“Yes, I did.”
“What for?”
This time, he would not die. He would not help her as his enemies lay in wait. Better for him to hate her than to die because of her. She said, “I went to lead an attack on Willis’s unit, but they said they were not ready.”
His hand rested on his pistol. This close to her, he would get a good shot, and even in anger would shoot well, kindly, remembering his affection even as he knew it was betrayed. But then he sighed, and all was lost. “I know that is a lie,” he said.
A voice spoke behind Zanja. “She intends her lie as a gift.”
Zanja did not have to turn to know who had spoken. A black shadow flapped upon the ground in front of her. Her frail courage faltered.
Emil said, his voice still soft with anger, “A misguided gift.”
Zanja said, “Sir, it is my calling to transgress, but it is my duty to cause no harm by that transgression. Let me do my duty.”
Emil gazed into her eyes, expressionless, unblinking. And then he turned away, to speak to his lieutenants. “This matter will not turn out the way any of us might expect. It seems ill‑advised to do this so publicly, when so much damage already has been done to our community.”
Willis said, “No,” as though he already was the commander. This was, certainly, his spectacle.
Emil smiled oddly, without amusement. “Well then, at least let’s get into the shade, for courtesy to our guest.” He gestured toward an arbor of flowering vines, where there were some inviting benches in the shade.
Zanja turned then, and looked into the scarred, sun‑browned face of Norina Truthken. “What are you doing here? It is not your business.”
Norina said, “Who did you think would come?”
Though Zanja had lived with her until four months ago, she’d had no idea that Norina was pregnant. Even the heavy clothing of winter could not have concealed it now. Though her dust‑stained clothing and red‑rimmed eyes suggested a heroic journey had brought her here so quickly, her jutting belly hinted that at any moment she might deliver a child. Just the thought of her as a mother made Zanja’s head hurt.
Karis’s raven rode upon her shoulder. It was a most uncanny sight.
Zanja could barely walk the short distance to the arbor. The bullet wound in her leg had not healed at all as she lay helpless in the Underworld. At least she could escape the sun and sit upon a bench, though everyone else except Norina remained standing. A man‑at‑arms stood beside Norina, bristling with weapons like a brigand.
Willis began, “I found Zanja’s bed empty shortly after dark, and–”
Emil said, “I know what happened, Willis.”
“But the Truthken–”
“If Madam Truthken wishes to know something, she may ask.”
The watchfulness of Norina’s gaze, and the black bird on her shoulder, hardly seemed calculated to set anyone at ease. She said, “Lieutenant–Willis is your name?”
Willis jumped, and Zanja felt something, the faintest prickle of anticipation. “Madam Truthken,” he said belligerently.
“You have not told the truth.”
“I am not lying! Anyone who was there will confirm–”
“You wanted Zanja dead, and were desperate for an excuse. That is what you have not said.”
His face went white, but his chin came up. “I admit I had my men abandon her in a firefight. But I did that because I knew she was a traitor, and Emil would not see it, just as he will not see it now. I did it to save the company.”
Norina gazed at him, expressionless. “So you named yourself commander.”
Dazzled and bewildered by the vivid shine of truth in the midst of this nightmare, Zanja said, “He acted under Mabin’s command.”
She heard the faintest sound from Emiclass="underline" a grunt of pain or surprise.
Norina’s gaze on Willis’s face never wavered. “She says the truth?”
“Yes,” Willis said, with more apparent pride than fear.
Norina blinked, once, and turned to Emil.
Emil said in a strangled voice, “What did she offer you?”
But Willis, seeming to think he had the upper hand, said loftily, “That’s between me and the councilor.”
The bloody fool would get command of South Hill Company. Zanja could feel no more horror; the betrayals had accumulated until she hardly noticed them. But the look on Emil’s face was worse than her own pain.
Norina stood up. “Commander, I need to speak to you alone.”
They stepped aside. The five lieutenants, two of whom Zanja scarcely knew, shuffled their feet and muttered to each other. The man‑at‑arms stood stolid as a plowhorse, but his gaze never ceased to flick from one person to the next. Zanja ached in every part of her body. She felt her face with her fingers, to find her eyelids swollen, her lip split, her cheekbone raw and bruised. Her leg hurt with a dull and insinuating pain. She kept forgetting where she was, and the faces of the lieutenants and the observers kept changing, from Paladin to Sainnite to Ashawala’i.
Norina and Emil returned. Emil said somberly, “I will communicate with Mabin on what to do with you, Willis, but meanwhile you are relieved of duty.”
Willis’s face turned red with anger. “And the traitor? You’ll let her go unpunished, of course!”
“We have not yet addressed the problem of Zanja,” said Emil evenly. “But I have relevant information that I doubt any of you have yet heard. The Shaftali prisoners were set free from Wilton garrison last night. Some of those from Annis’s family came direct to me and told me about how they’d been freed by a Sainnite man, who unlocked the doors and escorted them safely out of the garrison and out of the city itself, all under cover of darkness.”
“A Sainnite?” repeated Willis in disbelief.
“Yes. In fact, the freed prisoners carried a letter to me from him.” Emil turned to Zanja. “What did you tell this Medric, the night Willis found your bed empty?”
Zanja said, though it took a great effort, “I never saw him that night.”
Emil glanced at Norina. “Madam Truthken?”
“Truth,” Norina said.
“What were you intending to tell him?”
“I was going to bring him to you, to have you meet him.”
“Truth,” Norina said.
“Why?”
“He wanted to join the Paladins.”
Norina said, “I can’t judge the truth of hearsay.”
“Ah, yes. But Zanja believes what he told her to be true?”
“I can’t be certain, Commander. She wants it to be true, but for this very reason she does not trust her judgment–and for other reasons as well,“ Norma added, as though she were reading words being written as she spoke. ”I think she is unbalanced. How long has it been since she ate, or drank?“
“Just two days,” Willis said defensively. “Maybe three.”
“Wounded and bleeding. And your man says he heard her screaming.”
“What matter? She’s a traitor!”
“You believe that she’s a traitor,” Norina corrected him. “The truth, however, has yet to be determined, and cannot be determined when she is scarcely even in her right mind. Commander, I am here for my own reasons, but since you have asked me to arbitrate I must insist that you at least get her some water.”
Emil sent someone for water, and while that was being brought, Norina took a cloth bag out of the pocket of her doublet and tossed it to Zanja. It contained some kind of old dried fruit, gone hard as rawhide and practically as tasteless. Zanja held a piece in her mouth, and as it softened and dissolved a sudden clarity came to her: enough at least for her to realize how weak she was, how worn out with despair and horror. With the second piece the pain in her leg was eased, and with the third she sat erect and pushed some loose strands of hair from her face, and thanked the girl who had brought a dipper of water for her.
She said, “I met Medric on Fire Night. And though I was and am still half afraid that he might be engaged in some kind of elaborate trick, I took the risk of talking to him, because I thought the benefits could be great. It’s he who told me that the Sainnites were going to attack us at Fen Overlook.”