Kin & Kind

SHIANAN DID NOT LIKE being married.

He had not seen his wife-what a strange word-since the moment of their handfasting and vows, and the not-knowing was a new kind of torment.

He sank lower in the bath, so the warm water lapped his ears. Around him, other soldiers made quiet jokes or reached for towels as they emerged steaming into the chilly air.

Shianan was accustomed to not knowing the situation of other military units in separate campaigns; he had learned long ago to focus on his own command and not waste strength elsewhere. But that was before Ariana was assigned to other commands, and against a new enemy with unfamiliar tactics.

He rose from the pool and squeezed water from his long hair. Strictly speaking, Marshal Vanguilder's deployment was not even late. It was foolish to worry. He dressed and tied back his hair, hating how he hesitated to extend his sore arm. No need to worry before they were due back. He went out of the bathhouse.

The man who accosted Shianan in the street was not one he had intended to speak with ever again, nor even see. But Flamen Ande stepped forward as Shianan rounded the corner, moving into his path with one hand stretched as if to catch his arm if necessary. "Commander Becknam."

Shianan stared at him. No suitable greeting managed to work past the sudden jam of questions and resentments that crowded his mind.

Ande smiled, a spider's greeting. "I expect you did not anticipate seeing me again."

"That is a fair statement." Shianan took a breath and summoned his best practice of saying neutral things while withdrawing his reactions to a place where they could not be touched. "You have been released by the court."

"I have." Ande straightened his blue flamen's robes, flaring them though they had not been crooked. "In the end, they finally saw that I was an innocent man falsely accused."

Not innocent, Shianan thought savagely. Ande had not plotted to destroy the protective shield, but he was anything but innocent.

Words fought in his head. We are none of us innocent.

"I wonder if we might sit and speak," Ande was saying.

Shianan's stomach tensed. "I cannot imagine we have so much to say to one another. I performed my duty in negotiating with you, and you performed your task in Alham. Surely after all this, you are anxious to return home."

"Oh, I am. But we should have a drink together first." Ande smiled, an amiable monster. "You have something I want."

Shianan's blood went frigid in his veins, and for a moment he could not move. He had stolen Luca, from the prison where he had been taken with his master Ande. After that, Luca had been given to Jarrick-but would that stand under law if he had not been Shianan's to give? And if Jarrick could not legally take him from Chrenada, then perhaps Luca had not been truly freed, and then-

It was too much, too complicated, and too dangerous. For one wild moment Shianan wanted to knife Flamen Ande in the gut, a quick upward stab to ensure a long bleed, and end the possibility of what he was saying.

But they were standing in the market, with men and women passing around them, and it was possible Ande had chosen this place precisely to avoid such a reaction. The king's bastard could not murder an exonerated prisoner in the street.

His face had betrayed him, for Ande was smiling.

The key to surviving an ambush was to avoid going still with shock. Shianan rallied himself and entered battle. "I suppose we can talk." The key was to react, to force the fighting to the ground of your choosing. But Shianan would not bring him to his own office-he would not risk Luca entering to find Ande at the desk. "There's a little public room near here, the Rollicking Wyvern."

"I don't know the place, but I trust your judgment when it comes to drinks," Ande said. "Please, lead the way."

Shianan gestured ahead on the street. Next he should signal for reinforcements. He scanned the crowd until he saw one of the children who earned coins for messages, and he whistled her over. "Go to the White Mage and ask him please to join Bailaha in the Rollicking Wyvern. If you don't find him in his office, look elsewhere. Someone in the Wheel will know his home, but try the Wheel first. And speed matters."

The girl looked at the two coins he put in her hand, and her eyes popped wide. "I can fly like a Ryuven," she promised, and she took off.

Shianan avoided Ande's smirk. Let the man think what he would. Shianan was not prepared for this fight, and he needed someone who knew the law-knew it, knew how to protest it, and knew how to break it.

They entered the Rollicking Wyvern and took a small table in the corner, where the coming argument would be less visible from the street. If Shianan were going to kill this man later, he did not want their conflict to be widely known. A servant came to ask their preference, pushing sleeves back over dull cuffs, and Shianan fought down his frantic impulse and instead asked for watered ale. He would need his head for this.

Ande asked for wine, and the look he gave Shianan suggested he wouldn't be paying for it.

Shianan set his forearms on the table, flat and uncompromised, and took a steadying breath. This was battle, for high stakes, but he had fought many battles. He fixed his eyes on Flamen Ande. "Perhaps you should say plainly what it is you want."

The flamen was gaunt and showed the wear of prison, but already he had reclaimed his old air of expectant authority. Perhaps the exoneration had given him confidence. Perhaps he now felt himself untouchable. "When I was falsely arrested for your shield's collapse, I had some property with me, and it was stolen. I am told you were the one who took that property, and so I have come to ask its return."

Shianan opened his hands. "If you mean the slave you had with you, as it happens, I have a bill of sale for him. I bought him from two merchants coming out of Cascais. They purchased him at a regular market, after he left Alham."

Ande sniffed. "Your forged papers will not-"

"The papers are perfectly valid. It may take some time to find the merchants, but Alham is on their usual route and it could be done, and they can testify to the sale." They could also testify that Luca had told them he was stolen, Shianan realized with horror, but he rushed over that. "You won't find it so easy to ignore a legal bill of sale."

"It is not legal if I can demonstrate that the purchased property was stolen property."

He was probably right. Shianan did not know. He was unarmed for this conflict. Sweet Holy One, what if at last he lost Luca, and to Ande again?

What if Luca had freed Ande only to be bound to him once more?

"Surely he cannot be of so much use to a Gehrn priest. Why do you want him back?"

Ande looked at him flatly. "I had Luca for a long time. You could say I had gotten used to him. It wouldn't be the same going back without him."

Shianan stared. "You owe him a debt. You owe him for speaking the words that saved your life."

"And perhaps for waiting so long to speak them." Ande gazed back unflinchingly.

"Luca saved your life."

"And he neglected to save me from arrest." Ande sat back in his chair. "If he saw the blood on the desk, then he knew at the time I was falsely accused. He knew all that time, and he said nothing. I have spent months in prison, under hardship and torment and false accusations, while he collaborated with the enemies who accused me."

"If you believe he was collaborating with your enemies, then why would he have spoken at the end to save you?"

"Because in the end, training carries true. Strict discipline means that at last he was compelled to tell the truth obediently. Strict discipline made him truthful, and so it is for his own good that he must return with me."

Shianan felt his jaw drop. "Do you think that he spoke to save you because of what you did to him?"

The high priest did not answer, for the White Mage came in the door. He was not alone; Mage Elysia Parma was with him. They spotted Shianan, and he saw their expressions shift when they recognized Flamen Ande. They came stiffly to the table and seated themselves.

"Well, I suppose we're all here now." Ande looked around at them. "And what is it that you all must be together to say to me?"

"There is nothing to say yet," began Mage Hazelrig. "We've only just arrived, and we don't know the question."

"Well, that's easy enough. I've come to request the return of my property. No more, no less." He looked at Mage Parma with a cynical eye. "I am told the Silver Mage has made a point of studying the sacred aspects of our order, so I am certain she can speak to the legitimacy of my request. By our rules, and by the laws of this land, I am due my stolen property."

Mage Hazelrig's face darkened. "Did you so recently receive your freedom in so narrow an escape, and your first thought is for possession of a slave?"

"I only want my own property."

The drinks came, and Shianan seized his with unseemly haste. He had meant to ration the watered alcohol slowly, but Mage Hazelrig's discomfiture rattled him, and he drank half in one draught.

Mage Parma caught the servant's eye....