Caius said, “I’ve the solution to the problem. Why ever do you refuse to trust me?”
Because you’re a two-wheeled carriage, if you know what I mean, I thought. It didn’t matter whether I said it or not; Caius Greylace could sense an insult as sure as if you’d really spoken it.
“Well, you might as well just see it,” he reasoned, taking me by the arm and dragging me toward the door. “And I do believe you will like it.”
Letting Caius surprise me was a piss-poor idea, I thought, but suddenly, I was curious. He’d been almost tolerable the past few days. What if the Ke-Han air was getting to him, making him… sane? Well, saner, I thought, because he was still dressing like the belle of the ball, but there were some problems no amount of good weather could cure. Little lord Greylace was cracked.
But, as it turned out, I’d misjudged him.
“There,” Caius said, satisfied, after leading me through the twisting halls of the palace, enough so that I’d got thoroughly lost.
I didn’t know how he’d done it, but we were in a quiet, empty garden; the walls of the palace shielded it from the rapidly rising sun, and the ground was covered by bleached white stone. In fact, it looked a lot like he’d brought me to a place where I could train in the cool morning air, in private, in peace. Whether or not he’d done it for himself—giving me a better stage to make the show more entertaining—didn’t matter much to me.
“I thought so,” he said, judging by my lack of response. “And what’s more, I’ve brought visitors!”
That was where he lost me. For a moment or so, I’d even been grateful.
“Visitors?” I asked.
“I just couldn’t help talking about it,” Caius went on, as though I didn’t need any further explanation, even though, between the two of us, I wasn’t the velikaia. “Even though you do break stools, it’s quite enjoyable to watch. You see, my dear, I was in the middle of a fascinating conversation with Josette about Lord Jiro’s battle history—she is so wonderful to talk to about these things; you ought to try it sometime—and I happened to let it slip that you were in the midst of preparing for another war, or so it seemed, the way you were behaving. Then, because she looked rather alarmed at the prospect, I had to explain everything…which was when Lord Temur overheard our conversation and suggested that, instead of practicing inside your room and breaking all the furniture the Ke-Han had to offer, you might prefer to practice somewhere you can do it properly, and without splinters.”
“He suggested I practice here,” I said, caught up in the whirlwind of illogical progression that was just Caius’s way of going about his everyday life.
“Something or other like that,” Caius agreed happily. “Aren’t you delighted? They should be along any minute now, so you mustn’t look foolish or stumble and disappoint them. That would be awful; I’d be hideously embarrassed. And after I praised you so sincerely! Lord Temur is a war hero, you know, and trained in all manner of the martial arts. He’ll know whether or not you’re performing to the best of your capabilities. I think, if you’re subpar, you’ll be letting all of Volstov down.” With that, he smiled a very smug smile, obviously pleased with himself.
If he was trying to goad me, anyway, then it was working. The idea of looking like a fool in front of a Ke-Han warlord really got my blood hot.
Something told me that Caius had orchestrated the entire scene just to watch the audience interact with the actor; so that he, the grand director, could sit back and clap at our quaint performances.
But I’d wasted enough time already standing around and chatting with him. Whether Lord Temur came or didn’t come, I wasn’t going to let it stop me from taking advantage of the new space I’d been given, and I wasn’t about to stop practicing, when it was the only thing I could call my own in that forsaken place.
I hefted the sword—it still wasn’t heavy enough, but I was getting used to it, even though it meant I had to relearn all the steps to compensate for the shift in balance. That was what a good soldier was supposed to do. Improvise and adapt. This was the sword I had, this was the time I’d been given, and it hadn’t been so long since the end of