Cursor's Fury (Page 34)

She was not the kind of foe one could simply assault and do away with. She would have to be overcome by other means-and if what Magnus said was true, Lady Antillus was a dangerous opponent.

Tavi smiled faintly to himself. He could be dangerous as well. There were more weapons in the world than furies and blades, and no foe was invincible. After all, he had just turned her trap back upon her rather neatly. And if he had outwitted her once, he could do it again.

Lady Antillus watched his face as the thoughts flowed through his head, and seemed hardly to know how to react to Tavi’s changing expression. A flash of unease went through her eyes. Perhaps, in his anger, he had let too much of his emotions slip free of his control. It was possible she had sensed his desire to do her harm.

She took her son’s arm and turned without a further word, walking away with regal poise. She didn’t look over her shoulder.

Max rubbed a hand through his short hair, then said, "All right. What the crows was that all about?"

Tavi frowned at the retreating High Lady, then at Max. "Oh. She thought I was someone you knew at the Academy."

Max grunted. Then he flicked his hand, and Tavi felt a tightness against his ears. "There," Max rumbled. "She can’t possibly overhear us."

Tavi nodded.

"You lied to her," Max said. "Right to her face. How the hell did you manage that?"

"Practice," Tavi said. "My aunt Isana is a strong watercrafter, so I was motivated to figure it out as a child."

"There aren’t many who can do something like that, Calderon." Max gestured at the fire. "How the crows did you do that? You been holding out on me?"

Tavi smiled. Then he reached down to his trousers and drew out a rounded lens of glass from his pants pocket and turned his palm enough to show it to Max. "Nice, sunny day. Old Romanic trick."

Max looked down at the glass and made a small choking sound. Then he shook his head. "Crows." Max’s face turned pink, and his shoulders shook with restrained mirth. "She was listening for your fury. And she never heard it. But you got the fire anyway. She’ll never think of…" This time he did burst out into the rolling laughter Tavi was familiar with.

"Come on, Scipio," Max said. "Let’s find something to eat before I fall down."

Tavi put the glass away and grunted. "Last meal for me. Gracchus is going to have me knee deep in latrines as soon as he finds out I’m not sitting up with you anymore."

"That’s the glamorous officer life for you," Max said. He turned to swagger toward the mess, but his balance swayed.

Tavi was beside his friend in an instant, providing support without actually reaching out for him. "Whoah. Easy there, Max. You had a close call."

"I’ll be all right." Max panted. Then he shook his head, regained his balance, and resumed walking. "I’ll be fine."

"You will be," Tavi said, nodding. After a moment, he added more quietly, "She isn’t smarter than everyone, Max. She can be beaten."

Max glanced aside at Tavi, head tilted, studying him.

"Well, crows," he said at last. "If you can do it, how hard can it be?"

"I’ve got to stop encouraging you." Tavi sighed. "But I’ll watch your back. We’ll figure something out."

They walked a few more paces before Max said, quietly, "Or maybe she’ll just kill both of us. ‘

Tavi snorted. "I’ll handle her by myself if you aren’t up to it."

Max’s eyebrows shot up. Then he shook his head, and his fists slammed gently down on the pauldrons of Tavi’s armor, making the steel ring out a gentle tone. "You’d never let me live that down," he said.

"Bloody right I wouldn’t," Tavi said. "Come on. Let’s eat." He walked steadily beside his friend, ready if Max’s balance should waver again.

Tavi shivered, and in the corner of his eye caught Lady Antillus watching them cross the camp, never quite openly staring at them. It was the steady, calm, cautious stare of a hungry cat-but he could feel that this time, rather than tracking Maximus, her dark, calculating eyes were all for him.

Chapter 10

"And it is with great pleasure and pride," Lady Aquitaine addressed the assembled Dianic League, "that I introduce to some of you, and reintroduce to many of you, the first female Steadholder in Aleran history. Please welcome Isana of Calderon."

The public amphitheater of Ceres was filled to its capacity of four thousand, though perhaps only half of them were actual members of the Dianic League, the organization consisting of the leading ladies of the Citizenry. Few of the women in attendance bore a title lower than Countess. Perhaps two hundred had been freemen who won their Citizenship through the formal duel of the juris macto, or who had served in the Legions, mostly in service as Knights, though half a dozen had served as rank-and-file legionares, disguising their sex until after they had proven themselves in battle.

Of them all, only Isana had attained her rank through rightful, legal appointment, free of any sort of violence or military service. In all of Aleran history, she was the only woman to do so.

The rest of those present were mostly men, and by and large members of the abolitionist movement. They included a dozen Senators among their number, their supporters and contacts in the Citizenry, and members of the Liber-tus Vigilantes, a quasi-secret organization of militant abolitionists within the city of Ceres. The Vigilantes had spent years persecuting slave traders and slave owners within the city. It was not unusual to find an insufficiently paranoid slaver hung from the top of a slave pen by his own manacles, strangled by one of his own chains. The elderly High Lord Cereus Ventis, though the legal master of the city, did not command the respect of the Vigilantes or their supporters, nor possess the resolve to come down on them with all the power at his disposal, and had consequently failed to quell the violence.

Any remaining folk there were either spies who would report back to the Slavers Consortium or simply curious onlookers. The amphitheater was a public forum, open to any Citizen of the Realm.

The crowd applauded, and their emotions flowed over Isana like the first incoming wave of an ocean tide. Isana closed her eyes against it for a moment, fortifying herself against its impact, then rose from her seat, smiled, and stepped to the front of the stage, to the podium beside Lady Aquitaine.

"Thank you," she said. Her voice rang clearly throughout the amphitheater. "Ladies, gentlemen. A man I once knew told me that giving a speech is like amputating a limb. It’s best to finish it as quickly and painlessly as possible." There was polite laughter. She waited for it to fade, then said, "The institution of slavery is a blight upon our entire society. Its abuses have become intolerable, its legal safety mechanisms nonfunctional. Everyone here knows that to be true."