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“What a noble sacrifice,” Tadek said wryly. “May I ask a question?”
Another throb of terror. Kadou swallowed it. “Of course.”
“What are my duties to be?” There was no rancor in his voice, just mild curiosity and an amused drawl. “Or shall I just putter around and make myself useful however I see fit?”
“That seems like a good place to start, doesn’t it?” Eozena said, rolling her coffee cup between her palms. “I’d be happy to help find things for you to do, if you’re feeling at loose ends.”
His mouth quirked in a wry smile, but the edges of it were brittle. He gestured to the mending in his lap. “Useful things it is, then.”
“I’ll still pay your stipend, if you’d like it,” Kadou blurted. The enrichment stipend was considered one of the great perks of the kahyalar corps, a generous and regular sum of money that a kahya was expected to spend on advancing their education in some way that wasn’t already provided by the palace—some spent it on specialized weapons training from experts, or lessons in music or foreign languages, or lectures on academic subjects. Nowadays, too, some spent it on books: They’d become unbelievably cheap in the last five or so years, what with those new printing presses.
Without the stipend, Tadek had little hope of advancing his position or eventually turning elsewhere to use skills to which he was better suited. Kadou felt, again, the weight of the life laid in his hands.
But perhaps it had sounded like he was playing favorites? He panicked all over again. “And,” he added quickly to Melek and Evemer, “if either of you want to spend your stipend on something unusual, I’ll inform the bursar that you’re to be allowed. I won’t even check what you’re spending it on. You can use it for whatever you like, or save it. No restrictions. Tadek too.”
Eozena looked hard at all of them. “His Highness is very generous. I hope you use it wisely.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me, Commander,” Tadek said with a sunny grin—Kadou couldn’t tell if this one was genuine or not. It seemed to be. “Don’t really need mine anymore anyway. I usually spent it on . . .cultural enrichment,as the clerks in the bursar’s office call it.”
Melek frowned. “Why?”
“Why not? I enjoyed it. Twice a week, I’d go to the theater and music halls. I could tell you about any major theatrical performance from the last ten years.” He laughed. “That’s not much use now, though, is it. What do you use yours for?”
“Usually I go find someone who knows how to do something interesting, and I pay them to teach me. I know about dyes and lockpicking and acrobatics . . . I went abseiling down the side of the plateau once.”
Tadek laughed again. Kadou was watching him very, very carefully, trying to spot another crack in Tadek’s mien, but there were none now. He seemed entirely relaxed, even merry. “You never spend it on anything fun? That’s what it’sfor.”
“It’sforexpanding your skills and knowledge,” Evemer said sternly, while Melek muttered, “Abseiling was fun.”
Tadek rolled his eyes. “If you want to word it so prissily, Evemer, sure. It was established to promote general literacy amongst the kahyalar—do you know how that’s defined? Have you read the guidelines about what you’re allowed to use it for, or did you just listen to the boring examples they suggested when you were first promoted to the fringe? You know there’s even more things you can use it for now that you’re core-guard, don’t you?” Kadou glanced back and forth between them. Evemer was glowering openly now; Tadek had leaned back on one hand, showily careless and unimpressed. “If you haven’t read them—which would not surprise me, because almost no one bothers—then you’d know.”
“I have read them, in fact,” Evemer snapped.
“If you’re going to fight, you can take it outside,” Eozena said sharply. “Don’t burden His Highness with your squabbling.”
It’s no trouble,Kadou wanted to say.It’s nothing. You don’t have to hide yourselves from me.But . . . perhaps they did. Perhaps it was that he didn’t have the right to be shown. And after what Eozena had reminded him of that morning . . . It was better to be silent about some things.
Evemer fumed to himself as Melek wrapped up çir business and left for bed. He’d had a lifetime of practicing discipline and self-control, but he’d been barely twenty-four hours in the core-guard and he’d already lost his temper in front of His Highness and Commander Eozena.
AndTadek,of all people.
Most of Usmim’s little tests could be weathered with sheer, stubborn force of will, but the Lord of Trials appeared to be sending him some subtler, more insidious ones now, and those were more difficult to guard against.
He would go to the temple at dusk, when he was released from the day’s service. He would attend one of the lectures, where doubtless one of the temple aunts would be earnestly giving a crowd of people the usual platitudes about committing to the improvement of themselves, the virtues of patience, the way a trial turned sideways was just an opportunity. If he didn’t feel better after that, it would be his own fault.
He would not allow them to get to him.
“Evemer, you’re still fresh from the exams,” Eozena said, looking up from the papers and ledgers that she and Kadou had returned to upon Melek’s departure. “You must have studied up on arithmetic and accounting.”
“Yes, Commander.”
She looked terribly relieved. “Excellent, come check this over for me, then. I can balance my own accounts, but this”—she flicked her hand at the table—“is giving me a headache.”
“I can handle it by myself,” His Highness said quickly to her. “I did say so.” He had, although not very firmly—it had sounded like a politeness more than a strong assertion.
“And I’ve been saying that nobody audits a guild all by their lonesome, and that you’d have to be mad to want to,” she replied sharply. “Take the help you have available. Evemer’s already been on the investigation.” Evemer would have blinked in surprise at her tone, but—well, it was not his place to criticize his superior officer.
His Highness gestured at Evemer. “Maybe he has his own things to attend to!”
