And a chunk of his self-loathing broke and faded away. Kip straightened his back. “I look forward to seeing you and whoever joins you at Fechín Island,” he told Derwyn Aleph. No joke. No self-deprecatory smile.
Then, having taken all the gear and weapons and provisions they could carry from the first barge, they scuttled it. And far more readily than two hundred men carrying a hundred paces of heavy chain should have been able to, the Cwn y Wawr disappeared into the forest.
Chapter 36
“You cannot go this long without seeing me. Not ever again. Understand? I forbid it. Forbid!”
Karris had given in to the temptation to abuse her powers and decided that she was entitled to the services of the Blackguard’s physicker/masseuse, Rhoda. She’d decided it was acceptable as long as she didn’t take either of them away from their duties. Unfortunately, that meant they were meeting two hours before dawn.
The Chromeria was home to all sorts of strong personalities from all over the world, and with that came idiosyncratic styles of dress and cosmetics use, but even here, Rhoda stood out. Of Tyrean and Parian lineage, she had dusky skin and wavy hair that she wore in a topknot, the explosion of hair above it woven with colored beads. When outside, she wore a broad-brimmed petasos with a hole cut in it for her topknot. Of slim build, except for a round soft belly that made her look perpetually pregnant, she wore more, and more garish, face paint than anyone Karris had ever seen, but no perfume—“That’s for whores,” she said—but once she put her hands on your muscles, nothing else mattered.
Rhoda knew Karris’s body like no one else in the world. She started with a quick examination of Karris’s body—checking the mobility of that left ankle she’d sprained so long ago, testing how far and how evenly her limbs moved. She clucked and pulled and tweaked. She found aches Karris hadn’t even been aware of, and old injuries Karris barely remembered.
Then she went to work. She was a sub-red, and her hands radiated heat deep into Karris’s left shoulder, still swollen from when she’d jumped off the top of the hippodrome into the Great River. At an old hamstring injury, she pulled the heat away, as well as the heat from Karris’s own body, her hands becoming as ice.
“And what is this?” Rhoda asked, her elbow working on a spot low in Karris’s back. Karris grunted. She wasn’t required to answer. “Too much sitting. Feel this?”
Karris mumbled into her cushions, “I have to hold court, you know that.”
“Iron White can talk while standing, yes? Talk standing. Also this?” Rhoda grabbed a double handful of Karris’s hair. She always ended with the scalp massage. It was Karris’s favorite part, the sweetest medicine of their time together. But now she tapped at Karris’s hairline with one finger. “Gray. And not just one or two. At your age. You always dyed your hair for whimsy. Now, not fun. More sleep. Is order.”
“Too much to do,” Karris said. “Too many decisions to make.”
In fact, she should be going over her lists right now. There were so many items now that she had to write down the nonsecret ones.
“This is what happens when you stay away,” Rhoda said. “You forget how this works. I tell you what you doing wrong. I tell you what price you paying for what you doing wrong. I tell you how fix. Then you ignore me.”
“I’m sorry, Rhoda,” Karris said. She sighed.
“Iron White, ha! Feel like Iron-Necked White to me.”
She was glad to hear Rhoda tease her about it, but it had had an odd effect on Karris, being called the Iron White, as if she were a Name. She had recoiled from it at first: I’m not that.
But the more she thought about it, the more she realized rejecting it was foolish as a practical matter. If she were ever to check off ‘Win the war,’ she had to lead. She had not the animal presence or the huge charisma of her husband. She was small. It meant something, that, even if it shouldn’t. But someone small could be known for being hard and quick—not just physically, but mentally, too.
The people she led needed her to be strong. They needed her to be special if they were to follow her against gods and monsters.
So she’d made a new goal:
Become the woman they hope I am. Become the Iron White.
Rhoda was still chattering, and Karris loved her for it nearly as much as for her amazing hands. “There is no part where you argue. Understand? I have fired more important patients, thank you.”
“Of course, Rhoda, I—wait, more important than the White?”
Rhoda grumbled. She put her hands around Karris’s neck as if to wring it. “Do not flag-wave bull in open field!” But she was amused. “My Iron White, here is what you should do: more sleep, less exercise so you can have regular moons by the time husband is back, more standing, some riding if you can fit it in, less wine to relax and more use of your room slave.”
I already use—oh. Karris had promoted one of Marissia’s underslaves, an intelligent young woman named Aspasia, to be her room slave in Marissia’s absence, but the woman served as chief slave and messenger, she slept at the foot of Karris’s bed, not in it.
Karris knew that in the absence of their husbands, it was not uncommon for women to use their female room slaves as their husbands did, for relief. Many nobles didn’t consider it being unfaithful for a woman to use a female slave that way, though they believed using a male slave or even a eunuch was. But Karris had never even considered it. As a Blackguard, she hadn’t had a room slave. That just had never been part of her life, except for her hating Marissia, who’d served so ably as Gavin’s room slave. Apparently excelling in all of a room slave’s duties and more.
Damn you, Marissia. The searches had turned up nothing. No one had seen her leave. The Blackguards swore she’d yelled fire, but hadn’t run past them or dangled a rope down the outside of the tower. She was just… gone. Nor had Karris found any money trail. Turgal Onesto had confirmed that Marissia had access to at least one account he knew of—but it hadn’t been touched. Nor had anyone seen her at the markets, at the docks… anywhere. It was as if the woman had evaporated.
Regretfully, Karris gave up on it. There were too many other things to do to waste more time on that one.
Find Marissia.
So when do I scratch off Gavin? Every criterion that justified crossing off Marissia applied to him. He’d disappeared exactly the same way and on the same day. The searches for him said exactly the same thing—nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Find Gavin.
She would never take that off the list. She would die first.
Karris paid Rhoda—insisting on it, since the woman had woken with her and this was in addition to her normal duties—and then threw on a robe. She hadn’t even noticed her own nudity as she’d walked across her room to grab the coins. She was alone here with only her physicker and the two Blackguards at the door.
After Rhoda left, Karris said, “Baya, what’s the problem?”
“High Lady?” he asked, pained.
“We’ve been in the field. We trained together. You’ve seen me naked dozens of times. You’re as nervous as a boy beckoned to a woman’s bed for the first time.”
He swallowed. “Honestly, High Lady?”
“Yes!”
“I, um, I guess you always notice. I mean, a man does, right? But I mean there’s noticing and noticing. And I guess it’s one thing to sort of… appreciate you when we were Blackguards together. I mean, I didn’t stare! Tried not to? But now that you’re holy, I… it makes me feel—”
She held up a hand. She needed to remember that when the White asked for total honesty, she sometimes actually got it. Some people took her orders as a religious obligation. “Just… pretend not to notice. That’s part of the work. Do better. Now get out. I’m angry with you. I’ll be going over papers for the next couple hours until my day begins. Adrasteia can handle watching an empty room and me until then.”
Baya Niel, who’d faced the green god with her, unflinching as death came for him, practically bolted from the room.
Karris went to her desk and sat. She gave the Blackguard hand signal: ‘Clear?’