Page 41 of Fate of the Argosi

‘On the other hand,’ I finished for him, ‘kings have better things to do than visit the estates of retired marshals too distant from the capital for any Daroman nobles to venture, yet far enough north of the Berabesq border that the viziers don’t pay any attention either.’

Colfax chewed his lip a moment. ‘You ever wonder why decent folk dislike the Argosi so much?’

‘I have better ways to spend my time.’

He nodded again, though this time it seemed to be a signal to his guards. They closed in on us, thirty of the fire lancers keeping their aim on us while the other ten strapped their weapons across their backs before splitting off into pairs. One would draw a long serrated knife that was the customary field blade of the marshals, the other unwinding a gleaming spool of copper wire.

‘No,’ Ala’tris said, her usually unassailable composure failing to hide the panic in her voice. ‘I did not bring my comrades here so that some paranoid, vengeful old man could bind us in copper to prevent us from casting spells while he makes us his prisoners.’

Colfax held up the dull grey metal ball an inch from her forehead. ‘Copper or lead. Your choice.’

Not much of a choice at all.

24

The Orchard

Colfax and his troops marched us through the welcoming stone arch and into a magnificent orchard that stretched out to the walls on all sides. Apples, pears and walnuts seemed to be most prevalent, but I also saw little copses of cherry trees with beautiful pale pink flowers.

‘Hard work making them blossom so late in the year,’ Colfax mentioned, noticing me staring as we passed them by. ‘Worth it, though, just to add a little colour to the autumn.’

Unlike Ala’tris and the other Jan’Tep, neither Arissa, Chedran nor I was bound. We still had escorts though: two guards each to keep us in line. Well, two guards we could see.

‘Those petals do draw the eye,’ I observed. ‘All that soft pink makes it hard to make out the iron barrels of your snipers.’

Colfax frowned, which I could only tell by the bobbing of the twin bull horns of his moustache. ‘You spotted them?’

‘Nope.’

The retired marshal chewed on that a moment as we walked along one of the many orchard paths towards what I presumed would be the estate’s main keep. Conch, having apparently concluded nobody wanted to hold him hostage, ran around the various trees with increasing enthusiasm, leaping up in the air as he tried to nip various pieces of fruit with his teeth. He was doing a decent job of it.

Colfax gave a low grumble as he asked, ‘How’d I give away the snipers? Your arta precis pick up something I hadn’t meant to give away?’

I shook my head. ‘Arta loquit. You saw me staring at the apple trees, then the pears, the walnut grove, but only when you caught me ogling the cherry trees did you bother to say something.’

Colfax considered my reply but only grew more irritated. ‘Why would that be arta loquit instead of arta precis?’

‘Arta precis is perceiving that which others seek to hide from you or from themselves, through their words, their deeds, or even the things they don’t say or do at all. Arta loquit is just listening with your whole head and heart to what someone’s telling you, seeking to learntheirlanguage, in all that entails.’

The gruff rumbling that preceded Colfax’s utterances deepened. I was getting under the old goat’s skin. He really did remind me of an ageing, curmudgeonly Conch – hopefully without the same digestive proclivities. ‘You trying to tell me th—’

I turned to him and put on my most preposterously theatrical scowl, then dropped the pitch of my voice as low as it would go before repeating his earlier statement in an even grouchier tone than his.‘Adds a little colour.’

The marshal kept looking straight ahead, walking with the unhurried stride of a man convinced the world only turns as fast as suits him. ‘Wouldn’t go making a career out of doing impressions.’

I repeated the words once more, this time adding a different emphasis to each one. ‘“Adds”,’ I began. ‘Sharp, yet stretched out just a hair to deliver a subtle warning. Then you gave me “a little”, with that diminutive delivered casually, almost jokingly, because you meant to convey its opposite.“Colour.”Ah, now we’re in some rich territory. You split the word into two parts: a“cuh”like the pulling of a trigger on a crossbow or whatever twisting mechanism sets off those fire lances of yours, followed by“lehrr”– the growl of a predator. You wanted me to know that the colour to which you were referring wasn’t the pink of those cherry blossoms, but a much darker shade of red.’

The marshal halted, and just like that so did all of his guards. Maybe he was right to think the world only turned because it suited him. The men and women holding the lengths of copper wire that bound the wrists of Ala’tris and her coven behind their backs yanked the captives to a stop. The marshal’s subordinates knew their business: the wire was wrapped not only around the mages’ wrists, but then around each of their ten fingers to ensure they couldn’t cast even the simplest of spells.

Colfax turned to me. ‘You got all that out of four words?’

Ala’tris tried to catch my attention, then glanced towards Ba’dari. This was the tenth time she’d done this, signalling to me that I should free the raven-haired girl first when I made my move against the marshal and his guards. For the eleventh time – because I’d tried to warn her before our trek through the orchards had even begun – I gave a quick, sharp shake of my head. There wasn’t going to be any escape from someone as experienced and prepared as Luke Colfax. Not yet anyway.

‘You wanted me to know about those snipers,’ I explained to the marshal, ‘even if you didn’t quite realise it at the time.’

Arissa sauntered over and rested her chin on my shoulder, looking up at Colfax. ‘Okay, now you’ve even got me confused, Rat Girl. Isn’t the whole point of hiding your snipers so the enemy won’t know where they are until it’s too late?’

Colfax swore something in archaic Daroman that I didn’t recognise but which went on a while. ‘Arta tuco,’ he said at last.

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