by Jim Butcher
“You won’t have to cover all of it,” Gaius said. “As the Legions arrive, we will be massing them at Ceres.”
Bernard grunted. “Ceres is all open land. Bad place to fight a force that outnumbers you so badly.”
“It’s an extremely bad place, in fact. We would have very little chance of holding it if the Vord outnumber us as thoroughly as I fear that they do. It’s a guaranteed victory for the enemy—who won’t be able to resist it. The Vord will concentrate their heaviest numbers there—including their crafters. It is my hope that there will be enough confusion to allow you to infiltrate their territory and slip away again when your mission is completed.”
“When in fact,” Amara said, “you have no intention of holding the city.”
Gaius finished off the rest of his wine and set the glass down with a weary gesture. “I will draw them and hold them in place for as long as I can. Perhaps three days. That should be time enough to impress upon the High Lords exactly how much danger the Vord represent. You may draw upon my personal treasury for any expenses or equipment you feel you may need. If you wish any additional mounts, et cetera—they are yours for the asking. Speak with Sir Ehren, and he will arrange them for you.”
It was clearly a dismissal, but Amara paused at the doorway.
“You’re keeping a lot of people in ignorance, Gaius. A lot of them are going to die because of it.”
The First Lord moved his head in a gesture that might have been a nod of acquiescence, or just a weary sag of the muscles in his neck. “Amara, a lot of people are going to die. Regardless of what I do. Nothing can change that. All I can say for certain is that if we cannot find a way to prevent the Vord from using furycraft against us, we are already lost.”
CHAPTER 8
As Ehren led them to the First Lord’s study, Isana crossed the path of her brother in the hall outside.
“Bernard!” she said.
“’Sana,” he rumbled in his deep, gentle voice. They embraced, and she felt him actually lift her a few inches from the floor—utterly improper treatment, for a First Lady, but she hardly cared. After the first rush of happiness and affection, she began to sense his deep worry, and when she drew away from him, her own face was drawn with concern.
“What are you doing here?” she asked him, as he exchanged grips with Araris. Then she looked past him, toward Gaius’s study. Amara, her own features strained, waited a few steps back from her husband. She gave Isana a deep nod but did not even attempt to smile.
“Gaius,” Isana said, understanding. “Gaius has some insane errand for you.”
“We got here late, and the sane ones were already taken,” Bernard said, forcing a smile to his mouth. It faded after a moment, and he said, “It must be done, ’Sana.”
Isana closed her eyes for a moment, her stomach twisting with fear for her brother’s safety. “Oh, bloody crows.”
Bernard burst out in a laugh. “Now we know how serious the situation is, if even you are driven to such coarse speech.”
“It’s the company she’s been keeping,” Aria said smoothly, stepping forward and extending her hand. “Count Calderon.”
Bernard took her hand and bowed politely over it. “High Lady Placida.” He glanced over his shoulder at Amara, then smiled at the High Lady. “I hear good things about you.”
She smiled at him. “I can say as much about you. Which shows how much we know.” She inclined her head to Amara. “Countess. That’s a lovely dress.”
Spots of color appeared on Amara’s cheeks, but she inclined her head a shade more deeply in respect. “Thank you, Your Grace.”
“Dress!” Bernard blurted, looking at Amara.
She tilted her head slightly, then said, “Oh. Those things cost a bloody fortune.”
“But not our bloody fortune,” Bernard said in a reasonable tone of voice.
“Oh,” Amara said. “Yes, then, I like that.”
Aria looked back and forth between the two of them, and said, to Isana, “Have you any idea what they’re talking about?”
“They’re saying that they chose well when they married,” Isana said, smiling faintly at Bernard. “I take it you need to keep the details to yourself?”
“I’m afraid so,” Bernard said. “And—”
Isana held up a hand. “I can guess. Time is an issue.”
Ehren, who had been standing aside respectfully, silently, cleared his throat. “Well said, milady.”
Isana leaned up and kissed her brother on the cheek, then held his face in her hands. “Be careful.”
Bernard traced his thumb gently over her chin. “I’ve got too much work waiting for me back home to let anything happen now.”
“Good,” she said, and hugged him. He hugged her back, and they parted, without looking at one another again. She had felt him start to tear up as he’d held her, and she knew he wouldn’t want her to see the tears in his eyes. He’d know that she knew, of course—but after a lifetime near one another, certain fictions were simply understood. She smiled at Amara as they passed one another, and clasped both hands briefly. Isana didn’t think the two of them would ever really be close—but the former Cursor had made her brother happy. That was no small thing.
She heard Araris and Bernard trade a few quiet words, then Ehren was leading her into Gaius’s study, the one that was supposed to impress everyone with how restrained, erudite, and learned he was.
Oh, certainly, Gaius Sextus was likely one of the more erudite and learned Citizens in the Realm, but all the same. Isana had never understood men who made it a point to put trophies of their hunts on the walls, either. Gaius’s study, its walls lined with the carcasses of books he had torn open and devoured, reminded her of nothing so much as old Aldo’s hunting lodge, back in the Calderon Valley, and she thought it only marginally less boastful.
Isana considered all the books thoughtfully, as Araris and Lady Placida entered behind her, along with Sir Ehren. She’d read a tiny fraction of the books there—even in winter, there had generally been more work than quiet, free time on the steadholt. Books were expensive, as well. But she’d read enough of them to know that they were only as valuable as the contents of their writers’ minds—and to her it seemed that a great many writers, had they been merchants, would have precious little inventory.
Still, she supposed it said something in the First Lord’s favor that he considered intellectual achievement something to be boasted over at all. Not all men thought as he did upon the subject.
“Isana,” Gaius said, rising from his seat and smiling.
“Sextus,” she responded, nodding to him. So. They were not standing on formality it seemed.
“Your Grace,” Gaius continued. He put his hand to his chest and bowed slightly toward Lady Placida.
“Sire,” Aria replied, managing an elegant curtsey.
“Ladies, please.” He gestured toward a pair of seats before his desk, and Isana and Aria settled into them. He poured himself half a cup of what smelled like spicewine from a bottle on a sideboard and sat down behind the desk.
“How much trouble are we in, Gaius?” Aria asked bluntly.
He lifted an eyebrow at her, and took a sip of wine. “A very great deal,” he said quietly. “The Vord have already overwhelmed multiple legions in the field, so thoroughly as to leave no survivors.”
“But . . . surely now, with the rest of the Legions taking the field . . .” Isana said.
Gaius shrugged a shoulder. “Perhaps. The reputation of the Legions is thousands of years old, Isana, with the strength of centuries of tradition—and with the shortcomings of centuries of rigid thought. We are used to thinking of our Legions as invincible bulwarks. Yet they were bloodied and beaten by the Canim during Kalare’s rebellion last year, just as they were overwhelmed by the Marat a generation ago.”
The First Lord’s face flickered with some harsh, bitter emotion, and Isana felt the faintest flicker of it through her link with Rill, more than she usually ever felt from Gaius. She c
ould hardly blame him. It was one of the few points upon which they shared similar emotions. The Marat incursion, more than twenty years gone, had wiped out the Crown Legion and killed the Princeps, Septimus, her husband and Tavi’s father.
“Earlier in Alera’s history,” Gaius continued, gesturing at the walls of books, “our Legions fought practically every year against a veritable host of enemies—enemies who are no more.” He shook his head. “For several centuries, Alera has been the entire continent. We have held the Marat at the Calderon Valley, the Canim at the shore. Our Legions have fought comparatively rarely and only in certain places.”
Aria lifted her chin. “You’re saying that they aren’t up to the task.”
“I’m saying that most of our legionares have never lifted a blade in anger,” Gaius replied. “Particularly in the southern cities, which are those now threatened by the Vord. The only Legions who had any recent experience at combat were Kalarus’s forces and the Senatorial Guard—both of which were destroyed. The Crown Legion and the First Ceresian are the only other two veteran Legions in the area. The rest are . . . frankly, to all purposes, well trained but untested.”
“The First Placidan should probably be considered very nearly a veteran Legion as well, sire,” Aria said, her spine stiff. “My lord husband recruits heavily from veterans of the Antillan Legions, and you know that our officers all rotate through terms of service on the Shieldwall.”
“Quite,” the First Lord agreed. “Antillus and Phrygia represent the only two cities to maintain anything like true traditional Aleran Legions. Every legionare there has seen action. Every man of those cities has served his term in the Legions, seen real combat, so that even their militias are arguably better prepared for actual battle than the first-rank Legions of Attica, Forcia, Parcia, and Ceres—and, frankly Your Grace, your own Second and Third.”
Isana lifted a hand. “Gaius, please. I am not a Tribune or a legionare. What does this have to do with me?”
“If I am to defend Alera, I need the Legions of the Shieldwall,” Gaius said, gazing steadily at Isana. “Legions, militia, every Knight, every sword and spear of the north.”
“Antillus Raucus will never leave his people to the Icemen,” Lady Placida said. “Neither will Phrygius Guntus. And both of them have seen heavier fighting than ever, the past two years.”
Isana met the First Lord’s gaze and abruptly understood. “But if the war with the Icemen can be ended, those Legions will be freed to fight.”
Lady Placida’s coppery brows rose nearly to her hairline. “Ended? Peace talks with the Icemen have never been successful.”
“Neither have they ever had a moderator,” Gaius said. “A neutral third party with respect among the Icemen, willing to mediate a negotiation.”
Isana drew in a sharp breath. “Doroga.” She glanced at Aria, and said, “The foremost chieftain of the Marat. A friend.”
Gaius inclined his head. “I’ve been in regular correspondence with him ever since his daughter took up residence here. The Marat learned to write in less than six months. He’s surprisingly astute, really. He is already on the way to the site of the meeting.”
“And you’re sending me?” Isana said. “Why?”
“Because I need to be here,” Gaius replied. “Because by sending you, the most highly positioned woman of the House of Gaius, I am making a statement of trust. Because Doroga trusts you, and he most definitely does not trust me.”
“You did say he was astute,” Isana said wryly.
Lady Placida’s eyes widened slightly, and she glanced at Isana, but Gaius only lifted one corner of his mouth in a small smile and took a sip of his spicewine. “Aria,” he said, “I want someone with her who can protect her and Doroga in the event that things go awry—but who doesn’t appear to be overtly threatening.”
“Sire,” Lady Placida protested, “if the Vord take Ceres, Placida is next. My place is at home, protecting my people.”
The First Lord nodded calmly. “It’s up to you, of course, Aria, to decide if your people will be better protected by yourself or by Antillus Raucus, all of his Citizenry, and sixty thousand Antillan veterans.” He took another sip of wine. “To say nothing of the Phrygians.”
Lady Placida frowned and folded her hands in her lap, staring down at them.
“Isana,” Gaius said quietly. “Alera needs those Legions. I am issuing you full authority to make a binding treaty with the Icemen.”
Isana drew in a sharp breath. “Great furies.”
Gaius waved a hand in a deprecating gesture. “You’ll get used to it. It isn’t as enormous as it seems.”
Isana felt a small, hard smile stretch her lips. “And if Octavian’s mother arrives unlooked for from the north with a critical force at her back, loyal to the Crown, in an hour of dire need, it just might steal quite a bit of the glory Lord Aquitaine is going to gain for himself in the field—winning support for Octavian by proxy, even if the Princeps himself can’t be here.”
“I confess,” Gaius murmured, “that had occurred to me in passing.”
Isana shook her head. “I can’t stand these games.”
“I know,” Gaius said.
“But you ask me to save lives by helping to end a war that has gone on for centuries. I can’t refuse, either.”
“I know that, too.”
Isana stared at Gaius for a moment. Then she said, “How can you live with yourself?”
The First Lord stared at her for a moment, his eyes cold. Then he spoke in a very quiet, precise, measured voice. “I look out my window each day. I look out my window at people who live and breathe. At people who have not been devoured by civil war. At people who have not been ravaged by disease. At people who have not starved to death, who have not been hacked apart by enemies of humanity, at people who are free to lie and steal and plot and complain and accuse and behave in all manner of repugnant ways because the Realm stands. Because law and order stands. Because something other than simple violence shapes the course of their lives. And I look, wife of my son, mother of my heir, at a very few decent people who have had the luxury of living their lives without being called upon to make hideous decisions I would not wish upon my worst enemies, and who consequently find such matters morally appalling when they consider them—because they have not had to be the ones who dealt with them.” He took a short, hard swallow of wine. “Feh. Aquitaine thinks me his enemy. The fool. If I truly hated him, I’d give him the Crown.”
A shocked silence followed the First Lord’s words—because though Gaius’s speech had been quiet and calm, the sheer rage and raw . . . passion . . . behind the words had shone through like a fire through glass. Isana realized that in his anger he had allowed her to see a portion of his true self—some part of him that was dedicated far beyond himself, very nearly beyond reason, to the preservation of the Realm, to its ongoing survival, and beyond that, to the welfare of its people, freeman and Citizen alike.
Behind the bitterness, the cynicism, the weary suspicion, she had felt that passion before—in Septimus. And in Tavi.
There had been something else, too. Isana glanced at Aria, but though Lady Placida seemed a little startled by the slip in Gaius’s usual mask, there was nothing of the shock that she should have been feeling if she’d sensed what Isana had.
Lady Placida met her eyes and misinterpreted what she saw there. She nodded at Isana, then turned to Gaius. “I will go, sire.”
“Thank you, Aria,” Isana said quietly, and rose. “Everyone. If we could have a moment alone, please, I would appreciate it.”
“Of course,” Lady Placida said, rising. She curtseyed to the First Lord again and withdrew. Sir Ehren, silent the whole while, also retreated, as did Araris, after frowning at Isana in concern. He shut the door behind him.
Isana sat facing the First Lord, alone in the room.
Gaius arched an eyebrow and, for a fleeting second, she sensed uncertainty in him. “Yes?” he asked her.
“We’re private her
e?” she asked.
He nodded.
“You’re dying.”
He stared at her for a long moment.
“There’s . . . an awareness. When the mind and body know the time is near. I don’t think many would know it. Or see you at such an . . . unguarded moment.”
He set the cup of wine down and bowed his head.
Isana rose. She walked calmly around the desk and laid her hand on his shoulder. She felt the First Lord’s frame tremble once. Then his hand rose and covered hers briefly. He squeezed once before withdrawing it again.
“It’s rather important,” he said, after a moment, “that you not speak of it.”
“I understand,” she said quietly. “How long?”
“Months, perhaps,” he said. He coughed again, and she saw him fighting to suppress it, his hands clenching into fists. She reached for the cup of spicewine and passed it to him.
He swallowed a sparing measure and nodded his thanks to her.
“Lungs,” he said after a moment, recovering. “Went swimming in the late autumn when I was young. Took a fever. They always were weak. Then that business in Kalare . . .”
“Sire,” she said, “would you like me to take a look at them. Perhaps . . .”
He shook his head. “Furycrafting can only go so far, Isana. I’m old. The damage is long done.” He took a careful, steadying breath, and nodded. “I’ll hang on until Octavian returns. I can do that much.”
“Do you know when he’ll return?”
Gaius shook his head. “He’s beyond my sight,” he replied. “Crows, but I wish I hadn’t let him go. The First Aleran is probably the most seasoned Legion in Alera. I could use them in Ceres right now. To say nothing of him. Hate to say it, but growing up the way he did, no furies at all—it’s given him a crowbegotten tricky mind. He sees things I wouldn’t.”
“Yes,” Isana agreed in a neutral tone.
“How’d you do it?” Gaius asked. “Stifle his furycraft, I mean.”
“His bathwater. It was an accident, really. I was trying to slow his growth. So no one would think him old enough to be Septimus’s son.”
