Page 19 of The Winner's Curse
“Maybe.”
“What have you learned about the general’s movements?”
“Nothing unusual. Training sessions outside the city walls. He’s rarely home, yet never far from it.”
“And the girl?”
“She pays social calls. She gossips.” Arin decided not to say that there had been something too shrewd in her comments about Lady Faris’s baby. Nor did he mention the complete lack of surprise on her face when he had spoken in Valorian.
“Does she talk about her father?”
Did that conversation in the stables count? Not to Cheat, it wouldn’t. Arin shook his head. “She never discusses the military.”
“Doesn’t mean she won’t. If the general has a plan, he might include her. Everyone knows he wants her to enlist.”
Arin hadn’t meant to say it. Yet it slipped out and sounded like an accusation: “You should have told me she was a musician.”
Cheat squinted at him. “It wasn’t relevant.”
“Relevant enough for you to try to sell me as a singer.”
“Thank the god of chance I did. She wasn’t biting at the opportunity for a blacksmith. Do you know how long I’ve tried to place someone at that house? You nearly wrecked everything with your childish defiance. I warned you what it would be like in the pit. All I did was tell you to sing for the crowd. All you had to do was obey.”
“You’re not my master.”
Cheat ruffled Arin’s short hair. “Course not. Look, lad, the next time I set you up as a spy in a high-ranking Valorian’s household, I promise to tell you what the lady likes best.”
Arin rolled his eyes. He moved to leave.
“Hey,” said Cheat, “what about my weapons?”
“I’m working on it.”
* * *
Out of the corner of her eye, Kestrel saw Arin walking into the jeweler’s in time to hear the old man say, “I’m sorry, my lady, but these are false. Just pretty bits of glass.”
Kestrel sagged in relief.
“No need to be too disappointed,” the jeweler told her. “You can tell your friends they’re topaz. None will be the wiser.”
Later, in the carriage, she said to Arin, “I want you to tell me the truth.”
His face seemed to pale. “The truth?”
She blinked. Then she understood the miscommunication. She couldn’t help a twinge of offense: Arin believed her the sort of mistress who would pry into a slave’s personal life, to want details about a meeting with a friend. She studied him, and his hand made an odd gesture, lifting toward his temple to brush away something invisible. “I’m not trying to invade your privacy,” she said. “Your secrets are your own.”
“So you want me to inform on other slaves,” he said flatly. “To report their misdeeds to you. To say if someone steals bread from the larder, or an orange from the grove. I won’t do it.”
“That isn’t what I am asking.” Kestrel weighed her words before speaking again. “You were right. People tell me what they think I want to hear. What I hope is that you will feel free to be honest with me, as you were in Jess’s parlor. I’d like to know how you truly see things.”
Slowly, he said, “That would be valuable to you. My honesty.”
“Yes.”
There was a silence. Then he said, “I might feel more free to speak if I were more free to roam.”
Kestrel heard the bargain in his words. “I can arrange that.”
