“Thought I’d missed you,” he said, walking with her down the hall.
“No.” She forced a welcoming smile on her face.
He linked arms with her. “I’m glad,” he said. “I don’t get much time off. With my Knack and all, the field marshal likes me to put in extra hours.”
“Of course.” She paused. “You should take more time for yourself.”
“I would like to. But only to be with you.”
That wouldn’t do at all.
“Are you sure?”
“Sure about what?”
“That you want to be with me?” She stopped and slipped her arm out of his. “Why do you come to me, Olem? I’m not a good prospect. I’ve no family or connections, and you’ve not tried to force yourself on me. I don’t understand you.”
The corner of Olem’s mouth lifted. “When the time’s right, I won’t have to force you.”
She smacked his shoulder, her cheeks flushing despite herself.
He laughed. “Come here,” he said. “I want to show you something.” He took her arm again and led her down a side hallway. “You know,” he said, “I wondered about you after you disappeared from the Eldaminse townhouse.”
“You did?”
“I wondered especially when we couldn’t find the Eldaminse boy.”
Nila tripped, and would have fallen if Olem didn’t have her arm. Her heart began to hammer in her chest.
Olem continued, “Then I saw you at the barricades. I couldn’t get to you. I couldn’t leave the field marshal in the chaos of things, but I asked the men not to hurt you when they fetched the boy.”
Nila felt her whole body shaking. Olem knew. He’d known all along that she was a royalist. Why had it taken him so long to call her out? Why wasn’t she leaning over a headsman’s block instead of strolling down the hall with him?
Olem stopped beside a soldier at a door at the end of one hall. The soldier saluted him, and he acknowledged by touching a finger to his forehead. The soldier opened the door for them.
Here it was, Nila thought. She was about to be put under guard. Hidden away until the next round of beheadings. Would they send her straight to Sabletooth? She still had her knife. She could attack Olem… but he’d expect that. She’d wait until he was gone and another guard had taken his place.
The room was dark except for a single lantern on a table by a window. It didn’t look like a prison cell. There was a bed, a writing desk, and a divan. An old woman dressed in servant’s clothes snoozed in a chair next to the bed.
“Go on,” Olem said quietly.
She entered the room. Olem crossed over to the lantern and picked it up. There was something on the table next to the lantern. A toy horse made of wood. Nila found herself kneeling by the bedside. There was a form there, sleeping soundly, bundled up to the chin beneath blankets.
Jakob looked healthier. His hair had been cut and dyed, his cheeks fuller, and there were now smile lines at the corners of his mouth.
“Tamas is not the heartless man most people think he is,” Olem said. “He won’t kill an innocent child. He sent no one to the guillotine under the age of seventeen on the day of the Elections. He had a rumor started that all the children of the nobility were strangled quietly in order to explain away their disappearance.”
Nila brushed her fingers across Jakob’s forehead. “What happened to them? What will happen to him?”
“Sent away,” Olem said. “Some to Novi or Rosvel. Some to the countryside.”
“Can I see him when he’s awake?”
“No. He mustn’t know anyone from his former life. He mustn’t grow up thinking he’s something special. He’ll be sent to live on a farm, where his life will be hard but not dangerous or complex. He might marry a laundress someday. But he’ll never be king.”
Nila knelt beside Jakob’s bedside for several minutes before Olem drew her away. The lamp was returned, and the guard locked the door to the nursery behind them. Around the corner, Nila clutched the field marshal’s uniform to her chest.
Olem stood, hands clasped behind his back, face serious. “You must hate us,” he said. “For destroying your world. I’m sorry for that. But Tamas… all of us… we did it so that the commoners can know a good life someday. So that we are no longer slaves.”
“I was happy, I think,” Nila said.
“The best kind of slavery,” Olem said. “But still slavery.” He fell silent for a couple of moments. “I’ll understand if you want a transfer away from the field marshal. It must be hard for you, knowing what he did to people you once served. He’ll be furious. He says you’re the first laundress to starch his collars right since he was in Gurla.”
“And you?” Nila said.
Olem struck a match and lit a cigarette, letting out a long sigh. “You can’t like someone knowing your secret. The field marshal pardoned the royalists, but there’s still no trust of them in the army. I won’t tell anyone. And I’ll leave you alone.”
Nila searched Olem’s face for insincerity. She couldn’t find any. She had no doubt that if she said the word right now, he’d never speak to her again. His cigarette rolled between his lips. He took a long puff, then took it out, looking away. Giving her time to think it over.
“Are you sure you weren’t a gentleman in another life?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” Olem said, turning back to her. His face was still uncommonly serious.
Nila tried to tell herself that this changed nothing. That Tamas was still a monster who endangered Adro every moment he remained alive. But Olem had revealed that Tamas was human. That he had compassion. Nila could not look into the eyes of another person and take their life when she knew they still had humanity.
She hated Olem for it.
“I’d prefer,” she said, clasping her hands behind her back so that Olem couldn’t see them shake, “that we not speak again.”
Olem stiffened. His eyes fell, and his serious demeanor dropped long enough for her to see his sadness before he straightened his back. “Of course, ma’am.”
Nila watched him walk down the hall and brushed a tear from the corner of her eye. To do what needed to be done, she had to be cruel. No time to cry. There was still laundry to do before the house awoke.
Chapter 32
Taniel approached the bastion gate wondering how the St. Adom’s Day Festival was progressing in Adro. They’d received a shipment of food that morning: barrels of ale, salted pork, and beef of the highest quality. Much better fare than normally seen on the Mountainwatch.
Mozes was already at the gate, and armed to the teeth with knives, pistols, and a rifle. Rina, the Watch kennelmaster and one of Bo’s women, stood opposite of Mozes, crouched among her dogs. The beasts gave a quiet whine when Taniel approached. He squatted a few feet away and examined them in the torchlight.
There were three big, long-haired mastiffs. They wore black spiked collars, and were attached to Rina by nothing more than leather harnesses. Bigger than wolves, they could pull her off the mountain easily if they wished.
“What are the hounds for?” Taniel asked.
Rina didn’t look up from her hounds. “The tunnel,” she said. Her voice was low, gentle. “I trained these three in the mines. They’ll cross forty yards and bring down a Privileged in a second. Musket fire doesn’t bother them.” She scratched one behind the ears. He turned toward her, massive head cocked, tongue rolling.
“What are their names?”
She pointed to the biggest one. “Kresim.” The next, “Lourad.” She patted the one who she’d been scratching. “And this is Gael.”
Taniel held a hand out to Kresim. The dog sniffed once and turned away.
“They’re not trained to be friends,” she said.
“They like you enough.”
She nodded. “I’m the master.”
“I see.” Taniel stood up. Bo arrived with Katerine, who gave them all a look of disapproval. Bo squatted beside Rina and slid a hand up around her waist. Lourad growled low in the back of his throat.