Captain's Fury (Page 127)

She blinked and considered that thought for a moment. It sounded, to Isana, remarkably like what someone like Lady Aquitaine would have been thinking, in her position. Until the battle of Second Calderon, Isana’s largest practical worry had been the organization of the kitchen at her brother’s stead-holt. Had she really become so jaded to the dangers of Aleran politics since then that she felt herself qualified to criticize the nuances of her own abduction?

She couldn’t help it. She found herself shaking with quiet laughter.

Araris stirred, and she felt the motion as they sat, backs together, leaning gently against one another. "What is it?" he murmured.

"I’m just appreciating the irony of human nature," Isana said, voice pitched very low.

She could hear the smile in his voice. "Any part in particular?"

"Our ability to face enormous adversity, yet retain the capacity to complain about the little things."

"Ah," Araris said. "I wondered if they made these hoods out of old horse blankets as well."

Isana laughed again, mostly a shaking of her shoulders that made little sound, and Araris joined her.

"The sounds of fighting have died down," Isana noted a moment later.

"Yes," Araris said.

"Have the Legions won?"

"They haven’t lost yet," Araris replied. "Those trumpet calls were a general retreat."

"They were pushed back from whatever they were attacking, then," Isana said.

"Whatever they were holding," Araris corrected. "A failed assault sounds different. And there are too many wounded."

Isana had been trying hard not to think about the moans and screams of wounded men, coming from not far away. "It’s different, then?"

"In an assault," Araris said, "you’re fighting on the enemy’s ground. Pushing forward. When men fall, it’s harder to get them to the rear. And once the retreat is on, a lot more men fall. More of them get left behind, taken prisoner or killed. A defense is different. It’s your ground. You’ve got men standing by to carry the wounded back to your healers and fresh men to step into the places of the fallen, covering their retreat. You wind up with a lot more wounded."

Isana shuddered. "That’s horrible."

"It’s a horrible situation," Araris acknowledged quietly.

"Rather like ours," Isana said.

He was silent.

"That bad?" Isana asked, nudging her back gently against his.

"You said the right thing to Navaris," he said. "Making her question whether or not she should make the decision for Arnos. It bought us a little time. But she brought us into the Legion’s camp in a covered wagon, and in hoods. Then they dumped us directly into this tent, which is guarded. And I’m fairly certain that we’re among the men of the First Guard. Nalus is Captain of the Second Senatorial, and he’d bloody well want to know all about any hooded prisoners in his own camp."

"No one knows who we are," Isana said quietly. "No one knows we’re here."

"Precisely," Araris said.

"Do you think he’ll kill us?"

Araris considered that for a moment. Then he said, without malice, "He’d better."

"What?"

"You’re a Citizen of the Realm, Isana. His hirelings assaulted and kidnapped you on his orders. Ehren’s a bloody Cursor of the Crown. If he survived, he’s going to be able to make a terrible stink, legally speaking. Arnos’s best chance to survive it-"

"-will be to make sure there are no witnesses to corroborate Ehren’s version of things."

"Probably/’ Araris said. "Besides, if he doesn’t kill us, I’ll take him."

The matter-of-fact tone to his quiet voice was chilling. Isana found herself leaning slightly harder against him. "What do we do?" she asked. "Escape?"

"Realistically speaking, we’ve no chance, even if we get loose. Well just provide them a wonderful excuse to kill us and make apologies later. Heat of battle, confusion, such a tragedy."

"What, then?"

"If you get the chance, keep Arnos talking for as long as you can," Araris said. "And we wait."

"Wait?"

"He isn’t going to leave us here," Araris said.

Isana had no doubt to whom the singulare referred. "We are secret prisoners in the camp of what might as well be an enemy Legion, which is itself surrounded by an army of Canim. He is alone. He might not even know where we are. I believe he’ll try, of course, but…"

At that, Araris burst into a low, rich laugh, loud enough to be heard outside the tent. It was, Isana realized, the first time she’d heard him make such a sound, and her own heart reacted with a senselessly juvenile little burst of happiness to hear it.

"Quiet in there!" barked a man’s voice, one of the Senator’s thugs, or some random legionare pressed into duty as a sentry.

Araris swallowed his laughter and leaned his head back. Isana felt his head touch hers and leaned into the contact, closing her eyes.

"I’ve been with him for two years," Araris whispered. "You know his heart, Isana. You helped shape it. You’ve seen him while we traveled-but you don’t see what he’s become, and you don’t know where it came from the way I do."

"Septimus," Isana whispered.

"You don’t know how many times he got us out of trouble like this." Araris paused for a moment. "Well. Perhaps not quite this much all at once. But then, it was never a matter of scale."

"You believe in him," Isana breathed.

"Great furies help me," Araris said. "It’s almost insane. But yes." He was quiet for a moment more. Then he said, "I love you very much, you know."

She nodded, gently, so as not to bump their skulls together. "I do know. I love you, too."

"I’ve been thinking," he said. He hesitated. "I mean. Well, it isn’t like it’s an entirely new thought, but…"

The awkward little flutter she felt in his confidence was almost painfully endearing. "Yes?"

"If it’s possible," Araris said. "I mean… if we both live through this. And if… if things work out to where… I know it probably won’t ever be a real possibility, but…"

Isana shivered. "Yes?"

"If. One day. If everything… Would you…" He took a deep breath. "Would you marry me?"

She’d known the direction of his thoughts, from the wildly unsettled sense of his emotions, but she hadn’t anticipated her reaction to them.

She laughed. Again. She laughed herself breathless, laboring to keep it quiet.