Episode 205: Spence Talk (Corban)

It was an unusual day. It was shaping up to be one of the strangest in Corban’s life, and it wasn’t anywhere near over yet. Now that Aadya had given him luck magic – shared during an after-lunch meeting where Konrad had shared with the queen and king that Corban would be his replacement when he retired – he knew things.

It was like an instinct, and he didn’t always know how he knew them, but he knew them.

When the dragons raised an alarm, and security footage showed an unknown wiccan walking the palace grounds, luck told him Konrad was busy.

So he left the dungeon and made his way out to the garden, to greet the stranger. He had curly blonde hair, darker than Corban’s, pulled back at the nape of his neck, and he had that same intense and coiled way of walking that Konrad wore when he was tense.

Corban might die, just by greeting the guy. Not really, but wow.

“Welcome to Elesara,” he said, because luck told him the guy had never been here before. In fact, Corban wasn’t sure how he’d even found the place.

Luck told him he mattered, though.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’m looking for Spence Lavesque,” he added. He met Corban’s gaze with an intelligent one of his own.

Spence.

Corban almost laughed. He hadn’t expected it to be so easy to get the man into an interview room. “He’s been arrested,” he apologized. “You’ll need to visit him in a cell.”

He’d hoped to get some kind of surprise from the man, but he didn’t reveal any emotion. Instead he ducked his head. “A cell will be fine.”

Corban led him into the heart of the palace, down a side staircase rather than the dungeon’s main entry, and into the dungeon through a back way. He the less of the residence. Something in Corban’s luck warned him that the man was no ally. It might change.

Tonight’s negotiations would decide that.

“Who should I tell him wants to speak with him?” he asked.

“Cecil Royce. He’ll know me.”

He keyed the access code to Spence’s cell and left the man alone in the hall. “Someone wants to talk to you,” he told Spence, upside-down because Spence had apparently decided that exercise was the best way to pass the time.

Corban might have done the same, if he had to spend his wedding night in jail. Anything, for the distraction.

Spence collapsed from his handstand. “Do I get to go on a trip to another room?”

He wished. Instead of answering, Corban laughed. “His name is Cecil Royce…do you know him?”

“Yeah. I know him.” He put his shirt back on. “He’s wiccan. Let him in.”

Corban gave Spence a minute while he ducked into the hall to get Cecil. This was big, he could feel it. He’d turn up the sound in his office and watch everything. By dragon, he alerted Konrad in case anything else came up.

“He’ll see you,” Corban told Cecil.

The man didn’t relax. If anything, he got more tense. Corban leaned against the wall and nodded his head, that Cecil could go into the cell. “Everything’s still running,” he warned Spence. He did not lock the guy in. It felt wrong.

“What exactly do you expect me to do?” Spence joked, fake offended.

Corban raised his eyebrows. “Escape,” he joked back.

On second thought, maybe he should close the door. He didn’t know what would happen if Spence actually did decide to leave. He wouldn’t put it past Spence, either.

He ran the length of the hall, took the stairs three at a time, and landed in the swiveling office chair Konrad kept in front of the bank of cameras that watched all the cells. He switched on the sound to Spence’s cell and turned the volume to max.

“-doing in jail?” Cecil asked. He sat at the little interview table, back to the door. Spence sat opposite him, mimicking Konrad’s fake-relaxed posture he did when he wanted someone to talk.

Spence shrugged now. “Some pregnant woman thinks I’m on the cusp of starting a war and doesn’t want to deal with me until morning.”

Cecil rubbed his beard with his left hand. “Are you?”

“No,” Spence shrugged, “but I may have if I hadn’t been detained.” He leaned back, even more relaxed in appearance. Corban laughed.

For all his envy of Spence’s bond with Konrad, it was impossible for him not to admit how alike they were. In stature, frame, attitude, softness beneath the outer shell…

Corban was other from that, and it was going to cost him. He’d trained all his life for this job, and Spence walked in one day and decided he wanted it and that was it.

When Konrad looked for Talise bodyguards, he’d held a competition among the top contenders, to prove themselves. It was also an opportunity for general promotion; the person who protected Talise was going to be the same person who was close to her, who she trusted the way Aadya and Meldrick trusted Konrad.

And now Spence was just…here. Even this Cecil Royce guy looked for Spence, not for Corban.

He had a choice: He could be bitter and disappointed and other bad, or he could move on, find a way to make himself invaluable to Spence. Luck magic, and Konrad’s recent endorsement, would help.

“Why are you here?” Spence asked.

“I would like to deliver something. To this room, preferably. It would be easiest.” Cecil placed his hands open on the table. “And be allowed to leave without any questions asked.”

That.

Was a tall order.

Spence thought so too; he bit the tip of his pen – where the hell had he gotten a pen? Corban told the guards to search him! – and leaned back in his chair.

Corban bet he stole it from Cecil. Most people didn’t notice when Spence stole from them.

“Are you going to tell me what it is?” Spence asked. “Or is it a surprise.”

“It’s thirty six-year-old boys who will be dead if I can’t find a safe place for them.”

This man knew where Greg’s kids were.

Corban willed Spence to be very, very careful.

“Drop them off,” Spence said with a casual nod like he didn’t really care much. “I’m here all night.”

“You’ll let them live?”

“Yeah. We don’t kill kids, as a rule.”

Don’t goad him, Spence. Just play nice.

“Why were you eavesdropping?” Cecil demanded.

Corban had missed that, but it was obvious Spence and Cecil knew each other from somewhere else.

“I was curious,” Spence explained. He finally took the pen out of his mouth. “And Lil is someone I know’s mom.”

Cecil smiled. “She’s someone I know’s mom too. If I could get her out, would you give her sanctuary here?”

Now they were whipping out the big words, like sanctuary. This felt contracty. Poor Aadya, in the middle of labor. But…treaties waited for no man. Or woman. Or unborn child. He sent for her by dragon, with a message that it was urgent.

“Without question,” Spence said, without authority. “She will always be protected by this kingdom. You have two other people we care about, if you have her: Two boys. One is fourteen and one is six; Oscar and Philip.”

Oh now he was negotiating, also without authority.

It must be nice to be part of the family enough to know they’d forgive you if you messed up, to know it wouldn’t cost your job if you used the wrong words.

“Brothers?” Cecil guessed. “I believe I know them. One of them can’t be safely removed any time soon. The other…not today.”

Believed he knew them. But somehow he magically knew all about them.

“Eventually though?” Spence requested. “It’s not a price – I’m taking the thirty boys.”

“Eventually, if it becomes possible, yes,” Cecil promised.

“And you,” Spence offered. Konrad would have torn Corban’s head off for less than this, but Spence just pushed ahead like it was no big deal. “You’ll have sanctuary here.”

“And my husband?”

Was everyone in the whole universe gay?

Corban was, but he’d just found out he was Alandrial, and he had a theory about the Alandrial men and gayness, that made Meldrick a living breathing miracle. Think about it: Ched? Gay. Drey? Gay. Or at least bi. Acheron? Gay.
Somehow they managed to keep having kids anyway, and somehow they kept having gay kids. It was statistically unlikely.

Corban thought something had been done to the line. Out of spite, probably, but Titania was known for using wiccans to do her dirty work, and it was way too much of a coincidence that they kept having gay sons.

Not that Corban minded. He wouldn’t go so far as to call it a curse because he liked his life, and he loved Jace, and nothing would change that.

But really…what was Cecil’s excuse? Nobody cursed him generations ago.

“And your husband,” Spence promised.

Maybe Spence’s problem was that he didn’t know what the word authority meant. Maybe he didn’t understand that there was a hierarchy.

Or maybe Spence’s casual understanding of what the family would want…maybe that was the real reason he might get the job instead of Corban.

If so, that was strategically faulty. Corban knew the family pretty well. Not as well as Spence, but Spence didn’t know the military side of things at all. The candidate with the best overall knowledge was Corban. Spence was just closer to Konrad.

“I will do everything in my power to get the other two boys, possibly a handful of other fourteen-year-olds,” Cecil said after a silence. “The older boy you asked about is…a desired commodity. Moving him could only be done in the right circumstances.”

“We should make sure those happen soon,” Spence pushed.

Cecil let out a hiss of air. “How prepared are you for war here?”

“Expecting it.”

“Would your queen wage war over one boy?”

“I don’t make those kinds of decisions,” Spence said.

Wow, it turned out he did have a line he wouldn’t cross.

“She might kill me for this,” Spence added, “but it’s on camera.”

“You’re welcome to invite her to negotiate with us,” Cecil pushed back.

Aadya pushed on the buzzer to be let into the dungeon, so Corban missed the next part of the conversation, but he helped her into some kind of wrap-around dress made out of stretchy fabric and helped her secure the IV pole.

He walked with her down to the room and explained the situation, but he left out the parts where Spence was a presumptive ball of arrogance.

“I imagine she won’t,” Spence said, like a presumptive ball of arrogance, “But…” Corban heard Spence’s chair settle on the floor as Aadya entered the room. “I need a better imagination.”

“Hello,” Aadya said. She left the door open. Corban guessed she could, since she wasn’t going to get in trouble with herself if Spence got out.

By the time Corban made it back to the cameras, Aadya was saying, “Hundreds is not a barrier.”

“Thank you,” the man said. “And the boy? Where do you draw the line?”

“We will handle him,” Aadya promised.

“I understand his father may have made his way to you,” Cecil said, in a much more careful tone than he’d used when talking to Spence earlier. “I can guarantee both boys’ delivery if you can get me the father.”

Aadya straightened, Corban suspected as an attempt to hide the pain of a contraction, but Cecil wasn’t blind or stupid.

“Or,” Aadya said flatly, with an undercurrent of anger, “you can understand that I don’t trade people. I recover and protect them. My kingdom will never negatively engage in a life trade.”

Ha. Corban wondered if she was going to hide this from Greg. If not, Greg was probably going to negatively engage in a life trade whether she approved or not.

“I understand,” Cecil said, though he sounded tired and disappointed now. Not because Greg mattered to him, but because saving the two boys did.

“Corban will handle the children,” Aadya told Cecil. “I have an engagement this evening.”

“Is it always twins for you?” Cecil asked, nodding towards her belly.

“It has been for a long time, yes.” Aadya reached her hand across the table and touched Cecil’s where they lay spread open. “Emily has a home in this kingdom, already being prepared for her and her children.”

“I hope she appreciates it,” Cecil muttered.

Apparently Emily wasn’t the most grateful prisoner. Who knew?

People got ornery about the weirdest things. Spence, though, he made a well-behaved prisoner.

“As Spence said,” Aadya told him, “you and others you bring will be protected in this kingdom. We can also offer you our unique level of protection, in exchange for your loyalty.”

As Spence said.

That, right there, was why Spence was going to get Konrad’s job. Corban’s guess was right; he knew exactly what the family would want and could work without having to check with them every step of the way.

“In exchange,” Cecil offered, “my husband and I have insider secrets on the plans of our group.” He leaned toward her. “There is a boy I believe is capable of handling the leader, singlehanded if necessary. Getting him to you will be a priority.”

“Which boy?”

“He goes by Thayer.”

“I’ll look for him,” she promised. “There’s a family here I think he would fit well with – training, guidance.”

And direct supervision by a mind-reader, but she neglected to share that part.

“Anything else, before I deliver the children?” Cecil asked.

“One thing,” Aadya cringed openly this time, showing her pain because Cecil knew anyway. “Your wiccan magic is unique from others’. We may need your help with a project coming up.”

“You will have it,” Cecil said, with the ease of someone who didn’t expect to survive long enough to be held to that promise.

“May your evening be successful, then,” Aadya said. She stood and started her trek back down the dungeon hall, and Corban went into the room.

It was time to save some lives, and she’d put him in charge.

Cecil had gone to Spence, but Aadya had gone to Corban. Maybe there was hope for him after all.

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