Page 46 of Fate of the Argosi

She’s not planning on letting Chedran leave, I realised, seeing the urgency playing out in the wrinkles of her forehead and around her eyes, the tightness of her lips, pressed together as if it were the only way to keep herself from calling out to him. A mother’s love? Perhaps, but something else as well: an unspoken admiration and a conviction that she needed him now for precisely the same reasons she’d exiled him years ago. He was a warrior. Dangerous. Unconstrained by either fear of the enemy or moral qualms over killing when it was necessary. But why would she need him now, when they’ve got Colfax and his troops and his fortress to protect them here?

Stoika must’ve sensed me staring because her eyes met mine just long enough for me to shoot her a grin.

You’re not nearly so arrogant as you pretend, are you, Stoika?I thought, observing the clenching of her jaw as she saw that I’d figured her out.The other elders buy into the old prejudices and grievances, but you’re too smart for that.Her eyes flicked down to Ala’tris, and I had my confirmation.You believe her. You have all along. You know this isn’t a trick. You just haven’t figured out how to sell it to people you’ve told since the day they were born that all Jan’Tep are tyrants who can’t be trusted.

‘Chedran, stop!’ I called out. ‘Colfax, don’t let him go!’

‘Stay out of this, Argosi,’ Chedran warned. ‘I may be an exile, but youchoseto abandon the Mahdek. You have no business here.’

Oh, how I wished that were true. My heart sank in my chest, and my hand went to the pocket of my waistcoat where I kept my deck of debt cards. They felt heavier somehow. All I’d wanted was to pay off my debts so that I could truly begin my journey along the Path of the Wild Daisy. To wander free. To witness places and events strange, magnificent, even terrifying, but always, always as far from my past as my feet would take me. When I’d found Arissa in that cell in Soul’s Grave, I’d almost let myself believe maybe she’d walk that path with me awhile. When Chedran had pushed me to help him reunite with Kievan and the other runaways, I’d hoped maybe we could get them home and that would be that. The kids would be safe and I’d move on to repay my next debt.

Stoika’s eyes held mine as if somehow she’d shackled our gazes. Now it was her turn to smile, because we both knew what it would take to convince the Mahdek to risk everything on the promise of a new homeland, to abandon the safety of this enclave to sail into the shadowblack aboard a ship piloted by their ancient enemy.

‘We can’t leave,’ I said to Chedran, though I suppose I was really talking to myself. ‘Our people need us.’

27

Love and Duty

They stuck me in a room on the second floor of the fortress. Any cell above ground rather than below it is a step up in the world, Durral liked to say, but this one was especially nice. Dark polished wood planks practically flowed along a hexagonal chamber. Well-situated brass wall sconces with conical oil lamps provided a lovely even lighting throughout the room. A huge, three-foot oval cameo made of alabaster or ivory adorned each of the six walls, depicting scenes of diplomacy and trade.

You’ll finddiplomatiumslike this one in most Daroman palaces and fortresses. Never hurts to make a foreign dignitary feel special. They don’t all have six walls of course, but this one, being in the deep south of the country near the Berabesq border, was designed to appeal to visiting viziers. Too bad nobody informed the architect that while the Berabesq do indeed worship a six-faced god, every vizier has their favourite, so making all the walls perfectly equal would always be deemed sacrilegious no matter who stayed here.

The bed was nice though: brass-framed with a proper mattress and coverings of rich burgundy wool that looked entirely too comfortable to waste on mere sleeping. Not that I would ever know for sure: Conch had decided the proper function of such a mattress was for rolling around on and occasionally bouncing up and down on while making what sounded oddly like chirping noises. Every now and then he took a break to chew on the pillows.

A more conscientious guest than myself would’ve reminded the spire goat that it’s not polite to eat your host’s furniture. On the other hand, a more politehostwould not have stationed two guards armed with fire lances outside the door promising to shoot me if I took one step outside. Still, not a bad room to wait out the various negotiating, planning and other banalities of a people packing up and leaving the only safe place they’ve found in generations to set sail on a spellship into what might well be a hell itself.

‘You stare at the walls as if there were some insight to be gleaned from them,’ Chedran said with his customary derision as he paced back and forth in front of a window along the eastern wall. Well, given there were six sides, I suppose it was the mostly-eastern-but-one-third-northern wall.

‘There are insights to be gleaned everywhere,’ I said, tilting the brim of my hat down a little as I sat back in the pleasingly plush chair on the opposite side of the room. ‘Just gotta open yourself up to them.’

His pacing came to an abrupt halt. ‘You seem remarkably at ease.’ I didn’t bother to look up; I could imagine the sneer on his face just fine. Besides, you could hear it all in his tone.

‘A congenital condition. Had it since childhood.’

Chedran was a guy who could move real quiet when he wanted to; it was just that he seldom did. The three stomping strides that brought him entirely too close to me were like a carefully written letter detailing the many, many ways in which I was a lousy, worthless human being. That didn’t stop him from reciting them though. ‘Six of the marshal’s guards dragged Arissa – your supposedfriend– from the greeting hall. Twenty others, armed with fire lances and spools of copper wire, escorted the Jan’Tep below ground.’ He paused in his litany, which I presumed was so that he could gesticulate at our opulent surroundings. ‘I doubt their accommodation is nearly so pleasant as yours.’

An Argosi isn’t supposed to sigh; that’s what Durral used to say anyway. A sigh is a public pronouncement masquerading as private suffering. It’s petty and impolite – a way of expressing exasperation over someone or something without taking responsibility for it.‘Most of all, kid, it ain’t cool. And an Argosi should always be cool.’

I sighed. Chedran snorted. Conch, not wanting to be left out and having been given a strict no-belching warning before being allowed to join me in my temporary incarceration, farted.

‘Disgusting,’ Chedran said.

‘Less so than usual.’ I reached over a hand to scratch underneath the spire goat’s chin. ‘Been eating a lot of them pears from the orchard, have you, buddy?’

Conch gave a little rumble from his belly, which I took as a yes.

‘You truly care nothing for the torments your friends are suffering beneath this fortress?’ Chedran asked, shaking his head in disgust. ‘Fitting, I suppose, since you abandoned your people with equal ease.’

It’s not up to you to explain yourself to him, Ferius, I told myself.He’s a blowhard who can’t handle being cooped up and deals with it by being an ass. Not your problem.

‘They’re fine,’ I told him, unable to follow my own sage advice. ‘The elders know the only way to transport the Mahdek to that fancy island is on the spellship. Without Sar’ephir, that galleon is nothing but a big old wooden tub halfway buried under the soil and rock. She won’t go anywhere without Ala’tris, who would die before she helped anyone who’d hurt a member of her coven. All of which means yourmamma—’

Okay, yeah, I know that was petty. Guess I couldn’t help myself. I’m still new at being an Argosi.

‘Yourmammais just messing with the mages a little, testing how skittish they get when she makes it seem like Colfax and his troops might beat them into confessing this whole restitution business is just another dirty Jan’Tep trick.’

‘And Arissa?’ Chedran demanded. ‘She hurled sharpened steel cards at the elders and followed it up with intolerable mockery. Stoika will not have forgotten that insult, and the council has no need of a thief aboard the spellship.’

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