“I confess,” Gaius murmured, “that had occurred to me in passing.”
Isana shook her head. “I can’t stand these games.”
“I know,” Gaius said.
“But you ask me to save lives by helping to end a war that has gone on for centuries. I can’t refuse, either.”
“I know that, too.”
Isana stared at Gaius for a moment. Then she said, “How can you live with yourself?”
The First Lord stared at her for a moment, his eyes cold. Then he spoke in a very quiet, precise, measured voice. “I look out my window each day. I look out my window at people who live and breathe. At people who have not been devoured by civil war. At people who have not been ravaged by disease. At people who have not starved to death, who have not been hacked apart by enemies of humanity, at people who are free to lie and steal and plot and complain and accuse and behave in all manner of repugnant ways because the Realm stands. Because law and order stands. Because something other than simple violence shapes the course of their lives. And I look, wife of my son, mother of my heir, at a very few decent people who have had the luxury of living their lives without being called upon to make hideous decisions I would not wish upon my worst enemies, and who consequently find such matters morally appalling when they consider them-because they have not had to be the ones who dealt with them.” He took a short, hard swallow of wine. “Feh. Aquitaine thinks me his enemy. The fool. If I truly hated him, I’d give him the Crown.”
A shocked silence followed the First Lord’s words-because though Gaius’s speech had been quiet and calm, the sheer rage and raw… passion… behind the words had shone through like a fire through glass. Isana realized that in his anger he had allowed her to see a portion of his true self-some part of him that was dedicated far beyond himself, very nearly beyond reason, to the preservation of the Realm, to its ongoing survival, and beyond that, to the welfare of its people, freeman and Citizen alike.
Behind the bitterness, the cynicism, the weary suspicion, she had felt that passion before-in Septimus. And in Tavi.
There had been something else, too. Isana glanced at Aria, but though Lady Placida seemed a little startled by the slip in Gaius’s usual mask, there was nothing of the shock that she should have been feeling if she’d sensed what Isana had.
Lady Placida met her eyes and misinterpreted what she saw there. She nodded at Isana, then turned to Gaius. “I will go, sire.”
“Thank you, Aria,” Isana said quietly, and rose. “Everyone. If we could have a moment alone, please, I would appreciate it.”
“Of course,” Lady Placida said, rising. She curtseyed to the First Lord again and withdrew. Sir Ehren, silent the whole while, also retreated, as did Araris, after frowning at Isana in concern. He shut the door behind him.
Isana sat facing the First Lord, alone in the room.
Gaius arched an eyebrow and, for a fleeting second, she sensed uncertainty in him. “Yes?” he asked her.
“We’re private here?” she asked.
He nodded.
“You’re dying.”
He stared at her for a long moment.
“There’s… an awareness. When the mind and body know the time is near. I don’t think many would know it. Or see you at such an… unguarded moment.”
He set the cup of wine down and bowed his head.
Isana rose. She walked calmly around the desk and laid her hand on his shoulder. She felt the First Lord’s frame tremble once. Then his hand rose and covered hers briefly. He squeezed once before withdrawing it again.
“It’s rather important,” he said, after a moment, “that you not speak of it.”
“I understand,” she said quietly. “How long?”
“Months, perhaps,” he said. He coughed again, and she saw him fighting to suppress it, his hands clenching into fists. She reached for the cup of spicewine and passed it to him.
He swallowed a sparing measure and nodded his thanks to her.
“Lungs,” he said after a moment, recovering. “Went swimming in the late autumn when I was young. Took a fever. They always were weak. Then that business in Kalare…”
“Sire,” she said, “would you like me to take a look at them. Perhaps…”
He shook his head. “Furycrafting can only go so far, Isana. I’m old. The damage is long done.” He took a careful, steadying breath, and nodded. “I’ll hang on until Octavian returns. I can do that much.”
“Do you know when he’ll return?”
Gaius shook his head. “He’s beyond my sight,” he replied. “Crows, but I wish I hadn’t let him go. The First Aleran is probably the most seasoned Legion in Alera. I could use them in Ceres right now. To say nothing of him. Hate to say it, but growing up the way he did, no furies at all-it’s given him a crowbegotten tricky mind. He sees things I wouldn’t.”
“Yes,” Isana agreed in a neutral tone.
“How’d you do it?” Gaius asked. “Stifle his furycraft, I mean.”
“His bathwater. It was an accident, really. I was trying to slow his growth. So no one would think him old enough to be Septimus’s son.”
Gaius shook his head. “He should be back by spring.” He closed his eyes. “One more winter.”
Isana could think of nothing further to do or say. She moved quietly to the door.
“Isana,” Gaius said quietly.
She paused.
He looked up at her with weary, sunken eyes. “Get me those Legions. Or by the time he comes home, there might not be much of Alera left.”
CHAPTER 9
After the first six days of the storm, Tavi more or less gave up trying to keep track of time. In the brief periods when he was not too sick to think coherently, he practiced his Canim-mostly the curse words. He’d learned to manage himself well enough to keep from constantly retching, at least, but it was still a miserable way to live, and Tavi did not bother hiding his jealousy at those around him who did not seem subject to the brutal pitching of the Slive under storm.
The winter gale was violent and relentless. The Slive did not simply rock. It positively wallowed, rolling wildly as it pitched back and forth. At times, only the lines fastened across his bunk kept Tavi from being tumbled completely out of it. Between the clouds and the long winter nights, it was dark the vast majority of the time, and lights were only permitted where absolutely necessary and where they could be constantly monitored. A fire on the ship, during such a storm, while unlikely to destroy the vessel on its own, would almost certainly cripple it and leave it easy prey for wind and wave.
Meanwhile, out on the deck, in the howling wind and driving rain and sleet, the sailors of the Slive shouted and labored continuously, constantly lashed by the bellowing voices of Demos and the ship’s officers. Tavi would have joined them if he could, but Demos had flatly refused, on the grounds that serpents and worms had better sea legs, and that he wasn’t going to explain to Gaius Sextus how the heir to the Realm had managed to trip over something while trying to tie a knot he didn’t know very well and fallen to his death in the sea.
So Tavi was left to sit there in the dark, most of the time, feeling vaguely guilty that he stayed in his bunk while others labored to bring the ship through the storm, and bored out of his skull-in addition to being sicker than anyone really ought to be.
The entire business was enough to make him somewhat surly.