“Morning, Mother. Senators,” she bellowed, her voice carrying as she bounded up the short stairs to take her seat in a smaller throne beside the queen. “How can I be of service today?”
• NOVA •
Sanji’s been ill.
Nova replayed Van’s nonchalant words in her mind and read the memory of their body language for signs that they’d known anything about this. Sanji was an attendant to the Drake household. He’d never missed a report before this month. Was he truly ill? Or was he a part of whatever this was?
“Unclench your jaw,” Cutter whispered to Nova. They stood together at the forefront of the drill pad while their captains finished opening ranks for inspection. Cadence and calls for facing movements bounced off the terra-cotta training structures surrounding the brick clearing as hundreds of soldiers were marched into precise grid formations.
Row by row, Nova would take in their faces and match them to the memory she had of yesterday’s outing. She unclenched her jaw but chewed her tongue instead. She had to remember them all. If she missed even one, they were all in danger. So much of a guardian’s job was memory. Only she and Cutter knew the interior tunnels of theRock, and those numbered close to a hundred. She’d counted maybe a dozen heads surrounding Dahlia, but only five of them in uniform.
The commands halted; the only sound remaining was that of the high wind. The quartermaster approached with a salute and handed Cutter a clipboard. “All present and accounted for,” she declared. There was worry on her face even if she didn’t say as much. The assembly hadn’t been scheduled.
“Bold of them,” Nova muttered as Cutter passed the clipboard to her. He’d made it clear this was her operation. Nova scanned the pages of names but took in none of them, only the black dots beside the names of soldiers Cutter now had guarding the place instead of in formation. They were all older. His generation. People he trusted. Irritating, because it wasn’t just the young in that tavern, but now wasn’t the time to get into it with Cutter about his bias. She turned to inspect the loose line of older soldiers blocking the way to the bridge behind them. They were a weathered bunch. Strong, but much too casual in their military bearing.
Nova frowned as her gaze lingered on one of them. “Shouldn’t they be out there, too?” she asked Cutter. “Pulling out the oldheads is going to leave gaps in our coverage.”
“Someone has to secure the perimeter, and we can’t take the palace guard while the queen is inside. Why? Is there someone I should be concerned about?”
Nova pretended to flip through the names on the clipboard. No sense in making a scene so soon. “Let’s get moving.”
She stepped toward the first order—four columns of twenty—as they were called to attention. Cutter and the ground force quartermaster followed with somber expressions.
First man: a Mr. Oaken. Lanky, mid-twenties. Boots serviceable if not sparkling. Uniform properly laundered, pressed, bloused, aligned. She let on no approval or disapproval of his appearance but simply moved on to the next, taking them in casually and keeping her attention somewhat distant and focused on any nervous fidgeting in her periphery.
Some of the faces she knew. She’d grown up with or had been taught by them. War created orphans, and the military or the Kept provided…carefor them. Nova and her sister Illowé were born into this, but Illowé didn’t do worship or structure terribly well. So she left, and Nova was conscripted into the queensguard, where she excelled and became singular in her rank. She was in a position of command and hadn’t had a company of peers in a long time.
Second order, third column, fifth man: Mr. Cherry. Dead-eyed, in need of a shave. Boots passable, missing jacket button. Worthy of a demerit, certainly, perhaps a laundry detail. But he hadn’t been at the bar.
By the twelfth order, the sun was high and the fidgeting among them became more pronounced. Open ranks was a slow, tiresome process under the best of circumstances, but she hoped the tedium this time would make someone restless, sloppy. Someone here knew she was searching.
Nova was grateful both for the breeze and to not have to repeat the exercise with the entirety of the military. It wasn’t the navy in the bar. They’d all been on exercise. The poison had taken root in the ground force. The sea around her was that of stately green uniforms, which also meant that the plans in play were for an attack by land, not water.
She paused long enough in front of the twelfth order’s captain for Cutter to quirk his eyebrow in her direction.
Mr. Caphree. Tallish, brown-skinned. A smooth-enough bearing, but his swallows trended more toward labored gulps and the collar of his sand-colored shirt was damp with sweat.
“Are you ill, Captain?” Nova asked him, recalling vaguely a head of locs that nearly matched his length on the edge of last night’s crowd.
“No, xir,” he replied with confidence.
“Are you sure? It’s a cool day. And you are very sweaty.”
Mr. Caphree did not respond. Nova gave Cutter a barely perceptible nod as she moved on to the next soldier. If a captain was involved, chances were the others were in his order. And if it was, in fact, all of them who’d been compromised, Nova considered herself in danger to walk among them. Cutter signaled a trio of armed officers standing onthe edge of the drill pad to attend him. They positioned themselves on the outer edge of the order, effectively breathing down Mr. Caphree’s neck. The arrival of the officers triggered nervous glances, and Nova knew she’d found them.
She moved through the rest of the order, signaling the quartermaster to jot down half a dozen names as their faces lit in her memory. Every time she did so, the named soldier before her signaled their awareness, a readiness or defiance. A set jaw, a clenched fist, a moment’s flickering eye contact. They understood each other and that arrest was imminent. But whomever their leader ultimately was didn’t seem to want a spectacle, because not one of them moved to strike her.
Nova made her way through the remaining orders for the sake of being thorough, but did so quickly enough that the usurpers she’d found wouldn’t have the time to organize retaliation. Thankfully, they seemed confined to the one order. Somewhat relieved, she made her way back to the center of the drill pad.
“The following names in Her Majesty’s Twelfth Order, step forward: Caphree, Silkwood, G. Grey, Wall, Tenerive,” she ordered. Some shuffled forward; some stood boldly out of their lines. That a Grey was among them was disappointing.
“The five of you, in your uniform, sat at the feet of a usurper yesterday, entertaining treason. You will be made accountable for—”
Wall, a visibly surly and small man with a damp bush of dark curls, burst forth from the order, knocking the other startled soldiers aside. He looked Nova in the eye as he pushed forward, froth-mouthed and with a short blade raised in a tight fist overhead. She squinted at him and assessed his target by the angle of his knife: a downward plunge into her neck, perhaps. Messy, if he could land it.
He lunged and Nova pivoted, allowing the blade to come down and slice empty air in front of her. In that instant, Cutter stepped forward and palmed the back of the soldier’s head, driving his face into the ground and sending the blade clattering.
“Whore!” Wall spat, Cutter’s boot on his face as the guards boundand collected him. “Fish and their bedwenches are the only traitors here. No masters but Men!”
