Varg turned slightly toward his get with a faint, low growl of reproof. He faced Tavi without blinking. “His point is valid.”
Tavi inhaled deeply and nodded. “You’re right, of course. They’ll need the protection of the city’s walls.”
Max shook his head gravely. “Old Vanorius is not going to like this.”
“He doesn’t need to like it,” Tavi said bluntly. “He just needs to do it.” He paused and softened his tone. “Besides, I can’t imagine he’ll be too upset about gaining several thousand Canim militia to help him defend the walls.”
Varg let out an interrogative growl, his head tilting slightly.
Tavi regarded him steadily. “Did you think I’d expect you to leave your civilians here alone and unguarded?”
“And if you get us to do some of the fighting for you,” Varg said, “so much the better for your folk.”
“You aren’t the vord,” Tavi said, simply. “We can work out our problems later.”
Varg stared at him for a moment, then tilted his head slightly to one side. “Tavar,” he rumbled, rising. “I will see to the preparations as you suggest.”
Tavi returned the Canim-style bow, careful to use exactly the same degree and duration as Varg. “It is appreciated, Warmaster. Good day. And to you, Nasaug.”
“Tavar,” the younger Cane growled. The pair of them left the cabin, almost seeming to fold in on themselves to fit through the door. The others took that as their cue to be about their own duties and also filed out.
“Magnus,” Tavi said quietly. “A moment.”
The old Cursor paused and looked back at Tavi.
“The door,” Tavi said.
Magnus shut the door and turned to face him. “Your Highness?”
“I’m sorry I cut you off earlier. I hope I didn’t entirely sever both legs.”
“Your Highness.” Magnus sighed. “This is no time for levity.”
“I know,” Tavi said quietly. “And I do need your help. My intelligence is… incomplete. I’ll need you to speak to whoever Lord Vanorius has bringing in information and sort out exactly where Aquitaine is and how we might contact him.”
“Your Highness—”
“I can’t tell you, Magnus,” Tavi said in a calm, quiet voice. “I’m quite certain my grandfather never revealed all of his sources to you.”
Magnus regarded Tavi thoughtfully for a few moments. Then he bowed his head, and said, “Very well, Your Highness.”
“Thank you,” Tavi said. “Now. You’ve been giving Marcus odd looks for weeks. I want to know why.”
Magnus shook his head. After a moment, he said, “I’m not sure I trust him.”
Tavi frowned. “Crows, man. Valiar Marcus? Why not?”
“He…” Magnus sighed. “It’s nothing I can quantify. And I’ve been trying for weeks. There’s just… something off.”
Tavi grunted. “Are you sure?”
“Of course not,” Magnus replied, automatically. “Nothing’s sure.”
Tavi nodded. “But you haven’t let go of it, either.”
“It’s my gut,” Magnus said. “I know it. I just can’t figure out how I know it.” He lifted a hand and pushed white hair back from his eyes. “It’s possible I’m going senile, I suppose.” He peered at Tavi suddenly. “How long have you known about Sextus?”
“Since a few days after we escaped Canea,” Tavi said quietly.
“And you said nothing.”
Tavi shrugged. “What would it have changed except to frighten everyone and make us appear more vulnerable to the Canim?” He shook his head. “Everyone sitting on slow ships with nothing to do but chew on bad thoughts—we’d have had blood on the decks in a week. This way, by the time word gets around, we’ll be in the middle of operations. Everyone will have work to turn his hand to.”
Magnus sighed. “Yes. I suppose it was necessary to keep it quiet.” He shook his head, his eyes gleaming faintly for a moment. “But please, Your Highness. Don’t make a habit of such things. My heart can only take so much.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Tavi said. He nodded to Magnus and turned back toward his desk. “Oh, Maestro.”
“Hmm?”
Tavi looked up from a weary slump on his chair. “Valiar Marcus has saved my life. And I, his. I can’t imagine that he would ever turn against the Legion. Or against me.”
Magnus was silent for a moment. Then he said, quietly, “That’s what everyone always thinks about traitors, lad. It’s why we hate them so.”
The old man left the cabin.
Aquitainus Attis, the man who had been striving to take the Crown of Alera for most of his lifetime, was now only a heartbeat away from taking it incontestably. Could there be one more knife lurking, awaiting the right moment to strike?
Tavi closed his eyes. He felt fragile. He felt frightened.
Then he rose abruptly, stalked across the room, and began donning his armor, a suit taken from a legionare who had perished of his wounds after the evacuation to replace the one he’d lost in the harbor city of Molvar. The familiar weight of Aleran lorica settled upon him, cold and solid. He slung his sword at his hip and felt the cold power of the steel singing quietly down the length of the blade.
There was work to be done.
Best be about it.
CHAPTER 3
“Keep your back straight,” Amara called. “Turn your heels out a little more!”
“Why?” called the girl on the pony. She was riding in the practice ring the small detachment of Garrison’s cavalry troopers had set up. It was, in essence, a four-foot-deep pit lined with soft earth, about two hundred yards long and half that across.
“It will help you maintain your balance,” Amara called from the side of the pit.
“My balance is good already!” the girl insisted.
“It is right now,” Amara said. “But when Ajax does something you weren’t expecting, you might find differently.”
The little girl had dark, curly hair and muddy hazel eyes, and was eight years old. She lifted her head and sniffed in a gesture that Amara found reminded her rather intensely of Kalarus Brencis Minoris. She folded her arms over her stomach and shivered a little. “Try to use your legs more, Masha,” she called. “Keep your head level. Pretend you’ve got a cup of water balanced on it, and that you don’t want to spill any.”
“That’s silly,” Masha called back, smiling at Amara as she went past. She shouted merrily, over her shoulder, “Why would I take a cup of water on a pony ride?”
Amara found herself smiling. Smiles had been a rare enough thing over this long and quietly heartless winter. Between all the great and terrible things that had been happening to the Realm, it was all too easy to lose track of one life lost, even if it had been lost in an act of courage and dedication to the Realm. One life balanced against all those lost was not a measurable fraction.
But that detail hadn’t mattered to Masha when Bernard had told the little girl that her mother wouldn’t be coming back to her.
The child’s wants were simple: She wanted her mother. That single lost life had turned a little girl’s world into bleak desolation. Masha hadn’t spoken for more than a week and was still plagued with nightmares. At first, Amara and Bernard had tried to calm her down and send Masha back to her own bed, but the trip down the hall was simply too far to walk for the fourth time in an evening when one hadn’t slept properly for several days. Now, as often as not, the child simply stumbled down the hall and into their bed for the comfort and warmth offered by someone who cared, and slept snuggled up firmly between them.
Great furies knew that Masha deserved a chance to smile and to feel joy.
Even if it might not last.
The quiet morning was broken by the distant roar of windstreams being raised to carry multiple flights of either couriers or Knights Aeris into the bright spring skies. Amara frowned back at Garrison, then murmured to her wind fury, Cirrus, and held up her hands before her face. The fury bent the light passing between her hands to give Amara a better field of view, and she saw several distant, dark shapes against the blue skies, racing northwest, southwest, and east.