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“So, Hubert,” Malik began, in that way Malik did, “Richard’s told me something interesting.”
Hubert immediately flushed red to the roots of his hair. An undeniably guilty look on his face, he shot upright and thrust his glasses up his nose. His voice trembled, just barely. “Is that so?”
Malik made an affirming noise in the back of his throat, shaking his head.“If you wanted to know, all you had to do was ask.”
“It’s hardly an appropriate thing to ask you about!” Hubert retorted, even as he cast about for something to occupy his anxious hands. He squirmed in place like a worm on a line, raising his voice indignantly, “Perhaps you have a different view of propriety than most, Malik, but—”
“But I’d like to think someone who counts himself among my friends—” Malik leaned heavily on the word, his implication firm— “Would respect me enough to come to me directly.”
Hubert ducked his chin in against his chest. “Of course I respect you. I hardly meant…” He turned his head to one side, raising a fist to cough into. “Well, aren’t you going to say something?”
Malik grinned, lopsided. “Maybe I want to hear you ask.”
“You’re an ass.” Hubert finally snapped, huffing his displeasure. “Fine. Pray tell how on Ephinea a defecting soldier from the head of Fendel’s revolutionary movement ends up teaching my older brother the values of knighthood in the capital of Windor.”
Malik’s smile dimmed without reducing in size. “That’s a big question, you know.”
Hubert seemed to ignore Malik, tapping his fingers on his chin, “It’s what I was hoping to investigate in Windor’s documents, but the data is decidedly lacking. I’m far from impressed with the record-keeping in this place.”
“I seem to recall something about Richard’s father being poisoned, then usurped by his brother, and then it seems there was a rather pressing issue to do with Richard, and Lambda… Any of that ring bells, Hubert?”
Hubert huffed again, pressing his glasses as high as they would go up his nose. “Are you going to lecture me, or tell me?”
Malik sighed, defeated. “Let’s get a drink, Hubert.”
Ice clinking against the sides of his lowball glass, Malik gestured to the patrons of Pub Tactics. “This is the first place I really got to know in Barona. In Windor, really.”
“You’re very fond of bars.” Hubert observed dryly, frowning into the odorous contents of his glass. “I’m not certain it’s appropriate for me to drink this, you know.”
“You’re a diplomat, Hubert. Diplomats drink.” Malik chinked his glass against Hubert’s with a smile before rolling his shoulder and taking a sip. His expression was fond as he observed the room. “It’s a bad habit, I guess. I like people, and it’s a good place to watch them. Keep them company, get to know their sorrows, share in their joys. You can get a lot out of bars.”
Hubert’s tone was acidic. “Like alcoholism, for instance.”
“All right, all right.” Malik cuffed him lightly on the shoulder, eliciting a dark scowl from Hubert. Then he exhaled heavily, expression thoughtful. “You were there, in Fendel, when we confronted Kurt. You remember that.” Hubert nodded once, although Malik only hesistated a moment. “After Lorelia died and everything we and Kurt had worked for seemed to vanish right in front of us, I couldn’t face it anymore. I didn’t think Kurt could ever forgive me, and in the end I guess he didn’t.”
“Who—” Hubert frowned, seeming to think better of his question, and managed to hold his tongue. Malik’s expression was wistful and distant.
“Leaving felt like the only choice I had. To be honest, the first place I ended up in was Strahta. The back roads between Fendel and Lhant were high-priority marks back then, and trying to sneak or bribe my way out wouldn’t have worked.” Malik shifted on his seat. “Strahta kept itself eloquently distant from the messes between Fendel and Windor, and sat back in the desert watching us implode in on ourselves. So for a while, I went from port to port, trying to imagine something new I could do with my life.”
“And no one ever saw fit to question your citizenship?” Hubert murmured the question, leaning on one hand and watching, quietly fascinated, as Malik spoke.
“It was. I conveniently lost my military identification. A rather enterprising individual in Oul Raye prepared some new papers for me. In a lot of ways, looking back I can’t believe how simple it was. I shouldn’t have gotten away with it. I guess I was lucky, as a young man.” Malik’s smile became thin and fell from his eyes as he spoke.
Hubert scoffed dismissively under his breath, muttering something about how he’d never let something so important go unchecked and without recourse. A matter of national security!
Malik sighed, drumming his fingers on the smooth wood of the table. “I guess we can skip that part. I travelled a bit illegally, and eventually made it to Barona. I didn’t know what I was going to do here. I really didn’t have a plan back then—I just wanted to turn my back on my own failures, or at least be somewhere I could stew on them without anyone else pointing out all the flaws I had. It was probably a bit selfish.”
“Probably.” Hubert agreed flatly, unimpressed and peevish.
“Look, you asked.” Malik spoke sharply, his eyebrows drawn together and his grip tightening on his glass. His sudden defensiveness reminded Hubert of a bivalve snapping shut as something brushed too near its centre.
Hubert began to make a face, but in the end sighed his apology. “Carry on.” His words were thick.
Malik waited a moment before he carried on, looking around Tactics once more. “I actually ended up working in here. Maybe I looked the part.” He stroked his stubble, unwontedly self-concious as he got back into the flow of the conversation. His expression clouded over. “It didn’t take a week for Victoria to approach me. She said… Cedric had looked into my history, extensively. She said they knew who I really was and that they were interested in meeting with me. It wasn’t…” Malik met Hubert’s eyes, serious. “I wasn’t coerced. What they said was… they had a plan to overthrow the current King, quietly and without any bloodshed besides his, and they wanted someone like me in the Knights Academy, keeping an eye out for potential recruits. Victoria was already working both sides of the table, and…” Malik sighed, looking away.
“I know what you did.” Hubert murmured, hesitating a moment before brushing his fingers over Malik’s wrist. “You’re not going to surprise me.”
Malik rumbled his frustration. “I’m just disappointed with myself.”
“It was years ago.”
“And the effects of it won’t ever go away. I agreed to go along with them. Maybe it felt like getting Kurt and Lorelia back without the shadow of our failures hanging over us. Another chance at… liberating Fendel, hah.” Malik tipped his head back and ran a hand through his hair, expression full of strain. “Windor didn’t need a revolution, but I went along with them anyway. What’s done is done. We all know how that went.”
Hubert rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “So you were responsible for the death of Richard’s father.”
“I was involved.” Malik agreed. “I didn’t… I was involved.”
“And still Asbel invited you—”
“Asbel believed in the Knights, and us. Between his passion and Victoria pinning the weight of the crime on the one who couldn’t fight back anymore, the worst that happened to any of us was a few months in the dungeon. They both insisted we were just doing what we were told. I apologised—I was contrite, and I meant it. This isn’t the first time I’ve thought about all this.” Malik’s expression pretended at being a smirk for a moment, but he went on without pausing. “It wasn’t until I saw what Richard did to Cedric that I really understood how much I’d messed up. They way Richard butchered him… And seeing how convicted Asbel was that we’d been victims rather than perpetrators. It was a lot to take.”
“Asbel forgives everything too easily.” Hubert commented.
“Yeah, he does.” Malik smiled a bit more truthfully, sipping his drink. “Anyway, that’s it. That’s how I got to be working in Windor, and why I wasn’t quite executed during Richard’s bloody rise to power. I guess he was a bit distracted.”
Hubert ran a finger around the rim of his glass, wincing when it hummed in response. “Was there ever another student like Asbel?”
“For me? No. He was… stupid.” Malik laughed softly, then harder at Hubert’s scandalised expression, “Not like that! He was charming, wanting to protect his friends and his family and his homeland. I didn’t mean to, but I took him to heart. Maybe he reminded me of who I was when I was young, and who I could have been if things in Fendel hadn’t gone so wrong. I think he was part of what made me start feeling guilty about working with Victoria and Cedric… but I was too deep in it to back out, and part of me still wanted to succeed. I guess it’s a bit pathetic.” Malik cast Hubert a glance, his expression searching for an opinion. “That’s just what it was.”
Hubert looked away, ponderous. Finally, he spoke, straightening his shoulders and laying his palm flat upon the table, “That was a terrible story.”
Malik laughed heartily, shaking his head. “Sometimes they’re not what we expect. That’s the way things turned out. Want me to go back and change it? I wouldn’t be here if I did.”
“No.” Hubert growled firmly, closing his hand around Malik’s wrist and downing the whole of his drink in one long swallow. He coughed explosively, never releasing his grip, and when he was able to speak again, it was choked with conviction, “Don’t change a single damn thing, Captain.”