Steelhands

by Danielle Bennett

  But Balfour was always surprising you. He’d even done better than his brother, in the end. Just needed a chance to prove that to himself.

  Not that I was in the habit of comparing my riders, mind. Every man had his own style, and so long as he could do his job right, then the rest was none of my business. Hadn’t been any of my business when they’d brought Balfour to us in the first place, a nice little piece of nepotism to fill the void left by Amery. No one ever got around to asking Anastasia what she saw in him—maybe just the family resemblance—but the way they took to each other was more than enough to shut the mouths of any whoreson who said she’d been forced into accepting him. Balfour was a natural, and damned if some days I didn’t think Anastasia had picked Amery just because she’d smelled Balfour on him, and not the other way around.

  They were both good in their own ways, but Amery never would’ve lasted in the situation Balfour had thrust on him. He’d’ve cracked some heads together and ended up on trial for murder after the first day of finding piss in his boots.

  Good man, Amery, but he’d had no better temperament than the dragons when you pushed him.

  The back room of Luvander’s shop was crammed full of fancy white boxes, rolls of ribbon, and all sorts of other packing and shipping supplies that I didn’t know anything about, and that didn’t interest me besides. There was a round wooden table with some chairs scattered around it, a little oven in the corner, and some kind of countertop with mugs and tins of tea littered across it. The kettle on the stove was shooting out steam.

  “Do you live down here?” Balfour asked, peering around. I was just waiting until he caught sight of what I had: some kind of wooden mask about the size of half a man, carved in the image of some poor bastard’s worst nightmare, with its features all twisted and its mouth wry and snarling. It was hanging on the wall above the table, so he was bound to see it eventually. It looked to me like the damn thing wanted to eat us. Why Luvander’d chosen to put it on display over his sweet little dining set was beyond me.

  One of the weirdest of the whole bunch, I always said.

  “I live upstairs, actually,” Luvander said, busying himself with pouring the tea. “This is just where I take my meals so I can stay in the shop at lunchtime.”

  “Very efficient,” Balfour said, before he startled suddenly and grabbed at my arm. “Bastion! What on earth is that?”

  “Oh, Martine?” Luvander asked, shooting a glance toward the mask. “Ghislain found her on one of his expeditions and decided to bring her back for me. Well, for the shop, really. Like a housewarming gift. Or should that be shopwarming? He said she’s supposed to be good luck, but I think she’d scare the customers if I left her out front. So I leave her back here, and I haven’t left anything burning on the stove yet. I think she’s working.”

  “It’s … She’s … Hideous,” Balfour said, not bothering to try for good manners on that one.

  “Ghislain not around much these days?” I asked, making it sound casual.

  “You know how he is,” Luvander said, setting the teapot down on the table and gesturing for us to come over. “Once he sets his mind to doing something, he won’t hear a word against it. He’s got balls of pure dragonsteel. Of course, he won’t tell me what he’s set his mind to, but one does recognize the behavior all the same.”

  “You’re still in touch with Ghislain?” Balfour asked, reaching out to his cup and not warming his fingers over it, the way I’d done. I guessed he didn’t have to, but it was a sobering detail to take in all the same.

  “We write now and then,” Luvander explained, “and he drops off letters. Sometimes by pigeon. He’s training them on his boat, you see.”

  “His boat?” I asked, at about the same time Balfour asked the same.

  “Of course,” Luvander replied, blinking owlishly. “He used his stipend to buy one, as you both know.”

  “Thought that was for …” I began, then shrugged. “Well, I can’t say what I thought that was for, actually.”

  “I think he thought it was the closest thing he’d get to flying again,” Luvander said, blowing on his tea to cool it. “Wind in his hair, surrounded by a great expanse of open blue all around, you know. Or maybe he always wanted to be a sailor when he was little; I didn’t think to ask. Although I’d wager a lot of what he’s doing—if Martine is any evidence to go by—is less like sailoring and more like pirating. Where do you even suppose they have faces like that?”

  “Not where anyone’s named Martine,” I said.

  Luvander laughed, and Balfour even smiled; I watched the latter as he touched the side of his teacup and lifted it to his mouth, the motions only a little awkward. Not to sound soft, but it made my heart ache to see him like that, and if he wasn’t getting the best care th’Esar had, I’d be speaking to the man myself, crown or no.

  “So, that’s it, unfortunately,” Luvander concluded. He gestured to a map pinned up above his sink, where a few pins had been stuck in haphazardly. “He’s somewhere down by Ekklesias, by my calculations. Then again, I know absolutely nothing about how to calculate these things. It’s very possible I’m wrong.”

  “How helpful of you,” I said.

  “Lucky that Yesfir didn’t travel by sea,” Balfour added.

  “That’s brave of you,” Luvander said, looking scandalized. “Where’d you get that edge? Is it Arlemagne? You’re going to have to tell me all about them at some point; the best gossip is always Arlemagne.”

  “I’m not really sure …” Balfour began, back to his old self.

  The banter just served to remind me of how few of us there were; only three where there’d once been fourteen. When I thought of a meeting like this, not too chaotic, everybody present getting his turn to shove a word in edgewise, it felt like somebody walking over my future grave. Sure, there were two more out there—one of them terrifying foreign countries and one of them terrifying foreign seas—but the one terrifying foreign countries, and what he’d found while terrifying ’em, was the reason I’d called this haphazard little meeting together in the first place. Like as not, it was time to bring this meeting of Volstov’s ex-airmen to order.

  I cleared my throat.

  “Something go down the wrong way?” Luvander asked, looking up at me slyly. “Do you need a pat on the back? I’d feel awful if you choked because of my tea.”

  “That’s enough outta you, Luvander,” I said. It sounded just like old times, and boy, did it feel good. Luvander bowed his head and cleared his throat and listened to me, and I stood up from the chair that was too small for me anyway, just so I could be sure I had their full attention front and center. “Got a letter from Rook and Thom a week ago,” I continued. No use beating around the bush and letting them get unfocused again. I almost waited for Compagnon to giggle, then corrected myself, moving on after that a sight more quickly. “Would’ve come to you both sooner, except I needed to look into things myself—exercising my rights as ex–Chief Sergeant. Hope there’s no complaints, or subsequent mutinies.”

  “Neither of us is made for leadership,” Balfour assured me. He sounded almost devious when he added, “No offense meant, Luvander.”

  “And none taken, Balfour,” Luvander replied blithely.

  “Enough chatting,” I said, and set my teacup down. “What I learned from Thom was that, somewhere out in the desert to the south of here, a Ke-Han magician found some way to make Havemercy fly again.” I let that sink in—Balfour in particular looked like he was going to be sick all over the table—then pushed on gamely. “They had enough of the right parts to build her up like a puzzle, and they pulled some trick to get her up and running. But she wasn’t the same as she once was, because whatever magic horseshit they did to her fucked her up. So in answer to your question of whether or not, right now, there’s a dragon flying—there isn’t. Now, the rest doesn’t make much sense to me, since it’s not my area of specialty. All I know is, according to this letter, an agent for th’Esar was involved, which means we h
ave to assume th’Esar knows about all this. He just … doesn’t know I know about it. We know about it. But what we don’t know is more important—what he intends to do about all this. Could be nothing; could be something. My thoughts on the matter are, seeing as who we are, we deserve to know, one way or another. We should be in on his current proceedings.”

  “I wish I’d made a more soothing tea,” Luvander said at last over a very difficult silence. Balfour’s fingers were precise enough that he could pinch and twist at the fabric of his gloves, which he was doing, and Luvander, who was usually in constant motion, was sitting as still as the statue of him just outside. “I wish Ghislain was here. And Rook.”

  “And all the others,” Balfour added pointedly, “but they aren’t. And maybe it’s for the best. But, Adamo … May I speak?”

  I grunted. “No one’s stopping you. Believe me, if I just wanted to hear myself talk, I’d get a mirror instead of bothering you both.”

  Balfour looked away, gripping his cup very tightly. With hands like that, I wondered how he didn’t break it. “There isn’t any way for him to rebuild the corps,” he explained slowly. “The magicians wouldn’t allow it. It was a special allowance for Volstov during wartime, but we aren’t at war anymore. And despite how … awkward things are with the Arlemagne, they aren’t looking to be anything more than allies with us. There are currently no external threats to Volstov.”

  “That wouldn’t stop th’Esar from making provisions,” I said, “and you know it.”

  “I have felt it,” Luvander said softly, then laughed. “ ‘It’—listen to me—I really don’t know what I’m saying. But I’ve felt something. I thought it was just missing people, you know, the usual this and that. Missing my darling most of all. But what if it wasn’t as simple, or there’s more to this than I thought?”

  “No need for that kind of conjecture,” I told him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Though I know what you mean. It’s a tempting thought and not just for th’Esar.”

  “I really don’t know what to make of all this,” Balfour murmured. He looked pretty unhappy, and I didn’t blame him one whit.

  “Neither do I if I’m being perfectly honest,” I said. “Never asked to get a letter like that one, and I hope I never do again. Brought me nothing but indigestion and too many sleepless nights, so if you’re thinking of looking to me for a solution to this mess, you’d be looking in the wrong place.”

  “But you must have some leaning, one way or another,” Luvander said, sitting up a little straighter in his chair, so I could tell he was working his way up to being a cheeky bastard again. “About what we should do for ourselves—for the girls—for the others, too. For example, if I was to suggest we storm th’Esar’s palace right now demanding answers and possibly some sort of financial security for milliners along the Rue, you can’t tell me you’d have nothing to say about that.”

  “You’d be right,” I admitted, ignoring that bit of nonsense about his hat shop. Different men dealt with the rough shit in their own way, and nothing set Luvander at ease better than cracking wise. “Guess I know what we shouldn’t do more than I know what we should. It’s not a position I like any more than you, so you don’t have to make that face at me.”

  “Sorry,” Balfour said quickly, even though he wasn’t the one I’d been talking to. He’d gone from worrying at his gloves to toying with his fingers, stretching the joints by pressing them against the tabletop, then pulling at each finger just slightly, like Merritt had when he’d cracked his knuckles. Balfour’s knuckles didn’t make any noise at all, but considering the way Proudmouth’s joints had creaked when she stretched out her neck, I was glad they didn’t.

  “Your hands bothering you?” I asked out of the blue. I knew as I was doing it that it was the wrong move, that it’d make Balfour uncomfortable and probably Luvander, too. But I was sick of all this civilian dancing around the point and sitting on things until they became too big to ignore. That was Roy’s style, not mine.

  “Beg pardon?” Balfour asked, as Luvander wheeled around in his chair to look at him. “Oh! These. No, they’re … They’re fine, they just stiffen up a bit in the cold, and … Well, I had someone to look after them, but it seems she’s got more to worry about currently than just me, so actually I’ve had to see the Esar about a replacement.”

  “You’ve met with th’Esar?” I asked, trying not to get ahead of myself. “Recently?”

  “Why do I get the feeling I’m being left out simply because I’m the only working-class man among a professor and a diplomat?” Luvander asked, while Balfour looked between us like a mouse trying to decide whether he wanted to take his chances with the cat or the barn owl.

  “It wasn’t anything, not really,” Balfour said, his hands falling still. “At least, it didn’t turn out to be anything, though as you both know, when the Esar calls a man, he does worry. The whole experience was actually just … strange.”

  I folded my arms over my chest, not interrupting; even Luvander looked rapt because this was probably better than all the best gossip he’d heard in weeks.

  With nobody to interrupt him, Balfour hesitated, then pressed on. “I received a summons while I was at the bastion, complete with a carriage and no explanation other than that the Esar needed to see me. It reminded me so much of when Rook … Anyway, I arrived there and—well, I suppose the first thing you should know is that I think he’s been firing his servants. There was barely anyone in the palace proper. He doesn’t trust the people around him, at least not to perform the same duties they once did, seeing as my escort into the audience chamber was the Esarina herself. She said it was because we were going to be discussing things of a sensitive nature, and the less other people knew about our meeting, the better, which I thought sounded a lot like the last thing a man hears before he’s carted off to some nameless prison to spend the rest of his days. But somehow—fortunately—it didn’t turn out like that.”

  “So what did he want?” Luvander asked, leaning so far forward in his chair that I was sure he’d topple out of it at any moment.

  “He wanted to talk to me about my hands,” Balfour said, staring at the table. I expected that was because he found it easier than staring at either of us. “He just … wanted to talk. He asked if they obeyed me, or if I’d been having any trouble with them. I told him that the most trouble I’d had was the attending magician up and vanishing, the same as I told you only more polite, and he told me he’d assign a replacement. After that he had nothing further to say, and so I was sent home.”

  “Sounds like there’s something you’re not telling us. No, that’s not how I want to put it,” I corrected myself, before Balfour’s face could seize up in hurt. “It sounds like there’s a missing piece to the story that maybe you don’t know even though you were there. When you think about it, getting the Esarina involved, that’s a whole lot of secrecy to talk about something that might just as well be common knowledge for everyone in Thremedon. You’ve got those hands. Nothing to be ashamed of, anyway.”

  Balfour caught himself before he pulled them off the table and folded them, awkward and stiff, one on top of the other.

  “They sing songs about you in lower Charlotte, you know,” Luvander said, scratching behind his ear. He probably thought that was going to be comforting. “ ‘Balfour Steelhands,’ they call you. You wouldn’t know, what with being so busy you never visit, but they do. Though sometimes, in the verses, it’s not your hands that are made of steel. But I assure you, all versions are extremely complimentary to your manhood.”

  Balfour colored up to his ears. “I don’t know what to say,” he murmured.

  “Don’t have to say anything,” Luvander replied. “But if you did come to visit, you’d never be lonely. That I can tell you.”

  “Luvander,” I warned. I could look out for the runt of the litter now because this wasn’t wartime and he wouldn’t get it even worse from the boys once I turned my back.

  Balfour rubbed his thumb agai
nst the tabletop. “I suppose my visit with the Esar might have coincided with his receiving news about what happened with Rook and Thom,” he said, still not looking at all comforted by the idea that someone out there might or might not’ve been composing a ditty to his balls. “My hands are made with the same principles in mind as the dragons, I’m told, even if they’re not precisely the same materials. I suppose in some ways it was an experiment, since to my knowledge it was the first time they’d ever attempted to create something on this scale, hands being so much smaller, after all. I don’t even know how they work,” he added, with a faint little smile. “Trust Thom to figure it out, though.”

  “I don’t like it,” I said, reaching down to take a sip of my tea, mostly lukewarm by now, and all the leaves swirling around in the bottom like a bad omen. “Sounds to me like someone’s trying to squeeze all the information outta one end without giving anything back, like he thinks he can get our help, then just shut us out of whatever he’s planning.”

  “We don’t know he’s planning anything,” Luvander pointed out, his finger tracing over the pattern on his cup, gold leaf and green. It looked like the kind of thing that might’ve found its way to Thremedon on a pirate ship, maybe one captained by a mutual acquaintance, but I wasn’t about to ask and derail the whole conversation. “You know whose side I fall on should the situation warrant taking sides at all. But I just feel compelled—as a sensitive and sensible-minded creature—to remind you two headstrong louts that, technically speaking, we have no proof of anything. We have good common sense, and our instincts are a sight better than anyone else’s given word these days, but I believe that for the time being, the safest course of action would be to keep open minds. And perhaps more importantly, we keep our eyes open, as well.”