by Devin Madson
As the gates were pulled wide, a figure hurried down the manor steps. A white-clad figure with fair hair left to catch in the breeze. Leo. Not heading toward the new arrivals, but crossing the yard in the direction of Lord Nishi’s residence. Halfway he stopped and turned, lifting a hand to protect his eyes from the sun as he peered up at me.
“Shit!” I hissed and dropped beneath the windowsill, slumping against the wall with my heart racing. How had he known I was watching?
“What the fuck is wrong, Di?” Lashak stood before me, leaning to see out the window. “Dom Villius? Is he what’s bothering you?”
“You mean he doesn’t bother you? The man was dead, Lash, dead. We killed him and then we made damn sure he was dead and then he just walked right in again like nothing was wrong. Why didn’t anyone find that worrying?”
She shrugged. “It wasn’t the first time he’d done it. Remember all that talk about how he had his own head in a box when we were travelling with the Chiltaens? I might not have believed it, but both Tor and Oshar snuck in and said it was true, and Rah saw it. The world is full of weird things and maybe his god really does bring him back—who am I to say that’s wrong?”
A soft tap sounded on the door, and sure it was somehow him, I bit my tongue and scrabbled back in panic. As though my five-by-five room owned anywhere to hide. “Di, it’s all right.” Lashak went to open the door.
Jass stood on the threshold, breathing hard. A glance at Lashak and he slid past her, closing the door hurriedly in his wake. “I thought you said he was gone,” she said.
“He’s meant to be. What are you doing here?”
“I’m not here,” he said. “I told Loklan to put it about that I was sick and you know how bad he is at lying. By now I imagine everyone thinks I died of redcap poisoning too.”
“That is not a good thing.”
Jass shrugged. “Better than being thought a deserter and unable to come back.”
“No. Better you couldn’t come back. What have you done with the—” I looked up at Lashak. “Just tell me it’s safe.”
“That what is safe?” Lashak said.
Jass ignored her. “It’s safe. Shit, you look awful.”
I stared up at him from my place on the floor. “You expected different? Someone tried to kill me and here you are walking in like nothing is wrong. Get. Out!”
“Kill you? Di, you had better tell me what the fuck is going on now.”
“Are we trusting her?” Jass said, pointing up at the Namalaka captain.
“Are we—Excuse you, young blood, but if you’re insinuating I cannot be trusted then—”
I hushed them both, pressing a shaking finger to my lips. “Someone will hear you, please stop. Yes, we’re trusting Lashak because I’d rather die than live in a world where I couldn’t. So you can get out of here knowing I’m fine and she’s with me.”
“Slow your pace, Captain, no one is going to think it strange to see me around,” Jass said. “And there’s no use me sitting out in a cave waiting for something to happen. I’ve had an idea about translating… the book.”
“You’ve—what? How? Wait, cave?”
“Book?” Lashak said. “What book? One of you had better start explaining soon or I am going to scream.”
I looked up at Lashak. “I will explain everything, I promise. Why don’t you step out while we deal with this and I’ll come find you as soon as I can.”
She gave me a long look, but nodded. “You better be taking care of my Di, young blood,” she said to Jass, and got up to let herself out.
Silence hung a few moments after she left, but where he ought to have continued with his reason for coming, he said, “I didn’t volunteer to be one of your Swords because I wanted to protect Gideon. Nor because of you, though after that night in the—”
Another knock sounded on the door. “Shit,” I hissed. “He knows you’re here. Hide!”
“Where?” Jass mouthed, his eyes darting from the messy sleeping mat to my saddlebags and around the torn matting.
The knock sounded again. “Captain Dishiva?”
Not Leo’s voice, and both Jass and I froze in place like statues. “That you, Tafa?” I said.
“Yes, Captain. Emperor Gideon wants to see you.”
I let my breath out in one long sigh. “All right, I’m coming,” I said, then jabbed my finger at Jass and hissed, “You stay here. Lock the door behind me and don’t go anywhere.”
“Lock it?” he whispered back as I picked up my crimson surcoat from the floor. “It’s half made of paper.”
“So? If someone tries to punch through it just stab them.”
“Everything all right, Captain?” came Tafa en’Oht’s concerned voice out in the passage. “His Majesty wanted me to bring you as quickly as I could.”
I glared at Jass. “Everything is fine. I’m ready,” I said before turning toward the door, mouthing lock it one more time as Jass hid in the corner. Without waiting for an answer, I slid the door and stepped out into the passage, closing it behind me. Tafa looked me up and down, and whatever Jass and Lashak had seen she saw too and grimaced.
“You don’t look well, Captain.” Her gaze lingered on the scratches covering my hands and arms from where I’d rubbed torn handfuls of reed matting to scrub myself red and raw and clean.
“Just tired,” I snapped. “Now let’s not keep His Majesty waiting while we gossip in the hallway.”
“No, of course, Captain,” she said, and commented no more.
I entered the emperor’s room to find he wasn’t alone, but at least Leo wasn’t present. Sett was with him, the pair locked in a low-voiced conversation from which even the click of the closing door could not rouse them. Heedless of my presence, Gideon went on talking, his voice a rumble like distant thunder. Sett’s forehead was bent to Gideon’s shoulder, his pose all too reminiscent of a reprimanded child.
“—relying on you because you were the only one I trusted,” Gideon said, holding his brother to him. “It was… important to me, you know that. He was important to me.” His voice caught and for a moment Gideon looked away, before going on, “And Manshin?”
“He was too stubborn to listen,” Sett said, lifting his head from Gideon’s shoulder and meeting his gaze squarely. “I could have offered him everything and he would have refused. I told you that marrying Empress Miko was the only way you could—”
“They have stolen that chance from me. You stole that chance from me when you let Rah run around playing saviour.” Gideon patted Sett’s shoulder while his stare lingered. The man squirmed. For a long moment they stood like that before Gideon spun upon his heel and smiled at me, a bright, brittle smile like the painted face of a doll. “Dishiva, exactly the Sword I wanted to see.”
I didn’t know whether he preferred a bow or a salute anymore, but he had called me a Sword, not a guard, so I pressed my fists together in respect and uttered the words still foreign to my tongue. “Your Majesty.”
Leaving Sett by the window, he strode toward me, making no comment about the change in my appearance three days’ worry had wrought. “I have a mission for you. Two, in fact. It seems those Kisians south of the river have decided to march on Mei’lian and retake the city.”
Sett’s head snapped up. “They’re what? How do you know?”
“It doesn’t matter how I know, though you ought to have been able to tell me since you’ve been sitting in the capital all this time doing nothing.”
Sett parted his lips only to snap them closed again. The weak sunlight paling one side of his face did little to lighten a heavy scowl.
“We cannot hold Mei’lian,” Gideon went on. “And even if we could there’s no point. The river is our border for now and it’s a waste of time to protect anything south of it. We will build a new capital and burn the old one.”
After a beat of silence that seemed to stretch taut between Sett and me, I said, “Burn it?”
“Yes. There’s no other choice. We cannot hold it, but if
we let them have it back, they claim a great victory over the Levanti. If you leave tomorrow there should be time to evacuate the people, saving them from the cowardly Kisian prince who would rather burn his own city than face Levanti in the field.”
It took me a moment to catch up. “Wait, we pretend Kisians are burning their own city and go in to rescue the people?”
“It won’t be pretend. Two Kisian battalions will go with you. They’ll set the fires in an organised fashion, starting in the farthest quarters to allow maximum time for the people to escape. They’ll wear Ts’ai sashes and burn it in the name of their boy emperor while the Levanti and Kisians bearing… Bahain’s symbol help the citizens in the name of their new emperor.”
I had been a captain of the Levanti long enough to admire the pragmatism, had fought the Tempachi long enough to hate cities and those who dwelled in them, but to dislocate so many… So many children and elders, some unable to escape without help.
“That—” I closed my fists but could not close off my voice. “Many people will suffer for that. Die. Have their homes destroyed. Their way of life.”
Gideon lifted his brows, and as I met his gaze I knew he understood. People would die. History would be destroyed. Thousands upon thousands of people would be left without a home. But it didn’t matter. Not to him.
I saluted. “With respect, Herd Master—”
“With respect, do I have to find myself another captain, Captain?”
I could not shift my gaze from his without capitulating, but trying to outstare Gideon was like trying to outstare a snake. He stood firm, his piercing gaze seeming to press me back though he did not move, and all too aware my refusal would just end in my replacement, I shied to look at Sett. His expression was unreadable.
“I hope I can trust you and Sett to organise this,” Gideon said. “Although you, Dishiva, won’t be going to the city. I have another task for you.”
I lifted my chin. “Yes, Your Majesty?”
“The recent deserters,” he said. “They haven’t been going north. Not going home. They are camping in some swampland between here and Mei’lian, half a day’s ride off the road, and they’re planning to attack us.”
“Attack us?”
“Yes. I do not know what has twisted their minds. Perhaps something of the sickness that plagued the plains has followed us here after all, but I refuse to let all of this fail under the blade of a few honourless Levanti.”
I swallowed, but fear blocked my throat like a squeezing fist.
“You must put down this rebellion before it happens. Take a dozen of your Swords, find their camp, and put an end to this.”
Stalling for time while I gathered my thoughts, I said, “Somewhere between here and the capital is a big area. They could be anywhere.”
“That’s true, but I trust you haven’t forgotten your tracking skills in so short a time.”
He said it almost sweetly, but it was anger that set his jaw and hardened the lines around his eyes. Gideon’s gaze lingered a moment before he began pacing, every ray of weak light tracing the golden threads in his robe. “I know this is not a pleasant task I have given you, Dishiva, but it has to be done by someone I trust and I am fast running out of such people, it would seem. I do not know what has turned our people’s minds, but I know you well enough to be confident it could never infect you.”
“I am ever a loyal Sword of the Levanti.”
“I know you are,” he said, halting his pacing to stand before me again. “I know you’ll do whatever it takes to discover the location of the deserter camp and root this out before it turns ugly. You leave first thing in the morning.”
“And the three days left until you’re married?”
“The Swords you leave behind will protect me. And by doing this for me you give no reason for anyone to want me dead.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant, but my thoughts were already reeling. He was asking me to kill my own people. Levanti had fought wars before, herd against herd when transgressions had not been able to be overlooked, but they were rare things born from years of hurt. That some had chosen to desert and head home I could understand, but that they had chosen to remain here, to plot against us, made no sense.
“There must be an explanation,” I said. “A misunderstanding. I will find them and speak to them as an envoy, but—”
“Dishiva.” Gideon stepped closer. “You do not appear to be listening to the words I am saying. I am your Herd Master and this is the task I am giving you. If you do not wish to do it you may step down or challenge me, but understand what it will mean to have to step into my place.”
Again his stare had pressure. Weight. It pressed me back and pinned me and I could not speak. How many times had I watched him and known he was the only way, that no one else could tread this balance as he could? What had changed?
“Is this Leo’s plan?”
My question rang out into the deepest silence I had known. Both Gideon and Sett stared at me and it took all the steel my bones possessed not to buckle. I stood, hands clenched, tense from head to foot. It was one thing to trust in Gideon, quite another to trust in Dom Villius.
“Leo told me you don’t like him,” Gideon said. “That you believe he is responsible for the deaths of his pilgrims.”
Oh, how pitying his smile. I had rarely seen a thing that enraged me more. Until he kept speaking.
“I know the Chiltaens hurt you, Dishiva. But you cannot pit your hate against them all for the actions of a few. Dom Villius is—”
“Not your friend.”
I took a step in this time, anger trembling through my limbs. “You cared about Rah. He was important to you. And yet you let yourself be manipulated by the very man who turned him from us. Why?”
He flinched, but stood his ground. “Manipulated? You have no faith in your Herd Master?” Gideon spread his arms wide. “Then why don’t you challenge me?”
They would not follow me. Not the Kisians, not even all the Levanti. To challenge him would be the end of this, the end of everything we had tried to build here, everything we had hoped for, or… the end of me.
For as many breaths as I dared, I gave him back stare for stare, but at the point it was break or be broken, I looked away. And that was it. I could voice no more objections, leaving me nothing to do but bow and wait to be dismissed. Sett had stiffened to a statue by the window.
“Good. You may go, Dishiva,” Gideon said. “You do not have a lot of time to prepare.”
I turned to leave, but he gripped my arm, his other hand closing over my branding. Held prisoner as much by shock as by his strong grip, I tensed as he lowered his lips to my ear. “I want their heads, Dishiva,” he said, and I shivered at the warm tickle of his breath. “Not to honour but to… discourage others from leaving.”
Gideon let me go as suddenly as he had taken hold, his gaze oddly far away, and a second shiver chilled my skin. How close did we stand to the brink of destruction that he would speak so? That he would demand such things of me?
But I could not ask or challenge again, could only mumble a “Yes, Your Majesty,” and walk to the door assuring myself that in a few days when his temper had cooled he would not want such a thing. Sliding it open I walked blindly out into the passage. Even when I heard it close behind me, the weight of Gideon’s gaze did not lift.
Tafa was there on guard with Baln and I put my hand on the Oht woman’s shoulder. “Tafa, I need you to gather some Swords for me. Quietly. We will need Loklan with us for the horses, but otherwise just make sure you pick Swords whose loyalty to Gideon is absolute. A mix of herds too,” I added, thinking through the look of the thing. “And keep it quiet.”
“You said that part already, Captain. Trust me, I can do it. What do you want me to tell them?”
“For now, just that we have a mission and will be leaving first thing in the morning. They need to be prepared, but—”
“Keep it quiet.”
“Yes, that.”
“
Got it, Captain.”
She nodded at Baln. “I’ll send someone to cover me. You in?”
“You know I am,” he said as I walked away along the passage in a daze, my hands clenched to keep them from shaking. I had walked the path between my own rooms and Gideon’s too many times to get lost, even with my thoughts tugging every direction, but a small, persistent piece of my mind kept shouting at me that deserters were not our biggest concern. Someone had killed Nods. Someone had killed Livi. Someone had killed Matsimelar and burned all the holy books, and that enemy could take advantage of my absence. But what did they want?
As I passed Lady Sichi’s room the door slid. Expecting Nuru, I sped my pace to avoid her, only to almost collide with Leo. I fell back as he emerged at his slow, decorous walk, his mask hanging around his throat like an unwanted scarf. Massama and Esi were on duty outside Lady Sichi’s room. Both grimaced when I scowled, but it wasn’t their place to refuse him entrance to the lady’s room.
“Ah, Captain Dishiva,” he said, his brows lifted in pleasant surprise. “How nice to see you. I do hope,” he added, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper despite the continued presence of my Swords, “that you will soon find the person responsible for the poisonings. And the burning of the holy books. Lord Nishi has been quite upset.”
“So, I imagine, are the dead,” I said.
“There is nothing to fear in death so long as your body is cared for and given back to God. I requested of Emperor Gideon that the young Levanti be buried and his body blessed and he was wise enough to agree.”
I gasped. “Buried? And what of his soul?”
“If you mean his head,” Leo said with a tolerant smile. “It was removed first, though I did my best to educate His Majesty that such brutality was not required. The soul can be freed back to God if the body is placed in the ground.”
I had no words. Fury had been filling me up bit by bit, in a trickle at first and now in a flood. If Matsimelar’s soul had been trapped thanks to the cajoling of a Chiltaen priest my outrage would have known no bounds. Even allowing his body to be buried without its head was not our way. We burned bodies, letting the smoke rise to the Watchful Father.