“He was a good man,” Tamas said.
“His son…”
“Dead,” Tamas said. “Olem, I want Ryze’s remains found. He was hit by sorcery, so there won’t be much left. Scour the King’s Wood if you have to. I want him buried along with his son, next to his wife, with state honors.”
“Of course,” Olem said quietly.
“What do I tell the Lady?” Sabastenien said. He was stricken. Tamas saw him for the youth he was then, and pitied him.
“You shot him in my defense,” Tamas said softly. “I’ll not allow a court-martial.”
“I killed Lady Winceslav’s lover, a fellow brigadier,” Sabastenien said. His voice shook. “I’ll be drummed out of the Wings with dishonor, no matter the reason.” He paused. “May I go?”
“Of course. You’ll always have a place in my army,” he said. When the young brigadier had left, Tamas said to Olem, “Have someone keep an eye on him.”
Olem frowned. “He heard it all. He did the right thing. Why should he care if they kick him out of the Wings? The army is certainly a pay cut, but…”
“The Wings aren’t just mercenaries, Olem,” Tamas said. His weariness was breaking through the powder trance, the pain beginning to bleed into his defenses. “The Wings are a life. A brotherhood. To kill one of their own is the worst of crimes. Even for treason, when they handle it among themselves, the executioner is protected, unknown, so that his brothers will not find out and alienate him. Sabastenien’s career with the Wings is over.”
Olem turned his frown on Tamas. “Then, why…?”
Tamas sighed. He brought out another powder charge, longed to sprinkle the powder on his tongue. He put it back in his shirt pocket. “You’ll think me cruel,” he said. “I need Sabastenien on the lines. If he survives this war, he’ll be a general at thirty.” He ignored Olem’s look of disapproval. “Have someone ready to offer him a job when he’s been drummed out. Full commander.”
Tamas leaned over his chair, head light, and vomited on the floor. He dragged his sleeve across his mouth and looked up at Olem’s worried gaze. “I think I’ll rest for a while now.”
Olem went to fetch a janitor. Tamas leaned back in his chair, tasting bile. He’d taken care of the fox in his henhouse. Now he had to find the lion among his cattle.
Nila couldn’t take her eyes off the blood on the sofa.
She wondered if Field Marshal Tamas had shot the man whose blood spattered the Royal Offices, or if he’d had one of his underlings do it. She knew he could kill casually. She’d seen him gun down Bystre in the streets without a second look.
“Olem, I…” The field marshal leveraged himself around his dressing screen and stopped when he saw Nila. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Didn’t realize they’d sent someone up to clean up the mess already.”
Mess, he called it. As if the bits of brain and skull and all the blood were nothing more than the leftovers from dinner.
“My apologies, sir,” Nila said with a curtsy. “I was just told to come get your uniform.”
“Of course. The laundress. Olem! Help me get this uniform off.”
Olem came through the front door, rolling a cigarette between his fingers. He smiled at Nila before heading behind the dressing screen.
“Damned blood got everywhere,” the field marshal said.
“That’s what happens, sir.”
“Ow. Son of a… be more careful!”
“So sorry, sir.”
“Damn my leg!”
“There’s a lady present, sir.”
The field marshal’s curses lowered to a grumble for a few moments. Olem reappeared a moment later with the field marshal’s uniform tucked under his arm and gave it over to Nila. The bearded sergeant looked different from that night when Adran soldiers had stormed the Eldaminse townhouse. A touch of gray had entered his beard; worry lines at the corner of his eyes were etched a little deeper. Nila had seen him around the House of Nobles, but he’d shown no recognition of her.
“Think you could wash the curtains, too?” Olem asked. “Who knows when they’ll send up someone to get to the upholstery?”
“Of course,” Nila said.
Field Marshal Tamas limped out from behind the dressing screen and over to his desk. He wore a white shirt and blue soldier’s pants. His face was white and bloodless from his ordeals. Nila wondered what that face would look like after she’d strangled him in his sleep.
Olem removed the curtains from the windows and gathered them all up in his arms. “Sir,” he said, “I’ll help her downstairs with these and be right back up.”
“Take your time,” the field marshal said, waving him off. “Charlemund has sent me some idiotic church decree that must be read by supper.”
“I can take them,” Nila said when they reached the hallway.
Olem tucked the curtains under one arm. “I don’t mind. The field marshal demands time alone now and then.”
“Aren’t you his bodyguard?”
“His manservant, more like,” he said without bitterness. “We’ve tripled the guard on the top floor. Anything that can get through the rest of the boys watching his back would have no trouble with me. Cigarette?”
Nila studied Olem out of the corner of her eye as they went down the stairs. “Thank you,” she said, taking the offered cigarette. He began rolling another one immediately.
“You don’t seem the shy type,” Olem said. “But the boys say you don’t talk much.”
Cold fear seized Nila’s belly. Why would Field Marshal Tamas’s bodyguard be asking after her? “I keep to myself, mostly,” she said evenly.
“That’s what I heard.” He let the conversation lapse for a moment, then, “I didn’t think I’d see you again after that night.”
Nila’s heart jumped. He remembered her? She didn’t want to be remembered. She didn’t want to be recognized. If he knew who she was, maybe he had figured out it was her who’d smuggled Jakob out of the townhouse.
“Oh?” she said when she’d found her voice.
“You seem better suited here than scrubbing livery for some lord,” Olem said. “I like your dress. Better than what you were wearing before.”
Nila tried to picture her uniform under Duke Eldaminse. She found she couldn’t even remember what it looked like. She needed to turn the conversation away from herself. She didn’t need him asking questions.
“You were wearing something different, too,” she said.
Olem fingered the captain’s pin at his lapel. “The field marshal said his bodyguard couldn’t be less than a captain.” He shrugged. “I’m not much of an officer. Never liked them much, myself. I’ll take the pay that comes with it, though.”
Olem removed his cigarette, switched it to his other hand, and put it back in his mouth. He stopped suddenly, forcing her to turn around. “Would you like to see a play tonight?” he asked.
Nila blinked. A play? So he wasn’t interested in her in his capacity as Field Marshal Tamas’s bodyguard. She couldn’t help the relieved grin that spread across her face.
Olem seemed to take that as a yes. “The field marshal insisted I take the night off. Not many better ways to spend it than with a beautiful woman.”
“I’d be honored.” She gave him a little curtsy and what she hoped was her best shy smile.
They reached the laundry rooms beneath the House of Nobles and Olem left her. She looked through her supplies to find something that would get the blood out of the curtains and the field marshal’s uniform. As she scrubbed at the stains, she reminded herself that she was here to kill Tamas. She wouldn’t let Olem stop her or distract her. He seemed a good man, but he served an evil master. Tamas had to die before he could get more blood on his uniform. He’d killed men, women. Even innocent children. He had to be stopped.
Olem mentioned he wasn’t the field marshal’s only guard. If she killed Tamas sometime when Olem was off duty, then he wouldn’t be blamed by the failure. Yes, that would be best. She scrubbed harder at the stains.
Chapter 29