by Jackson Lear
“Would you make a good general?”
“I actually hope to never find out.”
“You’re planning on retiring?”
“No. I do plan on becoming a general. The good ones are remembered because of the battles they’ve fought. I’d like to avoid losing my troops simply to get my name into the history books.”
“What about Alysia? Would she make a good senator?”
He looked Alysia over and for once I don’t think he was selling himself short. “She would. She has wisdom beyond her years and a good heart. I think she would actually look out for the people who keep Ispar alive, and not just the ones who get the credit for it.”
She smiled back at him. Squeezed his hand.
I said, “The governor doesn’t strike me as the mastermind of your demise.”
“He’s not. Caton has been running the province for years. I’m sure the governor is aware of ninety percent of what’s going on, but Caton is the one focusing the governor’s attention and whispering in his ear at every opportunity.” He shook his head once more. “I can’t order you to do whatever it is you think I’m going to order you to do.”
“Then correct me if I’m wrong; Caton is a master at underhanded strategy.”
Lavarta remained silent.
“This all started because Lieutenant Gustali wants your job.”
He remained silent.
“If Lieutenant Gustali is ever in actual command, a lot of people will die unnecessarily.”
He remained silent.
“The governor has no idea that his right hand man has been trying to kill you.”
“And my wife.” He dropped his head, the words catching in the back of his throat. “Is this going to be as bad as what happened in Erast?”
“Hard to say. Those people went after someone I didn’t know. These people are going after someone I do.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
I was given a room upstairs. One with an actual bed, sheets, and a pillow as soft as a fat woman’s ass. Outside, the moon was just creeping up past the horizon.
I had an idea. Not a particularly good idea, but one that would definitely throw a problem into Kace’s plans. I just needed the moon to get a little higher so I could navigate better through the night.
I had a desk in my room. One that was about to test my limits once again. While before I had managed to copy Artavian’s letter to his father in the full light of day, now I had to do it with only a lamp by my side and time working against me. You would think that after copying it the first time that I’d be significantly better at doing it again, but no; I was just as awful this time around as before. Worse still, I was copying my version, so gods-know what kind of mistakes I had made the first time that were being duplicated into this one.
I swore. I gnashed my teeth. I promised myself that I would never put myself through this misery again. Only when my hand was done cramping was I able to finish my masterpiece. It wasn’t among the finest of works ever penned but there was little I could do to rectify that now. I cleaned up after myself, tucked both letters into my clothes, and left everything as though I had been up to nothing suspicious for the whole evening.
I pushed the shutters open and held myself on the precipice of the window, debating on how to best slip away without making an ass of myself by falling through the roof.
“Leaving us already?”
I snapped to one side, surprised and yet unsurprised at the same time. Zara was sitting on the window ledge of the room next to me, one leg propped up against the window frame, the other dangling outside. She lifted a fine pipe to her lips, sucked, and exhaled to the side. Whatever she was smoking, it certainly wasn’t tobacco.
“You moved your room to be next to mine?” I asked.
“Not exactly. You mean to cause trouble tonight. I’d like to know what that entails in case you don’t come back.”
“You could follow me. But that would leave Miss Kasera without protection.”
“The commander is with her.”
I waited to see if Zara would inhale again. She didn’t. “Is he a good guy?”
“She loves him. He loves her.” Zara peered back at me, watching me figure out how to best climb down from that window. “You’re not going to ask if she’s a good person?”
I found my way out. Right where the wall met the roof was a half-inch gap so the building could breathe during the hot days and cool nights without breaking itself apart. I wedged my fingertips inside and shimmied to the corner of the wall, stepped onto the overlapping tiles that supported the narrow roof next to the atrium, and dropped to the wall across from me.
Zara lifted her pipe back to her lips, blew out another puff of air, and stayed there long after I cleared the stables.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The military seemed to follow the same useless routine as mercenaries while on guard; stand around trying to look busy, wait until you got so restless that you needed to stretch your legs, and keep watch through intuition alone rather than – you know – using your eyes.
Two privates were at the front gate, laughing through one tarted-up nun joke after another. I was over the gate and inside the courtyard before one private was able to top his friend’s crass sense of humor.
The moon lit my way, still rising through the sky. The odd speckle of dark clouds drifted overhead. I pulled my collar up against the evening chill.
Several buildings lay before me. There were, of course, the stables and military police headquarters where I first met Lieutenant’s Kace and Orin, but many more were spread out around the courtyard. The buildings here were either a single story or two. Closest to the stables was a square-shaped building, flat roof, with almost no windows. A storehouse, I assumed. The rest tried to favor the southern side, keeping them stretched along the east-to-west line with high windows to capture the daylight. I figured that side of each building belonged to the senior officers. The large windows allowed for them to read and write better with the sun behind them, though my knowledge of that was fairly lacking. I was under the impression that this side of the compound was geared more towards managing the province’s armies, while far to the east was a closed-off area containing a barracks and training ground.
I retraced the timing of my first meeting with Lieutenant Kace. I had been speaking with Orin, he went to get his superior, and I had spent several minutes building myself into a panic. It wasn’t long enough for Orin to leave the building through some back exit, but it was long enough for Kace to have an office in just about any room in the building while he slowly got up to see what I was going to bother him with.
I did a quick sweep around of Kace’s building, half relieved that no one was working late, half disappointed that it forced me to check each room. I pressed my face against every window, squinting into the darkness. In an ideal world I would’ve been able to shift the moonlight to wherever I needed it, but then again having a master key and a lantern might’ve been easier than achieving the powers of a cosmic god. Three quarters of the rooms were rendered completely unreadable because of the lack of light. The other quarter was pretty much a blur of dark shapes with a dark background beyond.
A gentle stream of light emerged ahead of me. Two young women; tunics, spears, and ponytails, walked forward, talking quietly to each other. One held her spear over her shoulder, the lantern locked at the base of the blade so the light remained behind them, allowing them to see easier without squinting whenever the lantern swung in front of them.
They walked along, giving me an idea. I activated the silk hook, scooped up a couple of pebbles, and climbed up onto the storehouse just before the soldiers reached my position. They stopped, annoyingly close to where I wanted them but not close enough.
I threw a pebble in the direction I wanted them to head towards.
The women turned at once, their conversation falling silent. The one with the lantern repositioned it, held it high and in front of her, searching for the source of the sound.
I peered over the edge of the roof, picking out the few details of whatever I could find behind the windows. Desk. Chair. Scrolls. Next office: another desk. Another chair. Another set of scrolls.
The soldier strolled forward, angling her head to the side as if it might help her to see or hear better. It gave me the chance to cross another pair of offices off my list of potentials.
The wind kicked in, thumping the stable doors against their rails and rattling them back and forth. I rolled across the roof top, getting myself into position for the next lot of offices.
The soldiers shrugged it off, went back to the corner they had just been standing at, and continued chatting amongst themselves.
I sighed. Waited. Hoped that they would hurry up and help me find Kace’s office. One of them eventually did the chamber pot dance. The women took a short-cut just in front of me, illuminating every office I was staring at.
Desk, chair, and scrolls abound. Then: gold – A sealed letter sitting on the desk, the wax seal reflecting back at me. I held my hand directly in front of me, locked onto Kace’s office, kept my head straight, shifted my eyes to either side, and slowly allowed myself to count each window on both sides without losing sight of my target. His was the sixth window from the eastern end and the fourteenth from the west.
The lantern light faded. I climbed down, blade in hand, and got to work on Kace’s window. The catch was well hidden, rendering my efforts in slipping my blade through a gap all but useless. I shifted to prying one slice of the black glazing bars free, digging the tip of my weapon between it and the dull pane of glass and shimmying about.
The glass creaked, groaned, and started to scratch. Too much, I feared, as my stomach tightened, hoping like holy hell that I wasn’t about to shatter the entire window on top of me. I gave it a moment to settle before trying again.
Another lengthy kkkkkrrrrrr, kkkrrr, kkkrrr stung my ears as my blade scratched and grated against the glass. The glazing bar was starting to warp but it wasn’t going to be easy to pry free.
I pulled back, debating whether this was still the best way in or not. I could easily break into someone else’s office and sneak into Kace’s from the inside. At least then if someone found a broken window there might be some reasonable doubt that Kace had not be targeted, but the idea of drawing attention to any break in didn’t sit well with me.
I returned to the window, trying again. With the slightest of chinks a sliver of black metal broke free, right at the intersection between it and another pane. The narrow piece of glass started to wobble. If I could get that free then I could slip my arm inside, unlock the window from within, and no one would be any the wiser.
I froze. Far left. By the fence. Someone staring at me. They dropped out of sight. Literally dropped, like they were tying their sandal laces back together.
I settled my breathing. No way in hell could they have seen me. Not at that distance. Not in this light.
Yet I had seen them.
I eased my hand down, keeping my blade to one side.
They rose. Behind the fence. I had seen them as a silhouette, a dark figure against the reflected stonework of the building behind them. With a quick one two they were up on top of the pillar, dropped down into the compound, and strolled inside.
I held my position, willing the darkness to consume me.
The asshole walked towards me like he owned the place. Military-shaped tunic, military-looking footwear. But no one from the military would climb the fence to gain access to this place, not if they could avoid it. A faceless grunt might try sneaking back into the barracks after hitting the town, but the barracks were on the other side of the compound, and this was an officer’s area.
He also didn’t move like a drunk returning to his bunk. He had the walk of a pitbull. Elbows out, arms swinging wide, a definite confidence with every stride. He had the height of a pitbull as well. A taut physique, the sort people my age have to put in a lot of effort to maintain. A short sword dangled from his waist. On most men it would reach just past their knee. This guy was small enough to make it look like a three-quarter sword, coming halfway down his shin, but I had seen plenty of those in my day. This was a regular sword on a shorter-than-average man.
He glanced left, glanced right, doing a casual sweep of who was where and who might see him. No one did. I pushed myself against the wall, my ears prickling as the wind bucked the stable doors once again, knocking them against their runners.
He kept walking, straight towards me. Dug something out from a pouch by his side. Something small and nondescript. He left my line of sight. Only then did I actually believe that he hadn’t seen me.
A slight clink broke the windy night air. A door creaked open, then closed, followed by another – albeit quieter – clink.
I slipped back across the open way, coming to rest against the storehouse, my stomach tight with the forced wait. Kace’s office was right in front of me and yet my instincts were screaming for all to hear. I was desperate to flash a signal to my brothers. Two to the right, two to the left, two on the window, two more at the front door, ready to take this short asshole down.
A gentle laugh came from somewhere behind me. A woman’s. Young enough to probably be one of the soldier’s on patrol. Certainly not the cackle of an out-of-shape has-been.
The wind kissed my neck once again, licking its way to my throat like a hangman was measuring me with his icy fingers. It had been a while since I was this clean shaven. I guess I was still getting used to it.
The gentlest of gravel crunching came from my right. Another patrol was on its way.
The faintest trace of light emerged from within the building facing me. Nothing more than a thin beam along the edge of the Kace’s door, broken in two places as someone stood in front of it. Then it faded to darkness. A shift within the black came from inside.
I stared through the locked window, readying a spell.
The short man entered. Left Kace’s door open. Went to the desk. I had to hand it to him, he operated in almost pure darkness, save for the scant moonlight illuminating the office.
He withdrew something from his pouch. Lifted a book resting on Kace’s desk, dropped something underneath, returned his hand to his side. He took a moment to glance over the impossibly dark office, maybe using some kind of magic to aid him, or maybe he was simply letting his nose pick out the details of the corrupt investigator.
A heat started to build in my chest. I was staring at – potentially – Gustali’s assassin, the man who likely killed Artavian on Caton’s orders, and he had no idea that I was only a few feet away, watching him snoop around someone else’s office.
I considered slipping around to the front door, ramming my blade into his throat as he made his exit, and slipping just as easily back into the night, but even in the Governor’s Hand I would never have been so reckless. All I knew about the assassin was that he was a short guy, but there had to be many of those in the army, in Torne, and with reasonable access to the military police’s unit.
Then again, if he was military then why did he need to sneak inside? And why was he planting evidence in Kace’s office?
Unless, by some miracle, it was to clear Lavarta’s name? An anonymous tip that the Gustalis were behind this whole mess?
But what a miracle that would be. Someone who conveniently had a key to the military police office but who still needed to sneak in, someone who was the same shape and build as Artavian’s potential assassin, and someone who likely knew of the raid on Lavarta’s home just that evening.
The stream of light from the patrol caused a rise of discomfort within me. I didn’t dare move, not if the assassin turned around just then. I listened out, registering two light voices. The soldiers were moving counter-clockwise this time.
The short guy strolled back to the corridor, closed the door behind him, and was gone from my sight.
The patrol appeared to my right, walking side by side with the lantern again dangling on the end of one of thei
r spears. I caught the face of a young woman looking towards her friend, smiling at whatever story she was telling, her eyes alive with energy and her hands gesturing close to her body.
An assassin to my left and two soldiers to my right. A short sword or two spears. Or, to put it plainer, Artavian’s killer and a giant fuck-you to Gustali, or two relatively innocent soldiers doing what they could to make ends meet while earning their citizenship.
Neither of them noticed me. The two soldiers kept on walking, talking amongst themselves, and slipped out of view.
I darted forward, blade in hand, and returned to Kace’s window, doing all I could to pry the black glazing bar free. It broke just enough for me to dig my fingers around and get a good grab. The glue holding the pane in place had suffered years of weather abuse, but even so it did an admirable job. Just not a perfect job.
I screeched the bar free, wiggled the small pane of glass out, and walked my arm into Kace’s office.
Click.
The window eased open.
Kace’s office was as uniform as the rest in the building, save for contents on his desk. I didn’t dare open the door. Not while I didn’t know where Gustali’s assassin was.
I lifted the sealed letter from Kace’s office. Did my best to inspect it. Another piece of paper drifted to the floor. The assassin’s. I scooped it up, studied it under the moonlight. The outside was blank. The inside was a mess of writing. That had to be what the short man left behind. I replaced it with my copy of Artavian’s letter. Stuffed the short man’s letter into my clothes. Climbed out the window, pulled it closed, made sure the catch worked properly, and set the pane back into position. I had to secure it with a line of goo from a mix of ash and spit to hold it steady, providing me with a moment of waiting around while the two soldiers circled back towards me.
Clink.
I stayed exactly where I was.
A figure strolled out towards the fence. The man. Short and thin. Three-quarter length sword.