The Imperial Guard, ch. 17

The Imperial Guard, ch. 17

Chapter Seventeen

“I really don’t know,” Damian muttered half to himself as he frowned at Catalin. “It’s not that you don’t look convincing. You do! I just expected you to be… y’know… prettier. Though of course, you’re only half-dressed without the gown.”

“Of course I don’t look pretty!” Catalin barked, struggling against the pair of subordinates that held his arms in place, presumably to keep him from destroying the wig. That didn’t stop him from kicking, though. “Men aren’t supposed to look pretty!”

“Well, obviously,” Damian said, “but I thought your good looks would transcend gender. You know?”

Catalin would have desperately liked to inform Damian of how unbalanced he was, but he had enough presence of mind to stop himself. Damian continued before he could. “And I’m not sure you look very good as a blonde, either. It sort of washes you out, you know? Makes you look sick.”

“Some people actually like that, miss!” Catalin’s subordinate Mitchell, who held one of his arms, chuckled. “I knew this guy, fairly normal most of the time, but he had this weird thing about consumptives. Oh, sorry, Cat, you want me to shut up?”

“Yes. Please.” He started to turn to Chris for support, but the older boy was still incapacitated with laughter.

“You are a traitor, aren’t you,” he said between gritted teeth. It didn’t have the intended effect – Chris only gasped for air and laughed harder.

Kite threw Chris an even nastier glare than Catalin himself. “Stop that, Turner. It’s not funny.”

“Try to be positive about this, Catalin,” Reiselle chimed in from her chair by the door. “Undercover work is a vital part of the Second Division, you know.”

“Really?” Catalin snapped, rounding on her. “Did you and Celeste have to crossdress, then?”

“Heavens no. We never would have pulled that off. Espen, on the other hand, made a lovely woman when he was a teenager.”

Catalin looked back skeptically at Espen, who was one of the men holding his arms in place. He was nearly as big as Kite. But his subordinate only glared at him. “And what of it?”

“N-Nothing,” Catalin muttered, wrenching his arms free and yanking the blonde wig off, rubbing at his made-up face desperately with his sleeves. “So what exactly are you people expecting me to do? If I go to that ball, people will notice that I’m not Colette.”

“Not necessarily,” Damian said, picking up the wig where Catalin had dropped it to straighten the curls. “Colette Kasshen has been studying in Merin for almost three years now. No one will blink if she looks different.”

“And,” Saphie added, sitting crosslegged in the corner and fiddling with her needles, “there’s a rumor going around the capital that Colette got some less-than-stellar work done there, poor dear.”

“And who started that rumor?” Catalin asked.

Saphie beamed. “Me, obviously.”

That, he should have anticipated. He sighed heavily. “Well, feel free to have a nice long discussion about how lovely I will or won’t look in a ball gown.” Kite made a highly pained sound at the thought. “I’m going to wash the rest of this powder off my face.” With a mutinous look at the still-laughing Chris, he turned into the hallway.

And immediately collided with someone.

Catalin stumbled back and began to excuse himself, but stopped when he saw that the man in front of him was someone he didn’t recognize. The man, for his part, took one look at Catalin and wailed. “No, no, no, no! You’re kidding me! You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Catalin’s foul mood almost took over, but he reined it in. “May I help you?”

But he ignored Catalin completely, continuing his hysterics. “Rei! Reiselle!”

“Yes, yes, coming, coming,” Reiselle murmured, exiting the common room and stepping around Catalin. She eyed the visitor, unfazed. “Oh, Fen, you’re here.”

“Don’t ‘you’re here’ me!” Fen said shrilly, pointing a shaking finger at Catalin. “This is it! This is where I draw the line! I went along with this because you said you’d keep a low profile! You can’t expect me to hide Catalin Kasshen!”

Rather than answer his shrieks, Reiselle turned to Catalin instead. “This is Fennel, Anwar’s inspector. It seems he already knows your name.”

Of course. Catalin seemed to remember Victor mentioning that they were paying off Anwar’s inspector to keep his mouth shut about Amara. He wasn’t exactly sure how they had managed that for fifteen years - Fen would probably burst into tears if Kite so much as cracked his knuckles.

“Uncle Fen?” Amara strode down the hallway from her room, Victor close in tow. “Is it collection day already?”

Fen’s panic diminished as they approached, and he reached out and ruffled Amara’s hair. “Hey, beanstalk,” he said with a nervous laugh, “Vic, uh. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems there’s something you neglected to tell me…?”

“Ah…” Victor nodded, glancing from Catalin back to Fen, and smiled. “I thought we’d told you about Cat already?”

“Of course, Vic.” He groaned, shaking his head. “You better be paying me extra this month.”

“Of course,” Victor said serenely, handing Fen a wad of bills. “I wouldn’t consider anything else.”

“Of course,” Fen repeated under his breath, counting the pile in his hands. His eyes widened. “Uh, Vic… this is kind of a lot.”

“Which brings us to our next point,” Reiselle interrupted with the ease of a businesswoman. “We have another little favor to ask of you.”

The inspector swallowed, but asked, “And?”

“We just wanted to know,” Reiselle said as she clasped his shoulder, “if there was a way a few of us could leave here on a certain night next month without signing out.”

“Depends,” he said warily. “What are you planning?”

“Now, Fen,” she said, looking more bouncy than Catalin had ever seen her, “if we told you that, we’d just be putting you in danger! If someone asks, don’t you want to say truthfully that you don’t know?”

Catalin held back a smirk. Though it seemed that Reiselle and the others had a fair amount of affection for Fen, he could see why they kept him on the outside of things all the same. And it was a good thing they’d decided to be tight-lipped: their plan at the moment hinged around Catalin staying undiscovered long enough to unlatch the door leading into the kitchens.

Then their backup would follow… hopefully. Though Victor and Reiselle seemed to trust their contacts to show up and assist, Catalin knew that as former members of the Myrrh military, they’d have to jump through a few hoops to get to the Citadel undetected. And if they couldn’t, Catalin and the others would have to stay long enough to make an impression before getting the hell out.

Until then, though, he would be forced to keep up the ruse. Saphie would be there, of course, but her position as a trusted clergywoman was too useful for them to throw away yet. She was to make the social rounds at the party, and whenever she could, bring up the “Myrrh Ghosts.” Catalin didn’t know which of their jobs was the more nervewracking.

“… you know,” Fen said, his whole body sinking, “I don’t think the lot of you appreciate how much stress I’ve been under. Do you know what the palace is like right now?” He turned his panicked stare completely on Catalin. “Fanel Cross is out for blood. Even Anwar is getting more agitated that his favorite is still missing. There are all sorts of rumors going around that you were caught and managed to get away, and your sister has been by at least four times in the past two weeks wanting to know what more we’ve found-”

“Ellie has?” Catalin asked.

Fen nodded, his glasses bobbing up and down. “And on top of that, Cantata Anwar has been making the rounds to all the inspectors. Apparently interrogating them about something…”

“Cantata Anwar has?” Catalin didn’t even hear Talia come up behind him. “What is she asking them?”

“No clue, I don’t know any of ‘em that well,” he said with a shrug. “But it’s still creepy. Until recently, most of us non-military folk hadn’t even laid eyes on her. I still haven’t seen her in person, myself.”

“Oh.” Talia nodded, her face oddly set. “I see.”

Catalin turned around and began to ask what was wrong, but a loud knock at the door interrupted them. Dodging the group that had formed in the hallway, Catalin strode to the door and called, “Entrance is around front!”

There was some awkward throat-clearing from the outside, and then a very uneasy voice saying, “We’ve come for Madame Reiselle’s VIP special.”

Satisfied, Catalin opened the door a crack, and he found a small group of older men and women standing outside. When he gradually recognized them as some of the people who had visited the morning of his run-in with Baltus, he opened it a little further. “May I help you?” he said again.

“Lord Kasshen!” one of the taller ones boomed as he forced his way in. “I’m so glad you’re looking well, so glad… tell me, son, is Victor in?”

“Right over here.” Victor stepped out from behind Fen, and he visibly tensed. “What can I do for you?”

“There you are!” another of them laughed as they moved around Catalin, swarming around Victor. Sensing a feeding frenzy, Fen backed away towards the stairs. “We received your message earlier, thank you so much for keeping us informed, but… I think that we’ve misunderstood your meaning somehow.”

“I can see how you would think that.” A little of the imposing air Victor had held the first time he met Catalin had returned. “But no, you’re not mistaken. We’re going to be working with Kathleen and Helena Tremont from this point forward.”

“I see…” A high-nosed woman cleared her throat. “And you weren’t planning to consult us on any of this? Some people believe that associating with that family is not an appropriate risk. I’d certainly appreciate-”

“And I’d appreciate it if you’d stop bullying my father.” Amara drew herself up to her full height. “The one who made the decision to see the Tremonts was me.”

“Your Highness!” simpered the first one as all of them sank into a bow. “I didn’t see you there!”

Amara snorted. She was taller than all but two of them. “If you’ve come here to question my judgment, I’d appreciate it if you’d criticize me directly.”

“Your Highness,” Damian muttered next to her shoulder, “don’t be rude.”

“No, of course not, I didn’t mean to offend,” the woman cooed. “I just meant that it might be smarter to run these things by us, especially after what almost happened to Lord Kasshen-”

“What are you talking about?” Catalin whirled around to face them, his temper taking over before he could stop himself. “That happened because of you people! Amara had nothing to do with that at all!”

Before they could open their mouths to protest, Damian turned to Catalin with a frozen smile. “‘Amara?’”

Catalin was spared the trouble of backtracking when there was another knock on the door. Over his shoulder, he snapped, “Wrong entrance!”

A small squeak, and then a tentative, “I-I-I’m here for Madame Reiselle’s special?”

Catalin threw the door open. “What?”

His youngest soldier, Mariane, cringed. “S-S-S-Sorry, Commandant! I forgot my keys and couldn’t get in the front…”

There was a long beat of silence before the apology sunk in, and he self-consciously stepped aside, his “Come in” getting lost somewhere in his throat. The entire room openly stared at him.

Clearing his throat, Chris made his way past the crowd and grabbed the crook of Catalin’s elbow, dragging him down the hall. “You’ll have to excuse us,” he said, polite as you please. “We really have to get back to training.”

***

Given his current state, Catalin didn’t think training with sharp objects was the smartest idea. But Chris insisted that Catalin still needed practice pointing real weapons at real people, and that they’d be safe as long as they wore armor. When the younger boy was still hesitant, Chris decided that keeping him as angry as possible was good motivation.

As Chris backed him into a corner, cheerfully teasing him all the way, Catalin decided that people who had the energy to banter during a fight really pissed him off.

“Stop that,” he gritted out as he parried a blow, but the second word dissolved into a gasp for breath.

“Stop doing what?” Chris asked innocently, tapping Catalin’s armor with his spear. “I’m not doing anything.”

If Chris wanted to provoke him, he’d succeeded. But his hurry to shut Chris up made his attack sloppy, and the blade clumsily bounced off Chris’ armor and glanced his unprotected hand instead.

Chris dropped his weapon to clap one hand over the other, and Catalin threw his own aside. “I didn’t mean to do that,” he babbled, as if it helped. “Are you okay?”

“… you should see the look on your face right now.” Chris shook his head as he uncovered his hand to survey the damage, but he was laughing. “You look like you just stabbed me in the heart. It’s fine, see? Just a nick.”

Catalin took a look. He wasn’t sure if it was because he was unprepared for it, but the blood dripping down Chris’ hand brought a wave of dizziness that nearly unbalanced him. He tried to steady himself without Chris noticing, which he should have known was impossible.

“Damn it, sorry, I forgot.” Chris re-covered his hand. “Sit down or something?”

Catalin didn’t need any prompting. He sat cross-legged on the floor. “And you should see the look on your face,” he muttered. “You’re acting as if I’m about to collapse.”

“I never know that you aren’t going to,” Chris sighed, sitting down beside him. “You don’t look as gray as usual, though. Maybe you’re getting better.”

“It was more of a problem a few years ago,” Catalin said. “Not so much now. You just caught me off-guard.” He frowned as Chris pressed his discarded jacket against his hand. “Shouldn’t you go see Saphie about that?”

“For this?” he asked incredulously. But when Catalin narrowed his eyes, he gave in. “In a minute. I can’t disinfect it until it stops bleeding, anyway.” A pause. “I didn’t just make you worse, did I?”

“Please,” said Catalin with a roll of his eyes, “If the word ‘blood’ by itself was a problem, I might not have lived this long. Like I said, I would have been fine had I been ready for it.”

“So you used to be worse.”

He nodded. “Rakan went about helping the wrong way, of course. He thought if I really understood how the circulatory system worked, I’d be less afraid of it. No matter how many times I tried to tell him that, no, continually talking about it actually exacerbates the problem.”

Chris didn’t laugh, though – he only looked pensive. “You know,” he said, “you said before that we only talk about you, but I don’t think you’ve told me about him yet.” He cleared his throat. “I mean, you don’t have to, obviously. I’m just saying.”

Catalin shook his head. As if Chris ever ‘just said’ anything. “Rakan and I grew up together. When I was brought to the palace, he and his overdeveloped sense of morals decided that I needed someone to take care of me, and he’s been taking care of me ever since.”

“You call this ‘taking care’ of you?” Chris muttered.

“He does,” Catalin said. “Or this is as much as he can do for me, anyway. Carmine’s important to him.”

Chris’ mouth tightened. “I don’t think I even need to point out all the things wrong with your logic, there.”

“Not really, no.” He offered a rueful half-smile. “But loving his country and looking after me weren’t always mutually exclusive.”

“Except that’s the thing,” Chris said. “It should have been.”

Unsure of how to respond to that, Catalin only shrugged again. It wasn’t as if Chris wasn’t making any sense - Catalin had long acknowledged most of this, anyway. But being angry at Rakan Farrell was too tiring to bother with. “I’m not about to get picky. I wouldn’t have turned out very functional if not for him.”

Catalin hadn’t been expecting Chris to let it go that easily, but he seemed to be in a charitable mood. “I guess I have him to thank for your stunning interpersonal skills, then.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Are you familiar with that saying about stones and glass houses?”

“Hey, now,” Chris said. “I’m at least more personable than you. Though I guess we’re in the same boat. Aside from my Uncle Amos, I didn’t really… well, socialize.”

“Well, that’s not exactly your fault, either,” Catalin pointed out. “Everyone in your town thought you were a traitor, right?”

“Yes and no. A lot of people did, for sure, but… a few of them might have been as crazy as you.” He grinned. “But I wasn’t willing to see for myself. So I just ended up hiding in the house most of the time. And aside from Uncle Amos’ customers, no one really visited us at all, so that never changed.”

“Makes sense,” Catalin said with a nod. “Why you practically tried to kill me when I came to your house, that is.”

“That, too.” The smile dimmed a little. “But that was mostly because you’re Catalin Kasshen.”

He leaned against the wall. “Because of Celeste?”

“It really does sound stupid now, doesn’t it?”

“Completely,” he said without hesitation. “But there was no way you could have known otherwise at that point, so.”

“Yeah, but still,” Chris said. “It feels even stupider now…”

Hearing the preoccupied tones in Chris’ words, Catalin leaned closer and narrowed his eyes. “What are you sulking about?”

“H-Huh?” Chris snapped to attention. “What? Who said I was sulking about anything?”

“It’s written all over your face,” Catalin said with a dismissive wave of his hand. By unspoken rule, when something bothered him, he tried to avoid spilling his soul to Chris in excruciating detail - or at all, if humanly possible. But Catalin, with a blithe mental shrug, acknowledged his hypocrisy and pressed on. “Spit it out, then.”

“I… c’mon, Cat,” Chris pleaded. “It’s just a little paranoia on my part. Nothing that needs to be talked about.”

“If you’re being paranoid, then it’s even better that you tell me what about,” Catalin said. “I’m supposed to be the pessimistic one, if you’ll recall.”

“… okay, but… it’s just…” Chris inhaled deeply. “Okay, so, I tried not to have any hopes about being part of this cohesive group with any of you, what with how things usually go for me, but I think you’ve figured out by now that I like having you around, right? But I’m also well aware of the pattern of luck in my life - both our lives - so far, so I kind of…” He inhaled again to get the last few words out. “Keep thinking that you’re going to die a horrible violent death.”

Catalin only stared, wide-eyed. “I’m so glad that you always look on the bright side.”

“I told you!” Chris hung his head. “It’s paranoid!”

“No, that goes a bit beyond paranoid.” He let his head fall back against the wall. “That’s just about at the level of those old Myrrh legends in which everyone dies in battle except the new page boy, who by the way lives long enough to drink himself under a table and die.”

“Right?” Chris said glumly, his shoulders sinking. “I think this country conditions us to expect that kind of thing. That ironic tragedy sort of thing, I mean.”

“Not me,” Catalin murmured, half to the floor. “Life isn’t like those legends at all.”

Chris tilted his head to one side. “Hmm?”

The noble sighed, drawing his knees up to his chest. It was his turn to sound stupid, now. “It’s not just Myrrh… it’s Carmine, too. All those old stories about the honor of sacrifice, happiness is fleeting because life is impermanent, ‘happy are those who die by the sword’ and all that… they’ve always annoyed me. I don’t know. War might really be like that, for all I know. But I don’t think it is. At least… well. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t have any intention of becoming a martyr.”

Chris nodded, and slowly, the smile returned. “Neither do I.”

“Well, now that that’s settled…” Catalin twisted his expression into something wide-eyed and innocent. “Shall we pinky-swear?”

“Oh God, don’t do that!” The older boy threw his head back and laughed. “It’s disgusting, coming from you.”

“You deserved it,” he retorted. “Telling me something like that.”

“Yeah, well, if it’s all good with you...” Chris stood slowly. “Forget I said anything.” He uncovered his hand, hiding it from Catalin’s view in the process. “I’m going to go take care of this. We’ll continue our spar later?”

“If you think you can survive it.”

“Someone’s full of himself all of a sudden,” Chris snickered, stopping briefly in front of the door. “Life’s not a tragedy, huh? Coming from you, that sounds almost hopeful.”

“Hold your tongue,” Catalin said as he straightened himself. “Next thing I know, you’ll be accusing me of optimism.” He paused, then added, just as haughtily as earlier that day, “Traitor.”

Chris glanced over his shoulder and retorted, as if it were something equally disgusting, “Noble.” Then he left.

Shaking his head, Catalin let himself slide down the side of the wall, and spread across the polished floor on his back. While he and Chris were practicing, the arguing from the hallway and surrounding rooms had stopped. The basement was deceptively peaceful.

He didn’t know how long he lay there, enjoying the quiet, before someone bent over him.

“Cat?” Victor frowned at him. “What are you doing?”

Catalin rose to a sitting position and rolled his shoulders. “Taking a break,” he explained as he climbed to his feet. “Something wrong?”

“Oh… oh, nothing at all,” Victor said, scratching the back of his head. “I thought that you’d hurt yourself.”

Catalin almost got annoyed at that, but told himself it was a reasonable assumption. He’d hurt himself enough times since meeting Victor, after all. “Are they gone?” he asked, and gestured towards the hallway.

“Our visitors? Yes. They have been for a while now. I…” He looked sheepish. “Kicked them out.”

“… well,” Catalin said, not bothering to hide his surprise. “Wow.”

“I suppose it was about time I put my foot down, wasn’t it?” Victor laughed. He began to circle the room to pick up Chris and Catalin’s discarded weapons, and once his back was turned, he spoke again. “Cat, I-”

“I told you not to apologize for that again. If anything, I should…” He stopped there, arms tightly crossed. Anwar had ruined apologizing for him.

“… actually, I wasn’t going to.” When Victor turned around, he was still smiling, and he reached into an inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a thin, frayed-looking book. “I was going through some of my things and found this. I thought you might enjoy it.”

Hesitantly, Catalin took the book into his hands, examining it carefully. The front read, How the World Expands.

“It’s a series of essays written by Ryan Schuyler, a philosopher from Cadon the Second’s rule,” Victor explained. “This was the book he was executed for, actually. It’s been banned ever since.”

Catalin’s finger gently traced the spine. “How did you get something like this?”

The smile flickered for a moment. “This was Gwen’s favorite book.”

“… oh.” He thrust the book back towards Victor. “I couldn’t-”

“I was just remembering the other night,” Victor said, a small note of pride in his voice, “how Gwen always used to say she would corrupt you when you grew up. I thought I’d do the job for her.”

Slowly, Catalin folded his arms around the book. “I’ll read it,” he said. “But I’ll give it back to you afterwards.”

Victor nodded, with no intention of accepting it back. “Of course.”

***

As with wars, as with famine, and as with anything, time moves unceasingly forward.

Those first words on the page, thickly underlined in what must have been Gwendolyn Doyle’s black pen. That was as far as Catalin got before the quiet afternoon ended.

In hindsight, Catalin should have recognized the serenity for what it was: a precursor of another incoming tidal wave of complication.

He had barely curled up on his mattress to flip through the new book before someone knocked on his door. Not wanting to show off the book to the masses just yet, Catalin slid it securely into his pillowcase and stood up. “Come in.”

He was surprised when Kite was the one to stick his head in; Kite usually banged on the door like there was a fire. As he got a closer look at the redhead, Catalin noticed that he looked unusually subdued. “Hey, Kitty Cat.” He attempted a grin. “You busy?”

“Not particularly.” Catalin stepped over the mattress and towards the door. “Is something wrong?”

“Ah… well, Tal wants to talk to everyone, actually. ‘Bout somethin’ important. I was just coming to fetch you… we’re all meetin’ up in the common room.”

Kite had quite pointedly not said that nothing was wrong. Frowning, Catalin followed him to the common room, and before they walked in, Kite suddenly stepped in front of him. “Look, Cat… don’t blame her for any of this. Please?”

“What?” Catalin said. His frown deepened. “What’s this, all of a sudden? What would I blame her for?” He would have brought up the stones and glass houses again, if he thought Kite would get it. If Talia had made some kind of mistake, what call did he have to say anything? He’d made countless ones in the past two months alone.

Kite looked as if he wanted to say more, but he shook his head and stepped aside. Catalin moved into the room: the other Guardians, Amara, Victor, and Reiselle had already gathered. He sat between Chris and Saphie on the couch, and he exchanged a confused glance with the former. Kite moved to where Talia was standing, and planted himself next to her.

Ready to defend her from them. Catalin unconsciously folded his arms across his chest.

“I apologize for calling everyone here like this,” Victor began, glancing around, “but Talia has something she would like to discuss with all of you. And it’s very important that you all hear her out until the end. Agreed?”

Victor knew already, that much was clear. Catalin suddenly remembered overhearing a conversation he’d had with Talia the night of the flag-burning. They’d been talking about someone, hadn’t they?

“Tal,” Saphie said, halfway between concerned and nervous, “what’s wrong?”

Talia directed a close-lipped smile at Saphie, but addressed all of them. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you all this from the beginning, but I was under the mistaken impression that it was my business alone. I’ve come to know better.”

She paused. Then she looked down. “I was the cause of Carmine’s invasion of Myrrh. I’m responsible for all of us being here.”

“Don’t say it like that!” Kite barked, making them all jump. “That’s not what happened!”

“Isn’t it?” Talia forced herself to look up again, but she didn’t meet anyone’s eyes. “I am the Second Princess of Carmine, Aria Anwar. And as far as my father is concerned, I was killed by Myrrh sixteen years ago.”