As he spoke, the man’s face blanched and his whole body slackened.
Commander Ironfist gave the man a friendly pounding on his shoulder—which nearly crushed him—and stepped back toward Gavin.
“Always running off when I need you,” Gavin said.
Commander Ironfist grunted.
Kip couldn’t help himself. “I think he might have just saved your—” He saw the look on Gavin’s face belatedly. Gavin knew. “Oh. Um. Never mind.” Clever Kip.
But Gavin was back to work already. “I need ropes.” He held a hand up over his head and a bar of yellow luxin formed in his hand and snapped out in both directions, until it was three times the height of a man. He handed it to one of the stunned workers. “You and you, get this in position, I’ll need you to lever the wagon off the wall.”
The man bobbed his head. He and the other man started jamming the pole as deep between the wall and wagon as they could.
Gavin walked as far around the wagon as he could, sending out thin jets of luxin in a number of places under the axles. “Now,” he told the men with the lever.
They strained and moved the wagon less than a hand’s breadth. After a three count, they relaxed and set their shoulders to try again.
“Not necessary,” Gavin said. “You gave me enough already. Well done.” And indeed, there was luxin even behind the wagon, encasing the whole in a shimmering web of various colors, mostly greens and yellows.
Gavin rolled his shoulders, braced himself, pointed at the arching luxin-and-stone of the gate, and shot out a stream of blue and yellow. In moments, it congealed into a pulley. He took coils of rope from a nearby farmer and shot out another bolt, anchoring one end of the rope to the ceiling. Then he threaded the rest of the rope through the pulley. He pulled some slack into the rope between the fixed pulley and the attached end and drafted a free-rolling pulley onto that, which he then fixed to the web of luxin around the wagon. He beckoned the farmer, apparently the wagon’s owner, and tossed him the rest of the rope. “It’ll still take all of you helping,” he said.
Kip swallowed. “Please tell me he isn’t designing those off the top of his head,” he said to Commander Ironfist, who was silently watching the crowd.
“He’s not. You’d be surprised how often wagons break down when your army is pursuing another army across half the Seven Satrapies. I’ve seen him lift heavier loads by himself. Albeit with lots more pulleys.”
Which meant the real question was why Gavin didn’t just do this himself. He could draft luxin better than any hemp rope. He could draft another four pulleys and make the burden so light he could lift the wagon himself. But as soon as Kip asked himself, he knew. Gavin was building rapport with the townsfolk. If he marched in and did it all himself, they’d be awed, but they’d not be a part of it. This way, he was simply enabling them to help themselves. His power might still be awesome, but it was power in service of them.
The men heaved on the lines, and Gavin called some men to him. As the wagon lifted off the ground it swung away from the wall, and Gavin and a few others braced it so it didn’t swing wildly and hurt anyone. Finally they stabilized the swinging, and Gavin shouted, “Okay, hold it there!” Then he slid under the wagon, scooting on his back under the broken back axle.
That was no light wagon, and the men were straining to hold the load—these men of a city Gavin’s army had nearly obliterated sixteen years ago. And yet Commander Ironfist didn’t seem perturbed.
“Aren’t you worried they’ll drop it on purpose?” Kip whispered.
“No.”
Kip was. But Gavin appeared unafraid. He grabbed the ends of the broken axle and brought them together as close as he could. It was no use, they were twisted and bent, but Gavin brought them as close as he could and then bound them by degrees with yellow. The wagon wheel followed in short order. He repaired what he could, and replaced what he couldn’t.
He scooted out and gestured. The men lowered the wagon and it settled on the road, easily taking the weight. A shout of triumph went up from those who’d been helping. Gavin clapped the farmer on the shoulder. “Those’ll be good for about three days, then you’ll need to get real repairs, but it’ll hold you until then.”
“Thank you, sir, thank you ever so much. I thought they were going to lynch me for sure. A day’s lost wages for all these men. You’ve saved me, sir.”
Gavin smiled and said, “You’re welcome. Now get those horses hitched up.”
Only as he saw the smiles did Kip understand fully what Gavin had done. With ten minutes of effort and a little subtlety, he had turned an annoyance into an opportunity to win over not just the men he’d helped, but all those to whom they would repeat the story. The incongruity of the Prism himself joining in the starkly physical labor of lifting and moving and stabilizing the wagon, heedless of soiling his expensive white clothing, joining them muscle to muscle, communicated something to these men. A ruler who would sweat with them was a ruler who might understand men who won their bread by the sweat of their brow. That man was easier to trust than some dandy in silks who might be all kinds of noble-smart but didn’t know the real world.
“It’s why you hardly ever hear anyone call him Emperor Guile,” Ironfist said quietly, reading Kip’s mind. “At heart, he’s not an emperor; he’s a promachos. It’s not always the best way to fight, but it’s his only way. It’s why men will die for him.”
“Why didn’t he stay promachos, then?” Kip asked, wondering if it was a dangerous question.
“I could list a dozen reasons. Truth is, I don’t know.”
With a gesture—completely for show, of course—Gavin released all the luxin and it dissolved, shimmering, until it was nothing but dust. He nodded to his fellow laborers and then gestured Kip to follow.
As Kip joined Gavin and walked through the gate, Gavin said, “You have that green luxin ball for me yet?”
“What?” Kip protested. “I can’t believe—I didn’t even have a chance—”
Oh. He got me again. Gavin was grinning.
“Look, Kip,” Kip said, “gullible’s written on the sky!” He gazed up as if clueless. “Huh? Where?”
Gavin laughed, and if Kip didn’t misjudge, he thought even Ironfist was smiling. “A little slow at the starting line, but watch out when he picks up speed. Reminds me of someone.” His smirk told Kip the someone was himself. He put his hand on Kip’s shoulder.
Kip felt a thousand things he couldn’t identify at that touch. That touch claimed him: That’s my boy, it said. His mother had said those words a few times—always after Kip messed up. She’d never said them with pride.
Gavin Guile wasn’t just a great man. He was a good man. Kip would do anything for him.
Chapter 63
“General, I need to speak with you.” Liv Danavis had found her father on the roof of the Travertine Palace, checklists and reports spread all over a table. It wasn’t yet dawn, and he was bundled against the chill of the morning. He was standing, ignoring his work for the moment, his butt against the edge of his table, looking toward the east.
“ ‘General’ this morning, not ‘father.’ I must be in trouble,” he said. The corners of his mouth twitched. “Come here.”