The rest of them followed her example, bowing or curtseying in the formal style of their homelands. Gavin bowed formally, meeting their eyes, careful that he too gave equal respect to drafters from each side.
Inside, as it always did, his heart broke. He wanted to tell those who’d fought beside him that it was him, that he wasn’t Gavin, that it had all been for the best. Instead, he sat with them, finding himself next to the irascible Usem the Wild as the slaves brought out steaming platters of food and cool flagons of citrus juices and wine.
“When I told some of the others”—Usem nodded grudgingly over at the Izems and Samila, who’d fought for Gavin—“they thought it would be a good year for them too.”
“We wished, Lord Prism, to perhaps help the Seven Satrapies put the… war behind us,” Samila Sayeh said, diplomatically stopping herself from calling it the False Prism’s War. “We’ve actually become good friends.”
“Personally,” Maros Orlos, the shortest Ruthgari Gavin had ever seen, said, “I’m glad to have a Freeing without all the trappings. The fireworks and speeches and posturing by satraps and satrapahs and upstart lordlings who won’t ever have to fulfill the Pact themselves. A Freeing’s holy. It ought to be between a man, the Prism, and Orholam. The rest is distractions.”
“Distractions? Like dinner with the Prism and your Freeing class?” Izem Red asked. He was Parian, lean as a whip and with a wit to match. He still wore his ghotra folded so it resembled a cobra’s hood, a style he’d picked up as a seventeen-year-old drafter, and endured incessant teasing for it. He’d been called a poser until the first battle when his lightning-like strikes, fireballs as fast as an arrow, and decimation of the enemy’s ranks had silenced all teasing once and for all.
Maros opened his mouth to protest, realized he was about to spar with Izem Red, and turned his attention back to his food.
Tala, an older Parian woman with short white hair and red halos compressing brown irises, said, “You know, High Lord Prism, Commander Ironfist told us you have a little project you’re working on. Something about that reminds me of that old poem about the Wanderer. How does it go, some work…?”
It was a famous poem; they all knew it. She didn’t even need to say the whole thing. She was offering their help on Gavin’s wall. “That would be wonderful—” Gavin began.
Bas the Simple, the odd Tyrean polychrome, interrupted, his head cocked to the side. “ ‘Some work of noble note may yet be done, not unbecoming men that strove with gods.’ Gevison, The Wanderer’s Last Journey, lines sixty-three and sixty-four.” He looked up, saw everyone looking at him, and looked down shyly.
“That would be marvelous,” Gavin said. “I understand if anyone has objections and doesn’t wish to join me, but if you would like to… I’d really appreciate it.” It was a total gift, and one that wouldn’t cost most of them anything. Not all of these drafters were at the edge of death, most of them were ridiculously powerful, and many were wonderfully subtle in their chromaturgy. Their help would make all the difference.
Of course, these were also all the people who had known Gavin and Dazen best. If anyone were likely to discover that Gavin was a fraud, he or she was in this room. And with their Freeing looming, the discoverer would have little or nothing to lose in exposing him.
Gavin’s chest tightened and he smiled over his fear, as if he were smiling at how brilliant and strangely simple Bas was. Smiles returned to him from every side of the table. Some of those smiles, Gavin knew, must surely be serpents’ smiles, but he had no way of knowing which ones. Who would be more likely to destroy him? Those who thought he was the man who had been their friend and learned he had usurped Gavin’s place, or those who’d fought for him and had believed him dead and now learned that he’d betrayed them?
Bas the Simple was staring at Gavin, not smiling, his head cocked to the side, oddly perceptive eyes studying everything.
Chapter 69
“The boy’s gone,” Ironfist said. It was almost midnight. They were standing on the roof of the Travertine Palace, looking over the bay. “Kip,” he said, as if there were some other boy. He didn’t say “your son,” though.
Great how everyone has to dance around my misdeeds. My misdeeds. Right. Thanks, brother. “Why wasn’t I told?” Gavin asked. He’d spent all night pretending to be his brother with drafters who knew them both, and having to pretend to be enjoying himself. It was disconcerting. He’d enjoyed his old enemies’ company, and felt constantly like his vision was blurring. The men and women he’d hated when he’d been Dazen had been quite pleasant. A few of Dazen’s old friends, though not all, had had an edge on all their interactions that made them unattractive. Gavin looked at men and women whom he had arranged to live and work far from the Jaspers just so they wouldn’t endanger him and thought, I ruined you and you never even knew it. And I missed you.
“We just discovered it a few minutes ago. This note was sitting out. The other was tucked under the bedsheets.”
Smart. Kip accomplished exactly what he was trying to do: he bought himself time. Kept us from looking for him all day. Gavin extended his hand, knowing Ironfist would have the notes. Ironfist handed them over.
The important one read, “I’m Tyrean and young. More help as a spy than here. No one will suspect me. Will try to find Karris.”
A spy? Orholam strike me. “Any other news?” Gavin asked.
“He took a horse and a stick of coins.”
“So he could get himself into even more trouble than simply heading into an enemy camp armed only with delusions,” Gavin said.
Ironfist didn’t respond. He generally ignored statements of the obvious. “The Danavis girl is gone as well. The stableman says she asked him for a horse, but he turned her down. Sounds like she found the notes and went after him.”
Gavin stared out over the bay. The Guardian, the statue guarding the entrance of the bay, and through whose legs every sailor passed, held a spear in one hand and a torch in the other. The torch was kept by a yellow drafter whose entire job was to keep it filled with liquid yellow. Special grooves cut in the glass slowly exposed the yellow luxin to air and caused it to shimmer back into light. Mirrors collected and directed the light out into the night, spinning slowly on gears driven by a windmill when there was wind and draft animals when there wasn’t. Tonight, the beam illuminated the misty night air, cutting great swathes in the darkness. It was what every drafter was supposed to do: bring Orholam’s light to the darkest corners of the world.
It was what Kip was trying to do.
Ironfist said, “If he came into my camp and kept a low profile, I wouldn’t suspect him as a spy.”
Because he’d make a marvelously bad spy, perhaps? “About our spies, what have you learned?”
“Governor Crassos very innocently came to inspect the docks, carrying a very innocent-looking and strangely heavy bag. He looked awfully pleased to see me,” Ironfist said.
“You only get sarcastic when you’re mad,” Gavin said. “Go ahead. Let me have it.”
“I swore to protect Kip, Lord Prism, but first, the spies—”
“You can call me Gavin when I’ve been stupid,” Gavin said flatly.