Chapter 137 — "Approved"

They came down the pass on the fourth day, which was two days early, which Mira spent the entire descent being suspicious about.

"We’re early."

"We’re efficient."

"We’re early, and being early means the brief was wrong about more than the number, and I’d like to know what else it was wrong about before I sign anything."

"You always sign it."

"I sign it aggrieved," said Mira. "That’s different."

At the relay the devices came back on somewhere past the second ridge, all three at once, the way they always did — a small sound and then a small light and then four days of the world arriving at the same time.

Mira had eleven.

Eren had two.

Seraphina had none, which she had expected, and which she noted, and which she did not look at.

The debrief was ninety minutes and conducted by a man neither of them had seen before.

That was the first thing.

He didn’t give a rank. He gave a name — Sevrid — and then didn’t use it again, and asked questions in an order that suggested he’d read the file twice and disagreed with parts of it.

He asked about the fourth man for eleven minutes.

Not what happened to him. How he’d come round the shoulder of the rock, and from which side, and how long before anyone saw him.

"Who called it," he said.

"Sennick."

"How long before contact."

Seraphina thought about it.

"Six seconds. Maybe seven."

Sevrid wrote something.

He did not ask how.

Halven came at the end, almost as an afterthought, which she understood immediately was not an afterthought at all.

"You’ll be aware of the name."

"No."

"Good," said Sevrid, and told them.

Six years of moving money for people who preferred it moved quietly. Never touched. Not because he was careful.

Because he was loved.

Two orphan houses — he founded one. Standing grain arrangements with three border villages, no charge, no records, going back further than the money did. Every soldier posted within four days of him fed at his household at least once.

"So he’s good," said Seraphina.

"He’s beloved," said Sevrid. "It isn’t the same thing and it’s considerably harder to work with."

"You can’t go at him directly."

"Four attempts. All four failed at the approach. Not because he detected them — because other people did, and warned him, without being asked, because they like him." He closed the file. "Anyone within a hundred miles of that man would lie for him. Several have."

He looked at the three of them.

"You have four days," he said. "Come back with something."

They sat on the floor of the common room that evening with the file between them, because nobody had the energy for chairs.

"You can’t approach him," said Mira.

"No."

"You can’t put anyone near him. Everyone near him is his."

"No."

Seraphina lay flat on her back and looked at the ceiling for about ninety seconds.

Then said, to the ceiling: "Then we don’t go to him. We make him come to us."

"He protects people," she said, sitting up. "That’s not reputation, it’s in the accounts from before he had any money. It’s the actual man."

"Agreed."

"So we give him someone to protect."

Mira put down the file.

"Go on."

"A girl. Alone. Somewhere he’ll see it." She was talking faster now. "Not hurt — never hurt, the second anyone’s hurt he brings in people we can’t control. Harassed. Publicly. By someone with money and no manners, in front of enough witnesses that stepping in costs him nothing, and not stepping in costs him something."

"And when he steps in."

"He takes her into the household. That’s what he does. Every account. He doesn’t hand people off, he doesn’t pass them to a house — he keeps them." She looked up. "And then we’ve got someone inside a house nobody has ever got inside, and all she has to do is be sad, and grateful, and slightly bad at hiding what she’s overheard."

Nobody said anything for a moment.

"That’s good," said Mira.

"I know."

"That’s actually good."

"I know—"

"Who’s the girl."

Seraphina looked at Eren.

Eren did not look up from the file.

"No," he said.

"You haven’t heard the reasoning."

"I don’t need the reasoning."

"The reasoning is excellent—"

"There are three of us," said Eren, "and two are already women, and I have watched you assemble this in your head over the last forty seconds, and the answer is no."

"Mira can’t do it."

"Mira could do it beautifully—"

"Mira has to be outside," said Seraphina. "Mira decides when we stop. She can’t decide when we stop from inside a house she can’t leave."

"Then you—"

"I can’t be soft."

"You are the softest-looking person I have ever met in my life."

"That’s my face, that’s not — the moment I open my mouth—"

"That’s true," said Mira.

"THANK you—"

"That’s extremely true," said Mira. "You have never been sad and grateful for a single hour of your life. You’d be in that house nine minutes before you corrected somebody about something."

Eren set the file down, which meant he had started taking it seriously, which meant he was losing.

"Height."

"Manageable."

"I’m taller than both of you."

"You’re taller than Mira. You’re four fingers taller than me, and I have seen women taller than you at the lower market on a Tuesday. You are not remarkable, Eren. That’s the entire thing about you."

"Weight."

"You weigh nothing."

"That’s—"

"You’ve weighed nothing for four years. I’ve carried you."

"That was once, and it was a bad slope—"

"Build."

"Coats exist."

"Facial hair," said Eren, in the tone of a man producing a winning card.

Seraphina looked at his face.

Mira looked at his face.

The pause went on for some time.

"...There’s a shadow," said Eren.

"There is no shadow."

"There’s a suggestion of one—"

"Eren, I have known you four years and I have never once seen you shave. Not once. I have been in a tent with you for nineteen days—"

"That’s a private matter."

"THAT IS NOT A PRIVATE MATTER, THAT IS A LOGISTICAL ADVANTAGE—"

"I would like it noted that I find this humiliating."

"Noted."

"Formally noted—"

"Mira’s writing it down."

Mira, writing it down: "I’m writing it down."

"Fine," said Eren.

He said it in the manner of a strategic withdrawal rather than a defeat, and then immediately undermined himself by adding:

"So who’s harassing me."

"That’s the other role."

"Yes. Who."

"There has to be a man with money and no manners," said Seraphina. "Young. Minor noble. Rich enough that nobody wants to touch him and unpleasant enough that Halven has to."

"And that’s—"

"Me."

Eren looked at her.

"You’re going to be a prince."

"A lord’s son. Prince is—" She waved a hand. "Prince is faster to say. Yes."

"You," said Eren, "are going to be a young man of quality."

"Yes."

"With money."

"Yes."

"Chasing me through a market square."

"Yes—"

"Say more," said Eren, and put his chin in his hand.

They submitted it the following morning.

Four pages. Mira wrote it, because Mira wrote everything, and because Seraphina’s version had contained the phrase and then he takes her home, obviously three separate times.

Approval came back in under six hours.

That was the part that stopped her.

Not the approval. The six hours.

She’d sat down to write that plan lying on a floor at nine at night with her boots still on, and she had known — the whole time, the entire time, while she was saying it out loud to two people who were too tired to argue — that it was a silly plan. A theatrical plan. The kind of plan you’d find in a story about a market square.

She had submitted it half-expecting to be told no, and had been slightly looking forward to being told no, because being told no would have meant somebody up there was reading these properly.

The signature on the approval wasn’t Sevrid’s.

It wasn’t Renna’s either. It was a name she didn’t recognise, in a hand she didn’t recognise, and underneath it a single line authorising an operational budget.

They approved it.

I made that up lying on a floor with my boots on.

...I thought they’d be better than that.

She folded the paper and put it in her coat with the other thing that lived in her coat and did not think about it any further, because there was a budget now, and she had a great deal to do.

Mira read the budget line three times.

"That’s not a clothing allowance."

"It says clothing allowance."

"That’s a wardrobe, Seraphina. That’s four seasons of a wardrobe, that’s—"

"It has to be convincing."

"It has to be convincing, it doesn’t have to be inherited—"

"He has to look like a boy who’s never once been told no," said Seraphina, and something had come into her voice that Mira noted and elected not to remark on. "That’s the whole part. That’s the entire performance. He doesn’t threaten anyone, he doesn’t need to, he’s just been allowed his whole life and it shows in everything he’s wearing."

"And you’re going to need how many outfits to convey that."

Seraphina looked at the number on the page.

"All of them," she said.