Chapter 23 #4
“I mean, our numbers dwindle so. We’ve so few folk for all we do—that is why the Empire is so free with its gifts, after all. And yet here, in these fertile fields, we’re indifferent to all product of…of womb, and breath, and life. We quite literally throw it away. All for a meal.”
I looked at him, and saw he was watching me with wide, ardent eyes. Though I’d thought my words a pithy thing, it seemed I’d moved him.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “That is the most galling thing of it all. We’ve so much. And this is what we choose to do with it. What a relief it is, to hear another say so.”
I studied him carefully. “If you could dash away the Buravs and the Armentas, would you do it, sir?”
He laughed sadly. “Oh, no.”
“No?”
“No, no. If they went, others would come. Beef is far too valuable. How our people yearn for a plate of cooked flesh! Until that changes, nothing I do or say matters. But it is strange…I left the sea walls, where I managed distant death. I hoped to come here to tend to growth, to nurture life…Yet I find myself in the same old tasks again. You must think it strange, as Iudex, to hear an imperial servant so bitterly resent those they serve.”
“As Iudex, I’m tasked with protecting the decent folk of these lands,” I conceded.
Tauri turned to me, sensing more.
“But—I sometimes feel it has been a good while since I have met a decent person.” I met his eyes. “Though I sense you’ve a decent soul, Commander Tauri.”
We looked at each other for a long while. The trilling of the tree-crickets rose and fell in the far distance.
“Maybe,” he said softly. “Maybe what is left of it is decent. Maybe so.”
—
I thought on all of Tauri’s comments as we returned to the cart.
While I found him a terribly beautiful creature, as well as a faintly tragic one, I had spoken the truth to Ana: I would not get involved with a fellow officer during an investigation.
Especially when Tauri might be a suspect in that investigation.
For though he claimed it’d be useless to strike out against the gentry families here, that wasn’t exactly exculpatory evidence.
And there was what Ana had said. Too important, and too clever.
Yet more, something bothered me as I turned over his words. Not something about cattle, or fens, or rot, or even the sea walls, but…something simpler.
I grimaced as my memories shuddered and quaked within me. How I hated this feeling now, as if some portion of my very soul had been colonized. Though I might not sprout stalks, perhaps I was just as festering as Lyimo as he lay in that…
I froze as I was about to step into the cart.
“With all their gaudy finery,” I whispered, “and their rings.”
My memories sang joyfully, resonating with these words. My right ring finger blazed with pain, as if suddenly pinched.
“Mm?” said Tauri. “What?”
“That was what you said, sir. The Buravs and their rings.”
“Ah. So?”
“The Burav tughra ring features their family seal, sir,” I said.
“A hawk in flight. But on their tughra rings, there is a large point at the top for the crest of the Burav hawk’s beak.
” My eyes fluttered as the memories coursed through me.
“Though I am no spatiast…I believe it is the exact same length as the small perforation on Lyimo Armenta’s back.
And that tiny, rounded bruise above it could be the mark of a knuckle. Like a punch.”
The Orbiis officers had gone very still, staring at me.
“And though I can’t say for sure,” I said, trying to fight the panic rising inside me, “most Buravs never wore the tughra ring, because they didn’t bother.
Only one person felt insecure enough to actually keep it on his finger for everyone to see.
” I looked at Tauri. “And that was Jalin Burav, sir.”
Tauri heaved a great sigh. “Well. Shit! Off to the medikkers we go, then.”
—
The medikker facility of Lacanthim was all chaos and commotion when we arrived. The staff were rushing about, crying out to one another to check doors and windows, check paths away, check everywhere.
My heart dropped as I saw this. Somehow, I already knew.
“He’s gone, sir!” cried one medikker when I stopped them to ask. “Young Jalin up and left this morning! Opened a window and climbed out! It’s madness, his treatment isn’t set to be done for another two weeks! I can’t even imagine how he did it without howling in pain!”
“No one knows where he went?” I asked. “No one?”
“No! He’s in terrific danger, he might drop dead from sheer agony and exhaustion!”
I hunted down the custodus who’d been assigned to keep watch over Jalin and found him hurtling about the lawns in a panic. The young man paled at the sight of me.
“He…he can’t have gone far, sir!” he choked.
“How in hell could you let him slip away?” I demanded.
“The medikkers said he was in incredible pain, sir! So much so he couldn’t move! They had him sedated to avoid feeling anything! But…I suppose for one dose, he must have kept it in his mouth, and spat it out…”
I cursed loudly and turned to Tauri, who watched me warily. “I have trackers arriving today, Kol. They can trail him, certainly. But it will take time. It is no speedy thing.”
I shut my eyes and wondered how in hell I’d ever explain this to Ana.