“You assume I think I can make the throw.”
“It needn’t be twenty paces. There must be some possibility in my mind that you can make the throw; otherwise the wager is not interesting. Would you say twelve paces presents enough of a challenge?”
Torien swung the spear upright and caught it by the shaft. “Twenty. I haven’t used a Brycigo spear, but I’ve used a Dobryno. It’s similar—a little longer. We use them for bear.”
The Prince laughed. “You thought you had him neatly in hand, didn’t you, Lucho? Twenty paces it is.” He flicked his fingers at the slave. “Mark it.”
Marro’s eyes had narrowed on Torien’s face. “Perhaps we should introduce a variable, since the Commander is used to living targets. Tell the slave to stand against the post.”
“No.”
“Admittedly, it is not quite the same element of risk. Would it be more equivalent if he were armed?”
“I’m not going to throw at him.”
“The idea is to throw at the post.”
“The wager was that I could throw at the post at twenty paces. No other terms.”
“You fear you may have overstated your abilities?”
“My abilities are beside the point.”
“It is only a slave.”
“My slave,” the Prince put in, dryly. “I’ve got some say in this.”
“I will offer compensation, if necessary,” Marro said. “Surely it won’t be necessary. The Commander has thrown against bear. This is hardly comparable in terms of difficulty.”
Torien shrugged. His shoulders were tight. “Show me a bear and I’ll throw.”
“There are so few bears in Choiro these days,” the Prince said.
“In Puoli, then,” Marro said. “How long is your leave? Perhaps we can arrange something before you return to the frontier.”
“You’ll remember my orders are effective immediately.”
“Of course.” Marro tilted up his chin and smiled. “Another time. The invitation is open-ended. We can be thinking of suitable stakes.”
Torien leaned the spear against the table. The slave came to take it away. He gave no sign he had heard any of the conversation, though Torien was sure he had. “I do have a question for you on the subject of Puoli,” Torien said.
Marro paused with his wine bowl at his lips. “Yes?”
“There was a Puolian among my signi at Tasso. A murderer. We gave him command of a scouting unit because he knew his letters. He and his men took to raiding trains on the Road. I executed him for it. I swore to him before I killed him that I would exact full remuneration from his family. Unfortunately, he was dead before I realized we had no record of his name. As lord of Puoli, you would have presided over his trial. Maybe you can help me.”
Marro tilted his bowl and drank and set the bowl on the table. “I have presided over many trials. You’ll forgive me if I am unable to recall one particular criminal from hundreds.”
“It was two years ago. He would have been about sixteen. A veteran’s son. I find it hard to believe you have dealt with hundreds of literate sixteen-year-old soldiers’ sons on trial for murder.”
“Moien,” Marro said.
“That was his name?”
“Sere Moien. I’m afraid your inquiry comes a little late. His family were dead of the Fever three years ago.”
“He has no surviving relatives?”
“None as far as I am aware. Certainly none on his father’s side. His mother was a freedwoman. You understand the line becomes difficult to trace.”
“And his own land and property would have been redistributed after the trial.”
“Given to the family of his victim, in accordance with custom.”
“Who was his victim—out of curiosity? I assume it was nobility. I heard nothing at the time.”
“The family requested the matter be kept as quiet as possible.”
“Why?”
“You understand the concept of keeping something quiet, I suppose.”
“I understand there is very rarely good reason to keep a court decision quiet.”
Marro looked at him sharply. “The woman was raped and murdered and her body left to rot in the wood. Silence was the best they could do for her dignity.”
“And you had incriminating evidence enough to know it was Moien?”
“I could take offense at your implication. Instead, I will remind you that you are the one who executed him.”
“For robbery. Not for rape and murder.”
“If you are capable of one violent crime, you are capable of another. The woman’s jewels were found in his possession. Besides which he spent the night before his trial attempting to strangle himself in his cell. I took that as fair admission of guilt.”
The Prince leaned over to refill Marro’s wine bowl. “In my opinion,” he said, “with apologies for changing the subject—Commander Risto has just illustrated precisely what I was trying to say: a man of his word, dogged in his convictions.” He caught Torien’s eye. “I’ve been explaining to the Senator your concern for justice and your usefulness,” he said. “They wanted to give Tasso to an older man, a more experienced man, and leave you second-in-command. I convinced them it must be you—didn’t I, Lucho? No one better to render justice and see it done properly, I said. What do you say, Lucho, now you’ve had the chance to hear him for yourself?”
“We were right to defer to your judgment, Highness.” Marro’s eyes were cool on Torien’s face.
“Of course you find a way to turn it to your own credit.” The Prince smiled. He bent across the table to fill Torien’s bowl. He sat back. “What does the attribution matter? The job will be done. I ask nothing more.”
Torien did not meet the Prince’s gaze. He pressed his palms flat on the table and bowed. He said, to the backs of his hands, “I pray I will warrant your faith in me, Highness.”
“I know you will,” the Prince said.
He left the wine bowl untouched. He stood, tucking his helmet into the crook of his arm. “If we’ve finished.”
“One thing more, actually.” The Prince held out his hand over the table. There was a ring on his palm, a plain gold loop with a blood-red carnelian face. The seal was a hart outstretched to run. Torien recognized Alvero Senna’s seal. “For Alluin,” the Prince said. “It seems he will come into his inheritance, after all.”
Torien looked at the ring on the Prince’s palm. He made no move to take it. His throat was tight. “You’ve found the rest of the family?”
“Not as yet. Honestly, I am hoping for Alluin’s help. The household slaves have revealed nothing of use under examination.”
“Alluin knows nothing.”
“It was clever—the disinheritance,” Marro said. “Seal a document and say the words, and the son is made immune to the treason charge.”
“He didn’t know.”
Marro ignored him. “It may be wise to examine him, Highness, just to be sure.”
“You’re an idiot if you think he was involved. Right now, he is a hostage in the hands of Pavo’s man among the Asani.”
“Also curiously convenient,” Marro said.
“He very nearly paid with his life to uncover Espere’s business at the mines.”
“Very nearly means nothing when his father was master architect of the thing. Espere was always meant to be expendable.”
“Very nearly means he was stripped and staked out on the sand and left for whichever scavenging animal got to him first. If it were done to you, I don’t imagine you’d think it was nothing, though I’m willing to be proven wrong.”
“Calm down, both of you,” the Prince said. “The foremost priority is to recover him alive, hostage or no.”
“Highness, I swear to you he knew nothing.”
“Without a trace of irony now—Highness. In fact, you almost approach humility. I’m not sure it suits you. I think I prefer you insufferably arrogant.” The Pri
nce smiled. “I’m not going to examine him. I’d like to talk with him, that’s all.” He gestured with his hand. “As a token of my good faith,” he said. “And you can give him custody of Lieutenant Espere. Surely that should put to rest any fear that I consider him accessory to the plot.”
Torien took the ring and closed his fist around it. It lay cool and heavy against his fingers. “If I recover him alive,” he said.
In daylight and on horseback, it was a much shorter trip between the Hill and Ceno’s apartment than it had been on foot and hooded in darkness. He dismounted at the gatehouse and slid his ring through the aperture. “For Chæla Ceno,” he said. It was by now a little past noon, and he was baking slowly in his harness in the heat off the pavement. The windows on the second story were shuttered. The street was silent for the siesta. A slave girl was sweeping the landing, and the rasp of her broom was echoing down the steps and across the yard.
The gateman pushed the ring back to him. “Not here, sir.”
“She’s out?”
“She’s gone. Apartment’s for let.”
He stood there stupidly, holding the reins in one hand, blinking sweat from his eyelids. “Do you know where?”
“No, sir.”
“The landlord would know?”
The gateman eyed him through the aperture. “He might, sir, but he’s gone out to Apulano to look after his mother. He’ll be all day, and most like he’ll spend the night. It’s ten miles to Apulano.”
Torien did not say anything. He had counted on her being there. In hindsight, he supposed that had been stupid from the start. She would not have stayed in the city with her father on the Traitors’ Wall.
The gateman said, “Shall I tell him you came, sir?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a tall, veiled figure coming down the foot-stones along the gate wall. He lifted his head. “Vaiz.”
The veil was pinned to leave her face bare, but the breath of wind down the street was tugging the thin yellow silk this way and that. She held back the veil with jeweled hands so she could look at him. Her face was blank. “Lord Risto.”
She made to go past him against the wall. He reached and caught her arm with his free hand. “Please. Wait.”
She stopped. She did not say anything. He could feel the stiffness in her. He took her by the elbow a little way up the wall, out of earshot of the gatehouse. “I need to speak with her.”
She looked at him sharply. “She gave you what you asked. Do you know what she paid for it?”
“I know.”
“Then you must be a fool to think she wants to see your face again.”
“I ride for Modigne this afternoon. She need never see my face again beyond today.” She very likely wouldn’t, unless it were on the Traitors’ Wall, but he did not say that aloud. “I wanted to apologize.”
“Yes, I know. You want to apologize. You want her forgiveness. You want to clear your conscience. You want to be rid of the guilt. All of that in your head at once. You can’t spare a thought for her.”
He did not say anything. He let go her elbow. She did not look at him now. She had taken her hands from the veil and the breeze was pulling it across her face, but she did not seem to notice. The slave girl had finished sweeping and gone into the building. In the silence, it might have been the two of them alone in the city or in the world. He slipped the reins over the horse’s neck and pulled himself up into the saddle. The pain jumped up his spine and slid down again. There was an ache in his throat.
Vaiz said, “Lord Risto.” She was looking down the street at nothing. The breeze tugged at the veil. “Three miles up the river road toward Vienta. The farm belongs to the man Serro. He is her mother’s brother. He is a beekeeper—you will see the bee houses.”
She was gone down the foot-stones before he could reply.
Three miles out of the city northward on the river road brought him to quiet farmland. There were damson boughs nodding low over the embankments. There was no breeze along the road. The air was hot and still and heavy with the smell of ripe plums. Domed clay beehives marched back in rows from the road up the eastward embankment.
He rode up the path through the rows. There was a white adobe farmhouse and a cluster of outbuildings past the beehives. Geese shuffled aside unhurriedly as he rode into the yard. A swaybacked old hound padded silently alongside him to the barn and then vanished through the dark open doorway, his duty apparently done. There was a donkey tethered in traces in the doorway. A slave was sitting on a stool with the right forehoof in his lap. He was rubbing salve into the dry sole of the hoof. His back was to Torien, but he had heard the hoof beats up the path. He slid the hoof from his lap and stood, wiping his hands. He came over as Torien reined up. He reached a brown, callused hand for the horse’s bridle. He bowed, his hand on the cheek-strap. “My lord is lost?” he said. He did not look in Torien’s face. He was perhaps in his mid-thirties. There was a brand on his cheek, CHI for chirone, fugitive: he had once tried to run.
“This is Serro’s farm?”
“My lord is not lost, then.”
“I’m looking for Chæla Ceno.”
The slave turned and pointed with his free hand down past the bee houses. “The orchard, Lord. Is the horse to be stabled?”
Torien dismounted. He put the reins in the slave’s hand and pressed a bronze into his palm. “Water him when he cools, but keep him saddled. I won’t be long.”
It was cooler in the shade of the damson trees, but the air was thick with the cloying smell of the plums. He walked along the eastern edge of the orchard, looking down each row. The orchard ran to the northern boundary wall. He found Ceno on the next-to-last row. She was barefoot and standing on her toes at one of the trees, head and shoulders lost in the leaves, and she did not see him. There was a wicker basket at her feet, and she was dropping plums into the basket. There was a young slave girl with her. The girl saw Torien first. She bent to pick up a stray plum which had rolled down the row, and she saw him as she straightened. He knew from her face that the branded slave back in the yard was her father.
Ceno’s voice came down muffled through the leaves: “Patra, you’ll have to climb up for these.”
“Lady,” Patra said.
“What is it?” Ceno parted the boughs with one hand. She saw Torien. She stood very still for a moment, holding the branches apart. Then she lowered herself to her heels and came out into the aisle from under the boughs. She dropped a handful of plums into the basket. She brushed twigs and leaves from her hair and shook out her skirt. She picked up the basket and held it out to the girl. Her voice was low and level. “Take this up to the kitchens, Patra, and wash yourself. That’s all we’ll do today.”
When the girl had gone, she knelt in the aisle to lace her sandals. Not looking at him, she said, “How did you find this place?”
“I met Vaiz in the city.”
“You went to the apartment?”
“I needed to speak with you.”
“We have nothing to say to each other.”
“Please.”
She finished with her sandals and stood. She looked at him down the aisle. She was holding her arms across her ribs, holding her upper arms so tightly in her hands that the honey-brown skin showed white through her fingers. “What else do you want from me? My father and Pavo are rotting on the Wall, and you’ve got a new estate at Inumæ for your trouble. What else do you want? Was I part of the promised prize, too? You’ve come to demand your due, is that it?”
“I didn’t want them on the Wall.”
“How had you wanted them to die?”
“I didn’t think it would be treason—not for any of them but Pavo and his officers. Not for your father, not for Senna. I swear to you I didn’t know.”
“Is that meant to comfort me—as if you would have done anything differently if you’d known? I am neither a fool nor a child.”
Torien lifted a hand and dug thumb and forefinge
r into his eyelids. His head was swimming with the scent of plums. “I don’t know what I would have done. I don’t know what was the right thing. I thought I did. I’ve spent the past week having that ripped out of me and kicked to pulp.”
Ceno said, “Yes—I forgot you still worry about little things like right and wrong.”
He dropped his hand and looked at her. She was not looking at him. She was looking away across the orchard. There were tears making silvery tracks down her cheeks. She unfolded her arms and wiped the tears with the heel of her hand. “I went to Vione that night,” she said, “to the hospital. One of His Highness’s Guardsmen told me that’s where they had taken you.”
He searched her face and found nothing. “Why?”
“It was my fault you had been taken. I suppose I wanted to apologize.” She swallowed. “They wouldn’t let me see you.”
“They never told me you had come.”
“I thought it would be both of you.” She spoke to the trees, not looking at him. “I thought it would be both of you, and it would be my fault. I thought I’d never have the chance to ask forgiveness. They wouldn’t let me see him, either—my father.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged very stiffly. “I, too.”
He touched her arm. She tensed but did not move away. He took off his glove and traced her cheekbone with two fingers, brushing the tears from her cheek. She drew a shivering breath. He turned her head and held it between his hands and brushed the tears from her eyelashes with his thumbs. She stood very still and silently while he did it, her eyes closed, her lips tight. He bent his head and buried his face in her black hair—and she slipped in suddenly under his arms, looping her arms around his neck, resting her cheek on his chest.
Then she twisted against him, tilting her head back to look up in his face. “It’s no good,” she said. “I can’t feel your heart beat.”
“It’s the plums. I think I’ve suffocated.”
She laughed. He felt it echo through her body. He felt her muscles loosen. Her breath was warm on his neck. “If that’s all,” she said.
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