The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,72

to be aware of their own place in the hierarchy (below the Blackguards in most matters at the Chromeria, though as free men and women, they were nominally socially above the technically servile Blackguards).

“I’m afraid your brother’s nonsense really has riled them up,” Andross said. “Freeing all slaves! Can you imagine?” Andross said. “Who would want a free woman to attend him when he’s ill? Does anyone really want a person who works for coin to be the physicker who prods one’s intimate places and knows one’s ills and shameful diseases? Without the fear of the lash, would not one motivated by coin to sell one’s secrets to whomever might bribe her? And what free woman would choose the work of laving lepers or massaging whores’ prolapsed rectums or taking on the death sentence of palliating the plagued? There is work not even the most penurious would choose. Your treasonous brother can’t be ignorant of this, can he? Surely not. Who empties the chamber pots in his camps? Who collects the urine to tan the leather, who mucks the stables, who swives a dozen stinking ugly soldiers every night? Free men and women? Nonsense. There are just things that free people won’t do.”

He seemed utterly unaware that of the ten people sharing the lift, eight were slaves. Seemed unaware—and probably even was. He’d been so powerful and rich for so long that Karris could believe that. Andross remembered everything—but only everything he thought important. He was sly, but not omniscient, and he didn’t think of others who didn’t rise to the level of being players for his games.

Karris was the ninth person in the lift. Technically, as a Blackguard, she’d been a slave herself. She didn’t believe Andross was unaware of that in the slightest. “I suppose it’s a good thing, then,” she said.

“Hmm?” he asked.

“That I was a slave myself,” she said. “You expect me to believe you’d forgotten?” The second part slipped out of the corral before she could shut the gate. Sarcasm was not the appropriate mode for a White. Not a good one.

Dammit.

“Oh my,” he said, putting a hand to his chest. “What a horrific gaffe.” He made no effort to sound authentic.

“Do you know the thing about slights?” she asked. Thank Orholam she hadn’t drafted red in a long time.

“What’s that, dear?”

“They’re slight.”

“So is a bee sting,” he said. Damn he was quick!

“What’s a bee sting to an iron bull?” she said, just as quickly. She’d learned from long practice: never let a Guile keep talking. “Let it go. It’s beneath you, father.” If she let him talk, he’d make some crack about how she’d just compared herself to an iron bull. There was an Iron White joke in there somewhere, too, so she had to strike faster.

Thus, calling him ‘father.’

He grimaced at the word. Then quirked his eyebrows as if accepting he’d deserved that for calling her ‘dear.’

Karris had learned that she had to watch for the most fleeting expression on the promachos’s face.

Those didn’t lie. But everything else about him?

“Good thing—” she resumed. “I mean, if have your permission to finish my earlier thought?”

“Not so bad at slights yourself when you put your mind to it . . . or is withering scorn a bit different?” he asked, amused like a father whose toddler wishes to wrestle and actually thinks she’ll win. “But please. Do finish.”

She copied his eyebrow quirk, accepting the withering scorn in return for her own. But it pissed her off, deeply. It took her a moment to collect herself. “If there are certain things that free people won’t do, then it’s a good thing I was a slave.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because there’s nothing I won’t do to keep my people safe.”

What was that twitch at the corners of his mouth with the rise of his eyebrows? A victory?

No. No? Maybe surprise melting into amusement.

“Funny. I said the same thing when I was a young man,” Andross said. He smiled widely now. “I believe you mean it just as much as I did.”

Which of course could be interpreted several ways.

But he was moving on. He said, “We’ll see if that holds when the bill comes due, won’t we? Because I’m sorry to say we may get to see what you’re really willing to do for your people sooner than we’d like.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Needlessly confrontational, Karris. A more dignified White would’ve assumed an innocent air and said, ‘Whatever do you mean? Are you going to bring me up to speed