The messenger saw the black looks directed toward him. If the man had delivered his message when he was supposed to, they would have had a chance.
“You may have killed us all by dodging your duty,” Cruxer snarled at the man. “Your cowardice. You knew what you had to do, and you couldn’t simply do it, could you? Could you!” There was a depth of rage there that put the Mighty to glancing at each other.
“W-w-wait! She said, she said, she said for when you were done listening to her offer and were dismissing me, she said to tell you, ‘This man is as much a treasure to me as Ramir’s esteem was, back in Rekton. Please lavish commensurate honors upon him.’ ”
The man breathed again. He wet dry lips with his tongue. His eyes lit with hope as everyone turned to Kip.
“Oh, you have got to be joking,” Big Leo said. “We have to let him go? Give him stuff? He’s a spy!”
“That isn’t what she said,” Ben-hadad said, adjusting his spectacles. “Not necessarily. Breaker?”
It was an odd dislocation into memory. All his best friends were here, but they hadn’t known the old Kip, when he’d lived in Rekton. They didn’t share that life, those friends, those allegiances, fears, hatreds, and loathing.
The momentary reverie had apparently stretched beyond momentary, because Cruxer cleared his throat. “Since no one else is, I’ll go ahead and ask the obvious: Lord Guile? How much did Aliviana Danavis value this Ramir’s esteem?”
But Kip didn’t answer. He had a vivid memory of being wildly infatuated with Liv and talking with her when she’d been back from the Chromeria once. As he was nervously trying to make conversation with the older, pretty girl, Kip had said Ram thinks this, Ram thinks that, maybe three or four times. Ramir had opinions about everything. And Liv had suddenly started berating Kip. ‘Ramir’s a small-town bully. He’s trash. And you’re licking his boots. What does that make you, Kip? You’re already better than he’ll ever be. Grow up!’
It had been highly confusing to him, being called a bootlicker and a baby but being praised at the same time.
Orholam’s stones, it was embarrassing even to recall it.
She’d been right, too. Not that it mattered to the present situation, except that it verified the message was from her, and that it was going to be a bad day for her messenger.
“He’s not having one of his trances again, is he?” Ferkudi asked.
“No,” Tisis answered quietly. But she didn’t prod him for an answer.
Resigned that they were going to have to give Kip some time to think it over, Ben-hadad looked over at Ferkudi. “What if a guy gets a shy bladder?”
“Huh? What’s that?” Ferkudi asked.
Ben said, “You know, needs to pee, gets up to the trench, feels like people are watching, can’t pee. Too much pressure.”
“That’s a thing?” Ferkudi asked, thunderstruck.
“It’s a thing,” Winsen said.
“That is not a thing,” Ferkudi protested. “You gotta pee, you gotta pee.”
“It’s a thing,” Big Leo rumbled. “I’m kind of a shy-bladder gentleman myself.”
“Really?” Ben-hadad asked him. “Never noticed that about you.”
“Huh,” Ferkudi said. “I did not know that’s a thing. That would explain some things that happened at the latrines when I was gathering data.”
“And what were the women supposed to do, pee in the same trench? At the same speed?” Ben-hadad asked with a grin. “Were you going to run drills until they got up to snuff?”
“Of course. All those problems were next,” Ferk said soberly. “But . . . well, I hung out by the privies and approached a lot of women to help me with my experiments, but I had real trouble finding volunteers. Not a single woman would help.”
“You’ll find those women in a different part of the camp,” Winsen said dryly. “And they’ll expect to be paid.”
The rest of them laughed. Even Cruxer cracked a grin.
Orholam help him, even the poor messenger smiled.
“I don’t get it,” Ferkudi said. “You mean the tanners?”
But Kip turned toward the messenger. “Liv hated Ramir with a passion. She said his opinion was dung I should throw in a fire.”
Everyone fell silent. The man froze, wide-eyed. Throw in a fire?
Kip continued, “So your goddess is letting me know I can kill you without offending her. She framed the words to deceive you, thinking your greed would drive you here.”
“What a bitch,” Tisis whispered.
“Not even loyal to her own,” Winsen said.
“She didn’t understand loyalty even before she went wight,” Kip said. “So maybe it’s just as well she’s in the enemy’s camp and not ours.” He turned to the man. “I don’t want to murder you. But you’re a problem. So you solve it for me: Winsen’s solution, or you choose to live a slave. We brand the date of next Sun Day on your arm. After that you go free. A year and a couple weeks of servitude, and your oath not to return to the fight.”
“Only a year?” the man asked, suddenly hopeful again. Funny how fast our hopes can shrink.
“Anyone holding you past that date will face death.” If our laws matter at all a year from now.
Kip pursed his lips as the man walked willingly to the blacksmith to be branded.
And that is how I justify becoming a slaver.
Tisis came to his side. “So we’re headed to Apple Grove now? Even though it’s either too late or a trap?”
Kip looked at her, pained.
Chapter 51
The door swung open silently, revealing the profile of a scrawny young scholar scratching a parchment with sure, fluid strokes while he studied a parchment whose fat, twin rolls dominated his desk.
“Are you here to kill me?” Quentin asked, not looking up to see who’d come into his recently locked room.
“No,” Teia grunted, tucking away her picks.
“Then, one moment, please.” He finished the long sentence he’d been writing. Then he used a boar’s-hair brush and soapy water to clean the gold nib of his quill, shook a bit of fine sand on the damp ink, opened a case, and put away all his accoutrements. He grabbed a folded parchment from the box before closing it away.
There was some essential rightness to seeing Quentin with his scrolls and quills. His was a quieter excellence than Kip’s drafting or Cruxer’s flowing through the fighting forms, or Tlatig with her bow, but Teia knew that his mind was doing things that hers could never grasp.
When he looked up and saw Teia, his face showed no surprise.
“Of course it’s you,” he said. “Orholam wants us to be whole, does He not?”
Teia didn’t really want a sermon from a traitor. She tossed her orders on the table. In Karris’s hand they read, ‘Quentin will be your handler, and will serve you in all ways. Trust him absolutely. Don’t get him killed. I have plans for him.’
“What were your orders?” she asked.
“Karris told me the one who came would be my master and maybe even my friend. She said I needed to learn how to have both.”