In Her Shadow (12 page)

"They thought it was a sign."

"Yes, ma'am."

Britta relaxed in her chair again. "Presumptuous," she said under her breath.

The girl – what was her name? – pulled the lid off the tray, revealing a steaming pile of seafood beneath. "I don't know what you like," she said. "I'm afraid I'm not a very good cook. My mother tried to teach me but. . ."

The girl's voice trailed off and her eyes unfocused. Britta grabbed the girl's wrist and pulled her close, until the child, too big really, was in her lap. The girl sobbed quietly, jerking a little with each hiccuped tear.

"I want to tell you it's going to be okay," said Britta. "I want to tell you it will all work out in the end, that your heart will mend. I can't, New Moon. I can't promise to give you back the life – the people – you've lost. All I can do is offer you comfort in the arms of a new family. It won't be the same. You'll always miss your parents, your brothers and sisters. But when you're lost and hurting, know you'll always have us."

"Promise?" said the girl, her face buried in Britta's robes.

"I promise. I promise to teach you to lead too. I promise to prepare your for your role as leader of this abbey. No one ever taught me, and I've only had the job a little while, so I can't promise to be a good teacher, but I'll do my best."

The girl looked up at Britta, eyes blurry and cheeks tear streaked. "Some of the other sisters say this is the end for the abbey. They say the last Abbess set you up to fail."

Britta brushed a tear away from the girl's cheek with her thumb. "As long as there is a New Moon, there is an abbey. Now, let's eat. And after, we'll make plans about how we're going to handle the Regnals."

"Do you plan to fight them?"

"No," said Britta. "I plan to show them how much they need us."

Dux Lucius pulled the chair out from the table across from Weboshi and sat. Her dark hair unkempt and her dark eyes ringed with exhaustion, she looked old before her years. What had happened to the fierce woman who'd kicked him out of the abbey not so long ago? "Have you eaten?" he asked.

"No," she said in a dry croak.

"I told the men to bring you something. If they didn't, I'll–"

"No need to punish them, Dux Lucius. They brought me food. I'm not in the mood to eat, you understand."

Dux Lucius sighed. "I understand."

"When is the execution?"

"I'm going to try and avoid that if at all possible."

"Even after what I did to your daughter?"

"Yes, but I can't help you if you don't help me."

Weboshi smirked as she leaned back in her chair. "That's how it is, eh? Promise me freedom if I start ratting people out for helping me? What are you going to do after I tell you had I no accomplices? Torture me?"

"I'm not going to torture you – and I think we both know you had accomplices."

"I did, but I'll never tell you who. For what it's worth, I'm sorry. It doesn't make up for the assassination attempt, or kidnapping your girl, and I'm not saying it to weasel out of trouble, but I am."

"I know," said Dux Lucius. "I'm sorry too."

Weboshi jerked, lips pursed. "'Sorry?' Why are you sorry?"

"For what my people did to your daughter. I know what they took from you during The Siege. Had I lost my child in the same way, I can't promise I wouldn't have reacted the same as you. Only. . . Only I might not have seen sense before I took my revenge on some innocent."

They sat, staring at each other.

"You're a good man, Dux Lucius."

Lucius caught himself before he shifted in his chair. Compliments always made him uncomfortable, especially when delivered from near strangers. "The people who took you. . ."

"I had a hood on before they even arrived. I didn't see them. I heard their voices, but all I can say is they had Regnal accents."

"That's not a lot to go on."

"I'm sorry."

Lucius rubbed his eyes. "Is there anything else – anything at all – you can tell me?"

Weboshi bit her lip, brow furrowed in concentration. "There were three of them. I know that. I can't explain how I know exactly, just a sense you get when other people are around. Know what I mean?"

"Sure. Did you hear any names?"

"No. But. Hm. Oh! I think one of them was deaf."

"Deaf?"

"Yes. At first I thought he was just being careful not to speak around me just in case. Then I started to think he was mute. Then I was left alone with him for a little while. I was so thirsty I kept asking for water. The others gave me water when I asked for it, but not him. I didn't get the sense he was especially cruel so I just put it all together and. . . Does any of this make sense?"

"Yes."

"Does it help?"

"I'm not sure."

"Why do you think they kept me alive?"

Lucius had been wondering the same thing. "I was hoping you could tell me."

"Sorry."

"It's fine." Lucius pushed away from the table and stood. "Thank you, Weboshi."

"Can you tell me something, Dux Lucius?"

"If I can."

"How is Britta? I've been worried about her."

"I've been worried about her too," he said. "I don't know how she is, though. I've been here with you."

"With me?" Weboshi said. "You men are all fools, especially soldiers. You should go see her."

"I'm not so sure I should. You heard how she screamed when the Governor pronounced your sentence."

"Britta has a quick temper, but she's not one to hold a grudge. I'd thought you would know her better than that by now. You do, though, don't you? I can see it in your eyes. You're trying to hide it, but you can't. There's another reason you haven't gone to see her."

Lucius shifted in his chair, trying to find a position he found comfortable under Weboshi's withering gaze.

"What is it, Dux Lucius? Your philosophy teaches internal self-reliance, I know, but that's only half the lesson. Sometimes you have to say something aloud, let another person hear it, before you can come to terms with what troubles you. Tell me what it is. I might die soon. I'll take your secrets to the grave."

Lucius sighed. Weboshi had a way about her, and her words rung true. He had to talk to someone about Britta, how he felt, and all the mixed up emotions boiling inside him. "Fine," he said. He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling as he contemplated his words. "When Britta became the Abbess of Night, she saw inside me. She saw that I couldn't let anyone get close, couldn't love again, because it felt like a betrayal of my first wife, Shavana. She told me Shavana would want me to move on."

"First wife?"

"She passed."

"I'm sorry."

"Thank you."

Weboshi pursed her lips. "Was Britta right? Do you love her?"

"Yes."

"But you can't admit it because of your first wife?"

"Yes – No. If I admit Britta was right, that Shavana would want me to move on, it means I've spent a lot of time being miserable for nothing. That, in my attempt to honor Shavana's memory, I dishonored it. That I became a Disciple of the Sun Triumphant for nothing."

"Not 'for nothing.' Tell me, Dux Lucius, before your wife died, how much were you like your father?"

"I'm not sure. I've never thought about it. A lot, I suppose. I was certainly ambitious. I could have become like him quite easily."

"And after she passed away, you became a Disciple of the Sun Triumphant. Those experiences made you the man you are today. They made you a man your first, and future, wife can both be proud of. They made you into a man I'd be proud to call my son if Britta were my own flesh and blood. No, that time wasn't wasted, Dux Lucius. No time spent bettering oneself is."

Lucius swallowed, unsure what to say. How could someone so clear and rational have done the things Weboshi did?

"I might not make it out of this alive," she said, "and maybe I don't deserve to. So before you go – before I go – I want you to know you have my blessing. I don't have the right to say it, I know. I wasn't kidding, Dux Lucius, you're a fine man. You'll make my Britta a fine husband."

Dux Lucius took a deep, audible breath to keep whatever emotion welling up buried inside. "Thank you," he said.

"Don't thank me. Go to her."

***

The city streets were barren in a way he'd never seen before. Even in the empire's safest, backwater cities, there was always something going on. People had business to attend to, and despite the potential danger, some brave souls attended to it. Lucius shuddered – the sort of involuntary emotional response that, like blushing, couldn't be prevented by any amount of meditation. The stillness on the afternoon streets was eerie. For the first time since he'd arrived in the city, he heard the high pitched whistles and honks of the sea birds that circled the city in search of free meals. Doors to stores were shut; no children played in the street. This wasn't like the night of the riot, it lacked the same sense of immanent danger. There was something more foreboding about this. Lucius couldn't put his finger on it.

It reminded him of an incident a few years ago, when he was still a captain. His cohort had been ordered to hold a tower-fort near a fork in the road where bandits frequently struck travelers. It should have been an easy fight, except these weren't the everyday peasant bandits young Captain Lucius had expected. They were deserters from the military, mutineers. And they were pissed that Lucius had occupied their fort. So the bandits laid siege. It took about a month before someone in the chain of commanded noticed Lucius's cohort missing from its rolls and sent help, but Lucius and his men hadn't prepared. They occupied the fort with only a few days of food and water. Food they could live without for a little while, but not water. They recycled urine, caught dew and rain, rationed what they had. By the time relief arrived, Lucius and his men were nearly dead – so dehydrated a pinch and pull of arm skin stayed pinched and pulled. They were listless, still, unable to speak. He felt the same sense of foreboding during that small siege that he felt now.

When he arrived at the abbey, Lucius found a large piece of fine parchment nailed to the door.

"We cannot fight the Regnals," it read. "We have no army, no navy. If we stand against them in open revolt, they will crush us beneath their heels as they did before, over and over until we are pebbles between the flagstones of their empire's famed roads. Even should we resort to the tactics of old, of back-alley knifings and poisoned stews, they will come down on us. Even should we not fight, citizens of Ankshara, they will crush us despite.

"We are doomed. Let us err on the side of righteousness.

"There is no reason for us to take part in our own destruction.

"Hear the Decree of the Full Moon, Abbess of Night: I hereby declare Ankshara under interdict. Neither the abbey nor its sisters shall administer the sacraments. Nor shall we regulate or restrain the criminal underbelly of this city. If the Regnals want to enforce their laws against us, then let them. See how they can handle the Wicked City without our guidance.

"I decree a general strike. All loyal guilds shall refuse to work. No business shall be done in Ankshara. Let the longshoreman leave fish to rot in their boats, and let the merchants leave their fruit to rot in the market stalls. . ."

Lucius scanned the rest. It went on like that, giving specifics of everything the Anksharans were not to do without a mention of what they were supposed to do. That was obvious, of course: nothing. The Anksharans were supposed to do nothing. Would they listen to their Abbess? The silent streets answered that question for him. It wasn't a disaster yet, but it would be. He had troops enough to fight crime, or haul food off ships; not both. More, without the normal trade going on in the city, he or the Governor would have to pay for the food themselves. It was impossible. Lucius reeled. She'd found a way to strike back at him, the Governor, and all the Regnals occupying the city. She'd found a way to start a siege of her own.

He slammed his fist against the door and called Britta's name. No one came.

***

Dux Lucius, Captain Marcus and the cohort's clerk spent the evening hunched over a table making plans best they could. Lucius sent messages to his father about the situation only to receive replies insisting this was a military problem, not a civilian one. Between this and his refusal to send men to the docks during the riot, Dux Lucius began to feel the Governor was sabotaging him.

"He's pouting," said Captain Marcus. And though Lucius agreed, didn't say so.

When they concluded for the night, Lucius went to the cramped officer's quarters. Lucius didn't want to take it from Marcus, but Marcus insisted. He'd even had a cot put in for Ava. "Safer here than at the manse," he'd said.

True, thought Lucius, for a number of reasons.

She was still awake when he entered the room, resting on her stomach whispering secrets to her favorite doll. She watched as he entered, her mother's eyes following him as he sat down on the room's single chair. Ava scrambled up from her cot and into his lap. "You look sad," she said as she traced a finger across his cheek.

"You can always tell," he said. And it was true. No matter how well he he hid it from the world only she could read his emotions. Britta too, but–

"Why?"

"Because life is complicated."

"When I was telling Captain Marcus where to put my stuff, he kept saying 'girls are complicated.'"

"That's true."

"Is it a girl, daddy? Is that why you're sad?"

Lucius shifted Ava in his lap so he could look her in the eye. A number of lies rose in his mind, any of which would have been convenient, but he wasn't interested in teaching Ava about easy answers. "Yes," he said. "I'm sad because of a girl."

"What did you do to her?"

A laugh escaped him before he even realized it. He let it go and the chuckles that followed. He was too tired to fight it anymore. "What makes you think I did something to her? Maybe she did something to me."

Put a hand on her hip and rolled her eyes just like Shavana used to.

"You're right," he said. "It's my fault."

"You should say you're sorry."

"I would if she'd let me, but she won't talk to me."

"Then get her a gift. Girls love gifts."

"Mmm," he said, hugging her against him, feeling her warmth against her chest. Some vague part of him wished she could stay this age forever. "Wise advice, my little sage. What should I get her?"

"Get her something she wants more than anything else in the world."

"I don't know what that is. What do you want more than anything else in the world?"

She pulled back enough to look him in the eye. "My mommy back."

Dux Lucius gripped her by the hair and pulled her close to his chest again. To feel his baby close. So she wouldn't see him cry.