The Winner's Crime (30 page)

mood. This irritated him with disastrous consequences.

Many aristocrats found that their sons and daughters had

abruptly “decided” to enlist in the military, and were sent

east.

“Just stay out of his way,” Verex told Kestrel.

“It’s no one’s fault that gall wasps ruined the crop. He

can’t blame me.”

“He blames everybody.”

But to Kestrel the emperor was unfailingly kind—

doting, even, until the day that he announced that she was

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to attend a military parade at the end of the week. “Your

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father is coming home.”

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In her mind, Kestrel was a girl again, clambering onto

her pony to ride out to meet her father, to be the fi rst to see

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him so brave on his horse, gloriously grimed by battle. She

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wore a child- size sword he’d had made for her. He smiled

to see her. He called her his little warrior.

“Careful, Kestrel,” said the emperor. “You can of course

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be yourself around
me
. There is no need to hide anything.

But society won’t understand such obvious happiness on

your face, not when your father’s been injured.”

“He’s hurt?”

Kestrel asked, she asked what felt like a hundred times,

a thousand times, how her father was, how badly he’d

been hurt, where, how. Was he coming to Valoria to rest

or die?

The emperor shrugged and smiled and said that, really,

he didn’t know.

A black snake wound through the city. From the palace

battlements, Kestrel could see the snake fl ash little scales

of gold. She strained hard to discern the front line of the

black- clad soldiers. It felt as if someone had clamped a

hand down over her nose and mouth. Her fear had an air-

less quality.

Verex gently touched her arm.

The emperor noticed. His expression was unreadable.

Verex stared back, defi ant, and Kestrel felt a little better.

The battalion marched up the mountain, the boots of

more than a thousand soldiers striking down on the

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stone road. Black fl ags and gold swallow- tailed pennants

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snapped in the wind. Kestrel took a small spyglass from

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her skirt pocket.

“Undignifi ed,” the emperor said. “Do you think your

father will want you to see his face before he sees yours? Is

he an enemy, that you would peer at him? You will show

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respect for my friend.”

Kestrel fl ushed. She put the spyglass away.

They were the only three on the battlements: the em-

peror, the prince, and the lady. The rest of the court had

collected in the inner yard, fi led according to their rank,

stiff and silent. Many of them knew what it meant to fi ght.

The rest thought that they did. They all stood to attention.

Then Kestrel heard the shifting black troops march

closer, and she could see, at the head of the line, one man

on a horse, leading the rest.

Kestrel’s heart seemed to hatch inside her and let go

something that soared. Her father must be well. His injury

couldn’t have been bad, or he would have been borne to the

palace on a litter.

Kestrel no longer cared for dignity. She ran for the

stone steps leading down from the battlement. She raced

down the staircase, tripping over the hem of her dress, catch-

ing at the railing, cursing her heeled shoes.

She burst into the yard just as brass horns sounded their

fanfare. The barbican gates heaved open, and the battalion

marched in.

The general rode his horse straight toward Kestrel.

That winged feeling inside her faltered. Her father’s face

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was gray. A wide ban dage wrapped around his lower torso

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leaked blood.

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The general halted his horse. The battalion stopped be-

hind him, and the walls of the yard rang silent.

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Kestrel stepped toward him.

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“No,” said her father. She stopped. He dismounted. It

was agonizing to see how slow he was. Blood streaked his

saddle.

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Again Kestrel would have gone to him. Once he stood

on the paved ground, she would have off ered her arm. Not

in an obvious way. Couldn’t a daughter walk arm in arm

with her father? But he raised his gauntleted hand.

She came close anyway. “Let me help.”

“Don’t shame me.”

The general’s words were said low, through clenched

teeth. No one heard their exchange. But Kestrel felt as if

everyone had, and that every single person gathered there

knew everything there was to know about her and her fa-

ther as he led the way inside the palace, and she was forced

to follow behind.

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26

HE REFUSED MEDICINE. “THERE’S A FINE LINE

between medicine and poison,” he said.

The cup was in the healer’s hand, not Kestrel’s, but she

reacted as if she had been the one accused. “No one would

poison you,” she told her father.

“That’s not what he means,” said Verex.

Everyone looked at him, including the emperor, whose

expression was like when Verex had comforted Kestrel on

the battlements. The face of the imperial physician, how-

ever, showed a clear respect for the prince. Kestrel’s father

simply squinted and looked worn, and leaned back on the

bloodied bed. Kestrel had no idea what her face showed.

“Almost anything that heals can also hurt . . . depend-

ing on the amount,” said Verex. “Even in the right amount,

the general might not like the side eff ects.”

“It’s only to fi ght infection,” said the physician, “and to

make you sleep.”

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“Exactly,” said Kestrel’s father. The way he looked at

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the cup made clear what he would do if it came any nearer.

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“I need to clean the wound.”

“You can do that just as well while I’m awake.”

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“Please, Father,” said Kestrel. He ignored her.

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“Old friend,” said the emperor, “you’ve proved yourself a

thousand times over. There’s no need for this stubbornness.”

“It could be forced down,” Verex suggested. Everyone

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gave him a look of horror.

“You’ll drink it,” the emperor told General Trajan. “I

order you to.”

Kestrel’s father sighed. “I hate being outnumbered,” he

said, and drank.

He blinked heavily. He turned his gaze toward Kestrel.

She didn’t know whether he meant to speak or only to

look, and if it was to look at her, she didn’t know what he

wanted to see, or did see. But she held her breath, waiting

for a word. A gesture. A gesture would be enough.

He closed his eyes. His face seemed to slow. He slept.

Kestrel realized that she had never seen her father sleep.

Somehow that was what made the tears fi nally fall.

“It’s not so serious,” said the emperor, but the expressions

on the physician’s face— and Verex’s— disagreed. “Come.

No more tears.” The emperor off ered her a handkerchief,

and his voice was gentle.

Verex looked away.

When the emperor had left, the physician said to Kes-

trel, “You should leave, too, my lady.”

“No.”

The physician tried to hide his impatient disapproval.

“I won’t faint,” she said, though she didn’t trust her

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own promise.

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“Would you mind if I stayed with you?” Verex asked

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her. For all that the question was meek, it managed to de-

cide things. The healer went to work.

Verex talked to her the entire time. He described what

each of the healer’s tools did, and the antiseptic properties

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of the wash. “Abdominal wounds are dangerous,” he said,

“but the blade didn’t damage any internal organs.”

“How do you know?” asked Kestrel.

“He’d be dead by now,” the healer said shortly.

It was a gash, long and deep. It exposed pink layers of

fl esh and went down right to yellow fat. The healer’s anti-

septic fi zzed in the wound, and blood ran out.

Kestrel felt sickeningly light. She was going to faint

after all. Then she looked at her father’s sleeping face and

wondered who would protect him while he slept, if not her.

She kept her eyes open. She kept her feet on the ground.

“Too deep for stitches,” muttered the physician.

“He’s going to pack it with wet, sterile gauze instead,”

Verex explained. “It will heal slowly, from the inside out.”

The prince’s voice was strong and sure. He was turning the

grim words of the physician into something hopeful. “Re-

ally, that’s the best way to avoid infection, because the

wound can be cleaned out daily.”

The physician give him a sidelong look. “I’m not sure I

need the commentary.” But Kestrel did, and Verex knew

that she did.

When it was fi nished and the gore was cleaned away,

the wound hidden below swaths of gauze, Kestrel’s father

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looked both larger and smaller than he ever had to her. His

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face had always seemed to be cut from stone. It was softer

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now. The sun lines that fanned from his closed eyes were as

white as thin scars. His light brown hair held no trace of

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gray. He had been young when she was born. He wasn’t old

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now. Yet he looked ancient.

The physician left. He would return, he said. Verex

brought a chair so that Kestrel could sit by her father’s bed-

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side. Then he became awkward again. His stooped shoul-

ders hunched a little more as he asked whether she needed

him to stay with her.

She shook her head. “But . . . thank you. Thank you

for helping me.”

He smiled. There was a touch of surprise in his smile.

Kestrel thought that he was probably not used to being

thanked.

Then she was alone with her father. His breath was

slow and even. His hand lay palm up on the bed beside

him, fi ngers slightly curled.

Kestrel couldn’t remember when she had last held his

hand. Had she been a child then? Surely she had held his

hand before.

She hesitated, then she let her palm rest upon his. With

her other hand, Kestrel made his loose fi ngers hold her

close.

He woke during the night. The lamp had been turned

down low. His eyes opened just slightly, and gleamed in

the feeble light. He opened them wider. He saw Kestrel,

and didn’t smile, not exactly, yet the set of his mouth

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changed. His hand tightened around hers.

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“Father.” Kestrel would have said more, but he closed

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his eyes briefl y in the way of someone who wants to say
no

without speaking, yet hasn’t the strength to shake his head.

Softly, he said, “Sometimes I forget that you aren’t a sol-

dier.”

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He was thinking about when he’d entered the palace

yard, and the way she had greeted him. Kestrel said fl atly,

“You believe I don’t know how to behave around you.”

For a moment, he was silent. “Maybe I’m the one who

doesn’t know.” There was another silence, long enough for

Kestrel to think that that was all he would say, but he spoke

again. “Look how you’ve grown. I remember the day you

were born. I could hold you with one hand. You were the

world’s best thing. The most precious.”

Aren’t I now, to you?
she wanted to say. Instead, she

whispered, “Tell me how I was.”

“You had a warrior’s heart, even then.”

“I was just a baby.”

“No, you did. Your cry was so fi erce. You held my fi n-

ger so tightly.”

“All babies cry. All babies hold on tight.”

He let go of her hand to lift his, and brush his knuckles

across her cheek. “Not like you.”

He had fallen asleep again. When the physician came at

dawn to clean the wound, the pain woke him.