Chapter Thirteen
“We spent all day trying to figure out when you entered the war,” Guy said. “General Cole said that you wouldn't tell him.”
Galen nodded. “Of course I wouldn't. Why not?”
A tiny frown touched Guy’s mouth, but passed quickly. “Well, there’s two possibilities.”
Galen waited with a stillness that conveyed utter neutrality, but which Guy still somehow found threatening.
“Well, three,” Guy said. “Either because knowing it allows Cole to somehow interfere with your plan, or Cole can’t do anything with the information, even if he has it, or you’re being a dick about it to make him chase his tail.”
Galen’s eyes narrowed, but Guy’s face had the blank tranquility of a rock, as if no thought, insulting or not, could ever possibly have passed through his mind. Guy was very good at this face, which Galen acknowledged by letting him get away with that ‘being a dick’ comment.
“Good,” Galen said.
“Which is good?”
“So, why did Cole send the letter?”
“I thought we covered that?” Guy said, drawing back at the mere mention of the subject.
“I asked questions about it, which you answered stupidly. Answer them smartly, now.”
“Because he wanted us to talk.”
“Maybe,” Galen considered, eyes momentarily fixing on a corner of the tent as he considered, relieving Guy of a burden he hadn’t realized he was carrying. “Why might he want us to talk?”
“If he did, why didn’t he just say so?”
“You would fuck it up,” Galen answered (far too quickly for Guy’s self-esteem to survive), making a gesture as if pushing aside an unneeded bit of paper. “And I hate subterfuge.”
“Do you, now?”
Galen’s eyes narrowed at him again, and Guy’s face, this time, was like unto the very dimmest and most innocent of the lambs of the field. “You can’t rely on plots that require you to predict your enemy’s reactions, or guess at their knowledge. They are, at best, secondary or tertiary strategies.”
“That is exactly the opposite of what General Cole would say,” Guy replied, “and even if you don’t like them, you’ve used them.”
“Cole is like that,” Galen said, as if this were a deficiency of character, then finished with a grunt, “and when?”
“Burren Falls,” Guy said – Galen’s brows went up – and Guy rambled on, with the long, slow blink of a confident instructor giving a particularly boring lecture. “You definitely had to depend somewhat on predicting the reactions of your enemies to apply such a plan, so I guess that means even you aren’t above applying ‘secondary or tertiary’ strategies like General Cole’s now and then.”
Galen grunted again, watching Guy carefully.
Guy shrugged. “But that doesn’t really help – I mean, knowing about Burren Falls, we’ve got your war history pretty much sussed. I’m not sure why General Cole would want us to talk about that, so it must be something else.”
“So,” Galen asked, “what else could it be?”
“He wants you to know what we’ve been up to, and he wants you to know I’ve been helping.”
“No,” Galen said, with a terse shake of his head.
“Uh,” Guy’s brows knit. “Doesn’t… I mean, that sort of has to be it, doesn’t it?”
“Part of it.” Galen waved a hand. He folded his arms, resting a knuckle under his lips as if to help him nibble on them. “That’s ‘a’ reason, not ‘the’ reason. Look for the primary reason, not the immediate reason.”
Guy nodded, dragging his eyes away from the distracting spectacle of seeing a fully frightening individual nibble on his own lips like a nervous milkmaid. It was at once fascinating and hilarious, like watching a lion choke on a bone. “Well…” Guy had to think quite deeply to come up with something else. “How about because he wants you to utilize what I know about what he's doing?”
Galen nodded slightly, gesturing for Guy to go on.
“Given General Cole’s weakness for ‘secondary and tertiary strategies,’” Guy said, bowling right over Galen’s reactionary scowl by hardly pausing for a breath, “then this could very well be like a ruse applied in battle – a false front to test your strength. In theory, I would be able to potentially coax more information out of you than General Cole, who you know so well and are used to blocking. So, I drop the information about our plans, you react to that information, I report back to General Cole who is better able to interpret your responses. A ruse to draw attack to gauge strength and distribution of forces, and we withdraw and regroup depending on the intelligence gained.”
“Cole knows better than to try such a ruse on me,” Galen said, but this didn’t seem to be the triumphant reaction of one foiling a plan in its inception; he seemed worried, though he was keeping the edge off well.
“Guy,” Galen said, startling him with the sudden return of his focus, “the primary reason will be the part of the plan that can’t fail. This reason will be very simple. This most basic part makes the risk worth it – even Cole’s most idiotic plans will have this part.”
“At the most basic level, Cole ordered me to interact with you.”
“Why?” and Galen seemed genuinely puzzled – then the puzzlement faded and he leaned forward and Guy flinched back. Galen sighed, but it took Guy a moment or two to catch up.
“He wants me to be less intimidated by you.”
“Yes,” Galen said, raising his hands victoriously (and causing Guy to flinch even worse. “But he is wrong. You should be afraid of me.”
Guy frowned – ‘afraid’ wasn’t the word he had used. And now, even though the reasons to fear Galen were many and valid, it felt slightly disloyal to do so.
Under his unnervingly direct staring, Galen broke out a grin, and a low chuckle. He pointed to Guy, shaking his finger. “Cole is right with you. I hate when he’s right.”
Whether this was a moment of Galen's sometimes-confused grammar interfering in Guy's understanding, or yet another moment when Galen had leaped several conversational points ahead without letting him know, Guy couldn't be certain. He felt very distinctly, however, that some of his fear had faded. And whether that was due to the feeling of disloyalty, or to the fact that, having lost a war, been ruthlessly beaten, and marching to his death, Galen still had it in him to smile admiringly at Cole’s machinations, Guy also couldn’t be certain.
“So, Guy – what shall you do now?” Galen asked, leaning back to fetch his pillow, making himself more comfortable by leaning back with his elbows on it. “What would Cole have you do?”
“Be less intimidated by you,” Guy said, with deliberate emphasis – which also made Galen smile. “My first less-intimated act would then be to ask directly why you won’t say anything about your war history – like, why won’t you admit when you entered the war? If it is useless, what good is being done by keeping us from knowing?”
“I thought you had that ‘pretty much sussed’?” Galen said, but though the words were meant to be joking, they didn’t sound like it. Before Guy could reply, Galen shook his head, the expression on his face, for once, not hard to interpret, or understand, but rather, unreadable. “It’s your second reason. He will only use it to torture himself. He can’t argue against what I have done, and even he can’t change the past. It only matters that I was there. You should do all you can to convince him to give that task up.”
Guy let out his own mirthless chuckle. “I seriously doubt he'll listen to me, sir, if he's not listening to you.”
Galen shook his head, the unfathomability of his expression now just horribly sad. “Cole is an expert at not listening to me. This is where you become useful to me. He puts more trust in you than you imagine, Guy. He would listen to you, if you came up with an explanation for how pointless your efforts are.”
“But I don't think it's pointless,” Guy said.
Galen gazed at him. “Because you believe what Cole says. But you have given it no thought of your own. Far more than my war record is pointless if you give things no thought of your own. He will hate that you grow, but wants nothing else for you, Guy, but that you do.”
With a nervous laugh, Guy said, “Seems kind of like you’re trying to tempt me to treason, too…”
Galen sat up, bringing his hand up to chew on a thumbnail in the long moment of silence before he spoke.
“Esras Cole did not win this war by exerting his vast strength to be everywhere at once,” Galen said. “It has always been a difference between us, that he will rely on people, he will use them, and they will be the reach of his hand, the stomp of his foot – but they cannot be merely fingers or toes. If they were, he would not be great. That is how he works.”
Galen smiled, to himself, and it was a bitter thing. “I cannot seem other than I am. I cannot please people – you've seen, my officers hate me – for 'sin’ – for refusing to forsake he who I loved for reasons insufficient in the face of that love. My officers hate me merely because they were told to, by one who seemed better than me to them, so they do, even now, when all it gets them is temporary reprieve from the fact that they lost.”
The very words seemed to taste bad, so full of angry disdain – but the next cleared the sour expression from his face. “My soldiers cared only that I brought as many of them back alive as I could – that I cared enough for their lives to try. I could have wished to go with them to my death, but Cole gave them the priests, too.”
Grinning wide again, Galen stopped himself, shaking his head. “Eha! I leak like a cracked teacup. The point is: Cole did not win by relying only on himself.” He let his grin grow crooked. “Nor did I lose it by failing to understand my enemies.”
Galen looked at him, sharp eyes searching for understanding. Guy nodded, but countered. “So, why does General Cole call you 'Nika'?”
The way Galen's leathery predatory glance let Guy know he had surprised him. Also that there was a thin line between ‘surprise’ and ‘displeasure’.
There was more of a shake to Guy's voice than he really wanted there to be when he went on. “Cole thinks I shouldn't be afraid of you; you say I should. Let’s call it a question of me not wanting to screw this up by 'failing to understand my enemies'.”
Guy's question had wiped the grin from Galen’s face. Guy balanced on the unpleasant point between merely having embarrassingly overstepped on a personal matter and – as Cole had warned him – calling down Death itself.
Instead, Galen stared steadily at him, and answered.
“Nicknames are common at the Academy... in the First Year, they are pervasive. For the Ainjir, it is a friend-thing. For Midraeic people… When you are a child, you have a child-name, but once you turn a certain age, you are called by your adult name, the name of who you are. I thought it was... insulting to have your name shortened and changed. I would fight them, even older cadets who I could not beat, when they called me nicknames. The other cadets thought I was being cruel and arrogant. Cole and his friends eventually understood, in our Second Year, and it became something of a joke. They... he eventually thought of 'Nikus' to shorten 'Dominicus'. 'Nikus' led him to 'Nike' which sounds like old Midraeic for 'victorious'. Cole said that would be too arrogant – a very rich criticism, coming from him – and that as he intended to beat me as often as possible, inappropriate. He changed it to 'Nika'.”
Allowing Cole to shorten his name was allowing Cole to have control over a part of himself. The emotion behind it was so evident that Guy wondered why he wasn't embarrassed, until he realized that General Galen wasn't embarrassed either; on the contrary, he seemed relieved. Guy, rather than having intruded upon privacy, had been introduced. He had the upsetting thought that he knew why, too.
“It isn't hopeless – it isn't a foregone conclusion that you'll be condemned at trial. Cole can figure out –”
General Galen held up a hand. “Listen to me, Guy, because Cole will not. I'm going to the Capitol, where I'll be tried and hanged.”
“Not hanged,” Guy swallowed, staring hard at Galen. “Tortured. I read about the law when it became apparent Cole was thinking of trying to save you. They named you Executive General of the Rebellion, which allowed you to be convicted of high treason. For an accusation of high treason, even confession–”
“I’m going to confess,” Galen said. “Not that there’s really a defense when you get caught in the middle of a battlefield, commanding.”
“They’ll torture you!” Guy cried, but no crack showed in Galen’s mask of certitude. “Confession doesn’t matter; they’ll torture you – ‘No traitor acts alone, nor can traitor’s honesty trade for mercy’ – the law protects against false accusations of treachery by ensuring any credibly accused traitor faces torture. Even if, for some reason, they decide to be merciful, it’s at minimum three days to convene the court properly, and mercy doesn’t seem likely. If not for revenge, then for Gaius, for the rest of High Command, for Covid secrets they’ll make up on the spot – they’ll torture you, and if convicted, hang you, and if you’re lucky you’ll die before they draw and quarter you so they can scatter your body across the country, leaving it to the beasts.”
Galen held his gaze steadily throughout, until Guy turned away. Guy supposed it had been stupid to think the Academy-cadet-turned-Comid-General somehow didn't know exactly what he was getting into. Keadar-Ainjir had founded the nation in rebellion, thus the nation appreciated how very costly rebellion could be. It did not treat treason with half-measures.
“Cole is right about you – you are very clever. You should be clever enough to realize that I am not the one to worry about; I cannot do other than I am doing. I am hoping you will be clever enough to keep Cole out of trouble, and on the right track. You must be ready to make your own plans, to trust your own thoughts. Appearing sympathetic to me will cause trouble. You must keep yourself out of trouble, too, of course, but unlike Cole, I assume you are not apt to do anything suicidally stupid.”
Shamefully, Guy recalled more than once thinking Cole was acting 'suicidally stupid'; as much as he might wish otherwise, he had to admit it was a possibility. Still, he admitted it very quietly, even for a thought. “Is this what they teach you at Academy? The stubborn pursuit of death? And how should I stop him, anyway? You think I’ve even been able to stop him? He's as set on you not dying as you are that you will die!”
“The whole reason I am here is so I will live as long as possible,” Galen said. “I was a very specific about it. As for the rest, I believe in you, Guy.”
Guy stared. There it was – after five years of war, Guy was going to die of over-confidence. At least the inscription on his cenotaph would be original.
“Okay, but,” Guy said, then paused. “Actually, now I’m confused – should I listen to Cole, and pursue his plan about the war history, and not be afraid of you, or should I listen to you, discard the plan about the war history, and be very afraid of you? If I’m afraid of you, why should I listen to you?”
“Do you fear Cole?” Galen asked.
‘No’ would have been the easy answer, but ‘no’ would have been wrong. ‘Suicidally stupid’ floated to the top of his thoughts again, accompanied by the bone-chilling recollections of a dozen times or so Cole had made some decision, taken some action, led some charge, and Guy would feel them sinking into the inevitability of death–
Only to find him riding back, surrounded by a fraction of those who'd gone with him. Lucky to be alive – luckier than a score of others. Certainly luckier than their enemies. Of course he feared Cole, almost as often as he feared for him.
“It’s not for the right reasons,” Galen said presciently, apparently refusing for even one second to stop unsettling Guy. “He is reckless; he makes men believe they can do more than it is possible for them to do.” Galen shrugged in acquiescence to his own thoughts. “Sometimes he is right. He makes himself right. He believes in people, invests them with confidence, makes them his tools and can work great things that way. But he does this with his passion. It would frighten you to know how his passions control him. His passion is his tool, and he has honed his instinct to a fine blade, but the sharpest knife cannot be trained to cut only one what one wants it to. That depends on who wields it, and how strong they are.
“Cole says you should not fear me,” Galen said, piercing stare again fixed on Guy. “Cole is wrong. You should be afraid of me, because I could kill you, and though he would hate me for doing it, he would not leave me.”
Guy stared at him.
Into the long silence, Galen said, “I won't actually kill you, Guy.”
It took a moment for Guy to emerge from the trance of Galen's low warning. He couldn't resist shaking his head, as if to clear it. Galen was watching him, raptor-gaze unmoved. Guy tried to look relieved.
“Cole would be upset.” Galen went on, stone-faced. “He would have to find a new lieutenant. He would be sad. None of them could possibly fuck up simple tasks as well you.”
“Captain,” Guy said, raising one tentative finger. “He would have to find a new captain.
“Eha!” Galen cried, again throwing his hands up in celebration. “Your balls finally dropped! There's a Midraeic celebration for that I could arrange if you like.”
“Oh, Virtue's Tits!” Guy cried, embarrassed, slightly frustrated, and still a little bit on edge. He hadn’t been prepared for any of this conversation, but he was increasingly aware of how unprepared he was for their terrible, secretive nemesis to turn out to be… personable. Or to shift so seamlessly from delivering very real threats, to offering very sincere advice, or from sexual jokes to intimate, emotional anecdotes. Even if he wasn’t going to live up to being a wirrikow, he should at least strike one emotional stance at a time like a normal person, and not cycle through them all in one conversation.
In the meantime, Galen was laughing at him, and his laughter boomed around the tent like a little thunderhead. Ignoring the urge to crawl into his own coat and die, Guy frowned at him. “You know, you can't even stand up to getting hit with sticks, I don't know how you're planning to be so bravely tortured.”
Galen's laughter only worsened. “I expect to cry like a baby. I don't know why I would even try to face the whole thing bravely, that will just irritate them.”
Frankly, it irritated Guy, too. “I should've denied this promotion. I should've stayed a lieutenant forever and remained happily ignorant of you and Cole and all of your plots.”
Galen nodded. “Yes, you probably should have, but now you owe it to me, and Cole will never let you work anywhere else without being childish about it, and nobody can stand that from him.”
“I should have been a clerk,” Guy muttered, drawing his knees up so he could lean his arms on them.
“I don’t think you’re that bad,” Galen said, consolingly, then clapped his hands, rubbing them together – though some of the fatigue seemed to catch up to him, and he traded that gesture for rubbing his face. “Anyway, now you know how Cole is using you, at least as regards this letter, and you know that I know – we are, what is the phrase? 'In league' with one another on the matter. That ought to simplify things.”
“Simplify?” Guy's disbelieving voice was very high-pitched. For the sake of his own self-respect, he brought it down a notch or two. “This is clearly one of those 'I know that you know that we know that he knows' things! A secondary or tertiary strategy! How's that going to simplify anything?”
“Know the things,” Galen said defensively, as if Guy should have realized what he meant from the start, “but don’t rely on them. Never proceed on assumptions only. Always be open to change.”
Now Guy rubbed his face. “That is exactly the opposite of what General Cole would say.”
“And we know that I'm going to die no matter what General Cole does, which means that I am right,” Galen said.
“I think I prefer victories where I don't die in the process.”
“Which means,” Galen frowned at him, shaking his head in disappointment, “that you will never be ready for when victory demands it.”
“This bloody war is supposed to be ending! And you lost it! There is no victory!? There should be no life-and-death-ing anymore!”
They heard the guards rustling outside, but Guy shouted, “Did I fucking call you?” and outside became very quiet.
Galen was laughing so hard it seemed to hurt. “Well done, Captain Guy.”
“Oh, shut up,” Guy said.
Panic immediately flooded Guy’s face, replaced by a disapproving frown when Galen only laughed harder
“Fine, well, I really do think I’ve done all that I was supposed to do here…” Guy said, making as if to stand up, but not actually doing so, as he eyed Galen warily.
Galen held a hand up, asking for pause while he caught his breath. “I have one more duty, Guy, if you please.”
Guy stopped, not quite sure whether he should put himself at attention, ready to receive orders or... continue to sit there, ass half-raised, like a fool. One of those happened regardless.
“If I could speak to my men before we reach the lake tomorrow, I would be very much obliged.”
Guy stared at him. The confident, knowing smile that passed over Galen's face, ever so briefly, was so reminiscent of Cole, Guy wondered if he hadn't been speaking to the wrong man this whole time.
“How did you...?”
“Why would a man be awake in the middle of the night, sitting in the dark? Stargazing.” General Galen stood (Guy took his chance, stumbling to his feet, too), and replaced the improvised cover on his dish of oil. “I am allowed no fire-starting tools of my own, and I'm sure you understand that asking the guards for a torch does not excite me as a prospect.”
They waited. In the pitch-black, all Guy could hear was the rustling of fabric and the Comid Generals' voice. A little patch of starlight burst through the tent roof, and he could see Galen's heavily shadowed face glance upward.
“Prisoners' tents aren't well maintained. As long as I provided all the material, for which my jacket served, I was allowed to sew a patch; I just didn't quite sew it all the way. It leaks a little, in the rain, but I can follow our movements, and with reasonable knowledge of past positions and Ainjir's geography, figure out where we are, and where we're going. During the day, it is too difficult to keep track of our direction through the jungle. Staying on course, we should reach Stag Lake, at the bend of the river Verun, sometime tomorrow.”
Guy could barely see it in the dark, his eyes adjusting slowly, but he could just make out Galen's shrug. “Cole is not exactly taking an original route to the Capitol. General Nerin used almost the same track around two hundred years ago. It has good ground, old roads, plentiful resources... a bit vulnerable, in my opinion, but as you say, here I am with my opinions, victorious.”
“I said you lost,” Guy replied, frowning. “I'll ask General Cole.”
“Cole probably already thought of it, but you know what I think about that.”
A brief sliver of light cut across Galen's face as he opened his cover to smother the fire in his oil-dish. “Let your eyes adjust this time. I don’t want you destroying my tent. It is sad enough already.”
Guy did as he was told, and waited until he saw everything sharply in the faint silvery light. Not really sure what it meant, even to himself, he saluted just before he left, which Galen returned, Ainjir-fashion, as neatly as if on parade.
The guards no longer pretended not to stare. Guy took his time completing the leisurely stroll to where they stood.
Guy rocked on his heels, looking between them. “D’jou hear about this evening, when we were setting up camp?”
Heary and Lo exchanged a glance. Both nodded.
“D’jou hear about how General Cole feels about beatings?”
Another glance, much slower and more uneasy.
“Well,” Guy said, shrugging, “you thought I was in danger, right?”
They nodded.
“You thought I was gonna get hurt.”
They nodded.
“You thought I was gonna get my ass beat by one, lonely, little injured prisoner.”
“Ehhhh,” Heary said.
“Well, it’s…it’s the General…” Lo added, and they looked at one another again.
“Don’t hit anyone with sticks,” Guy said, closing his eyes as if against a headache. “Just don’t. And if you do do it, don’t do it in front of me, or ever let me hear about it. And if you do do it in front of me, or I hear about it, ever again, I’ll make Provost Gaereth shove that stick so far up your asshole the cooks will keep the pigs and roast you, for sheer sake of ease. Yes?”
The both saluted.
Guy stepped through them to make the long way back to his (sensibly placed) tent. Though his eyes itched with fatigue, he was sure he wouldn’t sleep.
He had learned too much to sleep just yet.
That is, he had learned a lot once he had realized he was learning, and not getting very close to being murdered, demoted, or both. So he would have to go over that first part of the conversation in his memory again.
First, Galen had not been at Burren Falls. In fact, Guy doubted he had ever even heard of the place.
Secondly, something was right about investigating Galen’s war history, but wrong with General Cole being involved. Guy wasn’t sure he could do anything about Cole being involved, which brought him to his third point:
Guy’s job, in Galen’s mind, was to know when to go against Cole. Which sounded bad, but was for General Cole’s own protection. And maybe this feeling – that Galen didn’t want General Cole to get hurt – was the instinct Galen had so derided, and if so, Guy was fine following General Cole’s patiently-cultivated strategic instinct that far.
The third point was the most mysterious, though the now-frustratingly uncrackable mystery of Galen’s war history was edging up the list out of sheer omnipresence. But now Guy knew that Galen wasn’t worried about them actually figuring out his war history, he was concerned it would distract General Cole. Even more mysteriously, he worried specifically that it would upset General Cole, which Guy would have denounced as sheer foolishness were it not for the source. True, he had seen General Cole act rashly, in ways he thought stupid at the time, but they had always proven to be either successful, or deliberately staged as part of a larger plan. General Cole did sometimes lose his iron self-control, and those were terrible moments, but if it was important, if lives stood in the balance, he never let his emotions get the better of him.
Guy believed Galen was sure of two things: that involving General Cole in his plan was necessary, and that it put General Cole in danger.
Well, three things: he was also certain he was going to die.
Except for the stubborn belief that General Cole would miraculously find a solution, Guy was pretty sure Galen was going to die, too. Horribly.
So, getting him out of this alive would be a feat. Now that he was a Captain, Guy could use a feat or two under his belt.
So, Guy had a lot of work to do.