Urusander scowled. ‘I have accepted the responsibility for my legion,’ he said, his voice trembling with suppressed emotion – if not anger, then, perhaps, it was shame. ‘I will reassert the justice of our cause.’ He paused, and then said, ‘Captain, I am offered no advice, nor do I ask it. It may be that this may change, since now you have returned. But the others, they come to me inside clouds of confusion, and leave me bemused, and then made to feel foolish for being so blind.’
‘They tell you nothing?’
‘The pending wedding is all they will speak of. As if that was for them to decide upon!’
Ah, you see their contempt, then. Is this how it is, now? Righteous fury lost on the horizon, amidst white winds. And here before me, Vatha Urusander, the greying wolf with its fangs pulled. ‘Sir, what you might call marriage, they name machination. In a joining of hands, as you might see it, they grasp for leverage. Not a union of love, then. Nor one of respectful regard, you with her, her with you. Rather, they set you both upon the same anvil, and from two blades they would hammer and twist the pair of you into one single weapon.’
‘For them to wield?’
She almost stepped back at the sudden fire in his eyes, a flame of light unnatural in its fierceness. The fangs remain, but still I sense his … helplessness. Was this the mark of Syntara’s blessing? Skin of white and the blinding fires of Liosan … all pointless? Did she curse as well as bless? What reach this newfound power of hers, and was that what Sharenas saw in Hunn Raal? ‘It is my thought, sir, that they would take hold of such a weapon, even knowing the threat of uncertain edges, a sliding grip, an unexpected unbalancing, and swing hard, unmindful of innocent victims.’
‘As you say,’ he said sharply, ‘an uncertain weapon, no matter what they might desire, or expect. To think that we are seen this way, a Legion commander and a goddess. As mere tools for their ambitions. I will speak to her!’
He meant Mother Dark, she presumed. ‘They must line the steps of that path first, and so they urge you to remain here. Sir, was it truly your desire to … do nothing?’
‘And yield trust to any messenger? Were you, captain, not enough?’
‘Day by day, sir, my reiteration of your avowed loyalty, in the name of peace, rang more and ever more hollow.’ Pray that stings you, Urusander. Words scud like clouds over the blood-soaked landscape. High and noble they might be, but their shadows prove weak.
He squinted southward for a time, and then seemed to deflate. ‘I am filled with promises,’ he said. ‘None worth the weight of the breath that utters them.’
The wealth of light, it seemed, invited extremity. There would indeed be little balance left to this newly forged weapon. In sudden clarity, she saw the marriage, this union that would bring peace upon the realm. A bloody peace. Light and Dark will war, one against the other. I see the spitting out of children, a family brood both venal and vicious. A marriage of two bedrooms, two keeps, two worlds. ‘Commander Toras Redone’s grief, sir, is for the soldiers of the Hust Legion, almost all of whom are now dead.’
The face he swung to her was such a cascade of expressions that she could make no sense of it. ‘That cannot be. Have the Forulkan returned? Does the war begin again? I’ll not yield this time! I will pursue them down to the very sea, and see the crest ride red for years upon that cursed shore!’
She blinked. ‘No. The Forulkan have not come. They renew no war. Did their own queen not acknowledge the justice of their defeat? Lord Urusander, you broke them, and they shall not return.’
‘Then what has befallen the Hust?’
‘Treachery,’ she replied, once more searching his face, and once more baffled by what she saw. A warlord in search of an enemy. But surely, this is the season for it, as the chambers you pace grow smaller and smaller still. ‘They were poisoned,’ she said. ‘In a single night, following a gift of wine and ale. A gift, sir, from Captain Hunn Raal.’
When he said nothing, when he but stared at her, his face like cracked ice, Sharenas looked away – almost desperately. ‘This is why,’ she said, ‘they speak only of the wedding.’
Urusander finally spoke, his tone viciously cold. ‘How does the First Son give answer? Does he now march upon us?’
‘With what?’ Sharenas snapped. ‘The Houseblades of the nobles? None are summoned to Kharkanas. Lord Anomander is not even there. Instead, he searches for Andarist. Lord Silchas commands in his place, and seeks to restore the Hust Legion.’
‘But – how?’
‘He raids the mining pits, sir.’
Urusander raised a hand between them, as if to push her away. She fell silent. With her words she had battered at him, wielding them as would a madwoman. No shield thrown up against them survived their relentless frenzy. She thought she saw in him, now, at last, signs of shock. But balance is not a game. Have I pushed too far, even when I spoke nothing but the truth? Is this, perhaps, the reason for keeping Urusander ignorant?
‘They think me a puppet,’ Urusander said. ‘I was told that Ilgast Rend defied every effort at conciliation. He threw away the lives of the Wardens, and killed many of my own soldiers. Was it courage or cowardice that he chose to die in battle?’ He waved a hand. ‘When Calat Hustain learns of this, of what Rend did with his people … ah, even I do not know how I would survive that. Such betrayal, and by a nobleborn …’ His voice trailed away. He stared south again. ‘It is curious, is it not, how the horrors climb the walls of our righteous indignation? Up and out, spilling over the battlements with howls, in a night of lit torches and wind-whipped flames. I see their grim forms, spreading out, and out, over Kurald Galain. Hunn Raal? May the spirits forgive me, but it was my hands that shaped him. My blessed, poisoned portrait.’
‘Sir, it is not enough to harden yourself to such atrocities.’
‘You misjudge me, Sharenas,’ Urusander replied. ‘It seems that you have forgotten the campaigns against the Forulkan and the Jhelarkan. No battle shall be unveiled until it is already won. I must think like a commander. Again, after all this time. Gift me with your patience, and consider my words a promise.’
Sharenas shook her head. ‘The time for patience has passed, sir. Your camp is in need of cleansing.’
Urusander glanced at her again. ‘Is it so hard to understand?’ he asked her. ‘I keep looking for justice.’
Sharenas looked down at the castle leavings that crowded the lord’s ankles. You’ll not find it here, Vatha Urusander. ‘Sir, Hunn Raal cannot be trusted.’
His mouth twisted into a faint smile. ‘And you can?’
She had no reply to that question. Any exhortation would demean her.
After a moment he shook his head. ‘Forgive me, captain. As you say, there have been changes since you were last here. Thus, you remain, for the moment at least, outside all of that. Your clay is still wet, awaiting impress, and I but wonder at who would claim such an unmarred surface.’
‘Sir, I cannot but doubt Hunn Raal’s version of that battle. I have known Lord Ilgast Rend all my life. I fought at his side. We knew fear upon the field, in the clash of weapons and the roar of the press. True, he possessed a fierce temper—’
‘Captain, he chose to march upon us. He arrayed the Wardens and sought battle. None of that can be questioned.’
‘Perhaps not. And if he came with his own Houseblades, and not Calat Hustain’s Wardens, I could be made to believe Hunn Raal’s tale – although even then, I would expect an exchange of insults, and indeed a grievous offence committed, to which Ilgast had no choice but to give answer. But the charge set upon Lord Rend – the safe keeping of the Wardens – he would have taken most seriously.’
‘It seems not,’ Urusander retorted.
‘There was the matter of the pogrom—’
Urusander grunted dismissively. ‘For which Rend chose not to accept my own promise of justice, to be attended upon every criminal in my ranks, every slayer of innocents.’
‘Did you give him that promise, sir? Face to face?’
<
br /> He drew his cloak tighter about him, and then turned to the narrow trail that led back to the gatehouse. ‘I was indisposed on that day,’ he muttered. He set out.
Rattled by that admission, Sharenas followed. ‘And then, sir,’ she persisted, ‘there is the murder of the Hust.’
‘Your point?’
‘The attending of justice, sir.’
He halted abruptly and faced her. ‘Civil war, captain. This is what is now upon us. Though I held to peace – though here I chose to remain, holding fast upon my legion. Though I summoned every wayward veteran back into my fold, under my responsibility. Yet still they elected to march upon me. How can I know if Ilgast Rend was not following Anomander’s orders? How can I not contemplate the purpose of striking at my legion before it was fully assembled, the tactical value, the strategic purpose of such a thing? After all, captain, it is what I would do.’
He resumed walking.
‘I doubt that, sir.’
Her words brought him back. ‘Explain, captain.’
‘If at Anomander’s behest, sir, Ilgast Rend would surely have come with more than just the Wardens. His own Houseblades, for one, and perhaps even those of Anomander. Or what of the Shake? Who more bears the wounds of that pogrom than the warrior monks of Yannis? And what of the other Great Houses? To crush you now would be the proper tactic. Sir, Ilgast Rend brought to us a show of force, a symbol of his disapproval. Something happened, in that meeting between him and Hunn Raal. If Raal can poison three thousand men and women of the Hust, would he shy from provoking Rend to a foolish decision?’
Urusander studied her. The day was failing around them, the wind picking up, bitter with cold. ‘I cannot say,’ he finally said. ‘Let us ask him, shall we?’
‘Best wait on that,’ Sharenas said. ‘Forgive me, sir. But we do not know the strength of your camp. I would speak to Lieutenant Serap first. She has suffered the loss of two sisters, after all, and this might well have cleared her vision of Hunn Raal. More, I would know the High Priestess’s place in all of this. And what of Infayen Menand, and Esthala, and Hallyd Bahann? Commander, these officers I have just mentioned – your favoured in the Legion – each one has been named in the pogrom and its grisly list of terrible crimes. Each one, I would say, has acted upon Hunn Raal’s orders.’
‘You think,’ Urusander said, ‘that you and I will stand alone, against an array already bound in conspiracy.’
‘A conspiracy in your name, sir, although that cause floats before them as but the thinnest veil. When the last flames of this war die down, I envisage a sudden end to the illusions, and ambition will stand naked before us.’
‘Who commands the Legion, captain?’
She shook her head. ‘The last commander to lead it into battle, sir, the last to lead it into victory, was Hunn Raal.’
‘I have made a mistake,’ Urusander said.
‘Nothing that cannot be remedied,’ Sharenas replied.
‘Sharenas Ankhadu, are we now at war?’ He looked away. ‘I called it such, only a few moments ago.’
‘Even from this, sir, peace can be won without any more bloodshed.’
‘Barring those who have committed crimes in my name.’
Indeed? And will you now do our enemy’s work for them? Execute the majority of your officers? Whether Ilgast Rend heard your promise or not, he would have been sceptical. Your justice, Urusander, thrives best in imagination. It remains an ideal, unsullied by any real world.
Scud over us if you will. I chose the land below you, and choose it still.
They continued on, skirting the edge of the high ground as they made their way to the front gatehouse. The setting sun on their left was a red smear on a horizon made dark by the burned grimace of the forest. Above that smear, the sky was streaked in gold.
She thought again about Urusander’s last promise. Justice shone fierce and blazing in the man walking at her side. Should he seek to impose it, however … in the face of this man’s justice, mortal flesh will simply melt away. No, he would be blunted at every turn. What had begun with the slaying of Enesdia – the slaughter at the wedding site – was a cascade of retribution. Too many aggrieved agencies to see anything like proper justice in what was to come. She was not even certain that Urusander could regain control of his own Legion. Not while Hunn Raal lives.
The Issgin line lived under its own curse, and Hunn Raal was but the latest in its filial list of fools. But such stains had a way of spreading outward.
Urusander’s justice was without subtlety. There was not just one war being waged here. Surely he must comprehend that. And what of me? Have I now committed myself to Vatha Urusander? Am I not nobleborn? What harsh choice awaits me, should this all unravel?
No, now was not the time to decide. For this moment, she would hold to honour, and her duty to her commander. For as long as he seemed fit to command. If there came a time when she must cut herself loose, she would be ready.
‘Sharenas,’ Urusander said, ‘I am pleased that you are back.’
* * *
There was value in keeping close those who dwelt in all company, mostly unseen, always beneath regard, who served the single purpose of cleaning up whatever mess had been left behind. This notion lingered in the mind of High Priestess Syntara as she idly watched the maid gathering up the meal’s leavings. She knew, as well, how a man’s thoughts would set off down entirely different paths, gauging and perhaps even reflective, as eyes fixed on the swell of the girl’s behind, the thinness of her skirt.
Base impulses rode wine-heavy fumes, and there was no need to glance across at her guest to glean his musings. A drunk’s appetites were blind to every edge. Plates could crash, the young woman could cry out, as in his mind he flung her to the floor, and made blurred the boundaries of his desire.
It was no easy thing, to spar with a man like Hunn Raal. While her sober cleverness could slip in and around, past and through, a drunk was prone to sudden, unexpected moves. The dance was always uncertain.
For the moment, however, in this satiated silence following food and too much wine, she could ignore Hunn Raal and contemplate the necessity of people beneath notice. Only a deluded fool had the audacity to assert the notion that all were equal – no matter the arbiter, the final judge of such things; the sheer idiocy of such a claim earned no serious contemplation. Judgement was no crime in itself, and hardly a thing to shy away from, if the alternative was a levelling of all things to some idyllic, but impossible, ideal.
She had heard Urusander drone on about justice, as if by proscription and delineation law could be made to stand in place of what was both undeniable and wholly natural. If in earning privilege, in attaining mastery over others, we find ourselves waging perpetual war to keep all things in their proper place – lesser people included – is it any wonder that we select few come to live a life under siege? And who can be surprised when desperation drives us to despicable acts of cruelty?
Such laws as Urusander would impose fashion for us the enemy’s face. It can be no other way. Things are not equal. People are not equal. There are those few who will rule, while the rest must follow.
Hunn Raal can have this woman, this maid, should he so choose. Her life is in his hands. In mine, too, for that matter. But we need no laws to force upon us the ethics of our comportment. Virtue never stands outside awaiting invitation like a stranger at a gathering. It is born of the light within us.
In any case, see how bright it burns in some, but not others.
The maid departed.
‘She is new?’ Hunn Raal asked.
Syntara sighed. ‘Many young women now come to me. It is my task to interview them, and find their place in things, be it household or temple.’
‘Ah,’ Hunn Raal said, slowly nodding. ‘She did not pass muster then, as a priestess in waiting.’
‘Lowborn and ignorant,’ Syntara said, settling back on the cushions. ‘Wholly lacking in any spark.’
Hunn Raal reached for his cup. ‘Mo
st of the soldiers in my legion would share that assessment, should you make it of them. Lowborn. Not knowing much. And yet, are they not valuable? Are they not worth fighting for? Their lives, High Priestess, should not be a waste.’
‘Oh, spare me,’ she replied. ‘You fling them into the teeth of battle and think only of the outcome, the groaning shift of vast unseen scales. Does it nudge you a step closer to what you seek? That is your only concern, captain.’
Beneath heavy lids, he studied her for a moment, and then shook his head. ‘You are wrong. We seek recognition. For the sacrifices we made.’
‘Oh? And did the Houseblades of the Great Houses not make the same sacrifices? Why then do they not rate in your esteem?’
‘But they do. Soldiers, little different from us. It is their masters with whom we have a disagreement. In fact, High Priestess, it would not surprise me to find, on the day of battle, many of those Houseblades refusing to draw weapons, refusing indeed what their lords and ladies would demand of them.’
‘Is this your dream, Hunn Raal? A true uprising of the commoner, the lowborn, the ignorant and the witless? If so, then High House Light is not for you.’
Smiling, he held up a pallid hand and studied it. ‘The gift made no such distinctions, Syntara, and certainly not those you would now impose. How quickly a faith is corrupted.’
Anger flashed through her, but she bit it back. ‘Consider this, then. If there are none to serve, if, in the elevation of everyone, litter fills the streets, meals remain uncooked, crops lie unharvested, clothes unmended, the dust left to choke us all in our repasts, how fares this new paradise of yours, Hunn Raal?’
He scowled across at her.
She continued. ‘You wear a sword, captain, hinting at the threat behind your every request. But not just requests – after all, we need not mince words’ meaning here – no, behind your expectations. Of obedience. Of compliance. Of the continuation of the way things are, provided that the way things are sets you above those others, and makes solid your claim to rule over them.
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