“Looks like the Shields’ garrison to the west. They never leave Karis; they’re here to defend the city. Well, really the emperor. Although Harry figured the rankers and junior officers were rotated out fairly regularly to keep them from getting fat and stupid. I bet there’s another way inside the palace wall from the garrison.”
Mirian stopped trying to see across the square and focused on Tomas’ face. “Are you suggesting we stop to take out a division of the Imperial army on the way?”
He grinned. “Why not?”
He was waiting for her to come up with a plan. She could see well enough to see that on his face. They were here, in Karis. What now?
Mirian had no idea. Her entire plan had been to get to Karis and rescue the Mage-pack.
A ridiculously ornate fountain topped with a large statue of an emperor on a rearing horse—maybe Leopald, maybe not—anchored the center of the square. It was, thankfully, the only horse Mirian could see, although there were a lot of people in the square. Sitting around the base of the fountain. Buying meat pies from a cart. Enjoying a beautiful spring day. Mirian had never seen a priest of the sun before, but the trio of men in yellow robes under white tabards were fairly easy to identify even given her vision problems. She could hear music and assumed it came from the cluster of people over by the garrison. When she heard yelling and the swoosh of falling fabric, she turned to see workers—well, dark shapes—on the top of the palace wall hanging yet more banners.
She and Tomas weren’t even the only people in the square clutching bundles and looking lost.
But mostly, there were soldiers. Which made sense if an entire garrison made up the western boundary of the square. Where else would the soldiers go to…?
Tomas’ hand closed around her arm. “Mirian, don’t look, but I think that’s the soldier we escaped from.”
“Captain Reiter.”
“No, he’s no captain.”
Mirian frowned, trying to remember the other man. “Blond? About your height? Kind of squinty-eyed?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Chard.”
“I don’t know his name, but he’s seen us.”
Chapter Fifteen
FOR THE FIRST TIME since the Soothsayers had placed him at the emperor’s elbow, dinner was not served in the Imperial dining room. The palace staff—as opposed to the emperor’s staff—were preparing for the festival.
“On public festivals, the palace is opened up to the citizens of the empire and anyone can wander around as if they have a right to be there.” Major Meritin pushed a pile of paper across his desk toward the corporal waiting for it, leaned back, and continued as the corporal left the room. “Their Imperial Majesties appear off and on throughout the day and have, in the past, gone so far as to interact with random persons in the crowd. It’s a security nightmare.”
Tavert had already explained what happened at a public festival, up to and including the phrase: it’s a security nightmare. That wasn’t why Reiter was in Major Meritin’s office. “So you’ll have to deploy more Shields within the palace.”
“I tend to think of it as more of a reassignment than a deployment, Captain, but yes, I will. More than a few. You won’t be one of them. I know,” the major raised a hand before Reiter could argue. “You’re bored spitless playing politics, but, honestly, all you can hope for at this point is for the flaming Soothsayers to announce you’ll be better off at the border. You’re not under my command; I can’t reassign you. Even temporarily. Enjoy your freedom.”
If the major saw him wince at the word, he didn’t mention it.
He had the rest of the day and most of tomorrow until he was required to dance attendance on the emperor again although, as Tavert had reminded him, he could be recalled to the palace at any time.
The guards at the north gate took his name, and he stepped out into Citizens’ Square.
A band practiced for the festival to the west by the garrison wall. Half a dozen or so people sat around the base of the fountain. Three kids chased the pigeons. Two old women were arguing loudly about…cheese? It sounded like cheese. There were soldiers walking toward the garrison gates. And soldiers walking away from the garrison gates. There were soldiers gathered around the meat pie cart, so old Duff was probably selling off the last of the day’s stock.
Out of his braid, Reiter looked like any other soldier killing time in Citizens’ Square.
He didn’t look like he knew the sound bones made cracked between teeth, or the smell of burnt fur when a charged staff finally came into play, or the look of hate in eyes that were not an animal’s eyes. He didn’t look like the man the Soothsayers had given to the emperor. He didn’t look like he knew what he knew and had seen what he’d seen.
He wanted to take that anonymity to the Blue Goose, the least disreputable tavern his rank would allow him into, eat greasy food, drink cheap liquor, and start a fight where he could use his fists to pound out his anger and frustration. He wanted to. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t guarantee his tongue if he got drunk, wouldn’t recognize one of the emperor’s special guards if the ass bought him a drink, and while he hated the thought of the beastmen starving, he had no desire to be the next to feed them.
So he’d find a coffee shop and eat, find a whorehouse and fuck, buy a bottle and take it back to his room and empty it where no one could overhear what the liquor let loose. If he were very lucky, he’d be called to the emperor while he was drunk and get bounced back to private and sent to one of the southern colonies to fight natives, disease, and heat.
Halfway across the square toward the shops fronting the north side, Reiter saw Chard talking to a young couple obviously in from the country for the festival. No one from Karis wore that much homespun.
He walked another three steps before he recognized them.
“The mage who escaped from you, my sixth mage; I have word that she’s on her way to Karis.”
Not only Mirian, but Tomas.
He’d freed them, burn it! Freed them and here they were, ready to play a part in the emperor’s horror story.
And Chard was talking to them. The one person in the entire flaming city who’d recognize them on sight.
But Chard hadn’t given the alarm. Did he not know who they were?
Reiter angled west. No one would suspect one soldier talking to another. No one should suspect…anything if he talked to Chard. They’d spent days together on the road before he’d disappeared into the palace.
“Private Chard.”
“Captain Reiter!” Chard spun around and smiled so broadly Reiter could see a missing back tooth. “You’re not in an oubliette!”
Behind Chard, Mirian put her hand on Tomas’ arm. Just a touch, but it closed his mouth and held him in place. They were both wound so tightly—eyes a little wild, breathing fast and shallow—he was amazed at their control.
“Do you even know what an oubliette is, Chard?”
“Sure, Cap, it’s like a dungeon. Sergeant Black said you were probably in one.” Chard pushed an obviously new bicorn up off his forehead and scratched at the red line where the leather binding had pressed into his skin. “I think he was kidding, but I bet there’s bits in that palace no one knows about, right? The sarge got sent north to the Spears and that trouble in the port. They’re wanting rights about something, I dunno. Pretty near everyone that went into Aydori got reassigned out of Karis. Just me and Corporal Selven and Hare, and now you, left as Shields. And you disappeared. I heard some guy named Linnit cleared your stuff out of quarters.” He took a deep breath and flushed. “I’m glad you’re not court-martialed or dead.”
“Why would I be dead?”