“I assure you,” said Amris, “I desire no promotion. Should we leave this alive, I’ll eagerly relinquish my rank.”
What he’d do then, he had no idea, but that was a matter for another day.
“Is that what you told Hallis? Or did youtellhim anything?”
“Sirrah,” said Amris, “that is flagrant disrespect to your commander. I advise you to rethink both your words and your state of mind, and do so speedily. We have far worse things to face than one another.”
“Soyousay,” said one of the women.
“Yes.” Amris regarded them one at a time. They didn’t want to believe what was coming. He was the one who’d brought the news. “I will not fight you, if that’s what you hope to achieve. Insinuate anything else about Commander Hallis, and I’ll see to it that you spend tomorrow morning doing the worst work in the keep, ale-head or no. That’s all.”
“And,” Darya added, “he’s not the only one who’s saying it. Any of it.” She hadn’t yet stood, but a coiled-spring tension in her body suggested she could be on her feet with blinding speed.
“Ah, yes”—another of the men chimed in—“youwitnessed the invasion. It’s an emergency. So your gang of aberrations put your tool in place instead of those born to the responsibility.”
“Says a fellow who couldn’t put his tool in place with both hands and a diagram.” Branwyn’s voice was low, almost seductive, and a smile played over her lips. “Or that’s the word in Affiran.”
The man flushed an ugly red and made a move toward the knife at his belt, but Olvir put a hand on his arm. “This will do none of us any good,” he said, and touched the silver crescent around his neck. “As a servant of the Silver Wind, I give you my word they speak truly, no matter how much any of us might wish otherwise.”
“Doesn’t make it all right, stealing a man’s command,” the first man muttered, but his friend stopped reaching for his knife, and all of them dropped their gazes when Olvir kept looking at them. His eyes were as mild and brown as ever, but Amris felt a presence behind them, one miles and years beyond the peaceable young man who shared his room, and yet not completely separate from him.
Amris sensed the Sentinels and Olvir watching him, waiting to follow his lead. It wasn’t a matter of direct command—they, of everyone in the room, were least obliged to take his orders, and they, unlike everyone else in the room, might actually know more about their foes in some aspects than he did—but he had led men more times, and in greater numbers, than any of them. This was his terrain, and they would follow him as he’d followed Darya through the forest and into the underbrush.
“Take heart, then,” said Amris, with as easy a smile as he could muster. “Many an officer doesn’t survive battle. You may yet climb to glory over my body.”
“Morbid bastard,” said the woman who’d been quiet until then. “Come on, Brynart. There’s still a fair amount of beer to go around.”
They headed over to the barrels, making a good show of walking slowly and never looking back. Amris took that into account and sat down anyhow.
“She’s not entirely wrong,” said Branwyn. “Though I’m sure your parents were very respectable.”
“They were wed when I was born, at any rate,” Amris said. His oldest brother had been a little “early,” but still well within the realm of legitimacy, especially for farming folk.
“Prolapsed arsehole,” said Darya. “Wouldn’t have blamed you for breaking his nose.”
Yes, you would, said Gerant. You’d have said Amris should start with the kneecaps.
“Or the bollocks. Yeah.” The other Sentinels, clearly guessing the gist of things, laughed only a second or two after Darya.
“We need every able, warm body we can get,” Amris replied, “in as good condition as we can be. And that”—he gestured toward the nobleman and his friends—“was as much nerves as it was temper. Once we’ve had a battle or two, they’ll most likely settle down.”
“I think,” said Katrine, “that we should all have another drink or two.”
They did. There wasn’t enough to get most people really drunk—Darya suspected that the inbred shitpile and his friends had been using it as an excuse more than anything—and Sentinels held their beer well, anyhow, she more than most. Still, after a mug or two, she was pleasantly relaxed and lounging on the floor, resting her weight on alternate elbows and absently cursing the lack of cushions.
“There were very nearly wars over flowers,” Amris said. He sat up straight, even after beer, with his legs folded neatly under him and his hands light on the firm length of his thighs, which Darya was trying not to notice. “When first I found employment in Heliodar, it was with a noblewoman—guarding her prize roses by night, lest her rival send agents to steal cuttings.”
“Sounds like a euphemism,” said Branwyn. “Were the lady’s roses lovely and fragrant?”
The crowd laughed—and itwasa crowd, if a small one. Their circle had opened up, letting in soldiers. Tebengri’s head was in Branwyn’s lap, where the Sentinel idly played with their hair—Good thing, Darya thought,that army mages get their own quarters. Katrine and Emeth were enough to deal with secondhand.
Of the men she could have had without guilt, both of the appealing ones had vanished, one into the darkness of the bar, and the other off with a pleasantly curvy redhead. Darya had seen him go when the potential fight had died down, but she didn’t want to cut in on anyone else’s good time—assuming she could have managed it. The blond man had been gone entirely.
That left Olvir, who was listening to Amris and laughing like the rest of them were, as though he wasn’t freakish and god-touched. So was Darya—but stopping a fight with a word was, somehow, far more unnerving than killing things.
“They were,” said Amris, “but the lady herself was well into her eighties and not a pleasant woman.”
Her niece, however…Gerant added, making Darya laugh harder than the others.
