“With respect, sir,” Marcus said, “Antillus Crassus is dying now.”
The woman’s eyes opened instantly, and she met Marcus’s gaze with her own. Her stare was penetrating. She removed her hands from Bartillus’s head and rose to approach the Tribune Medica.
“I’ve knitted the bone and controlled the swelling, sir,” she said in a soft voice, her eyes downcast. “I’d be happy to help Tribune Antillus.”
The Tribune frowned at her, then at Marcus. Then he waved his hand in a vague gesture, and said, “Don’t be gone any longer than you need to be.”
“Yes, sir,” Dorotea answered. She looked up at Marcus briefly. “I’m ready, First Spear.”
Marcus nodded to her, and they hurried to cross the field back toward the First Aleran’s healers.
“The Princeps told you who I am,” the woman observed.
“Aye, Your Grace.”
She shook her head wearily. “No, no, no. I am no longer that woman.”
“Because of that collar,” Marcus said. “There must be some way to remove it.”
“I don’t want to remove it,” she said calmly. “To be honest, I like the person I am now a great deal more than who I once was.”
“That’s the collar talking,” Marcus said quietly.
Dorotea, the former High Lady of Antillus, walked for several steps before she admitted, “Possibly. However, the fact is that there is no future for High Lady Antillus, whereas Dorotea has saved lives, helped people, and done more good in the past three years than she had in her entire previous life.”
“But you’re trapped there,” Marcus said. “Bound to obey the commands of others. Forbidden to do harm, even to defend yourself.”
“And liking it that way, First Spear.” She looked ahead to the healer’s tent. “How severe are my son’s injuries?”
“I’m no healer,” Marcus replied. “But I’ve seen Foss handle very serious injuries. Some of them were my own. If he’s struggling…”
Dorotea nodded once, her expression serene. “Then we shall see what we shall see.” She glanced obliquely at Marcus. “Does my son know?”
Marcus shook his head.
She nodded. “I should prefer to keep it that way. It’s better for everyone.”
“Of course.”
“I thank you.” Dorotea’s eyes flickered with uncertainty and fear, and her footsteps increased in speed as they drew near the tent. “Oh,” she breathed. “Oh, I can… He’s in so much pain.”
Marcus did not follow her. A few seconds after Dorotea entered the tent, Magnus pushed the flap aside and walked up to Marcus, his eyes hard.
“What in the name of the great furies do you think you’re doing?” he hissed at Marcus. “You know who she is.”
“Yes,” Marcus said placidly.
“And it never occurred to you that she might well hold a grudge against the Crown for the way her brother and his resources were destroyed? That she might resent her current status intensely enough to strike out at the Crown in vengeance?”
“She’s bound to do no harm,” Marcus pointed out.
“And she’ll not need to do any harm to kill the Princeps, if he is in trouble. All she’ll have to do is fail to save the messenger. Given her limits, how often in a lifetime of waiting could such an opportunity for vengeance present itself?”
“If the messenger was anyone else, I’d agree with you,” Marcus said calmly. “She won’t allow her child to die to satisfy her vengeance-presuming that she wants such a thing.”
The Cursor stared steadily at Marcus for a long moment. Then he said, softly, “And if you’re wrong?”
“I’m not.”
The old Cursor’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve given it much more thought than I would have expected from a career soldier.”
Tension made an iron bar of the First Spear’s neck, but he forced himself not to allow it to spread to his shoulders and back, where Magnus would have no trouble observing it. “Wasn’t a hard batch of thinking,” Marcus said, keeping his tone even and confident. “I was there when the two of them came down to join the First Aleran. Saw them together. She doted on that boy.”
Magnus made a noise that seemed to be a grudging agreement. His worried eyes shifted from Marcus to the healer’s tent. “I’d best be inside, in case Crassus wakes.”
“Go ahead,” Marcus said. He glanced across the open ground to the walls of the city of Molvar, barely half a mile away. “There’s plenty of work to be done on the palisade, still, and we want it in place before we move the stores up from the ships.”
Magnus nodded. “What of the Narashans?”
“They’re making camp on the plain on the opposite side of the city,” Marcus said. “I’m making arrangements to establish runners between our camps.”
Magnus arched an eyebrow in silent question.
“They’re the closest thing we have to an ally,” Marcus said.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend?” the Cursor asked.
“The enemy of my enemy is just that,” Marcus replied. “It’s foolish to assume anything more. But we share a common interest that is threatened by a larger foe. If Narashan relations with the Shuarans fall to bits, Nasaug is practical enough to take any help he can get.”
“And if our relations with the Shuarans fall out, there is a bond between Nasaug and the Free Aleran,” Magnus murmured. “Enough of one to convince them to assist us?”
“No knowing,” the First Spear replied. “Can’t hurt to keep talking to them.”
“Agreed,” Magnus said. “I’ll send someone as soon as we know something. Meanwhile, let the Knights Aeris know that they may be needed to fly at a moment’s notice.”
“Aye.”
The elderly Cursor nodded and turned to head back into the healer’s tent.
Marcus watched him go, then raised a hand to rub at the wooden muscles on the back of his neck. Crows take it, what is the matter with me today? Magnus was right to be suspicious. Valiar Marcus might be a consummate soldier, a stalwart veteran, but such men did not tend to make such delicate and dangerous wagers with the safety of someone like the Princeps-or if they did make them, they put their money on the conservative side of the bet. What in the world had prompted him to fetch Lady Antillus to assist Crassus without first conceiving a convincing explanation as to why Marcus would bring her?
The First Spear turned on a heel and marched back out toward the palisades, taking a route that would let him walk past the barracks area of the Legion’s Knights.
There was plenty of work to occupy his mind-which was likely the problem.
Crassus survived.
Marcus strode into the healer’s tent three hours later, to find the young Tribune lying on a cot, covered by a blanket. Lady Antillus was nowhere to be seen, but Magnus was sitting on a camp stool beside the cot, a simple wooden framework with a sheet of canvas serving as the bed. Foss hovered nearby and seemed to be busy cleaning out a tub-but Marcus could all but feel the man itching to tell them to leave his patient to recover in peace.
Magnus nodded to the First Spear as he entered. “He’s dozing,” he said quietly. “But I wanted you here when I asked him to speak.”
“Certainly.” Marcus came to stand beside Magnus, frowning down at the young man. Crassus was pale, but whole. Where there had been three or four wounds on his shoulders and head, there was only the pink skin of freshly healed flesh. The wounds were all punctures-lines no more than two inches wide that had gaped like open mouths over deep wounds. Marcus would have thought them to be dagger wounds, had it happened to the boy on the streets of an Aleran city.
But what the crows had given the boy such wounds in the skies over Canea?