone or spear that he allowed himself to begin to relax.
“Bloody crows,” breathed Schultz, from behind him.
“Crows and bloody furies,” agreed Max. “Did you see that group with the ritualists? They’d have jumped on us in a heartbeat.”
“Aye,” Crassus said. “That would have gotten ugly.”
“Which is why the captain broke the gates on the way in,” Kitai said. “Obviously.”
“I’ve never regretted making sure I had a quick way out,” Tavi said. “Centurion.”
“Sir,” Schultz said.
Tavi nodded to the legionares on duty at the gate to the First Aleran’s camp as they passed through. “I want you to speak to your Tribune. Let him know that I want the Battlecrows for detached duty. That’s all he needs to know.”
“Sir,” Schultz acknowledged.
“Pack them up for a mounted march and take them up to the engineering cohort’s position. It’s on a beach north of Antillus. Secure the engineers and keep an eye out for any suspicious Canim. If they’re going to make trouble for us, it will be at the staging area, so I want your men on station before nightfall.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, sir,” Schultz said seriously. He saluted and turned to start walking. “On my way.”
“Max, take the cavalry with him. Keep one wing ready to respond to an attack at all times. Don’t be subtle about it, either. I want anyone who thinks about interfering with the engineers to know what they’re in for if they try it.”
Max nodded. “Got it. What are we guarding again?”
“You’ll figure it out,” Tavi said. “Crassus, I know they aren’t going to like it, but I need the Knights to pretend they’re engineers again. The next couple of days are going to be difficult. Go with Max and Schultz and report to the senior engineering staff.”
Crassus sighed. “At least it won’t be more ice ships.”
Tavi glanced over his shoulder and smiled. “Not… exactly, no.”
Max and Crassus traded a look.
“Does he know how annoying that is?” Max asked.
“Oh, absolutely,” Crassus said.
“You think we should say anything about it?”
“The burden of command is heavy,” Crassus said soberly. “We should probably let him have his sick fun.”
Max nodded. “Especially since he’s going to do it anyway.”
“He is the mighty First Lord,” Crassus said. “We are but lowly legionares. We obey without question.”
“We do?”
“That was a question. You’re questioning.”
“Right,” Max said. “Sorry.”
“Just get up there, both of you,” Tavi said. “The vord will be here in force in two days. We need to be on the move by then. I need you to help make it happen.”
The brothers rapped fists to breastplates and marched off, continuing to bicker lightly with one another as they walked.
Kitai watched them for a moment and smiled. “They have become friends. I like that.”
“They’re brothers,” Tavi said.
She looked at him, green eyes serious. “It is not the same for everyone. Blood draws some together. Their blood came between them.”
Tavi nodded. “They weren’t always this way, no.”
Kitai smiled faintly. “They are your friends as well. They went when you asked them to go.”
“They know what is at stake. They’re afraid. Schultz, too. That’s why they’re joking.”
“They’re joking because they just followed you into a horde of angry Canim and walked back out again in one piece,” she replied. “The battle energy had to go somewhere.”
Tavi grinned. “True.”
She tilted her head. “I’m curious. What did you accomplish, other than arranging a duel with one of the more dangerous beings we have encountered?”
“I started a conversation,” Tavi said.
Kitai eyed him for a moment, then said, “They are right. It is annoying when you do that.”
Tavi sighed. “It’ll work, or it won’t. Talking about it can’t help.”
She shook her head. “And your other plan. Will it work? Will we get there in time?”
Tavi stopped walking and regarded her. “I think there’s a chance. A good chance.” He turned to her, bowed formally, and asked, “Ambassador, would you do me the pleasure of joining me for a late dinner this evening?”
Kitai arched a white eyebrow. A slow smile spread over her lips. “Dinner?”
“It is the way things are properly done,” he said. “You might wear your new gown.”
“Gown?”
“I had it delivered to your tent while you were gone. I think it’s lovely. Tribune Cymnea assures me it is elegant and tasteful.”
Both her eyebrows lifted now. “In all of this, amidst everything you are doing, you made time to get me a gift.”
“Obviously,” Tavi said.
Kitai’s mouth curved up into another slow smile. She turned and sauntered away, hips swaying a little more than was necessary. She paused to say, “There is hope for you yet, Aleran.” Then she continued on her way.
Tavi frowned after her. “Kitai? So… you’re coming to dinner?”
She didn’t answer, except to laugh and keep walking.
CHAPTER 10
Amara suppressed an irrationally intense urge to have Cirrus choke off Senator Valerius’s supply of air. She supposed she didn’t absolutely need to choke him. Not fatally, anyway. She might be satisfied enough with merely watching him turn purple and collapse—but the man was so detestable that she scarcely trusted herself. So instead of murder, or a pleasant near murder, she folded her hands calmly into her lap and forced herself to remain calm.
Bernard leaned over, and murmured, “If I asked you politely, do you think you could strangle that smug idiot from all the way up here?”
She tried to suppress the giggle that surged up out of her belly at his words but was only partly successful. She covered her hand with her mouth but nonetheless earned a number of irritated glances from those in the amphitheater’s audience.
“Tonight’s script is for a tragedy,” Bernard scolded her quietly, leaning close to put a restraining hand on her arm. “Not a comedy. Contain yourself before you upset the audience.”
She fought down another laugh and punched his arm lightly, turning her attention back to the ancient Senator Ulfius’s quavering recitation of obscure lineage. “—son of Matteus, whose title did not pass to his eldest, illegitimate son, Gustus, but to his younger and properly invested son, Martinus. Thus, is the precedent established, my fellow honored Senators, my lords in attendance.”
Senator Valerius, a saturnine man of middle years and tremendously dignified appearance, began to applaud with long, elegant hands, and there was irregularly spread support of the gesture. “Thank you, Senator Ulfius. Now if there are no further—”
One of the seventy or so men seated on the floor of the amphitheater cleared his throat loudly and rose in place. His hair was a thicket of white spikes, his nose was laced with red from drinking too much wine, and his knuckles were swollen almost grotesquely from repeated brawling. A bandage on his right hand testified that not all of it had been in his youth, either.