Chapter 24: Theft

“Wisdom is a tower built of failure and rue.”
– Ashuran saying

It wasn’t even an hour before the Third Army’s banners hung above the hills that were now to my east instead of west.

“Like kicking an anthill,” Vivienne said, eyes gazing far ahead.

She wasn’t wrong. We were looking at the same thing, I thought, but my sight was better than hers. A sliver of Night had seen to that. General Abigail had grasped my meaning deeper than Id thought, it seemed. I’d told her to fly the Fourth Army’s banner as well as her own for a reason, namely to imply much greater numbers in the hills than there actually were. The Summerholm girl had gone a step further than what I’d instructed and thinned her lines to an almost reckless extent: from the perspective of the Alliance soldiers in the plains below, it must look like there were at least twenty thousand fresh soldiers anchoring our left flank. Actually fighting with lines so thin would be disastrous, but it was a calculated risk. Even if the enemy suddenly marched on her she should have just enough time to redeploy before the fight began.

“Hakram’s force will be revealed soon enough,” I said. “That ought to pressure them into a full withdrawal.”

“Wouldn’t it have been quicker to send the entire host into the hills?” Vivienne asked.

Her tone was curious, not critical, and the expectation in her voice that she would be answered was almost as irritating as it was pleasing. Barely a quarter bell had passed since I’d chewed her out, and already she was back on old footing. I was glad of the confidence, I really was, and well aware it was petty of me to be irked that my displeasure hadn’t left deeper marks. But Vivienne had once called me petty when speaking to Akua, unaware I was listening in, and like a lot of what she’d said that night there’d been more than a grain of truth to it.

“It would have,” I agreed. “On the other hand, it also risked a standoff. They’d have been left to mass their entire army largely in peace, and we to establish a common line facing them. Two large coalition armies looking at each other over a fence, hands on swords. A lit sharper if I ever saw one. No, I want them to retreat. To give us space.”

And the flanking manoeuvre by General Rumena and General Bagram, under the steady hand of Adjutant, should do the trick. When I’d been up in the sky riding Zombie, I’d had a decent look at the enemy forces on the march as well as those already fighting. The western army – the mixed Dominion and Procer force that Princess Rozala was part of – had been marching on Juniper form the north, which had logistical implications. Iserre had been stripped bare of anything edible, which meant Malanza and her allies were running on what supplies they could either carry with them or get flowing from further north. Given the size of the western army, which at a glance I’d put at more than sixty thousand strong, without a steady flow of foodstuffs they’d start burning through their stocks at a prodigious rate. The amount of men might have been manageable, but the horses? I very much doubted they could afford to keep that many war horses for long without fresh supplies coming in. Besides, the northern campaign had taught me much of how Procer handled it supply trains. In a word, badly. It came from the way their armies were put together, in my opinion, more than any inferiority of intellect compared to the architects of the Reforms in Praes.

Instead of a unified army directly under the Tower – or, these days, me – Proceran forces were raised from the personal troops of rulers, hired fantassins and mass levies. The personal troops were trained, equipped and fed by the prince who fielded them, which was a costly thing even in peace time. That meant, as a rule, that princes and princesses of Procer had kept personal armies around the same size as those of the Old Kingdom’s nobles while being both significantly richer and ruling lands both larger and more heavily populated. Proceran logistics, as they currently stood, were well-versed in keeping forces that size fed and well-equipped. The rub came when the armies grew larger, which meant bringing in fantassins or levies. The mercenary companies were usually only hired for as long as they were needed then cut loose, meaning there’d never been a need to develop a system to feed larger forces for long. As for the levies, well, like everywhere else in the world they were handed the bare minimum in food and arms before being sent into the grinder. Those larger armies were usually fighting on enemy territory, too, where ‘foraging’ – a pretty word for armed robbery – could be used to fill up the stocks.

In this particular case though, the western army was stuck in a principality already picked clean and a whole chunk of foreign Levantine troops whose personal supplies had to be running dangerously low after chasing Grem and Juniper for so long. When Hakram appeared further north with a large force, threatening to cut off their supply lines, they’d be forced to either prepare for battle or withdraw. Considering we’d have them both half-encircled and severely outnumbered, battle would not be an attractive choice. Unless heroes were involved, I thought. Which they very well might be. For all the earthly considerations pointing at why fighting us here would be a terrible idea, there was a reason I’d ordered Juniper to prepare for a fight.

“Diplomacy, then,” Vivienne said, breaking my long silence.

“In a manner of speaking,” I grunted. “Princess Rozala made it clear her side wants the heads of the Legions on spikes. That’s not happening, so I’ll be removing the issue from the table: come nightfall, if they’ve withdrawn then our entire coalition is gating out of here.”

“Tactical offence, to allow for a strategic defence,” she mused.

She half-turned to me, the azure blue cloak she’d donned when leaving the pavilion tight around her shoulders.

“And you’re not afraid without the blade at their throat they won’t consider bargaining?” Vivienne asked. “The truce offer I extended to Hasenbach was refused even when it looked like we had the advantage in Iserre.”

“I think with us reappearing somewhere in Arans, with supplied coming in through the northern passage and a comfortably defensible position, the First Prince will have to consider how far she can afford to push us,” I frankly said. “More importantly, with us gone and the two Grand Alliance armies in Iserre within a week’s march of each other the League is either going to retreat or take a beating.”

“Both would be dangerous to Procer,” Vivienne noted. “A retreat means they have to keep armies south to pursue. A victory on the field might prove more costly than the war to the north can afford.”

“If Kairos intended to collapse Procer, he would have already done it,” I said. “He wouldn’t have come through the Waning Woods, either. The League armies would have battered through Hasenbach’s border army in Tenerife and begun occupying southern principalities. Feasibly they could have occupied Tenerife and Salamans without getting much more of a fight, then dug in for the long term. After that…”

“All it’d take was raids into the bordering principalities for those royals to try withdrawing their troops from the north and march back to defend their lands,” Vivienne softly agreed. “If Hasenbach tried to go after them through the Highest Assembly, it might lead to civil war. If she did nothing, the Dead King would likely eat the north.”

“Instead he surprised us all and marched out of the Waning Woods to cut into this dance,” I said. “No, he’s after something from the mess in Iserre and it’s not hammering nails in the Principate’s coffin.”

“It would not be territorial concessions, or anything monetary,” Vivienne frowned. “There would have been better, easier ways to force those.”

“He’s a villain of the old breed,” I said. “Ink on parchment isn’t what he’s after. I met with him, in Rochelant, and he hinted Hasenbach has been dredging something dangerous out of Lake Artoise.”

“He is a liar, as you reminded me rather sharply,” she said.

I’d not been pleased to hear she’d been trading information with Kairos, to say the last. It was one thing to do what I had, haggle an alliance of convenience against the Wandering Bard after trading secrets. It was another entirely to pass him detailed assessments of the Dominion’s armies, even if the payment was useful word out of Salia and the north. While I’d understood that the Jacks were still too young an organization to have penetrated deep into Procer, and certainly to have a way to pass along regular reports given the mess the Principate was in right now, relying on the Tyrant for anything meant you were getting played. If I had to guess, he’d making little deals like that with everyone he could: offering piece for piece, and ensuring he alone had a bird’s eye view of what was taking place in Iserre. I was finding it worrisome Kairos had been interested in details about the Dominion armies, too. It could be another layer of deception, sure, but it might also mean he believed he would be fighting them in the future. Or that he was selling that information to the Dead King, I acknowledged with a grimace. There weren’t a lot of things I’d put past Kairos Theodosian.

“Oh, there’s something happening there,” I said. “That much I don’t doubt. But I don’t necessarily think it’s whatever trouble she’s brewing that interests him. Or even her in particular, to be honest – this campaign, the First Prince herself, I think they’re means to an end.”

“That end being?” Vivienne asked.

“I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “But if he’s willing to launch an entire invasion in the middle of war against Keter just to get leverage on Cordelia Hasenbach, it’s not going to be a trifle.”

“The man needs to die,” Vivienne said. “The Hierarch as well. They’re too unpredictable, Catherine. If they start swinging at the wrong moment, the consequences could be… wide-reaching, to say the least.”

“I’m sure Cordelia thinks the same thing,” I said. “And that’s why he’s made himself so very costly to remove from the board.”

Strategic offence, I thought with rueful amusement, paired with tactical defence. Mad or not, I had to concede that the villain king of Helike was viciously cunning. The more the western and eastern coalitions fought without him being involved, the more reluctant they grew to engage his fresher forces. The only way out of that downwards spiral, as far as I could see, was to withdraw my forces from Iserre and let him face the storm he’d stirred without my standing shield for him. In the distance I could see Malanza’s vanguard fully withdrawing from the battlefield. Even the Levantine horse that’d baited the Order of Broken Bells into chasing them all the way to irrelevance had pulled away, and now Grandmaster Talbot’s knights were sheepishly riding back to camp. I’d let Juniper handle the reprimand for that, I decided. It had been her battle, even if she’d been losing it. It’d also make it clear to the high officers that she still held command even after my taking her to task.

“You haven’t asked,” Vivienne suddenly said.

“Asked what?” I replied.

“If I still have a Name,” she said.

I glanced at her.

“I know you don’t,” I said. “Yours had a subtle weight, but even that is gone.”

“Then you haven’t asked why,” she said, then blue-grey eyes narrowed. “Unless Adjutant told you.”

“He didn’t,” I told her. “Or even explain why someone’s going to end up calling him Hakram Handless, for that matter.”

“And you’re not worried in the slightest?” Vivienne asked, tone inscrutable. “Gods, even just curious?”

“It’s a strange horse to ride, a Name,” I said. “Black said it was willpower that got you on the saddle, and I don’t entirely disagree with him, but I think that’s only part of it.”

I looked into the distance, at the Alliance host retreating into the second part of the trap I’d laid. It was a kindness that was due, not to look at her while speaking this.

“It’s a recognition that you’re trying to do something,” I said. “William wanted to kill his way out of Praesi rule. Akua wanted to bind everyone else. Indrani wants to pass through life unhindered. Whatever it is you’re after the Name makes you better at doing it, I won’t argue that. But you don’t get a Name unless you’re already good at it, Vivienne.”

I cleared my throat.

“So I’ll answer the question you didn’t ask: no, you’re not getting tossed out on your ass because you can’t steal the sun anymore. That’s a trick. The important parts came before you were the Thief, and that hasn’t gone anywhere.”

Vivienne let out a shuddering breath.

“How is it,” she quietly said, “that you always know exactly the right thing to say?”

The urge was there to pull away with levity, draw attention to my admittedly chequered diplomatic record, but I didn’t follow it. It would have been cheapening the sincerity of the moment, and wouldn’t that defeat the point of having it in the first place? So instead I said nothing, for lack of anything to say, and let silence stretch.

“The Empire killed my mother,” she murmured. “Did you know that?”

My fingers clenched.

“Not for sure,” I said. “But I suspected.”

The moment I’d learned her last name was Dartwick, looking into her past had become a great deal easier. Out of courtesy I’d not dug too deep, but I’d had a look anyway. Her father had been a baron before the Conquest, vassal to the Count of Southpool but her family had remained rather obscure in the years that followed. There’d been a bit of interest in her father after he was widowed, before the man made it clear he would not remarry, but it’d died down quick after he did. That’d gotten me curious enough to look into the mother, and my brow had risen when I found out she’d died in a hunting accident not long after the Conquest. It could have been an actual accident, I knew. But in the early days of Praesi occupation, more than a few Imperial governors had arranged ‘hunting accidents’ when they were inclined to discretely put down rebellious elements.

“I say the Empire, Catherine, because it makes no difference who gave the order,” Vivienne admitted. “The decision came from Governor Chuma, though he’s long dead. Some might say it was in truth her fault, for joining a rebel cabal. That she knew the risks. Others might argue that whatever hired hand did it was the killer in every sense. But it’s never quite that simple, is it?”

I stayed silent. The question had not been meant for me to answer.

“I think I understood that even as a child,” Vivienne pensively said. “That is was larger than just my mother and the governor. That it was about Praes, what it was doing to us. The way it was doing it to us. Chuma, you see, he was one of the light-handed governors. Didn’t hang whole families, only the rebels themselves. The rest got off with a fine.”

Different Imperial governors, I thought, had taught us different lessons. Vivienne had been taught that we were cattle, to be sheared when laden and beaten when unruly. Less than human, in the Empire’s eyes, but not to be hurt without reason. Mazus, though, Mazus had not been interested in such a civilized arrangement. He’d been a looter in silk clothes, a noble in nothing but the ugliest ways that word could be meant. From him I’d learned that no one in power would ever be fair unless you made them. Vivienne had tried to claw back some pride with her thefts. I’d tried to murder my way into authority with a sword.

“I started stealing to even the scales, though I knew coin would never be the right measure for that,” she said. “I kept stealing because they deserved it. Because every time I took from them they got a taste of loss. Of what they were doing to all of us.”

“And then they warned you off,” I said.

“Assassin,” she acknowledged. “A small cut on my father’s throat, and I stayed my hand. But he’d passed when William raised the banner and the anger was still in my stomach.”

“And it isn’t anymore?” I quietly asked.

“You killed him,” Vivienne said, evading the question. “But what did that change? They’d been killing us for years before I was ever born. Truth be told I think it was Laure that did it.”

“When we spoke,” I said. “In the palace.”

“It wasn’t the words, Catherine,” she said. “You can have a silver tongue, now and then, but I did not trust you an inch back then. It was how tired you were. I’d seen you go from victory to victory, but that night you didn’t act like you were winning.”

“I wasn’t,” I frankly said. “And there were greater disasters on the horizon.”

“You were fighting for Callow,” Vivienne acknowledged. “But that was the detail that took me so long time to understand even after joining. We weren’t talking about the same thing when using that word. Because for you it also meant the Fifteenth. It mean the goblin tribe in Marchford. It meant everyone willing to live under the laws, to pay their taxes and stand on the wall when the horn sounds.”

“They are Callowans, Vivienne,” I said. “I won’t ignore what was the best of us, in the old days, but we can’t just-”

She raised her hand to interrupt me.

“I know,” she said. “I know, Catherine. And that’s what killed it. Because I would look at Hakram, at Masego and Ratface and especially the goblins and I would wait for them to be the enemy. Because they’d always been, because that was what the Conquest meant. But then they kept faith, Cat. They died, and they died for you but not just that. Also because they were serving something they believed in. And that scared me, because if they weren’t the enemy then what had I been fighting all these years?”

The Tower, I wanted to say. The High Lords. What made all of us this way, heroes and villains and the ever-spreading graveyard between. But this wasn’t my moment, it was hers, and so I kept to silence once more.

“My Name was already thinning by then,” Vivienne said. “Sometimes it wouldn’t work as it used to. Sometimes I couldn’t feel it at all. And when my hair began to grow again, I was terrified. Because if I wasn’t even the Thief anymore, then what use was I?”

I saw her fingers clench.

“I nearly did some very foolish things,” she said. “But Hakram cut off his hand, and if nothing else that stayed mine. And it forced me to see, Catherine, because in the months following that night I did the most good for my homeland I ever have and not a single speck of it involved theft.”

She let out a breathless laugh, though it was more mockery of herself than mirth.

“I wasn’t angry anymore, Cat,” she said. “Or at least, not at the same people or for the same reasons. Mostly I was afraid. And the more I tried to pretend I was still fifteen and collecting my mother’s dues from something that no longer existed, the more I missed the point: that I was a child, when I became the Thief, and it was a child’s anger I was still heeding.”

I watched her and found regret painted on her face, though a soft and thoughtful manner of it.

“But you weren’t a child anymore,” I said.

“And so I was no longer the Thief,” Vivienne softly agreed. “Because I’ve learned that just taking from the enemy won’t change anything. That we’ll need more than that, to change the world, and that’s what I want to do most of all.”

And so the Name had died, I thought, along with the indignation that’d birthed it. It might be that something else would come of that, but she would never again be the Thief. The girl who had become her no longer existed: she’d been outgrown by the woman standing at my side. Vivienne Dartwick’s eyes were clear, I saw, and her back straight. In the afternoon’s light, cloaked in blue and hair braided like a fair crown, she seemed almost regal. I hoped, truly, that no Name came of this. The Liesse Accords, as written, would bar any and all Named from being rulers. And it was early days yet, I knew that, and it was not a decision to be made in haste.

But Vivienne Dartwick had just talked herself into being the foremost heiress-candidate to the throne of Callow.