Aoi did not shout.
That would have been easier.
She listened while I described the docket, then asked, “Have you opened it?”
“No.”
“Good.”
I sat beside the bed.
“Orra will.”
“I know.”
“We do not yet know why he is being recalled.”
“I know that too.”
Her hands rested flat on the blanket.
She was making them do that.
I recognized the effort.
After a moment, she said, “I want to be there.”
“Halwen--”
“Can bring a chair.”
I looked toward the physician.
Halwen stood in the doorway holding a cup.
“Apparently,” she said, “I have been assigned logistics.”
Orra cut the seal at dawn.
Hadran attended with Tavra. Lady Veyr came in a riding coat, having postponed her departure with considerable displeasure.
Berden stood beside the window.
He had shaved.
The result made him look younger and no less tired.
Orra read the order aloud.
It did not accuse him of murder.
It did not accuse him of desertion.
It recalled him for examination concerning unauthorized retention and transmission of restricted deployment material.
Aoi looked at me.
I kept listening.
The order directed that he be returned to the capital under military escort. It described him as a witness required for an internal inquiry.
Witness.
Not prisoner.
But there was a second clause.
If he resisted transfer, escorting officers could restrain him under ordinary service law.
Hadran folded his arms.
“It’s valid.”
“Yes,” Orra said.
The answer disappointed everyone except him.
“When do you leave?” she asked.
“My returning wounded transport departs tomorrow morning. Tavra’s sending two wagons west for supplies. He goes with them.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Fit to travel?”
Hadran looked at Berden.
“He walked patrol yesterday.”
Aoi spoke.
“What happens when he gets there?”
“The examining office receives him.”
“Which office?”
Hadran checked.
Corvane’s administrative seal appeared beneath the destination.
“The ministry handling Hero deployments.”
Aoi leaned back.
A small movement.
I felt the temperature of the room change around it.
Hadran noticed.
He was not blind.
He was also not prepared to discard an order because several strangers disliked its destination.
“What is the objection?” he asked.
I said, “The office requiring his testimony may be implicated in what he intends to testify about.”
Tavra looked up from the paper.
“Implicated by whom?”
“By evidence not yet entered into a formal record.”
“Then enter it.”
I turned toward her.
She shrugged with her uninjured shoulder.
“That is generally the advantage of records.”
The obvious plan was to keep Berden inside the watch.
It was also the worst one.
Orra could refuse an order she knew to be unlawful.
This order was not obviously unlawful.
Hadran could delay it for military necessity.
He could not invent that necessity without accepting responsibility for doing so.
Lady Veyr could shelter a civilian guest.
Berden was still a soldier.
I could make the affair inconvenient.
That did not make him safe.
We met again in the storehouse after Hadran left.
Aoi sat on an empty barrel.
She disliked the arrangement enough that she declined to acknowledge it.
“We hide him,” she said.
Orra shook her head.
“They count the garrison.”
“He deserts.”
Berden spoke.
“No.”
Aoi looked at him.
“If I run,” he said, “the documents become something a deserter stole while escaping discipline.”
“They’ll call them that anyway.”
“Maybe.”
“Then why help them?”
He looked toward the door.
“Because I have spent enough time leaving other people to answer for what I did.”
The sentence stopped her.
He rubbed his jaw.
“I’ll testify.”
“Then they take you.”
“Yes.”
“You think that makes it better?”
“No.”
Aoi stood too quickly.
Pain took the strength from her face.
I moved.
She raised a hand.
I stopped.
After a moment, she sat again.
“I am not watching it happen twice,” she said.
No one answered immediately.
Then Pell, who had been standing beside the sacks with a writing board, cleared his throat.
Tavra had given him a copy of the transfer authority.
He held it up.
“It says direct movement unless entered through a district examination point.”
Everyone looked at him.
He swallowed.
“There’s a routing provision. For witnesses whose evidence concerns an officer above the escort commander’s grade.”
“Stonecross,” Orra said.
Pell nodded.
I took the page.
There it was.
Not a loophole granting freedom.
A procedure placing another office between Berden and the people recalling him.
I read the conditions.
Independent certification.
A recorded allegation.
A qualified officer willing to accept the delay.
Hadran would dislike it.
That did not mean he would refuse.
Aoi looked at the page in my hand.
“Can we use it?”
“Possibly.”
“You’re guessing.”
“Yes.”
“Then go ask.”
Hadran was helping unload the last wounded man when I found him.
I waited.
He saw me waiting.
“You’ve found something.”
“A route.”
“To what?”
“The district examiner at Stonecross.”
He shut his eyes briefly.
“Of course.”
“You know the provision.”
“Yes.”
“Then--”
“I also know what happens when every frightened soldier learns he can delay a recall by accusing the officer who issued it.”
“A hearing.”
“Sometimes. Sometimes six weeks of transport and correspondence while the man who needed his evidence retires, dies, or goes somewhere else.”
He handed a blanket to an orderly.
“This war does not stop because you find the administration disagreeable.”
“Neither does evidence become safer because the administration is busy.”
He looked at me.
“You talk as though I am eager to lose this man.”
“No. I think you are eager to finish one responsibility before accepting another.”
It was an accurate read.
I saw it land.
Then I wished I had delivered it less like an accusation.
Hadran’s face closed.
“Be careful.”
“I am trying to be.”
“Try more successfully.”
He began walking toward the tower.
I followed.
“You can send him to the capital under your authority,” I said. “Or forward him through Stonecross under the same authority, with an allegation attached.”
“An allegation I must certify as substantial.”
“Yes.”
“Based on what?”
“A changed route. A relief party that appears never to have existed. A service witness who reported the discrepancy and was reassigned.”
“That is not proof of an attempt to kill a Hero.”
“No.”
He stopped.
I continued.
“It is sufficient to require the original register before dismissing the possibility.”
He looked toward the infirmary.
“Your companion.”
“Aoi.”
“Does she intend to accuse the King?”
“She intends to find Kaito.”
“And you?”
I thought about the office seal.
The empty title on my status.
The extraordinary ease with which a convincing sentence could become more certain in my head than the evidence deserved.
“I intend,” I said, “to keep the question from being settled before she reaches the place where an answer may exist.”
Hadran studied me.
Then he held out his hand.
“Bring me the documents.”