\hypertarget{chapter-24-theft}{%
\chapter{Theft}\label{chapter-24-theft}}



\epigraph{``Wisdom is a tower built of failure and rue.''}{Ashuran saying}



It wasn't even an hour before the Third Army's banners hung above the
hills that were now to my east instead of west.

``Like kicking an anthill,'' Vivienne said, eyes gazing far ahead.

She wasn't wrong. We were looking at the same thing, I thought, but my
sight was better than hers. A sliver of Night had seen to that. General
Abigail had grasped my meaning deeper than Id thought, it seemed. I'd
told her to fly the Fourth Army's banner as well as her own for a
reason, namely to imply much greater numbers in the hills than there
actually were. The Summerholm girl had gone a step further than what I'd
instructed and thinned her lines to an almost reckless extent: from the
perspective of the Alliance soldiers in the plains below, it must look
like there were at least twenty thousand fresh soldiers anchoring our
left flank. Actually fighting with lines so thin would be disastrous,
but it was a calculated risk. Even if the enemy suddenly marched on her
she should have just enough time to redeploy before the fight began.

``Hakram's force will be revealed soon enough,'' I said. ``That ought to
pressure them into a full withdrawal.''

``Wouldn't it have been quicker to send the entire host into the
hills?'' Vivienne asked.

Her tone was curious, not critical, and the expectation in her voice
that she would be answered was almost as irritating as it was pleasing.
Barely a quarter bell had passed since I'd chewed her out, and already
she was back on old footing. I was glad of the confidence, I really was,
and well aware it was petty of me to be irked that my displeasure hadn't
left deeper marks. But Vivienne had once called me petty when speaking
to Akua, unaware I was listening in, and like a lot of what she'd said
that night there'd been more than a grain of truth to it.

``It would have,'' I agreed. ``On the other hand, it also risked a
standoff. They'd have been left to mass their entire army largely in
peace, and we to establish a common line facing them. Two large
coalition armies looking at each other over a fence, hands on swords. A
lit sharper if I ever saw one. No, I want them to retreat. To give us
space.''

And the flanking manoeuvre by General Rumena and General Bagram, under
the steady hand of Adjutant, should do the trick. When I'd been up in
the sky riding Zombie, I'd had a decent look at the enemy forces on the
march as well as those already fighting. The western army -- the mixed
Dominion and Procer force that Princess Rozala was part of -- had been
marching on Juniper form the north, which had logistical implications.
Iserre had been stripped bare of anything edible, which meant Malanza
and her allies were running on what supplies they could either carry
with them or get flowing from further north. Given the size of the
western army, which at a glance I'd put at more than sixty thousand
strong, without a steady flow of foodstuffs they'd start burning through
their stocks at a prodigious rate. The amount of men might have been
manageable, but the horses? I very much doubted they could afford to
keep that many war horses for long without fresh supplies coming in.
Besides, the northern campaign had taught me much of how Procer handled
it supply trains. In a word, badly. It came from the way their armies
were put together, in my opinion, more than any inferiority of intellect
compared to the architects of the Reforms in Praes.

Instead of a unified army directly under the Tower -- or, these days, me
-- Proceran forces were raised from the personal troops of rulers, hired
fantassins and mass levies. The personal troops were trained, equipped
and fed by the prince who fielded them, which was a costly thing even in
peace time. That meant, as a rule, that princes and princesses of Procer
had kept personal armies around the same size as those of the Old
Kingdom's nobles while being both significantly richer and ruling lands
both larger and more heavily populated. Proceran logistics, as they
currently stood, were well-versed in keeping forces that size fed and
well-equipped. The rub came when the armies grew larger, which meant
bringing in fantassins or levies. The mercenary companies were usually
only hired for as long as they were needed then cut loose, meaning
there'd never been a \emph{need} to develop a system to feed larger
forces for long. As for the levies, well, like everywhere else in the
world they were handed the bare minimum in food and arms before being
sent into the grinder. Those larger armies were usually fighting on
enemy territory, too, where `foraging' -- a pretty word for armed
robbery -- could be used to fill up the stocks.

In this particular case though, the western army was stuck in a
principality already picked clean and a whole chunk of foreign Levantine
troops whose personal supplies had to be running dangerously low after
chasing Grem and Juniper for so long. When Hakram appeared further north
with a large force, threatening to cut off their supply lines, they'd be
forced to either prepare for battle or withdraw. Considering we'd have
them both half-encircled and severely outnumbered, battle would not be
an attractive choice. Unless heroes were involved, I thought. Which they
very well might be. For all the earthly considerations pointing at why
fighting us here would be a terrible idea, there was a reason I'd
ordered Juniper to prepare for a fight.

``Diplomacy, then,'' Vivienne said, breaking my long silence.

``In a manner of speaking,'' I grunted. ``Princess Rozala made it clear
her side wants the heads of the Legions on spikes. That's not happening,
so I'll be removing the issue from the table: come nightfall, if they've
withdrawn then our entire coalition is gating out of here.''

``Tactical offence, to allow for a strategic defence,'' she mused.

She half-turned to me, the azure blue cloak she'd donned when leaving
the pavilion tight around her shoulders.

``And you're not afraid without the blade at their throat they won't
consider bargaining?'' Vivienne asked. ``The truce offer I extended to
Hasenbach was refused even when it looked like we had the advantage in
Iserre.''

``I think with us reappearing somewhere in Arans, with supplied coming
in through the northern passage and a comfortably defensible position,
the First Prince will have to consider how far she can afford to push
us,'' I frankly said. ``More importantly, with us gone and the two Grand
Alliance armies in Iserre within a week's march of each other the League
is either going to retreat or take a beating.''

``Both would be dangerous to Procer,'' Vivienne noted. ``A retreat means
they have to keep armies south to pursue. A victory on the field might
prove more costly than the war to the north can afford.''

``If Kairos intended to collapse Procer, he would have already done
it,'' I said. ``He wouldn't have come through the Waning Woods, either.
The League armies would have battered through Hasenbach's border army in
Tenerife and begun occupying southern principalities. Feasibly they
could have occupied Tenerife and Salamans without getting much more of a
fight, then dug in for the long term. After that\ldots{}''

``All it'd take was raids into the bordering principalities for those
royals to try withdrawing their troops from the north and march back to
defend their lands,'' Vivienne softly agreed. ``If Hasenbach tried to go
after them through the Highest Assembly, it might lead to civil war. If
she did nothing, the Dead King would likely eat the north.''

``Instead he surprised us all and marched out of the Waning Woods to cut
into this dance,'' I said. ``No, he's after something from the mess in
Iserre and it's not hammering nails in the Principate's coffin.''

``It would not be territorial concessions, or anything monetary,''
Vivienne frowned. ``There would have been better, easier ways to force
those.''

``He's a villain of the old breed,'' I said. ``Ink on parchment isn't
what he's after. I met with him, in Rochelant, and he hinted Hasenbach
has been dredging something dangerous out of Lake Artoise.''

``He is a liar, as you reminded me rather sharply,'' she said.

I'd not been pleased to hear she'd been trading information with Kairos,
to say the last. It was one thing to do what I had, haggle an alliance
of convenience against the Wandering Bard after trading secrets. It was
another entirely to pass him detailed assessments of the Dominion's
armies, even if the payment was useful word out of Salia and the north.
While I'd understood that the Jacks were still too young an organization
to have penetrated deep into Procer, and certainly to have a way to pass
along regular reports given the mess the Principate was in right now,
relying on the Tyrant for anything meant you were getting played. If I
had to guess, he'd making little deals like that with everyone he could:
offering piece for piece, and ensuring he alone had a bird's eye view of
what was taking place in Iserre. I was finding it worrisome Kairos had
been interested in details about the Dominion armies, too. It could be
another layer of deception, sure, but it might also mean he believed he
would be fighting them in the future. Or that he was selling that
information to the Dead King, I acknowledged with a grimace. There
weren't a lot of things I'd put past Kairos Theodosian.

``Oh, there's \emph{something} happening there,'' I said. ``That much I
don't doubt. But I don't necessarily think it's whatever trouble she's
brewing that interests him. Or even her in particular, to be honest --
this campaign, the First Prince herself, I think they're means to an
end.''

``That end being?'' Vivienne asked.

``I don't know yet,'' I admitted. ``But if he's willing to launch an
entire invasion in the middle of war against Keter just to get leverage
on Cordelia Hasenbach, it's not going to be a trifle.''

``The man needs to die,'' Vivienne said. ``The Hierarch as well. They're
too unpredictable, Catherine. If they start swinging at the wrong
moment, the consequences could be\ldots{} wide-reaching, to say the
least.''

``I'm sure Cordelia thinks the same thing,'' I said. ``And that's why
he's made himself so very costly to remove from the board.''

Strategic offence, I thought with rueful amusement, paired with tactical
defence. Mad or not, I had to concede that the villain king of Helike
was viciously cunning. The more the western and eastern coalitions
fought without him being involved, the more reluctant they grew to
engage his fresher forces. The only way out of that downwards spiral, as
far as I could see, was to withdraw my forces from Iserre and let him
face the storm he'd stirred without my standing shield for him. In the
distance I could see Malanza's vanguard fully withdrawing from the
battlefield. Even the Levantine horse that'd baited the Order of Broken
Bells into chasing them all the way to irrelevance had pulled away, and
now Grandmaster Talbot's knights were sheepishly riding back to camp.
I'd let Juniper handle the reprimand for that, I decided. It had been
her battle, even if she'd been losing it. It'd also make it clear to the
high officers that she still held command even after my taking her to
task.

``You haven't asked,'' Vivienne suddenly said.

``Asked what?'' I replied.

``If I still have a Name,'' she said.

I glanced at her.

``I know you don't,'' I said. ``Yours had a subtle weight, but even that
is gone.''

``Then you haven't asked why,'' she said, then blue-grey eyes narrowed.
``Unless Adjutant told you.''

``He didn't,'' I told her. ``Or even explain why someone's going to end
up calling him Hakram Handless, for that matter.''

``And you're not worried in the slightest?'' Vivienne asked, tone
inscrutable. ``Gods, even just curious?''

``It's a strange horse to ride, a Name,'' I said. ``Black said it was
willpower that got you on the saddle, and I don't entirely disagree with
him, but I think that's only part of it.''

I looked into the distance, at the Alliance host retreating into the
second part of the trap I'd laid. It was a kindness that was due, not to
look at her while speaking this.

``It's a recognition that you're trying to \emph{do} something,'' I
said. ``William wanted to kill his way out of Praesi rule. Akua wanted
to bind everyone else. Indrani wants to pass through life unhindered.
Whatever it is you're after the Name makes you better at doing it, I
won't argue that. But you don't get a Name unless you're already good at
it, Vivienne.''

I cleared my throat.

``So I'll answer the question you didn't ask: no, you're not getting
tossed out on your ass because you can't steal the sun anymore. That's a
trick. The important parts came before you were the Thief, and that
hasn't gone anywhere.''

Vivienne let out a shuddering breath.

``How is it,'' she quietly said, ``that you always know exactly the
right thing to say?''

The urge was there to pull away with levity, draw attention to my
admittedly chequered diplomatic record, but I didn't follow it. It would
have been cheapening the sincerity of the moment, and wouldn't that
defeat the point of having it in the first place? So instead I said
nothing, for lack of anything to say, and let silence stretch.

``The Empire killed my mother,'' she murmured. ``Did you know that?''

My fingers clenched.

``Not for sure,'' I said. ``But I suspected.''

The moment I'd learned her last name was Dartwick, looking into her past
had become a great deal easier. Out of courtesy I'd not dug too deep,
but I'd had a look anyway. Her father had been a baron before the
Conquest, vassal to the Count of Southpool but her family had remained
rather obscure in the years that followed. There'd been a bit of
interest in her father after he was widowed, before the man made it
clear he would not remarry, but it'd died down quick after he did.
That'd gotten me curious enough to look into the mother, and my brow had
risen when I found out she'd died in a hunting accident not long after
the Conquest. It could have been an actual accident, I knew. But in the
early days of Praesi occupation, more than a few Imperial governors had
arranged `hunting accidents' when they were inclined to discretely put
down rebellious elements.

``I say the Empire, Catherine, because it makes no difference who gave
the order,'' Vivienne admitted. ``The decision came from Governor Chuma,
though he's long dead. Some might say it was in truth her fault, for
joining a rebel cabal. That she knew the risks. Others might argue that
whatever hired hand did it was the killer in every sense. But it's never
quite that simple, is it?''

I stayed silent. The question had not been meant for me to answer.

``I think I understood that even as a child,'' Vivienne pensively said.
``That is was larger than just my mother and the governor. That it was
about Praes, what it was doing to us. The \emph{way} it was doing it to
us. Chuma, you see, he was one of the light-handed governors. Didn't
hang whole families, only the rebels themselves. The rest got off with a
\emph{fine}.''

Different Imperial governors, I thought, had taught us different
lessons. Vivienne had been taught that we were cattle, to be sheared
when laden and beaten when unruly. Less than human, in the Empire's
eyes, but not to be hurt without reason. Mazus, though, Mazus had not
been interested in such a civilized arrangement. He'd been a looter in
silk clothes, a noble in nothing but the ugliest ways that word could be
meant. From him I'd learned that no one in power would ever be fair
unless you \emph{made} them. Vivienne had tried to claw back some pride
with her thefts. I'd tried to murder my way into authority with a sword.

``I started stealing to even the scales, though I knew coin would never
be the right measure for that,'' she said. ``I kept stealing because
they deserved it. Because every time I took from them they got a taste
of loss. Of what they were doing to all of us.''

``And then they warned you off,'' I said.

``Assassin,'' she acknowledged. ``A small cut on my father's throat, and
I stayed my hand. But he'd passed when William raised the banner and the
anger was still in my stomach.''

``And it isn't anymore?'' I quietly asked.

``You killed him,'' Vivienne said, evading the question. ``But what did
that change? They'd been killing us for years before I was ever born.
Truth be told I think it was Laure that did it.''

``When we spoke,'' I said. ``In the palace.''

``It wasn't the words, Catherine,'' she said. ``You can have a silver
tongue, now and then, but I did not trust you an inch back then. It was
how \emph{tired} you were. I'd seen you go from victory to victory, but
that night you didn't act like you were winning.''

``I wasn't,'' I frankly said. ``And there were greater disasters on the
horizon.''

``You were fighting for Callow,'' Vivienne acknowledged. ``But that was
the detail that took me so long time to understand even after joining.
We weren't talking about the same thing when using that word. Because
for you it also meant the Fifteenth. It mean the goblin tribe in
Marchford. It meant everyone willing to live under the laws, to pay
their taxes and stand on the wall when the horn sounds.''

``They \emph{are} Callowans, Vivienne,'' I said. ``I won't ignore what
was the best of us, in the old days, but we can't just-''

She raised her hand to interrupt me.

``I know,'' she said. ``I know, Catherine. And that's what killed it.
Because I would look at Hakram, at Masego and Ratface and especially the
goblins and I would wait for them to be the enemy. Because they'd always
been, because that was what the Conquest meant. But then they kept
faith, Cat. They died, and they died for you but not just that. Also
because they were serving something they believed in. And that scared
me, because if they weren't the enemy then what had I been fighting all
these years?''

\emph{The Tower}, I wanted to say. \emph{The High Lords}. \emph{What
made all of us this way, heroes and villains and the ever-spreading
graveyard between.} But this wasn't my moment, it was hers, and so I
kept to silence once more.

``My Name was already thinning by then,'' Vivienne said. ``Sometimes it
wouldn't work as it used to. Sometimes I couldn't feel it at all. And
when my hair began to grow again, I was terrified. Because if I wasn't
even the Thief anymore, then what use was I?''

I saw her fingers clench.

``I nearly did some very foolish things,'' she said. ``But Hakram cut
off his hand, and if nothing else that stayed mine. And it forced me to
see, Catherine, because in the months following that night I did the
most good for my homeland I ever have and not a single speck of it
involved theft.''

She let out a breathless laugh, though it was more mockery of herself
than mirth.

``I wasn't angry anymore, Cat,'' she said. ``Or at least, not at the
same people or for the same reasons. Mostly I was afraid. And the more I
tried to pretend I was still fifteen and collecting my mother's dues
from something that no longer existed, the more I missed the point: that
I was a child, when I became the Thief, and it was a child's anger I was
still heeding.''

I watched her and found regret painted on her face, though a soft and
thoughtful manner of it.

``But you weren't a child anymore,'' I said.

``And so I was no longer the Thief,'' Vivienne softly agreed. ``Because
I've learned that just taking from the enemy won't change anything. That
we'll need more than that, to change the world, and that's what I want
to do most of all.''

And so the Name had died, I thought, along with the indignation that'd
birthed it. It might be that something else would come of that, but she
would never again be the Thief. The girl who had become her no longer
existed: she'd been outgrown by the woman standing at my side. Vivienne
Dartwick's eyes were clear, I saw, and her back straight. In the
afternoon's light, cloaked in blue and hair braided like a fair crown,
she seemed almost regal. I hoped, truly, that no Name came of this. The
Liesse Accords, as written, would bar any and all Named from being
rulers. And it was early days yet, I knew that, and it was not a
decision to be made in haste.

But Vivienne Dartwick had just talked herself into being the foremost
heiress-candidate to the throne of Callow.
