“How many more men?” Rosa heard her voice cut in, curiously hollow. “How long have they been here?”
Tristan was speaking, suddenly, but Simon’s laugh was louder, scraping, grim. “Many, many days,” he said. “And soon, should thesebrainsnot find a way through this, we shall havewar.”
25
They would have war.
Rosa couldn’t follow, couldn’t move. Could only stare at Simon, at Salvi — and then at Tristan. Tristan, whose face was written all over with chagrin, and misery, andguilt.
He’dknown.
“But John,” Rosa gulped, staring. “John said — he told me — you hadn’t heard anything. From the men.”
And Lord Kaspar told me they had no money, she wanted to shout. They’re waiting on my research, in nine days —
But even as the thought rose and rebelled, Rosa felt its naivety, its laughable foolishness. What did it matter, what Lord Kaspar had told his librarian weeks ago? Clearly, much had changed since then. Simon had fought and injuredten men, she’d seen it with her own eyes, and then she’d seen the preparations all over this mountain, and just how much John had worked these past days. Ofcoursethere had been a response from the men, why had she ever hoped there wouldn’t be…
“I have spoken this to you, woman,” came Simon’s voice, grating, triumphant. “Again and again. Ka-eshliars. EvenSkaisee how much this false Priest no tell his own mate. I ken you yet knownaughtof his deep plans. You knownaughtof his secret ploys. You knownaughtof how he —”
“Stop!” interrupted Tristan’s voice, echoing high-pitched through the room. “And leave. Both of you. Please!”
There was an instant’s twitching stillness, in which both Simon and Salvi jerked to look at Tristan. Who was biting his trembling lip with a sharp white tooth, his eyes blinking hard, his hand gripping at the quill he’d still been holding.
“Please,” Tristan repeated, and after another instant’s frowning down at his bowed head, Salvi spun on his heel and stalked out, with Simon’s huge body lurching close behind him. Leaving Rosa alone with Tristan, and staring dully across the table at his drawn, ashen face.
He hadliedto her.Johnhad lied.
And Rosa wanted to yell at Tristan, demand how he could hide such a thing from her — but the words wouldn’t come, and she wrapped her arms around her waist, squeezing tight. It shouldn’t matter. She didn’t care. She didn’t.
“I am sorry, Rosa,” came Tristan’s hollow voice. “I told John-Ka to speak of this to you. Itoldhim.”
He sounded on the verge of weeping, Rosa realized, and she dropped her own blinking eyes to the table. “I knew he was hiding something,” she made herself say, through her own trembling mouth. “It’s the Ka-esh way, apparently.”
The silence between them felt thick, suddenly, heavy with accusation. Hinting, perhaps, at Salvi’s lies to Tristan, too — and a glance upwards showed Tristan’s throat convulsing, his clawed fingers flexing against his quill.
“Ka-esh are not always thus,” he said, very quiet. “Salvi has never spoken false to me. He did not truly betray me, as Simon said. I” — his shoulders squared — “I granted him leave to do all he did.”
Rosa kept staring blankly toward him, while her skittering brain called up a memory from what felt like weeks ago, a lifetime ago. When Salvi had a mate, John had said, he fucked her before us each night. There was great joy in this…
“What, so you just ran back intoJohn’sarms instead,” she said, colder than she meant, “and then you two sat back and watched the show together?”
Tristan’s wan face didn’t change, his eyes intent on his quill. “Ach, we did,” he replied, his voice wooden. “John-Ka showed me much kindness, in this. And if I could not have Salvi for my own, I could yet draw joy from seeing him take such pleasure in his mate, and in filling her with his seed, and sparking his son inside her. He is” — his throat convulsed — “stunning, in his joy.”
Rosa’s stomach roiled, hard enough that she had to clamp a hand to her mouth. “Good gods, Tristan,” she said, muffled. “If I ever saw — someone I cared about — do all that with someone else, especially after heleftme, I wouldneverbe able to see the good in it, let alone forgive him for it.Ever.”
Tristan’s shoulders rose and fell, his eyes blinking at where he was now gripping his quill between both hands. “I have not forgiven Salvi,” he whispered, so quiet it was almost inaudible. “But I ought to. He wanted a woman and a son. We all want this. Wemust.”
But the quill in his hands suddenly snapped in two, the noise unnervingly loud in the hushed stillness. And it had gotten ink all over Tristan’s fingers, and he scrubbed at them, forceful, as he lurched unsteadily to his feet.
“I ought to,” he said, without looking at her, scrubbing again, “go. I must —”
He didn’t finish, and turned and stumbled away, out into the darkness. Leaving Rosa entirely alone in the library, for the first time since she’d arrived at this mountain, and she looked blankly around at its already familiar shelves, and then down at the papers on the table. Her Aelakesh notes, and then set carefully on top, her translation ofA Treatise on the Gainful Birthing of Orclings.
She’d just finished it earlier that morning, and she’d been unaccountably excited to show it to John — but now she could only seem to blink at it, at the glossy leather-wrapped cover, the neat stitches of her binding. John had lied to her. He’d known the men were here, he’d been working on addressing this war perhaps thisentire time, and he’d intentionally kept her an ignorant, oblivious pet. Foolish.Useless.
Rosa didn’t look up when she heard him come into the library, some time later. Just kept staring at her book, her heart painfully floundering, as he sighed, and walked over to stand beside her.
“I hear Simon has vexed you again,” his clipped voice said. “You ought to know, pet, not to allow a Skai to provoke you thus.”
