The Burning White (12 page)

And this was not a fight Kip or anyone wanted.

“They know what has to be done with deserters,” Antonius said. Either because he was just that obvious, or to put some backbone in them. So maybe he wasn’t that certain of how quiet they would keep, after all.

Ferkudi took up a position outside the door. Cruxer stepped inside first. Kip followed, bracing himself for what he might have to do.

In the shadows of this longhouse with no fire burning at its center, stood a pygmy woman, dirty, her eyes exhausted red: Sibéal Siofra. Next to her, chained to great stakes driven into the ground, smeared with ash and grease such as hunters employ to melt into the forest, but also dirty and disheveled from hard days and nights, knelt an enormous bear of a man, his every jutting muscle covered with red hair, the bereaved deserter and Kip’s former second-in-command, Conn Ruadhán Arthur.

“My lord,” Sibéal said, “there’s no need for the chains. The conn here got into some booze while foraging. Just lost track of time. Got lost on his way back. But we’re back now and reporting for duty. With all apologies for our absence.”

She was floating the possibility for the lash, not the noose.

But Conn Arthur snorted, shaking his head. “You spent days dragging my ass back here, and that’s the best you could come up with, Sibéal?”

Kip ignored him, turning to Antonius. “It’s my understanding they came in of their own will. That they were returning, not captured. That right?”

“
She
was certainly returning of her own will . . .” He hesitated. Antonius could tell that Kip was trying to point him in some direction, but he couldn’t see what it was.

“And he was with her—when she returned voluntarily,” Kip said. “So that’d be dereliction of duty, not desertion.”

“That’s, uh, that’s right,” Lord Antonius said, relieved.

The law was the law, but Kip didn’t want to hang his friend.

“So that’s what happened?” Kip asked. “I’m very disappointed in you two.”

“That’s not what happened,” Conn Arthur growled at the floor.

“Stop!” Sibéal shouted at him. “Think about what you’re doing!”

“I’ll not let you be whipped for what I’ve done,” he said. He lifted his shaggy head to look at Kip with heavy eyes. “My lord, I told you I was going to desert. I did. It’s not on her. She came and dragged me back.”

“Damn you,” Sibéal whispered.

She deflated, and Kip’s heart fell too. She’d risked her life trying to save her friend, but some men don’t want to be saved.

It wasn’t her fault. It was Kip’s. Conn Arthur had tried to resign, but Kip had thought without their work and the company of people who loved him that Ruadhán would die, so he’d forbidden it.

Ruadhán had left anyway.

“You tried,” General Antonius told Kip. “We all did. There’s no win here. He doesn’t want to live.”

He was right. This was bigger than one bereaved man who couldn’t bear to fight anymore. If Kip let his friend off now, it’d destroy morale. People would say there was one rule for Kip’s friends and one for everyone else. To save a man sunken in self-pity and ungrateful for his second—no, his
third
—chance would make that even worse. It would cast doubt on Kip’s judgment.

But hanging him? Did Kip want to be known as the man who hanged his own friends?

Andross Guile would do it. Hell, Gavin would probably do it, too.

Antonius said, “Sibéal doubtless noticed things wherever it is they went. She reports on it, and we say she was out scouting. I don’t think any punishment’s necessary for her.”

Kip looked at the others for any ideas and saw only grief.

Cruxer said, “Not all the soldiers killed by war die on the field. It’s no one’s fault.” He cocked his head at a thought. “Well, it’s the White King’s fault. May he burn in hell. But it’s not yours.”

No one else had anything to say. No plans. No ways out.

“You go,” young General Antonius said. “I’ll handle it.”

Kip looked to Conn Arthur, but the big man didn’t even meet his gaze.

“Everyone out,” Kip said.

They looked at him, and saw the resolve in his face. Tisis went out first, then the Blackguards, except Cruxer, who stood guard impassively. He wasn’t going to leave no matter what Kip said, not with a man as dangerous as Conn Arthur might become if he’d gone truly mad.

Kip stopped Antonius, though. “General,” he said. “I’ll need your dagger.”

The general nodded grimly and passed Kip a big, ornate dagger he’d gotten from his aunt Eirene Malargos. It was a showy piece, but very fine, too. The woman had an eye for quality.

Then they were alone in the damp and the dark and the smoky close air of the longhouse. It felt close to the earth in here. Real, solid, and dirty. Here, with clan and family tight around them, people made love on just a few blankets and rushes on the floor, and they gave birth on the same floor, and played with their children, and bickered, and ate, and died, all here, packed close. It was still sometimes shocking to Kip’s Tyrean sensibilities, but such a life felt connected, too. Unashamed.

He breathed in the heavy air and let it flow through him.

“You remember that time we did the survey after that raid went sideways?” Kip said. “You know, at Three Bridges, to see how many of us were hurt? What was the number?”

Conn Arthur squinted up at him for a moment. “All of us.”

“All of us,” Kip said. “But the main force of the Blood Robes was moving on to Yellow Top, where all the women and kids had been sent. We knew they were looking for vengeance. We were already overextended, but no one else could get there. You remember what we did?”

Conn Arthur stared belligerently at the ground, but the thews in his neck were tight. “With all due respect, my lord, I need a noose, not a pep talk.”

Sibéal Siofra made to speak, but Kip flashed her the scout signal they used in the woods that she should be silent.

“We busted our asses to get there first,” Kip said. “The healthiest of us scouting ahead to make sure we didn’t fall into an ambush—and we got there in time to save those people. And that story spread, Ruadhán. It’s a huge part of why people joined up, because they saw what we would do at our own cost to save strangers. Because to us, those women and kids and old people weren’t strangers. They were our people. And we’d be damned if we let them die without a fight.”

“Some fights you can’t win,” Ruadhán growled, and Kip felt Cruxer go tight despite the big man’s chains.

“We’re all wounded,” Kip said. “And we’ve got work to do. I need hands. I need
your
hands.
We
need your hands. The men who lie down and die do no good for anyone. Don’t get me wrong; I want you to live because I love you, but I also want you to live so you can fight for us. This is bigger than you, bigger than your griefs, your failures, your brother. It’s bigger than him. He helped us. He saved hundreds or thousands of lives. He was heroic at the end, and that makes a huge difference. It matters.

“But he’s dead, man. He died saving lives, and now you won’t
live
to do the same. I don’t feel sorry for you, Ruadhán, I’m pissed off you won’t help when we’ve got work to do.”

“I’ve got nothing left,” Conn Arthur said, as if Kip was refusing to see the obvious.

“When it serves life, there’s a time to choose death,” Kip said. “Absolutely. And your brother made that choice, but he took too damn long to make it. He was selfish, and he got other people killed.”

“Don’t talk about my brother.”

“There’s a time to choose life, Conn, and you’re taking too damn long to make it,” Kip said. “You’re in a pit, so I’m throwing you a rope, but I ain’t gonna fuckin’ climb for you. You dyin’ today? It hurts me more than you. But if you choose to live, I want you to live for one reason—because you’re going to make yourself useful. You’re worried it hurts our traditions for me to let you live? Yes. It does. People will think you got preferential treatment? Yes, they will. Because you are. Not because I love you, but because I think you can do what others can’t for this people, this satrapy. I think you’ll be more help than harm. A lot more. If you climb out of this pit, you’re on the hook to prove me right. You’re on the hook to work every day to show you’re worth the third chance I’m giving you, and someday, when it’s your turn, when it’s wise, you’re on the hook to give that chance to someone else.” Kip blew out a breath in exasperation. “Look at your fucking shoulders, man. You were made to bear burdens. You are strong as fuck, and you’re not acting like it. So, if you want to stay and curl up and die? Then fuck you. You’ve already wasted too much of my time.” Kip turned away, but then paused.

He pulled a knife from his belt and stared at Ruadhán, eye to eye.

“It’d tear up the men to hang you,” Kip said. “So you want to die? Have the goddam decency to think of someone else a bit, would you?”

Kip dropped the knife and the key, outside the cell. Ruadhán would have to strain against his chains to get either of them.

Kip gave Sibéal the signal to get out of the longhouse. Stony-faced, silent, she went, not daring to look at Conn Arthur, who was still staring at the ground anyway.

Then Kip strode out as if it weren’t tearing out his heart not to offer soft words to his suffering friend.

But Kip knew all about the slimy, steep-sided pit of self-pity. Sometimes, a hard kick in the ass can do what a soft word in the ear can’t.

Or so he hoped.

Outside, the men searched his face for any clue of what they must do, but none dared ask him anything. Kip found Sibéal. “You’d already said your goodbyes?”

“Yeah, I didn’t know how soon you’d hang us. It was like he was already d—”

“You know it’s better for you if he takes the knife.”

A guilty look flashed over her face, then was hidden by anger. She knew. “Why the hell would you say that? He’s my best friend.”

“You could finally move on.”

She moved to angrily deny it, but words fell dead with no spirit to give them life.

“Is it so obvious?” she asked.

Kip suddenly remembered glances he’d seen others exchange about the two. He’d never spoken of it to anyone. He’d only realized Sibéal loved that big idiot minutes ago. Others had, he saw now, known it for much longer. He said, “Obvious enough to a few who love you.”

Her people’s uncanny smile on her lips twisted bitterly. “I’ve made myself a laughingstock.”

“No one’s laughing.”

Sibéal got quiet. They breathed the forest air together. “I’m pretty sure he loves me, too, and just hates himself too much to see it.”

Kip said nothing. It was a poison that had to be drained, that she’d held in for too long, and that had spurred her to actions that could well have cost her her life.

“It wouldn’t all be so bad if I didn’t want kids,” she said. “I mean, we have ways to know when not to take a man to bed, to avoid his seed taking root. But . . . all that effort to fix the problem doesn’t fix the problem when you want the problem, does it? I want a child. Hell, I want lots of them, if this war ever ends. I want loud, shrieking, giggling, climbing-over-me-and-clinging-to-my-legs life everywhere. A house bursting at the seams with life after all this . . .” Her voice fell off. “But I want
him
.”

Kip hesitated, but then said, “Do you think it’s a coincidence that you’ve chosen to fall in love with a man in an impossible situation that he himself created?”

“What do you mean? What do you mean I’ve
chosen
to—”

“You’ve done exactly the same thing he has. You’re in a pit, too, Sibéal. And if you want to, even if he dies, you can stay in yours. You can curl up in grief around your sweet, doomed love. You can take that tragedy and wrap yourself up in it like a blanket to keep you feeling warm and self-righteous, because
this world done you wrong
. You could’ve gotten out earlier, and if so, sure, what happens in there today would be a terrible blow—losing a dear friend is always tragic, but people lose friends in war, and still go home and have those babies and that full house. You could’ve gotten out earlier and easier, but you didn’t.

“You’re here now. So you can stay in this shit, or you can climb out, too. And I’m sorry to say it, but I don’t have a rope to throw you or a key to offer. Climbing out will be tougher than it would be to tell yourself what a noble martyr you are and live half a life, cuddled up with your misery. But you’re making a choice, like it or not. This isn’t happening
to
you. You can choose to love him and have his babies—and, yeah, probably die in childbirth. Or you can choose to love him and not have babies, or adopt—plenty of war orphans already, and there’ll be more before we’re done. Or choose to move on. Or choose to sink into self-pity and self-loathing. I even respect a couple of those. But whatever you choose, I expect you to make yourself useful in the meantime. If he kills himself in there in the next few minutes, you get to clean up the blood and the shit, and you get to bury him. You brought this mess on us when you brought him back. If he can’t find the guts to use the knife or to live, then you get to be the hangman. None of these other men and women deserve to have that on them. Last, as we both hope, if he comes out, choosing to live, you get to clean him up. Maybe it’ll be a good chance to tell him what
you
are choosing for your life.

“Regardless,” Kip said, “report for duty first thing tomorrow morning; I want you to brief me on the lands you’ve scouted. Oh, and Captain Siofra? Never fucking leave your post without permission again.”

“To work,” Kip said to the Mighty gathered around the table with him once more. “Strategy first. The banking meeting will come next. Big Leo, Ferk, you’re in on that one. Tactics we’ll save for when General Antonius and the trainers can be here. Ferkudi, I’ll need you to lead a logistics meeting later. Bring your ledgers. I know you don’t need ’em, but everyone else does. Ben-hadad, you’re in that one, too. I know you are each doing the work of two or three people, so let’s be quick. Now the big question: what do we have to do to win?”

“Define ‘win,’ ” Winsen said.

“Winsen, shut up,” Cruxer said.