She was just beginning her search for a bell or a cord to summon a servant when a scratch came at the door and Vincen’s muffled voice came after. “If you’re ready, m’lady?”
The hall was a tunnel of stone with lanterns hung at the corners filling the air with buttery light and the scent of oil. He looked better. He’d shaved and his long brown hair caught the glow of the light. Too thin, though. God, they were both too thin.
“Have you been eavesdropping on me?” she asked.
“I hear that all the best servants do,” he said. “Makes us seem cleverer than we are.”
She stepped into his enfolding arms, resting her head against his breast. It was difficult not to weep, though she didn’t feel at all sorrowful. It was simply a thing her body did after death had tapped her shoulder and then walked past. Vincen stroked her damp hair, kissed her temple, and pushed her gently back.
“We did it,” Clara said. “We went through the closed pass at Bellin, just before the thaw.”
“And we only lost a third of our men,” Vincen said. “The locals are telling us that we’re crazy, brave, and lucky as hell.”
“What a world that this is good luck,” she said.
“You’re here. It’s enough for me.”
She was tempted to pull him into the little room and draw him onto the cot. It wasn’t lust, or not lust alone. It was also that he was alive and she was alive and the trek through hell behind them. He saw the thought in her eyes and smiled, blushing. “Your son is waiting. They have a meeting room set up farther in the mountain.”
“Of course,” she said crisply. “Lead on.”
She had heard of Bellin before she knew it. A free city mostly within the flesh of the mountain, built who knew how many centuries before by Dartinae miners and then abandoned when the great plague struck their race. She had passed it less than a year before, following Jorey and his army in disguise. Being within the tunnels was different from knowing the story of them. Reality gave it weight, but also stole away the romance of it. She’d imagined grottoes within the stone, carved walls with the forms of dragons and men, light coaxed down through shafts high above or created in bright crystal lanterns. In the experience of it, it felt more like a complex mine mixed with the narrow streets of Camnipol’s poorer quarters. Less impressive than her imagination, but impressive for being actual.
“The men are being housed outside for the most part,” Vincen said. “But we’ve got good leather tents and the local cunning men are helping with the sick. They’ve eaten real food for two days straight as well, which appears to have helped more than anything. Jorey and his captains have rooms in the city proper, and Captain Wester and Master Kit besides. No one’s said anything, but they seem to recognize that Wester’s advice is worth considering.”
“How are we paying for all this?” Clara asked. “It isn’t as though we brought any coin to speak of.”
“We’re an army, m’lady. They show that we’re all friends by housing and feeding us, we show we appreciate it by not killing them all and taking what we want. That’s tradition.”
“As I recall it, we wouldn’t have been able to slaughter and loot a wet kitten before they took us in,” Clara said.
“Having one of the priests there to smooth the way was a blessing.”
Clara smiled and chuckled, though something about the idea sat poorly with her. She put it aside for another time. For the moment, gratitude that the world had seen fit to keep her warm and fed was enough.
The meeting room was round and roughly cut. The air smelled of dust and smoke, but didn’t feel close breathing it. A low table of polished oak with legs of iron commanded the center of the room. Maps and papers were laid out upon it. She caught a glimpse of a troop list. Many of the names had been crossed through. Men of Antea as loyal to the throne as Lord Skestinin, and on much the same terms. They would not be going home.
Also at the table was Marcus Wester. The journey appeared to have affected him least, though how that was possible she could not have said. Perhaps he was simply the sort of man that thrived on travesty.
“Good to see you up and about, Lady Kalliam,” the mercenary captain said with a little grudging bow.
“I am very pleased to have the opportunity to be seen,” she said. “I thank you for that.”
“It’s the job,” Wester said, then, as if he realized how rude he sounded, “You’re welcome, though.”
“We were looking at the path from here,” Jorey said, turning to the map. “The dragon’s road leads east to Orsen, and then north, which brings us near to Elassae.”
“Can we not cross through here?” she asked, tracing a finger more directly from Bellin to Camnipol.
“That’d mean the Dry Wastes,” Wester said. “We could try it, but it would make the pass look like a stroll through the garden. I wouldn’t give odds of six of us making the whole way.”
“Then Orsen?” Clara said. Jorey shot a glance at Wester, as if he hoped to read the right answer in the older man’s face. Wester shrugged.
“It’s got its dangers, but I don’t see safe on the table anywhere.”
Jorey nodded. “We’ll give the men one more day to rest, and then start out. With the road, the path should be quicker.”
“There’s quite a bit that’s quicker than slogging through snow up to your asshole,” Wester said, then grimaced his regrets to Clara. She pretended not to have noticed the vulgarity. “But yes. It won’t be a bad trot, compared to what we’ve done.”
“Well then,” Clara said. “Good that the worst is over.”
“Wouldn’t go that far,” Wester said, but he did not elaborate.
Marcus
Marcus still wore servant’s robes. He still pretended to wait on Lady Kalliam and walked beside the new and skittish horse offered up by the aristocracy of Bellin. Even in private, he never presented the Lord Marshal with orders. Just suggestions that the boy knew better than to deviate from. He had a story prepared if the others became suspicious. He was ready to claim Jorey’s mother had hired him on as an unofficial advisor. He even had a name picked out: Darus Oak, mercenary captain from the Keshet. As they walked through freezing mud and snow turning to slush, he amused himself by inventing Oak’s history and exploits, his loves and humiliations. His tragic failures and brilliancies and dumb-luck escapes. It came of traveling with actors, he supposed. It took his mind off the march.
When he wasn’t lost in his own flights of fancy, Clara Kalliam made for pleasant company. She had a better understanding of field wars than most women of court, which was to say she had any at all. More than that, she knew in a general sense what she didn’t know, and asked smart questions. Still, he was careful not to be too harsh in laying fault at her son’s feet. Wasn’t any call to be rude about things.
“He’s smart,” Marcus said. “That’s not the issue. It’s Palliako’s failing. I’ve seen it any number of times before. It doesn’t matter if it’s a garrison command or kingdom or the bastard who’s picking the gate guard. He chooses the person because he trusts them, not because they can do the job. Give Jorey another five or ten years in the field, he’d be a fine Lord Marshal. It’s just he’s green.”
Lady Kalliam nodded. “That’s my fault, I’m afraid.”
“Raising him different wouldn’t have helped,” Marcus said. “It’s experience he needs.”
“I meant that I arranged that the last Lord Marshal should be caught conspiring against Geder. Lord Ternigan was quite accomplished in the field, but Geder killed him all the same. Because of me.”
They walked for a few moments in silence.
“That’s a stronger case for it being your fault than I’d expected,” Marcus said.