AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Embarrassing things, and difficult to hear, and so very badly wanted—oh, he wished . . . he wished that . . .
He still didn’t have words. He couldn’t reject or deny what she’d said. Eozena did not say things unless she meant them—to disbelieve her would be to disbelieve her honesty, and that was unthinkable.
And yet he couldn’t reconcile her view of him—grown-up, brave, serious, a good man, someone she could be proud of, someone shewasproud of—with what he knew of himself. Small, cowardly, weak. Blood on his hands twice over.
“Can I ask you something?” he heard himself say.
“Yes, my lord,” Evemer answered immediately.
Kadou didn’t allow himself time to think or second-guess or pick over the thought. “Why do you think she said all that?”
The silence was faintly astonished. “Because she believes it,” Evemer answered carefully. It sounded like a guess—was he guessing what Eozena had meant, or what he thought Kadou wanted him to say?
He said nothing more. After a moment, he heard Evemer moving around the room, opening cabinets, adding logs to the fire in the hearth . . . The sound of metal on glass, the sound of water . . .
Evemer moved in his peripheral vision, and a steaming cup of tea appeared on the windowsill by Kadou’s elbow. He looked down at it in mild surprise, then up at Evemer, who was setting a neatly folded blanket on the divan next to him, where Kadou had pulled up his feet to be comfortable. “Are these for me?”
“Yes, my lord.”
Kadou looked up at him—to gauge his expression, to say thank you if the expression seemed open to it—and found Evemer looking . . . hesitant.
Not uncertain in the way anyone else would—not nearly so obvious as it would be on anyone else’s face, and as soon as Kadou had the thought, he wasn’t certain that it was correct. What did Evemer have to be hesitant about?
He glanced at the tea, the blanket. For him.
His heart stuttered a little and softened. “Are you trying to make me feel better?” He couldn’t help but smile.
“Yes, my lord.” Evemer was using his flawlessly neutral voice.
“Ah.” Kadou looked at the blanket and the tea again, fighting to keep a smile off his face because he knew—heknew—that Evemer would think he was laughing at him. He wasn’t. He wasn’t, not in the slightest, it was just . . . sweet. Thoughtful.
It was his duty, of course. He would have had training in perception, inthinkingabout the needs of the person he was appointed to attend. But small, unnecessary gestures like these had not been something that Evemer made a habit of—at least that Kadou had seen in these few weeks that Evemer had been in his service. Evemer fulfilled all his duties admirably, even impeccably, when there was a clear and necessary thing that Kadou required. But the less necessary things, the ones that were about simple human pleasures, did not seem to occur to him as comforts that Kadou might desire or appreciate. But then, Kadou wondered suddenly, were they the sort of things that would occur to Evemer as things thatEvemermight want? Lieutenant Evemer Hoskadem, who had gotten a near-perfect score on his merit exams, who was known throughout the garrison for being rigid and unyielding and utterly disciplined, the dream of the perfect kahya as Beydamur himself must have imagined when he was writingThe Ten Pillars of Warand establishing the ancient blueprints of what would one day become not just the perfectly loyal army of the sultan, but the ministers and governors of the realm?
No, Evemer Hoskadem was not the sort to think of simple pleasures unless he meant to deliberately. Unless he hadwantedto.
Which meant that the tea and blanket were genuine gestures, sincere ones, and not just the dutiful service of a kahya to his lord.
Kadou’s heart softened again.
“Thank you,” he said, looking up at Evemer.
Evemer was looking rather stiff and formal. He wasn’t meeting Kadou’s eyes, his gaze lowered respectfully. “If there is something else you require.”
Kadou nudged his feet under the edge of the blanket and picked up the tea. “No, this is—good. I like these.” He wasn’t sure what had made him say it quite like that, just that he wanted Evemer to know.
Evemer nodded sharply.
He stood there in parade rest, tall and imposing and immaculate in every respect, and showing no inclination to step back and give Kadou any more space. Kadou tried not to look at him and sipped his tea, suddenly and unaccountably nervous.
He thought, suddenly, of earlier—in the garden, with Evemer kneeling before him, bared to the sunlight, looking up at him without even a trace of hesitation or uncertainty. He had seemed almostrelaxedthen. Still utterly correct, disciplined, principled, but . . . natural. The Evemer who stood before him now—for all that he was done up perfectly in his uniform, his sword on his hip and his sash neatly knotted—was wooden by comparison. He might have been more imposing like this, but there was something missing—not quite an aura of confidence or an assurance, but a . . . What was it?
In the back of Kadou’s head, a voice that sounded rather alarmingly like Tadek’s said cheerfully,Comfort, maybe? Haha, are we trying to reflect on the fact that Lieutenant Hoskadem looked comfortable on his knees?
Kadou shut that thought down and pushed it aside so sharply that he had to look out the window and sip his tea to conceal his mortification with himself—and the mortification that came of knowing that the Tadek voice in the back of his head was absolutely laughing at him.
“My lord,” Evemer said. “Last night. Armsman Hasira.”
Kadou mentally screeched. He cleared his throat. “Yes? What about him?”
