Jim Butcher - First Lord's Fury

“Sir,” Schultz acknowledged.

“Pack them up for a mounted march and take them up to the engineering cohort’s position. It’s on a beach north of Antillus. Secure the engineers and keep an eye out for any suspicious Canim. If they’re going to make trouble for us, it will be at the staging area, so I want your men on station before nightfall.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, sir,” Schultz said seriously. He saluted and turned to start walking. “On my way.”

“Max, take the cavalry with him. Keep one wing ready to respond to an attack at all times. Don’t be subtle about it, either. I want anyone who thinks about interfering with the engineers to know what they’re in for if they try it.”

Max nodded. “Got it. What are we guarding again?”

“You’ll figure it out,” Tavi said. “Crassus, I know they aren’t going to like it, but I need the Knights to pretend they’re engineers again. The next couple of days are going to be difficult. Go with Max and Schultz and report to the senior engineering staff.”

Crassus sighed. “At least it won’t be more ice ships.”

Tavi glanced over his shoulder and smiled. “Not… exactly, no.”

Max and Crassus traded a look.

“Does he know how annoying that is?” Max asked.

“Oh, absolutely,” Crassus said.

“You think we should say anything about it?”

“The burden of command is heavy,” Crassus said soberly. “We should probably let him have his sick fun.”

Max nodded. “Especially since he’s going to do it anyway.”

“He is the mighty First Lord,” Crassus said. “We are but lowly legionares . We obey without question.”

“We do?”

“That was a question. You’re questioning.”

“Right,” Max said. “Sorry.”

“Just get up there, both of you,” Tavi said. “The vord will be here in force in two days. We need to be on the move by then. I need you to help make it happen.”

The brothers rapped fists to breastplates and marched off, continuing to bicker lightly with one another as they walked.

Kitai watched them for a moment and smiled. “They have become friends. I like that.”

“They’re brothers,” Tavi said.

She looked at him, green eyes serious. “It is not the same for everyone. Blood draws some together. Their blood came between them.”

Tavi nodded. “They weren’t always this way, no.”

Kitai smiled faintly. “They are your friends as well. They went when you asked them to go.”

“They know what is at stake. They’re afraid. Schultz, too. That’s why they’re joking.”

“They’re joking because they just followed you into a horde of angry Canim and walked back out again in one piece,” she replied. “The battle energy had to go somewhere.”

Tavi grinned. “True.”

She tilted her head. “I’m curious. What did you accomplish, other than arranging a duel with one of the more dangerous beings we have encountered?”

“I started a conversation,” Tavi said.

Kitai eyed him for a moment, then said, “They are right. It is annoying when you do that.”

Tavi sighed. “It’ll work, or it won’t. Talking about it can’t help.”

She shook her head. “And your other plan. Will it work? Will we get there in time?”

Tavi stopped walking and regarded her. “I think there’s a chance. A good chance.” He turned to her, bowed formally, and asked, “Ambassador, would you do me the pleasure of joining me for a late dinner this evening?”

Kitai arched a white eyebrow. A slow smile spread over her lips. “Dinner?”

“It is the way things are properly done,” he said. “You might wear your new gown.”

“Gown?”

“I had it delivered to your tent while you were gone. I think it’s lovely. Tribune Cymnea assures me it is elegant and tasteful.”

Both her eyebrows lifted now. “In all of this, amidst everything you are doing, you made time to get me a gift.”

“Obviously,” Tavi said.

Kitai’s mouth curved up into another slow smile. She turned and sauntered away, hips swaying a little more than was necessary. She paused to say, “There is hope for you yet, Aleran.” Then she continued on her way.

Tavi frowned after her. “Kitai? So… you’re coming to dinner?”

She didn’t answer, except to laugh and keep walking.

Amara suppressed an irrationally intense urge to have Cirrus choke off Senator Valerius’s supply of air. She supposed she didn’t absolutely need to choke him. Not fatally, anyway. She might be satisfied enough with merely watching him turn purple and collapse—but the man was so detestable that she scarcely trusted herself. So instead of murder, or a pleasant near murder, she folded her hands calmly into her lap and forced herself to remain calm.

Bernard leaned over, and murmured, “If I asked you politely, do you think you could strangle that smug idiot from all the way up here?”

She tried to suppress the giggle that surged up out of her belly at his words but was only partly successful. She covered her hand with her mouth but nonetheless earned a number of irritated glances from those in the amphitheater’s audience.

“Tonight’s script is for a tragedy,” Bernard scolded her quietly, leaning close to put a restraining hand on her arm. “Not a comedy. Contain yourself before you upset the audience.”

She fought down another laugh and punched his arm lightly, turning her attention back to the ancient Senator Ulfius’s quavering recitation of obscure lineage. “—son of Matteus, whose title did not pass to his eldest, illegitimate son, Gustus, but to his younger and properly invested son, Martinus. Thus, is the precedent established, my fellow honored Senators, my lords in attendance.”

Senator Valerius, a saturnine man of middle years and tremendously dignified appearance, began to applaud with long, elegant hands, and there was irregularly spread support of the gesture. “Thank you, Senator Ulfius. Now if there are no further—”

One of the seventy or so men seated on the floor of the amphitheater cleared his throat loudly and rose in place. His hair was a thicket of white spikes, his nose was laced with red from drinking too much wine, and his knuckles were swollen almost grotesquely from repeated brawling. A bandage on his right hand testified that not all of it had been in his youth, either.

Valerius adjusted the drape of purple cloth that denoted his status as Senator Callidus and eyed the other man. “Senator Theoginus. What is it?”

“I thought I might exercise my right as a member of this Senate to voice my thoughts,” Theoginus drawled, his slow Ceresian accent coming through with broadly overdone exaggeration—a deliberate counterpoint to Valerius’s classically trained, firmly northern intonations. “Assuming the Senator Callidus still intends to chair this august body in accordance with the rule of law, of course.”

“Every moment wasted is a moment that could have been used preparing ourselves to face the enemy,” Valerius responded.

“Indeed,” Theoginus said. “Does that include the moments spent on your quite excellent manicure, Senator? I’m sure the shine of your nails will dazzle the vord before they can get anywhere near us.”

A low laugh, as scattered as the previous applause, went through the audience. Amara and Bernard both added their own voices to it. The bandages on Theoginus’s knuckles made an even more stark contrast to Valerius’s appearance. “I think I like him,” Amara murmured.

“Theoginus?” Bernard replied. “He’s a pompous ass. But he’s on the right side, today.”

Valerius was far too polished to show any reaction to the laughter. He waited for it to vanish, and for another quarter minute after that before answering. “Of course, Senator, we will hear what you have to say. Although I ask, for the sake of the brave young men preparing to face the enemy, that you keep your commentary concise and to the point.” He bowed his head slightly, gestured with a single hand, and seated himself gracefully.