The address led Speir to a down-at-heel neighborhood in an outer ward, the sort of neighborhood that had been built in a time when Ilonians could spare the luxury of nostalgic architecture. That generation had given way to the more utilitarian structures of the central city, and left these snug rows huddling, their broad scrolled trims exposed to the elements, colors washed or crumbling away, the photo-line treatments peeling away from the windowpanes. The street looked deserted in the light pricking rain, except for the the stoops where summer plants had not been carried in, pots coated with grime and overflowing with brown leaves.
There were no pots, or any sign of life, on the stoop before her, except for one thing. The steps had not been refitted for people who could not use stairs, so someone had gathered some spare bricks of odd colors to put between each riser, and fastened them there with clumsy gouts of resin. It doubled the number of steps, but certainly made them easier to negotiate. Speir took them one at a time, with her stick measuring her balance from behind. At the top she caught her breath and reached for the knocker. Even tapping it firmly failed to produce a strong knock; she wondered if the panel behind was blocked with debris, if the vibration could even be heard inside.
But within a minute she heard slow, uneven steps coming to the door; then saw a flicker at the inner curtain before the door swung part way open.
Jarrow stood before her, in house-slippers, worn trousers, and a threadbare pullover. He looked half-turned from her, but it was only the illusion produced by the uneven twist in his right shoulder. Angry burn scars feathered up from his collar on the left side, all the way to his hairline, where the hair had grown back white. He recovered from his expression of outright dismay, drew himself up, and pierced her with a glare.
“What are you doing here?” he said harshly.
“Hello to you too,” Speir said, without surprise or rancor.
Jarrow was not amused. “You shouldn’t be here. Your superiors won’t like it.” His glance cut around the empty street, as if to check for officials or watchers: then back to Speir, who stood alone in her half-dress greens. He glared at her more intently, nostrils flaring. “It would look bad for a war hero to call on a traitor.”
“I’ve nothing to say about war heroes or traitors,” Speir said calmly. “I’m here to visit my friend.”
“Well, there’s no friend of yours here,” he sniffed.
“Ah, well then. I’ll just have to talk to you.”
She stood, feet and stick all three planted, and met Jarrow’s eye, which he sustained for quite a long silence before he breathed in and then out in a long sigh.
“Very well, then. My poor hospitality be on your head.” He shifted backward and opened the door wider, adding sourly, “And your visit will be on mine, like as not.”
Speir crossed the threshold into the unlit vestibule, and Jarrow shut the door behind them. She picked her way through the musty gloom—the vestibule’s drying vents had likely not been cleaned out in a while—toward the direction indicated by Jarrow’s pale outstretched hand. He guided her through a bare corridor and into a sitting room of aging elegance, furnished with a clutch of unappealing chairs and a table made from a glass panel set on two moving cartons.
“Make what you can of the seating,” Jarrow said. “I’ll bring tea.” He shuffled out.
The seating was indeed a hard question. One was an armchair, and looked by its placement to be the one he most often used; but it was low and deep, and once she was in it she’d find it a painful struggle to get out again. One was an upright writing-desk chair without the writing desk, and too tall either for the table or for Speir’s legs. She decided to risk the third, a rickety wooden folding chair; with her stick propped between the back and the wall, she eased herself down and drew a long breath.
Presently Jarrow came back, maneuvering carefully with a tray, and bent painfully to set it down on the table. His sharp eyes took note of her choice of seat, of her right leg stretched out and her left foot braced; but he said nothing, and sank down in his accustomed chair. She watched him pour tea from a small pot into two handleless cups, and accepted hers when he handed it to her. His hands were awkward and also burn-scarred.
The steaming herb tea was fragrant, and surprisingly good. Speir closed her eyes for a grateful sip. She had begun to worry that she had been wrong, that coming here was every bit the mistake Jarrow claimed. But the tea was good and the house was quiet, and with her eyes closed Speir could feel past his hostile looks to the strange security of his undefended presence.
She opened her eyes; he was glaring at her over the rim of his cup. Speir smiled. “Thank you. It’s very good. And your hospitality is fine. You haven’t lived here long, I think; it will be even better once you’ve unpacked a bit.”
“I don’t actually want to talk to you,” he said.
“I didn’t suppose you did,” Speir said. “But I wanted to see you all the same. I’m sorry it took this long to pay a visit.”
His scarred brow twisted upward: an involuntary query, she suspected.
“I was a long time coming back to myself,” she explained, with another sip. “And longer still putting together what I remembered with what really happened. I was sure I had hallucinated your visits to me in the hospital.”
“And so you did,” Jarrow said.
“Nice try.” Speir smiled sideways. “I mentioned my hallucinations to one of the doctors, and she—reluctantly, I think—admitted you really had been there. When they found out, they forbade you to come back.”
“It was just as well,” he said. “I had no use at your bedside.”
“I don’t remember much of your visits,” Speir said. “Only a few things. I offered you friendship. You offered me help.”
“I had no help to offer you, Captain Speir.” Jarrow’s tea was forgotten in his hands, and he stared savagely away out the window. “You may as well have dreamed it.”
She watched him, pressing her lips together. This was perverse, she told herself, brutalizing herself and him just so she could speak her thanks. But she plowed on. “I mentioned you to my nurse, as I was leaving the hospital. She said you had already been released, long before.” After a recovery delayed by several early suicide attempts, Speir forbore to report. “And she said that after they forbade you to visit, you stayed out of trouble by spending every day in the hospital chapel. Some days for hours at a time, she said.”
In the silence, the furnace turned over and hummed gently through the vents.
Finally Jarrow spoke. “That was no use either,” he said, the curve of his voice as bowed as the permanent defeat of his shoulders. “Nothing came of it.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Speir said softly.
He turned his head, and one shoulder with it, to look at her, mute.
She gestured with her tea, a small sketch of apology. “I thought it was something I did for myself,” she said. “Dreaming myself someone who might stand in the gap for me. I drowned in pain over and over, and all I could tell myself was that I had you to give it over for me, to do what I couldn’t do. Then when I came through the other side I thought my mind had found a way to put part of itself outside the pain, to make that prayer. Imagine my shock,” Speir said, swallowing the ache in her throat, “when I found that it was nothing I had done for myself at all. You were there. You did pray. So I had to come.”
He looked at her, across the table, his gaze intent. Speir braced inwardly: in the next moment, she thought, he would burst up and chivvy her out of his house. Or worse, break into tears.
He did neither. Instead he hid his glance in a sip of tea, and then put down the cup to pour himself some more. He looked up again, and held up the pot in query. Biting the inside of her lips, Speir put her cup down in his shortened reach. He filled it and she received it back again, both their movements slow and careful, their eyes together on the cup as he gave it into her hands.
They drank their tea, and the silence evened out. The wind turned; the rain began to tick against the windows, and it grew darker outside. The light yield from the treated panes was clouded as Speir expected, but not unpleasantly so; they could sit like this another hour (or until their mortal frames protested, which would probably be significantly sooner) without saying a word.
“I’m not a good man, Speir,” Jarrow said, after a while. “I don’t have an attractive soul. I’m not wise or generous.” He shot her a glance of enormous resentment. “Or even nice.”
“You are working up to some kind of point, Jarrow, aren’t you?” she said, and was gratified to see him respond to that with a quirk of the lips. Yes; her officer’s instinct had hit on the right approach.
“I’m no sort of friend for you, is my point. Not someone you should take such pains over.”
“If I were here to take pains over you,” Speir said, “that would be a disappointing thing to hear. Fortunately I didn’t come here to do that. I came here to honor my friend for a feat of wisdom I’ve never accomplished myself. Oh—but you said I don’t have a friend living here. So maybe I should try one door over—”
“Oh, shut up,” Jarrow said.
Speir smiled. And then grinned, when he glared at her.
“Shouldn’t you take offense at discourtesy?” he accused.
“Should I take offense at a bated blow?” Speir said.
He eyed her speculatively for a moment. “You’ve grown,” he observed. “You talk like a senior officer, and your smile’s got more years on it than you have. But your eyes haven’t changed.” He looked down, turned his cup around, swirling it gently in his scarred hands. “‘Outlive your bitterness.’ Do you remember saying that to me?”
“Vaguely,” she said. “I can’t remember the context, though.”
His next words were long in coming; she waited. “Could you still be my friend,” he said to his tea, “if I failed to do it?”
Heart-wrung, Speir answered quietly. “More to the point: could you be my friend if you failed to do it? Could you fail and get up the next day and fail and get up again?”
“Sounds tiring,” he said. But the corner of his lips tugged again, and Speir breathed easier.
“You are already doing it, after all,” she pointed out. “And I notice you haven’t thrown me out yet.”
“Don’t tempt me,” Jarrow said, hiding a real smile over his cup.
Speir stayed long enough to drink another cup of tea; they talked little, and of unimportant things. Then her twinges joined in too strong a chorus to ignore, and she said: “I must get home. Medicine regimen, you know.” He got up, not easily, but much faster than she; his hand gestured hesitantly toward helping her, but in the end he watched her lever herself slowly upright.
“Let me walk you to the tram stop,” he said. His frown was back in place.
Speir was about to demur, but warned by a spike of pain along her hip, she said, “Thank you,” instead.
He shrugged into a large windbreaker, cinched it into shape, and ushered her out with his rainshade. Their progress up the street was slow; Speir used the time to remark on the architecture and ask Jarrow if he had met any of his neighbors yet. He hadn’t, so she said, “Then you can tell me about someone you’ve met the next time I come to tea.”
“Is that an order?”
“Do you want it to be?”
He responded with a loud snort.
The lighted panel at the tram platform announced the arrival of the next tram in ten minutes. Jarrow lingered in indecision for a little, and then said, “You’ll be all right from here, I think. If not, then send for me.” His dagger glance dared her to thank him: she did, smiling. Speir wanted to reach up and salute the corners of his lips to drive home the point, but she sensed that his fragility was still too great for that, so she settled for a small bow, open hand over heart.
He surprised her then: with a look of feline mischief he took a smart step backward and swept her a perfect Ryswyckian salute, bad shoulder and all. Speir burst into a great laugh, delighted. “I am well defeated,” she said, closing her hand to return to her heart.
“I doubt that very much,” Jarrow said, with a faint return of his old supercilious manner. But she thought he was pleased. With a last nod he stepped down from the platform and out of view beyond the rain-beaded glass.
She was still smiling when the tram blew in.
~*~
Douglas knocked gently on Lieutenant Rose’s door. There was an unhappy silence before he heard him say: “Who is it?”
“Admiral Douglas. May I enter?”
Another hesitation. “Yes, sir.”
Douglas turned the latch and went in, taking care not to invade too quickly. Rose was sitting on his bunk in robe and training knits, his arms unconsciously holding himself, his expression truculent.
“So then,” he said, “you’ve come to soothe me down and smooth everything over?”
“Do you want me to?” Douglas said with a shrug.
Rose stared up at him from under his brows. “Why else would you be here, sir?”
Douglas gestured a query at Rose’s bench nearby; Rose nodded reluctantly, and Douglas sat down. “I admit,” he said, “I came because several people told me they were witness to a shouting match between you and Lieutenant Corda.”
Rose looked away. “I think I broke courtesy several times over,” he said miserably.
Douglas waved this away. “That’s a problem easily solved. Unlike the one underlying it.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Rose said. “He was so much more gracious when it was me taking care of him.”
“I don’t think the situations compare well, Lieutenant,” Douglas said quietly. “And the war has changed you both. Are you wanting to break things off with him?”
“No!” he cried. And then: “I don’t know.”
Douglas waited. Finally Rose brought it out in a low, aching voice, his hands gripping the bedclothes. “I don’t think I belong here anymore, sir.”
A hospital of souls, Douglas thought. He had been right. He thought Rose was exactly where he needed to be, but it would not serve him merely to say so. So he waited some more. In the silence Rose chewed his lip. There was a lancing pattern of scars where shrapnel had grazed his cheek and temple; he was going to look a very formidable soldier when he’d fully recovered. Finally he turned to look at Douglas.
“Aren’t you going to tell me it’s going to be all right?” he said accusingly.
“No,” Douglas said. “I can’t be certain that it will be.”
“Or tell me not to throw away my lover and my home before I’m better?”
“It’d be a stupid thing to do for the man you used to be. As to whether it’d be right for the man you are now, you know better than I.”
“No, I don’t,” Rose snapped. Then fought off a rictus of grief. “I don’t know if I’m anything at all. I can’t feel things properly. Then suddenly I find myself in a blind rage. I don’t want to be alone and I can’t bear having anyone near. I don’t feel like a person that’s whole. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be whole, anymore.”
“Mm,” Douglas said, considering Rose carefully as he blinked back tears. “The fact that you’re fighting so much is a good sign, though.”
“But I can’t keep hurting Corda like this.” Rose wiped his eyes.
“He hasn’t bowed out of the arena, that I’ve noticed,” Douglas said, dryly.
“But what if he does?” Rose’s voice went small on the words.
“You could give him a rest and fight someone else for a spell,” Douglas said. “I for one would be happy to volunteer. Except,” he amended, “for the bed part. There you’re on your own.”
Rose resisted a smile. Douglas judged the moment right to pin him with his gaze.
“You will always have a home here, Rose. In season and out of season. When you want it and when you don’t. This place is going to be home to a lot of souls mending a lot of damage, for a long time. You won’t be all that conspicuous.”
“Yes, sir.” Rose cast him a shamefaced look.
“In fact, in time to come, I can see where I could use your help. You took a course in medical counsel while you were doing national service, didn’t you? And your perspective would be an added strength.” Rose blinked, absorbing the new thought. “Turn it over in your mind and see if it would suit you, while you’re getting to know yourself new.”
“A wounded healer?” Rose said skeptically, as Douglas rose to his feet.
“Most healers are,” Douglas answered from the open doorway. “Goodnight, Lieutenant.”
He went back to his office, which since the armistice had settled back to a pool of quiet. The conference table lamps shed a golden, limpid light through the room, and though the window glass had been replaced, Douglas still did most of his reading at the table instead of the desk. He made himself a cup of tea and, yawning, draped his tunic over the back of a chair and rolled up his sleeves before sitting down. When he put off his fatigues, he had gone back not to army blacks or greens, but informal Ryswyckian grays; and everyone had seemed to accept the significance of this as natural and right.
The evening deepened, as Douglas worked on. Presently there came a tentative knock at his doorframe; he looked up and was not at all surprised to see Lieutenant Corda standing there. “Come in, Lieutenant. There’s tea if you want it.”
Corda obediently got himself a cup and took a seat around the corner of the table from Douglas. “Some have been asking me, sir,” he said, “when the match schedule is going to start up again.”
“You think we’re ready for that?” Douglas asked, turning a page of the report he was reading.
“Getting there,” was Corda’s opinion. “I think the morning silences have helped. And the sparring court.”
A few weeks ago, Douglas had instituted a half hour silence each mid-morning before break: all of Ryswyck who could be spared from essential duties gathered in the arena, where they sat together in silence without formality, not to study but just to sit. Some used the time to meditate, as if in chapel; some brought out knitting needles or beading strings and worked them unobtrusively; some sat still and did nothing. Often, someone would be shaken into tears and comforted wordlessly by his or her neighbors on the bench. The senior cadre had not been immune to these sudden outbreaks of grief; the vulnerability had only strengthened their authority, and the cohesion had done much to restore Ryswyck’s sense of itself.
But this wasn’t why Corda was here. He sipped his tea, distrait, and finally brought it out.
“Rose says you told him he should get to know who he is now.”
“I didn’t tell him to do it,” Douglas said. “I just named what he’s already doing.”
“He says,” Corda went on, “that he hopes the new Rose loves me, but he doesn’t really know.”
Well, that was certainly the problem in a nutshell. “Are you sorry I put my oar in?” Douglas said, acutely.
“No,” he said with a wince, “but—couldn’t you tell a nice lie once in a while, Admiral?”
Douglas tamped down a smile; there were tears hidden behind Corda’s complaint. “Is that what you would have preferred?”
Corda sighed and looked away. “I want the truth to be something different.”
At his mulish tone, Douglas allowed his smile to show itself. “Yes,” he said ruefully.
A long silence. Douglas read his report; Corda sipped his tea. Then: “Sir?” he said tentatively. Douglas looked up, and Corda’s courage failed him. “Nothing, sir. Never mind.”
“You were going to ask me something about General Barklay,” Douglas guessed.
Corda grimaced, but after biting his lip a moment he asked the question. “He told us that day that he had mistreated you.”
A long sigh drew Douglas’s shoulders down, and he relaxed his stylus hand. “Yes,” he said. “He did.”
“You didn’t accuse him,” Corda said.
“No. I reproached him in private, more than once. And I could have accused him in public any time I wanted. But I didn’t.” He sighed again. “I wanted the truth to be something different.”
“Yes, sir,” Corda said quietly.
Douglas looked at him. “So did he.”
“And that’s why you won’t lie,” Corda concluded.
“It’s one of the reasons.” Douglas picked up his stylus again. “Another reason is that I’m really terrible at it. If I’d attempted to lie to Rose, I would only have annoyed him.”
“I suppose so, sir.” Corda sat pensive over the remains of his tea; but Douglas felt sure that he had fully delivered himself of his concerns.
“Was there anything else?”
“No, sir.”
“You might sound out the junior cadre about the match schedule at the meeting this week, and let me know what comes of it,” Douglas said.
“I’ll do that, sir.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.”
Douglas sat for a little while after Corda had gone, toying with his teacup but not drinking the few cold swallows that were left. The morning silences had indeed helped, had made the task ahead of Ryswyck seem less impossible, though they were all still a bit daunted. Somehow in this process Douglas had acquired this reputation for unvarnished truthfulness, which had puzzled him until he’d overheard one cadet say to another, We might as well die in the presence of the truth, in the same tone he and his comrades had used to quote one of Barklay’s slogans—and to his mortification worked out that they were now quoting him. Douglas told this story to Stevens, knowing full well he would crow over it for a week; he didn’t begrudge Stevens the pleasure. “I hope my future quotables are a bit less fey,” was Douglas’s only comment.
Presently Commodore Beathas appeared in his doorway. “I’ve come to relieve you, Admiral,” she said. Technically speaking, there was now even less reason to keep someone at all times at the executive post than there had been before the invasion began. But none of them was quite ready to let their guard down that far. Douglas got up, took his and Corda’s teacups to the sideboard, to wash later, and retrieved his tunic. “Goodnight, Commodore,” he said.
Sitting down with her scorebooks, Beathas smiled in answer.
Douglas cracked another yawn, and went to bed.
~*~
Du Rau was briefing his senior delegation to Ryswyck.
“I anticipate you will meet surprises I can’t prepare you for,” he said. “You will want to stay alert on your feet, not to guard against attack but against reaction. We will be counting on you to see hostilities before they arise and quell them.”
“Yes, my lord,” said Lord General Guiscard. Guiscard was the obvious choice to lead the delegation: he was army and would be at home on a land-bound installation; he had known Verlac before the war and had familiarity with their customs; and he was salty, shrewd, and adroit—a personality who could navigate Barklay’s fanciful inventions with humor as well as grace. He would assist the faculty who taught supply management. “I’ve never fancied myself a teacher,” he’d said, bemused, when du Rau had offered him the commission. But he’d warmed to the idea quickly and now took a quiet pride in his preparations.
For his companions, du Rau had chosen two younger officers from the Estuary Guard, and promoted a third to the general staff in Guiscard’s place. And he had chosen a navy captain, who had helped to oversee the withdrawal of forces from the south coast and was mordantly eager to participate in a very different kind of invasion.
“Don’t be tempted to think your primary mission will be to advance Berenia’s advantage,” du Rau warned them now. “That mission belongs to me. I will be very grateful to receive your observations and reports, and I will certainly make the utmost use of them. But your mission will be to keep the peace secured while I work. And I want you to learn something. Give over any expectation that you are only there to teach.”
“Yes, my lord,” they said.
“Because,” he went on, “ultimately, your mission looks even further forward than my work does. You will shape the next generation of leadership in our forces. I will leave no asset undeveloped, and that is why I wish you to take full participation in the life of Ryswyck Academy. If there is anything of value to be gained from your presence there, I want you to be ready to gather it.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Do you have any questions about the briefings you have received?” He had given them thorough dossiers on as many Ryswyck personnel as he could lay hands on; passed along nearly all of what Admiral Douglas had sent to him regarding the curriculum; and provided them with copies of the Verlac version of the general code and a summary of some of the local laws and political structures. Guiscard, reading his, had said he was glad to get his memory refreshed.
No one had any questions. “Very good,” du Rau said. “I understand your flight leaves in the morning. Thank you for doing your country this honor, and may wisdom go with you.”
When they were gone, du Rau went to the window and reversed its shade, showing the vista of the palace plaza lit to a depth by the golden hour of the lowering sun. The Estuary was a mirror ribbon among the blocky shapes of the buildings that lined it; the eye followed its tapering thread to the far side of the square, where one could just see the lily shape of the Lantern Tower, its flame now lit and multiplied by its newly-polished windows at the crest. They had had the solemn lighting ceremony last week; no matter where he looked, du Rau had seen tears in every eye: and then had found it hard to see, himself.
In the morning, his men would fly to Verlac and be escorted to the ground at Amity, then would travel overland to Ryswyck the same day. At the same time, the Verlaker delegation of forces would cross by ship into Berenian waters and be received at the docks du Rau could see from where he stood. It was a delicate operation; they had only begun to knit together; but the beginning had been made. We’ve already won.
He heard Ingrid’s soft step behind him. Turned his head in time to see her arrive at his side, a glass of wine in one hand and another for him. He took it and sipped, watching the sun go down.
They said nothing, companionably; the sun sank until the Lantern Tower’s light was the stronger, crowned with the living jewel blue of the late-winter sky.
“It’s cold out there,” Ingrid finally remarked. “But it looks warm.” She was looking at the tower flame.
“It’s well,” du Rau said softly.
~*~
Douglas had invited as many people to the arrival ceremony as he thought Ryswyck could reasonably hold. Selkirk could not be there, but he sent General Fleek to honor the delegation; she bore a small urn containing handfuls of soil collected from the birthplaces of the soldiers who had died on Barklay’s mission. The Berenians had agreed to take the soil home with them and inter it on the square, under a plaque with their names. In return, Douglas had undertaken to add the names of the dead from Solham Fray to the ash garden roll at Ryswyck.
The small airfield beyond the tower was crowded with shuttles arriving and leaving, from the capital, the depot, and Amity. Shortly before the Berenians were due to arrive, the skies of course opened and poured down sheets of very cold rain. Douglas kept peering through his windows, tugging nervously at the stiff tunic of his formal Ryswyck grays; but it wasn’t the Berenians’ shuttle he was anxious to see.
They all seemed to arrive at once, and amid the popping of rainshades as the Berenians and Central representatives alighted, Douglas was relieved to catch sight of a slight figure in army greens making her way steadily across the field with the clement assistance of a cane. He strode out to the main hall, where the greeting ceremony had hastily been moved from the arena quad, and took his place with the senior cadre in full dress uniform.
What dignity they may have hoped to retain by moving the greeting indoors, they quickly lost. The arrivals boiled in without order, bringing gusts of winter wind with them through the doors; cold droplets were flung everywhere as his Ryswyckians relieved them of rainshades and furled them, and the skirlers, whom Douglas had diplomatically banished to the mess hall to save ceiling-plaster, chose that moment to strike up a proud blast of an anthem that more than made up for their being a room apart.
It was just like his mother’s house.
Which was probably why, just as he caught sight of the consternated face of a decorated Berenian in a greatcoat who could only be Lord General Guiscard, Douglas fell back upon his mother’s methods. He set his teeth against his lip and ripped a whistle that cut through the whole echoing froth of voices: instantly, his Ryswyckians fell in and came to attention, the tumult died, and an urgent hissing brought the skirlers to play a last phrase and quiet down.
Douglas let the silence linger for a moment, appreciatively, and then said: “Thank you.” His peripheral vision checked Stevens, who was chewing the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing, and moved on to the collection of dripping insignias before him. He laid his open hand over his heart. “We bid you welcome to Ryswyck,” he said, and then, “General Fleek,” stretching out his hand to her. She stepped toward him. “It is good to see you again.”
“It is a pleasure, Admiral,” she answered, managing to convey that it was the first time she had taken pleasure in a visit to Ryswyck. Douglas welcomed her to his side and then looked expectantly toward the greatcoated Berenian. He stepped from among his entourage and, to Douglas’s private relief, did not attempt to rebuke them with a show of perfect protocol. His consternated look had given way to a wry bemusement, and there was only the tiniest breath of irony in the motion of his hand as he laid it to his heart in turn. “Lord General Armel Guiscard, Admiral, at your service.”
Thanks be to wisdom, the man had a sense of humor. He knew he had been right to trust du Rau to pick a good delegation.
The rest of the ceremony suffered no hitch. By the time the last chant had been sung, the ranks of cadets and officers had fully straightened themselves out, and the hall had begun to steam with the presence of so many warmly-clad bodies. Douglas said, “It is a few hours yet until dinner, which should give our guests time to settle into their quarters. General Fleek, we have a billet for you if you care to stay. We have a welcoming committee for each cadre; the cadet cadre can meet by the rainshade racks—show yourselves so they can see you—the junior cadre shall go by the mess hall door—and the senior officers, of course, by the door to the officers’ block. Any questions, please refer to one of the junior rota captains, who have red pins on their collars. Everyone dismissed!”
The company immediately dislimned, and a fresh hubbub broke out; Douglas had appointed himself and his executive council as the welcoming committee for the seniors, so he waited calmly by the door for them and the Berenians to collect by him. And at last, from among a clutch of shuttle crew and junior officers from Central, Speir emerged, slow and smiling.
Stevens pounced on her at once. “There you are! Captain Speir, you should have been in the round of introductions! Fie on you for hiding in the back.” He stopped just short of grabbing her, and gave her a tiny punch in the shoulder instead; she grinned at him. Without Douglas having to say a word, she was brought in front of Guiscard, who exchanged grave bows with her, and they all found themselves ambling toward Douglas’s office, where there was talk of a morning senior cadre meeting before breakfast and a tour afterward. Douglas found himself observing more than speaking: Guiscard was taking all that he encountered in stride, while his fellow seniors, all younger men, were casting glances about them with looks varying between worry and distaste. Speir, too, was taking quiet stock of the office in Douglas’s possession: he had taken the opportunity, when the windows were repaired, to discard the drapes altogether and install light-film glass instead of plain.
She was so thin. It made his solar plexus ache to look at her too long. At one point Marag caught him in a glance at her talking to Beathas, and they exchanged the briefest look of anguish before she turned again. She was quieter, too, her spirit still potent but now concentrated, to save energy. But even quiet, she had an air of command that bore a reassuring resemblance to the ebullience he had known in her.
He had written to her to invite her down to Ryswyck for this ceremony and an extended visit if she wanted; but he had stopped short of asking her for anything or proposing a commission. And he had been afraid to call her on an open line, afraid too of asking himself why he was afraid. Perhaps she had been afraid as well, because she had confirmed her attendance in kind, in a letter sent via dispatch. He was still afraid even now: thinking of how he had hugged Cameron before the conflict emerged, not knowing what Speir thought or felt now that she was back at Ryswyck.
At last Stevens was making noises about showing the Berenians to their quarters, and the office was emptying. Speir with her stick was the slowest to leave. She was nearly through the door.
Douglas forced his voice to work. “Speir…?”
She stopped and turned to him, gravely. Douglas tried to smile.
Her mouth moved, and her eyes, in a feline look he recognized. She took a step toward him, and helplessly, he held out his arms, as he had done that day in the arena when she had bested him with a foil, and then the stick clattered to the carpet and they grabbed one another and he lifted her off her feet by the waist, and he didn’t know if he was crying or laughing or both. He felt her chuckling against him, her hand mussing his hair, and he held her tighter, till he felt her buried flinch.
Douglas let her slide back down to her feet, laughing, wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands and breaking off to answer her playful cuffs with small punches to her shoulders.
“Look at you,” she was saying.
He was grinning so hard his cheeks hurt. “I thought never to see you again,” he said, wiping his eyes some more.
“I thought the same. Look at you!”
He held her steady by the shoulders and stooped to retrieve her stick for her, and she took it from him graciously: like all the times she’d won honorable bruises in the arena. “Ach, Speir. Can I do anything for you? Are you hungry? I could cadge you a snack.”
“See you,” she said, her eyes dancing, “you’re ready to put the whole plate of chicken in front of me. I look forward to getting my appetite back. But not today, likely. I had something on the shuttle. What I really want—” she stopped laughing at last and gave a rueful sigh— “is a quiet place to lie down for a little. The journey tired me a bit.”
Of course. And she’d come straight off the shuttle and into Ryswyck’s boiling midst. Not only was she tired; he saw now that she was really wavering. He wasn’t going to ask her to walk all the way over to her billet in the officers’ block. “I’ll put you in my quarters,” he said. “It’s quiet in there.”
“I am much obliged,” she said.
“The hell you are. Come this way.”
He walked her with an arm about her shoulders through the outer office and into his quarters, where instead of turning lights on he helped her to the bunk and knelt to unfasten her shoes while she shrugged out of her stiff, damp tunic and pulled off her cravat.
“Not back to full strength yet, obviously,” she murmured, as he took her stick and leaned it against the foot of the bed. “But I plan to be back in the arena soon enough.”
“Nonsense,” Douglas said. “Ryswyck arena is too small for you now,” and she snorted as she lay down.
“Wake me in a few minutes.” Her voice had trailed to a thin mumble. Douglas covered her with a blanket. Before he could think of a suitable retort, Speir had fallen asleep, like a dry branch breaking.
He stood bent over her, in the light spilling in from the outer office. He still couldn’t think of a reply to her, and gave it up to smooth back her hair instead.
Then he straightened up and closed her softly in the quiet dark.
~*~
When Speir woke, she didn’t remember for a moment how she had come to a bed in a dark room. In sleepy panic, she fumbled till she found a light-panel on a bedside table. It brought up the wall sconces, just as she identified Douglas’s scent on the pillow. Over her head, his Arisail banner hung on the wall, still undulating gently from her movements, the red Ilonian border and the figured blue-and-white lozenge in the center shining in the warm light. It occurred to her that these had once been Barklay’s quarters; there was little sense of his presence here now, nor in the office Douglas had redecorated. She remembered suddenly the sharp whistle he’d used to bring Ryswyck to order, and chuckled softly as she sat up.
She dressed slowly, and was remaking Douglas’s bed when Douglas himself opened the door and peered in.
“Ah, good, you’re awake. It’s nearly time for dinner.”
She smiled at him. The weight he carried became him, she thought: all the more that even distinguished and deferred-to, he was still Douglas.
“Yes. Lead on,” she said.
He matched his steps comfortably to hers, heading for the mess hall. “How long can you stay?” he asked.
“For the time being, as long as you like,” she said. “I’m still technically on medical leave, and I’ve got another surgery scheduled in about six weeks.”
“I would love to have you here for as much of that time as you can spare,” Douglas said. “I’ve missed you. So has Ryswyck.”
She smiled. “At least they are treating me like normal so far. I’ve been feted so much recently,” she sighed, “it gets wearying.” Douglas snickered, and she said, “That sounded very stuck-up, didn’t it?”
“I’ll keep your secret,” he teased, and she punched him lightly.
They entered the mess hall together; someone rang the bell, and the usual cacophony died as Ryswyck jumped to its feet. Beside her, Douglas thanked them closed hand to heart, and resumed stride smoothly as they sat back down. She followed him through the line and over to the senior officers’ table. Douglas chose a place across from Guiscard, who stiffened, as if to anticipate further formal protocol; seeing him set down his tray without ceremony, he relaxed and returned to his meal.
Douglas would want to engage Guiscard in conversation. Speir chose a place a little down from Douglas, and Stevens scooted himself down the bench to sit next to her. “How do you fare?” he inquired, under the canopy of noisy Ryswyckian voices.
“Well enough,” Speir smiled at him. She broke open her roll and dipped it into her stew. “And how do you fare?”
Stevens evidently took the question seriously, because he paused and finally let out a sigh. “Well enough,” he said, and she nodded.
“I heard that Cameron was here—but I don’t see her. Did she eat earlier?”
Stevens grimaced. “She’s leaving early in the morning, taking some home leave before she returns to Amity.” He lowered his voice. “She’s having a hard time with this.”
“Tell me where she’s quartered. I want to see her before she goes.”
Stevens told her. “She and Douglas had a big dust-up about the proposal. They made it up, but it’s not gotten any easier for her since. I doubt you could talk her into feeling better, but—we all ought to keep a touch on her if we can.”
“I’ll do that,” Speir promised. “Speaking of Douglas, he looks well. You’ve been taking good care of him.”
“And turn about, too,” Stevens said wryly. “Are you staying? If you do I’ll make sure to feed you up properly.”
“You too, eh?” She grinned at him. “Yes, I’m staying.”
He looked genuinely delighted. Looking up into his face, Speir puzzled over the difference and realized that Stevens had lost all his calluses, all his glibness; playful as ever, he was now also unabashedly vulnerable. He’s not the only one, she thought. And he had signed on to Douglas’s undefended strategy: Speir cast a long glance across the hall, and saw that the Ryswyckians had plunked themselves down among the Berenian trainees, practically daring them to recoil. Not one person in the room, she thought, was unaware of the precarious depths they dared, but they had all committed to this arena together. She returned her eyes to Stevens’s face.
“Yes,” she said again. “I’m staying.”
~*~
Fortunately for Speir’s stamina, Cameron’s quarters were on the way to her own. It took a while for her to get out of the dining hall: as more Ryswyckians realized she was there, she found herself veritably mobbed by junior officers and cadets, asking if she meant to stay long, if she would give a talk to the school, if she was going to teach regularly, asking her to preside at sparring court, to tell them the story of Colmhaven and the rendezvous. They refilled her teacup, gratitude in motion; this gratitude did not weary her, for they understood her intent and shared it, and did not single her out as a paragon of valor. Still, by the time she had said goodnight to the last well-wisher and made her escape, she was tired again.
She stepped out onto the path toward the officers’ block, pausing to savor the scent of wet stone and wintry soil, and made her way slowly, leaning on her stick, toward Cameron’s door. The blackout had been lifted, and the path was now cheerfully lit. Speir could see the lights over the arena complex doors, blurred by mist; lights now marked the cloister from the outside as well as inside, pricking into relief the dormant ivy stems on the stone mullions. Behind her, in the distance beyond the main block, the mist diffused the tower’s light to a broad glow: a lighthouse by a rock.
She knocked on Cameron’s door. Reluctant steps; the door opened enough for Cameron to peer out; seeing Speir, she opened it.
“Are you here on a mission?” she said, warily.
“No, dearling,” said Speir.
Slowly, Cameron stepped back, and Speir came in. Speir closed the door, took her stick in her hand, and went forward to embrace her. They stood for a long moment without saying anything; with her arms around Cameron’s waist, Speir could feel her pliancy, like a fighter moving with a landed blow.
Cameron was still living the moment of the blow, Speir thought. Then she felt and heard Cameron’s voice, and her thoughts must have been running on a similar track, because she said: “You are a better fighter than I, Speir.”
“I don’t know that,” Speir answered, closing her eyes.
“I do.” There was a helpless, bitter note in Cameron’s reply, and Speir thought suddenly of Jarrow and his determination not to be thanked. Better to judge oneself harshly than risk the caprice of another. Condemnation and compassion both intolerable. That feeling was no mystery to Speir. Nor did she have to wonder what it felt like to be stripped of that choice.
“All right,” she said, eyes still closed. “I won’t take it from you if you don’t want me to.”
Cameron barked a little laugh. “You’re the only one who can say that and make me believe it.”
“May be. But I’m not the only one who won’t pull your last thread of dignity.”
Speir could feel her weeping silently. She held her closer, her stick awkward in her hand, and felt Cameron respond in kind. After a moment she recovered.
“It’s not that I don’t understand,” she said. “I understand everything.”
“Yes. I know.”
Cameron pulled away and held her by the shoulders, looking at her. Keep touch on her, Stevens had said. “And how do you fare?” she said.
Speir smiled. Evidently Cameron had had enough vulnerability. “I am well,” she answered. “Tired, but well.”
“Do you need anything?”
This was a request Speir was glad to take seriously. “Will you write to me, from time to time? I’m having another surgery soon, and they won’t promise me it’ll be the last.”
“Yes!” Cameron said. “Tell me when you’re going in, and I’ll come to cheer your bedside.”
“Thank you,” Speir sighed out. “I would love that.”
“Consider it done. Are you on your way to bed, or shall I give you some tea?”
Speir accepted tea, and a seat on Cameron’s bunk, and they talked of trivial things for a short while. Then Speir excused herself to go on to bed. Cameron went with her to the door, with an air of being ready to catch her if she fell. Time was, that would have annoyed Speir. Tonight, she thanked Cameron with a smile, refraining from touching closed hand to heart, and stretched up to kiss her goodnight. The door between them closed gently.
When she reached her own quarters, she was too tired for the moment to undress for bed, so she sank down into the frayed armchair instead. In addition to carrying her duffel to her quarters, someone had thoughtfully packed everything away, leaving her care pouch on top of the tiny dresser for easy access. Her covers were folded down neatly, and the whole room was suspiciously clean.
She was still smiling over this when a small knock came at her door. “Yes?” Speir said.
“It’s me.”
“Come in.”
Douglas opened the door and peered in. “Oh, good—you haven’t gone to bed yet. May I…?” Speir gave him a look, and he angled a grin back, shutting the door behind him. “Thank you. I need the respite.”
“No one will ever think of looking for you here,” Speir said, as he dropped onto the impeccable smoothness of her bed.
“Ach, Speir. How I’ve missed you.” He lay back against her pillow, with his feet still on the floor.
“And I you,” she said, softly.
His eyes were closed, unquietly; his dark lashes fluttered. “Did you see Cameron?”
“I did. I think you’ve realized she’s best left to fight it out.”
“Yes. She’s not the only one nursing wounds to the soul. I haven’t forgotten her—but—”
“You can delegate Cameron to me,” she told him, and he let out a breath that seemed to flatten him on the bed. “And I’ll let you know when to pick up the burden again.”
“I am grateful. Are you too tired to have me here?” he asked. “I can leave you to sleep if you want.”
“I’m exhausted,” Speir said. “And I want you here. Stay with me.”
Douglas opened his eyes and sat up. “Whatever you like. May I doff the admiral?” His hands went to his cravat and waited for permission.
“If I can doff the war hero.”
“Excellent.” He took off cravat and tunic and folded them over the footrail, pried off his shoes with his toes, and untucked his shirt. More slowly, Speir did the same, removing her shoes by hand. Then she got up and crossed the few feet to the bed and sank down next to him. Side by side, their arms went around one another, and they rested together in silence.
After a while Speir grew drowsy, and she lifted her head to suggest they lie down. But she changed what she was going to say when she saw his face. “You look worried,” she said, touching his cheek. “Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried,” he said softly. “I’m terrified.”
She stirred a fingertip in the hair at his temple. “Look at this,” she said. “You’re getting silver threads before your time.”
“Ryswyck gives me a new one every week.” It wasn’t really a joke.
“It suits you.” She meant not just the silver threads but the weight of the insignia on his shoulders, the Ryswyckians responsive to his command, the whole perilous enterprise in the balance of his calm hands.
“Yes.” She didn’t have to elaborate; he knew. “I finally figured out how to use the chapel,” he added.
She broke into a smile. “Did you? Then you can help me relearn.”
“I’d only be giving you back your own gift.”
“With added riches. My dear friend,” she said.
~*~
In the end he tugged up the folded blanket at the foot of the bed and pulled it over them as they curled together. They dozed and woke, with the bedside light burning through the night; sometimes talking, sometimes silent.
When it approached first watch, Speir woke first. She eased herself apart from Douglas, who inhaled suddenly and turned over on his back, struggling to open his eyes. She sat on the bed’s edge and gathered strength for the first painful steps of the morning. It was a good day; she only bent to the floor to steady herself once. And a hot shower always helped. When she came out, robed, to retrieve her comb, Douglas was shrugging back into his tunic and rubbing sleepily at the stubble on his chin.
“Can you wait?” she asked him.
“Aye,” he yawned. “Still time for me to shower and change before the senior council meeting. You’re invited.”
“I’ll come,” she said, and he touched his closed hand to his heart.
By the time she was dressed he was fully alert. She watched him in the act of reaching for her stick, caught in another of those compass moments. A hospital of souls, he had called Ryswyck last night as they drowsed and talked. The word made her flinch inwardly. She was not, now, afraid of the shrapnel that would inevitably work its way to the surface of her own soul, or afraid of the pain that still came back to claim her now and again. She was not afraid at this moment, but she knew that in future times she would be. Her service, too, was going to change its nature; and she was afraid of that.
“Douglas,” she said, and he paused before picking up the stick to hand to her.
“Yes?”
She clasped and unclasped her hands a moment, trying to figure out how to say it. Finally: “I’m going to need a hand free, when I go back for surgery. Would you—be able—to take my fear for me, come the time?”
For a moment he stood looking at her, silent. Then a slow grin took over his face, from his eyes outward: It’s about time you asked.
He held out his hands to her and turned them palm up, to receive her offering. She ducked her head, drew a shaky breath, and touched them with hers.
Douglas handed Speir her stick, and they went out of her quarters into the cold mist. Across the field of rain, in the deep predawn light, the tower carillon chimed the change of watch.
finis