Aria tilted her head. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Without the northern Legions, the Vord could destroy us all,” Isana said, her voice quiet and firm. “When my son comes home, Alera is still going to be here.”
“Isana, dear. I understand why you did it. What I don’t see is how the bloody crows you think killing yourself is going to accomplish your goal.”
“Reasoning with him is useless,” Isana said. “He’s too wrapped up in the conflict here, in the loss. You saw him at the funeral.”
Aria folded her arms against her stomach. “He’s not the only one who feels that way.”
“But he is the only one who commands the loyalty of Antillus’s Legions.” Isana frowned. “Well. I suppose Crassus or Maximus might be able to do so. Crassus has the legal right and Maximus has served multiple terms as an infantryman. I suspect that would give him a strong popularity with-”
“Isana,” Aria interrupted quietly, “you’re babbling. My nieces do this to my sister when they’re trying to avoid discussing something.”
“I am not babbling,” Isana said.
“Then at the risk of making you feel somewhat foolish, I should point out that neither Maximus nor Crassus is in Alera. Even if you succeed in your duel-which I regard as something as close to impossible as anything can be-then what will you have gained? Raucus will be dead, in which case the Legions will almost certainly not abandon their posts on the walls. Anyone that is appointed to stand as regent until Crassus returns will certainly not pursue a radical change in policy.
“And,” she added, “if you lose, you will be dead. Raucus will almost certainly do exactly as he has been doing.”
“I’m not going to lose,” Isana said, “and he’s not going to die.”
“In a duel to the death-one which you instigated.” Aria shook her head. “I know you didn’t go to the Academy, but… there is something called ‘diplomacy, ’ Isana.”
“There isn’t time,” Isana said quietly. “Just as there wasn’t time earlier today, Aria.” She felt her cheeks heat slightly. “When I hit you. For which I must now apologize.”
Aria opened her mouth, then pressed her lips into a line and shook her head. “No. In retrospect… it may have been for the best.”
“Necessary or not, I wronged you. I’m sorry.”
Some of the rigid tension eased slowly from Aria’s stance, and the sense of angry restraint around her faded slightly. “I wasn’t thinking very clearly,” she said. “Afterward, I… I felt the way they were communicating with one another. I’ve never sensed anything like that before. And you felt it yesterday.” She shrugged. “You were right about them. I didn’t-” Aria’s eyes widened, and she looked up at Isana with her mouth open. “Great furies, Isana. That’s what this is. You’re slapping Raucus across the face to get his attention.”
“If I’d thought a slap across the face would do the job,” Isana said wryly, “I would have stopped before I dropped the challenge onto him.” She shook her head. “I have to reach him. I have to get through his anger and his pride. And there’s no time, Aria.”
Lady Placida stood silently for several long seconds. Then she said, “I’ve known Raucus since I was fourteen years old. We were… close, back then, at the Academy. And this is dangerous, Isana. Very dangerous.” She glanced at the door and then back to her. “I’ll go talk to him.”
“It isn’t going to change his mind about the duel,” Isana said.
“No,” Aria said calmly. She gave Isana a slight smile. “But perhaps there will be a miracle and his stiff neck will bend half an inch.” She nodded. “At least I can lay a foundation you might be able to build upon.”
“Thank you,” Isana said quietly.
“Thank me if you survive,” Aria replied, and slipped quietly out of the room.
Several hours later, Isana had taken a private meal and sat reading dispatches from the south, sent by water fury and transcribed for her and for Lord Antillus.
Matters had grown worse. Ceres was overrun, and the Vord were harrying the Aleran forces, who had been forced to fight a series of desperate actions to slow the advancing horde enough to allow desperate civilians to flee. Teams of engineers were dismantling causeways as they went, destruction that would take decades of effort to repair-if it ever was.
Losses in the Legions were hideous-worse than anything seen in Kalarus’s rebellion or in the battle with the Canim. Militias were mobilizing all throughout Alera, with priority given to those younger men who had most recently left the Legions-but virtually every male in the Realm had served at least a single two-year term in the Legions, and everyone was being called upon to take up arms again.
The problem, of course, was in supplying those arms. Legionares were not allowed to keep their weaponry and armor upon leaving the Legion-they were left to be used by the recruits arriving to take their places. Most legionares retired to their steadholts, where the only weapons readily available, affordable, and necessary were bows and the occasional hunting spear.
In the cities, of course, there were the civic legions-but they were peacekeepers and investigators, not soldiers. Lightly armored, generally more familiar with truncheons than swords, and used to operating in an entirely different manner than armies in the field, they were of more use organizing refugees and preventing crimes among the displaced population than in actual combat with the enemy. In both cities and in the smaller towns, each lord and Count would generally maintain a small body of personal armsmen, but those rarely consisted of more than twenty or thirty men. There were similarly a limited number of professional soldiers, generally roving from job to job, plying the trade of violence out from under the rigid structure of the Legions. But all in all, there were fewer weapons available than hands to wield them, and peaceful steadholt smithies across the Realm were desperately forging steel for use in Alera’s defense.
The thought of that chilled Isana. Back at her own steadholt-her former steadholt, she supposed wistfully-there would be a flurry of activity. Harvest would have been well over a few weeks ago. Elder Frederic would be at Araris’s old forge, laboring on weapons instead of horseshoes. Children would be gathering slender branches, smoothing and straightening them into arrow shafts, while their older siblings were taught how to fletch feathers, fix nocks, and secure arrowheads onto them.
Isana bowed her head and set the dispatches aside. She had seen what war could do to the steadholts of the Calderon Valley. She had seen the slaughtered livestock, the burned-out buildings, the broken, discarded bodies. Isanaholt had been spared the scythe, so far. But it could easily, so easily, be her own stock that was hacked apart, her own outbuildings fired, her own people piled in pathetic windrows of empty flesh on the bloodied earth.
She set the dispatches aside and bowed her head. Was it selfish of her to worry so for the people on her own steadholt when so many other steadholts were in danger? When so many other steadholts had already been overwhelmed by the enemy? She was claiming the title of First Lady. She had a responsibility to far more people than the folk of a single tiny steadholt-yet they were Alerans, too.
Besides, was there really any choice? Could she not fear for them?
There was a brisk knock at the door and Isana looked up as the door opened to reveal Antillus Raucus. She could hear the movement of feet on stone in the hallway outside. Evidently, the High Lord had been accompanied by singulares when he came calling. Isana wasn’t sure if she was amused by the fact that he might have felt threatened enough to need them. More likely, he had brought them as witnesses to verify that he had not attempted any wrongdoing in coming to speak to her.