Chapter 71
Ironfist was on his way to the White’s quarters on top of the tower when he saw Blackguards standing outside the Prism’s apartments. Since he’d just left Gavin, they could only be hers.
The commander knocked on the door.
“Come in,” the White said.
The White was in her wheeled chair. Before her, Gavin Guile’s room slave Marissia was on her knees, laying her head in the White’s lap. Tears streaked the room slave’s face, and the White was soothing her.
“Gavin Guile’s back. He’s one floor down,” Ironfist said. The sometimes fractious relationship between the White and the Prism didn’t need the additional strain of Gavin finding the White in his room. Gavin liked his private space.
Marissia hopped to her feet, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. “Oh! I cry once a year and he invariably-Mother, thank you. I will do as you’ve said.”
“Orholam bless you, child. We’ll leave now so we don’t make your life any more complicated than necessary,” Orea Pullawr said. “Commander?”
He wheeled her out into the hallway. It was much faster for him to do so, but it was also evidence of her growing frailty. Not two months ago, she would have angrily refused to let anyone push her around like she was an invalid.
Nor did she take over when they went down the hall. She seemed tired.
One Blackguard preceded them, and the other took their backs. Even here, they guarded.
“One thing I never considered about getting old,” the White said, as Ironfist rolled her in front of her desk and then released her, to sit opposite her. “It makes spying so much harder.”
“I thought that you had people for such things,” Ironfist said.
“You can never leave such things entirely in other hands. It puts you at the mercy of your own spymaster. Or spymistress, as the case may be.”
Spymistress? What? Did she mean-“Marissia?” Ironfist asked, incredulous. “She’s your-”
The White said nothing for a long moment, and Ironfist’s mind whirled at the implications. Marissia did have unfettered access to this floor at all times, but she could also move freely among the other slaves in the tower. Her position as a slave to the most important man in the world made her exist in a social gray zone: if needed, she could mix socially with the lowest scullery boy, or she could chide the richest merchant on Big Jasper. A smart woman would exploit the advantages of such a situation, and Ironfist knew that Marissia was definitely a smart woman.
“No, she’s not,” the White said finally. “But just now, you were thinking as I must think all the time. As Gavin must think.”
“That’s harder than juggling the odds of a rival pulling a good card,” Ironfist said.
“One gets better with practice. But I prattle.” She tented her hands in her lap, sat quietly. She glanced at his bare head, then back to his eyes. Waited.
Ironfist rubbed his bare head, the stubbly hairs growing in like stubborn weeds of faith he could cut but not uproot. If he couldn’t trust the White, who could he? Even if she was faithless. Of course, he was faithless now, too. Did that make him less trustworthy?
He laughed quietly to himself. Truth was, he didn’t know.
“I may be on the verge of losing my position. What was your big gamble?”
“Cards on the table, huh?” the White said.
“I at least appear to have very little to lose.”
“Those who fold have no right to see the cards of those who stay in the game,” the White said.
“Metaphors break down.”
The White was quiet for a long moment, staring into the depths of him. He was impassive under her gaze. “You’ve stopped wearing your ghotra. It’s hard to fail to notice such a thing. How should I react to that, Commander? Personally, or politically?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Politically, you may have just made it impossible for me to save you. You’ve gone apostate. Most people don’t wear the evidence of their faith on their heads-or take it off when they have doubts. You do. If the Black lists your apostasy as a reason to remove you from office, you’ll admit it’s true. So, politically, you’ve put the knife to your own throat.”
He hadn’t even thought of that. His religion-or lack thereof-wasn’t some public show. How could not the outer man reflect the inner?
“Of course, you could defang that by simply putting your damn hat back on. Explain to anyone who asks that you removed it in mourning for your lost, which is true. Partly. But you won’t do that.”
“To be a man is to bring together that which you should be and that which you are. Deception is darkness.”
“And did not Orholam himself set the world to spinning, so that there may be both times of light and times of darkness? The greater light and its nightly mirror do not shine on all the world constantly.”
“That’s generally understood to allow for moral exceptions to the rule in the case of war,” Ironfist said, a little stiffly.
“Do you think we have not been at war these sixteen years?” the White said quietly.
“Does being the White mean getting to define war as anything you want it to be?”
“You met Corvan Danavis, did you not?” she asked. “Oh yes, of course you did, at Garriston. He used to say, ‘Not all sharks and sea demons swim Ceres’ seas.’ ”
“We’re awash in metaphors, Mistress. I’m a simple man.”
“Simplicity has its own power, Harrdun. As well you know. Yes, then. Yes, being White means I decide what is war. And when to threaten it.” She smiled thinly.
Ironfist waited.
“As you know, I select the commander of the Blackguard, and the Black has the power to remove you. It’s meant to balance our power. Really, it’s meant to diminish mine. But what perhaps you don’t appreciate is that after you are removed, I could simply appoint you again.”
“And he would remove me again.”
“Precipitating a crisis. But if you stayed, retained your quarters, continued giving orders, assigning shifts, how many of your Blackguards would abide by your choice and mine, over Carver Black’s?”
What she was proposing could precipitate civil war. Ironfist raised his hands. “Hold. Wait, wait, wait. I’m not worth the kind of carnage you’re inviting here.”
“No, you’re not.”
She wasn’t making sense. Was she finally going senile? No, the intensity in her desaturated blue, gray, and green eyes showed that nothing had shaken her deep intelligence.
“So what is it? I’m another front in your war?” Ironfist asked.
“Precisely. Carver Black doesn’t hate you. In fact, he likes you. Andross Guile has something over him. I haven’t ever been able to find out what it is, but we can put the problem back in his court: ask him if he wants to destroy the Blackguard, now, over his dirty laundry.”
“So you’re hoping Carver Black blinks.”
“That’s right,” the White said.
“Well, at least you realize that Andross Guile won’t.”
“Never.”
“I don’t want this on my head. I love my people. I don’t want to gamble with their lives. That’s a game for worse men.”
“Or women,” she said lightly. Meaning herself?
“Or women.” He refused to be taken in by her self-deprecation. Her charm. She was smarter than he was, fine. He didn’t have to play this game. “I am the best of the Blackguard for my position, but every man and woman is loyal to our task. Losing me is a serious loss, but not one from which the Blackguard cannot recover.” He stood. He was finished with this. He wouldn’t miss all of it.
“You assume your successor would be chosen from the Blackguard’s ranks.”
He blinked. “I suppose you can choose anyone you want. You aren’t going to choose someone bad for the job simply to spite me. You can threaten it now, but I know you too well. Once I’m gone, there’ll be no reason for you to hurt yourself.”
“Stop playing against me, you simpleton! Understand how Andross Guile works. After stripping you of your position, and disgracing you, he will use your disgrace to besmirch my judgment. He will already have the four votes he needs to pass an injunction circumscribing my authority by this little bit: he will then, through Carver, appoint your successor.”