webcrawl/APGTE/Book-5/tex/Ch-097.md.tex

\hypertarget{chapter-66-silvered}{%
\section{Chapter 66: Silvered}\label{chapter-66-silvered}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``Trust given is a gift, costing only the giver. Trust earned is
in balance, worth as much to earner as granter.''}

-- King Edward Alban of Callow, best known for annexing the Kingdom of
Liesse
\end{quote}

The urge was there to laugh in disbelief, though I didn't. Aisha was
deadly serious in her question, and she was one the better-informed
officers at the highest rung of the Army of Callow. She had Juniper's
ear, working relationships or personal connections with most the Woe and
the rest of my closest collaborators. She was, as it happened, one of
the few people who knew of the Liesse Accords even if that knowledge was
modest. If she could believe that, then others would.

``I do not,'' I said.

The Staff Tribune nodded in graceful acknowledgement, lovely
heart-shaped face touched by the firelight.

``Then this is a mistake,'' she murmured, discretely glancing at Akua
without turning.

I kept any hint of displeasure from showing on my face. Of all my old
College companions I'd always had one of the more complex relationships
with Aisha Bishara. Her high birth in an old Wasteland line had made it
difficult to trust her, at first, and back in the days where Juniper and
I had been more frequently at odds her open siding with her friend as
made her one of the Hellhounds and not one of `mine', so to speak. We'd
gotten past that, over the months and years, but I'd never hidden my
belief that quite a few Wasteland highborn belonged dangling from a rope
and that'd always lain between us. Aisha was more careful not to offend,
ever stepping lightly around matters she thought our very different
origins would make contentious. Frowning now or thinning my lips would
have her shuttering immediately, and that was the opposite of what I
wanted. I gazed where the Taghreb had flicked the glance, finding Akua
effortlessly drawing Masego into what had become a debate over the
poetries of the east by mentioning the `riddling-sorcerers of the
Nameless City'. The blind mage let out an amused huff and a began
declaiming something in a dialect of Mtethwa I could barely make out a
few words from.

``There are lines in Praes that are older than the Sahelians,'' Aisha
Bishara murmured. ``Others who have more often climbed the Tower, or
through whose veins greater gifts flow. Yet one of that shade's kin
ruled Wolof, when the Empire was first founded, and where every other
great line of that days has withered and died the Sahelians still
thrive.''

I rolled my cup against the flat of my palm, eyes hooded as I listened
to Aisha in pensive silence.

``That woman right there is of the blood of the original murder,
Catherine Foundling,'' she whispered. ``The first iron-sharp treachery.
All under the sun have known this since the Tower was first raised, and
yet again and again the Sahelians have betrayed through surprise.
Because they are charming, my queen. They are beautiful and fascinating
and so very \emph{useful} that certainly it couldn't hurt to bring them
into the fold just the once.''

Aisha bared the fainted hint of teeth at me, almost like an orc would
have.

``They are like ink, that lot,'' she said. ``It only takes one drop in a
cup water, and no matter how much you pour from that day on it will
never be entirely pure again. And now you have let one of the finest
makings of that line into your hearth, Catherine.''

Her fingers clenched, her gloves crinkling.

``She'll have half of them charmed by the end of the night,'' the Staff
Tribune clinically said. ``The rest uncertain. I expect she could ever
turn Juniper's opinion of her around, given long enough.''

``You maker her sound like a force of nature,'' I said.

We watched the laughter and warmth unfolding before us, separate from it
as if a transparent wall of dread had been slammed down between us.

``She was Named,'' Aisha simply said. ``And she rose high during years
were the iron was sharp like rarely before.''

An elegantly backhanded compliment sent my way, that. There was a reason
I'd more than once mulled stealing the Staff Tribune away from the army
and making her my foremost diplomat.

``She remains impressive, even as a shade,'' I admitted. ``And you're
not without reason to worry.''

``And yet,'' Aisha said.

``And yet,'' I agreed.

A heartbeat passed.

``This is indiscreet, and perhaps insolent to ask,'' Aisha delicately
said, ``but are you-''

I waved the notion away before she could even finish.

``I am,'' I said, ``Callowan.''

I'd come to learn that just as the Wasteland's worst excesses needed to
be excised from its flesh, so did Callow's own spiteful inclinations.
But in the end, I was more than mind and principle, more than thought. I
was flesh, too, and like so many of my people my bones were made of
grudge. There were some trespasses that could not be forgiven or forgot.
One hundred thousand souls. Some follies were beyond forgiveness even
were it wished. Sometimes, tough, forgiveness was not the heart of a
story.

``I will have long a price as I can conceive, in due time,'' I murmured.
``Worry not of that.''

``You have lingering eyes,'' Aisha hesitantly said.

``They've lingered on you as well,'' I amusedly replied. ``Shall I make
you empress instead, Lady Bishara?''

Her cheeks reddened the slightest bit, which was unexpectedly charming.
Ah, if it didn't have \emph{terrible idea} written all over it\ldots{}
The embarrassment passed, swiftly mastered.

``Rarely has there ever been more poisoned a chalice than the Tower,''
the dark-eyed woman somberly said. ``I would not dare drink of that cup.
Yet someone must hold it, and that person cannot be Malicia.''

Something hard and cold passed in the cast of her face, at that, whisked
away by the noblewoman's mask but not quite quickly enough.

``Agreed,'' I replied. ``And Aisha, about Ratface-''

She curtly shook her head.

``I thank you, Catherine, but I will grieve Hasan in my own way,'' she
said.

Aisha was the only person I'd ever known to call him Hasan instead or
Ratface regularly. They'd been lovers, back at the College. A strange
pairing, given Ratface's deep hatred of the nobility and Aisha's open
pride in her own heritage, but they'd both been incredibly lovely and
the intensity of a passion could make up for a lot of differences.
They'd parted ways before I met either of them, though Ratface had
remained\ldots{} inclined in the years after. I'd thought Aisha less
attached, but now I wondered. Faded affections could find fresh life in
other forms, and remain sweet at heart for the good times once shared. I
nodded in deference to her grief, for it was greater than mine and it
had older claim on the shade of the man who'd died in my service at
Malicia's order. Damn her for that, and so many other things.

``It'll be Black, if I have my way,'' I said.

A moment passed as Aisha mulled over what I'd just said.

``You usually do,'' she finally said, tone faintly rueful. ``It will be
a bloodletting that makes the War of Thirteen Tyrants and One pale, if
he rises.''

``Change will come,'' I said. ``If fought, it will not come gently.''

``They'll fight,'' Aisha tiredly said. ``That is our nature, for good or
ill.''

``It can't be like it was before,'' I told her. ``You know that. Nor
\emph{should} it. We've come too far for that.''

``And her?'' the lovely tribune said, glancing at Akua. ``Where does she
stand, in this new world of yours?''

``Nowhere gentle,'' I said. ``Though that will be a choice of her own
making.''

``Will it?'' Aisha said. ``I imagine many have thought themselves her
captain, in days past. I see none still drawing breath.''

``If I were trying to conquer her, I'd fail,'' I softly said. ``I've
known that from the start. She has ever been my better at those games.''

``And yet,'' Aisha repeated, the echo almost chiding.

``Always she's had a knack for masks,'' I said. ``More than wearing them
she \emph{became} them, you know. It was why she wielded her Name so
well.''

``Masks are shed, eventually,'' Aisha warned.

``What if you didn't want to shed it?'' I said. ``What if wearing that
mask you got all these things that some part of you, deep down, had been
craving? Because Sahelians are still humans, Aisha. There are some
things you can't train yourself out of no matter how hard you try.''

``There are things she will crave deeper still,'' she said. ``For that
too was taught. And when the opportunity comes, the same choice that has
always been made will be made.''

I smiled, and remembered a winding talk had some time ago under morning
sun. \emph{You have seen the worst of us}, she'd said. \emph{And through
that knowing taken our measure. But there is more, Catherine.} She'd
seemingly been speaking of her own kind, of the High Lords and Ladies.
But there'd been the slightest chink in the mask when she'd spoken of
her great-uncle who'd fled to Nicae. \emph{If even a Sahelian can have
the taste for peace, there is yet something left to be kindled.} A
little too sharp, a little too brittle. The first hint of the bile she'd
vented on Kairos Theodosian the same dawn that's seen the birth of the
Ways. And I knew, of course, that she was not beyond such exquisite
deception. That she might have been weaving that intricate web around me
since the moment she saved my life in the Everdark. But it wouldn't
matter, I thought, watching Akua Sahelian letting out a snort of
laughter at some pointed comment Indrani had made. It wouldn't matter
because she'd \emph{want} it to be true.

``Be watchful, Aisha,'' I said. ``I will be as well. But that arrow has
already been loosed, and I will not gainsay it now.''

``May the Gods avert their eyes from it all,'' she murmured. ``You've
always had an uncanny way for seeing what others do not, Catherine. I
will trust in it once more.''

``With open eyes,'' I smiled.

``Is that not the finest manner of trust?'' Aisha smiled back.

She drifted away just as easily as she'd come when there was a lull in
the conversation for her to slide into, adding her thread to the weave
of it with practiced grace. Sometimes I envied how easily it seemed to
come to the highborn around me, the social graces I still struggled with
even when I genuinely meant to use them. There was something to be said
for training from one's youth, even if the other aspects of nobility
held little worth in my eyes. The hours passed smoothly, after that,
eased by the wine and food and warmth. Twice more Robber tried to needle
Akua into anger and struck only at smoke, until even Pickler looked
discomfited on his behalf. He did not try a third time. With the
greenskins swiftly moving for second portions of meat and the cask of
ale being opened conversation bloomed in every direction, sometimes
coming together for virulent debates but just as often staying a chaotic
multitude. A warmth had seeped in me that had little to do with the fire
or the drink, though I'd partaken of both generously. Still I sensed it
immediately when two people passed through the outer wards surrounding
the tumulus maybe half a bell before midnight. I wove Night to have a
look, and to my surprise found two familiar faces walking up the hill.

Marshal Grem One-Eye, the grizzled old orc who was still thought by many
the finest general alive, was carrying two bottles of aragh and from the
sounds of it complaining that my father hadn't even offered to carry one
-- to which Black piously informed him that as a recovering hostage he
could not trust himself to carry out such strenuous labour. A few of my
people heard the steps before the two came in sight, but there was a
beat of surprise when they were fully seen in the firelight.

``Black, Marshal Grem,'' I greeted them. ``Have a seat, it's not like
we're lacking room.''

The orc Marshal -- Black's, not mine -- sniffed the air with a bemused
look on his craggy face.

``Is that horse I'm smelling?'' Grem One-Eye said. ``Haven't had a
skewer of that in decades. Last time was\ldots{}''

``Fleeing after that raid on the Wall,'' Black said, lips twitching.
``When those Iarsmai riders went after us.''

``Wait, I think I had a Name dream about that back in the day,'' I said.
``When you lot went after the Commander of the Watch?''

``Oh man, I heard about that,'' Archer enthused. ``I mean, no lie, the
Lady is terrible at telling stories-''

``No lie indeed,'' Black said, lips quirking outright.

``- but this one she actually made pretty entertaining,'' Indrani
finished.

``Did she mention the part where the Commander beat Black like a rented
mule?'' I said. ``It was almost embarrassing to see.''

``That detail certainly never made it to Court,'' Akua slyly added.

``A grave exaggeration,'' Black said, eyeing me from the side. ``I was
maneuvering her into a killing blow.''

``While she was manoeuvring you down a set of stairs, head first,'' I
drily replied.

He slid into a seat not far from me while Grem passed the bottles to a
-- oh Gods, that was just wrong -- \emph{blushing} Juniper. I'd
forgotten she had this uh, intense sort of admiration for Black. She
half-glared at me for having the gall to mention that the legendary
Carrion Lord had once been thrown down a set of stairs. Gods, I should
find a way to pass along that one dream I had where he and Ranger were
getting all\ldots{} bright-eyed at each other. That ought to cure her
from this right quick.

``We must have been fleeing on foot for half a day before they caught
up,'' the Marshal of Praes said. ``Flat grounds, maybe a bell from the
marches proper. Twenty of them, with this big man in mail the ranking
officer.''

``The cousin to Duchess Kegan's husband, we later learned,'' Black said.

The old orc grinned.

``The Watch is coming, he said,'' Marshal Grem recounted. ``Soon you
will be in longbow range. You cannot escape our sight. Surrender now,
or-''

Indrani made a whistling sound, like an arrow loosed, then a fleshy hit.

``So Hye shot him, naturally,'' Black said. ``Right in the throat.''

``And Wekesa, still drenched in sweat from the running and looking like
a rumpled cat, he leans forward and he says all cool as ice,'' Grem
One-Eye began.

``Guess he didn't see \emph{that} coming,'' the two old killers guffawed
together.

They chuckled with the ease of two old friends sharing a worn and
beloved joke, now thrown around as much for the fondness of the tale as
for whatever waning humour it might have once held. I shared a look of
secondhand embarrassment with Masego and Indrani. Calamities, huh. They
were a great deal less dignified once you'd had a close look at them.
Those left, anyway, I thought with a grimace. Sabah I'd mourn for she
was worth mourning, but the Warlock I grieved more for how his death had
pained and would pain Masego more than anything else. Little about the
man had endeared him to me.

``Here, Marshal,'' Juniper said, passing him a skewer of juicy horse
meat.

``Thank you, Marshal,'' Grem replied, openly amused.

``Sisters take me, let's be done with the titles for the night,'' I
grunted.

``Your Majestic Highreachingness, I must protest,'' Indrani gravely
said. ``It would be most improper of your loyal subjects to behave in
such a manner. And also us.''

``Reaching high shelves is her only weakness, as it happens,'' Robber
drawled.

``Really,'' I flatly said. ``The \emph{goblin} is going to make height
jokes.''

``I am a veritable titan, by my people's standards,'' the Special
Tribune shamelessly lied.

``I've seen piles of apples taller than you,'' I scathingly replied.

``Ah,'' Robber replied without missing a beat, ``but did you see
\emph{over} them?''

That cut a little too close to home so I replied with a gesture more
than mildly obscene and a few curses in Taghrebi that had Aisha
tittering in amusement before her face suddenly went blank. \emph{Ah}, I
sadly thought, my own memory prompted by the sight. It'd been the same
man who'd taught them to the both of us, then.

``I have a question, Marshal Grem, about your assault on the Wall during
the Conquest,'' Pickler said. ``If you don't mind.''

``Grem will do, around a fire,'' the old orc gravelled. ``You're Old
Wither's daughter, I hear?''

Pickler's face tightened with discomfort as the mention of her mother,
the Matron of the High Ridge tribe.

``I am,'' she said.

``She tried to have my liver ripped out, once,'' Grem said. ``Not even
because she disliked me, mind you, she was just trying to insult Ranker
by eating an ally's flesh.''

``I am,'' Pickler slowly said, ``sorry?''

The grizzled orc quietly laughed.

``Not much like that old horror, are you?'' he said, baring teeth. ``Ask
your question, girl.''

Even as Pickler began a long question about the order of battle for
siege when attacking the fortresses of the Wall I tuned out the taking
and leaned closer to Black.

``You actually here for the company, or the other thing?'' I quietly
asked.

``I expect the Pilgrim will arrive come midnight,'' he replied just as
quietly. ``And if you are to speak of the Wandering Bard, as I expect
you will, one whose veracity might be ascertained might be of some use
to you.''

I felt a sliver of gratefulness at that, though I knew he would bring as
many complications as he did uses by being there. Tariq could no longer
see through me unless Sve Noc let him, these days, and even if they did
let him it would be considered suspect. Black, on the other hands, was
no longer even Named. The Peregrine should be able to use his trick
without any complications, though I doubted someone like the Grey
Pilgrim would find much to approve of in my father. My brow raised, when
I caught a detail. I'd never actually told him that the Sisters could
ward of the attentions of the Choir of Mercy -- and likely an aspect, as
I doubted angels would so frequently lend a helping hand even to their
apparent favourite.

``Come now,'' Black smiled, before I could say anything. ``Pacts with
lesser gods are not so rare as to be unheard of. Wekesa spent many a
year trying to mimic through ritual the benefits one gains through such
patronage without the drawbacks, though to only middling success.''

``It's not quite as clear-cut as that,'' I said. ``We have give and
take.''

``No doubt,'' the green-eyed man said. ``Besides, considering the trials
you've put your soul through over the last few years I doubt there are
many takers left.''

I gasped.

``Are you making fun of the state of my immortal soul, you perfidious
heretic?'' I said.

``I suppose I must be a heretic indeed, if the Arch-heretic of the East
deems me so,'' he mused.

Gods but I'd missed insulting the man. There were still so many things
left unsaid between us, recriminations still simmering and hard
arguments yet to be had, but what had been so deeply wounded in the
aftermath of Akua's Folly felt\ldots{} lighter tonight. Not healed, and
perhaps it never would be, but not quite so raw. It helped, I thought,
that I had been allowed to feel for my own path so far from him that it
was impossible for any part of it to have been his notion. Whatever the
reasons the two older men had come, they certainly kept the conversation
going. Black eventually went to sit by Masego's side, the two of them
conversing quietly, and that I did not approach. The grief they shared
went back to long before I'd entered either's life, and I would be an
unwelcome interloper if I attempted to be part of it. Vivienne had yet
to come, which had me frowning. She would not snub an evening like this
out of anger at Akua being here, so it likely meant the Jacks were
finding something of us. I'd like for her to be there, regardless, but I
couldn't deny that finally getting even a bare bones report about
whatever it was the First Prince was dredging out of Lake Artoise would
be a relief. As it turned out, though, like so often Black was right.

Mere heartbeats before midnight, the wards shivered as the Grey Pilgrim
passed through.