Codex Alera 06 - First Lord's Fury (62 page)

“There’s an issue of credibility,” Amara said. “Specifically, you have none. Why shouldn’t we assume that this offer is a trap to lead our most powerful crafters to their deaths?”

“Can you afford skepticism at this point, Amara?” Invidia asked. “The Queen is no fool. She knows that you will do whatever you can to kill her. She and her kind have been playing this game for a long, long time. She has no intention of allowing you to
see
her, much less attack her—and even if you defeat this army, in weeks there will be another upon your doorstep. What power remains to Alera is insufficient to stop her. She already controls too much territory, and you do not have the manpower necessary to retake it. Can you afford
not
to trust me?”

“Absolutely,” Amara said. “I am perfectly willing to take my chances with an honest enemy rather than place the fate of the Realm in your demonstrably treacherous hands.”

Invidia tilted her head slightly, her eyes narrowing. “You want something.”

“Think of it as earnest money,” Amara said. “Show me the color of your coin, and there’s a chance we can do business.”

Invidia spread her hands. “What would you have of me?”

“The numbers and disposition of the horde, of course,” Amara said. “Add to that the time and focus of the next attack, and any information you have regarding vord troops present upon the field whom we have not yet observed.”

“Give you all of that information?” Invidia asked. “It would not take her long to realize that she had been betrayed. I would survive her wrath no better than I would the High Lords’.”

Amara shrugged. “That does not, in my view, make the plan any less attractive.”

Invidia’s eyes flashed with silent anger.

“Give me that information,” Amara said quietly. “If it is accurate, we can discuss further cooperative actions. Otherwise, go.”

“Give me your word,” Invidia said. “Your word that you bargain in good faith.”

Amara sneered at her. “You . . .
you
, Invidia, are asking
me
for
my
word? Do you see the irony inherent in that?”

“I know what your word means to you,” Invidia said quietly. “I know that you will keep it.”

“You don’t know what it means,” Amara replied. “You have no idea. You might see integrity in others, see it function, see how it guides them. But you do
not
know what it is, traitor.”

Invida bared her teeth. “Give me your word,” she said. “And I will give you what you ask.”

Amara narrowed her eyes for a time, then said, “Very well. Within the limits of my power and influence, I give you my word, Invidia. Deal with me honestly, and I will do what I can to make this bargain for you. Though I must caution you—I do not know what the Princeps’ reaction to your proposal is likely to be. Nor can I control it.”

Invidia stared at her intently while she spoke. Then she nodded slowly. “I do not think the Princeps is going to be of any concern to anyone for much longer.”

“You mean your ex-husband?”

Invidia’s expression twisted into mild surprise. “Is he still alive?”

Amara paused deliberately before she spoke, placing emphasis on that silence. “For now,” she said, finally. “I assume that the First Lady is still being held by the Queen?”

Invidia curled her lips in a grim little smile, pausing for the exact same length of time before she answered. “She is being held in the hive, along with Araris Valerian. You see, Countess? We can do business.”

Amara nodded slowly. “I am listening, Invidia. But not for long.”

“She was right here? In the bloody steadholt? In this bloody room?” Raucus bellowed. “Bloody crows, why didn’t you raise the alarm?”

“Perhaps because Invidia would undoubtedly have killed her?” Phrygius suggested patiently. “Which was presumably why she approached the Countess instead of one of us?”

Raucus scowled. “I mean after she left. We could have brought the bitch down before she got back to her cave or whatever.”

“Perhaps you should let the Countess speak. That way, she’ll be able to tell us,” Lord Placida said mildly.

Lady Placida frowned and moved her hand as if to restrain her husband, but dropped it back to her side again. Old Cereus sat in a chair near the door, frowning.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Bernard said. “Love?”

“Invidia came here to try to make a deal.”

Everyone simply stared at her in shock, except for old Cereus, who snorted. “That isn’t surprising,” he said. “It’s stupid, but not surprising.”

“Why not, Your Grace?” Amara asked. She knew, but if any of the High Lords in the room hadn’t worked it out yet, it would better come from one of their own than from her.

Cereus shrugged. “Because for Invidia, life was always about pushing people around like pieces on a
ludus
board. In her mind, what’s going on right now isn’t that different from business as usual in Alera. More difficult, more degrading, more unpleasant, but she doesn’t understand what losing a loved one . . .” He cleared his throat. The old man’s sons had been killed during High Lord Kalarus’s uprising and the initial offensive of the Vord War. “What it can do to a body. How it changes things. Woman’s never loved a thing in her life but power.”

Amara nodded. “She seeks a more favorable bargaining position. To use whomever she can and abandon whomever she can’t.”

Phrygius stroked a hand over his roan red beard, musing. “I thought you said that she was trapped in the vord’s service. That big bug thing on her chest was the only thing keeping her alive.”

“Yes,” Amara says. “Which means that she knows or thinks she knows some way to overcome it.”

“What did she offer, Countess?” Placidus asked.

Amara told them about the conversation with Invidia. “She said that when we wanted to speak to her, we should send up green signal arrows from her in groups of three. She’ll contact us.”

Heavy silence followed.

“Do you think she’s serious?” Raucus asked. “Tell me you don’t think that bitch is serious.”

“I think she might be,” Lady Placida said slowly.

Phrygius shook his head. “It’s a trap.”

“Bloody expensive trap,” Lord Placida mused. “If that information she gave you is accurate, Countess, we can use it to hurt them badly.”

“You aren’t thinking like a bloody bug,” Raucus said. “She can afford to throw away a million warriors if it means she breaks the back of our heaviest furycraft.”

Lady Placida nodded. “And if we deploy our troops to take advantage of the enemy attack, and she’s lying to us, the vord will be able to take advantage of
us
. They’ll know where we’ll have to put them to counter the attack. If Invidia is lying, they can use that to their advantage.”

“Hah,” Lord Placida said suddenly.

“Oh,” Lord Cereus said, at the same time. “Oh, Countess. I see now. Well
played
.”

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Amara said quietly, nodding to each of them.

Raucous scowled, looking back and forth between them. “What?”

“Don’t try to figure it out,” Phrygius muttered. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

“You don’t know any more than I do,” Raucus shot back.

Lady Placida pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger and let out a slow, patient exhale. “Countess, please. For
my
benefit, please explain.”

Amara gave Lord Placida a slight bow, and said, “Your Grace, if you would?”

Lord Placida returned her bow, and said, “The Countess has established a situation in which all roads but the last will end in our favor. We can’t be sure about the confrontation with the Queen, regardless of what happens. But we
can
test Invidia’s honesty by watching the next vord attack.”

“And if she’s lying?” Lady Placida asked.

“If she’s lying, she’s doing it for a reason,” Cereus said. “She’s doing it because the vord need to create a weakness that they can exploit. We trump her hand by
not
trying to take advantage of the enemy dispositions in the next attack. We maintain the strength of our defenses as they stand and withdraw to Garrison when the evacuation is complete, just as planned. We give them no chance to exploit us. The outcome of this war is going to hinge on killing the Queen in any case, not simply slaughtering warriors.”

Lady Placida nodded slowly, one hand toying idly with the single, long braid of her scarlet-auburn hair. “If the vord come at us the way Invidia says they will, we won’t be able to hurt them for it. We’ll miss the opportunity.”

“But we’ll know she’s telling the truth about something,” Amara said. “We’ve lost nothing. And no matter what happens, we’ve gained one piece of what I judge to be reasonably reliable information.”

“We know my sister and Araris are alive,” Bernard rumbled.

Lady Placida’s eyes widened. “You think Isana is behind this?”

“I think it is one possibility,” Amara said. “But the story about Isana saving Araris from garic poisoning was widely told. If Invidia thinks that Isana could potentially save her from the poisoning as she did Araris, she might well plot to betray the vord. She is determined and very intelligent.”

“Would Isana do such a thing?” Lady Placida asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” Amara said. “All that matters is that Invidia
believes
she can. Whatever the truth, it would appear that Invidia thinks she may have been cast a lifeline.”

Lord Antillus managed to fit a profound portion of skepticism into his grunt.

“I know,” Amara said. “She’s a schemer. But it’s possible that she thinks she can scheme her way out of this situation the way she’s done so many other times. If that is the case—if she’s telling us the truth about the next attack,” Amara said, “then she’s probably telling us the truth about taking us to the vord Queen.”

She frowned. “And there’s one other thing. Something she may have genuinely let slip. She said that the Princeps would shortly be of no concern to anyone—and she wasn’t talking about Attis.”

The room suddenly became utterly silent. The air thrummed with brittle tension.

“I think Octavian is close,” Amara said.

“If Invidia or the Queen attacks him, he’s as good as dead,” Phrygius said. “He’s had his full abilities for what? A year at the most? With no formal training? There’s no way he could have learned enough technique to apply them. And how many others could he possibly have with him, given that he landed in Antillus . . . a week ago, give or take? How many Knights Aeris were in the First Aleran?”

“Twenty-six,” Placida said quietly. “And your sons, Raucus.”

Raucus said nothing, but his expression was bleak.

“He must be trying to make it through to us,” Phrygius said. “A small, fast-moving group for immediate protection, maybe flying under veils, if he’s good enough to do that. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Placida nodded. “And if they’re talking about taking him down, then he’s probably close enough for the Queen to attack.”

“No,” Bernard said in a quiet, firm voice. “She’s close enough for
him
to attack
her
, Your Grace.”

“If the Queen is beyond Invidia, she’s beyond Octavian,” Phrygius said. “Simple as that. He’s barely more than a boy.”

“He shut down the plans of Invidia
and
Attis when he
was
a boy,” Bernard growled, his eyes on Phrygius’s. “I doubt he’s planning on facing her in a wrestling ring or a dueling hall. You’d be a fool to dismiss him, Your Grace.”

Phrygius narrowed his eyes, and his beard bristled.

Raucus put a hand on his shoulder. “Easy, Gun. Don’t make more of that than what he said. What if I’d spoken of your son that way, huh?”

Lord Phrygius was stiff for a moment more, then inclined his head toward Bernard. “He’s your blood. I didn’t think before I spoke. Please excuse me.”

Bernard nodded.

“Stay focused,” Lady Placida said. “We can’t know what to do about Octavian until we find him, or he makes contact. It’s possible that he wants it that way. We can’t know if Invidia is going to betray us at the last moment. But. Assuming that she appears to be telling us the truth . . . the only question is whether or not we pit ourselves against her knowing that it could be a trap, and we could be walking to our deaths. For that matter, even if she is sincere, we might
still
die.”

Raucus exhaled slowly. “Maybe we should bring Forcia, Attica, and Riva.”

Cereus shook his head. “They’ve never been fighters, I’m afraid. In a close-quarters fight, they’d be more dangerous to us than to the vord.”

“It’s up to us,” Lord Placida said quietly. “And I don’t think we’re going to get a better chance. I don’t think we have a choice, even if it
is
a trap. I’m in.”

His wife intertwined her fingers with his, silently.

Cereus rose, with either his armor or his bones creaking.

Phrygius eyed Raucus, and said, “Maybe I’ll finally get to see you get knocked on your ass.”

“When we get back, you and I are going to have a talk in which you lose your teeth,” Antillus replied. “Because I’m going to knock them out of your head. With my fists.”

“I think we all understood what you meant at the end of your first sentence, dolt.”

“Boys, boys,” Aria said, her voice warm. “It doesn’t matter unless she’s telling the truth about the next attack, in any case. Until then, we’re not changing any plans, yes?”

“Correct,” Bernard said. “We lie low and wait. We’ll meet again in Garrison and talk about the next step after we see what happens. If she’s telling the truth, we’ll know it in about three hours.”

The meeting broke up. The High Lords went back out to their positions on the wall, leaving Amara and Bernard alone in the room.

Bernard watched her with calm green eyes for several seconds before he said, “What were you holding back?”