Page 51 of The Infernal Battalion

“I cannot leave Winter to escape.”

“I know. Hence my suggestion—​allow me to control my former body, and the others with the army. Those yet to be converted will be expecting ‘Janus’ to issue commands.”

“None of the other minds have attempted to control a body.” The Beast sounded fascinated. “You can do it?”

“I believe so. I have studied the mechanism. I would not proceed without your permission, of course.”

“That could be useful.” The Beast had every bit of knowledge and skill of all of its continuants, and it could see the advantages immediately. For all that it was in some ways limited, it was still terrifyingly capable. “But I cannot help but think you find some advantage for yourself.”

“What advantage could I gain, in here?”

“Misplaced loyalty to former friends, perhaps?” The Beast’s voice was a roar. “I should tear you apart and find out.”

“You can do so, of course. But then I will be unable to assist.”

There was a long pause.

“Go,” the Beast said. “If you can. But I will be watching.”

9

Marcus

“They were six years apart,” Gravya said. “Janus’ mother never recovered from his birth, and the old count followed her a year later. She was always his strength, I think. He was a kind man, but not a hardy one.”

The old woman stood at an iron stove in the dusty sitting room, expertly building the fire. Marcus, sitting in a tattered but comfortable chair, felt a bit awkward letting her wait on them, and Cyte apparently had the same thought, because she said, “Can I help at all, Mistress Gravya?”

“Oh, no, dear. It’s just something to do with my hands. Helps me think. Habit, you know?”

Cyte, frowning, settled down into the chair opposite Marcus. Marcus said, “So Janus never knew his parents?”

Gravya shook her head. “He had us—​the house servants—​and he had Mya. That was all. They were inseparable from the time he could walk. I called myself his tutor, but it was Mya who taught him to read and write. I just filled in what she couldn’t be bothered with. Not talking with your mouth full and the like.” She laughed and poked the fire, sending up a shower of sparks. “Most days it was just the two of them, going wherever they wanted, all over the estate.”

“What was Mya like?” Marcus said. “Was she as smart as Janus?”

“Hard to say,” Gravya said. “She was smarter than anyone in the house by the time she was ten, that’s for certain. And she was... good at understanding people, better than he was.” She transferred a cast-​iron pot to the stove top and set to stirring. “You’re his friend, so you must have seen how he can be a bit... distant?”

“From time to time,” Marcus muttered, which made Gravya laugh again.

“He hasn’t changed, I take it. Once when he called for me in the middle of the night, I told him off for waking me, and he said he’d forgotten that I needed to sleep. Other people just don’t always register, you know? He’s lost in his own head.”

“Mya wasn’t like that?”

“Oh, no.” Gravya stopped stirring for a moment, lost in memory. “If anything, she understood too well. She couldn’t bear seeing anyone suffering, and she knew when they were hurting, even if they didn’t know it themselves. You couldn’t lie to her, not ever. She would always know.” The old woman sniffed, and started stirring again. “Once when she was nine, one of the stableboys played a prank on her, dirt down her dress or some such. She spent all afternoon devising a way to get back at him, a sort of hunter’s trap in the yard that dumped him into a pile of pig shit. But then, when everyone was laughing at him, she broke down and started to cry. She understood how it made him feel, she told me later, and she couldn’t stand it.”

“She sounds like a kind soul,” Cyte said.

“She was, I think,” Gravya said slowly. “Difficult, sometimes, and with strange ideas. But ultimately kind.”

“Strange ideas?” Marcus prompted.

Gravya was quiet for a moment, taking dried leaves from a small box and grinding them between her fingers to sprinkle in the pot. She sniffed again, and, apparently satisfied, resumed stirring.

“She read a lot,” the old woman said finally. “They both did, of course, but by the time she was twelve Mya had read every book in her father’s library and sent away for more. She loved history, but she was never satisfied with it. She always said that she could have done better.” Gravya shook her head. “For a while she and Janus would play with toy soldiers, over and over. She would get angry and shout at him if he wasn’t good enough, even though he was only six. They would draw, not like ordinary children draw, but... diagrams, charts, that sort of thing. I asked what they were doing once, and Janus told me they were inventing a new kind of king. Then Mya shushed him. She was getting to that self-​conscious age, poor thing. Poor girl.”

“Was it the Red Hand?” Cyte said. Marcus blinked, surprised, but when he added up the dates it worked out. The plague had swept through Vordan City, brought by ships from the east, and worked its way out into the country, the worst epidemic since the age of tyrants.

Gravya nodded. “It was worst on children, you know. That was always the cruelest part. They both caught it, and for a time we thought they would recover, but Mya took a sudden turn for the worse. Janus... didn’t react well. At first he kept demanding to see her, no matter how we tried to explain it to him. Later he burned all their papers, all the work they’d done together, and nearly set fire to the house. Sometimes he’d stop eating for days at a time. He went into the library and started reading. He knew Mya had read all the books, and I think it helped him feel closer to her. But he just... stayed there.