“Devin-Forgula!” a man’s voice barked.
The next blow never came. Michel hazarded a glance through blurry vision. He saw the woman standing over him, turned toward the hallway, where two men had appeared. One of them was young—probably about Michel’s age, in his midtwenties—and had a bald head and a short, lean frame. This one stared at the woman with outright antagonism. The second man was old, probably in his forties, with a beer belly and two fingers missing on his right hand.
The older man spoke, and it was obvious it was he who’d called out the name. “Devin-Forgula,” he said again, his voice quiet but reprimanding. “Get out.” The words were in Dynize, but close enough to their Palo counterparts that Michel understood.
The woman answered too quickly for Michel to follow.
“Get out,” the older man repeated.
The woman wiped her blackjack off on her sleeve and left at a brisk stride without looking back.
Michel eyed his saviors, trying to focus on them rather than on the immense pain in his arm, head, and shoulder. The older man watched Forgula go, then gave an exasperated sigh and stepped into the room. He bent over Michel, pulling Michel’s arm gently but firmly out of the way and examining the side of his head. “His head is bleeding,” he said in Palo. “And his arm. Can you stand?” The question was directed at Michel, but it took his addled brain a moment to register it. Slowly, he crawled to his knees and then, with the help of the younger man, up to his feet.
He limped after the two men. Neither helped him when he moved slowly on the stairs, but they did not hurry him, either. They headed to the next floor, where they found an empty room. They were still in the basement of the capitol building, but natural light came in through a high window and there was a rug and chairs here—probably the office of a low-level bureaucrat under Lindet’s regime.
Michel sat in one chair, head in his hands, watching blood drip from his arm onto the rug. He felt the eyes of both his new companions but did not look up at them. He was doing all he could not to throw up.
“Forgula says that you are a Blackhat spy,” the older man said. “Is that true?”
“I was,” Michel responded, stressing the second word.
“But no more?”
“I … understand that you are offering rewards and amnesty to Blackhats who switch sides.”
“Switch sides.” The man laughed. “That’s one way of putting it. Yes, that is the offer.”
“That woman—”
“Forgula is not a member of my Household,” the man said, his tone shifting to anger. “She serves another master—one who believes that enemies should be slaughtered rather than turned into allies. Someone told her about this little trinket, and she decided to take matters into her own hands before I could respond.”
Michel finally looked up to find the older man holding his Gold Rose, turning it in his fingers to examine the details in the light. “You’re Meln-Yaret?” Michel asked.
“I am.” The man smiled, and Michel could see that it was both tired and genuine—the smile of, as Silver Rose Blasdell used to say, a man who had to work for a living. “I apologize for letting Forgula get her claws into you. That had to have been”—he eyed Michel’s arm—“unpleasant.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
Meln-Yaret gave a bemused snort. “Forgive me,” he said, gesturing to his younger companion. “This is Devin-Tenik. He is one of my cupbearers.” Michel took a longer look at Devin-Tenik, his eyes finally starting to clear, and realized something strange: Devin-Tenik didn’t have the subtle facial markers that differentiated the Dynize from the Palo. His face was softer, his eyebrows farther apart, and his chin slightly weaker. If he hadn’t been wearing a turquoise uniform, Michel would have immediately assumed he was a Palo. “What do you think of our new friend, Tenik?” Meln-Yaret asked.
“He admits he is a spy.” Tenik had a startlingly deep voice that belied his slim, short stature.
“He admits he was a spy.”
“Once a spy, always a spy.”
“Perhaps.”
Michel squeezed his eyes closed. The pain in his head was a dull throb now, which was only slightly easier to think through than the sharp pain from earlier. He knew that there were layers to this meeting—Forgula, Tenik, Meln-Yaret, Households, and cupbearers. There was more going on than was immediately apparent, but in his current state he could not guess what it was. “I was a Blackhat spy,” he said. “Before the invasion, I was elevated to Gold Rose, which is the highest order within the Blackhats. The invasion came, the Grand Master was murdered, and then Lindet fled the city without warning.”
“And now …” Meln-Yaret made a tutting sound. “What did you tell the soldier to whom you gave this Rose? That you would hand me the Blackhats within Landfall?”
“That’s right. I can help you dismantle their efforts here.”
Meln-Yaret nodded. “You certainly have my attention. Let us start with this: What can you offer me, and what do you want in return?”
Michel forced himself to sit up straight, looking Meln-Yaret in the eye. This was now a negotiation, and he couldn’t conduct a negotiation from a point of such weakness. He needed to appear strong, even if that appearance was obviously a sham. “I can offer you the locations of caches and safe houses. I can help you track down Blackhats who have remained in the city. I can tell you how they work and how they think. I’ll admit that I wasn’t a Gold Rose long, but I spent years as a Silver Rose. I saw far more than the average Blackhat.”
“And what reward do you expect for your aid?”
“People.”
“What do you mean, people?” Tenik cut in. “Slaves?”
The casual way Tenik said the word reminded Michel how foreign the Dynize still were. He shook his head. “Not slaves.” This was something he’d thought about a lot since the occupation.“You’ve been rounding up Fatrastan citizens, the families of Blackhats who left the city with Lindet. It’s part of war, I understand. But those people were abandoned by their government and their loved ones. They don’t deserve to be hunted, tortured, and forced into labor camps or worse. In exchange for my help, I want you to let those people go.”
Meln-Yaret leaned back in his chair, thoughtfully stroking his chin. He glanced at Tenik. “You don’t want riches? Power?”
“I don’t have ambition for power. Riches …” Michel allowed himself a smile. “I intend on proving myself very useful to the Dynize government. The riches can come later. For now, I want those people released.”
“You ask too much,” Tenik said bluntly.
Meln-Yaret held up a hand to silence his companion. “It’s true, you ask a great deal. We gather these people because they themselves may be spies, but they are also useful as hostages and forced labor. We have hundreds already, and I imagine we’ll end up with a few thousand by the end of the year, even without your help.”
“Probably,” Michel admitted, “but the hostages themselves have little value. The spouses and children of low-level Blackhats? Lindet doesn’t care about them. Eject them from your territory. Hand them over to the closest Fatrastan army. Let them be a hindrance to your enemies and disguise it as an act of goodwill. There are already rumors that you’re treating the Palo better than Lindet ever did. The people might begin to see you as a benevolent conqueror. If this war draws on, that itself will be a dangerous weapon.”
Meln-Yaret smirked. “You make a very persuasive argument, Michel Bravis. But what you ask … it would be very difficult.”