“Kerite is the judge. She’s the arbiter of the battlefield – someone who will read my every move and respond accordingly. I don’t need to play her. I need to play the Grent officers that hired her. How many National Guardsmen do we have on hand?”
“Sixty thousand,” Tadeas answered thoughtfully. Idrian and Jorfax both frowned, but Demir could see that his uncle had an inkling of where he was going with this. “But,” Tadeas continued, “you said yourself they are worse than useless. They’ll only panic against real soldiers, and if they run it’ll be worse than not deploying them at all.”
“We’re not going to deploy them to this battle,” Demir said. His thoughts were whirring along now, moving so quickly he could barely keep up with them. Not as fast as with witglass, but with more alacrity than he’d ever experienced unaided. It was as if all the different parts of him – grifter, politician, and general – were finally talking to each other. “Send a fast rider back to Ossa. I want them to find every single spare uniform they can get their hands on at the Ministry. I need at least ten thousand, preferably more. We’ll stuff each one with a National Guardsman, and then we’ll send them into Grent. March them down the street, capture bridges, occupy tenements. No real fighting, mind you. Just bodies on display.”
It was Jorfax who seemed to figure it out next, followed quickly by a widening of Idrian’s one eye. Jorfax said, “The Grent will panic and pull out all their forces. It won’t matter what Kerite says or does – her employers will insist she withdraw from Harbortown at speed in order to protect Grent.”
“And when she does,” Demir finished, “when her troops are spread out on the road, at their most vulnerable, we’ll hit her hard and fast from the flank.”
“Glassdamn,” Tadeas breathed. “That just might work.”
“It pissing better,” Demir replied, “because it’s the best I’ve got. Idrian, organize your trap. I want you riding out first thing in the morning. Jorfax, recall most of your glassdancers. We’ll need them for the upcoming battle. Tad, I want you running point with all the other officers of the Foreign Legion. They need to understand that if we’re going to win this, they have to follow the orders of their disgraced commanding officer.”
The others scattered, leaving Demir alone in his tent full of information. He found the little box with the high-resonance witglass and set it on top of one of the crates, staring at it. “You’re a crutch,” he whispered, “and I can’t yearn for you any longer. With or without you, I am still a Grappo. I am still the Lightning Prince.”
51
Over the course of the last few weeks, Kizzie had considered a dozen different scenarios that would let her get Aelia Dorlani alone for questioning. She’d discarded all of them because the risks were too damned high – either get herself killed in the process of trying, or earn the direct enmity of one of the most powerful people in Ossa. Montego changed all that. Perhaps his presence made her reckless, or perhaps she just knew that he would attract – and be able to defend against – that enmity himself.
He was all too enthusiastic about her best plan. He even added his own twist on it.
They stood just outside one of the upper-class pubs on the edge of the Assembly District. Kizzie wore a jacket, scarf, and cloak to protect her from both prying eyes and the cold winter air, while Montego wore a richly embroidered green-and-purple tunic that probably cost more than Kizzie made in a year. His round white face was red from the cold, and his very presence seemed to act as a sort of beacon. Passersby stopped and stared, nudging and whispering to each other. Some called his name, but no one dared approach.
It was the first time Kizzie had stood next to someone genuinely famous. Not guild-family famous, surrounded by bodyguards who would whip the insolence out of anyone who got too close, but so famous that his lone presence could command more fear and more attention than any number of guild-family lackeys. The attention made Kizzie feel naked, and she was glad that her hands and face were hidden behind gloves and a scarf.
“Do people stare like this all the time?” she asked in a low voice.
“They do,” Montego replied, sipping a beer from the pub, his cane grasped in his off hand, the silver bear pommel wagging occasionally at a passing face, as if he was taking special note of them.
“This is awful,” Kizzie said.
“You have no idea.”
“How do you get anything done?”
“Well, I don’t do my own shopping, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Kizzie looked at Montego sidelong to see that he was smirking at her. “You know what I mean.”
“You mean without everyone noticing? I don’t often, but my mere presence acts as a very good distraction.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Kizzie didn’t need a distraction tonight. She needed timing, luck, and a little old-fashioned brutality. “You realize we might start a guild-family war?” she asked, lowing her voice even further.
“Perhaps,” Montego responded.
“Should you get Demir’s permission?” Kizzie’s nerves were starting to act up. Just standing next to Montego was enough to do that – her childhood love, the most celebrated killer in Ossa, talking to her in the flesh after sixteen years. Add in the fact that they were about to attempt something truly reckless, and she allowed herself to dip a trembling hand into her pocket and fix a piece of skyglass to her ear.
Montego stared off above the heads of the passing crowd for a moment before answering. “I may be a Grappo by adoption, but I am still Baby Montego. Demir does not presume to tell me what to do any more than I presume to do the same to him.”
Oh, to have such terrible confidence. Kizzie was jealous of it, though she knew she shouldn’t be. Montego had earned it. Kizzie checked her pocket watch. “That’s settled then. It’s time. Meet me at the park?”
“I’ll be there. Good luck.”
Kizzie broke away, hurrying off into the night, keeping her scarf up around her face in case anyone got too curious about Montego’s evening companion. She ducked down a nearby side alley and navigated her way through the labyrinth of alleys, service corridors, and servants’ tunnels that connected the dozens of buildings in the Assembly District. She emerged into Assembly Square, just to the right of the main Assembly building, and paused to take stock of her surroundings.
The cold night left the square mostly empty. A line of carriages were parked along the far side of the square, waiting to pick up their important charges and carry them home. It did not take long for Kizzie to spot Aelia Dorlani’s carriage. The damned thing was a behemoth, the envy of all of Ossa, with an advanced steel design that was still talked about in the papers a year after Aelia had it delivered from a Marnish craftsman. It was outfitted in Dorlani green, the curtains proudly stitched with their silic sigil. Rumor was that it had a whole bed inside, and that Aelia used her late-night drives to cover for rendezvous with lovers all over the city. It was a bullshit story, but it amused Kizzie all the same.
Kizzie found a deserted brazier, burning low, one of dozens specifically for the bodyguards and pages that had to wait for instructions out in the cold. She warmed her hands in front of it, watching the carriage carefully. Occasionally, she checked her pocket watch.
She had done only a little research for this possible plan before abandoning it weeks ago, and had spent the day scrambling to fill in the cracks. Aelia was at the Assembly almost every day. She stayed until well after dark, and then she drove home, where she would have a late dinner and retire for the night, either working or entertaining personal friends.