I tried and failed to suppress a yawn. “I-I…I see, sir. I’ll take note.”
He smiled sympathetically. “Tired?”
“Somewhat, sir. I’m not used to sleeping so high up in a tower. Especially one that moves with the wind.”
“Let us stop at a station, then. I could use a hotfoot myself.”
He led me to the next corner, where a huge black canvas tent had been set up in the street. Legion officers in varying states of armor milled about before it, resting, regrouping, or receiving orders. Though I was tall, most of these men were taller, thicker, stronger than I, augmented chaps who could cleave me in two if they so much as tried. Yet they all saluted Strovi as the captain led me through to the back, bowing their heads and tapping their collarbones respectfully.
At the back sat a clay stove, the fire within bright and flickering. Three young boys squatted nearby, tending to the flames and boiling pots of water. Strovi held up two fingers to them, and they poured us two cups of tea, then grabbed a clay cask and dropped in a healthy finger of sotwine to each.
Strovi held his cup up to me. “Hotfoot. Clar-tea and mulled sot. We’ll be dancing and prancing for hours now, Kol. Chin to roof.”
He tossed his cup back and I did the same. It was hot and acrid and sweet, but not unpleasant. Instantly I felt warmth fill my bones, and then I felt a strange bubbling at the bottom of my brain, as if it were cooking in a pot.
Strovi grinned as he saw my face. “The Apoths have made many amazing alterations, but this strain of clar-herb is my favorite.”
We tarried in the warmth of the fire, drinking the dregs of our tea—“The last sip,” Strovi commented, “you could practically chew”—while the captain politely inquired about my time in the Iudex, and Daretana, and with Ana. It felt quite strange: I hadn’t had such casual conversation with anyone in months—certainly not with Ana—but definitely not with someone like Strovi, who seemed to embody the full bloom of imperial service. The man’s movements were easy and graceful, and his face was handsome and noble, with a laugh that never entirely left his pale green eyes.
“Nice to have a bit of civilization, isn’t it?” he said as we finished. “The only thing missing is a puff of pipe.”
“Oh. Wait a moment, sir,” I said. I reached into my pocket and produced the half of a shootstraw pipe Miljin had given me.
Strovi laughed. “What magic! I’ve half a mind to ask what else you hide in there.” He waved to one of the boys, and they brought over a hot iron from the fire. Strovi held it to the tip of the pipe and sucked at it until its end flared hot. Then he drew deeply and savored the smoke, letting it leak out of his nostrils. “I haven’t tasted such a fine bit of weed in ages. Where did you get this?”
“From Miljin,” I said. Then: “Or, really, from a Signum Vartas, who happily volunteered his pipe after Miljin, ah, threatened castration and disembowelment.”
Strovi laughed dully. “The old man hasn’t changed, then. The iron fist in the iron glove, about as subtle as six blows from a hammer.”
“You might say that, sir.”
“Don’t have to be so formal, Kol. I mean—I’m following your lead here, a bit, aren’t I?”
I didn’t know how to answer that. The idea of such a veteran officer following me was baffling.
He held out the pipe to me. “Go on. It’s yours, I shouldn’t take it.”
I took the pipe from him and drew deeply, my lips touching where his had been. I had never smoked before—I couldn’t afford such a habit—but I found myself reveling in the taste of the smoke, the way it seemed to twirl in my belly like a dancer.
“This,” I said, “is something I could get used to.”
He laughed. “You look quite at home here, with your cone hat and your shootstraw pipe!”
“Then I only look it, sir. It’s not at all where I expected to be. Last month I was earning my dispensation by chasing down pay fraud.”
“It’s not so uncommon, though.” Strovi looked out at all the Legionnaires, all coming and going in the light of the flickering fire. “So many come here by so many roads, having made deals or signed contracts or bartered away some bit of their life for a bundle of talints. Yet when they’re here, standing among one another, and they realize what we hold back…That’s when they see.”
“See what, sir?”
“What the Empire really is.” He grinned at me. “Those walls out there—some stretches are four hundred years old. Made back when the Khanum still walked these lands in full force. Planned and wrought and manned by ancient peoples, some of them far stranger than anything the Apoths could brew up now. And since those first stones were laid, no leviathan has ever walked the Titan’s Path again, has never made it into the inner recesses of the land. And none has ever approached the Valley of Khanum. Because of how we suffer, and labor, and serve.” His grin grew rather dreamy. “The Empire is the people next to you, and before you. Bodies in boots on the wall, taking up posts served by the ancients. We are the fulcrum on which the rest of the Empire pivots. And we are all made equal and common in that service, and before its long history.” He paused. “Though perhaps I’m being sentimental.”