Raven's Shadow (Raven #1)(98)

Phoran laughed. "If anyone should have hope that reformation is possible, it should be me. Get me a list of names and I'll come up with something."

"Military would work for most of them," said Tier. "Bloodless dueling seems to be a pastime around here - and there are a number of fine swordsmen in the bunch."

Phoran shook his head. "I don't know where I'd put them. The city guards are political appointments through the merchant guilds. The palace guards are mostly inherited positions - and one of the Raptors is the captain of the guards. Neither troop is one a nobleman would willingly join."

"You're a Sept yourself, aren't you?" asked Tier.

"Yes, Sept of Taela and of Hawkshold - but Hawkshold is a meaningless title. It's been part of Taela for several hundred years. My lands are cared for by the palace guard, the city guard, and, if those won't do, I can call upon the Septs to create an imperial army."

"If the council leader were to countermand one of your orders to the palace guard, who would they obey?" asked Tier.

Phoran didn't answer, because the answer was obvious.

"Gerant's men will obey him, and he'll obey you," said Tier, his question answered by Phoran's silence. "But his Sept is in a border area. He cannot stay in Taela for long without risking disaster to his own lands."

"You're saying that if I make up a troop of the Passerines they will obey me rather than the Raptors?"

Tier smiled a little grimly. "The Raptors provide the Passerines with drink, sex, and a place to lurk about and pretend to be dangerous. They are sent out periodically to destroy a tavern or rape and pillage or maim. There are sixty of them and I've seen five or six already that I wouldn't want at my back - but there are some good men. If you make them feel like men, not boys, they will follow you to hell and back."

Phoran was flattered, but he knew what he was. "They won't follow me, Tier. A drunkard and a stupid fop."

"You may be right," agreed Tier readily. "But that's not who you are, Phoran. It is what you once allowed yourself to become. But you do not smell of alcohol tonight, and there's not a stupid man alive who ever got the best of the Council of Septs. Be honest with them, Phoran; they know what you have done. Lead and they will follow, my emperor. Just as Gerant and I follow."

Phoran swallowed hard. "Get me a list of the men you think could work."

"I'll do that," agreed Tier. "Let me have some more time with them first, maybe a couple of weeks. Then I'll have a better idea who is suitable and who is not." He hummed a haunting descant to go with the song he played, and then suddenly he smiled. "I have one for you already. There's a young man named Collarn. Do you know him?"

Phoran shook his head.

"He is a musician, but one with more technical ability than talent. What he is good with are instruments and their care. And the stranger the instrument, the better he likes it." Tier silenced his strings. "Am I mistaken in assuming that this labyrinth of yours might have a musical instrument or two?"

Phoran laughed and held up a hand. "I'll find out."

After a moment, Tier said, "If the Raptors are playing games with the merchant guilds as you think, you might go to them if you need more support. It seems to me that a group who's being blackmailed, like the Weavers' Guild is, wouldn't be unhappy at removing their blackmailer's ability to hurt them."

Phoran smiled back, "Likely not."

He closed his eyes and listened to the music, wondering when he'd ever been this content before. This was the feeling he'd been looking for since his uncle died. He had a larger purpose, if he could hold on to the gains he'd made today. But there was more, too: for the first time in his life he felt like an adult. He smiled to himself - Tier was right, it was a powerful feeling.

Chapter 14

Tier staked out a table on the edge of the Eyrie where he could observe the Passerines. Myrceria sat with him as she usually did, never giving the appearance of being bored. He wondered at her attentions, though he said nothing to her. She was in charge of the running of the Eyrie: the servants, whores, and cooks all looked to her for guidance. From little things the Passerines let drop, she was a great favorite of several of the Raptors and a few of the older Passerines. Even so, none of them approached her while she was with him, and, if he was out of his cell, she was with him.

She was not the only one who attended him, though. Wherever he went there were always a few Passerines who came to gossip and quiz him about his life as a Traveler. Since Tier had never so much as seen a Traveler clan, he told them stories of being a soldier instead - which they seemed perfectly happy with.

All the while he watched them. Sorting the salvageable from the worthless in a process the Sept of Gerant had called "sieving the ferrets." The Sept would gather all of the new recruits together and start them training with two or three veterans. Then he'd send in a man just to observe - usually Gerant himself, though Tier had done that duty more than once.

At the end of several weeks, the observer would pick out the troublemakers, the cowards, and the men just not physically cut out for warfare and send them on their way with a bit of silver for their trouble.

Tier found that sorting the boys of the Silent Path was a bit more difficult because the Path encouraged just the kind of behavior he was looking to weed out. He'd found five or six that he'd not have in any of his fighting troops, and ten more that he'd have been able to whip into shape eventually - but he was going to turn these boys over to Phoran, not an experienced military leader.