“My lord,” Vincen said. “My congratulations on today’s victory.”
“Fuck you,” Flor said, and the men with him sniggered. “You’re out here desecrating our fallen, and you have the gall to congratulate me? You should be begging for mercy.”
Clara’s throat closed with fear. There was a madness in Flor’s voice. A joy and a violence that sank her heart in black dread. Two of the soldiers moved out to the left, opening Vincen’s flank.
“We’ve done nothing wrong,” Vincen said. “We’re traveling with the caravan. Supporting the soldiers.”
“Feeding off us like ticks, I say,” one of Flor’s men growled.
“I’ve taken nothing from the Antean dead,” Vincen said. “All I have is from the locals. You can have it, if you like. Take all of it.”
“Oh, I will,” Flor said, rolling the words out slowly. Tasting them. “Boys?”
They fell on him together. Four men against one. Soldiers against a man of their own nation. It was fists at first, and then when Vincen fell, feet. Clara felt as if she’d turned to stone. One of them lifted a knife.
When Clara cried out it was not the cry of animal fear that she expected. The words came out of her mouth crisply and as bright as if she’d polished them. “Kestin Amril Flor, you will stop this behavior at once, or by God I will have words with your mother.”
The astonishment on Flor’s face was instantaneous and profound. The thugs paused in their assault, turning to look first at her, and then their commander, and back again. Clara rose to her feet, not daring to look at Vincen. So long as their attention was on her, it was not on him. She had no plan apart from making them not hurt him, and didn’t know what she intended next. Wise or rash, she had played her tile, and now there was nothing but to see it through. The rush of warmth and, yes, of power that surged up in her was likely an illusion, but she embraced it all the same. Flor stepped nearer, his eyes narrow and his mouth hard.
“And who the fuck are you?” he asked. She hoisted an eyebrow and watched the blood drain from his face as he found the answer to his question. “L-Lady Kalliam? What are you doing here?”
“Having my servant attacked by you and your men, it would seem,” she said. The incongruity of her plain, filthy clothes, the smears of ash and mud on her face and in her hair, and her mere existence on the field of battle, she simply ignored. That which was not acknowledged did not exist. It was the simplest rule of court etiquette, and as effective as any cunning man’s art.
“Give up. Who is she?” one of the soldiers asked.
The man beside him bobbed his head and smiled a tight, fearful smile. His voice was little more than a murmur. “She’s the Lord Marshal’s mother, you fucking ass.”
The man with the knife dropped it on the ground and knelt beside Vincen. Vincen’s pained grunt was sweeter than the gentlest flute. He was still alive. His rueful smile was like pouring cold water on a burn.
“I am…” Flor said, and then stumbled over any number of things that he might very well have been. Embarrassed, astounded, confused. Clara allowed herself a chilly smile. “My lady, please accept my apologies. I did not recognize you, and your man here didn’t identify himself. I had no idea.”
Yes, she thought, this is all Vincen’s failing. Part of her wanted to scream at the man, accuse him. Vent her fear and anger, whatever the effect. But there were more important things to attend to. And if they were to move forward, she had to give Flor his excuse, even if it meant a bruise to Vincen’s dignity.
“I see how the mistake was made, Sir Flor,” she said. “I hope you can help me with its remedy?”
Flor licked his lips, uncertain what she meant. She looked down at Vincen, and up again. Flor took the hint.
“Find a litter for the lady and get her boy to the cunning men.”
“He’s not a soldier,” the first of the men said, and the kneeling man punched the speaker’s thigh.
“Do it now,” Flor said, and the men scuttled away.
Clara knelt at Vincen’s side. His eyes were open, but one was swelling. He held his right hand tight against his belly. Still, she had seen worse, and quite recently.
“Very sorry, my lady,” he said. “I shouldn’t have brought us so near the walls. I thought they’d all be in the city proper for the sack.”
“You should have announced your mistress,” Flor said, and Clara’s mind flew to an entirely different meaning of the words. You should have, she thought. You should have announced me to the world, and I should have stood by you before the court and my sons and everyone. What worse could they have done to us than this?
“It’s going to be all right, Vincen,” she said, taking his left hand and holding it to her. “I’ll see to it. Everything will be all right.”
Vincen managed a weak laugh. “If you say so, my lady.”
The mansion of Porte Oliva’s newly deposed governor was as lavish as anything Camnipol had to offer barring the Kingspire itself. Its walls were covered with gold leaf, its divans upholstered in crimson silk. Scrolls with the exotic calligraphy of Far Syramys hung beside the doorway alongside portraits of the kings and queens of Birancour and a particularly gaudy and she suspected overly flattering one of the governor in a library, his eyes lifted to the mysteries of the world and his hand on a map of the city. Scented candles burned in silver holders. The fronds of potted ferns bobbed in the breeze that snaked in through the tall stone windows. A small fountain clucked to itself in the corner. The only two things that were at all out of place were a broad spill of blood slowly turning black on the golden carpet and Clara herself.
She had insisted on accompanying Vincen to the cunning men’s tent the army had raised in a square not far from the defeated wall. The wounded and the dying had lain on cots of sailcloth and board or else the bare ground. The air had been thick and heavy with magic, and the weary nurse had looked over Vincen’s wounds with a practiced eye even as Kestin Flor had railed at him about the importance of saving the life of Lady Kalliam’s personal guard. She noticed that he made no mention of how Vincen came to be wounded, and she thought it rude to press the point. The nurse’s mouth twitched into a scowl as he examined the bruises on Vincen’s ribs. Still, before Clara left, she had the assurance of the old cunning man that Vincen’s injuries, while uncomfortable, were far from serious, and that he would see to it that her man’s care was not taken lightly. Of Clara’s own clothing, he said nothing.
She wondered, sitting on the red silk cushion, what would have happened if she had not spoken. Or if she had spoken a moment later. When she closed her eyes, the knife waited for her like a dream that would not fade with the light. She packed her pipe with tobacco a servant boy had brought her. It was good leaf. Better than anything hauled along from Antea. The spoils of war, she imagined. She wondered whether whoever had bought it was still alive.
When the door opened, she rose to her feet. Jorey and Vicarian came into the room almost together. Seeing them so close rather than through a glass brought tears to her eyes. Vicarian looked bright about the eyes, merry and amused by the world and everything in it. He stood on the blood-spattered carpet, grinning and shaking his head as if he’d stepped into an unexpected party. She smiled at him, wondering whether this was another thing the goddess did to strip men of their humanity. Blind them to the horrors all around them and leave them tossing gilt balls in the slaughterhouse.
Jorey, by comparison, looked as though he had been ill. As if he still were. The pleasure and wonderment in his expression did something to allay it, but she could see the greyness of his skin, the way his cheeks were tight across the bone. From when he’d been a boy of eight, there had always been an expression he had when he was unwell. Something about his eyes or the way he held his mouth. No one else had recognized it but her and Dawson. Only her now, but there it was.