"Excuse me?" Arnos said, his eyebrows rising up.
"I suggest you find an alternate shortsighted, egomaniacally ridiculous reason to blatantly, recklessly ignore an obvious threat to the Realm simply because you don't wish it to exist. If you cannot restrain yourself from base slander, I will be pleased to meet you in juris macto and personally rip your forked tongue from your head."
The muttering in the room stopped, and a bottomless silence fell.
Amara felt a rush of fierce, pleased pride flash through her, and she found herself smiling down at Bernard.
Arnos's face flushed dark red, almost purple. Without another word, he turned and strode from the hall, steps sounding angrily on the hall's floor. A little more than a third of the room, including several of the men also on the raised platform, rose and followed the Senator out.
When they had gone, Bernard shook his head and cast an almost imperceptible wink in her direction. "All right," he said. "Next question."
A small forest of hands went up. Those men who remained, all of them wearing Legion uniform tunics or armor, or with their hair cropped Legion fashion, settled down to listen.
Amara descended to the hall floor after Bernard's talk was over. He was shaking hands with the few members of the Collegia's staff who had remained when Senator Arnos left. Giraldi hovered in the background, leaning on his cane, and traded gibes with several other old soldiers apparently of his acquaintance.
Amara smiled as Bernard broke away from the men and came to her. "You will rip his forked tongue from his head?"
He gave her a fleeting smile. "Too much, you think?"
Amara imitated Arnos's clipped Rhodesian accent. "You are a barbarian, after all, Count."
Bernard let out a rumble of a laugh but shook his head. "He didn't believe me."
"He's one fool," Amara replied. "We knew when we set out to come here that there would be plenty of them around."
"Yes. I just didn't think that one of them would be the Senator holding the purse strings for all the Crown funds for the Legions." Bernard shook his head. "And he has a following. Maybe I should have let him strut a bit."
"If you had, you wouldn't be you," Amara replied. "Besides, you struck a solid note with the active duty soldiers here. They're the ones whose opinions will matter most."
"They're also the ones who will suffer the most from budget cuts," Bernard said. "It's hard to fight anyone when your equipment is wearing out and falling apart around you. Much less something like the vord."
"And would kissing up to the Senator make him more likely to increase the gold allowed to the Legions in order to increase their scouts and other auxiliary troops?"
"Perhaps not," Bernard admitted.
"Then don't gnaw at it. You've done what you can. And I should imagine that the cadets who were here will be talking about the way you dropped that challenge to the Senator for years. A source of long-term amusement."
"At least I accomplished something positive. Why didn't you say so?"
She laughed and took his arm as they left the lecture hall and strolled across the campus.
He smiled and tilted his head at her. "You look... I don't know. Happy, today. You haven't stopped smiling."
"I don't look happy," she said.
"No?"
"No, Your Excellency." She took a deep breath, then said, "I look late."
He stared at her blankly for a moment. "You look..." Then his eyes widened. "Oh. Oh!"
She looked up at her husband and smiled. For a moment, she thought her heart might simply fly from her chest and take to the sky. She couldn't resist a little skip and a burst of wind from Cirrus, which carried her seven or eight feet off the ground, spun her about in a dancer's twirl, and dropped her back down to Bernard's side.
His smile stretched ear to ear. "Are you... I mean. Are you sure?"
"As much as anyone can be, this soon," she replied. "Perhaps you were right all along. This is the first time we've been together for more than a few days at a stretch."
Bernard let out a laugh, picked her up, and all but crushed her against him in a bearish embrace, drawing stares from cadets passing between classes all around them. Amara reveled in it. It was when she felt his strength, that casual, enormous power, that she felt the most soft, the most yielding-the most feminine, she supposed. He made her feel beautiful. Granted she wore a sword at her hip, and could use it to deadly effect if necessary-but it made it no less pleasant to feel otherwise for a time.
"I do need to breathe," she murmured a moment later.
He laughed and put her down again, and they kept walking together, now very close, his side pressed to hers, his arm around her shoulders. "How long have we been here?"
"Six weeks," Amara murmured. "As you well know."
"Has it been that long?" Bernard asked.
She gave him a look from beneath lowered lashes. "It can be difficult to judge the passing of time when one so seldom leaves his bedchamber, my lord."
He let out a low, pleased sound, something between a chuckle and a contented growl. "That's hardly my fault. The outside world holds little to interest me compared to the company I keep there."
"My lord," she said, miming a shocked face. "Whatever could you mean?"
His fingers tightened on the curve of her waist, above one hip, stroking lightly. She shivered. "Let me show you. "
"What about Giraldi? " she asked.
"He isn't invited."
She dug her elbow lightly into Bernard's ribs. "We're not leaving him alone tonight, are we?"
"No, no. He'll meet us for dinner when we pick up Isana. He's teaching some basic combat classes, meanwhile, as something of a celebrity instructor."
"Good," Amara said. "He'll get into trouble without something to keep him occupied."
"I thought you were married to me," Bernard said.
"I pick my battles," Amara said. "You're going to find trouble regardless of what I do. Perhaps it's a family trait. It would explain you and your nephew both."
"That isn't fair," Bernard said. "Tavi gets in much more trouble than I do."
"He's younger," Amara said with a sly, sideward glance, nudging him with her hip.
"I'll show you young," Bernard growled-but he glanced over his shoulder in the middle of the statement, and the smile faded from his face as he did.
"What is it?" Amara asked, leaning her head against him as if nothing had happened.
"There are two men following us," Bernard said. "But I'm not sure that they are our escort."
"What escort?" Amara asked.
He arched an eyebrow and glanced at her.
"All right." She sighed. "The Cursors have teams watching over a number of possible loyalist targets. I didn't want you to feel insulted."
She paused to straighten the hem of her skirts and called to Cirrus, spinning the fury into a new kind of crafting, one that would bend the light entirely back upon itself, blinding her to what lay before her, but letting her see what was behind. It was a difficult crafting to form and a strain to hold on to, but a quick look was all she needed.
"Those men aren't our escort," she said quietly. "I don't know them."
Bernard's eyes narrowed. "Something does not smell right, then."
"Yes," Amara said. "I don't like the way this smells at all."
"Bloody crows," Cyril snarled. "Get moving, Subtribune."
Tavi grasped the outside of the ladder with his hands and slid down it, feet pressing the sides of the ladder rather than using the rungs. He hit the ground, flexed his legs to absorb the shock, and sprinted for the infirmary tents. He heard Captain Cyril land behind him, then keep pace with Tavi despite the weight of his armor.
"Make a hole!" Tavi shouted at the recruits gathered outside the tent, doing his best to imitate Max's tone, volume, and inflection when he issued orders. "Captain coming through!"
Fish hastened to stand aside, most of them throwing hasty, suddenly remembered salutes as Cyril came through. Tavi swept the tent flap aside and held it for the captain, then followed him in.
The healer within was a veteran named Foss. He was most of seven feet tall, built like a Phrygian mountain bear, and his armor was of the style of standard Legion-issue from nearly forty years ago and looked slightly different than the current design. It bore an impressive number of dents and dings, but was impeccably maintained, and the man moved in it like it was his own skin. Foss had a short, thick brush of grey hair cropped close to his head, and deep-set, narrow eyes.
"In the tub," he snarled to the fish carrying Max, gesturing them to a long wooden watercrafter's trough filled with water. "Careful, careful. Crows take it, man, do you want to tear the wound open even farther?"
They got Max into the tub, still in his armor. The water covered him up to his chin, with his head resting on a supporting incline. Muttering darkly to himself, Foss reached in and adjusted the incline, lowering it until the water covered all of Max but his lips, nose, and eyes. Then he knelt behind Max and thrust his hands into the water, closing his eyes.
"Give him room to work, recruits," Captain Cyril said in a quiet voice. He pointed at the opposite corner of the tent, and the bloodstained young men hastened to obey him.
Tavi bit his lip, staring at his friend. Max's skin looked strange-waxy and colorless. He couldn't see if Max still drew breath.
"Healer," Cyril murmured a moment later.
"Give me some quiet here," growled Foss, his rumbling basso threatening. After a good half a minute, he added, "Sir." He went on muttering to himself under his breath, mostly colorful vulgarities from what Tavi could hear. Then Foss drew in a breath and held it.
"He's been hurt before," Tavi said to the captain. "Do you think he'll be all right?"
Cyril never took his eyes from Max. "It's bad," he said shortly.
"I saw him run through. That should have killed him. But he was up and walking inside four hours."
Cyril's gaze moved to Tavi, his expression remote, hard, though his voice remained very quiet. "Your babbling might distract Foss. If you want to help your friend, put your bloody teeth together and keep them that way. Or get out."
Tavi's cheeks flushed with warmth, and he nodded, closing his jaws with an audible click. It was a physical effort to stop talking. Max was his friend, and Tavi felt terrified. He did not want to lose him. His instincts screamed at him to shout, to order the healer to work faster, to do something. But he knew that he couldn't.
Tavi hated the helpless feeling that knowledge sent through him. He'd had a lifetime to get familiar with it, when his lack of furycrafting continually put him at a disadvantage in virtually every facet of his life. He would have given anything to have a healer's skill at watercrafting, to be able to help his friend.
The captain was right. The best thing he could do for Max was to shut his mouth and wait.
There wasn't a sound for nearly two minutes, and every second of it felt like a week.
Then Foss exhaled a low, agonized groan, bearish body sagging forward over Max.
Max suddenly jerked and drew in a ragged, choking breath.
Foss grunted, still sagging, and his rumbling voice sounded unsteady. "Got him, Cap," he said after a moment. "It was real close."
Tavi heard Cyril exhale slowly himself, though he kept his face from any expression. "I thought Lady Antillus was here today," he said. "How is it that she was not here to care for Maximus?"
Foss shook his head and slowly sat up again, drawing his arms from the bloodied water to sit down immediately on the canvas floor. "Lunch with her son, she said."
"Ah, yes. Family lunch," Cyril said. "How is he?"
"Bad, Cap. He's tougher'n a gargant leather boot, but he bled out more than I've ever seen a man survive."
"Will he recover?"
Foss shook his head again. "Wound is closed. He's breathin'. But losing that much blood can do bad things to a man's head. Maybe he wakes up. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe he wakes up, and he ain't himself no more. Or can't walk. Or he wakes up simple."
"Is there anything we might do to help him?"
Foss shrugged and from his sitting position fell wearily onto his back, rubbing at his forehead with one blunt-fingered hand. "Don't know that he needs anything but time. But I'm just an old Legion healer. Maybe the High Lady knows better than me, or can see more than I can about him."
"Crows," the captain muttered. He turned and frowned at the recruits, still in their corner-eight of them, Tavi noted, a spear of men who would march in file together and share the standard Legion tent. "File leader," Cyril commanded.
One of the young men, a tall and gawky youth, came to attention and saluted. "Captain, sir."
"What's your name, son?"
"Schultz, sir. "
"Report," Cyril said. "What happened, recruit Schultz?"
"It was an accident, sir."
Cyril was silent for a second, staring at the recruit, who swallowed and blanched and grew even more rigid.
"The captain knows it was an accident, recruit," Tavi said. "Tell him the particulars of it."
The boy's face reddened. "Oh. Sir, sorry, sir, yes, sir. Um. We were our cohort's strongest spear at our sword lessons. First ones to get issued live swords, sir. Centurion Antillar had us running our drills with live blades for the first time, all in a row, sir. He was going to show us to our whole cohort, sir, before they got their blades. He went up and down the line, watching us, calling our mistakes, sir."
"Go on," Cyril said. "How was he injured?"
The boy shook his head. "Sir, it was an accident. He had just corrected me and he was walking away from me, where he could watch the whole line of us. And I went through a number eight thrust." The recruit shifted his feet into a fighting stance and swept his right arm straight up from down low by his leg. Such a stroke from a sword could disembowel a man, and though difficult to use, in the close press of combat it could be devastating. "And the sword... just slipped out of my hand, sir."
"It slipped," Cyril said quietly, his gaze level.
The recruit snapped back to attention. "Yes, sir. I haven't ever had that happen before. It slipped and it flew out spinning and it struck Centurion Antillar in the side of the neck, sir." He looked down at himself, and for the first time seemed to see the blood all over him. "I didn't mean it to happen, sir. Not at all. I'm sorry, sir."
The captain folded his arms. "He had just finished correcting you. He had his back to you. Your sword inexplicably flew from your grasp and struck his throat. You say it was an accident."
"Yes, sir."
"And you expect me to believe that?"
The recruit blinked at him. "Sir?"
"Men have lost their tempers with their centurions in the past. Sometimes they were angry enough to kill them. Perhaps you couldn't stand Antillar's criticism of your technique. It's a hot day. You've not eaten. Maybe you lost your temper and killed him."
The recruit's mouth dropped open. "Sir... " He shook his head. "I'd never, no sir, Centurion Antillar, no sir."
"We'll see," Cyril said quietly. "I will be looking into this more thoroughly. Get back to your cohort, recruits. Schultz. Don't attempt to leave the camp. The men who I'd send to hunt you down would have orders to execute you on sight."
The young man swallowed and saluted again.
"Dismissed."
Schultz led his fellow recruits out of the tent, and only a second later the flap flew open again and an armored Knight entered, accompanied by the beautiful Lady Antillus. The Knight jerked to a stop upon seeing Max in the tub, his mouth dropping open. Lady Antillus drew in a breath, placing the fingers of one hand over the bodice of her blue-on-blue silk gown, her eyes wide.
For some reason he could never have put a name to, Tavi did not believe Lady Antillus's gesture was a genuine one. It was too smooth, perhaps, too flowing to be true shock and distress.
"Great furies preserve," she said. "What has happened to my stepson?"
"According to the recruit whose weapon struck him, it was a training accident, my lady," Cyril said.
Lady Antillus's expression grew distressed. "He looks horrible. I take it that Foss has seen to him?"
Foss grunted from the floor. "Aye, m'lady. But he lost a lot of blood."
"What is his prognosis?" she asked the healer.
"Urn. What?" Foss asked.