Captain's Fury (Page 19)

There was another pause. Then the woman’s voice said, "You don’t know who I am, do you?"

"Or care, particularly," Tavi said.

"My name," she said, "is Navaris."

Tavi’s expression never flickered, but this time Isana sensed a pulse of surprised recognition, and then a low current of tightly controlled fear.

Tavi leaned forward, and said in a congenial murmur, "It’s possible that playing singulare for the Senator has not brought you the fame you had hoped it would. Never heard of you." His eyes stayed steady for another strained, silent moment. "Well, Navaris. When you first walked in, I assumed you were here for the decor and the charming company. Now, though, I’m thinking that you might have had something else in mind."

"Yes," came the answer.

"How exciting. Maybe you even had a specific reason to visit."

"Yes," Navaris growled.

He glanced past Navaris, eyes scanning the room. "And these four. I take it they’re here to help."

"Yes."

Tavi sighed and sat back in his chair. "Navaris, this will go a lot faster if I don’t have to play guessing games." His voice went flat. "Tell me what you want."

There was another long silence, and Isana realized with a sudden flash of panic that as Tavi had sat back in his chair, his hand had slipped around behind it, and his fingers were on the hilt of a dagger that had been secured to the chair’s back.

There was something thick, even drunken, about Navaris’s voice when she finally answered. "Senator Arnos sent me to gather up your intelligence reports on recent activity in the occupied territory. You are to turn over to me every record, every copy, and every list of information sources for the Senator’s personal review."

Tavi shrugged his shoulders. "I’m afraid I can’t help you."

"These are orders," Navaris replied. "If you refuse to obey them, it’s treason."

"Which is punishable by death," Tavi said. "I vaguely recall reading as much, somewhere."

"Give us the papers," she said. "Or you are under arrest."

Isana’s heart pounded hard in her chest.

"I don’t think so," Tavi said. "You see, Navaris, I’m afraid you don’t have a leg to stand on, legally speaking. You’re a singulare. You aren’t an officer. You sure as the crows aren’t my commanding officer. In fact, you aren’t in my chain of command at all."

Navaris’s voice came out as if through clenched teeth. "These are the Senator’s orders."

"Oh," Tavi said, nodding as though at a sudden revelation. "Then they’re in writing. Let me see them, and the papers are all yours." He lifted both eyebrows. "You do have legal orders, do you not?"

After a brief pause, Navaris said, "You saw him. He resisted arrest."

There were several harsh, masculine mutters.

"Get your fingers off that sword, singulare," Tavi said, his voice an abrupt whip crack of authority. "Draw that weapon against me, and I’ll gut you with it."

There was the sound of several blades slithering from their sheaths, and Isana leapt to her feet in sudden terror.

A new voice broke into the conversation. "If I were you," Araris said in a level tone, "I would do as he says."

"Or not," said a bluff, cheerful voice that was laced with a desire for violence-Antillar Maximus. "If you all want to dance, I’m game."

"None of them got to draw steel before we did," said a third voice, that of a young man Isana didn’t recognize. "If things start up now, they won’t even get their weapons clear of their sheaths. That doesn’t seem fair."

"Right you are, Crassus," Max said. "Right you are."

Isana felt a surge of murderous fury from the room-Navaris, she felt certain. It was a white-hot anger, something that seethed with malice and hate so intense that it almost seemed a separate entity. It was an irrational, bloodthirsty thing, a kind of madness that Isana had only encountered twice in her entire life.

For a moment, Isana felt sure that Navaris would attack in any case. But then that raging fire suddenly died into stillness, snuffed out as quickly as a candle dropped into a pond.

"You think you’ve accomplished something here," Navaris said quietly. "You haven’t. You’ll see that in time."

Tavi looked at her as if she hadn’t spoken at all. "Please convey my apologies to the Senator that I could not act without confirming his orders. Regulations can be inconvenient at times, but they are, after all, what holds a Legion together. Thank you for your visit."

"Fool," Navaris said.

"Captain Fool," Tavi responded. "Good day, singulare. Araris, Crassus, please escort the good singulare and her helpers to the door."

For a second, nothing happened. Then there was a shuffling of feet, and then the shutting of a door, then silence.

Isana leaned against a wall and closed her eyes, her heart racing, slightly dizzy at the sudden relief, both of her own fears and of the intense emotions that had crowded the little office.

"Crows," Maximus breathed. "Was that who I think it was?"

"Phrygiar Navaris," Tavi said, nodding.

"What was she doing here?" Max asked.

"Getting humiliated, mostly. Especially there at the end."

Max barked out a short, coughing laugh. "You don’t do things by halves, do you Calderon?"

"It saves me the time of going back to finish later." Tavi rose from the chair and came to the door. "And speaking of Calderon."

Isana opened it, aware that her hands were trembling in reaction to the tension of the past several moments. The room was now empty, but for Tavi and Maximus.

Max lifted his eyebrows at Isana, and his surprise was palpable. "Oh. Good morning, Steadholder."

"Good morning, Maximus," she replied. At least her voice was steady, she thought. She looked at Tavi. "That woman is dangerous?"

Tavi nodded. "One of the top ten or twelve swords in Alera."

"More like one of the top six or seven," Maximus said, his tone serious. "And she’s done more actual killing than any two blades on the list."

Isana shook her head. "What were you thinking, insulting her like that?"

"I was thinking that I needed to buy time for Max and his brother to get here," Tavi said. He gave her a boyish grin. "Relax, Auntie. I had it under control."

Max snorted.

"Is she acting on the Senator’s behalf?" Isana asked.

"Probably," Tavi said.