The general wasn’t wearing her tricorne, and her hair was pulled back tight in a white-streaked tail. Her dour expression was uncannily similar to the first broadside drawing that Luca had seen. The only thing missing was the ink-as-blood dripping down her fingers.
Cantic pinched out the burning flare of her cigarette with bare fingers.
“Your Highness, I only thought about your safety and that of the citizens. I had information—”
“My safety? You jeopardized my safety! I was in the city, my city, when your soldiers went marauding door-to-door and terrifying my subjects. What if someone had been able to capture me in retaliation?” As Jaghotai would have, if not for Touraine.
Cantic nodded acceptance. “I apologize, Your Highness. That’s yet another reason I think it would be prudent if you remained in the Quartier.”
“My guards would be enough if they didn’t need to protect me in a war zone. Is this how you handled Masridān? The Brigāni? No wonder we have rebels. My father would be ashamed.” Or maybe he wouldn’t. The truth wasn’t the point. She paused for a breath, half weighing the next words before throwing them out, as well. “I’m sure your family would be, too.”
“Luca!” shouted Gil, so surprised that he overstepped his public bounds.
Luca waited for the words to have a visible effect on the other woman, but there was nothing. Somehow, she was immune to the worst Luca had to offer, and that added reckless heat to Luca’s anger. She took a breath to try something else, but Cantic spoke softly, her voice the hush of waves on sand.
“Perhaps, Your Highness. Perhaps. But never forget—the blood on my hands coats yours as well. Everyone who has ever died at my order has died for the empire. For King Roland. For you. When you sit upon that throne and not before that, I will accept your judgment. Until then, I’m going to hold your colony together, because you don’t seem to understand what that takes.”
It was so silent that surely all of them had stopped breathing, not just Luca. Surely time had stopped. Surely the world had stopped spinning? Even Gil’s lips hung parted beneath his gray mustache.
Cantic moved first. She went to rest her hands upon the desk, which was carved as immaculately as her door. Another forest scene, with rabbits and birds and deer. Easy to see even the leaves of the trees blowing in an unfelt wind. Easier than meeting Cantic’s eyes when the general looked up from the desk’s surface.
Luca thought of Guérin’s daughter, an apprentice carpenter now, in La Chaise. Guérin would be home soon.
“Maybe you’re right. I should just soak my hands in it, then.” Then, feeling it like the confession of a crime, Luca added, “Like my father.” She looked between Cantic and Gil. They stared back at her like statues, unblinking but ever judging, weighing her. Gil at least had a touch of warmth. She turned away from it.
“No, Your Highness.” Cantic curled her hands so that her knuckles rested on the table instead. “I wade through the shit and the blood so that you don’t have to. So that you can build something better from it. That is what our families wanted.”
Luca looked away, to escape the words without lowering her head. Through the window, she saw the bare dirt of the compound.
What good could come from blood and shit? Harvests, of course, with proper seed. What Balladaire was known for. Was it necessary, though? Like this?
Then the general cocked her head. “But, Your Highness—I don’t understand. What exactly did you plan to do when Lieuten—when Touraine told you the rebels had guns? Let them keep them? They would have used them on us, maybe even on the civilians to force our hand.”
“When Touraine told me—” Luca caught herself in time. In the back of her mind, the scholar in her extrapolated beyond the general’s words, finding motives and consequences all before the woman could find the breath to ask the question that the scholar already knew the answer to.
The call of orders and running boots outside of Cantic’s office came back in a too-loud rush. She reached unconsciously toward her ears, as if blocking the sound would block the unwanted knowledge. Touraine had told. Touraine was the leak.
“I’m sorry, General. I didn’t realize. I suppose that changes everything.”
Touraine fluttered into consciousness and immediately wished she could go back under again. So much pain. She groaned.
Pain shattered through her jaw. She wanted to scream, but animal instinct kept her jaw immobile. Dislocated, if not broken entirely. A throaty growl escaped.