“I’m trying to see it—for the moment—as he does,” Kip said. He’d explained this already. In Daragh’s mind, he had avoided attacking Kip’s people, even as Kip had passed through territory he considered his own. That didn’t happen by accident, not with men like this. So to him, that should mean he and Kip could still work something out.
Tisis would rather fight. Regardless. To her Koios was an invader, but Daragh the Coward was a traitor, which was worse. She might not forgive Kip if he fought the invader but forgave the traitor.
Which made her right morally but wrong strategically.
That was tomorrow’s problem.
They came to the small encampment suddenly, set in a hollow hidden by a hill. General Antonius Malargos greeted them outside the longhouse.
The year of being in authority had transformed Antonius. He’d been the gawky young red drafter, terminally the little-brother figure to his cousin Tisis—whom he still adored. He was still lean, but there was a focus to him now, a strength that knew itself and hadn’t given up its striving to grow more. His people loved him because he loved them, and because he was bold. That he had the Malargos good looks didn’t hurt, either. He had an intuitive grasp of tactics, and would throw himself headlong wherever he sensed weakness.
This was, after all, the young man who’d leaped from his own ship as it was being captured by pirates to steal the pirates’ own ship—and in so doing saved Kip’s father.
Oddest of all for a man so bold, Antonius accepted instruction from those he respected.
He himself had no sense at all of strategy; his eyes glazed during those discussions, but he was young yet. Logistics were beyond him completely, but he could have others attached to him to help with those—though it would always have to be someone with a steel spine, because Antonius had little patience for those who said things couldn’t be done.
Kip liked him a lot.
“My people here will keep quiet,” Antonius said.
He had only ten men here. Even at that, Kip wasn’t certain he was right. Antonius’s total faith in his people inspired deep loyalty in return. But Kip knew that the same person might show different kinds of loyalty in different kinds of fights.
And this was not a fight Kip or anyone wanted.
“They know what has to be done with deserters,” Antonius said. Either because he was just that obvious, or to put some backbone in them. So maybe he wasn’t that certain of how quiet they would keep, after all.
Ferkudi took up a position outside the door. Cruxer stepped inside first. Kip followed, bracing himself for what he might have to do.
In the shadows of this longhouse with no fire burning at its center, stood a pygmy woman, dirty, her eyes exhausted red: Sibéal Siofra. Next to her, chained to great stakes driven into the ground, smeared with ash and grease such as hunters employ to melt into the forest, but also dirty and disheveled from hard days and nights, knelt an enormous bear of a man, his every jutting muscle covered with red hair, the bereaved deserter and Kip’s former second-in-command, Conn Ruadhán Arthur.
“My lord,” Sibéal said, “there’s no need for the chains. The conn here got into some booze while foraging. Just lost track of time. Got lost on his way back. But we’re back now and reporting for duty. With all apologies for our absence.”
She was floating the possibility for the lash, not the noose.
But Conn Arthur snorted, shaking his head. “You spent days dragging my ass back here, and that’s the best you could come up with, Sibéal?”
Kip ignored him, turning to Antonius. “It’s my understanding they came in of their own will. That they were returning, not captured. That right?”
“She was certainly returning of her own will . . .” He hesitated. Antonius could tell that Kip was trying to point him in some direction, but he couldn’t see what it was.
“And he was with her—when she returned voluntarily,” Kip said. “So that’d be dereliction of duty, not desertion.”
“That’s, uh, that’s right,” Lord Antonius said, relieved.
The law was the law, but Kip didn’t want to hang his friend.
“So that’s what happened?” Kip asked. “I’m very disappointed in you two.”
“That’s not what happened,” Conn Arthur growled at the floor.
“Stop!” Sibéal shouted at him. “Think about what you’re doing!”
“I’ll not let you be whipped for what I’ve done,” he said. He lifted his shaggy head to look at Kip with heavy eyes. “My lord, I told you I was going to desert. I did. It’s not on her. She came and dragged me back.”
“Damn you,” Sibéal whispered.
She deflated, and Kip’s heart fell too. She’d risked her life trying to save her friend, but some men don’t want to be saved.
It wasn’t her fault. It was Kip’s. Conn Arthur had tried to resign, but Kip had thought without their work and the company of people who loved him that Ruadhán would die, so he’d forbidden it.
Ruadhán had left anyway.
“You tried,” General Antonius told Kip. “We all did. There’s no win here. He doesn’t want to live.”
He was right. This was bigger than one bereaved man who couldn’t bear to fight anymore. If Kip let his friend off now, it’d destroy morale. People would say there was one rule for Kip’s friends and one for everyone else. To save a man sunken in self-pity and ungrateful for his second—no, his third—chance would make that even worse. It would cast doubt on Kip’s judgment.
But hanging him? Did Kip want to be known as the man who hanged his own friends?
Andross Guile would do it. Hell, Gavin would probably do it, too.
Antonius said, “Sibéal doubtless noticed things wherever it is they went. She reports on it, and we say she was out scouting. I don’t think any punishment’s necessary for her.”
Kip looked at the others for any ideas and saw only grief.
Cruxer said, “Not all the soldiers killed by war die on the field. It’s no one’s fault.” He cocked his head at a thought. “Well, it’s the White King’s fault. May he burn in hell. But it’s not yours.”
No one else had anything to say. No plans. No ways out.
“You go,” young General Antonius said. “I’ll handle it.”
Kip looked to Conn Arthur, but the big man didn’t even meet his gaze.
“Everyone out,” Kip said.
They looked at him, and saw the resolve in his face. Tisis went out first, then the Blackguards, except Cruxer, who stood guard impassively. He wasn’t going to leave no matter what Kip said, not with a man as dangerous as Conn Arthur might become if he’d gone truly mad.
Kip stopped Antonius, though. “General,” he said. “I’ll need your dagger.”
The general nodded grimly and passed Kip a big, ornate dagger he’d gotten from his aunt Eirene Malargos. It was a showy piece, but very fine, too. The woman had an eye for quality.
Then they were alone in the damp and the dark and the smoky close air of the longhouse. It felt close to the earth in here. Real, solid, and dirty. Here, with clan and family tight around them, people made love on just a few blankets and rushes on the floor, and they gave birth on the same floor, and played with their children, and bickered, and ate, and died, all here, packed close. It was still sometimes shocking to Kip’s Tyrean sensibilities, but such a life felt connected, too. Unashamed.