irenic (adj.) promoting peace.
The courtyard of the office of the Aizsaule viceroy was teeming with people when the excubitors made their arrival; the clatter of hooves on cobbles was barely heard over the low rumble of conversation and laughter that swallowed the air. Neat lines of girls in jewel-toned dresses and of boys with broad shoulders or callused hands took up much of the yard, each clutching papers bound in string or – perhaps if they came from a more proud household – in ribbons. A recruitment drive, Rakel Sjöberg had relayed to them, the viceroy was holding a recruitment drive for the palace. For the Selection. Maids were needed, more maids, and guards, and stable boys. For a split second, Sanav wondered what it would be to eke out a living that way, to dwell in the servants quarters at Ganzir, at the heart of the kingdom – far from the druj, living other than on the edge of your own blade.
For a split second it appealed to him, and he hated himself for it.
They dismounted at the edge of the lawn; some of the girls in the nearest line stared, eyes wide, aghast – perhaps at the bruises on Torsten's face, perhaps at the black ichor dripping from the blades of Rakel and Oktawia, perhaps simply at the expression on Captain Hijikata's face as he strode across the courtyard and spoke, quietly, seriously, to the royal guard at the head of the queue. "I need to speak with Lorencio."
"General Suero is in a meeting with the viceroy and the regional general –"
"Good," Captain Hijikata said, "then we won't need to call one."
He brushed past the man, despite weakly voiced protests; Sanav could feel the eyes of the assembled group of young ladies resting upon them, as real as concrete, as the rest of the team hastened to match his pace. A shame that Ghjuseppu Mannazzu and Kinga Kaasik were missing – the unit lacked the special touch of brutishness that they always brought to proceedings, a pair perpetually on the verge of starting a brawl, even in an empty room. However, Captain Hijikata alone projected a certain aura of awe: royal guards dropped back at his approach, rather than try and arrest him in his path.
They ascended the steps to the door of the viceroy's mansion – then, slipped through. The foyer within was marble-pannelled and gold-embellished, more immense and more grand than anything Sanav had ever glimpsed within the walls. Did all of the elites live so? He could not begin to imagine what the palace of Ganzir might look like, if one of their minor lieutenants lived so. Maids in dark purple uniforms fluttered along the balconies like trapped butterflies, glancing down at the invading tagma with looks of vague unease that mirrored the expressions of the applicants which had followed them into the house; Aizsaule ministers paused on thresholds of corridors and offices, their robes thickened and made stiff with luxurious embroidery, assessing Captain Hijikata with cold eyes. It didn't seem, Sanav thought, that they were all that welcome here.
That made sense. The tagma were an unfortunate necessity. Few embraced them – particularly the excubitors.
And a few made no secret of their distaste for the unit. "Hijikata!"
Captain Hijikata was on the threshold of a groan. He flicked his gaze left – Jool, his eyes rolling – and then right – Rakel, her face flickering briefly into a grimace. Sanav didn't crane his neck, as he might have done a year ago, but he did perceive through his peripheral visionthat they the advance of a soldier in a dark grey suit. They didn't walk – swagger might have been a more accurate phrase, truth be told. As they stepped in front of the group, Sanav could see that their eyes were closer to cold gold, that their hair was cropped short, that the intricate stitching on their sleeves spoke of a very high rank indeed.
"Morozova." Hijikata did not smile or assume an obsequious expression, as Sanav imagined most tagma might when confronted with a member of the royal guard. He merely offered the other soldier the typical Illéan salute – hand clasped and placed gently, and briefly, against his lips, his head inclined minutely. It helpfully covered his mouth; he seemed to take this as an excuse to allow the silence to stretch out into an uncomfortable length, until the guard – Morozova – was forced to address him further. If Sanav hadn't known better, it might have struck him as a touch… goading?
"We don't usually allow your ilk to trek mud into the house, sugar," Morozova said, their voice sounding somehow narrow and clipped. "Certainly not without a babysitter. What have you come to beg of the viceroy?"
The captain lowered his hands, dissolving the salute, and rested a hand on his sword. Oktawia said, "we have reason to speak with Gen–"
"If I wanted to hear from you," Morozova said, their voice hard. "I would have spoken to you." She glanced at Kane. "Well?"
Oktawia's eyes flashed with irritation as Captain Hijikata said, "tagma business, Mora. I imagine it would bore you."
"Then it can wait."
Torsten was finding it hard to hide a smile. Tagma – as a general rule – did not wait.
"I hadn't heard about a recent reassignment," the captain said. "Am I to presume your interest is professional? It is sweet you're so protective of the general..."
That was a good point – Morozova was wearing the grey livery of the royal palace, not the darker purple of the viceroy's staff or the gold of the paqūdus, the ordinary soldiers. They wore the uniform of a royal guard, but that would suggest that there was a royal here to guard… "The general is indisposed," Morozova replied.
"And the matter is urgent," Captain Hijikata said. "Most matters involving druj are, Morozova."
They flushed, slightly – barely. "You think me an idiot?"
"I think you're delaying important work," Captain Hijikata replied. "One may draw one's own conclusion as to why."
He nodded at Rakel, to indicate that she should ignore the soldier's protest and continue up the stairs in search of the general. Though she cast a doubtful glance at Morozova, when she stepped forward, she was met with no serious resistance – no violence, at least, though if looks could kill, Sanav imagined that Rakel might have died a few times over in increasingly creative manners. So then she was off, red hair flashing as she darted up the stairs towards the main meeting room, and Morozova's cold-gold eyes were boring into Kane Hijikata and they were saying, "bet that made you feel like a big man, sugar."
He said nothing, only glanced at the rest of the entourage and indicated that they should unbuckle their sheathes and allow their swords to drop to the floor. Sanav did so slowly, reluctantly – he hadn't been aware of how natural it felt to have a blade on his hip these days, how subtly unbalanced he felt without them. Nonetheless, to the floor they fell; there was something of a cacaphony, which he suspected might have been exaggerated by Oktawia to make a point. Each metal blade crashed to the marble floor, and those crashes echoed around the space until it sounded like a small army were disarming in the foyer. Were they really so paranoid of one another, he wondered, that they couldn't enter such a space with their weapons? Did the viceroy – the general – the royals – really trust them to guard the city, the people, the kingdom, with their lives, but not to carry their equipment indoors? For the first time, Sanav felt a little smaller as a tagma under the withering gaze of Morozova.
"Better?" Hijikata's voice was cold.
Morozova inclined her head. "Better," she said, and stepped out of their path to allow them advance up the stairs. They didn't get far – Rakel had retrieved Lorencio Suero, and the pair were descending the enormous steps even as the rest of the team rose to meet them. There were brief salutes, more genuinely meant, and General Suero briefly patted Hijikata on the back, and nodded a hello to the rest of the team. When he glanced at the swords lying littered across the entrance hall of the viceroy's mansion, surrounding the statue-still Morozova like an omen, he raised one eyebrow but said nothing. Sanav kept his head down, and similarly said nothing.
They continued back up the stairs, Morozova watching them all the way, and found their way down one of the smaller, darker halls into a room off the main concourse – Sanav imagined it had recently been used for storage, for it smelled faintly of dust and damp. Lorencio Suero had sank into a seat on a packed wooden trunk, his forearms resting on his knees as he leaned forward like he was already fully invested in what Captain Hijikata had yet to say. Despite his demeanour, it was he who spoke first, and spoke sharply. "Not strictly protocol, Hijikata."
"Not strictly," the captain agreed.
"Is this about that druj again?"
The captain shook his head. "Unfortunately, it's about new developments."
Lorencio straightened slightly. "New developments? In what sense?"
Oktawia Chlebek cleared her throat and stepped forward, with a wary glance in Sanav's direction "This morning, we despatched on a short clearance mission with an allowance of five miles west from Tiamat Gate in Nav. Mahesar's horse threw a shoe – upon investigation of the terrain, we discovered a trapdoor set into the land, and tunnels beneath. Tunnels under the walls."
Lorencio's face was pale, but his expression was unchanged. "You are sure they penetrated the walls?"
"Certainly into Nav," Oktawia said, "and backwards to some degree. These were old tunnels, sir, well-worn, but… there was signs of recent traffic." The small size of the retinue was becoming obvious to the general – the captain had brought only those who had been involved in exploring the mouth and innards of the strange spaces. "We investigated no further, for we had only a small contingent and we were… apprehensive."
"We thought it might be a trap." Jool said what they had all been thinking, and he said it curtly.
"A trap?" Lorencio sliced his eyes across them. "Druj don't set traps."
"Not druj," Rakel said.
"Then what?" Lorencio frowned. "We are no utopia, sirs, but certainly I see little reason for criminals to crave the blighted land beyond Wall Szymanska – or for why any survivors of Tiamat would not present themselves to the Watchers, if you're proposing this was an infiltration of sorts. If this was a tunnel into Ganzir, then perhaps..."
"Did you know the tunnels were there?" Captain Hijikata's voice cut across all else. "General?"
Lorencio's frown deepened. "I didn't."
"You're a Scholar. First Class. You know those walls as well as you know the faces of your children."
Lorencio said, "a little bit better, actually."
"Can you see," the captain said, "if you find any mention of the tunnels in the archives?"
And Lorencio said, something deeper than disapproval dawning in his voice, "you haven't brought this to the palace, have you?"
The captain shifted his weight. "I will bring them a full report at the end of the week."
There was for a moment silence.
"You'll need more men," Lorencio said, "to explore the tunnels more fully – educated men, experts, scholars."
He abruptly, Sanav thought, had the tone of a comrade. Captain Hijikata seemed to recognise this as well; he glanced at his superior with some degree of surprise. "Are you offering, general?"
Lorencio nodded, and dug in his pockets for a piece of paper. "I shall authorise a small contigent of Scholars to attach to your unit for the rest of the week. Protect them, and they shall unravel the secrets of these tunnels for you. Their origins, their age, their purpose." He scrawled a note on the paper. "We cannot approach the king without more complete knowledge, but approach him without delay we must – I shall advise my men of the urgency. And I shall advise the other tagma leaders of this development."
That almost sounded like a warning – a warning against secrecy, a warning against conspiracy. Sanav heeded it, and he heeded it well.
The rest of the meeting was brief; this was how the tagma operated, Sanav thought, all curt and brisk. There was greater business to attend to – bloody business. Less than half an hour after their arrival, they were departing, descending the marble steps to reclaim their swords and return them to their rightful positions. Sanav hadn't realised how tense Kane and Rakel had looked without them, how unnatural, how unlike themselves. He was still a cadet; he had never had occasion to see them around the barracks, or resting. It had seemed somehow unreal to glimpse them in such an unwarlike light.
"Kane Hijikata." The voice which trailed their departure was sweet, and light. Sanav might have compared it to a nightingale, if he had any idea what a nightingale sounded like. Captain Hijikata turned first; his retinue mimicked him, like a rippling wake, reflections of himself, searching for the source of the voice. "A moment?"
Asenath Schreave – the portraits had not done her justice. Slender and statuesque, she had delicate features that might have been whittled from glass or diamond, spattered with tiny black freckles like an unmapped constellation, and silver-grey eyes to match. She wore a long dress that skimmed the marble floor as she moved. Though Sanav had expected the princess to wear an expensive fabric, something his ilk would have never glimpsed in the outer districts, he realised with a slight start that the princess appeared to be garbed in local materials: the distinctive pale pink cotton of Mønt, interwoven with the pale green silk of Txori and shot through with lacing in the Miecz style. Among the heavier, more luxurious clothes of other Ganzir inhabitants, Asenath stood out like a butterfly among moths. On her head lay a delicate circlet in rose-gold leaf, which in this pale light… it might have resembled a halo, if Sanav considered himself a religious man. Some of the smaller sects in Illéa believed that the Walls had been constructed by angels, to provide some fraction of relief from the onslaught of the druj in the lands beyond. Sanav… he thought that there had probably been a lot of lives lost and blood spilt in their construction.
His family was from Tiamat. He had seen walls fall. That was human frailty – human failure. And he couldn't blame them for it. The onslaught of the druj was utterly relentless. Now. Always.
But for a split second, looking at Princess Asenath, he could almost forget that fact. She was smiling. It felt like she was smiling directly at – for – Sanav. He found himself abruptly interested in his own laces as Captain Hijikata bent into a stiff bow and said, "your Serene Highness."
His retinue did the same, Sanav wondering if his heartbeat sounded as loud to everyone else as it did to him. When he straightened, he glimpsed the grey-suited soldier Morozova over her shoulder, a silent sentinel. Oh. So that was their charge. The princess.
"How are you?" That was not the first question that Sanav had expected, and he could see that it had taken Captain Hijikata slightly aback as well; he didn't seem quite equipped to deal with pleasantries, particularly with Morozova's gaze boring into him from beyond. "I hope your visit here does not bode for trouble."
"Not at all, ma'am. Only discussing troop movements and School reports."
"And all is well," she said, "on the western front?"
"As well as can be expected. The druj are eternal."
Abruptly, Sanav found himself wondering if the princess had ever even seen a druj. Surely not. Surely, ensconced in Ganzir, they were sheltered from all of the blood and the mayhem and the misery – the realities of life in Illéa. Surely. Surely.
And yet, gazing at Asenath's mercury-silver eyes, he found himself doubting. He could have believed that she knew all, understood all, had seen all. And when she spoke, he listened attentively. The captain must have enquired about her presence; she was discussing the lines of girls outside, explaining that they were here to interview for maid positions. She was the only member of the royal family who frequently ventured into the districts, to meet the ordinary people, to enquire after their fortunes. "I think it's so important to meet them," Asenath was explaining, "and to show appreciation for their time in coming so far to speak to us – such a lovely group of girls."
Captain Hijikata said, "for the Selection, ma'am?"
"Indeed. What an exciting time – so many new faces in Ganzir. I rather lose track of all the names sometimes..." She paused. Morozova was whispering something in her ear. "Oh. I must depart. Thank you for your time, Captain. Best of luck with the clearances in Tiamat – and do give my best wishes to Oroitz Txori if you see him, won't you?"
"I shall."
"And it was lovely to meet you all." She managed to make it sound like she really meant it, though Sanav had barely spoken. That was good – once he started speaking, he found he could rarely bring himself to stop. "Stay safe."
Stay safe. As tagma?
He would have appreciated it if he didn't think it such a vain hope.
Hijikata seemed to be thinking something along the same lines, but he did not say anything to that effect as he bowed again. The small pack of excubitors and cadets watched as the princess moved across the hallway, shadowed closely by Morozova, and disappeared back into the bowels of the building. After a moment, Rakel spoke – "back to the tunnels, then?" – and the captain looked at her, and smiled very slightly for the first time all day, and said, "try to sound a little bit excited, Sjöberg."
"Oh yay," Rakel said, "Tunnels."
"Little bit better," the captain said, "but keep working on it." He jerked his head, and turned that same slight, barely-there, smile upon the others. "Well? Are we waiting for the walls to fall?"
An old phrase, Sanav thought, made newly morbid by recent realities. And yet he shook his head – no, they were not waiting – and followed his fellow soldiers out of the dark marble hall and into the pale afternoon sun, appreciating the strange comfort of a sword on his hip and a comrade at either shoulder.