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Prologue

            Men plan.

            Fate laughs.

                        From the writings of Gaius Quartus, First Lord of Alera

            Tavi made a steeple of his fingers and stared down at the ludus board.  Squares of black and white lay in eleven rows of eleven, and painted lead figurines, also of black and white, stood in serried ranks upon them.  A second board, five squares by five, rested on a little metal rod, its center over the lower board’s center, occupied by only a few pieces.  Casualties of war sat on the table beside the board.

            Mid-game was well underway, and the pieces were approaching the point where exchanges and sacrifices would have to be made, leading into the end game.  It was the nature of ludus.  Tavi’s dark legions had taken heavier losses than his opponent’s, but he held a stronger position.  So long as he kept the game running in his favor – and provided his opponent wasn’t laying some kind of fiendish trap Tavi had overlooked – he stood an excellent chance of victory.

            He picked up one of his Lords and swept the piece up onto the raised skyboard, representing the skies above the field of battle, bringing added pressure onto the beleaguered positions of the hosts of the white foe.

            His opponent let out a low, relaxed sound that was like nothing so much as the growl of some large and sleepy predator.  Tavi knew that the sound indicated the same emotion a mildly amused chuckle might have in a human being – but never for a second did he forget that his opponent was not human.

            The Cane was an enormous creature, and stood better than nine feet tall when upright.  His fur was dark and thick, a heavy, stiff coat over the whole of his body, save for upon his paw-hands, and in patches where heavy scar tissue could be seen on the skin beneath his fur.  His head was that of an enormous wolf, though a bit stockier than the beast’s, his muzzle tipped with a wide black nose, his jaws filled with white, sharp teeth.  Triangular ears stood erect and forward, focused on the ludus board.  His broad tail flicked back and forth in restless thought, and he narrowed scarlet and golden eyes.  The Cane smelled like nothing else Tavi had ever encountered, musky, musty, dark and something like metal and rust, though the Cane’s armor and weaponry had been locked away for two years.

            Varg hunched down on his haunches across the board from Tavi, disdaining a chair.  Even so, the Cane’s eyes were a foot above the young man’s.  They sat together in a plainly appointed chamber in the Grey Tower, the impregnable, inescapable prison of Alera Imperia.

            Tavi permitted himself a small smile.  Almost impregnable.  Not quite inescapable.

            As always, the thoughts of the events of Wintersend two years past filled Tavi with a familiar surge of pride, humiliation and sadness.  Even after all that time, his dreams were sometimes visited with howling monsters and streams of blood.

            He forced his thoughts away from painful regrets.  “What’s so funny?” he asked the Cane.

            “You,” Varg said without looking up from the ludus board.  His voice was a slow, low thing, the words chewed and mangled oddly by the Cane’s mouth and fangs.  “Aggressive.”

            “That’s how to win,” Tavi said.

            Varg reached out a heavy paw-hand and pushed a white High Lord figure forward with a long, sharp claw.  The move countered Tavi’s most recent move to the skyboard.  “There is more to victory than ferocity.”

            Tavi pushed a legionare figure forward, and judged that he could shortly open his assault.  “How so?”

            “It must be tempered with discipline.  Ferocity is useless unless employed in the proper place . . .”  Varg reached up and swept a steadholder figure from the skyboard, taking the legionare.  Then he settled back from the board and folded his paw-hands.  “. . . and the proper time.”

            Tavi frowned down at the board.  He had considered the Cane’s move in his planning, but had deemed it too unorthodox and impractical to worry much about it.  But the subtle maneuvers of the game had altered the balance of power at that single point on the ludus board.

            Tavi regarded his responses, and dismissed the first two counters as futile.  Then, to his dismay, he found his next dozen options unpalatable.  Within twenty moves, they would lead to a series of exchanges which would leave the Cane and his numerically superior forces in command of the ludus board and allow them to hunt down and capture Tavi’s First Lord at leisure.

            “Crows,” the boy muttered quietly.

            Varg’s black lips peeled away from his white teeth, an imitation of an Aleran smile.  Granted, no Aleran would ever look quite so . . . unabashedly carnivorous.

            Tavi shook his head, still running down possibilities on the game board.  “I’ve been playing ludus with you for almost two years, sir.  I thought I had your tactics down fairly well.”

            “Some,” Varg agreed.  “You learn quickly.”

            “I’m not so sure,” Tavi said in a dry tone.  “What is it I’m supposed to be learning?”

            “My mind,” Varg said.

            “Why?”

            “Know your enemy.  Know yourself.  Only then may you seize victory.”

            Tavi tilted his head at Varg and arched an eyebrow without speaking.

            The Cane showed more teeth.  “Is it not obvious?  We are at war, Aleran,” he said without any particular rancor beyond his own unsettling inflections.  He rolled a paw-hand at the ludus board.  “For now the war is polite.  But it is not simply a game.  We match ourselves against one another.  Study one another.”

            Tavi glanced up and frowned at the Cane.  “So that we’ll know how to kill one another come the day,” he said.

            Varg let his silence speak of his agreement.

            Tavi liked Varg, in his own way.  The former Ambassador had been consistently honest, at least when dealing with Tavi, and the Cane held to an obscure but rigid sense of honor.  Since their first meeting, Varg had treated Tavi with an amused respect.  In his matches with Varg, Tavi had assumed that getting to know one another would eventually lead to some kind of friendship.

            Varg disagreed.

            For Tavi, it was a sobering thought for perhaps five seconds.  Then it became bloody frightening.  The Cane was what he was.  A killer.  If it served his honor and his purposes to rip Tavi’s throat out, he wouldn’t hesitate for an instant—but he was content to show polite tolerance until the time came for the open war to resume.

            “I’ve seen skilled players do worse in their first few years in the game,” Varg rumbled.  “You may one day be competent.”

            Assuming, of course Varg and the Canim did not rip him to pieces.  Tavi felt a sudden, uncomfortable urge to deflect the conversation.  “How long have you been playing?”

            Varg rose and paced across the room in the restless strides of any caged predator.  “Six hundred years, as your breed reckons it.  One hundred years as we count them.”

            Tavi’s mouth fell open before he could shut it.  “I didn’t know . . . that.”

            Varg let out another chuckling growl.

            Tavi pushed his mouth closed with one hand and fumbled for something relevant to say.  His eyes went back to the ludus board, and he touched the square where Varg’s gambit had slipped by him.  “Um.  How did you manage to set that up?”         

            “Discipline,” Varg said.  “You left your pieces in irregular groups.  Spread them out.  It degrades their ability to support one another, compared to adjacent positioning on the board.” 

            “I’m not sure I understand.”

            Varg started positioning pieces again, as they were at the confrontation, and Tavi could see what the Cane meant.  His forces stood in neat rows, side by side.  It looked awkward and crowded to Tavi, but the overlapping combat capabilities more than made up for the difficulty of arranging it, while his own pieces stood scattered everywhere, each move the result of seeking some single, specific advantage in order to dominate the board.

            Varg restored the table to its game positioning, flicking his tail in emphasis with his words.  “It is the same principle as when your Legions face our raiding parties.  Their discipline mitigates their physical weakness.  No amount of rage can match discipline.  Unwisely employed aggression is more dangerous to oneself than any enemy, cub.”

            Tavi frowned at the board and grunted.

            “Concede?” Varg asked.

            “Game isn’t over yet,” Tavi said.  He couldn’t see how to defeat Varg’s positioning, but if he pressed on he might find an opportunity, or Varg might make some kind of mistake Tavi could capitalize upon.  He pushed a Knight to Varg’s Steadholder, taking the piece and beginning the vicious exchange.

            After a dozen moves, Tavi did not find a way to beat the Cane.  His defeat looked inevitable, and he grimaced and lifted a hand to knock his First Lord onto its side in capitulation.

            Someone pounded on the door to the cell — really, Tavi thought, it was more like a Spartan apartment than a prison, a large suite that included a bed large enough to suit even the Cane as well as a sitting area and a reading area – and a guard opened the wooden door outside the prison suite.  “Excuse me young man.  A courier from the citadel is here upon the Crown’s business.  He wishes to speak to you.”

            “Hah,” Tavi said, and flashed Varg a smile as he lowered his hand.  “Duty calls.  I suppose we’ll have to call this one a draw.”

            Varg let out another amused growl and rose as Tavi stood to face him.  The Cane tilted his head slightly to one side.  Tavi mimicked the gesture, though a little more deeply.  “Until next week, then.  Please excuse me, sir.”

            “Duty neither makes nor needs excuses, cub,” Varg said.  He flashed his fangs in another smile at the guard.  The man didn’t precisely flinch, but it seemed to Tavi that he had to fight not to do so.

            Tavi withdrew to the barred door that faced the cell, never turning his back on Varg.  He slipped through the door after the guard unlocked it, then followed him down two flights of stairs to a small, private office.  It was a very plain affair, its walls lined with shelves of books, an unadorned table and chairs of gorgeously polished dark wood, a ledger desk and a writing desk.  A plain white porcelain pitcher sat on the table, beaded with droplets of water.

            A small, stout and somewhat myopic man sat in one of the chairs.  He wore the red and blue-trimmed tunic of a senior functionary in the Citadel.  The guard nodded to the man and withdrew into the hallway, shutting the door behind him.

            Tavi frowned, studying the messenger.  There was something familiar about him.  Tavi did not recognize his face, but that meant little in the teeming mass of Alera Imperia’s citadel.

            The messenger’s head tilted slightly, and he remained silent.

            Then Tavi grinned and swept into a formal bow.  “Your Majesty.”

            The messenger let out a bark of a laugh, a pleased sound.  As he did, his form wavered and shifted, sliding into a larger, leaner frame, until Gaius Sextus, First Lord of Alera and the mightiest of its furycrafters, sat before Tavi.  His hair was thick, well-trimmed and silver-white, though it and the lines at the corners of his eyes were the only features about the man that made him look older than a well-preserved forty years or so.  There was an aloof, wolfish quality to the way he held himself, confident in his power, his intelligence and experience.  Tavi idly noted that the First Lord had evidently altered his clothing when he changed, as it still fitted him despite Gaius adding six inches of height.

            “How did you know?” Gaius murmured.

            Tavi frowned.  “The eyes, sire,” he said, finally.

            “I changed them,” Gaius countered.

            “Not their shape or color,” Tavi explained.  “Just . . . your eyes.  They were yours.  I’m not sure how I knew.”

            “Instincts, I suppose,” Gaius mused.  “Though I wish it weren’t.  If you had some kind of innate talent we could define, perhaps we could teach your technique to the rest of the Cursors.  It could prove extremely valuable.”

            “I’ll work on it, sire,” Tavi said.

            “Very well,” Gaius said.  “I wanted to speak to you.  I read your analysis of the reports you’ve been tracking.”

            Tavi blinked.  “Sire?  I thought those were for Captain Miles.  I’m surprised they reached you.”

            “In general, they wouldn’t.  If I tried to read every paper in the Citadel, I’d be smothered within a day,” Gaius said.  “But Miles thought enough of your argument that he passed it on to me.”

            Tavi took a deep breath.  “Oh.”

            “You make a convincing case that now is the time for action against the more ambitious High Lords.”

            “Sire,” Tavi protested.  “That wasn’t necessarily my position.  Miles wanted me to write in opposition to his preferred strategies.  I was just advocating it to help him find weaknesses in his own planning.”

            “I’m aware,” Gaius said.  “But that makes your conclusions no less credible.”  He frowned, eyes on one of the plain bookcases.  “I think you’re right.  It’s time to make the High Lords dance to my tune for a change.”

            Tavi frowned.  “But . . . sire, it could escalate into a real disaster.”

            Gaius shook his head.  “The escalation is coming regardless of what we do.  Sooner or later, Kalare or Aquitaine will move on me in force.  Best to move now, on my own schedule, rather than waiting for them to prepare.”

            “Optionally, sire,” Tavi pointed out.  “It could fall flat, too.”

            Gaius shook his head, smiling.  “It won’t.”

            “How do you know?”

            The First Lord bobbed an eyebrow.  “Instinct.”

            Tavi chuckled despite himself.  “Aye, sire.”  He straightened.  “What are my orders?”

            “We still need to see to your military training,” the First Lord mused, “But none of the legions I prefer are due to begin a training cycle until next year.”  Gaius drew a leather letter-case from within his tunic and tossed it to Tavi.  “You’ll need something to fill your time.  So you’re going on a trip.”

            Tavi frowned down at the case.  “Where?”

            “The Vale,” Gaius replied.  “To the ruins of Appia, to be precise, to study with Maestro Magnus.”

            Tavi blinked and stared.  “What?”

            “You’ve finished your second term as an academ, and great furies only know what you might find to amuse yourself if left to your own devices here.  I read your paper on the Romanic Arts.  So did Magnus.  He needs a research assistant,” Gaius said.  “I suggested you, and he jumped at the chance to have you for six months.”

            Tavi gaped.  “But . . . sire, my duties . . .”

            Gaius shook his head and said.  “Believe me, I’m not handing you a gift, Tavi.  I may need you in position there, depending on how matters fall out.  Unless, of course, you do not wish to go.”

            Tavi felt his mouth curve into a slow, disbelieving smile.  “No, sire!  I mean, uh, yes, sire!  I’d be honored.”

            “Excellent,” Gaius said.  “Then pack to leave before dawn.  And ask Gaele to deliver those letters for you.”

            Tavi drew in a sharp breath.  Gaele, a student and classmate of Tavi’s, had never really been Gaele.  The true student had been murdered, doubled, and coldly replaced before Tavi had the chance to get to know the real Gaele.  The spy who had done it, a Kalaran Bloodcrow called Rook, had been Tavi’s friend for two years before he’d discovered her murderous true identity.

            Instead of turning her in, though, Gaius had decided to allow her to remain in her role, in order to use her to feed disinformation to her master.  “You think she’ll pass this to Kalare?”

            “This?  Absolutely,” Gaius said.

            “May I ask . . .?” Tavi said.

            Gaius smiled.  “The envelope contains routine mail and one letter to Aquitaine, informing him of my intention to legally adopt him and appoint him my heir.”

            Tavi’s eyebrows shot up.  “If Kalare gets wind of that, and believes it, you think it will push him to act before Aquitaine solidifies his claim to the throne.”

            “He’ll react,” Gaius agreed.  “But I’m not certain as to the manner of his reaction.  He’s slightly mad, and it makes him difficult to predict.  Which is why I want as many eyes and ears as I can spare in the south.  Make sure you keep my coin with you at all times.”

            “I understand, sire,” Tavi said, touching the old silver bull hung on the chain around his neck.  He paused as a bitter taste of memory poisoned his mouth.  “And Gaele?”

            “Should this succeed, she will have outlived her usefulness to the Crown,” Gaius said in a voice as quiet and hard as stone.

            “Yes, sire,” Tavi said, bowing.  “What about Fade, sire?”

            Gaius’ expression darkened an almost-imperceptible shade.  “What about him?”

            “He’s been with me since . . . since I can remember.  I assumed that . . .”

            “No,” Gaius said in a tone that brooked no dissent.  “I have work for Fade to do as well.”

            Tavi met Gaius’ uncompromising eyes for a long and silent moment.  Then he nodded his head slightly in acquiescence.  “Yes, sire.”

            “Then let’s waste no more time.”  Gaius rose.  “Oh,” he said in a tone of afterthought.  “Are you by any chance sleeping with the Marat Ambassador, Tavi?”

            Tavi felt his mouth drop open again.  His cheeks heated up so much that he thought they might actually, literally, burst into flame.  “Um, sire . . .”

            “You understand the consequences, I assume.  Neither of you have furycraft that would prevent conception.  And believe me when I say that paternity complicates one’s life immensely.”

            Tavi wished desperately that the earth would open up, swallow him whole, and smash him into a parchment-thick blob.  “We, uh.  We aren’t doing that,” Tavi said.  “There are, uh, well, other.  Things.  That aren’t . . .”

            Gaius eyes’ sparkled.  “Intercourse?”

            Tavi put a hand over his face, mortified.  “Oh, bloody crows.  Yes, sire.”

            Gaius let out a rolling laugh.  “I dimly remember the concept,” he said.  “And since young people always have done and always will do a poor job of restraining themselves, at best, I suppose I must be satisfied with your, ah, alternate activities.”  The smile faded.  “But bear in mind, Tavi.  She’s not human.  She’s Marat.  Enjoy yourself if you must—but I would advise you not to become too deeply attached to her.  Your duties will only become more demanding.”

            Tavi chewed on his lip and looked down.  In his excitement, he had overlooked the fact that if he was sent away, he would not see Kitai for half of a year.  He didn’t like that notion.  Not at all.  They found time to spend together on most days.  And most nights.

            Tavi felt his blush rising again, just thinking of it.  But he felt faintly surprised at how much he disliked the idea of being parted from Kitai—and not just because it would mean a severe curtailing of his, ah, alternate activities.  Kitai was a beautiful and fascinating young woman—clever of wit, quick of tongue, honest, loyal, fierce and with a sense of innate empathy that Tavi had only seen previously in watercrafters like his aunt, Isana.

            She was his friend.  More than that, though, he was attached to Kitai by an unseen bond, some kind of link between them which each Marat shared with a totem creature.  Every Marat Tavi had ever seen had been in the company of their totems, what Kitai called a chala.  Her father, Doroga, the head of the Gargant clan, was never to be seen outside the company of the enormous black gargant named Walker.  He could count the number of times he’d seen Hashat, head of the Horse clan, walking on her own feet with one hand.

            Tavi nursed a secret concern that if he was separated from Kitai, it might put some kind of strain upon her, or harm her in some way.  And after this visit to the south, he would be entering into his required three year term with the Legions, which could take him to the far flung reaches of the realm—and which would certainly not be near Alera Imperia and Kitai, her people’s ambassador to the Crown. 

            Three years.  And after that, there would be another assignment.  And another.  Cursors in service to the Crown rarely spent much time in one place.

            He already missed her.  Worse, he hadn’t told Gaius about the bond, and what he feared it might do to Kitai.  He had never explained his suspicions about the bond to the First Lord.  Beyond a formless anxiety about the notion, he had no sharply defined reason why—but his instincts told him that he should be very wary about revealing anything Gaius might see as an ability to influence or manipulate one of his Cursors.  Tavi had grown up on the frontiers of the Realm, dangerous lands where he’d spent most of his life learning to listen to his instincts.

            Gaius watched the expressions play over his face and nodded, perhaps mistaking Tavi’s concerns for romantic regrets.  “You begin to understand.”

            Tavi nodded once, without lifting his eyes, and carefully kept his emotions in check.

            Gaius blew out a breath, resumed his disguised form and then headed for the door.  “You’ll do as you wish, Tavi, but I trust your judgment.  Start packing, Cursor.  And good luck.”

* * * *

            Unseasonably rough weather slowed the pace of the Knights Aeris bearing Rook to her master in the south, and it took her nearly five days to make the trip.  That time had been pure torture for her.  She had no talent for windcraft herself, which meant that she could only sit in the enclosed windcraft-borne litter and stare at the package of folded documents sitting on the seat opposite her.

            Nausea unrelated to the litter’s lurching through rough winds wound through her.  She closed her eyes, so that she wouldn’t have to look at the bundle of missives she’d secretly copied from official documents in the capital.  She’d bought copies of some from unscrupulous, greedy palace staff.  She’d stolen into empty offices and locked chambers to acquire others.  All contained information of some value, crumbs and fragments which meant little alone, but which would be assembled into a more coherent whole with the help of similar reports from her fellow Bloodcrows.

            Ultimately, though, none of them mattered.  Not any more.  The topmost document on the stack would render it all obsolete.  When her master learned what she had found, he would be forced to move.  He would begin the civil war every Aleran with half a mind had known was coming.  It would mean the death of tens of thousands of Alerans, at the very least.  That was bad enough, but it wasn’t what made her feel the most sick.

            She had betrayed a friend to attain this secret.  She was not the naïve youngster she pretended to be, but she was not much older than the boy from Calderon, and in the time she’d known him she’d grown to like and respect him and those around him.  It had been a torment of its own, knowing that her friendship and laughter was nothing but a façade, and that if her friends knew her true purpose in the Capital, every single one of them would not have hesitated to assault and imprison her.

            Or even kill her outright.

            It made it harder to play her role.  The camaraderie and easy contact was seductive.  She had entertained idle thoughts of defection, despite her determination to focus on other things.  If she hadn’t been a skilled watercrafter, she would have left tears on her pillow each night—but even that much would have jeopardized her cover, so she willed them away.

            Just as she was doing now, as the litter finally descended into the sizzling, steaming heat of late summer in Kalare.  She had to look calm and professional for her master, and her fear at the mere thought of failing him made a rush of terrified, acidic vertigo whirl through her.  She clenched her hands into fists, closed her eyes, and reminded herself in a steady rhythm that she was his most valuable tool and too successful to discard.

            It didn’t help much, but at least it gave her something to do during the last few moments of the flight, until the rich, vaguely rotten vegetable stench of Kalare made its way into her nose and throat.  She didn’t need to look out the window and see the city, as busy at dusk as at dawn.  Nine tenths of the place was worn, muddy squalor.   The enclosed litter descended upon the other tenth, the splendor of the High Lord’s Tower, landing upon the battlements as such litters did many times each day.

            She took a deep breath, calmed herself, took up her papers, raised her hood to hide her identity from any observer, and hurried down the stairs to cross a courtyard into the tower proper, the High Lord’s residence.  The stewards on duty recognized her voice, and did not ask her to lower her hood.  Kalarus had impressed upon them his will regarding Rook’s visits, and not even his guards would dare his anger.  She was hurried directly to the High Lord’s study.

            Kalarus sat at his desk within, reading.  He was not a large man, nor heavily built, though perhaps a bit taller than average.  He wore a shirt of light, almost gauzy grey silk, and trousers of the same material in dark green.  Every single finger bore a ring set with a variety of green stones, and he wore a steel circlet across his brow.  He was dark of hair and eye, like most southerners, and modestly handsome--though he wore a goatee to hide his weak chin.

            Rook knew her role.  She stood beside the door in total silence until Kalarus glanced up at her a few moments later.

            “So,” he murmured.  “What brings you all the way back home, Rook?”

            She drew back her hood, bowed her head, and stepped forward to lay the missives upon her master’s desk.  “Most of these are routine.  But I think you’ll want to read the topmost document without delay.”

            He grunted and idly reached out, toying with the paper without unfolding it.  “This had better be earth-shaking news, Rook.  Every moment you are gone from your duties to Gaius risks your cover.  I should be unhappy to lose such a valuable tool over a foolish decision.”

            She fumed with anger, but kept it inside, and bowed her head again.  “My lord, in my best judgment, that information is an order of magnitude more valuable than any spy, however well placed.  In fact, I’d bet my life on it.”

            Kalare’s eyebrows lifted a fraction.  “You just did,” he said quietly.  Then he opened the paper and began to read.

            Any man with Kalare’s power and experience concealed his emotions and reactions as a matter of course, just as Rook hid her own from the High Lord.  Anyone with sufficient skill at watercrafting could learn a very great deal about a person from those reactions, both physical and emotional.  As a matter of course, the most powerful lords of Alera trained themselves to restrain their emotions in order to foil another’s crafting.

            But Rook did not need to make an effort to read the man with crafting.  She had a knack for reading others, honed over the years of her dangerous service, and it had nothing to do with furycraft.  She could not have picked out any single change in his features, but was perfectly certain that Kalare had been startled and badly shaken by the news.

            “Where did you get this?” he demanded.

            “From a palace page.  He overslept and had to sprint for the windport.  As we are friends he asked me to deliver his messages for him.”

            Kalare shook his head.  “You believe it genuine?”

            “Yes, my lord.”

            The fingers of his right hand began a flickering, twitching, trembling motion, drumming quietly on the desk.  “I would never have thought Gaius would make peace with Aquitaine.  He hates the man.”

            Rook murmured, “Gaius needs him.  For now.  Necessity can trump even hatred.”

            Her heart fluttered as that last phrase left her mouth tinged with a feather-light portion of bitter irony.  Kalare did not notice.  His fingers twitched even faster.  “Another year to prepare and I could have crushed him in a single season.”

            “He may well be aware of the fact, my lord.  He seeks to goad you into premature action.”

            Kalare frowned down at his fingers and they slowly stilled.  Then he folded the message, over and over again, eyes narrowed.  Then his lips parted, baring his teeth in a predatory smile.  “Indeed.  I am the bear he baits.  Gaius is arrogant, and always has been.  He is certain that he knows everything.”

            Rook nodded, adding nothing.

            “He is about to learn that this bear is a great deal larger and more dangerous than he believed.”  He stood up, jerked on a summoning bell’s cord, then beckoned and caused his furies to open a nearby chest and to toss a dozen rolled maps onto its surface.  “Pass the word to my captains that the time has come.  We mobilize and march within the week.  Tell your people to put pressure upon the Cursors again.”

            Rook bowed.  “Aye, my lord.”

            “And you . . .”  Kalare smiled.  “I have a special assignment for you.  I had thought to attend to it personally, but it would seem that I must take my vengeance by proxy.”

            “The Steadholder?” Rook asked quietly.

            “The bitch from Calderon,” Kalare corrected her, a dangerous edge in his voice.

            “Yes, my lord.  It will be done.”  She bit her lips.  “My lord . . . if I may?”

            Kalare gestured at a door on the other side of the study, a solar for reading and entertaining intimate guests.  Rook crossed the room and opened the door upon a spacious chamber with thick carpeting, richly furnished.

            A small girl with glossy black hair sat on the floor with a young maid, playing with dollies.  When the door opened, the child’s caretaker glanced up, rose, bowed to Rook, and then retreated without another word.

            “Mama!” shrieked the child in glee.  She rose and rushed over to Rook, who caught her daughter up into a tight hug.  “I missed you, mama.”

            Rook squeezed tighter, and awful, bitter tears escaped despite her determination not to weep.  “I missed you too, Masha.”

            “Is it time, mama?” her daughter asked.  “Do we get to go to the country and have ponies now?”

            “Not yet.  But soon now, little one,” she whispered.  “Soon, I promise.”

            The little girl’s looked up at her with enormous eyes.  “But I miss you.”

            She hugged the child close to escape the pain in her eyes.  “I miss you too.  I miss you so much.”  Rook sensed Kalare’s presence behind her, in the doorway to the solar.  She turned and faced him without looking at his eyes.  “I’m sorry, little one.  I can’t this time.  I have to go now.”

            “B-but you just got here!” Masha wailed.  “What if I need you and I can’t find you?”

            “Don’t worry,” Kalare told Rook in a smooth, gentle voice incongruous to the hard glitter in his eyes.  “I’ll make sure my faithful retainer’s daughter is safe.  You have my promise on that.  I value your loyalty very highly.”

            Rook turned away, putting her body between Masha and Kalare.  She hugged the weeping little girl as a trickle of bitter, furious, terrified tears washed over her face.

            She heard Kalare turn away and walk back into his study, chuckling under his breath.  “More than he bargained for.  Far more indeed.”

* * * *

            Ehren sat at the rickety desk in the open-walled bungalow, sweat dripping off of his nose and onto the accounting ledger before him and beading into droplets upon a leather slave’s collar that would streak infrequently down his thin shirt.  The Sunset Isles could grow hideously warm in the summer, though thank the great furies that it was finally beginning to wind down.  Bugs swarmed around Ehren’s head, and tiny swallows darted through the wide opened wall-windows, snatching at them.  His hand cramped every few moments, forcing him to set aside the quill pen he used.  He had just laid it down when a cadaverously thin man strode through the door.

            “Ehren,” he snapped, the name viciously snarled.  “By the bloody crows I didn’t buy you to sit around staring out a window.”

            Ehren’s frayed temper made the thought of breaking the fool’s neck rather tempting—but a Cursor did not allow such personal matters to interfere in his duties.  His job was to remain invisible in the Sunset Isles, watching and listening and sending reports back to the mainland.  He picked up the pen again, ducked his head and said, in a meek voice, “Yes, master Ullus.  Sorry.  Just resting my fingers.”

            “You’ll rest them in a gibbet if I see you lazing about again,” the man said, and stalked over to a low cabinet stocked with dirty glasses and bottles of cheap rum.  Ullus immediately set about the task of making the glasses dirtier and the rum more worthless, as he did most days, while Ehren continued to labor on the impossibly incomplete accounts ledger.

            Some time later, a man came into the room.  He was not large, but had the lean, seedy look Ehren had come to associate with the pirates who would terrorize merchant shipping before slipping back into the myriad hiding places in the Sunset Isles.  His clothing showed much wear and exposure to salt and wind and sun, and he wore mismatched bits of finery, the decorative trophies of a successful pirate. 

            And yet . . .  Ehren frowned and kept his eyes on the ledger.  The man didn’t carry himself like a pirate at all.  Most of them tended to be as ragged, undisciplined and unkempt in mannerism as in appearance.  This man looked cautious and sober.  He moved like the best professional fighters, all relaxed awareness and restraint.  Ehren judged that he was no pirate at all, but a cutter—an assassin who would trade death for gold if the price was right.

            Ullus rose to his feet and rocked unsteadily back and forth on his heels.  “Sir . . .” he began.  “Welcome to Westmiston.  My name is Ullus and I am the senior trade manag—“

            “You are a fence,” the man said in a quiet voice.

            Ullus dropped his mouth open in a façade that would not have convinced an intelligent child.  “Good sir!” he exclaimed.  “I do not know where you have heard this slander, but-”

            The man tilted his head slightly and focused his eyes on Ullus.  Ehren’s master was a drunken fool, but neither too drunk nor too foolish to recognize the danger glinting in the man’s eyes.  He stopped talking, shut his mouth, and swallowed nervously.

            “You are a fence,” the stranger continued in the same quiet tone.  “I am Captain Demos.  I have goods to liquidate.”

            “Certainly,” Ullus said, slurring the word.  “Why, just bring them here and I should be glad to give you fair value for them.”

            “I don’t care to be cheated,” the man said.  He drew a piece of paper from his pocket and tossed it at Ullus’ feet.  “This is a listing.  You will sell them at my price or buy them yourself before I return in three weeks.  I will pay you a tithe as commission.  Cheat me a single copper ram and I’ll cut your throat.”

            Ullus swallowed.  “I see.”

            “I thought you would,” the man said.

            Ullus picked up the list and read it.  He winced.  “Captain,” he said, his tone cautious, “you’ll get a better price for these further east.”

            “I do not sail east,” the man said.

            Ehren sighed and dipped his quill, focusing on looking bored, miserable, and surly in order to disguise his sudden excitement and interest.  Westmiston was the westernmost human settlement in the Sunset Isles.  The only civilization west of here all belonged to the Canim.  Their main trade port was ten days sailing from Westmiston, and at this time of year, about eleven days back.

            Three weeks.

            Captain Demos was carrying something to the Canim.

            “Come,” Captain Demos said.  “Bring your slave and a cart.  I sail within the hour.”

Chapter One

            Tavi pulled on the rope until he thought his spine would snap from the strain.  “Hurry!” he said through gritted teeth.

            “You can’t rush true learning, my boy,” said the old man from where he knelt at the mechanism’s release pin.  Magnus fussed and grunted over the device for a moment, and then crudely forged metal scraped on metal.  “Research is the essence of academia.”

            Sweat broke out over Tavi’s whole body.  “If you don’t get that pin in soon, the arm is going to slip and throw you halfway across the Vale,” Tavi growled.

            “Nonsense, my boy.  I’m well out of the way.  It will shatter like the last one.”  He grunted.  “There, it’s in.  Easy does it.”

            Tavi slowly relaxed his hold on the rope, though his hands and arms screamed for relief.  The long wooden arm of the device quivered, but remained bent back, locked into place and ready to be released.  The haul rope, hooked up to several of the spinning wheels Magnus had manufactured, sagged to the ground.

            “There, you see?” he said proudly.  “You managed it all by yourself.”

            Tavi shook his head, panting.  “I still don’t understand how the wheels work.”

            “By condensing your strength into a smaller area,” Magnus said.  “You hauled forty feet of rope to move the arm back only five feet.”

            “I can do the math,” Tavi said.  “I’m just . . . it’s almost unreal.  My uncle would have trouble bending that thing back, and he’s a strong earthcrafter.”

            “Our forefathers knew their arts,” Magnus cackled.  “If only Larus could see this.  He’d start frothing at the mouth.  Here, lad.  Help me with the ammunition.”

            Together, Tavi and Magnus grunted and lifted a stone weighing better than fifty pounds into place in the cup at the end of the engine’s arm, and then they both stood back from it.  “Maybe we should have used some professionally manufactured parts.”

            “Never, never,” Magnus muttered.  “If we’d used crafted parts, we’d just have to do the whole thing again without them, or else Larus and his kind would discredit us based on that fact alone.  No, my boy, it had to be done just as the Romans did it, just like Appia itself.”

            Tavi grunted.  The ruins of the city of his forefathers stood around all around them.  They had been built upon the crown of an ancient mountain worn down to the size of an imposing hill, and everything had been made of stone.  The walls of dozens and dozens of buildings, now reduced to jagged stone by time and the elements, stood all around them.  Grass and trees grew among the ruined houses and old city walls.  Wind sighed among the stones, a constant, gentle and sad song of regret.  Deer paced silently on streets so faded that they could only be seen to be manmade if viewed from a distance, and sheltered amongst the walls during infrequent storms.  Birds nested upon the remains of statues ground to featurelessness by time.

            The stones used in ruined Appia’s construction did not have the smooth arcs and precise corners of furycrafted rock, but were built piecemeal, from smaller stones that yet bore traces of tool marks, a practice some of the ancient, stone-carved texts Magnus had uncovered in the catacombs beneath the ruins called “quarrying.”  Other carvings, apparently of the Romans in action, had survived the years of weathering in the stillness of the caves, and it was from one of those carvings that Magnus and Tavi had seen the war engine engaging in a battle against a foe that seemed to be some kind of monstrous, horned giant.

            In fact, everything Tavi had seen and learned there made it quite clear that the ancestors of the Alerans had, like himself, possessed no furycraft whatsoever.  It was a fact so self-evident and obvious that Tavi wanted to scream with frustration every time he thought of how “scholars” like Maestro Larus at the Academy casually dismissed the claim without bothering to examine the evidence.

            Which was why Magnus insisted upon using only crude and inefficient manual labor for every step of the creation process of the war engine.  He wanted there to be no way to dismiss the fact that it was at least possible to manage such things without the use of furycraft.

            “I understand why we have to do it like this, sir.  But the Romans had a lot more practice than we do.  Are you sure this one will work?”

            “Oh,” Magnus said.  “As sure as I can be.  The fittings are stronger, the beams thicker.  It’s quite a bit more stable than the last one.”

            The last engine had simply shattered into a mound of kindling when they tested it.  The current model, the fifth of its line, was considerably more sturdy.  “Which means if it explodes again, it’s going to throw a lot more pieces around.  And harder.”

            They looked at one another.  Then Magnus grunted and tied the end of a long cord to the pin that held the arm back.  The pair of them backed away a good twenty paces.  “Here,” Magnus said, offering Tavi the cord.  “I did the last one.”

            Tavi accepted it warily and found himself smiling.  “Kitai would have loved to see this.  Ready?”

            Magnus grinned like a madman.  “Ready!”

            Tavi jerked the cord.  The pin snapped free.  The mechanism bucked in place as its arm snapped forward, and threw the stone into a sharp arc that sent the missile soaring into the air.  It clipped a few stones from the top of a ruined wall, and arched over a low hilltop and dropped out of sight on the other side.

            Magnus let out a whoop and capered about in a spontaneous dance, waving his arms.  “Hah!  It works!  Hah!  A madman, am I?”

            Tavi let out an excited laugh of his own and began to ask Magnus how far he thought the engine had thrown the stone, but then he heard something and snapped his head around to focus on the sound.

            Somewhere on the other side of the hill, a man howled a string of sulfurous curses that rose into the midmorning spring sky. 

            “Maestro,” Tavi began.  Before he could say more, the same stone that they had just thrown arched up into the air and plummeted toward them.

            “Maestro!” Tavi shouted.  He seized the back of the old man’s homespun tunic and hauled him away from the engine.

            The stone missed them both by inches and smashed into the engine.  Wood shattered and splintered.  Metal groaned.  Chips broke off the stone and Tavi felt a flash of pain as a chunk the size of his fist struck his arm hard enough to make it go numb briefly.  He kept his body between the wiry old Maestro and the flying debris and snapped, “Get down!”

            Before Magnus had hit the ground, Tavi had his sling off of his belt and a smooth, heavy ball of lead in it, as a mounted man rounded the side of the hill, sword in hand, his string of profanity growing louder as he charged.  Tavi whirled the sling, but the instant before he would have loosed, he caught the sling’s pouch in his free hand.  “Antillar Maximus!” he shouted.  “Max!  It’s me!”

            The charging rider hauled on the reins of his horse so hard that the poor beast must have bruised its chin on its chest.  The horse slid to a stop in the loose earth and stone of the dig site, throwing up a large cloud of fine dust.

            “Tavi!” the young man atop the horse bellowed.  Equal measures of joy and anger fought for dominance of his tone.  “What the crows do you think you’re doing?  Did you throw that stone?”

            “You could say that,” Tavi said.

            “Hah!  Did you finally figure out how to do a simple earthcrafting?” 

            “Better,” Tavi said.  “We have a Romanic war engine.”  He turned and glanced at the wreckage, wincing.  “Had,” he corrected himself.

            Max’s mouth opened and then shut again.  He was a young man come into the full of his adult strength, tall and strong.  He had a solid jaw, a nose that had been broken on several occasions, wolfish grey eyes, and while he would never be thought beautiful, Max’s features were rugged and strong and had an appeal of their own.

            He sheathed his weapon and dismounted.  “Romanics?  Those guys who you think didn’t have any furycraft, like you?”

            “The people were called Romans,” Tavi corrected him.  “You say call something Romanic when it was built by Romans.  And yes.  Though I’m surprised you remember that from the Academy.”

            “Don’t blame me.  I did everything I could to prevent it, but it looks like some of the lectures stuck,” Max said, and eyed Tavi.  “You nearly took my head off with that rock, you know.  I fell off my horse.  I haven’t done that since--”

            “The last time you were drunk,” Tavi interjected, grinning, and offered Max his hand.

            The big young man snorted and traded a hard grip with Tavi.  “Furies, Calderon.  You kept growing.  You’re as tall as me.  You’re too old to grow that much.”

            “Must be making up for lost time,” Tavi said.  “Max, have you met Maestro Magnus?”

            The old man picked himself up off the ground, brushing dirt from himself and scowling like a thunderstorm.  “This?  This mental deficient is Antillus Raucus’ son?”

            Max turned to face the old man, and to Tavi’s surprise his face flushed red beneath his tanned skin.  “Sir,” Max said, giving an awkward duck of his head.  “You’re one of the people my father bid me give his regards should I see you.”

            Magnus arched a silvery eyebrow.

            Max glanced at the wreckage of the engine.  “Uh.  And I’m sorry about your, uh . . . your Romanic thing.”

            “It’s a war engine,” Magnus said in a crisp tone.  “A Romanic war engine.  The carvings we’ve found refer to it as a mule.  Though admittedly, there seems to be some kind of confusion, since some of the earlier texts use the same word to describe the soldiers of their legions . . .”  Magnus shook his head.  “I’m wandering again, excuse me.”  The old man glanced at the ruined war device and sighed.  “When is the last time you spoke to your father, Maximus?”

            “About a week before I ran off and joined the Legions, sir,” Max said.  “Call it eight years or so.”

            Magnus’ grunt conveyed a wealth of disapproval.  “You know why he doesn’t speak to you, I take it?”

            “Aye,” Max said, his tone quiet.  Tavi heard an underpinning of sadness in his friend’s voice, and he winced in sympathy.  “Sir, I’d be glad to fix it for you.”

            “Would you now?” Magnus said, eyes glinting.  “That’s quite generous.”

            “Certainly,” Max said, nodding.  “Won’t take me a minute.”

            “Indeed not,” Magnus said.  “I should think it a project of weeks.”  He lifted his eyebrows and asked Max, “You were aware, of course, that my research compels us to use strictly Romanic methods.  No furycrafting.”

            Max, in the midst of turning to the war engine, paused.  “Um.  What?”

            “Sweat and muscle only,” Magnus said cheerfully.  “Everything from harvesting timber to metal fittings.  We’ll rebuild it.  Only the next one needs to be about twice as large, so I’m glad you’re volunteering your -- ”

            Tavi got nothing more than a flicker of motion in the corner of his eye to warn him, but suddenly every instinct in his body screamed of danger.  “Max!” Tavi shouted, even as he dove at the Maestro again.

            Max spun, his sword flashing from its sheath with the speed only a windcrafter could manage.  His arm blurred into two sharp movements, and Tavi heard two snapping sounds as Max cut a pair of heavy arrows from the air with the precision only a master metalcrafter could bring to the sword, then darted to one side.

            Tavi put a low, ruined wall between the attackers and the Maestro and crouched there.  He looked over his shoulder to see Max standing with his back to a ten-foot thick stone column that had broken off seven or eight feet above the ground.

            “How many?” Tavi called.

            “Two there,” Max replied.  He crouched and put his hand to the ground for a moment, closing his eyes, then reported, “One flanking us to the west.”

            Tavi’s eyes snapped that way, but he saw no one amongst the trees and brush and fallen walls.  “Woodcrafting!” he called.  “Can’t see him!”

            Max stepped out to one side of the column and barely darted back before an arrow hissed by at the level of his throat.  “Bloody crowbegotten woodcrafting slives,” he muttered.  “Can you spot the archers?”

            “Sure.  Let me just stick my head out and have a look around, Max,” Tavi said.  But he fumbled at his belt pouch and withdrew the small mirror he used for shaving.  He lifted it above the ruined wall in his left hand and twisted it back and forth, hunting for the reflection of the archers.  He found the attackers within a second or two—though they had been under a woodcrafting when they attacked, they must have dropped it to focus their efforts on precision archery.  Half a second after Tavi spotted them, another arrow shattered the mirror and laid open his fingertip halfway to the bone.

            Tavi jerked his hand back, clutching at the bleeding finger.  It only tingled now, but there was enough blood that Tavi knew it would quite painful momentarily.  “Thirty yards, north of you, in the ruin with the triangle-shaped hole in the wall.”

            “Watch that flanker!” Max shouted and flicked his hand around the column.  Fire streaked from his fingertips, blossoming into an enormous cloud that reached toward the archers.  Tavi heard Max’s horse scream in panic and bolt.  Max sprinted around the far side of the column in the flame’s wake.

            Tavi heard a crunch of stone on stone to the west and rose to a tense crouch, sling in hand and ready.  “Hear that?” he whispered.

            “Yes,” Magnus grunted.  “If I reveal him, can you take him?”

            “I think so.”

            “You think so?” Magnus asked.  “Because once I draw him out, he’s going to send an arrow at my eye.  Can you take him or not?”

            “Yes,” Tavi said.  Somewhat to his own surprise, his voice sounded completely confident.  To even more surprise, he found that he believed it.  “If you show him to me, I can handle him.”

            Magnus took a deep breath, nodded once, and then rose, flipping his hand in the general direction of their attacker.

            The earth rumbled and buzzed, not with the deep, growling power of an earthquake, but in a tiny if violent trembling, like a dog shaking water from its fur.  Fine dust rose from the ground in a cloud fifty yards across.  Not twenty paces away, the dust cloud suddenly clung to a man crouched beside a row of ferns, outlining him in grime.

            The man rose at once and lifted his bow, aiming for the old Maestro.

            Tavi stood, whipped the sling around once, and sent the heavy lead sphere whistling through the air.

            The attacker’s bow twanged.

            Tavi’s sling bullet hit with a dull smack of impact.

            An arrow shattered against a tumbledown rock wall two feet behind Maestro Magnus.

            The dust-covered woodcrafter took a little stagger step to one side, and his hand rose toward the quiver on his shoulder.  But before he could shoot again, the man’s knees seemed to fold of their own accord, and he sank to the ground in a loose heap, eyes staring sightlessly.

            From several yards to the north came a ring of steel on steel, and then a crackling explosion of thunder.  A man let out a brief scream cut violently short.

            “Max?” Tavi called.

            “They’re down!” Max called back.  “Flanker?”

            Tavi let out a slow sigh of relief at the sound of his friend’s voice.  “Down,” he replied.

            Maestro Magnus lifted his hands and stared at them.  They trembled violently.  He sat down very slowly, as though his legs were no more sturdy than his fingers, and let out a slow breath, pressing a hand to his chest.  “I have learned something today, my boy,” he said in a weak voice.

            “Sir?”

            “I have learned that I am too old for this sort of thing.” 

            Max rounded a corner of the nearest ruined building and paced over to the still form of the third man.  Blood shone scarlet on Tavi’s friend’s sword.  Max knelt over the third man for a moment, then wiped his sword on the man’s tunic and sheathed it on his way back to Tavi and Magnus.

            “Dead,” he reported.

            “The others?” Magnus asked.

            Max gave the Maestro a tight, grim smile.  “Them too.”

            “Crows,” Tavi sighed.  “We should have kept one alive.  Corpses can’t tell us who those men are.”

            “Bandits?” Magnus suggested.

            “With that much crafting?” Max asked, and shook his head.  “I don’t know about that third one, but the first two were as good as any Knight Flora I’ve ever seen.  I was lucky they were dividing their attention to conceal themselves on those first two shots.  Men that good don’t take up work as bandits when they can get paid so much more to serve in someone’s legion.”  He squinted back at the dusty corpse.  “Hell, what did you hit him with, Calderon?”

            Tavi twitched the hand still holding his sling.

            “You’re kidding.”

            “Grew up with it,” Tavi said.  “Killed a big male slive after one of my uncle’s lambs when I was six.  Two direwolves, a mountain cat.  Scared off a thanadent once.  Haven’t used it since I was thirteen or so, but I got back into practice to hunt game birds for the Maestro and me.”

            Max grunted.  “You never talked about it.”

            “Citizens don’t use slings.  I had enough problems at the academy without everyone finding out about my expertise in a freeholding bumpkin’s weapon.”

            “Killed him pretty good,” Max noted.  “For a bumpkin weapon.”

            “Indeed,” Magnus said, his breathing back under control.  “An excellent shot, I might add.”

            Tavi nodded wearily.  “Thanks.”  He glanced down at his bleeding finger, which had begun to swell and pulse with a throbbing burn.

            “Crows, Calderon,” Max said.  “How many times have I told you that you need to stop biting your nails?”

            Tavi grimaced at Max and produced a handkerchief.  “Give me a hand, here.”

            “Why?  You obviously aren’t taking very good care of the ones you’ve got.”

            Tavi arched an eyebrow.

            Max chuckled and bound the cloth around Tavi’s finger.  “Just to keep the dirt out and stop the bleeding.  Once that’s done, get me a bucket of water and I can close it up.”

            “Not yet.”  Tavi pushed himself to his feet and turned in the direction of the pair of archers.  “Come on.  Maybe they were carrying something that can give us a clue about them.”

            “Don’t bother,” Max said, squinting at a point in the distance.  His voice became very quiet.  “It’ll take a week to find all the pieces.”

            Tavi swallowed and nodded at his friend.  Then he went and stared down at the man he’d killed.

            His bullet had hit the man almost exactly between the eyes, with so much force that it had broken something in his head.  The whites of his sightless eyes were filled with blood.  A thin trickle of it ran from one of the man’s nostrils.

            He looked younger than Tavi had expected, somehow.  He couldn’t have been much older than Tavi himself.

            Tavi had killed him.

            Killed a man.

            He tasted bile in his mouth and had to look away, fighting away a sudden attack of nausea that threatened to empty his stomach right onto his boots.  The struggle was a vain one, and he had to stagger several paces away to throw up.  He calmed himself afterwards, spitting the taste out of his mouth.  Then he shut his sense of revulsion and guilt away into a quiet closet in his mind, turned back to the corpse and systematically went through the man’s belongings.  He focused on the task to the exclusion of everything else.

            He didn’t dare start thinking about what he had just done.  There was nothing left in his belly to come up.

            He finished and went back to the Maestro and Max, fighting not to break into a run.  “Nothing,” he said quietly.

            Max exhaled, a trace of frustration in it.  “Crows.  I wish we at least knew who they were after.  Me, I guess.  If they’d been here before me, they’d have killed you already.”

            “Not necessarily,” Magnus said quietly.  “Perhaps someone sent them to track you back to one of us.”

            Max grimaced at Magnus, then glanced away and sighed.  “Crows.”

            “Either way,” Tavi said, “we may still be in danger.  We shouldn’t remain here.”

            Max nodded.  “Kinda works out then,” he said.  “The Crown sent me to bring your orders, Tavi.”

            “What are they?”

            “We’re taking a trip to the Black Hills at the southern tip of Placida’s lands.  There’s a new legion forming there, and Gaius wants you in it.”

            “When?”

            “Yesterday.”

            Tavi grunted.  “That won’t please my aunt and uncle.”

            “Hah,” Max snorted.  “It won’t please Kitai, you mean.”

            “Her too.  She –“

            Magnus sighed.  “Crows, Antillar.  Don’t start him talking about his girl again.  He won’t shut his mouth about her.”

            Tavi scowled at Magnus.  “I was just going to say that she was supposed to come with my family to our get-together in Ceres next month.  I’m going to miss it.”

            “And missing it is a bad thing?”  Max frowned and then said, “Oh, right, I forgot.  Your family likes having you around.”

            “It’s mutual.  I haven’t seen them in more than two years, Max.”  He shook his head.  “Don’t get me wrong.  I know this is important but . . . two years.  And it isn’t as though I’ll make a good legionare.”

            “No problem,” Max said.  “You’re going in as an officer.”

            “But I haven’t even served my compulsory term.  No one makes officer their first tour.”

            “You do,” Max said.  “You aren’t going as yourself.  Gaius wants eyes and ears in the command structure.  You’re it.  Disguise, false identity, that kind of thing.”

            Tavi blinked.  “Why?”

            “New concept legion,” Max said.  “Aquitaine managed to push the idea through the Senate.  You’re to be serving with the First Aleran.  Ranks and officers both consist of equal numbers of volunteers from every city.  The idea is--”

            Tavi nodded, understanding it.  “I get it.  If there’s someone from every city in the legion, that legion could never pose a military threat to any single city.  There would be officers and legionares in the ranks who wouldn’t stand for it.”

            “Right,” Max said.  “So the Aleran Legion would be free to wander anywhere there was trouble and pitch in without ruffling anyone’s feathers.”

            Tavi shook his head.  “Why would Aquitaine support such a thing?”

            “Think about it,” Max said.  “A whole legion of folks from all over Alera training near Kalare’s sphere of influence.  People always coming and going, messengers and letters from all over the realm.  Do the math.”

            “Espionage hotbed,” Tavi said, nodding.  “Aquitaine will be able to buy and sell secrets like sweetbread at Wintersend—and since they’ll all be near Kalare and far from Aquitaine, he stands to gain a lot more intelligence on Kalare than he gives away about himself.”

            “And Gaius wants to know all about it.”

            “Anything more specific?” Tavi asked.

            “Nope.  The old man has flaws, but suppressing initiative in his subordinates isn’t one of them.  This is a spanking new legion, too.  No experience, no battle standard, no combat history, no tradition to uphold.  You’ll blend right in with the other green officers.”

             Tavi nodded.  “What kind of officer am I supposed to be?”

            “Third subtribune to the Tribune Logistica.”

            Magnus winced.

            Tavi arched a brow at the Maestro and asked Max, “Is that bad?”

            Max grinned, and Tavi found the expression ominous.  “It’s . . . well.  Let’s just say that you won’t ever run out of things to do.”

            “Oh,” Tavi said.  “Good.”

            “I’m going too,” Max said.  “As myself.  Centurion, weapons trainer.”  He nodded at Magnus.  “So are you, Maestro.”

            Magnus arched a brow.  “Indeed?”

            “Senior valet,” Max said, nodding.

            Magnus sighed.  “It could be worse, I suppose.  You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve had to play scullion somewhere.”

            Tavi turned and blinked at Magnus in pure shock.  “Maestro . . . I knew you were in the First Lord’s counsel, but . . . you’re a Cursor?”

            Magnus nodded, smiling.  “Did you think I made it a point to have wine and ale on hand for passing merchants because I was lonely for company the past twelve years, my boy?  Drunken merchants and their guards let out quite a bit more information than anyone realizes.”

            “And you never told me?” Tavi asked.

            “Didn’t I?” Magnus said, eyes sparkling.  “I’m sure I did, at some point.”

            “No,” Tavi said.

            “No?”  Magnus shrugged, still smiling.  “Are you sure?”

            “Yes.”

            Magnus let out a theatric sigh.  “I thought I had.  Ah, well.  They say memory is the first thing to go.”  He glanced around him.  “Though I’ll miss this place.  At first my work here was just a cover story, but crows take me if it hasn’t grown on me.”

            Tavi shook his head.  “Shouldn’t I know something about soldiering if I’m planning to be an officer there?  What if someone puts me in charge of something?”

            “You’re only technically an officer,” Max assured him.  “Everyone is going to walk on you, so don’t worry about being in command.  But yeah, you need the basics.  I’m to give them to you on the way there.  Enough that you should be able to fake it until you pick it up for real.”

            Magnus heaved himself to his feet.  “Well then, lads.  We’re wasting daylight, and we’d best not wait for more assassins to arrive.  Maximus, go catch your horse and see if our visitors left any nearby, if you would.  I’ll put together enough food to last us a while.  Tavi, pack our things.”

            They set about preparing to leave.  Tavi focused on the task at hand the whole while—packing saddle bags, satchels, bundling clothes and equipment, inspecting weaponry.  The assassins’ three horses became pack animals, once Max rounded them up, and shortly after high noon the three of them rode out, the string of spare mounts in tow.  Max set a brisk pace.

            Tavi tried to keep his mind on his work, but the steady throb from his wounded finger made it difficult to concentrate.  Before they crested the rise that would put ruined Appia behind them, he glanced back over his shoulder.

            Tavi could still see the dusty dead man sprawled in the ruins.

Chapter Two

            Amara hadn’t seen the Count of Calderon for months.  When she and her escort of Knights Aeris swept down into the Calderon Valley, and to Bernard’s fortress-town of Garrison, she felt a flutter of excitement low in her belly.

            To her surprise, Garrison had grown visibly, even in the weeks since she had last visited.  What had begun as a tent-town on the Aleran side of the fortress walls had become a collection of semi-permanent wooden homes, and now she could see that Bernard had found the money to hire enough earthcrafters to begin erecting buildings of stone, which would provide shelter from the deadly furies of this frontier of the realm.

            The really surprising development was what was happening on the outside of the protective walls of the fortress.  Tents were spread out over the ground into an open market, and she could see a few hundred people moving about them, doing business as they might on any market day.  That wasn’t so terribly unusual.  The shocking thing was that most of the people moving around the improvised market were Marat.

            The pale barbarians and their beasts had been little but an infrequent and vicious menace from the perspective of Aleran history, and only twenty years or so earlier, an invading horde had massacred the Crown Legion, which was still recovering from heavy losses in a previous campaign.  Thousands of legionares and camp followers and holders of the valley had died in a single day, including Princeps Gaius Septimus and all but one of his personal armsmen—Sir Miles, now Captain of the newly recreated Crown Legion.

            It had been one of Alera’s bitterest defeats, and though the First Lord and his legion had scoured the valley of Marat, nothing could bring his son and heir back from the grave.  Alerans died.  The next First Lord died.  There was no shortage of hard feelings between Alerans and their barbarian neighbors.

            And yet, there were the peddlers and merchants, doing business with the Marat as they might in any town in the Realm.  Many horses grazed lazily over the plain leading deeper into Marat territory, and Amara could see two dozen massive gargants doing the same.  A group of perhaps a dozen wolves loitered in the morning sunshine on a mound of weather-worn boulders half a mile away.  The Horse and Gargant tribes were, more than any other Marat, allies of the Alerans—or more precisely, allies of Bernard, Count of Calderon, and so their presence was understandable.  But the Wolf tribe had struck her as the cruelest and most bloodthirsty of the Marat, and had invariably been a foe of the realm.

            Times, it would seem, were changing, perhaps for the better, and she felt a fierce surge of pride that Bernard had been one of the people responsible for that change.

            Amara tried to remain relaxed and calm, but despite her efforts, she found herself hundreds of yards ahead of her escort.  The sentry over the gate called up a relaxed challenge, and waved her in before she’d finished giving her name.  After years of visiting the Count of Calderon, most of the legionares regularly stationed there knew her face by now, especially the remaining veterans of Giraldi’s century.  Those men, cut down to a bare sixty serving legionares, were the only century in the history of the realm to have twice received the scarlet stripe of the Order of the Lion for valor, and they enjoyed sporting the red blazon on both legs of their uniform trousers with the same casually false disregard other legionares did their weaponry and armor.

            Amara swept down into the courtyard, willing her wind fury, Cirrus, to bring her to earth still moving, and stepped with unconscious grace into a smooth trot that carried her across the courtyard and up the stairs that lead to the Count’s office and chambers.  She went up the stairs two at a time, though she knew it made her look like an overeager girl bound for the arms of her lover—but she couldn’t manage any more than that.

            Before she reached the top of the stairs, the door above her opened and Bernard appeared in the doorway.  He was a large man, broad-shouldered and strong, his dark hair and beard, both clipped legion short in legion-fashion, salted with threads of premature silver.  His strong, weather-darkened face broke into a wide smile, and he caught Amara up in his arms as though she weighed no more than a newborn lamb.  She twined her arms around his neck and buried her face into the space between his throat and his shoulder, holding tight and breathing in the scent of him—leather and fresh-cut hay and woodsmoke.

            He promptly carried her inside, into his spare, utilitarian office, and she nudged the door shut with her foot in passing.

            As soon as they were alone, she caught his face between her hands and kissed his mouth, slowly, luxuriously, thoroughly.  He returned the kiss with slowly building heat for several moments before breaking it off to murmur, “Are you sure this is the best way to conceal our marriage?”

            Amara looked up at him, smiling and then nuzzled close and closed her teeth on the skin of his throat, a quick, delicate little bite.  “What married couple,” she murmured, her fingers already undoing the buttons of his tunic, “behaves like this?”

            His voice deepened into a rough growl, and she felt him shift her weight to hold on one arm, while the other slid along her thigh.  “But no one’s watching us now.”

            “I like to be thorough,” she replied, lips moving against his skin, her breath coming more swiftly.  “It’s the safest thing.”

            Her husband’s growl deepened into a rumble, and he abruptly turned with her and sat her on the edge of his oaken desk.  There was the sound of steel rasping on steel as he drew the dagger from his belt and set it beside her on the desk.  She protested, “Bernard, not ag--”

            His mouth covered hers in a sudden, scorching kiss that briefly silenced Amara.  He opened the heavy jacket of her flying leathers, and one hand tightened on the small of her back, all but forcing her to arch her body to meet his mouth as he nuzzled her through the thin muslin of her blouse.  His teeth scored lightly over the tips of her breasts, a sharp and sweet little agony, and the sudden inferno that the touch ignited erupted through her body, utterly robbing her of the ability to speak anything but a low and desperate moan of need.

            She found herself squirming, hips grinding against his, as he took up the knife and with quick, certain flicks, cut the leather cords binding the seams on the outside of one leg of her leather breeches.  Far from objecting, she urged him to hurry with her hands and body and mouth, and began tearing at his own clothing as she felt the air touch more and more naked skin.

            Her eyes met his, and as she always did, Amara felt stunned at the depth of desire in them, that this man, her secret husband, actually wanted her so very badly.  At first she had hardly believed what she had seen in his face, and even now it was a feeling that remained fresh and new.  More, it sparked an answering desire far beyond anything she had ever dared hope to feel.  For Amara, it was exhilarating that a man should want her so genuinely, so desperately.  This man.  Her husband, her lover.

            He made Amara feel beautiful.

            He kissed her, hands and mouth roaming over her until she thought she would lose her mind.  She let out a low cry, gave her desires free rein, and he took her there on the desk, his presence, his strength, his scent, his touch all blending into torturous pleasure she could hardly endure.  Her desire to touch and to feel drove all thoughts from her mind.  Nothing mattered but what she could taste, hear, feel, smell, and she embraced it with abandon.

            Hours later, she lay with him in his wide bed, her long, slender limbs twined with his.  She could not remember precisely when he had carried her into his chambers, but the angle of the sunlight striking one wall through a high, narrow window told her that afternoon was rapidly fading toward twilight.  She was naked, but for the single silver chain she wore around her neck, and Bernard’s heavy Legion ring set with a green stone that hung upon the necklace.  One of his arms was around her, and his body was a heavy, relaxed presence.

            Amara lay there, sleepy and content, idly stroking one of her own slender, honey-brown hands over the cords of muscle in one of his arms.  She had seen Bernard casually lift loads that even a gargant would not consider a light burden, through the power given him by his earthcrafting, and she found it eternally amazing that so strong a man could be so very, very gentle too.

            “I missed you, my lady,” he murmured, his voice pitched low, a lazy, satisfied growl in his tone.

            “And I you, my lord.”

            “I’ve been looking forward to this trip.”

            Amara let out a wicked little laugh.  “If you had your way, we’d stay right here.”

            “Nonsense,” he said, but smiled as he did.  “I miss my nephew.”

            “And that’s what you’ve been looking forward to,” she murmured.  She moved her hand.  “Not this.”

            Her husband’s eyelids fluttered shut and he let out a low hiss.  “Don’t get me wrong.  Mmmm.  I have no objections to that.  None at all.”

            He felt the soft, dark hairs of his chest brush against her cheek as she smiled.  “I suppose it works out then.”

            Bernard laughed, a relaxed and warm sound.  He tightened his arm around her slightly and kissed her hair.  “I love you.”

            “And I you.”

            He fell quiet for a moment, and she felt herself tense up a little.  She could sense that he wanted to ask her, and that he was uncertain about whether or not to speak.  His hand slid over her belly, strong and gentle.

            She knew that he could not feel the scars that the Blight had left over her womb, but she flinched for an instant regardless.  She forced herself to remain quiet and relaxed, and covered his hand with both of hers.  “Not yet,” she said.  She swallowed and said, “Bernard . . .”

            “Hush, love,” he said, voice strong and sleepy and confident.  “We’ll keep trying.”

            “But . . .”  She sighed.  “Two years, Bernard.”

            “Two years of a night here, a night there,” he said.  “We’ll finally have some time together in Ceres.”  His hand drifted over her skin, and Amara shivered.  “Weeks.”

            “But love.  If I can’t give you a child . . . your duties as a Count call for you to pass the strength of your crafting down to children.  You owe it to the realm.”

            “I’ve done my part for the realm,” Bernard said, and his tone became unyielding.  “And more.  And I will give the Crown its talented children.  Through you, Amara.  Or not at all.

            “But . . .” Amara began.

            He turned to face her and murmured, “Do you wish to leave me, my lady?”

            She swallowed and shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.

            “Then let’s have no more talk of it,” he said, and kissed her rather thoroughly.  Amara felt her protests and worries beginning to dissolve into fresh heat. 

            Bernard let out another low growl.  “Think you we’ve thrown off sufficient suspicion for this visit, my lady?” 

            She laughed, a throaty sound.  “I’m not sure.”

            He let out another low sound and turned his body to her.  His hand moved, and it was Amara’s turn to shiver in pleasure at a touch.  “We’d best play it safe, then,” he murmured.  “And attend to duty.”

            “Oh,” she whispered.  “Definitely.”

* * * * *

            In the coldest, darkest hours of the night, Amara felt Bernard tense and sit bolt upright in bed, his spine rigid with tension.  Sleep dragged hard at her, but she denied it, slipping from the depths of formless dreams.

            “What is it?” she whispered.

            “Listen,” he murmured.

            Amara frowned and did.  Gusts of winds rushed against the stone walls of Bernard’s chambers in irregular surges.  From far away, she thought she could hear a faint sound on the wind, inhuman shrieks and moans.  “A furystorm?”

            Bernard grunted and swung his legs off the side of the bed and rose.  “Maybe worse.  Light.”  A furylamp on the table beside the bed responded to his voice, and a golden glow arose from it, allowing Amara to see Bernard dress in short, hurried motions. 

            She sat up in bed, pressing the sheets to her front.  “Bernard?”

            “I just have to make sure it’s being taken care of,” Bernard said.  “It won’t take a moment.  Don’t get up.”  He gave her a brief smile and then paced out across his office and opened the door.  Amara heard the wind slam against it, and the distant sound of the storm rose to a deafening howl until he shut the door behind him.

            Amara frowned, and rose.  She reached for her flying leathers, and then regarded the sliced ties with a sigh.  Instead, she dressed in one of the Count of Calderon’s shirts and draped one of Bernard’s capes around her.  It was large enough to wrap around her several times and fell past her knees.  She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in the lingering scent of her husband on the fabric, then opened the door to follow him.

            The wind hit her like a physical blow, a cold, wet wind heavy with a fine mist.  She grimaced and willed her wind fury, Cirrus, into the air around her in order to shield her from the worst of wind and rain.

            She stood at the top of the stairs for a moment, peering around the fortress.  Furylamps blazed against the storm, but the wind and gusts of cold rain blunted their radiance, reducing it to little more than spheres an arms-length across.  Amara could see men hurrying through the storm-cast shadows and standing their watches atop Garrison’s walls in armor and spray-soaked cloaks.  The barracks that housed the contingent of Knights attached to the forces under Bernard’s command opened, men spilling out of them and hurrying for the walls.

            Amara frowned and called to Cirrus again.  The fury lifted her in a smooth rush of wind from the steps and deposited her on the heavy stone roof of the building, which allowed her to see over the fortress walls and out over the plains beyond.

            The furystorm lurked there like an enormous beast, out over the broad, rolling plains that marked the beginning of Marat territory.  It was an enormous, boiling cauldron of lightning and scowling storm cloud.  Its own inner fires lit the lands about in a display brighter than the light of a strong moon.  Pale, luminous forms swept in and around bolts of lightning and rolling mist—windmanes, the savage and deadly furies that accompanied the great storms.

            Lightning flashed abruptly, so brightly that it hurt Amara’s eyes, and she saw fire reach down from the storm in a solid curtain that raked at the ground and sent earth and stone spraying up from the impact in clouds and pieces she could see from miles away.  Even as she watched, whirling, twitching columns of fire lit cloud descended from the storm and touched upon the earth, darkening into half a dozen howling funnels that scattered earth and stone into a second, earth-bound storm cloud.

            She had never seen a storm of such raw, primal power, and it frightened her to her bones—though not nearly as much as when the tornados, each howling like a thing in torment, turned and flashed across the lightning-pocked earth toward the walls of Garrison.  More wails, though infinitely smaller, rose in ragged dissonance as the windmanes came soaring down from the clouds overhead, outriders and escorts for the deadly vortices.

            Heavy iron alarm bells sounded.  The gates of the fortress opened, and perhaps two dozen Aleran traders and half as many Marat came running through them, seeking shelter from the storm.  Behind her, she could hear other bells ringing as the folk of the shantytown were admitted to enter the safety of the stone shelters within the fortress.

            Cirrus whispered a warning into her ear, and Amara turned to find the nearest of the windmanes diving upon the men on the walls over the gate.  A flash of lightning showed her Bernard, his great war-bow in hand, bent to meet the wild fury’s attack.  It glittered off the tip of his arrow—and then the heavy bow thrummed and the arrow vanished, so swiftly did the war bow send it flying. 

            Amara found her heart in her throat—steel was of absolutely no use against windmanes, and no arrow in the realm could slay one of the creatures.  But the windmane screamed in agony and veered off, a ragged hole torn in the luminous substance of its body.

            More windmanes dove down, but Bernard stayed on the wall, calmly shooting those glitter-tipped arrows at each, while the Knights under his command focused their attention upon the coming storm.

            The Knights Aeris of Garrison, windcrafters at least as strong as Amara, each and every one, as well as those who had escorted her here, lined the walls, shouting to one another over the maddened, furious howls of wind and storm.  With a concentrated effort, each of them focused upon the nearest of the whirling tornados, and then together they let out a sudden shout.  Amara felt a shift in air pressure as the Knight’s furies leapt forth to at their command, and the nearest tornado abruptly wobbled, wavered, and then subsided into a murky, confused cloud that slowed and all but vanished.

            More windmanes shrieked their anger and dove at the Knights Aeris, but Bernard prevented them from drawing near, sending unerring shots through each of the glowing, wild furies as they charged.  Together the Knights focused on the next tornado, and the next, each one being dispersed.  In only moments, the last of the tornados bore down upon the walls, but it withered and died before it could quite reach.

            The storm rolled overhead, rumbling, lightning flashing from cloud to cloud, but it had a weary quality to it, now.  Rain began to fall, and the thunder shrank from great, roaring cracks of sound to low, discontented rumbles.

            Amara turned her attention to the walls, where the local Knights Aeris were returning to their quarters.  She noted, in passing, that the men hadn’t even bothered to don their armor.  One of them, in fact, was still quite naked from bed, but for the legionare’s cloak he held wrapped around his waist.  Her own escort looked a bit wild around the eyes, but wry remarks and lazy laughs from the Knights of Garrison seemed to be steadying the men.

            Amara shook her head and descended back to the stairs, retreating into Bernard’s chambers.  She slipped some more wood onto the fire and stirred it and its attendant furies to greater heat and light.  Bernard returned a few moments later, bow in hand.  He unstrung it and set it in a corner.

            “I told you,” he said, amusement in his tone.  “Nothing worth getting out of bed for.”

            “Such things are common here?” she asked.

            “Lately,” he said, frowning faintly.  He had gotten soaked in the rain and spray, and he peeled wet clothing on his way to stand beside the fire.  “Though they’ve been rolling in from the east lately.  That’s unusual.  Most of the furystorms here start up over old Garados.  And I can’t ever remember having this many this early in the year.”

            Amara frowned, glancing in the direction of the surly old mountain.  “Are your holders in danger?”

            “I wouldn’t be standing here if they were,” he replied.  “There are going to be windmanes out until the storm blows itself out, but that’s common enough.”

            “I see,” she said.  “What arrows did you use on those windmanes?”

            “Target points, covered in a salt crystal.”

            Salt was the bane of the furies of the wind, and caused them immense discomfort.  “Clever,” Amara said.  “And effective.”

            “Tavi’s idea,” Bernard said.  “He came up with it years ago.  Though I never had the cause to try it until this year.”  He broke into a sudden grin.  “The boy’s head will swell up when he hears about it.”

            “You miss him,” Amara said.

            He nodded.  “He’s got a good heart.  And he’s the closest thing I’ve had to a son.  So far.”

            She doubted it, but there was little use in saying so.  “So far,” she said, her tone neutral.

            “Looking forward to Ceres,” Bernard said.  “I haven’t spoken to Isana in weeks.  That’s strange for me.  But I suppose we’ll have time on the trip.”

            Amara said nothing, and the crackling of the fire emphasized the sudden tension that built up between them.

            Bernard frowned at her.  “Love?”

            She drew in a breath and faced him, her eyes steady on his.  “She declined the First Lord’s invitation to be transported by his Knights Aeris.   Politely, of course.”  Amara sighed.  “Aquitaine’s people are already bringing her to the conclave of the Dianic League.”

            Bernard frowned down at her, but his eyes wavered away, moving to the warmth of the fire.  “I see.”

            “I don’t think she would have cared to keep much company with me anyway,” Amara said quietly.  “She and I . . . well.”

            “I know,” Bernard said, and to Amara her husband suddenly looked years older.  “I know.”

            Amara shook her head.  “I still don’t understand why she hates Gaius so much.  It’s as though it’s personal for her.”

            “Oh,” Bernard said.  “It is.”

            She touched his chest with the fingers of one hand.  “Why?”

            He shook his head.  “I’m as ignorant as you are.  Ever since Alia died . . .”

            “Alia?”

            “Younger sister,” Bernard said.  “She and Isana were real close.  I was off on my first tour with the Rivan Legions.  We were way up by the Shieldwall, working with Phrygia’s troops against the icemen.  Our parents had died a few years before, and when Isana went into service in the Legion camps, Alia went with her.”

            “Where?” Amara asked.

            Bernard gestured to the western wall of the room, indicating the whole of the Calderon Valley.  “Here.  They were here during the First Battle of Calderon.”

            Amara drew in a sharp breath.  “What happened?”

            Bernard shook his head, and his eyes looked a bit more sunken.  “Alia and Isana barely escaped the camp before the horde destroyed it.  From what Isana said, the Crown Legion was taken off guard.  Sold its own lives to give the civilians a chance to run.  There were no healers.  No shelter.  No time.  Alia went into childbirth, and Isana had to choose between Alia and the baby.”

            “Tavi,” Amara said.

            “Tavi.”  Bernard stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Amara.  She leaned against his strength and warmth.  “I think Isana blames Alia’s death on the First Lord.  It isn’t rational, I suppose.”

            “But understandable,” Amara murmured.  “Especially if she feels guilty about her sister’s death.”

            Bernard grunted, lifting his eyebrows.  “Hadn’t ever thought of it that way.  Sounds about right.  Isana has always been the type who blames herself for things she couldn’t have done anything about.  That isn’t rational either.”  He tightened his arms on Amara, and she leaned into it.  The fire was warm, and her weariness slowly spread over her, making her feel heavy.

            Bernard gave her a last little squeeze and then picked her up.  “We both need more sleep.”

            She sighed and laid her head against his chest.  Her husband carried her to the bed, undressed her of the clothing she’d thrown on before rushing into the rain, and then slipped into the sheets with her.  He held her very gently, his presence steady and gentle, and she slipped an arm around him before falling into a doze that quickly sank toward deeper sleep.

            She considered the furystorm in the drifting stillness that comes just before dreams.  Her instincts told her that it had not been natural.  She feared that, like the severe storms two years ago, it might be a deliberate effort on behalf of one of the realm’s enemies to weaken Alera.  Especially now, given the events stirring across the realm.

            She choked down a whimper and pressed herself closer to her husband.  A quiet little voice in her thoughts told her that she should take every moment of peace and safety that she could find—because she suspected they were about to become memories.

Chapter Three

            Tavi didn’t get his sword up in time, and Max’s downward stroke struck his wrist at an appallingly perpendicular angle.  Tavi heard a snapping sound and had time to think Those are my wrist bones before the world went suddenly scarlet with pain and sent him to one knee.  He keeled over onto his side.

            Max’s rudius, a wooden practice blade, hit his shoulder and head quite firmly before Tavi managed to wheeze, “Hold it!”

            At his side, Maestro Magnus flicked his own rudius at Max in a quick salute, then unstrapped his wide legion shield from his left arm.  He dropped the rudius and knelt beside Tavi.  “Here, lad.  Let me see.”

            “Crows!” Max snarled, spitting.  “You dropped your shield.  You dropped your bloody shield again, Calderon.”

            “You broke my crow-begotten arm!” Tavi snarled.  The pain kept burning.

            Max tossed his own shield and rudius down in disgust.  “It was your own fault.  You aren’t taking this seriously.  You need more practice.”

            “Go to the crows, Max,” Tavi growled.  “If you weren’t insisting on this stupid fighting technique, this wouldn’t have happened.”

            Magnus paused, and exchanged a look with Max.  Then he sighed and removed his hands from Tavi’s injured arm, taking up shield and rudius again.

            “Ready your shield and get up,” Max said, his voice calm as he recovered his own rudius.

            Tavi snorted.  “You’ve broken my bloody arm.  How do you expect me to--”

            Max let out a roar and swept the practice weapon at Tavi’s head.

            Tavi barely threw himself back in time to avoid the stroke, and he struggled to regain his feet, balance wavering because of the pain and the heavy shield on his left arm.  “Max!” he shouted.

            His friend roared again, weapon sweeping down.

            Magnus’ rudius swept through the air and deflected the blow, and then the old Maestro shouldered into Tavi’s shield side, bracing him long enough to get his balance underneath him.

            “Stay in tight,” Magnus growled, as Max circled to attack again.  “Your shield overlaps mine.”

            Tavi could hardly make sense of the words for the pain in his arm, but he did it.  Together, he and Magnus presented Max with nothing but the broad faces of their shields as a target, while Max circled toward their weak side—Tavi.

            “He’s faster and has more reach than me.  Protect me or neither of us will hold a sword.”  Magnus’ elbow thumped swiftly into Tavi’s ribs, and Tavi pivoted slightly, opening a slender gap in the shields through which Magnus delivered the quick, ugly chop Tavi had been less than enthused about learning.

            Max caught the blow on his shield, though barely, and when his reply stroke came whipping back, Tavi stretched his shield toward Magnus, deflecting the blow while the Maestro recovered his defensive balance.

            “Good!” Magnus barked.  “Keep the shield up!”

            “My arm—“ Tavi gasped.

            “Keep the shield up!” Max roared and sent a series of strokes at Tavi’s head.

            The boy circled away, staying tight against Magnus’ side, and the old Maestro’s return strokes threatened Max just enough to keep him from an all-out assault that would batter through Tavi’s swiftly-weakening defenses.  But Tavi’s heel struck a stone, he mis-stepped, and moved a little too far from Magnus’ side.  Max’s rudius clipped the top of Tavi’s skull, hard enough to send a burst of stars through his head despite the heavy leather helmet he wore for their practice bouts.

            He fell weakly to one knee, but some groggy part of his brain told him to keep his shield close to Magnus, and he foiled a similar strike Max directed at the Maestro on his return stroke.  Magnus’ rudius flashed out and tapped Max hard at the inner bend of his elbow, and the large young man grunted, flicked his rudius up in a salute of concession, and stepped away from the pair of them.

            Tavi collapsed, so tired that he felt he could barely keep breathing.  His wounded wrist pounded in agony.  He lay there on his side for a moment, and then opened his eyes to stare at his friend and Magnus.  “Through having fun?”

            “Excuse me?” Max asked.  His voice sounded tired as well, though he was barely panting.

            Tavi knew that he probably should keep his mouth shut, but the pain and the anger it begat paid no attention to his reason.  “I’ve been bullied before, Max.  Just never figured you’d do it.”

            “Is that what you think this is?” Max asked.

            “Isn’t it?” Tavi demanded.

            “You aren’t paying attention,” Magnus said in a calm voice, as he stripped himself of the practice gear and fetched a flask of water.  “If you got hurt, it was a result of your own failure.”

            “No,” Tavi snarled.  “It is a result of my friend breaking my arm.  And making me continue this idiocy.”

            Max hunkered down in front of Tavi and stared at him for a silent minute.  His friend’s expression was serious, even . . . sober.  Tavi had never seen that expression on Max’s face.

            “Tavi,” he said quietly.  “You’ve seen the Canim fight.  Do you think one of them would politely allow you to get up and leave the fight because you sustained a minor injury?  Do you think one of the Marat would ignore weaknesses in your defense out of courtesy for your pride?  Do you think an enemy legionare will listen while you explain to him that this isn’t your best technique, and that he should go easy on you?”

            Tavi stared at Max for a moment.

            Max accepted the flask from Magnus after he finished, and drank.  Then he tapped the rudius on the ground beside him.  “You cover your shieldmate no matter what happens.  If your other wrist is broken, if it leaves you exposed, if you’re bleeding to death.  It doesn’t matter.  Your shield stays up.  You protect him.”

            “Even if it leaves me open?” Tavi demanded.

            “Even if it leaves you open.  You have to trust the man beside you to protect you if it comes to that.  Just as you protect him.  It’s discipline, Tavi.  It is literally life and death--not just for you, but for every man fighting with you.  If you fail, it might not only be you who dies.  You’ll kill the men relying on you.”

            Tavi stared at his friend and his anger ebbed away.  It left only the pain and a world full of weariness.

            “I’ll ready a basin,” Magnus said quietly, and paced away.

            “There’s no room for error,” Max continued.  He unstrapped Tavi’s left hand from the shield, and passed him the water. 

            Tavi suddenly felt ragingly thirsty, and began guzzling it down.  He dropped the flask and lay his head on the ground.  “You hurt me, Max.”

            Max nodded.  “Sometimes pain is the only way to make a stupid recruit pay attention.”

            “But these strokes,” Tavi said, frustrated but no longer belligerent.  “I know how to use a sword, Max.  You know that.  Most of these moves are the clumsiest looking things I’ve ever seen.”

            “Yes,” Max said.  “Because they fit between the shields without elbowing someone behind you in the eye or unbalancing the man on your right or making your feet slip in mud or snow.  You get an opening for maybe half a second, and you’ve got to hit whatever you’re swinging at with every ounce of force you can muster.  Those are the strokes that get the job done.”

            “But I’ve already been trained.”

            “You’ve been trained in self-defense,” Max corrected him.  “You’ve been trained to duel, or to fight in a loose, fast group of individual warriors.  The front line of a legion battlefield is a different world.”

            Tavi frowned.  “How so?”

            “Legionares aren’t warriors, Tavi.  They’re professional soldiers.”

            “What’s the difference?”

            Max pursed his lips in thought.  “Warriors fight.  Legionares fight together.  It isn’t about being the best swordsman.  It’s about forming a whole which is stronger than the sum of the individuals in it.”

            Tavi frowned, mulling the thought over through a haze of discomfort from his throbbing wrist.

            “Even the most hopeless fighter can learn legion technique,” Max continued.  “It’s simple.  It’s dirty.  It works.  It works when the battlefield is cramped and brutal and terrible.  It works because the man beside you trusts you to cover him, and because you trust him to cover you.  When it comes to battle, I’d rather fight beside competent legionares than any duelist—even if it was the shade of Araris Valerian himself.  There’s no comparison to be made.”

            Tavi looked down for a moment and then said, “I didn’t understand.”

            “You were at a disadvantage.  You’re already a fair hand with a blade.”  Max grinned suddenly.  “If it makes you feel any better, I was the same way.  Only my first centurion broke my wrist six times and my kneecap twice before I worked it out.”

            Tavi winced at his own wrist, now swelling up into a large, plump sausage of throbbing torment.  “Naturally, it only stands to reason that I would learn more quickly than you, Max.”

            “Hah.  Keep that talk up, and I’ll let you fix that wrist on your own.”  Despite his words, though, Max looked concerned about him.  “You going to be all right?”

            Tavi nodded.  “I’m sorry I snapped at you, Max.  It’s just . . .”  A little pang of loneliness hit Tavi.  It had become a familiar sensation over the last six months.  “I’m missing the reunion.  I miss Kitai.”

            “Can’t a day pass without you whining to me about her?  She was your first girl, Calderon.  You’ll get over it.” 

            The little lonely pang went though him again.  “I don’t want to get over it.”

            “Way of the world, Calderon.”  Max reached down to slide Tavi’s good arm over one of his broad shoulders and lifted him from the ground.  Max helped him over to their camp’s fire, where Magnus was pouring steaming water into a mostly-full washbasin.

            Twilight lingered for a long time in the Amaranth Vale, at least compared to Tavi’s mountainous home.  Every night, the trio had stopped traveling an hour before sundown, in order to give Tavi lessons in the use of legion battle tactics and techniques.  The lessons had been arduous, mostly practice exercises with a weighted rudius, and they’d left Tavi’s arm too sore to move after the first couple of evenings.  Max hadn’t judged Tavi’s arm ready to train until two weeks of exercises had hardened the muscles in it into sharp, heavy angles beneath the skin.  Another week had served to thoroughly frustrate Tavi with the seemingly clumsy techniques he was being forced to learn—but he had to admit that he’d never been in better fighting condition.

            Until Max had broken his wrist, at least.

            Max eased Tavi down beside the basin, and Magnus guided the broken wrist down into the warm water.  “You ever awake through a watercrafted healing, boy?”

            “Lots of times,” Tavi said.  “My aunt had to see to me more than once.”

            “Good, good,” Magnus approved.  He paused for a moment, and then closed his eyes and rested the palm of his hand lightly on the surface of the water.  Tavi felt the liquid stir in a swift ripple, as though an unseen eel had darted through the water around his hand, and then the warm numbness of the healing enveloped his hand.

            The pain faded, and Tavi let out a groan of relief.  He sagged forward, trying not to move his arm.  He wasn’t sure it was possible to fall asleep sitting up, and with both eyes slightly open, but he seemed to do so, because the next time he glanced up, night had fallen and the aroma of stew filled the air.

            “Right then,” Magnus said wearily and withdrew his hand from the washbasin.  “Try that.”

            Tavi drew his arm out of the tepid water of the washbasin and flexed his fingers.  Soreness made the movement painful, but the swelling had all but vanished, and the throbbing pain had faded to a shadow of what it had been before.

            “It’s good,” Tavi said quietly.  “I didn’t know you were a healer.”

            “Just an assistant healer during my stint in the legions.  But this kind of thing was fairly routine.  It’ll be tender.  Eat as much as you can at dinner and keep it elevated tonight, if you want to keep it from aching.”

            “I know,” Tavi assured him.  He rose and offered the healer his restored hand.  Magnus smiled a bit whimsically and took it.  Tavi helped him up, and then they both went to the stewpot over the fire.  Tavi was ravenous, as always after a healing.  He wolfed down the first two bowls of stew without pausing, and then scraped a third from the bottom of the pot and slowed down, soaking tough trailbread in the stew to soften it into edibility.

            “Can I ask you something?” he said to Max.

            “Sure,” the big Antillan said.

            “Why bother to teach me the technique?” Tavi asked.  “I’ll be serving as an officer, not fighting in the ranks.”

            “Never can tell,” Max drawled.  “But even if you never fight there, you need to know what it’s about.  How a legionare thinks, and why he acts as he does.”

            Tavi grunted.

            “Plus, to play your part, you’ve got to be able to see when some fish is screwing it up.”

            “Fish?” Tavi asked.

            “New recruit,” Max clarified.  “First couple of weeks they’re always flailing around like a landed fish instead of a legionare.  It’s customary for experienced men to point out every mistake a fish makes in as humiliating a fashion as possible.  And in the loudest voice manageable.”

            “That’s why you’ve been doing it to me?” Tavi asked.

            Both Max and the old Maestro grinned.  “The First Lord didn’t want you to miss out on too much of the experience,” Magnus said.

            “Oh,” Tavi said.  “I’ll be sure to thank him.”

            “Right, then,” Magnus said.  “Let’s see if you remember what I’ve been teaching you while we ride.”

            Tavi grunted and finished off the last of his food.  The practice, the pain, and the crafting had left him exhausted.  If it had been up to him, he would have simply laid down right where he was and slept – which had doubtless been intentional on behalf of Max and Magnus.  “I’m ready when you are,” he sighed.

            “Very well,” Magnus said.  “To begin, why don’t you tell me all the regulations regarding latrines and sanitation, and enumerate the discipline for failure to meet the regulations’ requirements.”

            Tavi immediately started repeating the relevant regulations, though so many of them had been crowded into his brain over the past three weeks that it was a challenge to bring them up, tired as he was.  From sanitation procedure, Magnus moved on to logistics, procedures for making and breaking camp, watch schedules, patrol patterns, and another hundred facets of legion life Tavi had to remember.

            He forced his brain to provide facts until weariness was interrupting every sentence with a yawn before Magnus was finally said, “Enough, lad, enough.  Get some sleep.”

            Max had collapsed into lusty snoring an hour before.  Tavi sought his bedroll and dropped onto it.  He propped his arm up on the leather training helmet as an afterthought.  “Think I’m ready?”

            Magnus tilted his head thoughtfully and sipped at his cup of tea.  “You’re a quick study.  You’ve worked hard to learn the part.  But that hardly matters, does it.”  He glanced aside at Tavi.  “Do you think you’re ready?”

            Tavi closed his eyes.  “I’ll manage.  At least until something beyond my control goes horribly wrong and kills us all.”

            “Good lad,” Magnus said with a chuckle.  “Spoken like a legionare.  But bear something in mind, Tavi.”

            “Hmmm?”

            “Right now, you’re pretending to be a soldier,” the old man said.  “But this assignment is going to last a while.  By the time it’s over, it won’t be an act.”

            Tavi blinked his eyes open to stare up at the sea of stars now emerging overhead.  “Did you ever have a bad feeling about something?  Like you knew something bad was about to happen?”

            “Sometimes.  Usually set off by a bad dream, or for no reason at all.”

            Tavi shook his head.  “No.  This isn’t like those times.”  He frowned up at the stars.  “I know.  I know it like I know that water’s wet.  That two and two is four.  There’s no malice or fear attached to it.  It just is.”  He squinted at the Maestro.  “Did you ever feel like that?”

            Magnus was silent for a long moment, regarding the fire with calculating eyes, his metal cup hiding most of his expression.  “No,” he said finally.  “But I know a man who has a time or two.”

            When he said nothing more, Tavi asked, “What if there’s fighting, Maestro?”

            “What if there is?” Magnus asked.

            “I’m not sure I’m ready.”

            “No one is,” the Maestro said.  “Not really.  Old salts strut and brag about being bored in most battles, but every time it’s just as frightening as your first.  You’ll fit right in, lad.”

            “That’s not something I’ve had much practice in,” Tavi said.

            “I suppose not,” Magnus said.  He shook his head and took his eyes from the fire.  “Best I rest these old bones.  Best you do the same, lad.  Tomorrow you join the legions.”

Chapter Four

            They rode into the First Aleran Legion’s training camp in the middle of the afternoon.  Tavi idly picked a few loose black curls from his collar, rubbed his hand over the stiff brush of short hairs left on his head, and glared at Max.  “I just can’t believe you did that while I was asleep.”

            “Regulations are regulations,” Max said, his tone pious.  “Besides.  If you’d been awake, you’d have complained too much.”

            “I thought it was every soldier’s sacred right,” Tavi said.

            “Every soldier, yes sir.  But you’re an officer, sir.”

            “Who should lead by example,” Magnus murmured.  “In grooming as well as uniform.”

            Tavi glowered at Magnus and tugged at the loose leather jacket he wore, the leather stiff and heavy enough to turn a glancing blow of a blade, dyed a dark blue in contrast to the lighter tunic he wore beneath.  He wore a legion-issue belt and blade at his side, and though his favored training had been in a slightly longer weapon, the standard side-arm of the legions felt comfortable in his grasp as well, particularly after the practices with Max and the Maestro.

            The Legion camp was fully the size of his uncle’s stronghold at Garrison, and Tavi knew that they were of similar size for a reason: all legion camps were laid out in precisely the same fashion in order to make sure that all commanders, messengers, and various functionaries of the armed forces always knew their way around any given camp, as well as making it possible for militia newly recalled to duty to fit in with the highly disciplined, organized troops of a legion.  Garrison, Tavi realized, was quite simply a standard legion camp built from stone instead of canvas and wood, barracks replacing tents, stone walls and battlements replacing portable wooden palisades.  It housed less than the full complement of men it could, and while Lord Riva claimed that this was because of his confidence in Count Bernard’s alliance with the largest clans of Marat in the lands beyond Garrison, Tavi suspected it had far more to do with funds being skimmed from Riva’s military budget and into other accounts.

            The land around the camp had been trampled thoroughly by thousands of marching feet in the past several weeks.  The thick green grass common to the Vale was mashed flat, only in places rebounding from repeated trampling.  Tavi could see several hundred troops at training even now, at least half a dozen cohorts of recruits drilling in the brown-gold tunics they would wear until they’d earned their steel armor.  They bore large wooden replicas of actual shields, weighted and heavier than the actual items, as well as wooden poles the length of the common legion fighting spear.  Each recruit, of course, bore his own weighted rudius, and the marching men had the slack-faced, bored look of miserable youth.  Tavi caught not a few resentful glares as they rode by the marching recruits, swift and fresh and lazy by comparison.

            They rode into what would have been the eastern gates of Garrison, and were halted by a pair of men dressed in the arms and armor of veteran legionares.  They were older than the recruits outside, and more slovenly.  Both men needed a shave and, as Tavi approached near enough to get a whiff of them, a bath.

            “Halt,” drawled the first, a man a few years Tavi’s senior, tall and broad and sagging in the middle.  He dragged most of a yawn into the word.  “Name and business, please, or be on your way.”

            Tavi drew rein on his horse a few feet away from the sentry and nodded to him politely.  “Scipio Rufus, of Riva.  I’m to serve as subtribune to the Tribune Logistica.”

            “Scipio, is it,” the legionare drawled.  He pulled a wadded up sheet of paper from a pocket, brushed what looked like bread crumbs from it, and read, “Third subtribune.”  He shook his head.  “To a post that barely needs a tribune, much less three subbies.  You’re in for a world of hurt, little Scipio.”

            Tavi narrowed his eyes at the veteran.  “Has the Captain Cyril given nonstandard orders with regard to the protocols of rank, legionare?”

            The second legionare on duty stepped forward.  This one was short, stocky, and like his partner, had a belly that also spoke of little exercise and much beer.  “What’s this?  Some young Citizen’s puppy thinks he’s better than us enlisted men cause he’s taken one turn around the rose garden with a legion that never marched out of sight of his city?”

            “That’s always the way,” drawled the first man.  He sneered at Tavi.  “I’m sorry, sir.  Did you ask me something?  Because if you did, something more important bumped it clean out of my head.”

            Without a word, Max hopped down off of his horse, seized a short, heavy rod from his saddlebag, and laid it across the bridge of the first sentry’s nose with a blow that knocked the large man from his feet and slammed his back onto the dirt.

            The second sentry fumbled at his spear, the tip of the weapon dipping toward the unarmored Max.  The young man seized it in one hand, locking it in place as immovably as if within stone, and swung the smaller sentry into the wooden palisade with such force that the entire section rocked and wobbled.  The sentry bounced off and to the ground, and before he could rise, Max thrust the end of his wooden baton beneath the man’s chin and pushed.  The smaller sentry let out a choking sound and froze in place on his back.

            “Sir,” Max drawled lazily to Tavi.  “You’ll have to forgive Nonus,” a thrust of the stick made the smaller man let out a croaking squeak, “and Bortus, here.”  Max’s boot nudged the first sentry’s ribs.  The man didn’t even twitch.  “They managed to buy their way out of being cashiered out of Third Antillan a few years back, and I guess they just weren’t smart enough to remember that a lack of proper respect for officers was what got them into trouble in the first place.”

            “Antillar,” choked the smaller man.

            “I’m not speaking to you yet, Nonus,” Max said, poking his centurion’s baton into the underside of the legionare’s chin.  “But I’m glad you recognize me.  Makes it convenient to tell you that I’m serving as centurion here, and I’ll be in charge of weapons training.  You and Bortus just volunteered to be the target dummies for my first batch of fish.”  His voice hardened.  “Who is your centurion?”

            “Valiar Marcus,” the man gasped.

            “Marcus!  Could have sworn he retired.  I’ll have a word with him about it.”  He leaned down and said, “Assuming that’s alright with Subtribune Scipio.  He’s within his rights to go straight to lashes if he’d like it.”

            “But I didn’t . . .” Nonus sputtered.  “Bortus was the one who--“

            Max leaned on the baton a little harder, and Nonus stopped talking with a little, squealing hiccup of sound.  The big Antillan looked over his shoulder at Tavi and winked.  “What’s your pleasure, sir?”

            Tavi shook his head, and it was an effort to keep the smile from his face.  “No point in lashes yet, centurion.  We won’t have anything to build up to, later.”  He leaned over and peered at the larger, unconscious legionare.  The man was breathing, but his nose was swelling and obviously broken.  Both of his eyes had already been ringed with magnificent, dark purple bruises.  He turned to the man Max had left conscious.  “Legionare Nonus, is it?  When your relief arrives, take your friend to the physician.  When he wakes up, remind him what happened, hmmm?  And suggest to him that at least while on sentry duty, greeting arriving officers with proper decorum should perhaps be considered of somewhat more importance than taunting puppies raised in rose gardens.  Alright?”

            Max jabbed the baton into Nonus again.  The legionare nodded frantically.

            “Good man,” Tavi said, then clucked to his horse, riding on without so much as looking over his shoulder. 

            He only got to hear Magnus descend from his own mount, fuss for a moment over the state of his saddlebags, and then present his papers to the prostrate sentry.  He cleared his throat and sniffed, “Magnus.  Senior valet to the captain and his staff.  I can’t abide the state of your uniform.  My bloody crows, this fabric is simply ridiculous.  Does it always smell so bad?  Or is that just you?  And these stains.  How on earth did you manage to . . . no, no, don’t tell me.  I simply don’t want to know.”

            Max burst out into his familiar roar of laughter, and a moment later he and Magnus caught up to Tavi.  The pair of them rode through row after row of white canvas tents.  Some of them looked legion-perfect.  Others sagged and drooped, doubtless the quarters of fresh recruits still finding their way.

            Tavi was surprised at how loud the place was.  Men’s voices shouted to be heard over the din.  A grimy, blind beggar woman sat beside the camp’s main lane, playing a reed flute for tiny coins from passersby.  Work teams dug ditches and hauled wood, singing as they did.  Tavi could hear a blacksmith’s hammers ringing steadily nearby.  A grizzled old veteran drilled a full cohort -- four centuries of eighty recruits each – at the basic sword strokes Tavi had learned so recently, facing one another in a pair of long lines and going through drilled movements by numbers barked by the veteran, shouting in response as they swung.  The strokes were slow and hesitant, incorrect movements aborted in mid-motion to follow the instructor.  Even as he watched, Tavi saw a rudius slip from the hands of a recruit and slam into the kneecap of the man beside him.  The stricken recruit howled, hopping on one leg, and blundered into the man on his other side, knocking half a dozen recruits to the ground.

            “Ah,” Tavi said.  “Fish.”

            “Fish,” Max agreed.  “It should be safe to talk here,” he added.  “There’s enough noise to make listening in difficult.”

            “I could have handled those two, Max,” Tavi said quietly.

            “But an officer wouldn’t,” Max said.  “Centurions are the ones who break heads when legionares get out of line.  Especially troublemakers like Nonus and Bortus.”

            “You know them,” Tavi said.

            “Mmmm.  Served with them, the slives.  Lazy, loud, greedy, drunken, brawling apes, the both of them.”

            “They didn’t seem happy to see you.”

            “We once had a discussion about the proper way to treat a lady in camp.”

            “How did that turn out?” Tavi asked.

            “Like today, but with more teeth on the ground,” Max said.

            Tavi shook his head.  “And men like that are given status as veterans.  They draw higher pay.”

            “Outside a battle line they aren’t worth the cloth it would stain to clean their blood off a knife.”  Max shook his head and glanced back at them.  “But they’re fighters.  They know their work, and they’ve been in the middle of some bad business without folding.  That’s why they got out under voluntary departure rather than forced discharge for conduct unbecoming a legionare.”

            “And it also explains why they’re here,” Magnus added.  “According to the records, they’re honorable veterans willing to start with a fresh legion—and that kind of experience is priceless for training recruits and steadying their lines in battle.  They know they’ll have seniority, that they won’t have to do the worst of the work, and that they’ll get better pay.”

            Max snorted.  “And don’t forget, this legion is working up in the bloody Amaranth Vale.  Plenty of freemen would kill to live down here.”  Max gestured around them.  “No snow, or not to speak of.  No rough weather.  No wild, rogue furies.  Lots of food, and they probably think this is a token legion which will never see real action.”

            Tavi shook his head.  “Aren’t men like that going to be bad for the legion as a whole?”

            Magnus smiled a little and shook his head.  “Not under Captain Cyril.  He lets his centurions maintain discipline in whatever way they see fit.”

            Max twirled his baton with a sunny smile.

            Tavi pursed his lips thoughtfully.  “Will all the veterans be like them?”

            Max shrugged.  “I suspect that most of the High Lords will do everything in their power to keep their most experienced men close to home.  No legion has too many veterans, but they all have too many slives like Nonus and Bortus.”

            “So you’re saying the only men in this legion will be incompetent fish – “

            “Of which you are one,” Max said.  “Technically speaking, sir.”

            “Of which I am one,” Tavi allowed.  “and malcontents.”

            “And spies,” the Maestro added.  “Anyone competent and friendly is likely a spy.”

            Max grunted.  “They can’t all be rotten.  And if Valiar Marcus is here, I suspect we’ll find some other solid centurions where he came from.  We’ll slap the scum around enough to keep them in line, and work the fish until they shape up.  Every legion has this kind of problem when it forms.”

            The Maestro shook his head.  “Not to such a dramatic degree.”

            Max shrugged a shoulder without disagreeing.  “It’ll come together.  Just takes time.”

            Tavi nodded ahead of them, to a tent three or four times the size of any others, though it was made of the same plain canvas as all the rest.  Two sides of the tent were rolled up, leaving the interior open to anyone passing by.  Several men were inside.  “That’s the captain’s tent?”

            Max frowned.  “It’s in the right place.  But they’re usually bigger.  Fancier.”

            Magnus let out a chuckle.  “That’s Cyril’s style.”

            Tavi drew his mount to a halt and glanced around him.  A slim gentleman of middle age appeared, dressed in a plain grey tunic.  The eagle-sigil of the crown had been stitched into the tunic over his heart, divided down the middle into blue and red halves.  “Let me take those for you, gentleman.”  He glanced at each of them and then abruptly smiled at the Maestro.  “Magnus, I take it?”

            “My fame precedes me,” the Maestro said.  He pushed the heels of his hands against the small of his back and winced, stretching.  “You have the advantage of me.”

            The man saluted, fist to heart, legion-fashion.  “Lorico, sir.  Valet.  I’ll be working for you.”  He waved, and a young page came over to take the horses.

            Magnus nodded and traded grips with the man, forearm to forearm.  “Pleased to meet you.  This is Subtribune Scipio Rufus.  Centurion Antillar Maximus.”

            Lorico saluted them as well.  “The Captain is having his first general staff meeting, sirs, if you’d care to go inside.”

            Max nodded to them.  “Lorico, could you direct me to my billet?”

            “Begging your pardon, centurion, but the Captain asked that you attend as well.”

            Max lifted his eyebrows, and gestured to Tavi.  “Sir.”

            Tavi nodded and entered the tent, glancing around the place.  A plain legionare’s bedroll sat neatly atop a battered old standard-issue travel chest.  They were the only evidence of anyone residing in the tent.  Several writing tables stood against the walls of the tent, though their three-legged camp stools had been drawn to the tent’s middle, and were occupied by one woman and half a dozen men.  There were another score or so of armored men crowded into the space the tent provided, all of them arranged in a loose half-circle around an unremarkable-looking bald man in armor worn over a grey tunic.  Captain Cyril.

            Legion armor always made a man’s shoulders look wide, but the Cyril’s looked almost deformed beneath the pauldrons.  His forearms were bare, scarred, the skin stretched tight over cords of muscle.  His armor bore the same red-and-blue eagle insignia Tavi had seen on Lorico’s tunic, somehow embedded into the steel.

            Tavi stepped aside to let Magnus and Max enter, and the three of them came to attention while Lorico announced them.  “Subtribune Scipio, Astoris Magnus and Antillar Maximus, sir.”

            Cyril looked up from the paper he held in his hand and nodded to them.  “Good timing, gentlemen.  Welcome.”  He gestured for them to join the circle around him.  “Please.”

            “My name is Ritius Cyril,” he continued, after they had joined the circle.  “Many of you know me.  For those who don’t, I was born in Placida, but my home is here, in the legions.  I have served terms as a legionare in Phrygia, Riva and Antillus, and as a marine in Parcia.  I served as a Knight Ferrous in Antillus, as a Tribune Auxiliarus, Tribune Tactica and Knight Tribune, as well as Legion Subtribune.  I have seen action against the Icemen, the Canim, and the Marat.  This is my first legion command.”  He paused to look around the room steadily, then said, “Gentlemen, we find ourselves in the unenviable position of pioneers.  No legion like this one has ever existed.  Some of you may be expecting to serve in a token fighting force—a political symbol, where the work will be light, and where the business of war will seldom cross paths with us.

            “If so, you are mistaken,” he said, and his voice turned slightly crisp.  “Make no mistake.  I intend to train this Legion to be the equal of any in the realm.  There is a great deal of work ahead of us, but I will ask nothing more from any of you than I do of myself.

            “Further, I am as aware as any of you of the various agendas of the lords and Senators who supported the founding of this legion.  Lest there be any misunderstandings, you should all know now that I have no patience for politics and little tolerance for fools.  This is a legion.  Our business is war, the defense of the realm.  I will not allow anyone’s games to interfere with business. If you are here with your own agenda, or if you have no stomach for hard work, I expect you to resign, here and now, and be gone after breakfast tomorrow.”  His gaze swept the room again.  “Are there any takers?”

            Tavi arched a brow at the man, impressed.  Few would dare to speak so plainly to the Citizenry which made up most of the officers of every legion.  Tavi glanced around the gathering of listeners.  None of them moved or spoke, though Tavi saw uncomfortable expressions on several faces.  Evidently, they were no more used to being spoken to in no uncertain terms than Tavi was to hearing them so addressed.

            Cyril waited for a moment more, then said, “No?  Then I will expect you all to do everything in your power fulfill your duties. Just as I will do all in my power to aid and support you.  That said, introductions are in order.”

            Cyril went around the room and delivered terse introductions of each person there.  Tavi took particular note of a beefy-looking man named Gracchus, Tribune Logistica and Tavi’s immediate commander.  Another man, a weathered-looking veteran whose face had never been pretty even before all the scars, was identified as Valiar Marcus, the First Spear, the most senior centurion of the legion.  When Cyril reached the end of the introductions, he said, “And we have been the beneficiaries of some unanticipated good fortune,” Cyril said.  “Gentlemen, some of you know her already, but may I present to you Antillus Dorotea, the High Lady Antillus.”

            A woman rose from where she sat on the stool in a grey dress which bore the First Aleran’s red and blue eagle over the heart.  She was slim, of medium height, and her long, fine, straight dark hair clung to her head and shone as if wet.  Her features were narrow and vaguely familiar to Tavi.

            Beside him, Max sucked in a startled breath.

            Captain Cyril bowed politely to Lady Antillus, and she gave him a grave inclination of her head in response.  “Her Grace has offered her services as a watercrafter and healer for the duration of our first deployment,” Cyril continued.  “You all know that this is not her first term of service with the Legions as a Tribune Medica.”

            Tavi arched an eyebrow.  A High Lady, here in the camp?  That was anything but ordinary for a legion, despite anything the Captain might have said to the contrary.  The high blood of Alera wielded an enormous amount of power by virtue of their incredible talent of furycrafting.  A single High Lord, Tavi had been told, had the strength of an entire century of Knights, and Antillus, one of the two cities that defended the great northern Shield Wall, was renowned for its skill and tenacity in battle.

            “I know it isn’t traditional, but I’ll be meeting with each of you separately to take your oaths.  I’ll send for each of you over the next day or two.  Meanwhile, Lorico has your duty assignments and will show you to your billets.  I would be pleased if you all would join me at my table for evening meals.  Dismissed.”

            Those seated on stools rose, and the men parted politely to let Lady Antillus leave first.  There were a few murmurs as they left, each taking a leather message tube from Lorico.

            “Go on, lads,” Magnus murmured to them without even opening his leather tube.  “I’ll get started here.  Good luck to you both.”  He smiled and stepped back into the captain’s tent.

            Tavi walked away with Max, and read his orders.  Simple enough.  He was to report to Tribune Gracchus and assist with the management of the legion’s stores and inventory.  “He was different than I expected,” Tavi said.

            “Hmmm?” Max asked.

            “The captain,” Tavi said.  “I thought he’d be more like Count Gram.  Or perhaps Sir Miles.”

            Max grunted, and Tavi frowned at his friend.  The big Antillan’s face was pale and his brow was beaded with sweat.  That was hardly new to Tavi, who had nursed Max out of hangovers more than once.  But now he saw something different in his friend’s face, behind the distraction in his expression.  Fear.

            Max was afraid.

            “Max?” Tavi asked, keeping his voice low.  “What’s wrong?”

            “Nothing,” Max said, the word quiet and clipped.

            “Lady Antillus?” Tavi asked.  “Is she your . . . “

            “Stepmother,” Max said.

            “Is that why she’s here?  Because of you?”

            Max’s eyes shifted left and right.  “Partially.  But if she’s come all this way, it’s because my brother is here.  It’s the only reason she’d come.”

            Tavi frowned.  “You’re scared.”

            “Don’t be stupid,” Max said, though there was no heat in the tone.  “No I’m not.”

            “But –“

            Something vicious came into Max’s voice.  “Leave off, Calderon, or I’ll break your neck.”

            Tavi stopped in his tracks and blinked at his friend.

            Max froze a few steps later.  He turned his head a bit to one side, and Tavi could see his friend’s broken-nosed profile.  “Sorry.  Scipio, sir.”

            Tavi nodded once.  “Can I help?”

            Max shook his head.  “I’m going to go find a drink.  A lot of drinks.”

            “Is that wise?” Tavi asked him.

            “Heh,” Max said.  “Who wants to live forever?”

            “If I can—“

            “You can’t help,” Max said.  “Nobody can.”  Then he stalked away without looking back.

            Tavi frowned after his friend, frustrated and worried for him.  But he could not force Max to tell him anything if his friend didn’t want to do so.  He could do nothing but wait for Max to talk about it.

            He wished Kitai was here to talk to.

            Until then, he had a job to do.  Tavi read his orders again, recalled the camp layout Max and the Maestro had made him memorize, and went to work.

Chapter Five

            Isana awoke to a sensation of emptiness in the rough straw mattress beside her.  Her back felt cold.  Her senses were a confused blur of shouts and odd lights, and it took her a moment to push away the sleepy disorientation enough to recognize the sounds around her.

            Boots raced on hard earth, the steps of many men.  Grizzled centurions bellowed orders.  Metal scraped on metal, armored legionares walking together, brushing one another in small collisions of pauldrons, greaves, swords, shields, steel armor bands.  Children were crying.  Somewhere, not far away, a war-trained horse let out a frantic, ferocious scream of panic and eagerness.  She could hear its handler trying to speak to it in low, even tones.

            A breath later, the tension pressed in on her watercrafter’s senses, a tidal flood of emotion more powerful than anything she had sensed in the dozen or so years since she and Rill, her water fury, had found one another.  Foremost in that vicious surge was fear.  The men around her were terrified for their lives—the Crown Legion, the most experienced, well-trained force in Alera, was drowning in fear.  Other emotions rushed with it.  Primarily excitement, then determination and anger.  Beneath them ran darker currents of what she could only describe as lust—and of another emotion, one so quiet that she might not have noticed it at all but for its steady and growing presence; resignation.

            Though she did not know what was happening, she knew the men of the legion around her were preparing to die.

            She stumbled up off the mattress, dressed in nothing but her skin, and managed to find her blouse, dress, and tunic.  She twisted her hair into a knot, though it made her shoulders and back ache abominably to do it.  She took up her plain woolen cloak and bit her lip, wondering what she should do next.

            “Guard?” she called, her voice tentative.

            A man entered the large tent immediately, dressed in armor identical to that worn by the rest of the legionares, save perhaps for sporting an inordinate number of dents and scratches.  His presence was a steady mix of perfect confidence, steely calm, and controlled, rational fear.  He stripped his helmet off with one hand, and Isana recognized Araris Valerian, personal armsman to the Princeps.

            “My lady,” he said, with a bow of his head.

            Isana felt her cheeks flush and her hand drifted to the silver chain around her throat, touching the ring that hung upon it beneath her clothing.  Then she moved it down, to rest on the round, swollen tightness of her belly.  “I’m hardly your lady,” she told him.  “You owe me no fealty.”

            For a moment, Araris’ eyes sparkled.  “My lady,” he repeated, with gentle emphasis.  “My lord’s duties press him.  He bid me find you in his stead.”

            Isana’s back twinged again, and if that wasn’t enough, the baby stirred with his usual restless energy, as though he heard the sounds in the night and recognized them.  “Araris, my sister . . .”

            “Already here,” he said, his tone reassuring.  The unremarkable-looking young man turned to beckon with one hand, and Isana’s little sister hurried into the tent, covered in Araris’ own large grey traveling cloak.

            Alia flew to Isana at once, and she hugged her little sister tightly.  She was a tiny thing who had taken after their mother, all sweetness and feminine curves, and her hair was the color of fresh honey.  At sixteen, she was an aching temptation to many of the legionares and men among the camp followers, but Isana had protected her as fiercely as she knew how.  “Isana,” Alia panted, breathless.  “What’s happening?”

            Isana was nearly ten years her sister’s senior.  Alia’s furycrafting talents, like Isana’s, ran to water, and she knew that the girl would hardly be able to remember her own name under the pressure of the emotions rising around them.

            “Hush, and remember to slow your breathing,” she whispered to Alia, and looked up at Araris.  “Rari?”

            “The Marat are attacking the valley,” he replied, his voice calm and precise.  “They’ve already breached the outpost at the far end and are marching this way.  Horses are being brought for you.  You and the other freemen of the camp are to retreat toward Riva at all speed.”

            Isana drew in a breath.  “Retreat?  Are the Marat really so many?  But why?  How?”

            “Don’t worry, my lady,” Araris said.  “We’ve handled worse.”

            But Isana could see it in the man’s eyes, hear it quavering in his voice.  He was lying.

            Araris expected to die.

            “Where?” she asked him.  “Where is he?”

            Araris grimaced and said, “The horses are ready, my lady.  If you would come this w—“

            Isana lifted her chin and strode out past the armsman, looking left and right.  The camp was in chaos—or at least, the followers in the legion’s camp were.  The legionares themselves were moving with haste, with anxiety, but also with precision and discipline, and Isana could see the ranks forming along the palisade around the camp.  “Do I need to go find him myself, Rari?”

            His tone remained even and polite, but Isana could sense the fond annoyance behind his reply.  “As you wish, my lady.”  He turned to the two grooms holding the reins of nervous horses nearby, flicked a hand and said, “You two, with me.”  He started striding toward the eastern side of the camp.  “Ladies, if you will come this way.  We must make haste.  I do not know when the horde will arrive, and every moment may be precious.”

            And it was then that Isana saw war for the first time.

            Arrows flew from the darkness.  One of the grooms screamed, though he was drowned out by the cries of the horse whose reins he held.  Isana turned, her heartbeat suddenly a thunder in her ears, everything moving slowly.  She saw the groom stagger and fall, a white-feathered Marat arrow protruding from his belly.  The horse screamed and thrashed its head, trying to dislodge the arrow sunk into a long line of muscle in its neck.

            Cries came from the darkness.  Marat warriors, pale-haired, pale-skinned, erupted from the beds of supply wagons brought into the camp earlier in the afternoon, brandishing weapons of what looked like blackened glass and stone.

            Araris turned and moved like lightning.  Isana could only stare in shock as three more arrows flickered toward her.  Araris’ sword shattered them to splinters, and a casual flick of one his steel-encased hands prevented even those from striking her face.  He met the group of howling Marat, and walked through them like a man in a crowded market, shoulders and hips twisting, bobbing up onto his toes to slide between passersby, turning a neat pirouette to avoid stumbling over something on the ground.

            When he stopped, every one of the Marat lay on the ground, food for the crows.

            He flicked his sword to one side, cleaning it of blood, sheathed it, and extended his hand as though nothing of note had happened.  “This way, my lady.”

* * * * *

            “This way, my lady,” murmured a low, richly masculine voice, “we needn’t worry about being too long parted.  I’m sure you can see the advantages.”

            Isana jerked her head up from where she had dozed off in the comfortable seating within the litter the Aquitaines had sent to fly her down from Isanaholt.  The vivid dream, full of the details of memory, lingered for longer than it usually did.  Dreams of that last night had repeated themselves endlessly for the last two years.  The fear, the confusion, the crushing weight of guilt replayed themselves to her mind as though she had never felt them before.  As though she was innocent again.

            She was sick of it.

            And yet the dreams also restored to her those brief moments of joy, the heady excitement of those springtime days of youth.  For those few seconds, she did not know what she did now.  She had a sister again.

            She had a husband.  Love.

            “I just bought you a brand new girl, Attis,” teased a woman’s voice from outside the litter, the tone clear and confident.  “You’ll be amused until I return.”

            “She’s lovely,” said the man.  “But she’s not you.”  His tone turned wry.  “Unlike the last one.”

            The door to the air coach opened, and Isana had to call upon Rill to halt tears from filling her eyes.  Isana’s fingers touched the shape of the ring beneath her blouse, still on the chain around her neck.  Unlike herself, it had remained bright and untarnished by the passage of years.

            She shook away the remnants of the dream as best she could and forced her thoughts back to the moment. 

            High Lord Aquitainus Attis, who five years ago had perpetrated a plot resulting in the deaths of hundreds of her neighbors in the Calderon Valley, opened the coach door and nodded pleasantly to Isana.  He was a lion of a man, combining grace of motion in balance with physical power.  His mane of dark golden hair fell to his shoulders, and nearly black eyes glittered with intelligence.  He moved with perfect confidence, and his furycrafting was unmatched by anyone in the realm, save perhaps the First Lord himself.

            “Steadholder,” he said politely, nodding to Isana.

            She nodded back to him, though she felt her neck stiffening as she did.  She did not trust herself to sound civil when speaking to him, and so remained silent.

            “I quite enjoy my holidays abroad,” murmured the woman, her voice now near at hand.  “And I am perfectly capable of looking after myself.  Besides.  You have your own work to do.”

            The woman entered the coach and settled down on the opposite bench.  High Lady Aquitainus Invidia looked every inch the model of the elite Citizenry, pale, dark-haired, tall and regal.  Though Isana knew that Lady Aquitaine was in her forties, like her husband and Isana herself, she looked barely twenty.  Like all blessed with sufficient power at watercrafting, she enjoyed the ongoing appearance of youth.  “Good evening, Isana.”

            “My lady,” Isana murmured.  Though she had no more love for the woman than she did for Lord Aquitaine, she could at least manage to speak politely to her, if not warmly.

            Invidia turned to her husband and leaned forward to kiss him.  “Don’t go staying up to all hours.  You need your rest.”

            He arched a golden brow.  “I am a High Lord of Alera, not some foolish academ.”

            “And vegetables,” she said, as if he hadn’t spoken.  “Don’t gorge yourself on meats and sweets and ignore your vegetables.”

            Aquitaine frowned.  “I suppose you’ll act like this the entire time if I insist upon joining you?”

            She smiled sweetly at him.

            He rolled his eyes, gave her a quick kiss, and said, “Impossible woman.  Very well, have it your way.”

            “Naturally,” she said.  “Farewell, my lord.”

            He inclined his head to her, nodded at Isana, shut the door and withdrew.  He thumped the side of the litter twice and said, “Captain, take care of them.”

            “My lord,” replied a male voice from outside the door, and the Knights Aeris lifted the litter.  The winds rose to the low, steady roar that had become familiar to Isana in the last two years, and unseen force pressed her against her seat as the litter leapt into the skies.

            Several moments passed in silence, during which Isana leaned her head against her cushion and closed her eyes, in the hopes that the pretense of sleep would prevent the need for conversation with Lady Aquitaine.  Her hopes were in vain.

            “I apologize for the length of the trip,” Lady Aquitaine said after a few moments.  “But the high winds are always tricky at this season, and this year they are particularly dangerous.  We must therefore fly much lower than we usually would.”

            Isana did not voice the thought that it was still a great deal higher than a walk along the ground.  “Does it make a difference?” she asked without opening her eyes.

            “It is more difficult to stay aloft closer to the earth, and more difficult to fly quickly,” Lady Aquitaine replied.  “My Knights Aeris must count the journey in miles instead of leagues, and given the number of stops we must make to visit my supporters, it will take us a great deal longer to reach our destination.”

            Isana sighed.  “How much longer?”

            “Most of three weeks, I am told.  And that is an optimistic estimate which assumes fresh teams of Knights Aeris await us at way stations.”

            Three weeks.  Rather too long a time to pretend to be asleep without openly insulting her patron.  Though Isana knew her value to the Aquitaines, and knew that she could afford to avoid the usual fawning and scraping such powerful patrons required, there were limits she would be ill-advised to press.  Consequently, she opened her eyes.

            Lady Aquitaine curled her rich mouth into a smile.  “I thought you would appreciate the information.  You’d look rather silly sitting there with your eyes closed the whole way.”

            “Of course not, my lady,” Isana said.  “Why would I do such a thing?”

            Invidia’s eyes hardened for a moment.  Then she said, “I am given to understand that you plan a small reunion with your family in Ceres.”

            “After the meeting with the League, of course,” Isana said.  “I have been assured of alternate travel arrangements back to Calderon, if my plans should inconvenience you.”

            Invidia’s cool features blossomed into a small, even genuine smile.  “Hardly anyone fences with me any more, Isana.  I’ve actually looked forward to this trip.”

            “As have I, my lady.  I have missed my family.”

            Invidia laughed again.  “I shall ask little of you beyond our visits with my supporters and the League meeting,” she said.  Then she tilted her head to one side and leaned forward slightly.  “Though you have not been apprised of the meeting’s agenda.”

            Isana tilted her head.

            “Gracchus Albus and his staff have been invited to attend.”

            “The Senator Primus,” she murmured.  Then her eyes widened.  “The emancipation proposal to the Senate?”

            Lady Aquitaine sighed.  “If only the rest of the League perceived the significance as well as you.”

            “They should spend time running a Steadholt,” Isana said, her tone wry.  “It makes one acutely aware of the extended consequences of small but significant actions.”

            The High Lady moved one shoulder in a shrug.  “Perhaps you are correct.”

            “Will Gracchus support the proposal?”

            “He has never been a foe of the abolitionist movement.  His wife, daughter and mistresses assure me that he will,” Lady Aquitaine said.

            Isana frowned.  She disapproved of such manipulations, though it was the Dianic League’s first and favorite tool.  “And the Senate?”

            “Impossible to say for certain,” Lady Aquitaine said.  “There is no knowing what debts may be called in on such an important issue.  But enough to make a real fight of it.  For the first time in Aleran history, Isana, we may abolish the institution of slavery.  Forever.”

            Isana frowned in thought.  It was indeed a worthy goal, and one which would rally the support of folk of conscience everywhere.  Slaves in most of the realm faced a grim lot in life -- hard labor and little chance of ever working their way free, even though the law required owners to sell a slave’s freedom should he ever earn his (or her) buying price.  Female slaves had no recourse to the uses their bodies were put to, though neither did males, when it came to it.  Children were all born free, legally at least, though most owners employed various forms of taxation or indenture for them which amounted to outright enslavement from birth.

            The laws of the realm were supposed to protect slaves, to limit the institution to those who had been willing to enter bondage and who could, in time, repay their indenture and walk free again.  But corruption and political influence allowed each High Lord to virtually ignore the laws and to treat slaves in whatever fashion each saw fit.  In the time since she had become Lady Aquitaine’s ally in the Dianic League, Isana had learned more than she had ever dreamed about the abuses slaves suffered in much of the Realm.  She had thought her own encounter with the slaver Kord was nightmarish enough to last a lifetime.  She had been sickened to learn that in much of the rest of the realm, his conduct was but marginally worse than average.

            The Dianic League, an organization consisting solely of female Citizens of the realm—those with status, influence, but little actual, legal power--had struggled for years to engender support for the abolishment of slavery.  For the first time, they were in a position to cause it to be, for while the High Lords and the First Lord controlled the military assets of the Realm, the criminal codes of Alera, and the enforcement of civil law, it was left to the elected Senate to create and administrate those laws. 

            Slavery had been a civil institution since its inception, and the Senate had the power to pass new laws regarding slavery – or to abolish it altogether.  The Dianic League considered it the first step toward gaining legal parity for the women of the realm.

            Isana frowned.  Though Lady Invidia had always been true to her word and her obligations as patron, Isana harbored no illusions that she had any personal interest in emancipation.  Even so, it was difficult for Isana to resist the inherent lure in the accomplishment of such a dream, the destruction of such an injustice.

            But then, she was hardly in any condition to think with the cool, detached logic required by politics.  Not with a reunion with her loved ones so near at hand.  Isana wanted nothing so much as to see Tavi again, whole and well -- though the uncomfortable silences resulting from slips in conversation, when one of them mentioned something loosely related to politics or loyalty made it a somewhat bittersweet proposition.  She wanted to speak with her brother again.  Between running the steadholt and the infrequent but regular voyages from her home on behalf of Invidia Aquitaine, there had been fewer and fewer opportunities to get together with her little brother.  She missed him.

            The irony in traveling halfway across the Realm to break bread with them again – and taken there by the Aquitaines, no less -- was not lost on Isana.  Neither was the sobering reality that she had brought it all upon herself, by allying herself with her current patron, one with ruthless, ambitious designs upon the Crown.

            Even so, Isana forced herself to push her family from her thoughts and to regard the situation with detached intellect.  What did the Aquitaines have to gain by outlawing slavery?

            “This isn’t about freedom,” she murmured aloud.  “Not for you.  It’s about crippling Kalare’s economy.  Without slave labor, he’ll never profit from his farmlands.  He’ll be too busy fighting to remain solvent to rival your husband for the Crown.”

            Lady Aquitaine stared at Isana for a moment, her expression unreadable.

            Isana did not let her eyes waver from her patron’s.  “Perhaps it’s just as well that many in the League do not perceive as much as I do.”

            Lady Aquitaine’s expression remained detached.  “Do I have your support – and confidence -- in the matter or not?”

            “Yes.  As I promised,” Isana said.  She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes again.  “Nothing I do can stop you from scheming.  If some good can be accomplished along the way, I see no reason not to attempt it.”

            “Excellent,” Lady Aquitaine said.  “And practical of you.”  She paused for a thoughtful moment, and Isana could feel the sudden weight of the High Lady’s full attention.  “Hardly a freeman in the realm would be able to recognize the situation for what it is, Isana.  It makes me wonder where you acquired the necessary perspective for these kinds of politics.  Someone must have taught you.”

            “I read,” she said, not needing to falsify the weariness in her voice.  “Nothing more.”  Isana used years of practice and experience to keep any expression from her face, but in the wake of the dream, it was almost painfully difficult to prevent her hand from rising to touch the outline of the ring hanging over her heart.

            There was another long silence, and then Lady Aquitaine said, “I suppose I must applaud your scholarship, then.”

            The weight of her attention passed, and Isana almost sagged with relief.  It was dangerous, lying to the High Lady, whose talent for watercraft and thus for sensing lies and deceptions was greater than even Isana’s own.  The woman was capable of torture, of murder, even if she preferred to use less draconian tactics.  Isana had no illusions that those preferences were the result of practical logic and self-interest, rather than ethical belief.  If necessary to her plans, Lady Aquitaine could kill Isana without batting a long-lashed eyelid.

            Should it ever come to that, Isana would die before speaking.

            Because some secrets had to be kept.

            At any price.