"You don't ask much, do you?" Ehren flashed Tavi an easy grin and slipped the envelope out of sight beneath his overlarge tunic. "Time limit?"
"Sooner is better, but take what you need to make the approach." Tavi paused, then offered his hand again. Ehren took it, and Tavi said softly, "Be careful, Ehren."
"Can't have you moaning over how guilty you feel for sending me off to my death," Ehren said, and winked at Kitai. "The Ambassador would never forgive me."
"No," Kitai said. She stepped forward and kissed Ehren on the cheek. "I wouldn't. Walk softly."
"I suspect I'll have less to worry about than you. Take care of each other." He nodded to them, turned, and vanished into the trees without ceremony.
Tavi watched him go and bit his lip.
"He knows what he is doing, chala," Kitai said.
"I know."
"He knows the risks."
"I know."
"If this works," she said, "what will you say to Nasaug? What do you hope to accomplish?"
"I don't know," Tavi said quietly. "Yet. But I have to do something."
She stood beside him for a moment, then said, "We should get back."
Tavi took a deep breath and blew it out again. "Right," he said. "Lots to do. And we march at dawn."
Chapter 10
Just as Tavi rose to leave his office for the field, Araris shut the door, and said in a very quiet voice, "I have to talk to you."
There were a hundred details still to take care of, and they formed a precise, clear list in the young commander's mind. Tavi buckled on his sword belt as he mentally ordered the list, and reached for his cloak. "Fine. We can talk on the road."
"No," the singulare said quietly.
Tavi threw the cloak around his shoulders. "The Senator isn't going to appreciate it if we hold him up. Let's move."
Araris looked steadily at Tavi for a second. Then he locked the door, folded his arms, and leaned back against it. "The Senator," he said, "can wait."
Tavi drew up short and stared at the older man until he had managed to shake the list out of the forefront of his thoughts. He studied Araris for a minute, taking in his wary posture, his obvious tension. Tavi concentrated for a moment and was able to feel a vague sense of unease tinting an iron shell of resolve.
"Oh," Tavi said quietly. "This talk."
Araris nodded. "It's time."
Boots thudded dully on the floors overhead, probably the Subtribunes Lo-gistica moving the Legion's treasury chest along with two full spears of guards.
"Why now?"
Araris nodded up at the world above. "Because you're leaving on campaign. There's always the possibility that you might not come back from it. And because you're a grown man, Tavi. Because rumors are spreading, and you've got to be ready. You need to know. You deserve to know."
Tavi felt a flash of old, hot frustration flare through him, but he pushed it back. "I'm listening."
Araris nodded. "There's a lot. Tell me what you've already worked out."
Tavi took a deep breath. "I know," he said, "that you were a singulare to the Princeps Gaius Septimus. I know that he died at the First Battle of Calderon twenty-two years ago. His singulares were thought to have died with him. They were buried with him at the Princeps Memorium back in Calderon.
"I know," Tavi continued, "that you pledged your loyalty to me. That Gaius didn't seem to care for that, but that he kept you close to me for years."
Araris nodded. "All true."
"I know that Aunt Isana doesn't talk about my mother much. Neither does Uncle Bernard." Tavi glanced down. "The only thing they've ever said about my father is that he was a soldier." He tried not to let it happen, but his voice turned bitter. "Which means I'm just a legionare's bastard. There are plenty of those around."
Araris looked up sharply. "Bastard? No. No, your parents were wed, Tavi."
Tavi felt his heart begin to speed up. He'd spent a lifetime knowing almost nothing about his mother and father. No one had ever been willing to speak of them in anything but the vaguest terms. Tavi barely trusted himself to speak. "You... you knew them?"
Araris's eyes grew distant for a moment. "Oh, yes," he said quietly. "Very well."
"How-" Tavi began, but his throat clenched shut. "Who... What did
Araris held up a hand. "First," he said, "I must tell you this. I did not want to be the one to speak. That duty by rights belonged to Isana. But she..." He shook his head. "When someone goes through as much grief and loss as she did, in such a short amount of time, it can leave wounds as surely as any sword. You can recover from some wounds. But sometimes they're lasting. Crippling. And the best you can hope for is to survive them."
"I don't understand," Tavi said.
"Isana... doesn't think very clearly where you are concerned. Not about this. She loves you desperately, Tavi."
Tavi chewed on his lip and nodded. "I know."
"She's terrified of losing you. It clouds her judgment, I think. Her resolve. I believe that she wanted to tell you the truth long before now. But she'd kept it locked up so tightly, for so long, I'm not sure she knew how to let it out again."
Tavi shook his head. "Wait. Araris-what truth?"
"The truth about your father," Araris said quietly. "The truth about Gaius Septimus."
The bottom fell out of Tavi's stomach upon hearing the words.
He'd known-no, not known, but speculated, analyzing what he knew and putting it together in a theory, as the Cursors had trained him to do. It had been an idle exercise, or so he thought, though it might be more accurate to say that he had simply found a new way to daydream about what it would have been like actually to have parents in his life. He'd done that often as a child, spending hours picturing them, imagining what they might have looked like, sounded like, what they might have said.
What life would have been like. How much better it might have been.
Of course, the idea of the Princeps as Tavi's unknown father had a single major stumbling block-the utter lack of furycraft that had haunted Tavi until two years before.
But that wasn't an issue anymore.
In fact, as he thought on it, it should have been more obvious to him. Tavi's crafting was still sharply limited by his lack of ability to control a manifest fury, but had he been in the Academy, he would have earned two or three beads in every single branch of crafting by now. While it was not unheard of for a crafter-especially a scion of the Citizenry-to be gifted in several areas of craft, it was exceedingly rare for anyone but the upper tiers of talent to possess skills that ran the entire spectrum of furycraft.