by C. L. Clark
The princess’s face was solemn. “General, other than the baton, is there evidence to prove this soldier is lying?”
The princess cocked her head at the general like an owl. Cantic bounced the gaze to Rogan, whose lips tightened.
“I have no more questions.” The princess sat back down.
The silence of the room weighed on Touraine’s shoulders. She kept her eyes on Cantic, who stared her down.
“We’ll have a brief recess to discuss sentencing—”
“Hang her and let’s be done with it,” Colonel Taurvide said, already standing up. “We’ve all got more important things to do.”
“We’ll discuss sentencing.” Cantic glared at Taurvide until he sat down again. Then she nodded to the waiting sergeants. “Take her back.”
“Guilty!” The colonel called Taurvide yelled so adamantly that his saliva splashed Luca’s face. She pulled out her handkerchief and dabbed it away.
Luca had been focused on the soldier’s retreating broad, straight back, even after the door had closed. The other woman was frightened—that much was clear—but she was also bold in a rather intriguing way. It took a certain kind of strength to fight for your life when everyone around you had already decided you should die.
“I know you trained half of those sand fleas, but even you can’t be thinking of keeping her in with the others. That talk will spread, and soon we’ll have a whole other revolt on our hands, this time from the inside.” Taurvide tried to loom over Cantic and, by all accounts, should have done a good job at it. He was a slab of muscle who hadn’t formed the same administrative paunch as the other high officers had. He was bluster and heat, but she was the chill stone of a mountain face.
Other officers protested on top of each other.
“You can’t possibly think she deserves anything but the noose. She’s no better than a common criminal.”
“The screws first, so we can get the truth out of her. Then shoot her and clean our hands of the whole business.”
With separate looks, the general bade each of the officers to speak their piece on the verdict and sentencing, while she said nothing. It was a strange place for the general to have a tender spot, if Luca read the drag at the corners of Cantic’s eyes correctly.
After the officers had spoken, Cantic turned weary eyes on Luca. Perhaps Luca only imagined the pleading in her expression. “You don’t owe the girl anything, Your Highness.”
Perhaps Luca didn’t owe her. Perhaps Lanquette and Guérin would have caught the would-be assassin in time, even without the lieutenant’s alert. But Luca had given her word. She wanted to be the kind of queen whose word meant something.
As if he knew what Luca was weighing, Colonel Taurvide crossed his arms over his broad chest. “You can’t be worried about keeping your word to a Sand. They’re like children. Promise them sweets to make them happy, then put them off until they forget.” He waved a hand carelessly. “She can’t come back for a sweet bun when she’s dead, can she?”
He grinned at his compatriots, and all but Cantic joined him, chuckling.
The young captain Rogan was smug but had been reserved thus far. He clenched his fist in restrained triumph, and something about that felt wrong, too.
Luca had been careless with her words to the soldier at Cheminade’s dinner. Her offer had been flippant; she had only expected to give the woman some money or some other royal bauble. The lieutenant had tried to save Luca’s life, though, and that was worth something.
And, perversely, the more Colonel Taurvide and the young captain wanted Lieutenant Touraine dead, the more Luca wanted her to live.
Those were not the only reasons she wanted Touraine alive.
“To the contrary. I owe that woman my life as much as I owe my guards,” Luca said from her chair. Flanked by Lanquette and Guérin, she felt more force behind her words. Still, she was in hostile territory. The military didn’t look kindly on conceding military decisions to politicians. “It’s one of the highest levels of loyalty. As for her crimes, the evidence is not conclusive. Even if she were guilty, we can’t deny that she could be useful. She has a history of loyalty to General Cantic. She’s Qazāli. She’s met the rebels.”
The soldier sounded educated enough, even if she wasn’t a scholar. Her comportment at Cheminade’s dinner was more than impressive. And she had combat skills. With Nasir gone…
“Let’s send her back to the rebels. As my assistant, my negotiator.”
The line in Cantic’s forehead deepened as she frowned. “We’re not negotiating with rebels against the empire, Your Highness.”
Luca folded her hands over her cane in front of her. Slowing down is the key to control. A rhetorician’s guide. She let herself take a breath, instead of rushing to justify herself and prove to Cantic why they should be negotiating instead of fighting. The present company would never accept it.
“General, you said yourself that you struggle to get spies into the rebels’ ranks. We can try again. Let her play the origin-searching sympathizer. Even if the rebels never fully trust her, we can get trickles of information. At worst, they’ll kill a soldier who’s already condemned.”
“If they don’t trust her, why would they give her information?” It was a woman colonel, almost as solidly thick as Taurvide. The one who wanted the thumbscrews before execution.
“What makes you think torturing the soldier will get you good information?” Luca cocked her head and gave a condescending shrug. The colonel shrank back. “She’ll earn their trust by feeding them fabricated leads. If they think we’re willing to make concessions, they’ll warm like wax. If they feed us false information, we can cross-reference it with other intelligence you gather. We’ll learn just as much by what they tell us as by what they don’t tell us.”
Most importantly, the soldier would be in a position to ask questions. The rebels wouldn’t tell her about the magic outright, not at first, but the soldier could observe. With time, maybe the answers would slip out naturally, or they could make an alliance, trading the magic… So many possibilities.
“And if she runs off to play rebel with the lot of them?” Taurvide asked. He still sat with his arms folded, fingers now tapping on biceps that strained against his coat.
Here, Luca had no other response. The woman’s life was already forfeit. It couldn’t be more forfeit. It was as risky as hiring a mercenary. But everyone was a mercenary, according to The Rule of Rule; it was only a matter of finding their price. Sometimes that price was money, but it wasn’t the only—or even the most—effective payment. As Gil had said, never overlook a good weapon. It would be silly to throw out a sword because it needed sharpening.
The general stepped in. “I have every reason to believe that this soldier, if given another chance to prove herself, could be extremely loyal. It’s a classic part of the punishment-reward cycle in Droitist and Tailleurist theories. She responded well to the hybrid form of teaching I used in her youth.”
The mention of her uncle’s theory still sent crawling ants up Luca’s back, but she nodded. “I’ll take her as part of the governor-general’s staff.” At Cantic’s surprise—and Gil’s stiffened back—she added, “As you said, she’s not fit to return among the ranks.”
For several tense, silent seconds, they all watched Cantic thinking, her steepled fingers against her lips. Finally, she folded her hands on her desk.
“Use her, Your Highness. But if you have even the hint of a suspicion—” Cantic met Gil’s eyes.
Luca nodded crisply once. “As I said, General. She’s already condemned.”
And that was how Luca came to be visiting a condemned woman in the dimness of the compound jail, with a secret aim she hadn’t discussed with the military court. An aim she’d barely thought through herself. Adapting worked like that sometimes.
She wanted that soldier. Needed her. The soldier knew about the magic. She had connections, however tenuous, however dubious, to the rebels. And she was a loose agent no longer earmark
ed for another task and otherwise sentenced to death. She was, in other words, dispensable. Despite what Luca had said to Cantic’s face, that thought didn’t sit well in Luca’s chest. It made her think of Beau-Sang’s boy with the cut fingers. She couldn’t even remember his name.
If the soldier could play her role well enough to learn about the magic, all the risk would be worth it. Luca got a weapon; the soldier got her life. If the woman was loyal.
So I’ll keep her loyal.
“Are you sure about this?” Gillett asked quietly, for her ears only. “We could think on this overnight.”
“Of course I’m sure.” If she waited overnight, she might lose her nerve. That and she didn’t trust Colonel Taurvide to leave the soldier unmolested.
The soldier—ex-soldier now, Luca supposed—leaned against the yellow-brown stone wall of her cell. Everything was yellowed further by the lantern light, even the woman’s skin. Everything that wasn’t cast into dim shadow, rather.
The woman squinted up. Then she scrambled to her feet and bowed, hissing slightly at some unaccounted-for pain. “Your Highness.”
Luca turned to the jailer. “You may leave, monsieur. All the way out. Close the door.” He gaped, trying to find some excuse not to abandon his charge, but she held her hand out. He gave her the lantern and returned to his office in the dark.
The soldier in the officers’ planning room had looked desperate, almost frantic. Until she had called Luca’s debt. Here, in the half dark, the lone lamp deepened the shadows under her eyes and made her look like a starving wolf. Rangy and wary and dangerous. The steady strength from Cheminade’s dinner party was buried almost too deep for Luca to see—there were still traces of it in the set of her jaw, her weary but unbowed shoulders. Again, the impulse that Luca did not want this woman to die. Not like this.
The woman wore only her uniform undershirt, which was unlaced to show collarbone and muscle. Muscle showed in her forearms, too. She had broad, scarred hands with long fingers. Luca wondered—only academically, of course—how much strength it took to bludgeon a man to death with the Sands’ batons. Luca cleared her throat.
“Lieutenant Touraine,” Luca said. “I’m sorry to meet you again under such circumstances.”
Touraine bowed again. Luca caught the brief twist of an ironic smile. “So am I, Your Highness. How may I serve?”
Luca held the lamp higher. “I have a proposition for you,” she said bluntly. “I need a well-rounded assistant. Someone martially skilled and intelligent.”
Wariness shadowed Touraine’s eyes and leaked into her voice. “Your Highness?”
“The general spoke well of you before this incident, and I believe she would like to give you one last chance.”
“She would?” Hope inflated the other woman into something almost living. “Whatever she wants, I’ll do it.”
The quick agreement took Luca aback. Maybe Cantic was right, and the soldier would be obedient under—she shuddered to think of the Droitist wording—a kind master. No. The Droitists were wrong about that; the colonial subjects weren’t more suited to masters. Anyone would be more cooperative with someone who was kind to them. So she laid out the offer she thought would most entice this particular mercenary.
“Your status would increase dramatically. In addition to being in my service, you’d have my ear and perhaps my influence in certain matters.” Luca raised an eyebrow pointedly. “Some might say that Balladaire owes the conscripts a great deal of thanks.”
“You mean you’d help the Sands?”
Good. She could listen for the words behind the words.
Luca gave a slow nod.
“Thank you, Your Highness.” The soldier bowed again. “You’re generous, and I would be honored.”
“You don’t even know what you’ll be doing.”
A strange mix of emotions flickered across the other woman’s face. Luca caught an initial flash of anger followed by dutiful resignation.
Inside the cell, there was a piss pot in the corner that was pungent with dehydration, and an empty tin bowl with scraps of watered grain drying to paste along its sides. Luca doubted honor had anything to do with the soldier’s eagerness.
“We’ll discuss it later, then. I’ll get the good sergeant to assist us.”
After a silent carriage ride, in which Gillett sat warily across from Touraine and the bodyguard Lanquette sat beside her, they arrived at the town house. They’d taken off the soldier’s handcuffs, but she still held her wrists close together. In the daylight, she was only marginally less imposing. The look on her face, though, was one of such amazement that Luca smiled a little behind the woman’s back.
“Welcome to your new home,” Luca said.
CHAPTER 10
THE ASSISTANT
Welcome home, Sands.
The princess’s words echoed with Rogan’s scorn, and Touraine flinched, but the princess didn’t seem to notice as she led Touraine inside.
Touraine had expected opulence, of course, garish displays of wealth from a woman who had never lived without in her life.
She was not prepared.
The princess’s sitting room was full of books. An entire wall was covered by a shelf more than half-full of books and sheaves of paper and even a few scrolls. The table in the corner was messy with paper and writing materials, and a large book lay open on it as if the princess had been studying and called away abruptly.
There were a few minor flourishes, too, like the Shālan carpets stretched over the floor, springy beneath Touraine’s boots. One of them depicted angles and rigid shapes, and the other had designs of the Shālan script, curled into shapes at the center. They showed slivers of a wooden floor, not earth. Two stuffed chairs sat beside a small table with an échecs board. A rough metal stand held spare canes near the door.
“It’s rather small,” Princess Luca was saying. “When they built this place, they never anticipated… esteemed guests, so I’m afraid I have no private chambers for you. The guards’ room connects to mine, so you’ll share with them.”
Small? To get to the bedrooms, they passed a flight of stairs, the wooden handrail curling up like a cat’s tail to the second floor, and then walked through a dining room. Luca’s rooms were closed off, but even the guards’ room was airy compared to the room she’d shared with Pruett and Tibeau in the guardhouse. And then Luca led her up the stairs—haltingly, for both of them—to a bathing room with a wheeled tub.
The princess gave Touraine the same appraising look she had in the jail. It was different in the sunlight streaming through the window—a glass window!—but Touraine still felt like a new horse getting its teeth checked.
She was suddenly self-conscious of her ragged black coat, the old spare she’d put on before Rogan arrested her. The other one was still crusted in Émeline’s blood. She’d worn this coat—or one just like it—every day in her working memory. And the undershirt, stained with blood and dirt and smelling like week-old sweat.
For her part, the princess wore trousers and a black coat as well, a swallow-tailed velvet one that should have been too hot to even dream of wearing. Gold embroidery shaped like braided wheat grains crossed the torso and met at the black buttons in the middle. A shock of gold lace spilled from each cuff. It told Touraine everything she needed to know about her: stiff, formal, and very expensive.
The princess came to the same conclusion Touraine had: “You’ll need new clothes. We’ll have your measurements taken soon. Until then, I’ll send Adile up to start your water, and something spare from Guérin. Do you know they’ve had Balladairan plumbing here for a few hundred years? Before it was even a colony. This is newer, obviously, but still. Isn’t it marvelous?”
Touraine bowed again. Already it had become habit, like saluting. “Thank you, Your Highness.”
Then she was alone, and she stood unmoving until Adile came, and even then, it took the maid’s prodding to shake Touraine out of the physical stupor.
“The bath will help, sir,
I promise you that. You need some help, is that it?” It was the kindness that jolted Touraine into the moment. Adile pushed a blond curl back behind her ear.
“No, thank you.”
Adile tsked. “You’re not so different from the other soldiers, are you? They think they can do everything alone, too. Here.”
She set to work at Touraine’s golden buttons and didn’t grimace once at the stains or the stench. She stopped only when she saw the bandage below Touraine’s collarbone. “Make sure you tell Her Highness about that if you don’t want to go rancid.”
Then Adile was gone and Touraine was in the bath, fighting the pressure in her chest that squeezed tighter whenever she tried to think.
The trial had been only this morning. Squeeze.
She wasn’t going to die. At least not right now. Squeeze.
She’d been stripped of her rank. Squeeze.
Her mother might be out there, in this city. Squeeze.
Adile came back with her change of clothes and then led her to Princess Luca’s office. Unlike every other room in the house, there were few books, and the desk was surprisingly empty. Touraine suspected that the sitting room had replaced this office, since it was downstairs and more accessible.
“Adile was worried you might drown yourself,” the princess said when they were alone.
Almost alone. Her guards stood close.
Touraine didn’t know how to answer that. “Your Highness, may I ask a question?”
“Yes?”
“What is today?”
“Ah. It’s seventh-day. It’s been a week since we arrived.” Her cool voice softened just a little on the edges.
Only a week, but her body felt like it had been on campaign for a month. Her knees threatened to go soft. Émeline and Thierry had been dead for days.
“Your Highness, my soldiers—”