Jim Butcher - Cursors's Fury

Tavi went to his friend’s side and crouched beside him.

“People like her get to do what they please,” Max said quietly. “I can’t just kill her. She’s too smart to be caught. And even if she was, she has family, friends, contacts, people she controls and blackmails. She’ll never face justice. And one of these times, she’ll get me. I’ve known that since I was fourteen.”

And suddenly Tavi understood his friend a little better. Max had lived his life in fear and anger. He’d run away to join the Legions to escape his stepmother’s reach, but he knew, or rather, was convinced that he’d only managed a stay of execution. Max believed that she would kill him, believed it on a level so deep that it had become a part of who and what he was. That was why his friend had caroused so enthusiastically in the capital, why he had blown off most of his classes at the Academy, why he had made merry with wine, women, and song at every opportunity.

He believed he would never live to die of old age.

Tavi put his hand on Max’s shoulder. “No one’s invincible. No one’s perfect. She can be beaten.”

Max shook his head. “Forget it,” he said. “Stay clear. I don’t want you to get caught up in it when it happens.”

Tavi hissed out a breath of frustration and rose. “Bloody crows, man. What is the matter with you?”

Max never looked up. “Just go away.”

Footsteps approached the tent, then Maestro Magnus thrust his head inside, looking around quickly. “Ah,” he said. “He’s awake?”

Foss nudged in past Magnus and scowled at Tavi. “That’s it. Everyone out.”

“What?” Tavi asked.

“Everyone out. Patient needs to clean up, dress, get some water in him, and let me check him before he’ll be able to move around. You people staring at him won’t help. So get out.”

“Actually, a fair idea,” Magnus said, giving Tavi a direct look.

Tavi nodded at him, and said, “All right. I’ll be outside, Max.”

“Yeah, “ Max said, waving a vague hand. “Out in a bit.”

Tavi slipped out of the tent, walking close to Magnus. “Where have you been?” Tavi asked him.

“Keeping an eye on our Tribune Medica,” Magnus replied. He led Tavi on a brief walk, away from the tents and past several groups of drilling recruits, variously shouting and being shouted at by instructors, creating plenty of noise in which to hide any conversation. “Has anyone come?”

“The captain and the First Spear,” Tavi said quietly. “This morning that Knight, Crassus, was standing not far off, but he didn’t come over.”

“Were you able to find out about that messenger that keeps going back and forth between Tribune Bracht and the village?” Magnus asked.

“I’ve been with Max,” Tavi said. “Maestro, that’s more important than-”

“Our duties?” Magnus asked archly. “No, Tavi. The security of the Realm is more important than any one of us. Remember why we are all here.”

Tavi ground his teeth together but nodded once, sharply. “I should be able to find out in the next day or so.”

“Good. While you’re at it, I want you to find out whatever you can about the master farrier and his staff. And that veteran squad from the fifth cohort.”

“I already did that last,” Tavi said. “They’re aphrodin addicts. They’ve been buying it at the bordello in the camp.”

Magnus hissed through his teeth. “Addicts can still be spies. Find out who deals with them there. Whom they talk to.”

Tavi coughed. “That’s really more in Max’s traditional waters than mine.”

“Great furies, man. I’m not letting Maximus anywhere near an aphrodin den at a time like this. He’ll get himself killed.”

“Sir, Max likes to chase the ladies and drink, and furies know how well I know it. Sometimes he’ll drink laced wine. But he isn’t… that doesn’t control him.”

“It’s got nothing to do with whether or not he’s able to control himself,” Magnus said. “But it will be far too easy for someone to arrange an accident for him if he’s lying drugged and besotted in a pleasure den when he should be watching for a knife in the back.”

“From his stepmother?”

“Careful,” Magnus said, looking around. “Has Max ever spoken to you of his family?”

“No,” Tavi said. “But I always thought the scars on his back said plenty about them.”

Magnus shook his head. “Maximus is the illegitimate, publicly acknowledged son of High Lord Antillus. The High Lord married three years after Maximus was born, a political arrangement.”

“Lady Antillus,” Tavi said.

“And Crassus was the product of their union,” Magnus said.

Tavi frowned. “She thinks Max is a threat to Crassus?”

“Maximus is popular in the northern Legions and with at least one other High Lord. He’s a powerfully gifted furycrafter, he may one day be one of the finest swordsmen in Aleran history, and he made a great many friends at the Academy.”

“Uh,” Tavi said. “He was friendly. I don’t know if most of those who spent time with him would count as ‘friends,’ per se.”

“You’d be surprised how many times alliances have been forged between former casual lovers,” Magnus replied. “More to the point, he is known to be friendly with the First Lord’s page, among others, and has a widely known defiant streak when it comes to authority.”

“Max doesn’t want to be a High Lord,” Tavi said. “He’d run screaming within half an hour. He knows it.”

“And yet,” Magnus said, “he has made allies. He has a power base of influence among several Legions, and with several Lords-including those in the personal retinue of Gaius himself. Forget your personal knowledge of him and think of it in terms of an exercise, lad. What if he decided that he did want it?”

Tavi wanted to protest, but he ran through the angles in his mind, playing things out in numerous possibilities directed by logic, instinct, and the examples of history, as he had been taught by the Cursors.

“He could do it,” Tavi said quietly. “If something happened to Crassus, Max would be the only reasonable choice. Even if it didn’t, if Antillus’s Legions favored Max over his little brother, if he had support from other High Lords and the First Lord, that would be the end of the matter, practically speaking. It wouldn’t even be particularly difficult for him.”

“Precisely.”

“But he doesn’t want that, Maestro. I know him.”

“You do,” Magnus said. “But his stepmother doesn’t. And this isn’t young Antillar’s first accident.” As he finished the sentence, they completed their brief circuit of the interior of the practice field, returning to the infirmary. They were in time to see Lady Antillus and Crassus cross the practice track and walk toward the infirmary tent.

“Max is afraid of her,” Tavi murmured.

“She’s had a lifetime to teach him fear,” Magnus said, nodding. “And she’s deadly clever, lad. Powerful, wicked, devious. Several disturbing fates have befallen her foes, and not a shred of evidence has been found, not a drop of blood stained her hands. There are few in the Realm as dangerous as she.”

“She looks familiar,” Tavi said quietly. “Like someone I should know.”

Magnus nodded and said, “There are many who say her nephew Brencis is almost a mirror image of her.”

Tavi clenched his teeth. “Kalarus.”

“Mmmm,” Magnus said, nodding. “Lord Kalare’s youngest sister-and only surviving sibling. “

Tavi shook his head. “And Max’s father married her?”

“As I said. A political marriage.” Magnus watched them approaching. “I doubt Lord Antillus likes her any better than Max does. And now, young Scipio, I’m off to attend to the captain and do a great many other things. I think you should entertain the Lady and her son until Maximus gains his feet and can face her in the open, in front of witnesses.”