“Corvan, Corvan, Corvan. I’ve got a plan.” Sort of.

“Somehow, my friend, I was afraid of that.” The crow’s nest swayed hard as the ship caught a rogue wave, and Corvan looked down at the deck far below, swallowing. “I don’t suppose it includes an easy way for me to get down?”

Chapter 6

Ironfist grimaced at the missive in his hand. Usually, that expression, from him, toward Gavin, would be a quick twitch, quickly smoothed away. This time, his face twisted as if he were eating steak smoked in poisonwood. “You’re having me deliver orders. To the White,” Ironfist said.

Gavin had summoned the big bodyguard to his stateroom after trying several rooms to see which suited his purposes best. “Regarding my son. Yes.” As Prism, Gavin didn’t have any authority over the White, but she had to be careful not to offend him. Both of them had to choose their battles with each other. He thought this was one she wouldn’t choose.

“You want Kip made a Blackguard.” Ironfist kept his voice flat. He was the Blackguard’s commander. Technically, he alone was supposed to decide who was invited to try to join. “Lord Prism, I’m struggling to find where to start explaining how wrong and destructive that would be.”

It was a sunny day out, but the gleaming dark woods of the stateroom soaked up light, made Gavin have to concentrate to see the commander’s expressions. “I hope you know, Commander, that I have supreme respect for you.”

Slight eyebrow twitch. Disbelief. It actually was true, but Gavin supposed he hadn’t given Ironfist many reasons to believe that.

Gavin continued, “But we find ourselves in a situation that requires quick action. Refugees. Aggrieved satraps. A city lost. Rebellion. Ring a bell?”

Ironfist’s face turned to stone.

Gavin needed to handle this better. Tell the man you respect him, and then treat him like he’s an idiot? “Commander,” he said, “how many Blackguards did you lose at Garriston?”

“Fifty-two dead. Twelve wounded. Fourteen so close to breaking the halo that they’ll have to be replaced.”

Gavin paused long enough to be respectful of the loss. He’d already known the number, of course. Knew the faces and the names of the dead. The Blackguard was the Prism’s personal guard, and yet not under his control. He was treading on that line. “And pardon me for speaking so bluntly, but that number must be replenished.”

“Three years at least, and the quality of the Blackguard as a whole won’t recover for ten or more. I’ll have to promote people who are inadequately trained. They’ll not be able to train those beneath them as well. You understand what your actions have done to us? Killed a generation and retarded two. I’ll leave the Blackguard a shadow of what it was when I got it.” Ironfist kept his voice level, but the fury beneath it was unmistakable. Uncharacteristic for him.

Gavin said nothing, jaw clenched, eyes dead. This was the hell of leading: to see a man as an individual with hopes, families, loves, favorite foods, more alert in the morning or at night, fond of hot peppers and dancing girls and singing off key. Then the next hour to see him as a number and be willing to sacrifice him. Those thirty-eight dead men and fourteen women had saved tens of thousands of people, had almost saved the city. Gavin had put them in a place where he knew they might die, and they had. He’d do it again. He held Ironfist’s gaze.

Ironfist looked away. “Lord Prism,” he added. There was no remorse in his voice, but Gavin didn’t require unquestioning obedience. Just obedience.

Gavin glanced up at the open space above the rafters between his stateroom and the next. “The Blackguard requires recruits. The autumn class probably hasn’t even started yet, and Kip is ideal. You’ve seen him draft.”

“It’s too physically demanding. Twenty weeks of hellish training and fights every month that purge the deadwood. From forty-nine to the seven best. He’d never make it even if he hadn’t burned his hand. If he slims down, maybe in a year or—”

“He’ll make it,” Gavin said. It wasn’t an expression of confidence.

Silence as Ironfist grappled with the implication. Then disbelief. “You want me to induct him undeservedly?”

“Do I need to answer that?”

“You’ll publicly make him a favorite? You’ll destroy that boy.”

“Everyone will think he’s favored regardless.” Gavin shrugged and made sure he was speaking forcefully. “He’ll serve the purpose for which he was made, or he’ll break in pursuit of it, just like the rest of us.”

Commander Ironfist didn’t reply. He was a man who understood the power of silence.

“Come with me, Commander.” They walked together out to a balcony. The door between the rooms was thin, and there were open spaces beside the rafters, perhaps so the captain could yell orders to his secretaries who in normal times had their offices in the cuddy. The exchange hadn’t gone exactly how he wanted, but it would serve. Kip should have overheard everything.

Now Gavin had some words for Ironfist, out of Kip’s hearing. “Kip is my son, Commander. I acknowledged him as such when I could have instead let him die without anyone knowing better. I’m not going to destroy Kip. He’s fat, and he’s awkward, and he’s a powerful polychrome. He’s going to grow up fast when he gets to the Chromeria. He can become a laughingstock or he can become a great man. He’s getting a late start. The satraps’ sons and daughters will devour him. I want you to soak up every hour of his time, remake him physically, make him tough mentally, make him learn the measure of himself. When he’s earned the respect of the Blackguards, when he doesn’t care what the vipers think of him, I’ll ask him to quit the Blackguard and jump in the vipers’ den.”

“You’re grooming him to be the next Prism,” Ironfist said.

“Why, Commander, Orholam alone chooses his Prisms,” Gavin said.

It was a joke, but Ironfist didn’t laugh. “Indeed, Lord Prism.”

Gavin kept forgetting that Ironfist was a religious man.

“I’m not going to go easy on him,” Ironfist said. “If he’s to join my Blackguard, he has to earn it.”

“Sounds perfect,” Gavin said.

“He’s a polychrome.” Polychromes were strongly discouraged from such dangerous service.

“He wouldn’t be the first exception,” Gavin said. He would be the first in a long, long time.

Unhappy silence. “And somehow I have to convince the White to allow this.”

“I trust you.” Gavin grinned.

Ironfist’s glare could have soured honey. Gavin laughed, but he noted it again. Ironfist respected him, but Gavin’s charm did nothing to this man.

“You’re leaving us,” Ironfist said slowly. “After you got half my people killed, you’re planning to leave, and leave us behind, aren’t you?”

Damn.

Ironfist took his silence for assent. “Know this, Prism: I won’t allow it. I won’t do anything at all for you if you don’t let me do my job. If you make my work meaningless, why should I help yours? Is this what you call supreme respect?”

Ah. Note to self: charm is less effective on people who have good reason to kick your ass. Gavin raised his hands. “What do you want?”