The Drone Who Claimed the Marshal novel · Chapter 9 of 32

Chapter 9: Seven Years

Wystan sealed the bottle in a lead box and took it away without a word.

That left the two of them alone in the study, with the morning gone flat and bright between them.

Linus stood at the window, looking down at the courtyard.

"You said you'd answer me," he said. "Why you never came."

"I did say that."

"Then answer."

He had not planned to ask it this way.

The question had sat in his chest since the night in the hall, and now it came out hard.

Ambrose Roark set down his cup.

"The Empress forbade it," he said. "Every year. She said a Marshal at the Claiming made the drones feel watched."

"That's an excuse."

"It is a reason. It is also an excuse." The Marshal's voice did not rise. "The other reason is that the fever is worst in a crowd. I would have been carried out."

"For seven years."

"For seven years."

Linus turned from the window.

"Do you know what the Hall does to the ones nobody claims?"

"I know."

"Four hundred and six lots in seven years," Linus said. "I read the Hall's tally board while I stood up there."

He had not known that he had been counting until he said it.

"I would have been one more of them. A man you never looked at."

"Eleven," the Marshal said.

"What?"

"Eleven drones a year. Eleven names."

Ambrose's mouth was a hard line.

"Wystan goes to the registrar the night before. He buys the lots through a house that does not carry my name. Eleven is all I could hide. Any more and the Empress would notice the sum."

Linus stared at him.

"Eleven a year is seventy-seven," he said. "Out of four hundred and six."

"Yes," the Marshal said, flat. "Three hundred and twenty-nine went below. That is on me, and I will not tell you it isn't."

He did not look away.

That was the thing, Linus thought, with a kind of helpless fury. The man stood there and took it.

"I want you to stand up in that Hall," Linus said. "In front of everyone. I want you to burn it down."

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