"Ask your questions!" Lee surprised everyone by sitting down and making himself comfortable on a small pile of hay. The pseudo-adult action performed by a child lessened the tension in the barn, and for some reason his confidence allowed Freeda to heave a silent sigh of relief.
"Alright!" Cai was intrigued. He glanced around, but didn't find anything to sit on. After awkwardly scratching his head, he sat down next to Lee, and said, "Tell me about the spark!"
"I'm not good at using it yet. Ingrid knows." Lee said, his words proving he was still a child, "But I'll get better. Meditation really is a drag ..."
"That's not what he's asking!" Slade said, "Where and how did you get it?"
"I took it from the wooden box!" Lee shrugged, but seeing Slade's unsightly expression, quickly added, "Initially I wanted to prank Drevin by hiding his new dagger near his brother. You know … so that he got the emperor angry. But then I found the place where Lance was preparing for the ritual and everything happened on it's own. When mom noticed what I did, she decided to flee the city, and then we came here."
"But why did you do it?" Cai asked.
"I really, really don't like those people." Lee gave the correct answer with a straight face, "They're not good people. Not like the ones we have here, in the country.
'Should be fine now.' Lee said to himself. He couldn't appear to be too smart, but it was impossible to act dumb either. And people shouldn't interrogate a child too much.
"See? He's one of us! He is kind of slow with training, but otherwise he's really smart. Tess always called him genius and he draws really well." Ingrid happily said, and Lee gifted her a hearty smile.
The men were not so easy though. Enzo didn't say anything, but both Slade and Cai seemed to be deep in thoughts. But before Freeda had another outburst, Cai spoke first.
He said, "While it sounds nice, someone could've trained him to say this. After all, three years have passed since the event. We'll need more and it shouldn't be too hard for you to understand if you're a genius, right?"
The last part was addressed directly to Lee, and the man became serious again.
"I'm not sure what you want to hear from me." Lee said, "Smart words to prove my innocence or for me to swear to have never seen any of you? Sounds kind of stupid. Or you want me to give you ideas on how to fight the empire?"
"That would be nice." Enzo nodded, and also sat down. Now that Lee looked at him more closely, the big man seemed to be worn out and really tired. He probably had been on the road for many days.
"Hmph!" Slade snorted, "He's just a kid!"
"Then why didn't you fucking think of it when you drew your blade? Asshole!" Freeda clenched her fists again. Clearly she'll find it hard to forgive Slade's earlier actions.
"You two! Don't start again …" Cai waved his index finger like a parent warning their children.
He did find the whole situation unnecessary, but killing a kid, especially Freeda's grandchild, could have serious repercussions. While Slade was right and she wasn't particularly strong, her relationship with Prophet wasn't simple. The most reasonable way of action was to let things be for now and wait for his decision. Cai could deal with Slate, especially with Enzo here. All he needed now was for the boy to not say anything too stupid.
He turned to Lee again and said, "So you came here three years ago. What did you do in the capital?"
"Nothing much." Lee shrugged, "I learned and drew. And took part in few sessions of the Imperial Council."
While Lee thought this honest information would arise interest, even Freeda had to hold back the urge to smack him. But it was too late. Wide grin bloomed in Slate's face and Lee realized he overestimated the intelligence of the group. He hoped these people could figure out the benefits of him being a potential spy, but apparently they immediately viewed him as the enemy.
No matter what, he had to salvage the situation quickly, before someone started swinging their sword again, but he really didn't have much to go with. Apart from Powel's set-up nothing really noteworthy happened during the council meetings, and he didn't have any insider information anyway.
Being the largest rebel group, these guys surely had a large net of own spies and knew everything there was to know.
But then Lee's eyes lit up as he got an idea. He remembered how disappointed he was in the IQ levels of ministers and even the emperor, and it was obvious he was thinking too highly of these guys as well. He had to spoon-feed the information bit by bit and allow to process it according to their ability.
"Those meetings were really boring. Heirs gave their reports and the emperor listened." He slowly continued, "And then General Strongheart stepped down … oh, right! You might be interested in this! The Minister of Finance … what was her name? … Bishop! Came up with an idea to make a butt-load of money for the emperor. She called it Operation of the century or something."
Strangely enough, judging by the expressions of the present, no one heard about it. Probably the name was used only once during the Imperial Council and afterwards Bishop proceeded with her scheme without making too much noise.
"And?" Slade got impatient after Lee fell silent for few moments, but under Freeda's stare didn't do anything rash.
"And nothing. There were no other interesting talks." Lee said with a shrug, "But I was only at few meetings before we escaped."
"Tell us more about this operation." Cai said. His countenance softened after hearing Lee's last sentence.
"If you ask me, it's a really, really dumb idea." Lee vaguely said.
Once again he found it to be incredibly hard to speak like a child with intent to be taken seriously. But then he thought for a bit and decided to drop the pretense, and talk like a normal person. Most likely he was safe by now.
"Minister of finance persuaded the emperor to invest everything he had in order to stockpile goods for several years, and afterwards sell everything in one go to squeeze money out of all nobles." Lee said.
"So?" Slade was confused, but clearly Cai was the brains of the group.
"The key is stockpile." He said, "So that's what they're doing in Hemsby."
"How can I know that?" Slade got upset, "You're the head of the intelligence."
'These really are rebel big shots!' Lee's eyes widened, but if he had a choice, he would've preferred Slade's tongue didn't slip. He didn't need to know their responsibilities.
"We didn't pay too much attention to the new port district there since the wares didn't contain weapons." Cai said. Fortunately he missed or pretended to ignore Slade's remark, "But now everything makes sense. The place is guarded almost like the imperial palace. I need some time to investigate."
"Right! I almost forgot!" Lee decided to add fuel to the fire he just started, "In order to assist the project, the emperor allowed Newman to transform his navy ships so they could carry more cargo. I don't know the details, though."
At this remark Slade's expression changed and even Enzo stopped dozing off. They looked at each other and barely noticeably nodded at the same time. Turns out they weren't as stupid as Lee thought.
Noticing the subtle reactions, Freeda proudly raised her chin and said, "Happy, motherfuckers? My Lee is fucking amazing!"
"Ye, ye." Cai said, "But don't let him run off. I'm serious. I'll be back in half a month. You too, Slade. As always, no rushing about. For this we'll need Prophet's advice."
"What about the fire sparks?" Ingrid, who was silent all this time, finally spoke.
"We'll do as Freeda suggested." Cai said, "We'll follow Prophet's orders. It's a no-brainer. Alright, let's go! May the God protect us!"
Few moments later there were only three people left in the barn, while the disappearing sound of galloping horses disturbed the night.
"You can stay in Tess's room." Freeda said to Ingrid. Clearly she was mentally worn out since she managed to form a whole sentence without a profanity, "Pumpkin, you go back to bed. We'll talk in the morning."
Apart from the fact that he almost got killed, Lee was amused by the event. In the grand scheme of things he didn't care who won – the empire or the religious rebel group. His grandmother was with the latter, so he kind of had to support her, but on the other hand if the rebels got their hands on Alan, his head would roll and Lee wasn't really fine with that.
Despite the chaotic thoughts he fell asleep the moment his head touched the pillow. From the next morning on the life at the small household surely was about to change.