Kiva looked for a moment as though he’d argue, but in the end shrugged and stepped aside onto the springy turf. As Athas went past frowning at him and the column slowly trooped on along the road, Mercurias stood face to face with the captain and pointed his finger at him, inches from Kiva’s nose.
“You listen here Kiva Caerdin. I’m a little bit older that you and a hell of a lot more sensible. Athas is absolutely right: you need to make some decisions before we reach Serfium. Your men are slipping away from you, you know?”
Kiva raised one eyebrow as he folded his arms and the medic went on. “Quintillian is the most important thing any of us has seen in more than twenty years and he’s got the touch. The sentimental and the optimistic are already forming their own ideas and making their own decisions about him. If you can’t control the situation, you’re going to lose men at Serfium and I won’t allow that.”
“
“No. They’re my unit and my friends as well as yours. You’re a good commander. Hell, you’re one of the best, but the time’s come to stop being bitter and pessimistic and actually strive for something. Tell me honestly, do you still have even the faintest intention of sending him off in a boat at Serfium?”
Kiva glared at the grizzled medic for a while and eventually shook his head. “Mercurias, I don’t want to see the lad sent back to his island. Hell if we did that he’d be dead in a week, as soon as Velutio found out he was back. On the other hand, Velutio wants me dead, so I’m a liability to him. Where can we take him? He might have been better going with Tythias up to Vengen. At least he’d be safely out of the way there.”
Mercurias nodded. “At least now you’re thinking. So you don’t want to send him back to the island, but you don’t want to travel with him. You’re ruling things out… keep going.”
Kiva glanced across in annoyance, but the medic was absolutely right, and so was Athas. He’d apologise to the sergeant later. “I know what the men want to do. I heard Brendan the other night when he’d had a few too many battering on about a war and a new Empire and so on, but that’s just not feasible.” He held up his hands in supplication. “There’ll be a new Empire soon enough, but it’ll be Velutio’s, and then the rest of us’ll have to find places of exile. Velutio’s the only one with enough of a power base. Every war we fight makes the other lords weaker, while he just keeps getting stronger. Every month another lord swears fealty to him and it’s almost got to the point now where he’s more powerful than all the others put together. It doesn’t matter how good our cause is, we’ve no hope of going up against someone like him and time’s almost up.”
Mercurias nodded. “Fair enough. You can’t send him home, you can’t keep travelling with him and you’re not ready to start a war. What’s left then?”
“I really don’t know. Why d’you think I haven’t made a fucking decision? I’m just hoping we can get to Serfium safely. I’ve got plenty of friends there and we’ll find out a lot more about what’s going on then. We can’t make any kind of move, but we can’t delay forever. What would you do?”
Mercurias shrugged. “I don’t make command decisions. I’m a medic, remember? If I could plan like that, I’d have been a commander.”
The two began to walk fast, catching up with the unit, already a long way down the path. As they walked in silence with Mercurias quietly humming an old tune, Kiva’s mind churned possibilities constantly. It was true that the unit suddenly felt different these past few weeks. They’d always got by as they were, but now the men were adrift and looking for some kind of purpose and he really couldn’t work out what direction that should be. If there were some way to break Velutio’s power then the world of opportunity would open up in front of them, but that was such a massive undertaking with no real chance of success. Hell, he was a cursed man; a deicide. The fates were unlikely to be kind to him.
Perhaps he could go home. He’d not been in his native northlands since he was young and energetic. He couldn’t even remember how to speak their language these days, but at least the boy should be safe there. Maybe he could leave him there and then the company could get back to its business. He grunted in annoyance and reached down, clutching his side. The pain was back. For some reason it always got worse when he was angry, but it was getting noticeably more regular and more painful as the years passed. He reached into his tunic and pulled out his flask, taking a swig of the nectar within and feeling the numbing warmth envelop the sharp sting beneath his ribs. He looked up to see Mercurias watching him.
“You never let me look at that” the medic complained.
Kiva shrugged. “Nothing you could do. Nothing anyone can do.”
“How the hell do you know?”
“I spent a while in a temple when it happened, remember? A very good surgeon looked me over and decided it was too close to my liver to touch and the muscle was healing around it. Even if I sneeze it grazes me. Can’t be removed, so I’ve just got to live with it.”
Mercurias snorted. “Just like you then.”
Kiva glanced sidelong at the medic and smiled humourlessly. “I’m going ahead to talk to Quintillian. You just keep your funny comments to yourself.”
With that he jogged on ahead, wincing with each step as the pain hadn’t quite subsided yet. As he passed the rest of the unit and they acknowledged him with nods and salutes, he noted once again the subtle change in the men. They looked different, and not necessarily in a good way. The carefree smiles they habitually wore had been replaced by looks of concern and thoughtfulness. Perhaps it’d have been better if the boy had never found them.
Quintillian was only a hundred yards ahead of the group. He and Marco were walking side by side deep in conversation when Kiva dropped to a walking pace beside them. With a quick glance at the boy, he nodded to Marco. “Go back and join the others. I’m taking point until we get to the village.”
As Marco nodded and slowed to let the rest of the unit catch up, Kiva settled in to walk along side the lad.
“I’ve been thinking about what happens when we get to Serfium. You want to go back to Isera. Now I know Isera. Used to spend quite a lot of time there and I know that it’s part of the demesne of Velutio. Going back there is just going back into captivity and, worse, Velutio now has your death warrant ordered, so he’s unlikely to let you live even if you go back voluntarily. I assume you used one of the old Imperial escape routes to get off the island. If we’re very lucky I might recognise the route since I’ve used them before, but very few know of them. There are a couple of people in Serfium that’ll know how to get there, but it doesn’t solve the problem of why you’d want to go back. Tell me.”
He looked ahead as they crested a hill and spotted the smoke from the chimneys of the village around half a mile away. “And give me the short version.”
Quintillian sighed. “I’m not going to be safe anywhere now captain. It strikes me that the safest place for an escaped prisoner to hide is in his cell. It is, after all, the last place the guards would look. Sarios and the elders would hide me away. It may not be a permanent solution, but it’s the best I can think of.”
Kiva nodded. “In theory it’s all well and good but now that Velutio knows you escaped from the island, you can bet there’s a garrison there and though Sarios is a very subtle and clever man, he can’t hide you for long on a patrolled island the size of Isera. There’s got to be another way forward, but I just can’t think of it yet.”
Quintillian smiled. “Well while that tactical brain of yours is coming up with a solution, what better place for us to be than in Serfium, where you used to live and on Isera where I have many friends.” He frowned. “Are we on terms where I can ask you personal questions yet captain?”
Kiva sighed. It was another one of those trying days. “Go on. If it’s too personal I’ll tell you, don’t worry.”
Quintillian swallowed nervously. He’d been avoiding certain subjects for so long he wasn’t sure whether he was comfortable asking about them. “It’s about your estate there. In Serfium” he added with an inherent question.
“Not a subject likely to endear you.”
“No.” Quintillian raised his brows. “But I think you owe it to me to tell me something. I know that we’re related you see.”
Kiva frowned. “We’re not related. You’re related to… her.”
“Livilla.” Quintillian nodded. “But that makes you a relation of sorts. “I want to know what happened when my uncle died. I’ve read the histories, but Mercurias keeps telling me that they never give the whole story, and it’s the story of my family and their friends, so I’d rather like to know the truth.
Kiva glanced aside at the boy. His speech had become noticeably easier and less fancy during his time with
