I promised you a lot more than that, my heart said. Aloud, I replied, “So I did. And the offer still stands. But I have to get my men out of here.”
I turned reflective while she turned uncharacteristically nervous. I saw the fires of schemes flickering behind her eyes, being rejected. There were ways she could manipulate me. We both knew that. But she never used the personal to gain political ends. Not with me, anyway.
I guess each of us, at some time, finds one person with whom we are compelled toward absolute honesty, one person whose good opinion of us becomes a substitute for the broader opinion of the world. And that opinion becomes more important than all our sneaky, sleazy schemes of greed, lust, self-aggrandizement, whatever we are up to while lying the world into believing we are just plain nice folks. I was her truth object, and she was mine.
There was only one thing we hid from one another, and that was because we were afraid that if it came into the open it would reshape everything else and maybe shatter that broader honesty.
Are lovers ever honest?
“I figure it’ll take us three weeks to reach Opal. It’ll take another week to find a trustworthy shipmaster and to work One-Eye up to crossing the Sea of Torments. So twenty-five days from today I’ll go to the Gardens. I’ll have the Camelia Grotto reserved for the evening.” I patted the lump next to my heart. That lump was a beautifully tooled leather wallet containing papers commissioning me a general in the imperial armed forces and naming me a diplomatic legate answerable only to the Lady herself.
Precious, precious. And one good reason some longtime imperials had a big hate on for me.
I am not sure just how that came about. Some banter during one of those rare hours when she was not issuing decrees or signing proclamations. Next thing I knew I had been brought to bay by a pack of tailors. They fitted me out with a complete imperial wardrobe. Never will I unravel the significance of all the piping, badges, buttons, medals, doodads, and gewgaws. I felt silly wearing all that clutter.
I didn’t need much time to see some possibilities, though, in what at first I interpreted as an elaborate practical joke.
She does have that kind of sense of humor, not always taking this great dreadfully humorless empire of hers seriously.
I am sure she saw the possibilities long before I did.
Anyway, we were talking the Gardens in Opal, and the Camelia Grotto there, the acme of that city’s society see-and-be-seen. “I’ll take my evening meal there,” I told her. “You’re welcome to join me.”
Hints of hidden things tugged at her face. She said, “All right. If I’m in town.”
It was one of those moments in which I become very uncomfortable. One of those times when nothing you say can be right, and almost anything you do say is wrong. I could see no answer but the classic Croaker approach.
I began to back away.
That is how I handle my women. Duck for cover when they get distressed.
I almost made it to the door.
She could move when she wanted. She crossed the gap and put her arms around me, rested a cheek against my chest.
And that is how they handle me, the sentimental fool. The closet romantic. I mean, I don’t even have to know them. They can work that one on me. When they really want to drill me they turn on the water.
I held her till she was ready to be let go. We did not look at one another as I turned and went away. So. She hadn’t gone for the heavy artillery.
She played fair, mostly. Give her that. Even when she was the Lady. Slick, tricky, but more or less fair.
The job of legate comes with all sorts of rights to subinfeudation and plunder of the treasury. I had drafted that pack of tailors and turned them loose on the men. I handed out commissions. I waved my magic wand and One-Eye and Goblin became colonels. Hagop and Otto turned into captains. I even cast a glamor on Murgen, so that he looked like a lieutenant. I drew us all three months’ pay in advance. It all boggled the others. I think one reason One-Eye was anxious to get moving was an eagerness to get off somewhere where he could abuse his newfound privileges. For the time being, though, he mostly bickered with Goblin about whose commission carried the greater seniority. Those two never once questioned our shift in fortunes.
The weirdest part was when she called me in to present my commissions, and insisted on a real name to enter into the record. It took me a while to remember what my name was.
We rode out as threatened. Only we did not do it as the ragged band that rode in.
I travelled in a black iron coach drawn by six raging black stallions, with Murgen driving and Otto and Hagpp riding as guards. With a string of saddle horses trailing behind. One-Eye and Goblin, disdaining the coach, rode before and behind upon mounts as fey and magnificent as the beasts which pulled the coach. With twenty-six Horse Guards as escort.
The horses she gave us were of a wild and wonderful breed, hitherto given only to the greatest champions of her empire. I had ridden one once, long ago, during the Battle at Charm, when she and I had chased down Soulcatcher. They could run forever without tiring. They were magical beasts. They constituted a gift precious beyond belief.
How do these weird things happen to me?
A year earlier I was living in a hole in the ground, under that boil on the butt of the world, the Plain of Fear, with fifty other men, constantly afraid we would be discovered by the empire. I had not had new or clean clothing in a decade, and baths and shaves were as rare and dear as diamonds.
Lying opposite me in that coach was a black bow, the first gift she ever gave me, so many years ago, before the Company deserted her. It was precious in its own right.
How the wheel turns.
Chapter Six
Opal
Hagop stared as I finished primping. “Gods. You really look the part, Croaker.”
Otto said, “Amazing what a bath and a shave will do. I believe the word is ’distinguished.’”
“Looks like a supernatural miracle to me, Ott.”
“Be sarcastic, you guys.”
“I mean it,” Otto said. “You do look good. If you had a little rug to cover where your hairline is running back toward your butt...”
He did mean it. “Well, then,” I mumbled, uncomfortable. I changed the subject. “I meant what I said. Keep those two in line.” In town only four days and already I’d bailed Goblin and One-Eye out of trouble twice. There was a limit to what even a legate could cover, hush, and smooth over.
“There’s only three of us, Croaker,” Hagop protested. “What do you want? They don’t want to be kept in line.”
“I know you guys. You’ll think of something. While you’re at it, get this junk packed up. It has to go down to the ship.”
“Yes sir, your grand legateship, sir.”
I was about to deliver one of my fiery, witty, withering rejoinders when Murgen stuck his head into the room and said, “The coach is ready, Croaker.”
And Hagop wondered aloud, “How do we keep them in line when we don’t even know where they are? Nobody’s seen them since lunchtime.”
I went out to the coach hoping I would not get an ulcer before I got out of the empire.
We roared through Opal’s streets, my escort of Horse Guards, my black stallions, my ringing black iron coach, and I. Sparks flew around the horses’ hooves and the coach’s steel wheels. Dramatic, but riding in that metal monster was like being locked inside a steel box that was being enthusiastically pounded by vandalistic giants.
We swept up to the Gardens’ understated gate, scattering gawkers. I stepped down, stood more stiffly erect than was my wont, made an effete gesture of dismissal copied from some prince seen somewhere along life’s
