“I won’t argue that we’ve much choice in the matter,” said the physician, “but your plan is madness. You’ve no idea what Sila Diaglou thinks to do with you. Do you actually believe she’ll allow you to roam free and abscond with her prisoners?”
“In the best case, I’ll have the three of them out before she can get over the surprise. In the worst case, well…” The worst cases were innumerable, and I couldn’t bear thinking about them. We’d no time to plan more intricate ploys. “…I’ll just have to lie a bit more. It’s still my finest talent.”
I had exercised that skill in plenty since I’d returned from Palinur, pulled on the damp clothes I’d stashed behind a water cask in Renna’s back alley, and rousted my fellow conspirators from their afternoon’s business. I had told Elene I had no reason to fear Sila Diaglou’s custody, as the priestess had made clear she wanted me alive. I had promised Brother Victor that no amount of intelligence and clever deceit could give Gildas the power to match a half-Danae half sorcerer. I’d assured all of them that my new skills could certainly get me and the prisoners out of Sila Diaglou’s house and back here in good order. I had even asked Elene to show me Renna’s dungeons so I could impress their complete image—the stink produced by the three drunkard prisoners, the chill, the taste and smell of iron and damp and enclosing walls—firmly on my mind. I had insisted that she needn’t worry about my pallor as I followed her through those dank passages, and when we’d come out into the wintry sunlight, I distracted them all from my sick fear and sketchy plan by showing them the fronds of sea grass that marked my hand with pale blue and silver light.
Saverian knew better. I appreciated that she didn’t contradict me until we were alone. While Elene, Brother Victor, and Voushanti prepared a letter in Osriel’s name, confirming the solstice plan and offering me to Bayard as a “gift of good faith” to hand over to Sila Diaglou and close their bargain, the two of us had hiked over to Renna Syne. Along with some of the wardrobe Osriel had provided me, Saverian had supplied food, medicine, and her own astringent honesty.
“This Gildas will suspect you’re there to take the boy and the others. He knows about your problem with nivat. That should worry you. One wrong word from Max and he’ll pounce.”
It did worry me. And then there was the matter of being staked bound and bleeding over some Danae sianou. Alone and dying slowly…great gods, what end could be worse than that? Especially when all assurance about what might come after my death had been upended. Saverian’s marrow-deep scrutiny had surely uncovered this fear, too.
“Yes. Yes. And yes,” I said. “It is a demented plan. A thousand things can go wrong. But from the beginning Sila has said she wants my contract, not just me. She has some use for me, Saverian. She’s not going to kill me or let Gildas do it. And if she has some use for me, then I have leverage. I won’t be shut up in a box. As for the nivat…I’ll be wary. At the first whiff, I’ll shut down my sense of smell—Kol taught me how to do that. Yes, I could be horribly wrong about all this, and if you think I am terrified, that’s not even the half of it. Gods, I’m no strategist. This is all I can think to do.”
I stuffed down more food, not knowing when I might get to eat again. I had to stay warm. I had to stay sensible. Saverian was too good at making me think, however uncomfortable. It was certainly possible that my connection with Osriel might lead Gildas to suspect that Osriel and Gram were the same man. In that case, the game would be up before it had even begun.
“You should get the others to prepare for the worst,” I said. “They respect you, listen to you. They know about strategy and tactics and all those things I’ve no head for. They must know some way to call in Osriel’s warlords. So use it and persuade the lords to defend Caedmon’s Bridge on the solstice. Stash Gillarine’s monks in the highest mountains of Evanore.”
“What if you’re wrong about bigger things, Valen?” said the physician softly. “What if your importance to the Danae is more critical than saving Osriel or Jullian or this lighthouse? Your mother had some plan for you.”
That argument, of course, I had no possible way to rebut, so I tried to explain the course that spirit and instinct had chosen for me. “Jullian is my friend and my sworn responsibility. Stearc is an honorable man and beloved of my friends. Though Osriel betrayed me, though he terrifies me, he is my lord and rightful king. He wants to do right for Navronne, even beyond his own life and honor and future—I can see that much. My mother told no one her plan, so I can’t see what would be so important that I must let my friends and my king die. And no one else has the skills to save them. I might. So, physician, steer me a better course.”
“Kill Voushanti.”
“Spirits of night!” I said, near choking. I dropped my eating knife into the platter as if it had given her the macabre idea. Had I not already closed down the rattling abundance of my senses, I would have been sure I had misheard. “Why, in the name of the Mother—?”
“He is already dead. Has been for over ten years. And if no one steps forward by tomorrow night, he’ll die again, this time with no coming back. To continue breathing he must be blood-bound to another living person. Osriel and Stearc are not available. Elene will have naught to do with the business. The monk is too weak. I can’t do it myself if I’m going to work the spell, not that I’m interested in having so close an attachment to him, either. He is brutish and bullheaded, frightens most of my patients, and has no respect for women, especially those who aspire to studies. I could perhaps persuade Philo or Melkire to the task—they respect him and are not so afraid as everyone else—but Osriel has given me no leave to tell anyone else of this.”
I worked to take in so much information. “But you’re telling me.”
“I believe the prince would trust you with the knowledge. In the days ahead, you might need someone who is bound to your will and devoted to your service…at least until Osriel can take on the burden again. It won’t improve your crazy plan, but it might give you and Riel a better chance of surviving it.”
She spoke as seriously and reasonably as Brother Sebastian explaining the structure of virtue. But the little lines atop the bridge of her nose had deepened to little ravines. Slowly I wiped my greasy mouth on my shirttail, startled as always to see the silvery gards gleaming from my hand. I swallowed. “Are you planning to explain more or do you expect me just to agree to such a mystery at your suggestion? Which I won’t.”
She shoved the plate of meat back toward me and refilled my cup with Evanori ale that tasted as if it had been made from discarded boots. “Keep eating. You don’t have much time, and if we’re to do this, we’ll need to do it soon.”
I just looked at her with the kind of expression such a ridiculous suggestion deserved.
She sighed and rested the ale pitcher in her lap. “Voushanti was the third son of a minor Evanori family, a veteran, competent warrior. When King Eodward moved his mistress to Renna to get her away from your hateful purebloods, he sent Voushanti along as her bodyguard. Voushanti was arrogant and silent and not particularly happy at being shoved off to watch over a woman. Everyone here was a bit afraid of him. And then Lirene died.”
The physician took on her most argumentative expression, but her eyes were focused on the past and not on me.
“You have to understand how Osriel adored his mother. She cared for him through so much pain and sickness, sang to him, bathed him, held him through long, dreadful nights. He was only seven when a sudden fever took her. He truly believed he would die without her. Evanori have stories…well, all warrior people have stories, I’m sure, about heroes that live beyond death. On the day of Lirene’s funeral rites, Riel told me that his magic was going to bring her back. Voushanti heard him say it, and called Osriel a blasphemer to so question the laws of the gods and insult the memory of true warriors. Osriel hated Voushanti from that day.”