“Look at me, grandfather,” Kip snapped. “I am Guile. Body, blood, and will. Deny it.” If you dare, his attitude added.
The very air seemed to vibrate with the tension as the men locked gazes. No one said a word. Even Kip’s dagger of a sentence wasn’t a boy’s complaint: he hadn’t said, ‘I’m a Guile.’ He’d said, ‘I am Guile,’ as if he summed up everything that it was to be part of that family. As if he were the culmination of it, which was true in some ways, Karris supposed. He was the only Guile heir.
The only heir they knew about. There was still a Guile bastard out there they didn’t know existed. Must never know. Her stomach knotted up.
The Blackguards standing outside guarding the room looked uncertain. Blackguards never look uncertain.
The air changed. Karris couldn’t tell how she knew, but she knew that Andross had been convinced. Now he was holding the moment purely to buy time—or perhaps for his own perverse amusement, but Karris thought the former. He hadn’t planned for Kip to return. He was turning cards in his brain, three rounds ahead of everyone else.
Finally, a hint of a smile touched his lips. He made a slight gesture of acquiescence. “Please share this news with us, grandson.”
“What did Grinwoody tell you happened? On the ship, I mean? After all, you were wearing those spectacles, and it was dark.”
What was Kip doing? Why did he care what Grinwoody had said? Why offer the cover to Andross Guile, his enemy? Karris’s stomach sank. Kip was offering an out to the old spider, offering to help him cover up. Cover up what?
There would be no cover-up necessary if Andross Guile hadn’t done something wrong. That meant he was at fault for Gavin’s disappearance. Orholam damn him.
“I don’t think you telling us the truth should require any rehearsals of what others have said,” Andross Guile said. Not accepting the olive branch.
Kip shrugged. “Grinwoody and I were quarreling. I’d come along with my father, whom you’d summoned to meet with you. Grinwoody didn’t want me to be there. I’m sure he believed you didn’t want me to be there. He—a slave—laid hands on me, so I pushed him down the steps. Uncouth of me, and I apologize for it, grandfather. I shouldn’t manhandle your property so. With the strains of the battle that day … regardless, he ran back toward us, and…”
Kip hesitated. Grinwoody’s eyes looked dead. The slave couldn’t even speak for himself. He knew that when millstones like the Guiles came together, even the most trusted slave might be sacrificed without a thought, ground to meal in an instant if Andross thought that he might gain something by sacrificing him.
“And he stumbled into me. I stumbled into my father, there was some scrambling as we all tried to save him from falling overboard. But he fell in the water. I jumped after him. I know Grinwoody doesn’t swim, so though he offered, it would have been pointless. It was my father’s own fault that he’d dismissed his Blackguards, insisted on them going to bed. Otherwise he might have been saved easily. Instead, I pulled my father out of the water, and tried to light a signal. But instead of being saved by you, we were pulled out by Captain Gunner. He said some prayers to the sea, and threw me back in afterward.”
“But you saw that my son was alive?” Andross was intense, seemingly honestly disbelieving.
“Yes, sir. I’m certain of it. I’m surprised you haven’t gotten ransom demands. Gunner recognized the Prism, sir.”
The White nodded. “Gavin has mentioned this pirate before. Said he’s quite the character, but not quite sailing with a full crew, mentally, as it were.”
“Grinwoody,” Andross barked, turning around in his seat. “I thought you said the Prism was unconscious when he plunged into the waves.”
Grinwoody fell prostrate. “My lord, mercy. I—I thought he’d hit his head on the way down. I believed he had already sank before the boy went after him. My lord master, I am so sorry. I have shamed myself and you.”
A silence. Cards turning. “No,” Andross said. “The shame is mine. I should never have given up on my son. In this year when I have lost so much…” He trailed off as if overwhelmed with emotion. Then he put his hand to his heart and made the sign of the four and the three. “Orholam be praised.” He actually sounded sincere. Perhaps the old man really did love Gavin in his own way.
The words were echoed around the table.
Andross continued before anyone could interject. “I should never have taken a slave’s word on something so important. I’ll punish him appropriately later. Kip! You have saved my son twice, and brought me news of his life. You warm an old man’s heart. I shall have to reward you properly.”