Spy's Honor

involved in this, Mosari. She has too much of a tendency to let her heart override her good sense.”

“It wouldn’t work,” said Rhianne. “My suggestions are short in duration and limited in their power. They can’t change how a man thinks or alter his behavior over the long term.”

“Killing him or crippling him is out of the question,” said Janto. “Other considerations aside, there’d be an investigation. What we really want is to frighten him somehow. Humiliate him.”

Suddenly, Lucien looked up. “Perhaps the sackcloth treatment.”

“What’s that?” asked Janto.

“If an officer bullies his men too much, they gang up on him one night, stuff him in a sackcloth bag, and beat on him with hollow training staves. The staves leave bruises but don’t break bones. It isn’t exactly legal, but it’s an old tradition, and most people look the other way when it happens. It reminds bad officers that their purpose is to lead, not to be tyrants.”

“That might work,” said Rhianne.

“Can we get staves and sackcloth?” asked Janto.

“I can,” said Rhianne. “Do you think the slave women will agree to take part?”

“I don’t know,” said Janto. “I’ll ask a friend.”

“If women are going to carry this out, you might want something heavier than hollow staves,” said Lucien.

“They’ll hit harder than you think, Cousin,” said Rhianne. “And we can’t risk killing him; that would lead to an inquiry. Do you suppose visible bruises will be a problem? It will be better for all of us if Micah keeps the attack a secret, but he won’t be able to if the evidence is on his face.”

“Just don’t hit him in the head,” said Lucien. “After you put him in the bag, protect his head with something. A helmet would work, but in the army they prefer an empty chamber pot. And stop saying we—you’re not to be personally involved, Rhianne.” He leveled an icy stare at Janto. “Mosari, if you want to carry this out, fine. But if anything happens to Her Imperial Highness, I’m holding you responsible.”

“I would never let anything happen to Her Imperial Highness,” said Janto.

Rhianne picked up Lucien’s hand and squeezed it. “You won’t say anything to Florian, will you?”

“Of course not,” said Lucien. “Cousin, it’s time for this Mosari to go back to wherever he comes from. And you come back with me. I want to talk to you.”

14

As Rhianne headed to Lucien’s rooms, trailed by her perfidious tattletale of a bodyguard, she debated just how much she could and couldn’t tell her cousin about Janto, since it was clear he intended to ask. She had never in her life kept secrets from Lucien, and it killed her to start now, but she couldn’t tell him Janto was a spy. That was too big a burden for Lucien to carry.

The guards opened the doors to her cousin’s chambers. She took a deep breath as she entered.

Lucien paced the floor. Leaning on his crutch, he waved at Tamienne. “Out. This is a private discussion.” He gestured at his own guards, and everybody departed, closing the doors behind them.

Rhianne strode across the room and flung herself onto one of Lucien’s couches. “Why can’t I make her do that?”

“The privileges of rank.” Lucien sat across from her. “Look, you can’t keep getting involved in these things. First there was the seamstress with the blackmail problem—”

“I got her out of that mess fine, and I just used forgetting spells all around, so where’s the harm?”

“Then the stableboy who was being abused—”

“Got him out too, and no harm done there either.” Rhianne smiled. “Who’d have known our little trip to the Consualian Games would have led to all this?”

“You’d better not have told that Mosari fellow about the Consualian Games. Or the hypocaust.”

“Of course not.”

Lucien relaxed a little. “Then there was Morgan, and now this Mosari fellow.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “Cousin, you’ve got a good head on your shoulders, but sometimes when you get a bug in your ear about something, you lose all sense of reason.”

“I know it’s something you don’t understand,” said Rhianne. “But you’re not me. Florian did a terrible thing to my mother, and I’ve grown up without her, and I don’t know where in the world she is.” Her voice broke, and she squeezed her eyes shut. “I’ll never find her. But somehow I feel that when I help these other people Florian has harmed, then maybe, just maybe, I’m making her proud.”

“Rhianne,” he said softly, “I know she’s proud of you. I’m proud of you. And I will always keep your secrets. I just worry. It’s one thing to help out the less fortunate of our own people, but that Mosari—he’s an enemy. You told me you weren’t going to have any more to do with him.”

“After we get this problem solved, I’ll never see him again.”

Lucien sighed. “Who is he really, and why does he call you Rhianne?”

“He used to be a scribe in the Mosari palace. He’s educated. Very knowledgeable, very intelligent. I enlisted him to teach me his language.”

“If he’s a palace scribe, I’m a ditch digger. That man is Mosari nobility, or at least he used to be. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

“I suspect that as well,” said Rhianne. “But it doesn’t matter. His country will be conquered, and when that happens, it won’t matter what family he came from.”

“On the contrary,” said Lucien. “When we conquered Riorca, we purged their aristocracy down to the last man, woman, and child. Augustan will do the same in Mosar. If your Mosari is part of that aristocracy, he needs to conceal his ancestry. He’s not doing a very good job of that now.”

“We’re purging the aristocracy?” said Rhianne. “Is that the word we use? Three gods.” And she was sending Janto out of the country, presumably to go home to Mosar. Where, all too soon, he’d be rounded up and staked along with his family, courtesy of her lovely fiance. Worse, maybe the purge wouldn’t take place until she and Augustan were married. Then she’d have a front-row seat for the whole affair.

“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

Rhianne blinked, astonished the conversation had taken this turn. “With Janto? In love?” She was honestly surprised by the question. But not just because Lucien had asked it. She was surprised to discover her own feelings in reaction. Still, this was not something she could tell her cousin. “No . . . not in love.”

“You have feelings for him.”

She was more comfortable with that phrasing. It still surprised her that Lucien had picked up on it. But then, the changes that had happened in Lucien during the past few years ran deeper than the physical. It was unfortunate that Florian saw Lucien’s sensitivity as a weakness, when in fact it was his greatest strength. Lucien picked up nuances Florian not only failed to perceive, but lacked the capacity to understand.

“It was Janto you had the arguments with, wasn’t it? About the war.” Lucien gave a snort of laughter. “And here I thought it was Augustan.”

Rhianne leaned back in her chair. “He’s opened my eyes about a few things. And so have you.”

“You’re flirting with treason,” said Lucien.

Already there, Cousin. “You said yourself the war is bad for Kjall.”

“There’s a big difference between saying that in a Kjallan Council of War and saying it to a Mosari nobleman who, for all you know, may be funneling information to the mother country. They have spies.”

“I don’t tell him anything like that,” said Rhianne. “We’re just trying to stop the slave overseer from raping the women.”

“Cousin.” Lucien hesitated, biting his lip. “You don’t like Augustan. It was obvious when he was here, and I don’t blame you. I didn’t like him either.”

Rhianne lowered her eyes.

“Do you think this thing with Janto . . . Are you perhaps looking for an affair before your marriage?”