Jim Butcher - Cursors's Fury

The muttering in the room stopped, and a bottomless silence fell.

Amara felt a rush of fierce, pleased pride flash through her, and she found herself smiling down at Bernard.

Arnos’s face flushed dark red, almost purple. Without another word, he turned and strode from the hall, steps sounding angrily on the hall’s floor. A little more than a third of the room, including several of the men also on the raised platform, rose and followed the Senator out.

When they had gone, Bernard shook his head and cast an almost imperceptible wink in her direction. “All right,” he said. “Next question.”

A small forest of hands went up. Those men who remained, all of them wearing Legion uniform tunics or armor, or with their hair cropped Legion fashion, settled down to listen.

Amara descended to the hall floor after Bernard’s talk was over. He was shaking hands with the few members of the Collegia’s staff who had remained when Senator Arnos left. Giraldi hovered in the background, leaning on his cane, and traded gibes with several other old soldiers apparently of his acquaintance.

Amara smiled as Bernard broke away from the men and came to her. “You will rip his forked tongue from his head?”

He gave her a fleeting smile. “Too much, you think?”

Amara imitated Arnos’s clipped Rhodesian accent. “You are a barbarian, after all, Count.”

Bernard let out a rumble of a laugh but shook his head. “He didn’t believe me.”

“He’s one fool,” Amara replied. “We knew when we set out to come here that there would be plenty of them around.”

“Yes. I just didn’t think that one of them would be the Senator holding the purse strings for all the Crown funds for the Legions.” Bernard shook his head. “And he has a following. Maybe I should have let him strut a bit.”

“If you had, you wouldn’t be you,” Amara replied. “Besides, you struck a solid note with the active duty soldiers here. They’re the ones whose opinions will matter most.”

“They’re also the ones who will suffer the most from budget cuts,” Bernard said. “It’s hard to fight anyone when your equipment is wearing out and falling apart around you. Much less something like the vord.”

“And would kissing up to the Senator make him more likely to increase the gold allowed to the Legions in order to increase their scouts and other auxiliary troops?”

“Perhaps not,” Bernard admitted.

“Then don’t gnaw at it. You’ve done what you can. And I should imagine that the cadets who were here will be talking about the way you dropped that challenge to the Senator for years. A source of long-term amusement.”

“At least I accomplished something positive. Why didn’t you say so?”

She laughed and took his arm as they left the lecture hall and strolled across the campus.

He smiled and tilted his head at her. “You look… I don’t know. Happy, today. You haven’t stopped smiling.”

“I don’t look happy,” she said.

“No?”

“No, Your Excellency.” She took a deep breath, then said, “I look late.”

He stared at her blankly for a moment. “You look…” Then his eyes widened. “Oh. Oh!”

She looked up at her husband and smiled. For a moment, she thought her heart might simply fly from her chest and take to the sky. She couldn’t resist a little skip and a burst of wind from Cirrus, which carried her seven or eight feet off the ground, spun her about in a dancer’s twirl, and dropped her back down to Bernard’s side.

His smile stretched ear to ear. “Are you… I mean. Are you sure?”

“As much as anyone can be, this soon,” she replied. “Perhaps you were right all along. This is the first time we’ve been together for more than a few days at a stretch.”

Bernard let out a laugh, picked her up, and all but crushed her against him in a bearish embrace, drawing stares from cadets passing between classes all around them. Amara reveled in it. It was when she felt his strength, that casual, enormous power, that she felt the most soft, the most yielding-the most feminine, she supposed. He made her feel beautiful. Granted she wore a sword at her hip, and could use it to deadly effect if necessary-but it made it no less pleasant to feel otherwise for a time.

“I do need to breathe,” she murmured a moment later.

He laughed and put her down again, and they kept walking together, now very close, his side pressed to hers, his arm around her shoulders. “How long have we been here?”

“Six weeks,” Amara murmured. “As you well know.”

“Has it been that long?” Bernard asked.

She gave him a look from beneath lowered lashes. “It can be difficult to judge the passing of time when one so seldom leaves his bedchamber, my lord.”

He let out a low, pleased sound, something between a chuckle and a contented growl. “That’s hardly my fault. The outside world holds little to interest me compared to the company I keep there.”

“My lord,” she said, miming a shocked face. “Whatever could you mean?”

His fingers tightened on the curve of her waist, above one hip, stroking lightly. She shivered. “Let me show you. “

“What about Giraldi? “ she asked.

“He isn’t invited.”

She dug her elbow lightly into Bernard’s ribs. “We’re not leaving him alone tonight, are we?”

“No, no. He’ll meet us for dinner when we pick up Isana. He’s teaching some basic combat classes, meanwhile, as something of a celebrity instructor.”

“Good,” Amara said. “He’ll get into trouble without something to keep him occupied.”

“I thought you were married to me,” Bernard said.

“I pick my battles,” Amara said. “You’re going to find trouble regardless of what I do. Perhaps it’s a family trait. It would explain you and your nephew both.”

“That isn’t fair,” Bernard said. “Tavi gets in much more trouble than I do.”

“He’s younger,” Amara said with a sly, sideward glance, nudging him with her hip.

“I’ll show you young,” Bernard growled-but he glanced over his shoulder in the middle of the statement, and the smile faded from his face as he did.

“What is it?” Amara asked, leaning her head against him as if nothing had happened.

“There are two men following us,” Bernard said. “But I’m not sure that they are our escort.”

“What escort?” Amara asked.

He arched an eyebrow and glanced at her.

“All right.” She sighed. “The Cursors have teams watching over a number of possible loyalist targets. I didn’t want you to feel insulted.”

She paused to straighten the hem of her skirts and called to Cirrus, spinning the fury into a new kind of crafting, one that would bend the light entirely back upon itself, blinding her to what lay before her, but letting her see what was behind. It was a difficult crafting to form and a strain to hold on to, but a quick look was all she needed.

“Those men aren’t our escort,” she said quietly. “I don’t know them.”

Bernard’s eyes narrowed. “Something does not smell right, then.”

“Yes,” Amara said. “I don’t like the way this smells at all.”

“Bloody crows,” Cyril snarled. “Get moving, Subtribune.”

Tavi grasped the outside of the ladder with his hands and slid down it, feet pressing the sides of the ladder rather than using the rungs. He hit the ground, flexed his legs to absorb the shock, and sprinted for the infirmary tents. He heard Captain Cyril land behind him, then keep pace with Tavi despite the weight of his armor.

“Make a hole!” Tavi shouted at the recruits gathered outside the tent, doing his best to imitate Max’s tone, volume, and inflection when he issued orders. “Captain coming through!”