Spy's Honor

“Also truth spells and suggestions. It’s boring, I admit,” said Rhianne. “All the women in my line are mind mages, and all the men are war mages. You’d think we might be more creative. But it’s tradition. And mind magic is protective. It allows me a little more freedom than I would otherwise have.” She slipped the amethyst back beneath her clothes. “Janto, what you said before about the Soldier. That’s not what we believe. The war is not about one nation bullying another. The Soldier desires to bring order to the Five Nations, bring them under one banner, put an end to war and strife. For now, there may be some pain, some suffering, but in the long run it’s for the good of all. It is the Soldier’s will, as inevitable and unstoppable as his long march through the skies.”

“Imperial Highness,” said Janto, “do you know what your Kjallan army does when it captures a Mosari village?”

“No.” Her heart sank. She knew it couldn’t be good. Why did he have to tell her these things when she liked him so much, wanted to like him, and he obviously hated her people? He probably hated her too. No wonder he wouldn’t touch her.

“They kill the children.”

Her eyes met his.

“For the slave ships, your people want young, able-bodied men and women,” said Janto. “The old and the very young they have no use for. They line them up on the beach and slaughter them.”

She looked down at her book. This was how he saw her, as the offspring of mass murderers.

“Is this how your people put an end to war and strife? By slaughtering children? Princess, this is a horrific corruption of the Soldier’s purpose. The Soldier stands for courage and strength, not brutality and aggression.”

“War is an unpleasant business, but it’s not—it’s not for me to judge the methods . . . ,” she stammered.

“You’ve never seen the methods, have you?” said Janto. “War is abstract for you. You don’t know what your soldiers actually do.”

She gave him an odd look. “No, because Florian never lets me go anywhere. How can I know?”

“Ask questions and learn,” said Janto. “You’re a smart woman. You know more now than you did half an hour ago.”

6

Rhianne sighed as her attendants fussed over her, making every fold of her gown lie flat and even and every curl in her hair fall in just the right place. It was ridiculous. She was going riding, so in no time at all it would be a mess.

Augustan’s ship had arrived during the night. He’d been escorted up to the palace and ensconced in a stateroom, so she had been told. She was due at the audience chamber, midday, for their formal introduction.

The gown was one of her favorites, green and ivory with gold accents, attractive but reasonably practical; she could wear it in the sidesaddle. Florian had tried to convince her to wear the imperial orange, but with her coloring she simply could not wear orange and come off looking like anything but a butternut squash.

A knock came at the door.

“Tami?” called Rhianne.

The door cracked open. “It’s time.”

Rhianne hopped off her chair and headed for the door, trailed by her entourage, eager to get this frightening business over with. She straightened her shoulders as she walked down the hallway. Perhaps if she could muster the outward appearance of confidence, it would stop her hands from trembling.

When she entered the audience chamber, her eyes went everywhere, searching for the man who must be Augustan, but there was no one in the room she did not already know. Florian stood on a raised platform. The marble throne—one of several he used, in multiple chambers—loomed just behind him, but he was not sitting in it today. The jewel-encrusted loros glittered on his chest. Lucien, immediately to his right, stood balanced on his wooden leg, hands tightly interlaced behind his back as if he wished he could sit on them. The other people in the room were Florian’s usual set of advisers and Legaciatti.

“You look spectacular, my dear,” said Florian, gesturing to the empty spot on his left.

Rhianne took her place beside her uncle, straightened her gown, and waited.

“Bring him in,” called Florian.

A door opened at the far end of the room and three men appeared, one in front and two just behind him— Augustan and his entourage, Rhianne guessed. All were in military dress. If the man in front was Augustan, he was handsome, at least. The three walked smartly up to Florian and knelt before him, bowing as one.

“Rise,” said Florian. The men obeyed. “Augustan Ceres.” Florian stepped forward and clasped wrists with the foremost man.

“Your Imperial Majesty,” answered Augustan.

As they completed their formal greeting and Augustan introduced his two underlings, Rhianne scrutinized him. She couldn’t fault him in the looks department. He was typical Kjallan in many respects: big and muscular, dark in coloration, though his hair was closer to brown than black. He had a pleasing face, although its lines suggested he didn’t smile much, and a scar cut a small jagged line across his chin. She supposed one could hardly wage war as long as Augustan had without collecting an occasional such memento of battle.

“I would like to introduce you,” Florian was saying, “to my niece and adopted daughter, Rhianne Florian Nigellus, Imperial Princess of Kjall.”

“Legatus,” said Rhianne, stepping forward and clasping his wrist.

His face broke into what looked like an unaccustomed smile.

She sat through the usual litany of platitudes and welcome speeches from her uncle, which seemed to bore Augustan as much as they bored her, and finally the two of them were dismissed to the stables for their planned ride, escorted by a dozen servants and Legaciatti. The horses were waiting for them, tacked and ready to go, although Rhianne’s mare, Dice, was wearing the hunt saddle instead of the requested sidesaddle. The groom, when he spotted Rhianne’s gown and realized his mistake, went as white as the mare and led the animal back inside for a tack change.

Augustan swung up on Flash, the dapple gray gelding with a curious tail that was ivory on one side of his body and black on the other. Dice came back wearing the sidesaddle, and the apologetic groom boosted her up and handed her the riding crop. Rhianne hooked her right leg over the saddle horn and smoothed her gown. She preferred riding astride, but Florian had insisted on a formal gown, and he was the emperor, so that was that. The irony was that riding sidesaddle was more precarious and thus more dangerous than riding astride, so, far from being chivalrous, asking a woman to ride sidesaddle demanded more skill from her and asked her to take greater risks than a man. But Rhianne had long given up trying to make sense of it.

She was at no great risk riding Dice. The mare was gentle, with smooth gaits, and her name came from her coloration, not from any tendency toward risky behavior. Dice’s natural color was what horsemen called flea-bitten gray—white flecked with black spots—but the stable staff bleached out the spots, having decided pure white was a color more appropriate for the mount of a princess.

Augustan steered Flash alongside her. “You ought to have that groom whipped.”

“Because of the saddle?” She shook her head. “It was a natural mistake. I usually ride this mare with the hunt saddle.”

“Don’t permit your staff to be lax and lazy around you. It speaks to a lack of discipline. You are a princess, and they should fear to displease you.”

Rhianne stiffened her shoulders. She liked Dice’s groom, who had a close personal connection with the mare and spent hours every day grooming and massaging and exercising the animal, keeping her happy and in top condition. She would not jeopardize that over a tack error. Was Augustan always so rigid and punitive? So far he was fitting bullet-to-bore with his reputation as a stern disciplinarian.

They set off, trotting and cantering down well-worn bridle paths, trailed not so discreetly by their entourage,