by Jim Butcher
Isana pressed against that panicked voice, against her own terror.
It was time to stop lying. To stop hiding.
Without a word, she reached for the slender chain she'd worn around her neck ever since she had left the Calderon Valley for Alera Imperia, years before. She unfastened the clasp, and drew it from where it lay hidden beneath her gown. The elegant silver ring, complete with its gem of scarlet and azure, seamlessly joined down its center, caught the light and glittered brightly, throwing flickers of colored fire upon the top of Cyril's desk.
Isana set it there gently, and folded her hands in her lap. "Given me by my husband, Princeps Gaius Septimus," Isana said quietly, "upon our wedding, some ten months before his death." She rose to stand behind Tavi, facing Cyril, and lifted her own chin. "This is our son, Octavian. He was born the night of the First Battle of Calderon. The same night his father died."
Cyril stared at her. Then at the ring. He reached out to pick it up, his hands shaking visibly.
"The mark of his signet dagger is carved on the inside, beneath the stones," Isana said quietly. "He left me the dagger as well. It's in a trunk in my room."
The ring tumbled from Sir Cyril's fingertips, back to the top of the desk.
Cyril shook his head, stammering. "H-how can this be?"
Tavi, still on his knee, turned back to look up at Isana. For a second, she saw him again, the boy she had watched over, fed, cared for, loved. And lied to. Great furies help her, had there been more she could have done to hide him, she would have.
Araris had been right. He deserved the truth.
She met her son's eyes. "What very few know," Isana said, careful to keep her voice steady, her words clear, "is that Septimus had twice been attacked by assassins, in the two years prior to his death. His efforts to discover their employer were unsuccessful. When he took the Crown Legion to put down the rebellion at the Battle of Seven Hills, another assassin wounded him so badly, the night after the battle, that even with his own skills at healing, Septimus barely survived. That was why the First Lord sent the Crown Legion off to the farthest reaches of the Realm-to the Calderon Valley. Officially, it was to rest and recover from the losses sustained at Seven Hills. Only his singulares and Sextus knew it was to give Septimus a chance to recover in relative privacy." She grimaced. "Septimus wanted to return to Alera Imperia and dare them to come after him again-to catch whoever was behind it. But Sextus ordered him to Calderon.
"Septimus obeyed, but he wasn't content simply to rest and recover. He began sending out men he trusted to search for answers of his own. And…"
And how could she possibly speak of a thousand memories, of the words between them, of how Septimus had become her entire world? How could she convey what it had meant to touch his hand, to listen to his voice, to feel his heart beating against her as he slept? How could she make them know what it had felt like for an awkward holder girl to fall in love with a man so strong and gentle and kind?
"We met there," she said in a whisper. "We fell in love. We married."
Tavi stared up at her, and his expression was no longer a careful mask. He looked up at her the way any hungry child had ever looked up to his mother. He had been starving. For his whole life, he had been starving for the truth, and only now was he about to be sated.
"Septimus learned of a plot against him," she continued. "Several of the other young men of his generation-he wasn't sure who-had formed a cabal, swearing to remove him and displace the House of Gaius from the throne." She swallowed. "I think he suspected that the Marat invasion was engineered by this group of men. And it is my belief that they struck at him there, during the battle." Isana's tears blurred the room once more. "They killed him."
She swallowed and forced herself to continue. "Septimus had sent me from the camp, accompanied by my young sister, Alia, with Araris as my singulare, just before the Marat arrived. But I was heavy with child, and I began delivery before we could go more than a few miles. We hid in a cave. It was a difficult birthing. Alia helped me, but died of an arrow wound she'd gotten. That's where Octavian was born. In a cave. While his father fought invaders and traitors, and died so that others would have a chance to live."
Tavi's eyes suddenly shone. His expression didn't change, though the tears began to fall freely.
"I was alone," Isana said quietly. "But for Araris. And he could not protect Octavian from those who had murdered his father. Neither could Sextus. He hadn't protected his own son, and I would not chance mine upon his remorse." She felt her back straighten. "So I hid Octavian away. Araris marked his own face with the coward's brand, knowing no one would ever look for Araris Valerian beneath it, and sold himself into slavery. I purchased him, and he helped me watch over Tavi in my brother's steadholt." She reached out and touched his hair with one hand. "We told no one. Not even Octavian. There was no other way to keep him safe."
She met her son's eyes, and felt his bitterness, his lifelong ache and his newly born fear. She felt his rage. And, beneath all of it, threaded and braided with every emotion, was his love. Simple, strong-tarnished, perhaps, but not broken.
Her son still loved her.
He was angry, and afraid of the future, and broken with sadness about the loss of a father he'd never known, even if he did not himself realize it yet.
Though his heart was wounded, the wounds could heal. They would pass, in time.
His love would not.
Isana crouched, bowed her head, and laid her forehead gently against Tavi's. He leaned into her, and his hands suddenly found hers, squeezing tight. They shared tears for a moment-tears of loss and regret and repentance.
Isana whispered, too quietly for Cyril to hear, "I'm so sorry. Your father would have been so proud of you, my Tavi."
Her son's shoulders twitched, and his breath caught in his throat for a second, before he bowed his head and leaned more against her. She put her arms around him in a sudden, fiercely tight embrace. He wept silently, his body jerking several times. Isana held him and closed her eyes.
She opened them again when she felt Cyril's pain. He stood from the desk, wincing as the weight went onto his maimed leg, and limped steadily around it. Wordlessly, he offered the ring and its chain back to Isana.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"You should hide it, my lady," he murmured back. "Until the time is right." Then he shifted position and dropped painfully to one knee.
Isana touched Tavi's shoulder.
He looked up to meet Sir Cyril's gaze.
Cyril bowed his head, deeply. "Your Highness," he murmured. "How may I serve the Crown?"
Chapter 21
Tavi thought it somewhat ironic that the bunk in his cell was considerably more comfortable than his own. Granted, it had hardly been used during the two years since it had been built. The occasional drunken or brawling legionare had cooled his heels within, but that had been an infrequent event. In general, Tavi had followed Cyril's example of trusting his centurions to maintain discipline rather than meddling in it himself, and as a result the only legionares to see the inside of the cell had been those luckless or stupid enough to screw up in front of their captain's eyes.
Of course, he wasn't their captain anymore. He probably never would be again.
That bothered him more than he thought it would-especially since it was a position that had been thrust upon him by necessity in the first place. He'd only been here, at the Elinarch, for two years, but in that time it had become someplace familiar to him. It hadn't been a happy time. Too many people had been hurt or killed for that. It had, however, been an important time. There had been joy to balance the sorrow, laughter to counter the tears. He had worked hard and won respect as well as shed blood. He had made friends, too, of those who had fought beside him.
It had become his home.
That was over now.
He lay in his bunk, staring up at the stone ceiling. He missed his room in the command building. He missed the bustle of the Legion's routine. T
here were times when he missed Bemardholt-Isanaholt, he corrected himself. Only it probably wouldn't be that for very much longer, either.
Declaring himself to Sir Cyril had changed all of that. Learning the truth had changed it.
He tried to sort through his thoughts and feelings on the matter, but it was a hopeless tangle. Isana was his mother. His father had been murdered-and his enemies, presumably, were still at liberty. Should he feel rage at whoever had taken his father from him? It seemed to him that he should, but he hadn't felt it yet. In stories, a young man in his position should be making oaths of vengeance and setting out with grim determination to punish his father's killers.
Instead, he just felt numb. Too much had happened too quickly. Isana's emotions, as she told him about his father… had been exquisitely painful. He'd drunk them down like a man dying of thirst despite that, but there was no denying that the experience had shaken him severely. Perhaps this oddly peaceful lack of emotions was simply the result of overexposure, like the ringing in his ears during the silence after the roar of battle.
He'd felt his mother's grief and regret and anxiety as distinctly as if they had been his own. He had never felt another's emotions so clearly before-not even Kitai's. He wondered why his senses had seemed so much more adept when it came to Isana. Before, he had only imagined her good intentions, her fears, her motivations in lying to him and everyone else for all those years.
Now, he knew. He knew that she had acted as she had out of love and desperation, taking the only measures she could to protect him. He knew how deeply she had loved Septimus and how viciously his death had wounded her. He knew how much she loved him. When she finally talked to him about it, she had told him the truth, complete and open, not only with her words but with the heart and mind beneath them. He knew it. There was absolutely no room for doubt.
She would never apologize for what she had done. Her words had been an apology for the pain he'd undergone, over those years, regret for the necessities she had been forced to; but she would never apologize for doing them. Tavi knew that now. She had done what she thought was right and necessary. He could either respect that or hold it against her for the rest of his life.
He rubbed at his aching head. He was tired. Holding grudges took far too much energy-energy he would need for more immediate endeavors. The past had lain quietly for more than twenty years. It could keep a little longer. The future was all one vast, terrible vagary. It could wait. It always did.
Lives were at stake here and now.
Tavi ground his teeth in frustration and glared at the door of iron bars. It wasn't really an obstacle. He could probably summon up enough strength to rip the door out of the wall, hinges and all. The idea had a certain primal appeal, but it seemed a little excessive. It wouldn't take more than a moment or two to pick the lock, which would make for a better, quieter escape in any case.
The problem was that the door wasn't his obstacle. The law was. Tavi could have ordered Cyril to release him, but it would have required him to violate a number of laws, and that could have repercussions for him in the long run. It was by no means guaranteed that simply being Gaius Sextus's blood heir would be sufficient actually to give him the power of a Princeps with which to protect Cyril from such actions. There was no guarantee that Gaius would accept him-and even if he did, there was no guarantee that the House of Gaius would continue holding the Crown.
He hadn't dared to ask Cyril for much, for his own sake. He hadn't told Cyril anything of his plans. He hadn't asked for any cooperation of any kind, in fact. If things went bad, and Cyril was questioned by a truthfinder, later, he would honestly be able to say that he hadn't helped Tavi escape and had no idea where he was going or what he was doing.
Where the crows was Ehren?
Waiting for dark, of course. From inside the cell, Tavi had no way of guessing where the sun was. He stretched, sighed, and settled in to try to sleep. Many soldiers learned how to take immediate sleep during any free moment- but officers rarely had any such time to spare, and Tavi hadn't been able to pick up the trick of it. He lay with his thoughts for two hours, waiting for the sun to go down, until he finally managed to begin to drift off to sleep.
Naturally, that was when Ehren came. Footsteps approached the cell door, and Tavi sat up and swung his feet off the bunk. By the time they'd hit the stone floor, the cell door rattled and opened, and the sandy-haired little Cursor stood in the doorway, dressed in simple and well-made traveling clothes, a bundle of clothing under one arm. He tossed it to Tavi.
Tavi lost no time shedding his uniform and donning the unremarkable civilian's clothing. "Any problems?"
"Not yet," Ehren said. He shook a rather large, rather heavy-looking purse at his side. It jingled. "I wouldn't have thought Cyril had this kind of money."
"Merchant family. They have a lot of connections in the Senate." Tavi finished dressing, paused for a moment to consider, and then laid his uniform clothes out on the bunk, positioned as they would be if he had been sleeping in them. "There."
Ehren snorted. "That ought to make for an interesting rumor or two."
Tavi grinned. "Can't hurt. What about the guard?"
Ehren tapped the purse again. "Two of the girls who used to work for Mistress
Cymnea have him pretty thoroughly distracted. We could smash our way through the wall with mining picks, and he wouldn't notice."
Tavi let out a small sigh of relief. "Good. I didn't want anyone to get hurt over this."
"The night is young," Ehren said.
Once Tavi was dressed, Ehren tossed him a long, dark cloak with a deep hood, similar to his own. They pulled the hoods up and left the cell. Ehren locked it behind them. They left the command building by the back door and hurried away through the darkened streets.
"How long before the wind coach arrives?" Tavi asked.
Ehren grimaced. "There's a problem."
Tavi arched an eyebrow.
"Windcrafters were expensive and hard to find even before the war," Ehren said. "Legions all over Alera have been offering incentives to recruit more of them. All the fliers who haven't gone into the Legions are overworked already, even with their prices raised through the roof."
"I don't care what it costs. We need a coach."
"We aren't getting one," Ehren said. "We're in the middle of nowhere. None of the coaches are willing to fly all the way out to a war zone with empty seats."
"Crows," Tavi spat. "Where are we headed?"
"The docks," Ehren replied. "The others are waiting there."
Tavi stopped and blinked at Ehren. "A ship? We'll have to sail halfway around the coast to get to the Gaul."
Ehren shrugged. "Beggars and choosers. It will take even longer to walk it."
Tavi sighed. They walked down one of the many wooden staircases that led down the riverbank to the extensive docks that lined both sides of the river. Taverns and warehouses lined the waterside, and if the Legions had departed, the traders and rivermen hadn't. The docks were as busy as any other night, and Tavi and Ehren had no trouble blending in.
Ehren led them to one of the larger docks, and out along it to its lone occupant, a lean and ill-favored ship conspicuous for its lack of furylamps-and passersby. No one but themselves seemed willing to pace down its wooden length, and Tavi was just as glad. In the darkness, Tavi could just barely make out the letters on the ship's prow proclaiming it the Slive.
Several cloaked figures waited at the bottom of the gangplank, and one of them broke away from the others to walk toward Tavi.
"Chala," Kitai said quietly, and embraced him. "I missed you. You are well?"
Tavi kissed her hair. "I'm fine."
His mother was close behind Kitai. She gave him a smile and an uncertain nod. Tavi released the Marat woman and went to Isana, hugging her.
Tavi felt a sudden sense of relief surge through her. She hugged him back, hard.
"Well have some time. We'll talk," he said quietly.
She nodded,
not speaking, and they broke the embrace.
Araris stepped forward from the shadows and nodded to Tavi. He offered Tavi his sword belt, and Tavi accepted it gratefully, glad to feel the familiar weight of the weapon once more at his side. Araris, his eyes in constant motion, moved silently to stand behind Tavi, watching the length of the dock between them and the shore.
"Captain," Ehren called quietly. "We're ready."
A man appeared at the head of the gangplank and walked quietly down it. He was a little taller than average and lean, and wore a long blade at his hip. He stepped onto the dock and stopped when he was standing just out of reach of Tavi's gladius-but within the range of his own weapon. He had a flat, cool mask of a face and the guarded, calculating eyes of a professional swordsman.
"This is Captain Demos," Ehren said. "He was the man who got me back to Alera in time to warn you of the Canim fleet."
Demos nodded to Tavi. "Who are you?"
"Rufus Scipio," Tavi replied.
Demos blinked once and shrugged. "All right. Ehren here tells me you have a job."
"I need passage to the capital and back. I need to move some goods discreetly. Can you do it?"
Demos shrugged. "Probably. If the price is right."
"Let's talk price, then," Tavi said.
"I don't haggle," Demos replied. "You pay it. Or you find someone else."
Tavi studied the man quietly for a moment. Then he shrugged. "How much?"
"Five hundred eagles," Demos replied. "That's just the transport fee. The bribes are an extra expense. So is the food. You pay me half up front, half on completion."
Tavi glanced aside at Ehren, who nodded once.
"Done," Tavi said.
Demos looked between the two of them, then at the others. "Get this straight. You might be hiring me, but I'm the captain on my ship. I don't take orders. I give them. If I give you an order, I expect you to obey it, or you'll swim the rest of the way."