‘No. If he survives the night we’re to wake him tomorrow morning, and Draconus himself will tell the tutor what needs telling.’
‘Then we catch you up.’
Rint nodded, drawing a knife to stab at a steak.
Ville snorted. ‘Why’d I bother? Might as well take bites out the carcass itself.’
‘But then you don’t get the smoky flavour, Ville.’
Feren joined them. ‘It’s normal sleep now,’ she said, sitting down. ‘He’s tossing and turning, but not so much – no fever. Breathing’s deep and steady.’
Ville was studying Feren with narrow eyes, and then he grinned. ‘Never saw you being a mother before, Feren.’
‘Nor will you, if you value your life, Ville.’ She set a hand on Rint’s arm. ‘Brother, what I told you earlier.’
When he shot her a look, she simply nodded.
Rint studied the half-raw meat in his hands, and then resumed chewing.
‘You two can be so damned irritating,’ Ville muttered, reaching to turn the remaining steaks again.
* * *
Sergeant Raskan dipped a knife blade into the blood-broth. The soup was thickening nicely. Sagander might retch at the taste, at least at first, but this rich broth might well save his life.
Draconus stood beside him, eyeing the horses. ‘I was wrong to take Hellar from him, I think.’
‘Lord?’
‘They are truly bound now.’
‘Yes, Lord, that they are. She acted fast – no hesitation at all. That mare will give her life defending Arathan, you can be sure of that.’
‘I am … now.’
‘Not like the tutor, was it, Lord?’
‘There can be deep bitterness, sergeant, when youth dwindles into the distant past. When the ache of bones and muscles is joined by the ache of longing, and regrets haunt a soul day and night.’
Raskan considered this, as respectfully as he could, and then he shook his head. ‘Your capacity for forgiveness is greater than mine would be, Lord—’
‘I have not spoken of forgiveness, sergeant.’
Raskan nodded. ‘That is true. But, Lord, were a man to so strike my son—’
‘Enough of that,’ Draconus cut in, his tone deepening. ‘There are matters beyond you here, sergeant. Still, no need for you to apologize – you spoke from your heart and I will respect that. Indeed, I begin to believe it is the only thing worth respecting, no matter our station, or our fate.’
Stirring the blood-broth again, Raskan said nothing. For a moment there, he had forgotten the vast divide between him and Lord Draconus. He had indeed spoken from his heart, but in an unguarded, unmindful fashion. Among other highborn, his comment might well have earned a beating; even a stripping of his rank.
But Draconus did not work that way, and he met the eye of every soldier and every servant under his care. Ah, now if only he would do that for his only son.
‘I see by the firelight that your boots are sadly worn, sergeant.’
‘It’s the way I walk, Lord.’
‘Out here, moccasins are far better suited.’
‘Yes, Lord, but I have none.’
‘I have an old pair, sergeant – they might prove somewhat too large, but if you do as do the Borderswords – filling them out as needed with fragrant grasses – then you will find them serviceable.’
‘Lord, I—’
‘You would refuse my generosity, sergeant?’
‘No, Lord. Thank you.’
There was a long time of silence. Raskan glanced over to where the Borderswords were crouched round the second cookfire. Ville had called out that the steaks were ready but neither the sergeant nor his lord moved. Hungry though he was, the cloying reek of the blood-broth had drowned Raskan’s appetite. Besides, he could not abandon Draconus without leave to do so.
‘This swirl of stars,’ Draconus suddenly said, ‘marks the plunge of light into darkness. These stars, they are distant suns, shining their light down upon distant, unknown worlds. Worlds, perhaps, little different from this one. Or vastly different. It hardly matters. Each star swirls its path towards the centre, and at that centre there is death – the death of light, the death of time itself.’
Shaken, Raskan said nothing. He had never heard such notions before – was this what the scholars in Kharkanas believed?
‘Tiste are comforted by their own ignorance,’ Draconus said. ‘Do not imagine, sergeant, that such matters are discussed at court. No. Instead, imagine the lofty realm of scholars and philosophers as little different from a garrison of soldiers, cooped up too long and too close in each other’s company. Squalid, venal, pernicious, poisoned with ambitions, a community of betrayal and jealously guarded prejudices. Titles are like splashes of thin paint upon ugly stone – the colour may look pretty, but what lies behind it does not change. Of itself, knowledge holds no virtue – it is armour and sword, and while armour protects it also isolates, and while a sword can swing true, so too can it wound its wielder.’
Raskan stirred the soup, feeling strangely frightened. He had no thoughts he could give voice to, no opinions that could not but display his own stupidity.
‘Forgive me, sergeant. I have embarrassed you.’
‘No, Lord, but I fear I am easily confused by such notions.’
‘Was I not clear enough in my point? Do not let the title of scholar, or poet, or lord, intimidate you overmuch. More importantly, do not delude yourself into imagining that such men and women are loftier, or somehow cleverer or purer of integrity or ideal than you or any other commoner. We live in a world of facades, but the grins behind them are all equally wretched.’
‘Grins, Lord?’
‘As a dog grins, sergeant.’
‘A dog grins in fear, Lord.’
‘Just so.’
‘Then, does everyone live in fear?’
The firelight barely reached the huge man standing beside Raskan, and the deep voice that came from that vague shape sounded loose, unguarded. ‘I would say, most of the time, yes. Fear that our opinions might be challenged. Fear that our way of seeing things might be called ignorant, self-serving, or indeed evil. Fear for our persons. Fear for our future, our fate. Our moment of death. Fear of failing in all that we set out to achieve. Fear of being forgotten.’
‘My lord, you describe a grim world.’
‘Oh, there are balances on occasion. Faint, momentary. Reasons for joy. Pride. But then fear comes clawing back. It always does. Tell me, sergeant, when you were a child, did you fear the darkness?’
‘I imagine we all did, Lord, when we were little more than pups.’
‘And what was it about darkness that we feared?’
Raskan shrugged. His eyes held on the flickering flames. It was a small fire, struggling to stay alive. When the last of the sticks had burned down, the coals would flare and ebb and finally grow cool. ‘The unknown, I suppose, Lord. Where things might hide.’
‘Yet Mother Dark chooses it like raiment.’
Raskan’s breath stilled, frozen in his chest. ‘I am a child no longer, Lord. I have no cause to fear that.’
‘I wonder, at times, if she has forgotten her own childhood. You need say nothing on that matter, sergeant. It’s late. My thoughts wander. As you say, we are no longer children. Darkness holds no terrors; we are past the time when the unknown threatens us.’
‘Lord, we can now let this cool,’ said Raskan, using his knife to lift the pot clear of the flames and setting it down.
‘Best join the others then,’ said Draconus, ‘before that meat turns to black leather.’
‘And you, Lord?’
‘In a few moments, sergeant. I will look some more upon these distant suns, and ponder unknown lives beneath their light.’
Raskan straightened, his knees clicking, his saddle-sore muscles protesting. He bowed to his lord and then made his way over to the other fire.
* * *
It was dark when Arathan opened his eyes. He found that he was pressed ag
ainst a warm body, both soft and firm, solid as a promise, and he could smell faint spices on the still night air. The blanket was now shared, and the person sleeping beside him was Feren.
All at once he could hear his heart pounding.
From the camp there was no other sound; even the horses were quiescent. Blinking, he stared up at the stars, finding the brightest ones all in their rightful places. He struggled to think mundane thoughts, fought to ignore the warm body slumbering at his side.
Sagander said that the stars were but holes in the fabric of night, a thinning of blessed darkness; and that in ages long past there had been no stars at all – the dark was complete, absolute. This was in the time of the first Tiste, in the Age of Gifts, when harmony commanded all and peace stilled every restless heart. The great thinkers were all agreed on this interpretation, his tutor had insisted, in that forceful, belligerent way he had whenever Arathan asked the wrong questions.
But where is the light coming from? What lies behind the veil of night and how could it not exist in the Age of Gifts? Surely it must have been there from the very beginning?
Light was an invading fire, waging an eternal war to break through the veil. It was born when discord first came to the heart of the Tiste.
But in a world of peace and harmony, where did the discord come from?
‘The soul harbours chaos, Arathan. The spark of life knows not its own self, knows only need. If that spark is not controlled through the discipline of higher thoughts, then it bursts into flame. The first Tiste grew complacent, careless of the Gift. And those who succumbed, well, it is their souls you see burning through the Veil of Night.’
She shifted against him. She then rolled over so that she faced him, and drew closer, one arm crossing his chest. He felt her breath on his neck, felt her hair brushing his collarbone. The scent of spices seemed to come from all of her, from her breath and her skin, her hair and her heat.
Her breathing paused for a long moment, and then she sighed, drew closer still until he felt one of her breasts pressing against his arm, and then the other one, sliding down to rest on the same arm.
And then her hand was reaching down to his crotch.
She found him hard and already slick, but if that amounted to failure she seemed unperturbed, using her palm to slide what he had spilled out over his belly, and then taking hold of him once again.
With that grip she pulled him on to his side, and her leg, lifting to settle over him, felt astonishingly heavy. Her other hand reached down, forced itself under his hip, and pulled him over her lower leg until he was clenched between her thighs.
She made a sound when she guided him inside her.
He did not know what was happening. He did not know where she’d put him in, down there between her legs. Was it the hole where she pushed out her wastes? It could not be – it was too far forward, unless women were different in ways he had not imagined.
He’d seen dogs in the yard. He’d seen Calaras savagely mount a mare, stabbing with his red sword, but there was no way to tell where that sword went.
She was moving against him now, and the sensation, of burgeoning heat, was ecstatic. Then she grasped his wrists and set his hands round her hips – they were fuller than he’d imagined they would be, and his fingers sank into deep flesh.
‘Pull,’ she whispered. ‘Back and forth. Faster and faster.’
Confusion vanished, bewilderment burned away.
He shuddered as he emptied himself into her, felt exhaustion take him – a deep, warm exhaustion. When she let him slide back out, he rolled to lie on his back.
But she said, ‘Not so fast. Give me your hand … no, that one. Back down, wet the fingers, yes, like that. Now, rub here, slow to start, but faster when you hear my breathing quicken. Arathan, there are two sides to lovemaking. You’ve had yours and yes, I enjoyed it. Now give me mine. In the years ahead, you and every woman you lie with will thank me for this.’
He wanted to thank her now, and so he did.
* * *
The boy had done his best to be quiet, but Rint was a light sleeper. Though he could not make out what his sister was saying to Arathan, the sounds that followed told him all he needed to know.
So she was ensuring that she’d get some pleasure from this. He could not begrudge her that.
She’d told him that Draconus had not commanded her. He had but requested, and no repercussions would attend her refusal. She had replied that she would give the matter some thought, and had said the same to Rint, pointedly ignoring his disapproval.
Leave the teaching in the hands of some court whore. Play it out like the cliché it’s come to be. There are ways of learning and they repeat generation after generation. Of all the games of learning, surely this is the most sordid one. Feren was a Bordersword. Did Draconus understand nothing but his own needs, and would he trample everyone on his way to answering them? So it seemed. His son was about to become a man. Show him what that means, Feren.
No, it wouldn’t be a whore for Arathan. Nor a maid, nor some farm girl from one of the outlying hamlets. After all, any one of these could come back to haunt House Dracons, seeking coin for a bastard child.
Feren would do no such thing, and Draconus well knew it. The father need not worry about his son spilling seed into her womb. If she took with child she would simply disappear and make no claim upon Arathan, and she would raise that child well. Until, perhaps, the day when Arathan came for it.
And so the pattern would be repeated, from father to son and ever onward. And of women with broken hearts and empty homes, well, they were nothing worthy of concern – but this is Feren. This is my sister. If you get with child, Feren, I will escape with you, and not even the kin and will of House Dracons will ever find us. And should Arathan somehow do so, I swear I will kill him with my own hands.
High overhead, the stars blurred and spun, as if swimming a river of rage.
* * *
Sagander regained consciousness just before dawn and after a moment he gasped. Before the tutor could make another sound, a gloved hand pressed down upon his mouth, and he looked up to see Lord Draconus crouched over him.
‘Be silent,’ Draconus commanded in a low tone.
Sagander managed a nod and the hand left his mouth. ‘My lord!’ he whispered. ‘I cannot feel my leg!’
‘It is gone, tutor. It was that or your death.’
Sagander stared up in disbelief. He pulled one hand free from the blankets and reached down, only to find his hand flailing where his thigh should have been. A mass of sodden bandages met his groping fingers halfway down from his hip.
‘You struck the face of my son, tutor.’
Sagander blinked. ‘My lord, he spoke ill of you. I was – I was defending your honour.’
‘What did he say?’
Sagander licked dry lips. His throat felt swollen, hot. He had never before felt as weak as he did at this moment. ‘He suggested that he was your weakness, Lord.’
‘And how did this statement come about, tutor?’
In fragmented, stuttering phrases, Sagander explained the gist of the lesson, and the conversation that had followed it. ‘I defended your honour, Lord,’ he said upon finishing. ‘As your servant—’
‘Tutor, hear me well. I do not need you to defend my honour. Furthermore, the boy was correct. If anything, he was to be commended for his acuity. Finally, Arathan has shown me something I can respect.’
Sagander gaped, his breaths coming in short, frantic gasps.
Remorselessly, Draconus went on. ‘The boy has wits. Furthermore, he saw through to the venality underlying your assertions. The poor have taken weakness into themselves? By some dubious temptation of desire? Old man, you are a fool, and would that I had seen that long ago.
‘Arathan was right – is right. He is indeed my weakness – why do you imagine I am now taking him as far away from Kurald Galain as I can?’
‘My lord … I did not understand—’
‘Listen wel
l. For giving me this one thing to respect in my son, you have my gratitude. It is this gratitude that now saves your life, tutor. For striking my son, you will not be gutted and skinned, your hide spiked to the wall of my estate. Instead, you will be taken to Abara Delack to recover from your injury, and I shall have some further instructions on that matter before we part ways. You are to remain in the village’s chapter of the Yedan Monastery until my return this way, whereupon you will accompany me back to the estate. Once there, you will gather such belongings as you cherish and then depart, never to return. Is all of this within your understanding, tutor?’
Mute, Sagander nodded.
Draconus straightened and spoke in a louder voice, ‘The sergeant has prepared some blood-broth. You have lost too much of your own blood and it needs replenishing. Now that you are awake, I will have Raskan feed you.’
Sagander had to turn his head to watch Draconus walk away. His thoughts were a black storm. The man whose honour he had defended would now destroy him. Execution would have been a far better fate. Now, it was his reputation and standing that the Lord had murdered, all in the name of an ancient prohibition against striking a highborn. But Arathan is no highborn. He is a bastard son.
I have struck him countless times, as befits a wayward, useless student. He is no highborn!
I shall challenge this. In Kharkanas, I shall make challenge before the law!
But he knew he wouldn’t. Instead, he would be kept in isolation for months, perhaps even longer, in a monastery cell in Abara Delack. And he would lose the fire of his indignation, and even should he hold on to it, flaring it anew each time he found himself struggling to move a leg that no longer existed, by the time he finally made it back to Kharkanas, the tale of his disgrace would have long preceded him. He would be mocked, his righteous claims laughed at, and he would see the glee in the eyes of his rivals upon every side.
Draconus had indeed destroyed him.
But I have other paths. A thousand steps to vengeance, or ten thousand, it does not matter. I will have it in the end. Arathan. You will be the first to pay for what you have done to me. And then, when you are cold as clay, I will stalk your father. I will see him humiliated, broken. I will see his skinned hide spiked above the gates of Kharkanas itself!
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