“Cumberland has no quarrel with the Baltics. His death was—”
“A murder,” said Xie. “He was murdered by Tolliver Burr, who is employed by you and deployed under your colors in an active theater of war. That makes his actions your responsibility.” It was practically chapter and verse, and quite right.
Buckle said: “The boy was dressed as a soldier.”
Da-Xia rounded on her, her Blue Tara composure cracking, her hands and knees bloody. “He was an innocent.” Her voice cracked too, and broke into a whisper. “He told jokes and he was scared and he didn’t even like to take eggs from chickens.” She lifted her chin, a goddess again, and turned to Armenteros. “Whatever titles we hold, General, we are not soldiers. And we are not rulers. We are innocents. I think you have forgotten that.”
Armenteros wrinkled her eyes, a weary look. “You’d be wrong there.” She looked up from Grego’s body, moon-pale and being lapped by the wild grass. “Children of Peace. I confine you to your cells. I haven’t the manpower to guard you while you have the run of this place, and you are more trouble than I counted on. I will see to food and so on.”
Buckle said, “What about your grandson, sir?”
Armenteros looked at Elián. She didn’t sigh. “Him too.”
“But—” said Elián. “I mean, I have to tell you what I—”
“I know what you did,” said Armenteros. “And I know that, thanks to what you did, we have about two hours before Talis blows up a city. I’m dealing with that right now. The business between us, we can sort out later.”
“No,” said Elián. “You can’t. You have to back off. You have to get out of here.”
“No,” I said. “What you have to do is let me talk to Talis.”
Elián shook his head violently. Thandi just stopped herself before she grabbed me by the sling. Her hand closed on empty air. “What are you doing, Greta?”
I tried to ignore them—and Xie, whose eyes were locked on me, glimmering with understanding. “General,” I said. “You need to take me to talk to Talis.”
Armenteros studied me. The broad planes of her face pulled in, as if she were chewing on the insides of her cheeks. She asked what Elián had asked, but with her there was no dodging. She had a mind like a grizzly bear: she had reach, and it was unwise to run. She said, “Why?”
“Because he’ll never let you leave. And that’s what you want, isn’t it? You came here gambling that Talis wouldn’t strike while you held his hostages hostage. And that my mother would—”
I did not mean to pause there, but I did. Of course she loved me. Of course. “That my mother would act to save me. You were wrong on both counts. You lost. So now the best you can hope for is to get away. You don’t even need the water anymore. Your population has fallen by—” I stopped. I had no idea of the population of what had once been Indianapolis.
“Three hundred and seventy thousand,” Armenteros growled.
“And your water needs,” I said, “correspondingly.”
Armenteros grunted and stuffed her fists into the pockets of her robe. It was white. She looked like a hostage herself, which I suppose she was. “Why Talis? Why meet with Talis?”
“I have something he wants. I’m the only one here who does.”
She didn’t ask what it was. Instead her eyes went to my hands, curled and swollen. “Your Highness—I don’t see why you’d take Cumberland’s part.”
“It’s ‘Your Royal Highness,’?” I said. “And it’s because if you can get out, General, then you can take Elián with you.”
“What?” said Elián, who someone (Buckle, probably) had slapped into handcuffs. “Greta—”
I kept my focus on the general. “They’ll kill him if he stays. They’ll send him to the grey room.”
“Talis will never allow it, General,” said Buckle. “The boy—he’s the hostage.”
“Greta, what are you doing?” said Elián.
Armenteros herself didn’t speak at once. I watched her stand there in her rumpled bathrobe, with Grego’s body at her feet, her powerful mind sniffing slowly through the possibilities. At great length she turned to Elián. “I promised your mother, you know. Told her I wouldn’t come back without you.”
Elián’s face fell open. He looked stunned as if struck by an arrow.
“So,” said Wilma Armenteros, turning back to me. “You’re actually not the only one with something Talis wants, Your Highness. If you can’t talk him round, tell him that I offer my personal surrender. Not my men—just me. He can do what he wants. That might tempt him.”
“General,” objected Buckle, and Elián said, “No!”
I remembered how Talis had snarled over the idea of hurting Armenteros, the thin surface of his humanity cracking. I’ll make a story of her. A myth.
Dear God.