Steelhands (2011)

by Jaida Jones

  The closest thing to any kind of mascot in the bastion was a marble carving of a lion, whose creator had had no flair for humor or personality. The stone beast practically scowled.

  Troius laughed as we rounded the next corner and a symphony of smells assaulted me. All at once, I felt my mouth begin to water. No matter what Chanteur said about our food, I found the chefs at the bastion dining hall to be quite satisfactory. I was even managing to put on a little weight, which my physician said would serve me well after all that I had been through.

  “Diplomats are whores, in a sense,” Troius said, taking a tray from the clean stack in the corner. “We make concessions and do our best to wheedle and flatter our way into a better position. Plus, we negotiate the price before we’ll get into bed with anyone. It’s just common sense, really—but don’t tell anyone I ever said something like that.”

  “I’m beginning to regret my career in politics,” I said, eyeing the bean stew and a basket of freshly made crusty white rolls.

  “It’s not so bad,” Troius reasoned, serving himself some of the sliced ham from another tray. “Look on the bright side: You could’ve been sent out with that envoy to the Ke-Han. That didn’t turn out so well for them, did it? Though I suppose making it back all in one piece says something. Although I did hear Margrave Josette came back with a little souvenir of her own.”

  “Don’t gossip,” I said, spooning up my much-belated lunch even as I cast an eye about for empty tables. “She could be here.”

  “It’s only the truth,” Troius reasoned. “Though her souvenir could likely snap my neck like a toothpick, so you’re probably right. Discretion it is. Lunch is on me, by the way.”

  “Thank you,” I said, too surprised to do anything but take him up on the offer.

  Privately, I couldn’t help but disagree with his statement, even if I knew exactly how foolish it sounded, even in my own head. The danger in Ke-Han had been quite real, and to desire that was the mark of a certified lunatic, with papers to attest to his condition. Still, the idea of facing down a mad emperor in a foreign land that was struggling to rebuild itself sounded slightly more interesting than staring across the table at Chanteur’s red face day in and day out, while he feigned forgiveness for all our political transgressions like a country lord dangling a carrot in front of his mount’s depressed nose.

  I’d been raised—or at least I’d been made a man—on a steady regimen of simply not knowing when my life would be forfeit. At any moment, any one of us airmen could have died. In the end many of us had, and I hadn’t yet gotten the opportunity to ask those yet living how they coped without a steady diet of adrenaline on a daily basis.

  We never saw each other all that much—I suspected it was because it was a little too painful for us.

  I was in some ways a recovering addict—an analogy I disliked immensely but one I seemed resigned to making all the same. I would consult the others one day, and perhaps thereby learn the key to living a normal life.

  Chief Sergeant—now just Adamo—would certainly have the answers if no one else did.

  The eatery was crowded, though not so crowded as it would’ve been hours ago at a proper time for lunch. There were long tables set out for groups, if they wished to continue chewing at their problems at the same time as their lunch, and the smaller tables for what I viewed as much saner folk—those who wished to take their meals alone or with a friend, forgetting all about politics in the meantime.

  Perhaps that meant my limitations were showing, but I didn’t know how else to get through the day. Truly, if I didn’t have meals to break up the monotony of diplomacy, I would surely lose my mind.

  That was how I’d word my next letter to Thom, I decided. It sounded suitably dramatic, and I hoped it would make him laugh as his letters did for me, describing in great detail his trials and his own peace talks with a single man instead of a nation.

  I couldn’t imagine brokering any kind of personal treaties with Rook, but then, Thom had blood on his side. If anyone was stubborn enough to accomplish it, he was.

  “I have a question for you,” Troius announced after we’d seated ourselves, and once I’d struggled somewhat setting out my napkin on my lap. Unfortunately, it was at the precise moment when I’d taken too large a bite of my stew. I managed not to choke, however, and instead chewed carefully before I swallowed, eyes watering from how hot it was.

  “Ask away,” I said, thinking the better of reaching for some water. It was possible I would knock the glass over; my fingers worked poorly when my mind was otherwise engaged.

  “Well, let me preface it by saying I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” Troius said, instantly rendering me uncomfortable already. “You know that. And certainly don’t feel as if you have to answer or anything, I’m just curious, and what with the cold snap hitting and all … How are your hands feeling?”

  I clenched them involuntarily, though the gesture was a natural one and not an accident, the way it had been when I’d first gotten them. They responded in the same way my old hands had, but they didn’t feel the same. I’d set up several mental blocks about them straightaway. There had been magicians to help me out of that bad habit, of course, but Troius was right. The cold did make a difference. They ached at the scars some nights, and if I accidentally touched my face after walking through the streets at night I got a frightful shock, even with the gloves, but it wasn’t so bad as to be intolerable.

  There were many who’d fared worse. I considered my hands a gift more than anything. And at least the gloves themselves kept too many people from staring, unless they knew what they were looking for.

  “I’ve offended you,” Troius said, leaning back in his chair with a regretful air, like a hound being scolded by his master. He even looked a little like one, dark eyes and darker hair that framed his face in much the same way as a bloodhound’s ears. “I truly didn’t mean to.”

  “It’s all right,” I said quickly, before I could decide for myself whether or not that was true. “Really, it’s no trouble at all. I just forget about them sometimes, which is actually meant to be a good thing, I’m told.”

  Another lie, but another diplomatic one. I didn’t mind applying my talents for good every now and again, and lying for Troius’s benefit made me feel much better than lying to flatter Chanteur’s ego.

  “Probably means you’re getting used to them,” Troius agreed cautiously. He pushed his fork around on his plate before halfheartedly spearing a piece of meat. “They’re serving you well, then?”

  “No complaints,” I said, which was partly true. I couldn’t have asked for a better substitute, and I’d grown accustomed to the occasional moment of clumsiness they caused me. The fact that I didn’t want a substitute at all was my own difficulty to overcome and nothing a magician could do for me.

  “You know, I’ve always wondered,” Troius said, then stopped, shaking his head. “No, never mind. It would make you uncomfortable.”

  I smiled. “Trust me when I say that I have known men who made it their favorite pastime to ensure my discomfort,” I assured him. “Just knowing those aren’t your intentions is enough for me. Go ahead; ask away.”

  Troius chewed his ham, casting around with the same hesitation that everyone used when they asked me how I was feeling. They were curious, a little repulsed; some managed the courage or the insensitivity to ask anyway because of their curiosity. And so few actually wished to touch me.

  “I’ve just always wondered how you control them,” Troius said at last. “Bit of magic in it, isn’t there?”

  “So I’m told,” I confirmed. I rubbed the back of one glove, metal finger pressed against the fabric, and felt absolutely nothing. “I … know they’re there, but of course, I can’t feel any part of them.”

  “One might even say they work like one of the dragons did,” Troius added. There was a familiar light in his eye—the sort any man displayed when bringing up that topic.

  I hid my wince as well as I could, pre
tending it was the spices that made my eyes unfocus rather than some distant loneliness. Anastasia had been my last tangible tie to my brother. What was more, she had been my only tie to a group of men with whom I’d practically lived my entire adult life. I could hardly call them friends, so in the absence of our shared employment, I had nothing to call them. “Yes, of course, one could say that,” I confirmed. “Although these hands aren’t a separate part of me at all, nor do they have a personality of their own. It was never really something I understood, mind you. Just something I trusted.”

  “Must be strange,” Troius said, attempting to sound comprehending. I appreciated the effort despite how impossible the thing would be. “But you never have trouble with them at all?”

  “They can be a little clumsy,” I admitted. I wished the conversation could have ended a few questions earlier, but it was good practice for my diplomacy. “But with time and practice, I’m told I’ll master it. Like real hands.”

  “Like a natural part of you,” Troius said, shaking his head. “The things these magicians can do these days, you know? Incredible.”

  “Almost like magic,” I agreed, with a touch of humor that was as much to comfort me as it was to make my companion laugh.

  “Almost like magic, indeed,” Troius said. He wiped at the corner of his mouth with his napkin, tossing it down neatly onto his plate. “Well, back to diplomacy, then, eh, Balfour?”

  I folded my own napkin, tucking it gently under my plate. I’d lost my appetite some time ago, in any case. “Quite,” I agreed, and followed him out.

  LAURE

  There was a draft in Toverre’s room, so for the time being he was lingering in mine—which itself was smoky, some problem with the fireplace no one was coming to fix for us, so I was fixing it myself. In thanks, Toverre had started to unpack for me.

  It wasn’t so bad, I thought. At least not as bad as Toverre was making it out to be.

  “There’s something caught in the flue,” I said, even though I knew he wasn’t listening. It was more like explaining it out loud for my own sake. “Don’t know if this is a good idea or not, but I’m going to try for it anyway. Is there anything in here like a poker? Would you mind looking under the bed for me?”

  I heard Toverre draw in a sharp breath. When I turned around he was toeing the bottom of my coverlet anxiously, but he sure as rain wasn’t on his hands and knees like I was.

  “Never mind,” I said. “I’ll look for it. You just keep unpacking.”

  “That was my plan,” Toverre replied, stepping away from the bed gratefully and tugging a handkerchief out of his front pocket to wipe his hands, “but I’m afraid I’ve found something very disturbing in your traveling bags.”

  There was dust under the bed—enough to make me sneeze pretty loudly—but at least that gusted it all away. There was the poker, I realized, reaching out for it and brushing past something disturbingly sticky on my way. A ball of tape, I realized as I pulled it out, holding it up for Toverre to see.

  Toverre made a face of real horror. “Don’t try to distract me from my point,” he said. It was obviously pretty hard for him to breathe, but he’d always been too easy a mark for any real teasing. “Please, Laurence, do put that somewhere … away.”

  There was a wastebasket in the corner of the room, which already had a few balls of dust and other strange remnants of the room’s previous dirty, scummy student. I tossed it in there, grimy with dust and dirt and some unknown black substance, then moved to the fireplace with my newfound poker. Flimsy piece of work, probably made light so none of the fools living here was ever tempted to clobber themselves—or a student rival—with it in the dead of night. But there was something warped and metallic stuck in the chimney shaft, and I was getting it out. If not just to make the room more hospitable, then certainly to see what it was. Aside from all the scorch marks on it, it was shiny.

  “You know it’s not polite to look through a woman’s personal effects,” I told Toverre. “So what’d you find, anyway? There’s nothing embarrassing in there.”

  “You brought trousers with you,” Toverre murmured, sniffing unhappily. “And a man’s riding boots and shirt.”

  I stabbed at the bit of metal a tad too viciously and it clanged, but the distraction bought me a little bit of time. Being born a man—peculiar as he was—Toverre would never be able to understand what it meant to be a woman in Volstov, no matter how many times I’d tried to explain it to him. And as much as Toverre’s father wanted him to be someone else, mine was wishing right along with him. He might even have accepted Toverre, though he couldn’t ride half as well as I could and was terrified of barnyard animals, besides. The only weapon he’d ever managed to wield successfully was a butter knife—although he knew pretty well which piece of silverware came first and second and so on during a fancy dinner service—but, bastion help him, he did have the necessary parts to make a son, which I didn’t.

  It was pretty simple, really. Da just wanted a boy. Why else would he name his sweet little daughter after his favorite uncle?

  “Don’t worry,” I told Toverre. “Breathe normal. It’s not like I’m planning on wearing them all over the place and all of the time. I thought I could wear the trousers underneath my skirts when it got really cold, and the shirt to bed at night. Besides, it’s not like I have so many dresses.”

  “You thought you’d wear these trousers under your skirts,” Toverre repeated. Like I was the one most likely to go mad.

  “No one’s going to know,” I said. Another clang, and a little shifting of embers and stone, and I knew I was close to shaking the thing free. Now I just had to hope it was something put in there by some troublemaker, and not an actual part of the fireplace that was necessary for making it work.

  “My dear Laure,” Toverre said, “this simply will not do. Here we are, in Thremedon at last. It is time to remake ourselves.”

  “Oh yeah?” I asked. “Into what?”

  He might’ve answered, except I managed to shake the metal free at last. It fell down into the still-hot embers of the fire I’d lit—before I knew the room had been booby-trapped, that is—and I poked it quickly out onto the carpet, while Toverre watched me, covering his mouth with his kerchief. So as not to breathe in any unseemly fireplace poison, I assumed.

  “Well,” I said, a little disappointed. “It’s just a plate. Wonder how that got up in there. Don’t you?”

  “It’s ghastly,” Toverre said, his voice slightly muffled because of the cloth. “What if it has the remains of someone’s meal on it? You ought to put it back immediately.”

  “It’s made for eating off, not for being stuck in the flue,” I told him. I bent down so as to be able to wrap my skirts around it before picking it up. It had been in the fire, and nothing held heat like metal did.

  I’d often wondered how the men in the corps didn’t burn their breeches off, riding the dragons the way they did and them being all fire and metal, but when I’d asked my da he’d just said I had too practical a mind for my own good, and to go feed the chickens already. The question shouldn’t bother me, anyway; it wasn’t like I was going to ride them, especially not now they were all gone.

  “You’re not planning on … eating from it,” Toverre said, not even as a question because he couldn’t possibly imagine the answer would be yes.

  It really was too easy to get a rise out of him. Maybe I should’ve gone a little softer on him, like I would’ve had we been sparring for real, but if he didn’t toughen up now—in the middle of all his planned personal renovations, bastion help us—then there really was no hope for him.

  “You never know when it might come in handy, having a spare plate in the room,” I told him. “What if I’m entertaining company? Or if I want a midnight snack for when I’m studying?”

  Toverre finally deigned to seat his bony behind on the very end of my bed, folding one leg up to his chest and resting his chin against his knee. He looked like a finely dressed bundle of twigs—perhaps a scar
ecrow dressed in a noble’s clothing or a portrait from a book about the first magicians, none of whom had ever looked quite human to me. Hard to convey what a man with no heart looked like on the outside, probably, even for the best artists. The girls in the country had all found him handsome enough, I expected, in that beautiful, ghostly way of his. Everyone did, right up until he opened his mouth and all the crazy came pouring out.

  All the long eyelashes and dark curls in the world couldn’t make up for someone who’d only take the road to the nearest marketplace on even days, not odd. And if he so much as breathed in trail dust, he’d be coughing for a week. People didn’t like being told they had dirt under their fingernails, and his behavior only got worse when he was talking to somebody he actually liked.

  He could be a pain in the ass, but he didn’t try to grab my breasts or look up my skirts, and he didn’t make any stupid comments about how grown-up I looked in my mother’s dresses, either. We’d known each other since both of us were learning to walk, and I liked him all right.

  Someone had to, after all.

  “I can’t even begin to tell you how wrong it would be to try and entertain guests in this room,” Toverre said, lowering his kerchief at last. I was surprised he hadn’t spread it out over the bed like a protective doily or something, but then, maybe the thought just hadn’t occurred to him.

  Or, miracle of miracles, he was actually loosening up a hair. That, however, seemed less likely than me securing an invitation to dinner with th’Esar himself. Even if our reasons for coming to the city had been directly thanks to His Highness, I didn’t cherish any illusions about him wanting to meet us or anything like that.