Gavin’s moment of humor had dried to a desert.
Though surely some folk lived who’d never known what it was like to only just barely hold on to life by your bloody fingernails, Gavin certainly did.
“Aye,” he said quietly.
“But lyin’ in a bog? Lettin’ yourself sink slow? That requires real dedication.” He snorted suddenly. “Heh. What’s a real commitment to dying, Guile?”
“Huh?”
“Deadication. Eh? Eh?”
But the flare of amusement faded faster than a flintlock’s flash. Gunner squatted down close to him and in a low and somber tone, he said, “Tell me, Guile, do you reckon, at the better end, as the bog muck closed slow o’er her face, as she sucked it in and coughed on that first lungful . . . you reckon she fought to live?”
It was a question as dangerously loaded as the pistols at the quicksilver pirate’s hips.
“I hope so,” Gavin said quietly.
But it seemed Gunner wasn’t even listening. He stood and looked away.
“Thatcher said afore he run to get help, Mama was muttering about Ceres, calling her goddess of crops, fertility, or some such . . . He said my mama was begging Ceres for sumpin’. Odd, what? Everyone knows Ceres is the bitch of the sea.” Gunner spat overboard.
He went on. “Hungry goddess, either way, I s’pose. She who gives so much takes all she wants, too. As if it’s right. But I don’t think ennyun should go out like thet, stretched out like an offering afore god or goddess or man. I reckon I’d ruther go to the roar of the cannon.” He jumped up on the barrel of a huge cannon that dominated the forecastle. He obviously had feelings for it, as other men adore their horse or a sword. “Maybe double or triple load and let rip. If I can’t have it, no one can, eh?”
“I . . . suppose,” Gavin said, frowning. It sounded like a damnable waste to him.
“Just like magic for you, then, eh?” Gunner turned and watched Gavin’s expression sharply, while he still stood on the cannon, nearly over the water, arms not even extended for balance.
“I . . . What?”
“You can’t have it, no one can?” Gunner pressed.
“Uh . . .”
“That’s what you’re doing. Ain’t it? Killin’ magic. All of it. For everyone. I was there. I heard the old man. Be a different world without magic, sure as a sailor on shore leave is on the look for tipples and nipples.”
By Orholam’s unseeing eye. Gunner was a sly old dog, wasn’t he?
It was all a setup. Not the cruel kind Gavin suspected to make fun of him, but a vulnerable kind that was far more clever. ‘Look, I’ve opened up with you. Why don’t you open up with me?’
But Gunner was no Andross Guile. Having committed to telling his story to get Gavin to open up in turn, Gunner had told his own tale fully and truly. Now, feeling overexposed, he’d barely remembered his initial purpose in telling Gavin at all.
Gunner now only wanted to distract Gavin from the wound he’d unwittingly revealed.
“Oh, I see,” Gavin said.
“You hafta!”
“Uh. Right. And I do.”
“Half ta. Cuz you only got the one eye,” Gunner said. “Instead a two? Never mind. Not very bright sometimes, are ya, Guile? Go on.”
There was something about being called stupid by an illiterate that rankled more than it ought to have, but Gavin held back. He said, “You want to know if I’m going to do . . . his bidding.” Curse you forever, Grinwoody.
Gavin couldn’t say the name without risking that black jewel shooting through his brain. He didn’t even know if he could talk about his mission to kill Orholam—which Grinwoody thought was simply an impersonal nexus of magic. Grinwoody, at least, thought sticking the Blinding Knife into that nexus would kill all magic in the world.
“I do,” Gunner said. “Seems ya change every time I lay my orisons on ya. Yer name, your face, number of eyeballs and fingers, sometimes your heart. But you were never a quitter, not even when I had you pull that oar. Never gave up. Till now.”
Gunner’s point was something else entirely, but Gavin couldn’t get past how he’d put ‘when I had you pull that oar.’ Oh, yes, let’s do pretend my enslavement was nothing personal, you piece of human—
Then again, maybe it hadn’t been.
As Prism, Gavin’s own murders had fallen like rain on the heads of the just and the unjust alike.
Shit. There goes my righteous fury. That was the trouble of a consistency in moral affairs: holding yourself up to the measure you judge others by is three clicks past irritating.
So Gavin answered Gunner’s question, answered it without even thinking of what the pirate might want to hear: “I don’t know yet what I’m gonna do, but I reckon before the sucking sand closes over my face, you’ll find me fighting,” Gavin said.
Still standing heedlessly on the cannon, Gunner crossed his arms and stroked his raggedy black beard, eyeing him.
“Funny thing, then,” Gunner said. “Fightin’ only makes you sink faster.”
Chapter 14
Ambassador Bram Red Leaf looked like a barrel of fat with little arms poking out. Like so many of the nobles of the Seven Satrapies, he didn’t much resemble the people he was supposed to represent. Here in fair Blood Forest, he was dark-skinned, with light eyes and curly hair, and a sheen of sweat on his forehead despite the coolness of the morning.
Kip couldn’t help but hate him a little. The man was a vision of what Kip would’ve become if he’d never joined the Blackguard.
He waved the man over to stand beside him while he examined his maps again. From all the refugees who’d come here before the siege, Tisis had gathered a wealth of new intelligence for Kip’s maps. In no small part, she was trying to see how she’d missed Koios’s getting around them to take the river with her scouts never hearing of it. Messengers were coming and going constantly, adding new points to the map even now, chatting in quiet voices. Currently, Tisis was working with four drafters and Sibéal Siofra to add points to the map. The pygmy woman wore a fresh demeanor and new clothes to go with it. There was a new self-respect that joined beautifully with her previous professionalism.
“Hello, Ambassador,” Kip said. “Welcome to my humble council.” He didn’t say ‘court.’ Not yet.
“A pleasure to be received so graciously. An excellent day to you, Luíseach.”
The words stopped even Tisis, who met Kip’s gaze quickly.
Maybe if they lived long enough to become an old married couple someday, they’d be able to have whole conversations with a glance. Right now, all they said was simply, ‘What?!’
In a voice that sounded overly casual even to his own ears, Kip said, “I’ve not claimed that title. Why would you claim it for me?”
The man patted his forehead with a handkerchief, but when he spoke, there was no reticence in his voice. “You’re busy saving this satrapy, so I’ll be as direct as people say you are: you let others claim you to be the Luíseach when it serves your purposes, and back off when it seems dangerous. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame you. Problem with claiming a prophecy is that you have to fulfill all the conditions of it, though, huh?”