He looked at Mikodez then, and his eyes were made of fracture and shadow. “I have only one request,” he said, “although I understand that I am owed nothing. My original surrender was to Protector-General Inesser. I don’t know how this arrangement affects the Kel. The soldiers who were under my care... are they all right? Will they be safe?”
Cheris had reassured him on this point, but considering that she had also shot him in the head (again), Jedao might be forgiven for wanting some extra confirmation. Mikodez said, frankly enough, “Kel Inesser makes my teeth ache and I have it on good authority that the feeling is mutual. But the hawks adore her for a reason. She is known to be honorable and she takes good care of her people. She will treat yours well.”
“They were never mine to begin with,” Jedao said.
I wonder how many of them would dispute that. For someone with a distressing habit of backstabbing people, Jedao had a remarkable ability to win others’ loyalty under adverse conditions. In particular, Mikodez had his doubts about the renegade command moth. Cheris might have had a knee-jerk reaction to the story Jedao had fed her, but something about it sounded too facile. He’d pry the truth out of Jedao later.
Jedao bowed his head. He hadn’t touched any of the food. Mikodez made a note to himself to talk to Medical about ways to deal with the possibility that Jedao intended to starve himself to death.
“I don’t have any intention of killing you if I don’t have to,” Mikodez said. Was Jedao going to react to that as he predicted?
Yes: Jedao paled. Then he recovered himself. “I will endure whatever you do to me.”
Given most people’s preconceptions about Shuos hexarchs, it wasn’t fair to hold Jedao’s limited imagination against him. “Jedao,” Mikodez said, “assassinating hexarchs isn’t a capital crime around here. I’ve done it myself.”
“Assassinations,” Jedao said. “Of people I’ve never met. You killed them. Nirai-zho told me. It’s very hard to care about people I don’t know anything about.”
“Jedao—”
“I’m not a soldier,” he said, as if the battle at Terebeg hadn’t happened. “I dressed up in a uniform I have no claim to. I’m ready for the penalty.”
Mikodez knew better than to reach across the table to pat Jedao’s hand, even if he was reminded of how his nephew Niath had looked when he first came to the Citadel of Eyes after the incident that had ruined him. Instead, Mikodez said, relentless, “Kel Inesser might care about that, but if I’d meant you to be court-martialed, I’d have left you in her hands. You did us a favor killing Kujen.”
Jedao stiffened.
Mikodez had expected that. “I miss him too. We may be the only people who feel that way, however. And it’s still true that he had to die.”
“I know,” Jedao said, but he hunched his shoulders.
“You’re not here because you’re a criminal or a traitor,” Mikodez said. The Kel code of conduct didn’t matter to him. Jedao was dangerous. This was about mitigating danger, not meting out punishment.
“I will not kill for you,” Jedao said in a stronger voice. In that moment, Mikodez saw, like a shadow stretched taut, the man General Jedao might have become, if only.
“How like you,” Mikodez said with an irony that Jedao was incapable of understanding. “Everything in blacks and whites. Have you considered that you might wind up in a situation where your military abilities—however much you’d like to deny them—would save lives? Even, I daresay, do the world some good? Don’t answer. Just think about nuances for once.”
Jedao was silent.
“No,” Mikodez went on, having made his point, “you’re here so I can offer you a job.”
This time the silence was distinctly bewildered.
“Let’s be clear on one thing,” Mikodez said. “As a general you are an asset, but hardly irreplaceable, and not anything like a winning hand, either.” If only Kel Command had figured that out centuries ago. “There are a lot of good generals.”
“I never had any doubt my luck would run out eventually,” Jedao said.
Jedao’s luck had always been decidedly ambivalent, but no need to shove the fact in his face.
“So if I’m not to be your gun,” Jedao said, “then what?”
“I need an instructor,” Mikodez said. “Specifically, I need an instructor to design an ethics curriculum for the Shuos.”
Jedao’s head jerked up. Then he laughed helplessly. “I’m sorry, Shuos-zho, since when do the Shuos care?”
“Normally I don’t,” Mikodez said agreeably. “I don’t have scruples as you understand them. It’s one of the reasons Kujen and I got along so well. We had our disagreements, though. My people don’t use torture.”
Jedao exuded skepticism.
“That’s not because I care about hurting people. I order my share of assassinations. It’s because it doesn’t work in an interrogation context. I don’t believe in doing things that don’t work. It’s wasteful.”
“Everyone has been at pains to tell me how powerful the Shuos have become under your rule,” Jedao said. “You’ll understand, I don’t have the breadth of experience to form an opinion one way or the other. But supposing it’s true, why the offer?”
“Because everything goes up in cinders the moment I die,” Mikodez said. “And because you are an excellent exhibit for how we are doing something wrong, and why I had better fix the problem.” Fuck this. He popped a candy in his mouth. Jedao’s That had better not be poisoned because being blamed for an assassination I didn’t do is too much even for me expression was priceless.
“There’s only one person I trust to succeed me,” Mikodez said, thinking of Zehun and their cats. And some younger prospects, but they needed time to mature into their abilities, time they might not have. “The problem is, they’re significantly older than I am, they’re already as much of a target as I am, and they don’t want the job. There are plenty of senior Shuos with the skills to take over, but most of them would become tyrants if they didn’t start that way. We did this to ourselves, you know. Our entire institutional culture is predicated on backstabbing people. That’s all very well during a game, but deadly for the long-term health of the institution itself. It’s a miracle we’ve lasted this long.”
A flicker in Jedao’s eyes. “You want to reform the Shuos. I assume you’re also pursuing other avenues.”
Mikodez smiled wryly.
Jedao lowered his gaze. “I’ll save you the time,” he said roughly. “You want a curriculum? I’ll give you a three-word treatise: Don’t be me.”
“Such a hothead,” Mikodez said. Another candy. The four-hundred-year-old general had been calculating to the point of resembling an abacus if you looked beyond the deceptively affable mannerisms. But then, even the original couldn’t have started that way. “Or have you lost all your head for strategy? At least hear out the rest of the offer before you reject it out of hand. You should eat, by the way.”
Jedao took a single cracker and bit into it. It was nice having someone around the Citadel follow directions. Not that Mikodez was under any illusions that Jedao would eat without supervision.
“You will be confined to the Citadel of Eyes,” Mikodez said, “rather than posted to one of the academies proper. Partly this is because I need to keep an eye on you. Partly it’s because it’ll trigger a war if word gets out that you’re wandering loose. I can’t guarantee your safety off this station anyway, given your notoriety. If you follow the protocols, you’ll be as safe as I am.” Good thing he didn’t have to listen to Zehun’s sarcastic commentary. They’d give him an earful later. “Your living circumstances won’t be too onerous, I promise. We can make you comfortable, and you’ll have access to companionship.” Aha: a flinch. “I’m going to insist you take advantage of that, by the way. Loneliness does in more Shuos than bullets do.”