by Sharon Shinn
“Moss,” the woman replied.
It was a strange name and she was a strange woman. Her hair and her skin were pale, but her features were not particularly delicate. She had round cheeks and a squat nose and a full mouth hardly defined at all by her wispy shoulder-length hair and practically invisible eyebrows. There was a look of stolidity to her, as if she clumped around in heavy work boots and heaved newborn calves out of stalls.
“Take a swing,” Wen invited, and they were engaged.
Moss was strong, but a little slow. Wen could have killed her three times over. Yet the woman kept hacking away, apparently not tired at all from a half day’s hard exercise. Endurance was as good as skill much of the time, and Wen could probably improve Moss’s ability enough to make her a decent fighter. Never a great one, though. She just didn’t have the speed.
Wen signaled that the bout was over, and Moss immediately desisted. “You’ve done a little fighting,” Wen guessed.
Moss nodded. “Not anything fancy. Just protecting myself and my people.” When Wen raised her eyebrows at that, Moss continued willingly enough, “Used to run caravans across Gillengaria. Had to fend off bandits from time to time.”
“Ever lose a cargo?”
Moss shook her head. “No.”
“I have a delicate question,” Wen said, and wasn’t surprised to see Moss’s face shutter up. Wen glanced over her shoulder; no one was near enough to hear. “And you don’t have to answer. But someone just whispered in my ear that you might be a mystic.”
Moss’s face grew even harder. “Mystics aren’t too welcome in Fortunalt.”
“They say the queen’s a mystic and so is her consort,” Wen said. “A lot safer to possess magic these days than it was before the war.”
Moss’s pale green eyes narrowed. “Are you saying you wouldn’t mind?”
Wen shrugged. “I’d like it. I got used to working with mystics, a few posts back.”
Moss hesitated a moment, then nodded abruptly. “I am. I don’t talk about it much. It’s never been a safe topic.”
“What can you do?”
“Lift things. Move them.” She jerked her head toward a pile of unused gear at the edge of the yard. “Could shift all those swords to the other side of the fence.”
This was a new one on Wen, who had mostly been familiar with shape-changers and readers and fire mystics, but she could instantly see such a power had possibilities. “You don’t have to demonstrate now, in front of everyone, but I’d like to see that sometime,” Wen said.
For the first time, Moss offered a tentative smile. “I don’t mind saying it’s a skill that’s come in handy more than once. Though learning to master it when I was a little girl—” She shook her head. “I was in for more than one beating.”
Wen instantly made up her mind. “Would you take a job with the House guard, if I offered?”
Moss’s face closed up again. “I’m not as good as most of the others. I saw that.”
“You’re not,” Wen said honestly. “But sometimes things matter more than raw talent. I can make you good enough—and you can bring me something extra. But you’d have to be loyal. You’d have to cut your other ties and make this House and this serramarra your foremost consideration. I’d hope you’d make it a lifetime service, but at the very least, you’d have to commit to one year.”
Inside her, a voice was screaming with laughter. Demanding a year of service from others when she herself could barely promise a month! Preaching loyalty, when she had spectacularly broken her own oath! The gods, as she had always suspected, had a malicious sense of humor.
But Moss was nodding, her movements jerky but her pale eyes alight. “I will,” she said. “I’ll practice every day. I’ll fight hard. You’ll see. You’ll be glad you trusted me.”
Wen already was.
Chapter 9
THE VERY FIRST DAY SHE’D BEGUN RECRUITING, JASPER Paladar had invited Wen back to his untidy office to discuss what she’d found. She quickly learned that he expected her to come by every evening and make a report. She was surprised but, in general, approving. If she reported daily, she would tell him small details she might otherwise forget to mention. Those details might mean something to him that they did not mean to her.
The evening after she hired Moss, it was clear Lord Jasper had had his fill of formality. When she stood in his office and began recounting the events of the day, he gestured at the chair across from his desk. “Oh, by the Pale Lady’s silver eye, take a seat,” he said impatiently. “I can’t be staring up at you for half an hour, wearing a solemn expression. It’s not in my nature.”
She perched on the very edge of the chair, keeping her back straight. Tayse used to sit in the presence of King Baryn, she knew, and she imagined Justin was very casual with Cammon, for they had been great friends before Cammon married the queen. But it didn’t seem quite right to her. She’d managed to be relaxed around Amalie when the girl was a princess, but she’d always been stiff and formal when Baryn was in the room.
Of course, Jasper Paladar was hardly a king.
To overcome her awkwardness, she plunged right in. “I think I’ve narrowed it down to the fighters I want,” she said. “I offered five of them contracts on the spot today, and they all accepted. I think I’ll have nineteen or twenty after the next couple of rounds, but the rest don’t seem good enough to even try to improve.”
“And is twenty not enough?”
“To start with,” she said. “I’ll keep looking.”
“So who did you hire today?”
“Three men who’ve obviously seen service, probably in the war. My age or a little older, and they look like they’ll be steady and dependable. A boy who’s not much older than Karryn and who’ll need some seasoning, but, sweet gods, he’ll be good. And a woman.”
Jasper looked only mildly surprised, but he nodded encouragingly.
“She’s a mystic,” Wen continued. “She’s able to lift things without touching them. I had her give me a demonstration after everyone else had cleared out. She could pick up a rock that weighed almost as much as I do and hold it in the air at the height of my head for five full minutes.”
Now a smile played around Jasper’s mouth. “Has this been your plan all along?” he asked. “To infiltrate my house with every brand of magic? What’s next—a fire-breather like that woman who advises the crown?”
“Senneth doesn’t breathe fire,” Wen shot back, annoyed. “And I haven’t planned anything. It’s just that I realized she had a special skill, and I thought we might be able to turn it to good use.”
“Make her into a weapon,” he said, nodding. His voice was grave but she could tell he was still laughing.
That made her sit back in her chair, cross her arms, and regard him with a certain smolder. “If you knew the first thing about fighting,” she said, “you would realize that sometimes the weapon is as important as the soldier.”
He held his palms out in a gesture of surrender. “I defer to your expertise,” he said. “I would not have employed you otherwise. So when do you expect to make the rest of your hires?”
“Tomorrow or the day after. There are one or two I am still not sure of. And I would like—” She hesitated.
“Yes? Please speak freely at all times, Willa.”
“I would like to hire a second in command,” she said. “Someone who could help me with the training and who would bring a little more experience into the mix.” Someone who might be willing to stay on after I am gone.
He might have heard the unspoken words. Jasper Paladar was no reader, but he had an air of shrewdness that led Wen to think he always had a fair idea of what other people were thinking. Or at least, what she was thinking. “Someone to provide a little continuity when we have personnel changes,” the lord said smoothly. “Yes, I quite see that. Did you have someone in mind?”
She nodded. “Man I worked with briefly just a couple weeks back. A veteran. If he’ll take the job, you’ll be able to
count on him to stay.”
Jasper Paladar nodded and leaned back slowly in his chair. He regarded her long enough to make Wen start fidgeting. “Tell me, Willa, I’m curious. How did you come to be a soldier?”
She uncrossed her arms to make an uncertain gesture with her hands, then laid them on her thighs. “I could fight. I was good at it. I liked it.”
“But what was the point?”
She looked at him, uncomprehending.
“I mean, why fight unless you have a cause to fight for? You need to defend yourself or your property or the people you love—very well, I understand that. You meet a charismatic marlord and you believe in his values and you believe in his honor, so you take up a sword to keep him safe. I understand that as well. You see a helpless girl being abused by a rapacious abductor—catch up your sword and go to it! Cut that man down! But those are causes, do you see what I mean? Those are situations that can inspire you. Why fight just to be fighting? I don’t understand the allure.”
She was practically gaping at him. She had never attempted to explain what drew her to the soldier’s life—had never given it a moment’s thought. “But—you can’t serve such a cause unless you have the skills to begin with,” she said, stumbling over the words as she tried to put the concept together. “You have to train yourself to be ready.”
“You see, that is where you lose me. Why would it ever occur to you to make ready in the first place? If you did not know whose honor you would be defending, how could you care enough to take up arms to protect it?”
She was having a hard time following the argument. “I suppose I always believed there would be people and places worth fighting for,” she said.
“And how do you discover them?” he asked. “Have you ever found someone or something that you believed in ardently enough to defend with your life?”
Wen pressed her lips together. He had been careful, till now, not to ask her for any details of her history, but she knew he must have been curious from the very start. “There have been times, of course, when I took a job merely for the money,” she said quietly. “Soldiering is a profession like any other. But I never hired on for any master I despised, nor fought for any cause that was dishonest. I can respect every choice I made.”
His voice was very soft. “Then why do you hate yourself so much now?”
She was so stunned that at first she just stared at him, then she jumped to her feet. He stood up just as rapidly as she did and said in an authoritative voice, “Stay a moment, Willa. We’re not quite finished with the conversation.”
She stayed where she was, but she was trembling. “You are finished with me,” she said.
He shook his head, keeping his gaze fixed on her face. “You are committed to me for a month, and I hold you to your promise,” he said.
“My promise did not include being accused and interrogated.”
“Oh, come now. I think I have been the most lenient of employers. I’ve scarcely asked you a word about your background. For all I know, you’ve used your formidable skills murdering folks from Danalustrous to Coravann. I have not required references, I’ve given you my absolute trust. All I asked was for you to answer a simple question.”
She was silent, forcing him to repeat it.
“Why do you hate yourself so much?”
“I wasn’t aware that you thought I did,” she ground out. “From now on, I will try to appear like my own best friend.”
He smiled slightly; it was not, of course, a real answer. “And do you, in fact, have a best friend?” he asked.
Wen felt her stomach harden as the blow hit. Janni had been the one she was closest to, but they had all been comrades of the highest caliber. So many of them dead now, and all of them lost to her forever. “I did,” she said. “We’ve been parted for a few years.”
“Family? Anyone you keep in touch with?”
This question she at least could answer. “My parents and most of my brothers and sisters all live in Tilt. I try to write them every week or two.”
“And have you written them since you’ve been in Forten City?”
“Yes, of course I have.”
“No letters have come to Fortune in reply.”
Wen bit her lip. “I had them sent to a posting house in the city,” she admitted.
“I suppose you thought I would intercept and read your mail,” he said, his voice a little stern.
She realized she could not just say no and have him accept the answer. “I have gotten in the habit of moving around so much,” she said, and even this reply was oblique. “I always find some local establishment and ask them to accept my mail—and then forward it on once I am gone. Many freelance soldiers do the same. I hate to make you deal with letters that might come once I have moved on.”
“I do not want you to think that your privacy will be compromised while you are here,” he said seriously.
She bowed her head. “I didn’t think it. I didn’t intend an insult.”
“You just intended to be able to flee in the night without leaving behind any loose ends, should such a course of action seem advisable.”
That jerked her head right up—but, in fact, she couldn’t deny it. “If you find me or my work unsatisfactory, tell me so,” she snapped. “Otherwise, just let me do the job I was hired for and don’t meddle in my life.”
So much for showing proper deference to her employer. Jasper Paladar looked amused again.
“I was actually born to be a meddler as much as you were born to be a soldier,” he said, his tone almost apologetic. “I don’t think I can promise not to irritate you now and then as I try to pry beneath your very prickly surface. But how is this for a bargain? You may feel free at any time to refuse to answer, or speak quite rudely to me—as long as the topic is yourself. On any other subject, of course, I insist on complete openness. But in exchange for that privilege, you must promise not to threaten to break your contract whenever I annoy you with my inquisition.”
She stared at him. “You are the strangest employer I’ve ever had. Or is it just because you’re noble that you talk like this?”
“I think you would find that, even among the Thirteenth House, I am considered unusual,” he said, smiling again. “Do we have a deal?”
“I suppose so,” she said ungraciously. In fact, she felt a secret rush of relief. She had been prepared to stalk out the study door and stride out the front gate, pausing only to pick up her gear, but she hadn’t really wanted to. She was invested, just a little, in the notion of melding her own corps of fighters from a highly eclectic group. She wanted to see what Moss was capable of, she wanted to explore more of Bryce’s abilities. She was not ready yet to leave Forten City—or Fortune itself.
“Good. Then I will see you tomorrow evening for your next report,” he said, seating himself behind his desk.
She made another stiff bow and left his study.
KARRYN caught her before Wen had made it three steps down the hall. “Willa! I wanted to talk to you!”
Wen paused, absolutely mystified about what to expect from Karryn—as always. Karryn had seemed delighted to learn that Wen was joining the household, though aghast at the measures Wen expected her to take to maintain her safety. Among other things, Wen had set the rule—and Jasper Paladar had agreed to enforce it—that Karryn would never accept a social engagement or invite a guest to the house without first informing Wen. Already, Wen had been treated to a range of Karryn’s attempts to overturn this law—wheedling, sullenness, mockery.
