“That’s the best I’ve got.” She glanced over Kaylin’s head at Severn and the familiar.
“What Bellusdeo was trying to say before she started on knitting,” Severn then said, “was that Teela considers the attempt an act of desperation and fear. If she’s insulted at all, she’s insulted because Canatel—and Tagraine—didn’t come to her first. They didn’t ask for her help. They assumed that the people threatening them held all the cards. Barrani are, at heart, snobs.
“Teela is a Lord of the High Court. She has one of The Three. We all know this. But we also know Teela best when she’s wearing the Hawk. If she weren’t in service to the Halls of Law, none of the Barrani Hawks would know her. They’d know of her, the same way we know of the humans in the human caste court.
“When Teela’s wearing the Hawk, she’s just like them. Or you. Or me. She’s a Hawk. The Barrani can’t see someone who wears that Hawk as a power.”
Kaylin opened her mouth and shut it again.
“When they first started out as Hawks on the force, they were probably allowed to do so because they were considered—by their own people—barely better than your average mortal.
“They haven’t considered that their ability to be Hawks was guaranteed by Teela as Lord of the High Court. They’ve had at least a decade to see Teela in action on the ground. They can no longer hold her in awe. They can’t think of her as an actual power because she does exactly what they do. She even obeys a Leontine. She is not called Lord when she’s in the office. That had to be a deliberate choice on Teela’s part—and I’m not certain she’s happy with the results.
“The people who are threatening them, however, are powers, in Tagraine’s and Canatel’s minds. They didn’t come to Teela first because they felt, viscerally, that she was just another Hawk. They didn’t trust the protection she could have offered. That’s why she’s insulted. And I believe she holds herself responsible for their attempted assassination.”
“Because she knew things were getting political,” Kaylin said, after a more thoughtful pause, “and she wasn’t prepared.”
Severn nodded. “The Barrani Hawks have already been used.”
“Against Moran, though.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s recent enough that she knew they could be used. She didn’t shore up her own defenses—and part of those defenses would be providing protection for the Hawks. They were threatened because she was too caught up in the concerns of her cohort.”
Kaylin thought that was hugely unfair.
“I’m not agreeing with her assessment,” Severn continued. “My agreement won’t matter to Teela one way or the other.”
“I’d suggest you stay out of it,” Bellusdeo told him quietly.
Severn glanced at Bellusdeo. “We need information.”
“Teela’s a Lord. Leave the information gathering to her.”
“Teela is a Lord,” he agreed. Severn could agree as if agreement were irrelevant. “But a Lord doesn’t enter the warrens. A Lord doesn’t—ever—meet with outcastes.”
Bellusdeo’s eyes had shaded to a gold orange. Kaylin intervened. “Teela’s met with Nightshade before.”
“Not under her own instigation. Her tabard and her choice of employ protects her in such situations. While the High Court does not consider the Halls of Law a suitable place for the Barrani nobility, they have all sworn oaths of service to the Eternal Emperor.”
She remembered what Candallar had said, and nodded.
“Teela’s interactions with Nightshade are considered, by the Barrani, to be a direct result of her tabard. Were she not a Hawk, she would not have met with him. Teela’s enemies are Lords of the High Court.”
Kaylin nodded, thinking. “The Barrani Hawks met with Candallar. They probably didn’t meet him by accident. Either he was told to approach them, or they were told to approach him. Do you think they left the East Warrens and headed into his fief with an offer of some sort? Or do you think he already had an offer on the table and left the fief to meet them?”
“Either would work,” he replied, in his neutral tone. “If the Hawks crossed the Ablayne, there are bound to be witnesses.”
“They’re from the warrens. They’re not going to talk to us.”
“They’re not going to talk to Hawks, no.”
“Corporal,” Bellusdeo said, in a sergeant’s tone of voice. “Teela is no doubt waiting for Canatel to regain consciousness to ask him.”
“He has a vested interest in giving her the answer she will find most acceptable,” Severn countered.
“It’s none of our business.”
“It’s not,” Severn agreed. “Until the cohort descends from the West March. We’ve got six weeks, if they travel overland the way we did.” And he clearly intended to use those six weeks to their full advantage. “Although I believe Mandoran is attempting to talk them out of it.”
“No one listens to Mandoran,” Kaylin pointed out.
He chuckled. “That’s certainly how Mandoran feels. But Helen is concerned. She cannot—and would not—refuse to house them; she’s your home and you wouldn’t.”
Kaylin opened her mouth.
Severn spoke before she could. “She’s a building, Kaylin. She’s sentient. She has will. She’s made choices that were physically almost ruinous for her in order to maintain some sense of her own autonomy. You think she did that to buy her freedom.”
“She did.”
“Yes.”
“And no,” Bellusdeo cut in. Severn fell silent, allowing Bellusdeo to carry the rest of the conversation. “She bought a measure of freedom. She injured herself so that she had a measure of choice. But her choices are, and have always been, confined. She is a building. She was created to be a building. Her sentience was bound into her nature. It is not that different from you—or me, or Teela. There are things we might want to do that our actual existence does not allow. You cannot live forever, no matter how cautious you might choose to be. Not,” she added, “that you ever choose to be cautious.
“Helen is a building. She is your home.”
“I’ll tell her she can say no.”
“She knows the likely outcome of that—and it is an outcome that affects you directly. You want them under your roof because you trust Helen to minimize the danger, both to them, and from them. But Helen, I think, is less certain about that ability, precisely because of the choices she made in the distant past.
“But they will not stay in Tiamaris, and it is a disaster to even think of placing them in Nightshade—and those are the only two Towers that might, just might, be able to do what Helen is afraid she cannot.” She exhaled steam.
Something in her tone of voice caught Kaylin’s attention, and she stopped walking in order to catch Bellusdeo’s. It took the Dragon half a block to notice, but she did reverse course. “The Emperor does not yet know about the cohort and their imminent arrival. According to Annarion, I’ll have six weeks in which to smooth over future difficulties.