“Sarine—” her uncle said, looking up at her with a worried expression.
She understood his concern; Father Thibeaux had kept her safe from half a hundred perils that she knew, and surely another hundred she’d never seen: hunger, cold, priests, and press-gangs. It was poor repayment to court the attentions of a man who made a habit of confronting the city watch. But more than curiosity had burned in her since the Harbor. She’d sketched the beauty of the nobles’ world scores of times, been drawn in by the possibilities of her meeting with Lord Revellion. In spite of their allure, she knew in her gut the injustice of it, of their lives of plenty when so many had so little. And until the Harbor, she’d never seen a man or woman dare to stand so boldly against what she knew was wrong.
“It’s fine, uncle,” she said, taking the ladder down from her loft. “If he meant ill, he wouldn’t have come here alone.”
D’Agarre bowed, extending a hand for hers when he arose. “My assurances, Father. I know well the dangers of this city. We will be safe.”
Her uncle nodded warily, and d’Agarre gestured for her to lead the way through the chapel doors. She did. On their way out, d’Agarre paused a moment to take a pouch from inside his coat, setting it atop the collection box. Then they emerged together into the New Sarresant sun.
“Sarine.” D’Agarre repeated her name with the same intensity he’d used before. “I hoped you might accept my invitations. I was disappointed by your absence.”
She eyed him as they walked. He stepped lightly through the streets of the Maw, seeming unburdened, without concern at displaying wealth so openly in a district full of thieves. Evidently his charity had earned him a degree of familiarity among the city’s worst sort. A dubious honor, though not without merit, given her uncle’s efforts to do the same.
“I never mentioned the Sacre-Lin when we spoke in the market. Did you have me followed?”
He paused mid-stride, turning to give her a surprised look. “Gods no. What sort of man do you believe me to be?”
“The dangerous sort,” she replied without thinking.
He feigned a wounded look before breaking into a grin. “The truth is you had half again as many drawings of the Sacre-Lin chapel as anything else on display in the market. A few inquiries among the priests as to the source of those stained-glass reliefs and I gambled it was likely the best place to find you.”
“I see.” Damn but that was obvious. She’d been a fool to display it so plainly. What if the city watch had made the same connection after prying into her drawings of the nobles?
“As to danger,” d’Agarre continued, “from what I hear you are no small threat to public safety yourself.”
Heat crept into her cheeks. He laughed.
“Nothing to be ashamed of. I had the truth of it from men who were there at Rasailles. They say you were something to behold.”
She said nothing. It was still too close to a raw nerve. By instinct she hid her hands in the pockets of her coat, concealing the scarred flesh that marked her for what she was.
“No.” D’Agarre stopped to lay a hand on her arm. “Don’t hide it.”
She looked away.
“Sarine, you have a gift far beyond their understanding. I had wondered if it was possible. In all the long years, in all the records we’ve kept, there has never been a single incidence of binding among our number. Binding is a rare talent, of course, but for us to have gone so long without one, it began to seem as if one gift precluded the other.”
She frowned. What was he talking about? Binding was rare, yes, but even among the commonfolk there were enough freebinders, marked and unmarked, to hire if one had need of their services, and d’Agarre had proven he had no shortage of coin.
D’Agarre faced her before she could put words to the thought. “You are not alone in your gift.”
“I know. My uncle taught me about bindings when I was—”
“No, Sarine. Your other gift.”
On the grass beside the road a four-legged crystalline serpent appeared, scales flushed a deep green. It cocked its head at her, then bowed, folding itself in half at the neck as she had seen Zi do, countless times before.
She gasped.
“Mine is called Saruk. Have you learned the name of yours?”
“Zi,” she whispered, trembling. “He never told me he could appear to others.”
It was never needful.
D’Agarre nodded. “The kaas can be difficult, at times.”
“The kaas?”
“Yes. Have you not read the book?”
She gave him a confused look.
“The Codex? Those of us with the gift can read its pages, and before long the kaas appear to forge their bond.”
“I’ve never heard of a ‘codex.’ And who is ‘we’? How many are there?”
D’Agarre frowned. “A handful here in New Sarresant. More elsewhere. Are you certain you’ve never read the book? It is the essence of the link between us and the kaas. Might you have lost it, as a child perhaps?”
“I was an orphan, on the streets of the Maw.”
“That may explain it then. I shall have to have another copy made.”
“How did you know? About Zi?”
“In the Maw, when we were attacked by the watch. You used Red.”
So that’s what Zi had meant with his cryptic colors. He’d never explained what he could do; it wasn’t like her bindings, or the strange lure of the cat spirit. Zi just did what was needed, when it was needful.
She shivered, and her breath came quickly. D’Agarre noticed.
“It is all a bit overwhelming, I know.”
She nodded, staring off into the distance, toward the district boundaries and the Riverways. Whatever she’d expected from a sojourn with Reyne d’Agarre, it had not been this.
“And you are a binder as well,” he went on. “You are gifted beyond the dreams of the fools that call themselves noble. They play at power, but you have the truth of it. Real power, the chance to reshape the world according to your desires.”
“Is that what you were doing in the Harbor, Master d’Agarre?”
She’d meant it as a flippant challenge, a distraction from the fever-dream come to life swimming inside her head. But he seemed to take it deadly serious.
“Yes, Sarine. That is precisely what I was doing in the Harbor.”
She felt a chill.
“Come to my next salon. You will see. This city is rotten to its core.”
“I—” she began.
“I know,” he said. “I know you will have doubts. Let me persuade you. Let me—”
“I have nothing to wear,” she said in a rush.
He blinked, then let out a laugh.
“An easily solvable problem,” he said with a grin, tapping another coin purse on his belt.
21
ERRIS
2nd Corps Command Tents
Southern Sarresant Territory
The sun had set long before her entourage arrived at the command tents. Jiri and the rest of their mounts were seen to with expert care—she’d been impressed enough to compliment the marquis-general’s handlers—and space had been found for her aides at the camp. They guided her to the general’s tent straightaway.
Already a pleasant change from Vicomte-General Carailles. She’d met Marquis-General Voren only once, on the day she was promoted, and that had been all formal airs and solemn ceremony. Another officer in her shoes might have spent the idle weeks after Villecours licking their new commander’s boots. Probably foolish on her part to have started field training right away, but she was who she was. If Voren thought ill of her for that, well, she had dealt with worse.
She stepped inside the tent and saluted.
Two men stood beside a long table strewn with maps. Vicomte-General Dulliers, commander of the 3rd Division, and Marquis-General Voren himself. Dulliers she’d met before, though she knew him better by reputation: a barely competent commander who had advanced more by looking the part
than from any exceptional achievement. Voren was new to the colonies, having arrived on the Queen Allisée during the spring tides. He wore gold-wired spectacles, with gray hair at his temples, weathered skin, and a well-kept officer’s uniform.
“Ah, there she is,” Voren said, saluting in response. “The prodigal general comes before me at last. I was beginning to wonder when you’d make an appearance.”
She stiffened, remaining at attention.
“At ease, Chevalier-General. I knew what I was getting when I asked for you to be given command of the First.”
That was news. She hadn’t been aware the marquis-general had been behind her promotion. “Sir. My men have been conducting training exercises along the coast these past weeks.”
“Yes, I’ve read your reports. Thorough. And the last report. Fantain’s Cross. The vicomte-general and I were just discussing what to make of it. Join us. We’d hear your account directly, if you will.”
She gave it, omitting none of the grisly details. Voren listened intently, interrupting her only to ask for clarification on a handful of minor points. She managed to keep her emotions in check during the telling, though Vicomte-General Dulliers muttered a few curses to punctuate the worst of it. She concluded with her appraisal of the situation.
“So many enemy cavalry operating in the south suggests the main body of their army should be nearby, massing near the border, sir.”
Voren nodded, massaging his chin as he studied the map. “Have your scouts reported contact with the enemy horse?”
“No, sir, only the trail, though I have my men deployed in a wide arc with orders not to pursue sightings of the enemy.”
“A curious order,” he said. “Explain your reasoning?”
“Sir, whenever the enemy moves so brazenly I suspect a trap. And I want discipline in the ranks. The men were riled up after Fantain’s Cross. I’d as soon not have my scouts stumble into an ambush.”
Voren gave her a considering look, then went back to studying the map. “What would you have ordered in that situation, Vicomte-General Dulliers?” he asked absently.
“Sir,” the other man coughed. “I would have sent one brigade of light cavalry in pursuit of the enemy, with orders to follow the enemy horse back to their main body. And I would have kept one cavalry brigade near my division, to warn us if the enemy had moved around to flank us.”
Stupid. The enemy wouldn’t set off a beacon to grab their attention and then go riding home. Dulliers’s tactic would succeed in little more than giving the enemy what he wanted: a unit of dead Sarresant cavalry.
The marquis-general pursed his lips as he stared at the map. “Very good, Vicomte-General. Do you have any further questions for Chevalier-General d’Arrent?” When the other man shook his head no, he continued. “Dismissed then. I would debrief her before I sleep.”
“Yes, sir.” The vicomte-general saluted once more as he departed, leaving her alone with their commander.
“He’s a fool, isn’t he?” the older man said with a sigh. Removing his spectacles, he placed them on the table with one hand and pressed the other to the bridge of his nose.
“Sir, Vicomte-General Dulliers has a reputation for steady, even-tempered command.”
Voren tsked. “Not what I asked, Chevalier-General.”
“Yes, sir, he’s a fool.”
Voren nodded as if the matter was settled, beckoning to her to approach the table. A series of ever-more-detailed maps lay atop it, showing the length of the border, from the coastline in the east to the Great Barrier in the west. The marquis-general had made fresh notes on one of the maps, a well-illustrated visual of the flatlands between Lorrine and the Gand border, where the bulk of her division was presently deployed.
“I wonder if you’d update me on your last-known positions, General d’Arrent,” he said, gesturing.
She gave him the latest information she’d had before riding for the 2nd Corps’ camp, and he went over the disposition of the remainder of his corps, and the rest of the army. They were en route to the south, casting a wide net over the trade roads as the soldiers marched.
“What troubles you, General?” Voren asked when he’d finished.
“I’m concerned we are spread out, in vulnerable positions here, and here.” She pointed to the army’s 1st Corps, strung out along the road from Villecours to Lorrine, then to the infantry and logistics wagons of the 2nd Corps’ other two divisions, unprotected on the western flank. “We’re at least three days’ march from being able to deploy for battle, while the enemy is massed close enough to field his full complement of cavalry in a raid across our border.”
He nodded, following her reasoning. “Your predecessor, the late Vicomte-General Carailles, left extensive notes on your command. He said you were insubordinate, with no respect for regulation, frequently attempting to assert authority above your station.”
Just like so, a part of her guilt over Carailles’s death dislodged and floated away like flotsam down a river. She said nothing in reply.
“Carailles was as blind as he was stupid,” Voren said. “He failed to see your quality, or if he saw it he was afraid you’d shame him somehow. Small men are ever wary of excellence.”
He let the sentiment linger in the air, and she felt a rush of pride. Flattering words, meant to evoke just such a reaction, and she knew it, but they were no less sweet to hear.
“I need to have your trust, General d’Arrent. Carailles was not deserving of it. I am. In time we will accomplish much, working together. For now, I ask for your faith.”
She couldn’t imagine the likes of Vicomte-General Carailles beseeching her trust so openly. In the army, one’s superior simply was. A force of nature, like an early morning fog or a thunderstorm on watch duty, and often just as inconvenient. Could she trust the lives of her men to this man?
“Sir, I look forward to serving under your command.”
He laughed softly. “Very well. I see your trust will be earned. So be it. Here, you can see the route I intend the rest of the corps to take southward, covering the west behind your division’s advance scouts. I take it you assumed their raid on Fantain’s Cross could be cover for a movement around our western flank?”
She nodded. “Yes, sir. I have my best, the Fourteenth Light Cavalry, scouting the approaches over the flatlands.”
“Very good. The Fourteenth. That was your former command, yes?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you know their quality. A word of caution, though: You mustn’t fixate on a past command. The other brigade commanders will resent it, and you must be sure you are willing to risk them the same as any others.”
Obviously. “Yes, sir.”
“Be careful the pendulum does not swing too far in the other direction, too, General. It was a mistake I made in my youth, overusing an infantry regiment after I was promoted, to avoid showing favoritism. If I judge your leadership aright, your men would die for you. See to it they don’t.”
It was a struggle not to drop her jaw, hearing sense from a commanding officer.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Let’s see if we can’t set a trap for these enemy cavalry. Never a more satisfying maneuver than when you can best an enemy commander at his own game.”
She grinned. Together they pored over maps until the sun broke the horizon, and the rest of the camp stirred to begin the day.
She tethered Body to help invigorate her—and felt a pang of regret that Marquis-General Voren had no such respite from their all-night planning—as she strode forward into the training yard. A few whispers circulated among the onlookers, which she made a point of ignoring. She wasn’t here for a morning warm-up, much as she might have enjoyed the exercise.
“Laurent!” she called, using her battle voice, the deep boom trained to carry over the din of fighting.
One of the two soldiers in the ring hesitated, dropping his guard for a fraction of a second. The wooden practice blade of the other soldier cracked as it struck L
aurent’s shoulder, causing his blade to fall and clatter into the dirt.
“Yield, yield!” Laurent stammered as he fell back, gripping his shoulder.
His opponent, who could only be Lance-Lieutenant Acherre, removed her face guard to confirm the same. Bowing with a flourish that extended her wooden blade toward the sky at an angle, Acherre’s face lit up when she rose and saw her watching their duel.
“Thank you for the victory, Chevalier-General,” Acherre said. “He was starting to get full of himself.”
Erris laughed. “Is that so, Laurent? Well, for you Acherre has the restraint to keep from using Mind in practice bouts.”
Wincing, the man regarded them both with a mock scowl. “I had her in another step.”
She cocked an eyebrow at Acherre, who mimed “no” as she shook her head. They laughed again, together.
“Here to join in, sir?” Acherre asked as she stooped down to fetch Laurent’s practice sword.
“I’m afraid not, Lance-Lieutenant.” She gestured for Acherre to toss her Laurent’s sword, which she did. “Still using the old broadsword-weighted blades, hm, Laurent? When are we going to get you a proper saber?”
“Bah,” Laurent said. He snatched the sword from the air as she tossed it, whipping it around in a few practice swings. “You know I prefer the added weight. Some of us are strong enough to make use of it.”
“We’ll change his mind eventually, sir,” Acherre said brightly.
“You didn’t come all the way here to harangue me, did you, Chevalier-General? Begging your pardon, sir.”
“Quite all right, Major. I’m not here to practice, but I am here for you, the pair of you. And Marquand. Where is the captain?”
“Sleeping it off again, sir, I’d expect,” Laurent said.
She sighed. Of course. “You two finish your bout and stay at the training grounds. I’ll be back to collect you after I’ve awoken Marquand.”
“Yes, sir,” they said in unison, turning back toward each other, raising face guards and falling into their fighting stances.
She left the training area, heading toward the tents of the 5th Infantry just as Acherre and Laurent began their dance. There was an unmistakable beauty when Body fullbinders crossed swords, even in practice. Rosline Acherre was ten years her junior, with a promising career ahead of her. Erris had offered what guidance she could, and the girl was a quick study. The same could be said of Laurent, or more properly Regiment-Major Remy Laurent. Laurent had great skill with Body and Death, enough to render him among the best swords in the army. Acherre had Body as well, and Mind, making her a terror unto herself when unleashed on enemy lines.
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