First Lord's Fury

CHAPTER 24

Tavi watched as Magnus and the execution detail left the ship. It included each of the Knights Ferrous on board and a pair of Demos’s most combat-capable sailors. They took Fidelias ex Cursori and the spars for the crucifixion with them.

“Tough to believe,” Max said quietly. “I mean… Valiar Marcus.”

“People lie, kid,” Demos said. “Especially about who they are.”

“I know, I know,” Max said quietly. “I’m just… just surprised, that’s all. He was always so solid.”

“All in your head,” Demos said calmly. “He was what he was. You’re the one who made him solid.”

Max glanced at Tavi. “Sir, are you sure you…?”

Tavi grimaced, and said, “Max, he betrayed my grandfather after swearing to serve him. He gave his own student, back at the Academy, to the Aquitaines to be tortured. He is the only surviving member of the senior Cursori who could possibly have provided details about the organization to Kalarus’s Bloodcrows. I personally witnessed him kill half a dozen legionares defending the battlements at Second Calderon, and the plan he helped execute killed hundreds more. Any one of those crimes merits execution. In time of war, they merit summary execution.”

Max frowned and did not look at Tavi. “Do we know if he’s done anything since he assumed the identity of Valiar Marcus?”

“It doesn’t matter what he’s done since, Max,” Tavi replied, keeping his voice level, completely neutral. “He is guilty of treason. There are a host of crimes a First Lord can choose to be lenient about. There is one he absolutely cannot.”

“But…”

Crassus cut in, overriding his brother’s protest. “He’s right, Max. You know he’s right.”

Demos folded his arms and nodded at Max. “Be glad the fellow did some good before he got caught. It doesn’t give the dead back to their families. The man chose to kill. He crossed a line. He knew his own life might be forfeit because of it.” He nodded in the guard detail’s general direction. “Fidelias knows that. He knows that Octavian doesn’t have any choice in the matter. He’s made his peace with it.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Max asked.

Demos shrugged. “When Magnus spotted him, Fidelias didn’t kill the old man. He could have, easily, and for all he knew, it might have kept his secret. He could have tried to run before the battle was over. He didn’t.”

Tavi listened to it all without paying much attention. Marcus, a traitor. Marcus, who had saved his life only days ago, at considerable risk to his own. Marcus, who had done his best to murder members of Tavi’s family.

Not Marcus, he told himself. Fidelias. There was no Marcus. There never was a Marcus.

There were too many lies. They were starting to make his head hurt. The sun seemed too bright.

“As soon as the execution detail is back on board, please get under way, Captain,” Tavi said. “I’ll be in my cabin.” He turned before anyone could acknowledge him and walked back to his cabin with his head bowed. The curtains were already drawn, leaving the space fairly dark, and he sank down onto his bunk, shaking with postbattle adrenaline.

He had only been there for a few moments when the door opened, and Kitai entered. She walked across the little room, her steps brisk, and Tavi felt the gentle pressure of an aircrafting come up around them, to make their conversation a private one.

“Why are you being an idiot?” she demanded.

Tavi opened his eyes and looked at her. She stood over him with her legs planted in a wide, confident stance “Chala, do the Marat have a word for ‘diplomacy’?”

Her green eyes began to look almost luminous as her anger grew. Tavi could feel the heat of it pressing against him, simmering inside him. “This is not a time for humor.”

Tavi narrowed his eyes at her. “You disagree with what is happening to M—To Fidelias.”

“I do not know Fidelias,” she replied. “I know Marcus. He does not deserve this.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Either way, he is guilty of treason, and the law is clear.”

“Law,” Kitai said, and spat on the deck as if the word had carried a bad taste. “He has fought loyally for you for years.”

“He has lied to me for years,” Tavi replied, and considerable heat burned in his own reply. “He has betrayed the trust of the Realm. He has murdered innocents, Citizens and loyal freemen.”

“And risked his life countless times on the field with us,” Kitai snapped back.

Tavi found himself hurtling up off the bed, his voice rising unbidden to a bellowing roar so loud that it made him see stars. “HE TRIED TO MURDER MY FAMILY!”

They both stood there for a moment, Tavi breathing heavily. Kitai looked him up and down, then slowly arched an eyebrow. “Of course. Your judgment is clearly unbiased, Your Highness.”

Tavi opened his mouth to reply, then forced himself to stop. He sat back down on the bunk, still breathing heavily. He stayed that way for a full minute. Then he looked back up at Kitai, and said, “Yes. He hurt me personally. But he did that to a lot of people. Even if the law didn’t mandate an execution, it would be a form of justice to allow him to be sentenced by those he had wronged.”

“No,” Kitai said. “It would be a needlessly bureaucratic form of revenge.” She paused, and added, with a faint wisp of wry humor, “Which, now that I think on it, is a functional description of Aleran law in any case.”

Tavi rubbed at his forehead with one hand. “It had to be this way. If he had run, I could have let him go. But he didn’t.”

“So you will waste him.”

Tavi frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“He knew what would happen to him if he stayed,” Kitai said. “Therefore, he wanted the outcome.”

“He wanted to die?”

Kitai frowned pensively. “I think… he wanted balance. Order. He knew that the things he has done were wrong. Submitting himself to sentencing, to justice was…” She shook her head. “I cannot remember the Aleran word.”

“Redemption,” Tavi said thoughtfully. “He wanted to confess. He knew he would not be forgiven for his crimes, but by choosing to act as he did…”

“He gained a sense of order,” Kitai said. “Of peace. He creates a solid Realm in his thoughts and pays a just penalty for the things he has done.” Kitai reached into a pocket and tossed him something underhand.

Tavi caught it. It was a triangle of chitin as long as his smallest finger—the tip of a vordknight’s scythe.

“Things have changed, my Aleran. The vord are here, and they will kill us all. It is madness to labor on their behalf.” She moved forward and put a hand on his arm. “And he has saved your life, chala. For that, I am in his debt.”

“Crows.” Tavi sighed and sagged back down, staring at the deck.

Kitai moved quietly to sit down on the bunk beside him. She put her wrist to his forehead. Her skin felt pleasantly cool.

“You have a fever, chala,” she said quietly. “You’ve been holding the weathercrafting too long.”

Tavi gritted his teeth. “Have to. Won’t be much longer. We should reach Phrygia by morning.”

“You told me that Sextus did this,” she said. “Pushed himself to do what he saw as his duty—even though it cost him his health, even though it put the Realm at risk of losing its First Lord.” She slid her hand down his arm to twine her fingers with his. “You said it was shortsighted of him. You said it was foolish.”

“He did it for weeks on end,” Tavi said.

“But not continually,” she countered. “Only at night, during his meditations.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tavi said. “If the ice melts, there’s no getting it back with spring coming on. I just have to hold it for a few more hours.”

She frowned, clearly unhappy, but did not gainsay him.

“You think I’m wasting Fidelias’s life.”

“No,” Kitai said. “He is there because he wanted to be there. You are wasting his death.”

He frowned at her for a moment, then her meaning sunk in. “Ah,” he said.

“He should be given the choice,” Kitai said. “If nothing else, you owe him that.”

Tavi leaned over and kissed her hair gently. “I think,” he said, “you may be right.”

Tavi walked carefully over the ice to the execution party. They were gathering up their tools and preparing to return to the ship. As he approached, they saluted.

“Leave us,” Tavi said. The men saluted again and hurried to return to the ship.

There were a number of allowable variants for crucifixion, ranging from the practical to the downright sadistic. Which one was used was mostly determined by how much anguish the authorities felt the offender had earned. Many were designed to contain and circumvent specific furycrafting talents.

For Fidelias, they had used steel wire.

He hung upon the crossed spars, his feet dangling two feet above the ground. His arms had been bound to the outthrust arms of the cross with dozens of circles of steel wire. More wire bound his waist to the trunk of the cross. That much steel would virtually neutralize his woodcrafting. Being suspended from the earth would prevent him from employing earthcrafting. He was dressed only in his tunic. His armor, weapons, and helmet had been taken from him.

Fidelias was obviously in pain, his face pale. His eyes and cheeks looked sunken, and the grey in his hair and stubbled face was more prominent than at any other time Tavi had seen him.

He looked old.

And weary.

Tavi stopped in front of the cross and stared up at him for a moment.

Fidelias met his eyes. After a time, he said, “You should go. You should catch up to the fleet before the next stop.”

“I will,” Tavi said quietly. “After you answer one question.”

The old Cursor sighed. “What question?”

“How do you want to be remembered?”

Fidelias let out a dry, croaking laugh. “What the crows does it matter what I want? I know what I will be remembered for.”

“Answer the question, Cursor.”

Fidelias was silent for a moment, his eyes closed. The wind gusted around them, cold and uncaring.

“I never wanted a civil war. I never wanted anyone to die.”

“I believe you,” Tavi said quietly. “Answer the question.”

Fidelias’s head remained bowed. “I would like to be remembered as a man who tried to serve the Realm to the best of his ability. Who dedicated his life to Alera, even if not to her lord.”

Tavi nodded slowly. Then he drew his sword.

Fidelias did not look up.

Tavi stepped around to the back of the crossed poles and struck three times.

Fidelias abruptly dropped to the ground, cut free from the coils of wire by Tavi’s blade. Tavi took a step and stood over Fidelias, staring down at him.

“Get up,” he said quietly. “You are condemned to die, Fidelias ex Cursori. But we are at war. Therefore, when you die, you will do so usefully. If you truly are a servant of the Realm, I have a better death for you than this one.”

Fidelias stared up at him for a moment, and his features twisted into something like pain. Then he nodded in a single jerky spasm.

Tavi extended his hand, and Fidelias took it.