Tethered (6 page)

That neatness wasn’t what Yasmeen had expected of a man who’d leased a farm from the natives in the American interior, though she knew her expectations might have been wrong. The interior was one of the few places Yasmeen hadn’t been. Only chartered airships could fly over the native territories, and only along established routes that were strictly enforced by the trade confederacies—which deployed too many mechanical air-walkers to make the attempt to fly off-route worth the risk. She’d never seen an airship consumed by a clockwork swarm, only heard secondhand rumors and tales, but she didn’t intend to test the truth of them with her lady.

Bilson shared tales from the interior, too—and Yasmeen couldn’t decide whether they were true, or whether he might have heard them from someone else—but there was no doubt that he possessed an engaging way of telling them, and a robust laugh that was infectious.

She could see why Zenobia had feelings for him. Under other circumstances, Yasmeen would have quickly warmed to him, too. Perhaps it was because of his familiarity and long history with Archimedes, but he fit quite naturally into the spot across the table, seemed completely at ease. Some men never looked comfortable lounging on rugs and cushions during a meal, as if a simple pillow was a shocking decadence—and perhaps it was. The cushions seemed to invite intimacy, and Yasmeen could not count the number of times she and Archimedes had eaten together, all but entwined, progressing from dessert to lovemaking with barely a change in position. They maintained a small distance when they dined with passengers—or old friends—but that space between them was for their guest’s comfort rather than their own. Yasmeen suspected, however, that Bilson would have appeared just as relaxed if she and Archimedes had been stroking each other in front of him.

And she saw why Zenobia worried now: despite the surface similarities, Bilson wasn’t like Archimedes at all.

That sort of immediate ease simply wasn’t natural. Even Archimedes watched new acquaintances for cues, soliciting their opinions and weighing their responses; he only truly relaxed after taking their measure. For a man of Bilson’s experience, it would be the height of stupidity not to do the same,
particularly in the company of a mercenary with Yasmeen’s reputation. Yet he didn’t. As a result, his easy manner seemed to be something that he deliberately put on.

But why? Perhaps only to heighten that sense of friendly intimacy, to remind Archimedes of their long familiarity before asking for his help. Perhaps to avoid any awkwardness, given the way he abandoned his friend. Perhaps he was the sort of man whose pride wouldn’t allow him to show that he was the least bit concerned about Yasmeen’s reactions, no matter how dangerous offending her might be.

Whatever the reason, his manner confirmed Archimedes’ earlier claim: his friend always had a game in play—even if that game was nothing more than maintaining a certain attitude.

Yasmeen hoped that was the only one he intended to play tonight. If it was, she’d be willing to forgive him much, because his presence offered her a glimpse of Archimedes she’d never seen before. Except for Zenobia, she’d never met anyone who’d known him so well—and she was far less interested in the native interior than she was in her husband.

As the cabin girls removed the lamb course and set out the plates of cheese and fruit, Yasmeen took advantage of the pause in conversation. She refilled Bilson’s wine, subtly forcing his attention toward her with his thank-you.

“My pleasure, Mr. Bilson. It isn’t often that we have an opportunity to entertain friends—we are usually en route to some abandoned city or other.”

Her smile must have been as engaging as she’d hoped. With a laughing glance at Archimedes, Bilson said, “I recall months where we never saw the inside of an alehouse, let alone entertainment of any sort.”

“So you often lamented.” Wineglass in hand, Archimedes sank deeper into the pillows, resting his thigh lightly against hers. “I always had a smashing time.”

Relishing every hardship, no doubt. What had driven Bilson to go along with him? “With such adventures in the New World, Mr. Bilson, I imagine that you haven’t missed salvaging?”

“And the zombies?” He laughed. “Not at all.”

Archimedes would have missed them—or rather, the danger
and the excitement they offered him. Apparently, Bilson hadn’t experienced the same thrill.

“I do wish I’d seen that da Vinci sketch he’d found, though.” Bilson exhaled on a low whistle, as if in astonishment that Archimedes had ever come across such an artifact. “I’m not sure what’s more impressive—what that sketch is or what it was worth.”

“What it is,” Archimedes answered.

His response drew a chuckle from Bilson, and he looked to Yasmeen again. “That’s why I don’t miss it much. Salvaging was always a puzzle to him: finding a clue in some old letter, searching through journals, trying to figure out where everyone left their valuables. Not that I didn’t feel that same thrill when we found something—and not that I didn’t appreciate the money. But I’d have been just as happy getting in and out, and calling the job done.”

“That’s also why he’s never been popular with the ladies,” Archimedes said.

Yasmeen grinned. Bilson laughed and turned to her, as if looking for an ally now that Archimedes had begun firing. She would be glad to act as one, as long as his return fire told her more about Archimedes.

To her pleasure, Bilson’s first volley did. “Ladies? Let me tell you this. The first year at university, there wasn’t a man less likely to speak to a woman than him. Always dressed in black and buckled up to his chin, and he never took a step out of line. You couldn’t get more than a word or two out of him—and that only if he ever glanced up from a book long enough to look at you.”

Though Yasmeen hadn’t expected that, she also wasn’t surprised. Archimedes had been known as Wolfram Gunther-Baptiste then—and Yasmeen had known another Gunther-Baptiste, once.

She held Archimedes’ gaze. There wasn’t as much amusement there now, but an emotion flat and hard. “That’s how your father expected you to behave?”

When he nodded, Bilson grimaced. “I forgot you know about that bastard well enough, Captain.”

Yasmeen did; she’d killed Emmerich Gunther-Baptiste
after he’d tried to roast her alive. Years later, Archimedes and his sister had thanked her for it.

“We assumed he was one of those Separatist revivalists that were cropping up in the northern principalities,” Bilson said. “And though all of the first-year students were quartered together in the same hall, we paid him no mind. A handful of us would often gather in the great room and confer upon ways of getting into trouble—but not him. He was always in the corner, studying the lives of dead men.”

“The dead were more interesting than anything you were up to.” Archimedes turned to Yasmeen. “It was all bluster. They’d formed a brotherhood—”

“
La Confrérie de la Vérité
,” Bilson supplied, saluting Yasmeen with his wineglass and a wink.

“And it was even more ridiculous than it sounds. They hoped to impress everyone in Johannesland with their anonymous ramblings printed on handbills, but they only impressed themselves.”

“We were quite the radicals.”

“You were all balloons filled with hot air, with no course in mind and no rudder. You weren’t even half the radical that Yasmeen is, and she doesn’t put any effort into it.” At her narrowed look, he lifted her hand, kissed her fingers. “You’re a complete anarchist, my captain. Admit it.”

“I won’t, because it’s not true.”

“Ah, yes—that one exception.” He widened his eyes a bit, laughing at her. “Anarchy has no place aboard your lady.”

“Or any airship,” she agreed. “On the ground, however, it seems a better option than the governments and corruption that most people suffer under now.”

“So you are not a
complete
anarchist.”

She gave him the sharp edge of her smile. The answering curve of his mouth kindled an immediate need to move closer, to slip into his arms and taste the heat of his lips. God, but she couldn’t think properly when he looked at her like that.

Sipping wine to soothe that familiar burn, she turned to Bilson. Perhaps he hadn’t been radical, but why had Archimedes dismissed those ramblings so quickly? “Now I’m curious as to what you wrote in those handbills.”

“Only the truth,” he replied solemnly, before the humor returned to his voice. “No, Archimedes had it pegged. We didn’t lack for topics, not with the Liberé war and the native disputes in full force, but we only said what everyone else was thinking—though written in a manner that we thought profound and rebellious.”

Archimedes looked heavenward. “Show me a boy in first-year university who
doesn’t
think he’s both profound and rebellious.”

Bilson ignored him, rocking forward slightly, gaze fixed on Yasmeen. “But one was different. The high magistrate had been exposed for keeping a mistress—which was nothing, except that she was bound to him under an indentured contract. There had been a general outcry, but nothing came of it. The magistrate made apologetic speeches and yet managed to justify his behavior, and soon enough, no one was speaking of it…except some of those justifications began to spread, repeated by other officials, all but overturning the protections in the Laws of Indenture.”

“And somehow, it was all for the indentured’s moral good,” Archimedes said dryly.

Bilson shook his head. “It was an insult to our people. The principalities of Johannesland had been built on the backs of the indentured, and then united under the laws protecting them. So we—
La Confrérie de la Vérité
—met in the great room, wondering how to expose the hypocrisy, to strip it so bare that no justifications could cling to it. We debated for hours, but had nothing.’”

“God, the noise.” Archimedes closed his eyes, as if remembering. “I couldn’t have borne another hour of the brotherhood’s bellowing that night.”

Bilson snorted. “So we discovered. This one pulls his head up out of his book and says, ‘Good God, you imbeciles! Two hundred years ago in Lusitania, Father Jacobus excoriated the Archbishop of Alagoas for the same hypocrisies. Read his journals, and you’ll find that he’s done all of the thinking for you.’ So we did—and our handbill spurred the reforms later that year. And
I
discovered that Wolfram Gunther-Baptiste wasn’t just some dull inknose, so I brought him into our brotherhood.”

Ah, of course he had. “And you led that brotherhood, I imagine?”

“We didn’t have a leader, but—”

“You were,” Archimedes said.

Bilson conceded with a nod. “If leadership was determining a direction, I suppose I was.”

So he was. Yasmeen thought she was beginning to see Bilson better now. Archimedes said he always had a game in play, but she’d assumed that his schemes led to some other end: money, excitement, power. Now she suspected that the game itself was his reason. Smuggling would have put him in the thick of power struggles and negotiations…until Archimedes had destroyed Temür Agha’s war machines.

Perhaps that was why Bilson hadn’t enjoyed salvaging itself, despite the money and excitement—while partnered with Archimedes, he hadn’t been the one making all of the decisions and determining a direction. Archimedes wasn’t the sort to take orders; he did as he damn well pleased, and the salvaging runs they’d made had depended upon his research.

Yet Bilson had remained in the salvaging business for years—and Yasmeen would have wagered that Bilson stayed because there was one part of salvaging that he did enjoy: the negotiations with dealers afterward.

And it had all begun with a pamphlet. Knowing Archimedes, however, Yasmeen thought that Bilson hadn’t perfectly understood what had happened. He might have invited Archimedes into their group, but Archimedes had likely joined for reasons of his own—probably because they’d finally begun talking about something that mattered to him.

Hell, he and Bilson had probably been partnered for so long simply because Bilson had been engaged in something that Archimedes also wanted to do.

Bilson sipped his wine, gaze unfocused as if lost to memory. “The brotherhood was stronger for having him. We never had quite the same success at home again—perhaps because the Liberé war was such a distraction.”

“But you were all quite the rebels,” Yasmeen said, sending a teasing look to Archimedes. He answered it with a flutter of his lashes.

“No. Not truly. We wrote the handbills anonymously, and
we all walked the straight and narrow in public.” Bilson’s gaze sharpened on Archimedes. “Except
he
didn’t. Not after our second year.”

Oh, she truly did enjoy having this man here. Yasmeen leaned forward. “What happened?”

“He came back to university after the summer recess wearing a god-awful green waistcoat.”

“It was
emerald.
” Archimedes smoothed his hand down the green silk of his current waistcoat, as if protecting it from similar abuse. “It matched my eyes.”

“And it got him tossed out of the first lecture.”

“The bright color was disruptive to learning,” Archimedes said when Yasmeen looked to him for an explanation. “But I wasn’t tossed out until I asked whether I should remove my eyes for being disruptive, too.”

“And he became worse after that,” Bilson said. “The waistcoats, the trousers—the
flirting.
God.”

Worse? To Yasmeen, that sounded like he got better. “How long before you were expelled?”

“Three weeks,” Archimedes said. “But I stayed on. There was still studying to be done.”

“He’d won favor with some of the lecturers, in truth. They kept him on to perform their research.”

“And because they thought my eyes were distracting, too.”

Bilson shook his head. “That’s what many of the other lads thought—that all the dandy clothing meant he was visiting the market around the corner.”

“With other men?” Yasmeen hadn’t heard it phrased that way before, but it wasn’t difficult to guess the meaning. Frowning, she looked to Archimedes. “How did you survive that?”

She only realized how much anger and worry had sharpened her voice when his fingers covered hers in a reassuring touch. “By learning to fight,” he said. “I took a few beatings, but eventually made certain they didn’t bother me anymore.”