She entered the room. Olem crossed over to the lantern and picked it up. There was something on the table next to the lantern. A toy horse made of wood. Nila found herself kneeling by the bedside. There was a form there, sleeping soundly, bundled up to the chin beneath blankets.
Jakob looked healthier. His hair had been cut and dyed, his cheeks fuller, and there were now smile lines at the corners of his mouth.
“Tamas is not the heartless man most people think he is,” Olem said. “He won’t kill an innocent child. He sent no one to the guillotine under the age of seventeen on the day of the Elections. He had a rumor started that all the children of the nobility were strangled quietly in order to explain away their disappearance.”
Nila brushed her fingers across Jakob’s forehead. “What happened to them? What will happen to him?”
“Sent away,” Olem said. “Some to Novi or Rosvel. Some to the countryside.”
“Can I see him when he’s awake?”
“No. He mustn’t know anyone from his former life. He mustn’t grow up thinking he’s something special. He’ll be sent to live on a farm, where his life will be hard but not dangerous or complex. He might marry a laundress someday. But he’ll never be king.”
Nila knelt beside Jakob’s bedside for several minutes before Olem drew her away. The lamp was returned, and the guard locked the door to the nursery behind them. Around the corner, Nila clutched the field marshal’s uniform to her chest.
Olem stood, hands clasped behind his back, face serious. “You must hate us,” he said. “For destroying your world. I’m sorry for that. But Tamas… all of us… we did it so that the commoners can know a good life someday. So that we are no longer slaves.”
“I was happy, I think,” Nila said.
“The best kind of slavery,” Olem said. “But still slavery.” He fell silent for a couple of moments. “I’ll understand if you want a transfer away from the field marshal. It must be hard for you, knowing what he did to people you once served. He’ll be furious. He says you’re the first laundress to starch his collars right since he was in Gurla.”
“And you?” Nila said.
Olem struck a match and lit a cigarette, letting out a long sigh. “You can’t like someone knowing your secret. The field marshal pardoned the royalists, but there’s still no trust of them in the army. I won’t tell anyone. And I’ll leave you alone.”
Nila searched Olem’s face for insincerity. She couldn’t find any. She had no doubt that if she said the word right now, he’d never speak to her again. His cigarette rolled between his lips. He took a long puff, then took it out, looking away. Giving her time to think it over.
“Are you sure you weren’t a gentleman in another life?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” Olem said, turning back to her. His face was still uncommonly serious.
Nila tried to tell herself that this changed nothing. That Tamas was still a monster who endangered Adro every moment he remained alive. But Olem had revealed that Tamas was human. That he had compassion. Nila could not look into the eyes of another person and take their life when she knew they still had humanity.
She hated Olem for it.
“I’d prefer,” she said, clasping her hands behind her back so that Olem couldn’t see them shake, “that we not speak again.”
Olem stiffened. His eyes fell, and his serious demeanor dropped long enough for her to see his sadness before he straightened his back. “Of course, ma’am.”
Nila watched him walk down the hall and brushed a tear from the corner of her eye. To do what needed to be done, she had to be cruel. No time to cry. There was still laundry to do before the house awoke.
Chapter 32
Taniel approached the bastion gate wondering how the St. Adom’s Day Festival was progressing in Adro. They’d received a shipment of food that morning: barrels of ale, salted pork, and beef of the highest quality. Much better fare than normally seen on the Mountainwatch.
Mozes was already at the gate, and armed to the teeth with knives, pistols, and a rifle. Rina, the Watch kennelmaster and one of Bo’s women, stood opposite of Mozes, crouched among her dogs. The beasts gave a quiet whine when Taniel approached. He squatted a few feet away and examined them in the torchlight.
There were three big, long-haired mastiffs. They wore black