The Strength of the Few (Hierarchy, #2)

by James Islington

FEAR, MY FATHER ONCE TOLD me, is simply our realisation of a lack of control. And that is why when we are afraid, sometimes the only way we can cope—the only way to dull the edge of that lack—is to put our faith in those who appear not to suffer it.

“A dangerous business, blackmail,” he observes after a while. “Weigh down a man with his secrets, and there is no telling if he will bend or break.

“I may have beaten you,” I tell him quietly. My father’s words echoing on my lips. “Foundation is like life. You can make no mistakes at all, and still lose.”

“We all fumble in the dark for ways to say that one man is better than another, and the Hierarchy fumble more than most. Their formulas and measurements make sense in the broad strokes; in the building of infrastructure, in the arrangement of an empire, averages are an acceptable metric. But men are still men. Strong and flawed and unpredictable, day to day. To weigh their potential without knowing their spirit… it cannot be done.”

Unsurprising, albeit annoying; in typical Catenan fashion, they’re more interested in the flair of natural ability than seeing someone succeed through trial and error. There’s some logic to it, I suppose—they’re assessing aptitude and thus potential, as opposed to work ethic or common sense—but that entire approach is unbalanced. Shortsighted. Talent, as my father used to remind me constantly, matters only when it’s married to effort.

Rule a man, and he will do whatever you can imagine. Befriend him, and he will do more.”

“You do not have to be less, Leathfhear,” he says softly. “Not unless you wish to be.”

We all tend to imagine that everyone who looks at us will remember us, but to most people we’re just bricks in a wall. Anonymity isn’t about being invisible. It’s about being forgotten.”

Grief, my mother once told me, is love’s most honest expression. The last and hardest aspect of truly, truly caring for someone. She said it at her own mother’s funeral rites, tears in her eyes even as she tried to comfort a boy too young to understand why he was so sad, why his grandmother couldn’t be there anymore. She explained through choking sobs that without grief, love would be meaningless. Because it is impossible to truly love something that cannot be lost.

But you have always been quick to anger, Diago, and just because what you told them was true does not erase your past. Words sound the same coming from the honest and the deceiving, the informed and the deceived. They matter—never think otherwise—but most of the time, people need to be shown a truth before they will truly believe it.”

“And at what point will you no longer need to learn, Deaglán?” I give a soft laugh. Recognising too much of my father in the question. “Never—but that is not the question, Lir, is it? The question is when will I no longer need to be taught.” I meet his gaze. “I will always accept guidance. Always seek to better myself. But I am able to learn for myself, now.”

“The oldest argument for doing something wrong is that everyone is doing it.

“A society cannot make a man a monster, Diago. But it can give him the excuse to become one.”

“But there could be. It doesn’t have to be me. It’s just… poor luck, that I’m in this situation!” “Poor luck?” He holds me back to take me in once again. “No. Poor luck is being the Octavus who sees the truth of the Hierarchy. It is being the farmer, or soldier, or merchant who comprehends the absurd power of those above them, but has no way of convincing them to act. It is being those of us who know these great and terrible dangers are coming and cannot do anything about them. Poor luck? Poor luck is being powerless, Diago. Poor luck is being without choice. So many of us are aware of these currents, but are able only to drown in them. Millions upon millions of people have poor luck. But you are not one of them.”

You are empathetic in many things and when you are, you are one of the most kind-hearted people I know.” He exhales. “But sometimes, talent and empathy fight for the same air. You always found things so easy that your expectations of others got skewed. You never really understood what they can and cannot do.”

“So you… you won’t stop me?” He laughs. Holds me close. “I could not even if I wanted to. Which is how it should be. I may not agree with you, but this is still the man I always wanted you to be, above all others,” he whispers. “Your own.”

“The hardest thing in the world, Catenicus. To regret what was right.”

“We do not stop learning when we get older,” he eventually tells me. “ ‘Know your line.’ It is good advice for a son. For a man, even. But for a father?” He leans forward. “To protect our sons, Catenicus, there is no line we will not cross.”

I am a child again, and all I want is for my father to be here. All I want is for him to stay. His embrace is long and gentle. Cupping the back of my head, forehead against mine. I look at him pleadingly. Still weighed by my arm. I want to tell him what I should have, three nights ago. He told me that all he wanted was for me to be my own man. But all I ever wanted, all I still want, is to be like him. I want to tell him that I love him. I want to tell him just how much I love him. One last time. I mouth the words. His eyes soften and he mouths it back. His arms slacken. He grits his teeth and makes one final effort, gripping my shoulder. Courage, he adds. Still smiling. Then he lets go, the light gone from his eyes.

My father never sentenced a man to death. And yet he told me once that the price of a life cannot be incalculable to a ruler, no matter how much we wish it were so. That in the end, there would be situations in which we simply had to value it for ourselves, and live with the consequences.

“No. The measure of a man is not whether he does the wrong thing. It is whether he accepts that he has.

My father once told me that men become their choices, not their intentions.