by Ben Blake
*
“Blood of the god!” Raigal whooped, several hours later. He ducked half out of the doorway to peer at the black sky, heedless of the rain. “Did you see that? Hoo, it can’t have been half a mile away!”
Farajalla kept her eyes closed, waiting for her vision to come back. She’d been looking out of the door when the lightning came to earth, and now purple lines danced across her eyelids. Rain hammered on the windmill’s broken roof and dripped through the hole on the far side of the room, to one side of the door. She could barely hear it over the wind.
Sleep will be hard to come by, Calesh had said. He was wrong, though: sleep was impossible in this storm. An autumn blow, Raigal called it. Nothing out of the ordinary for Sarténe at the start of May, when the last storms of fading spring swept in from the ocean. He grinned at her from the doorway, rain dripping from his blond curls.
“This is nothing!” he shouted over the noise. “Back in my homeland we have gales that tear boulders from the cliffs, and the rain slashes at you sideways. Blood of the God, I miss that!”
Farajalla had no doubt he was serious.
Lightning flashed again, illuminating the triangular shapes of tents in the valley below, where the soldiers had moved their camp to be out of the worst of the wind. In the glare silhouettes of trees seemed to leap out of the night as though to attack. They had barely faded back into the night when thunder boomed right overhead and rattled the old planks of the upper floor, or what was left of them. Something high in the derelict windmill groaned under the assault. A gust of wind blew rain through the canvas sheet they had hung across the doorway, spattering across aged bales of hay and a few forgotten ears of corn. The small fire in the hearth guttered like a failing candle. In the back room one of the horses snorted unhappily, though without panic. Probably they were used to it. Raigal only laughed again, waving his arms.
“Lets you know you’re alive, doesn’t it?” he bellowed. “I hope the soldiers hammered those tent pegs home hard!”
The man was insane. Nobody could really enjoy this. Farajalla wondered if Raigal was afraid of the storm, deep down, and hid that behind laughter and boisterous delight. She wasn’t going to suggest that aloud. As for her, she was terrified, which was no shame. Everyone felt fear, sometimes over irrational things, and that was all right. Especially when you’d never seen anything like it before. But if you had pride you never, ever let your fear show.
“Back home we say storms are when the old gods fight to come back to the world,” she yelled across the room. She was sitting with her back against the chest, just as Raigal had done earlier. “The thunder is the roar of their anger, and lightning is Anu driving them back.”
“We say that back in Rheven!” Raigal shouted. “About the gods fighting, anyway. We don’t believe in Anu.”
“Yes you do,” Calesh said. He was leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest. “You just call him God, that’s all. It’s the same deity. All across the world, from the desert to your rain-soaked northern forests, Raigal, it’s the same god. Different prophets and different doctrine, but underneath all the chants and incense and catechism, it’s the same god. People just like to dress him up with frills and silly incantations, that’s all.”
Raigal frowned for a moment, then shrugged his massive shoulders. “I suppose it would be, at that. So much of the rest is the same, from one land to another. I should have thought of it before.”
Farajalla studied her husband with some concern, though she didn’t let him see it, or realise she was watching. Tension was in every line of him, from the crossed arms to his rigid stance, and his face was pale. She understood that, especially since she’d seen the house where he grew up. Calesh was a farmer’s son, raised by war and then love to be something much more, with all the responsibilities that came with it. From his choices men lived or died. Sometimes she knew he felt the weight of that, as though he could sense the ghosts of long-dead soldiers watching him with judgement in their eyes.
He glanced back at her then, feeling her gaze on him after all. Suddenly he smiled, a bright flash in the gloom, and the tiny lines in his forehead smoothed over. “Lucky there’s enough roof left to keep us dry, isn’t it?”
“It will be luckier if there’s any roof left at all by morning,” she answered. “Does this sort of storm happen often here?”
“Only in spring and autumn,” he said. “Summers are dry and calm, and winters are wet and calm. The weather hoards its malice in Sarténe.”
“This is nothing,” Raigal said again. “You’ve never seen a storm until you’ve been to Rheven.”
Calesh rolled his eyes. “Oh, of course. And the summers are always balmy there, and the grass grows lush and green, and the women are all pleasingly plump with smiles like the breaking dawn. You know, I’d forgotten just how much you adore your homeland.”
“You can laugh,” Raigal said, “but I’m going to go back one day. I want to be buried on the bluffs over the cove where I grew up, so I can look west towards the Distant Isles, where the last sunlight falls at the end of every day. That’s where my father’s buried, up where the Wild Hunt never goes. I think I’d like to rest a while with him.”
“The villagers had better start digging now then. The size you are, they’ll have to hollow out half the bluff to fit you under it.”
“Most of the folks are as big as I am,” Raigal laughed. “They could dig out a hole for me between supper and sundown, and still have time for a dance.” He poked his head out of the door again. “Hey, I think it’s letting up. I can see stars away west now, anyway.”
Farajalla managed not to sigh in relief. The conversation had eased some of the tightness in her husband, she could see that, and as a bonus the weather’s malice had begun to fade. Thunder rolled once more, but this time further away, and there was no brilliant flash of lightning. Still, she needed something to distract her. “What’s the Wild Hunt?”
“Old pagan belief,” Calesh said. He craned his neck to see out of the door, his lips pursed.
Raigal shot him a scowl. “Mock if you must, Bullfrog. The Wild Hunt rides on winter nights,” he said to Farajalla, “with the Queen of the Waste Lands at its head, and all her elves and dogs straggling out behind her. They hunt the winter god, and some night when snow is thick on the ground and trees crack in the cold they catch him and drag him down, and spatter his blood across the snow before they nail him to a tree to die.”
“Who’s the Queen of the Waste Lands?”
“The ruler of the elves,” he said with a shudder. “She hates humans, you see. Once elves ruled the whole world, but then humans came with their buildings and roads, and drove the elves back into the shadows of the forests. We’re too strong for her to destroy now, but she can kill our god and bring the winter, even if she can’t hold back spring, and the god’s rebirth. Some day we’ll find ourselves facing the Hoar Rime, a time of ice and snow with no spring to follow, and cold so bitter that the breath freezes in your throat. Then the Queen will have won.”
Farajalla stared at him.
“The All-Church adapted its teachings to popular traditions,” Calesh said from the wall. He gave her a crooked smile. “Now you know where they got the idea for the death of the Adjai, the God-Son.”
“That’s a very… pessimistic belief,” she said to Raigal Tai. “But I would never have believed that from it, in your cold and rain-swept land, your people might have created something of such poetry.”
He shrugged, visibly embarrassed. “Ah, I can’t tell it very well. Too long away, and I was never much of a bard in any case. When the real skalds tell their tales around a fire, you can feel the cracking of frost under your feet, and hear the barks and calls of the Wild Hunt in the dark.”
“You’re wrong,” Farajalla said. “You tell it beautifully.”
A log broke in the fire, and sparks went crackling into the smoke, where they died. Raigal grinned at her and turned quickly away, but not before she saw the r
edness creeping up his neck. It was odd to see him embarrassed, a huge man blushing like a child offered a compliment. She had no time to think about that though, because Raigal stiffened as his gaze went back to the doorway, and he reached behind him for his axe.
“Someone’s coming up the road,” he said. Farajalla had carried that axe into the windmill, struggling under its weight, but Raigal Tai lifted it as though it was a twig. “A soldier, I think. There are two horses, anyway, and one’s laden with what looks like armour.”
“In this weather?” Farajalla scrambled to her feet. There was a blade in one of her boots and another hidden in her sleeve, but she made no move to draw either. Most warriors here thought women posed no threat, which might be useful. “He must be crazed.”
“Or desperate,” Calesh said. He unfolded his arms, but didn’t move from the wall. “If there’s a packhorse it can’t be one of the men, but whoever it is must have got past the sentries. I wonder, what fool would brave a storm to come to a nowhere little windmill?”
“Baruch?” Farajalla asked. Calesh smiled and nodded, utterly unconcerned. His earlier tension had blown away with the fading storm, replaced by a preternatural calm. Raigal frowned at him, then looked out into the rain again, and after a moment he burst into laughter.
“You’re right!” He cupped hands to his mouth. “Hurry up, slow bones! There’s a fire here to dry you!” He pulled out his cloak and began to wrap it around him, pulling the hood over his unruly hair.
“How did you know?” Farajalla asked her husband softly. “You didn’t even bother to look.”
“The All-Church doesn’t know we’re here,” he answered. “Not yet. Certainly the priests haven’t had time to send the Justified’s expert killers after us, and even if they had the sentries would have sounded the alarm. They didn’t, which leaves the only people who know to come to this windmill: Baruch and Luthien. It had to be one of them.”
Raigal Tai plunged out into the rain. Moving across the room, Farajalla saw him seize the approaching man and lift him into the air, just as he’d lifted Calesh back at the harbour. It was too dark to make out details, and she wondered how Raigal had recognised him. Something in his movements, perhaps: his face was too shadowed for it to be anything else.
“God grant I am strong enough for this,” Calesh said softly from the wall.
Farajalla studied him again. “For meeting an old friend?”
“Not that,” he said. “For all of it. I keep thinking of a line in The Unfurling of Spirit; ‘What is my strength, that I should hope?’”
She stood for a moment, and then walked over to take his chin in one hand. He made no move to stop her, his brown eyes steady on hers as she spoke. “You are strong enough for anything the God asks of you, Calesh. There’s another quote; ‘If you bring forth what is within, what you have will save you.’ You can do anything you set yourself to do. You were not chosen at random. Do you think it was chance that led you to the fortress at Harenc?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But whatever it was, I’m glad of it. It brought me to you. Can I have my chin back now?”
She let him go. “Just believe in yourself. I don’t like it when you call yourself weak, even subtly like that. You’re not. Remember it.”
“As you say, my wife,” he murmured.
A horse snorted outside. Farajalla turned to see Raigal leading both animals towards the back room, and then her view was blocked as a stocky man stepped into the windmill. One pace into the room his head turned towards Calesh, and he stopped. Water poured from his oiled cloak, and his boots squelched as he came to a halt. Dark eyes gleamed under heavy brows. There was a flash of white in his hair, above the lopped remains of his left ear.
“Why,” Baruch Caraman asked, “did you have to pick such a godforsaken ruin for us to meet in?”
Calesh shrugged. “I’m awkward.”
“Oh, I know that,” the other man said. He stepped forward again, and suddenly he and Calesh were pounding each other on the back and laughing, hardly able to speak. She had never understood why men behaved like that. When two male friends met up there always seemed to be a great deal of hitting each other on the arm, or hugging one another as Raigal liked to do, often followed by too many glasses of beer and loud, lewd songs.
“You look well enough, anyway,” Baruch said at length. He drew back to study Calesh, his eyes slightly narrowed. “I take it you’ve finally managed to get the sand out of your boots.”
“You look well too,” Calesh answered. “Life in the Hand still agrees with you, I see. Raigal says you made Commander.”
“Someone thought I might be just competent enough to give orders.” Baruch unclasped his sodden cloak and threw it over the remains of a hay bale. Underneath he wore travelling clothes of thick wool, stained and patched with wet where water had seeped through. “It’s a shame we’re not at Raigal’s place. This deserves a glass or ten of ale. I’m sorry, was that funny?”
Farajalla swallowed another laugh. “No. I was… thinking about something else.”
“My wife, Farajalla,” Calesh said. “Fara, this is Baruch. The third of our old band from the east.”
“It’s a pleasure,” she said.
“For me, too.” Baruch took her hand and bowed over it. “Though I’m surprised you put up with this untutored yokel. Your voice has the sound of education to me, my lady.”
“That’s true,” she admitted. “But I’m working on his education, and Calesh learned a lot in Harenc.”
There was a pause.
“Harenc?” Baruch repeated. “I heard the city had fallen to the Madai, and been burned to ash.”
“You heard right,” Farajalla said quietly.
“That isn’t the half of it,” Raigal said as he hurried back inside. His cloak was already soaked. The thunder had passed, at least for now, but rain still fell in sheets. “Calesh has gone and brought all the –”
“Perhaps I might tell this,” Calesh broke in. His voice was quiet, but the huge man stopped speaking. Calesh turned to Baruch, to find the stocky man watching him with a tiny smile on his lips.
“There are a lot of tents down in the valley,” Baruch said. “You brought all the Hand back from Tura d’Madai, didn’t you? This is about the All-Church army on the Rielle. God in Heaven, the rumours were right.”
Calesh nodded. “Sit down, my friend, and we’ll get you something to eat while you dry off. And then I’ll explain.”
Six
The Halls of Academe
It was a war waged between two mighty cultures, the strongest in the world in their day, which between them stretched from the Middle Sea to the distant east where the river Irates flows. Yet all the fighting took place in a small area of land controlled by neither. No major cities were sacked, no fields burned or temples looted. It was as if neither side truly wished to destroy the other.
Why, then, did they fight? And not only fight, but do so for twenty-six long years, with a savagery as great as anything in all the annals of warfare? The typical soldier is not a monster. He might go into battle because he has been ordered to do so, but if he shows such brutality as was commonplace in the Isthmus War, it is because his soul is filled to brimming with hatred. What lay behind that? What caused the men of each side to loathe the other with such passion?
The desk was cluttered with the debris of erudition: an inkpot bristling with quills, books open at pages marked with scraps of paper, and crumpled scrolls jostling for whatever space they could find. One rested partly over a bowl in which a few peanuts huddled. A lantern hung on a rafter above, adding its glow to the dreary morning light that slunk in through the window. The walls of the little room were jammed with books and scrolls, all of them copies, which was just as well. Most bore inky fingerprints on their creased pages, a legacy of their own time spent at the crowded desk.
The man seated there wore long green robes, and a round cap of the same colour. He took off his glasses and polished them with a piece of
cloth, then pushed them back on his nose again. These days he had to squint to make out all but the largest letters unless he had his glasses. It was strange, because he could see something ten yards away perfectly well. He knew that for some people it was the other way around.
Perplexing. It was the sort of puzzle that had always intrigued him. Perhaps one of the physicians over at the medical school might be able to suggest an answer. Maybe if he went over and asked them to… no. He had to keep his mind on the task in hand.
Luthien read the passage through, frowned, and chewed absently at the end of the quill. He wasn’t sure about Twenty-six long years; maybe he could drop long from that. A year was as long as it was, after all, and this was a history and not a romantic play. In the end he left it there. Otherwise he’d have to rewrite the whole of the second page.
“Before you write something down,” he muttered, “make sure you want it in the text.”
He dipped his quill, and wrote:
Documents recently found in the libraries of Caileve cast some light on these questions. Perhaps more important was the discovery of an original account of the first eleven years of the war, written by an under-marshal of the Ossanian army in the form of letters sent to his wife. They were found by the author, quite by accident, in the catacombs underneath Elorium, when he himself had cause to experience the brutality of war. It has been the work of four years to translate the letters, and they form the core of –
Someone rapped on the door and Luthien jerked in surprise. The last letter ended up with a squiggly tail where the quill had taken advantage of his twitch to wander across the page. He looked at it in dismay. Obviously he was going to have to rewrite the page anyway. It was enough to test the patience of even the most pious man. He very nearly swore.
At least he could get rid of that awkward long now.
“Come in!” he called.
The door opened and a young man poked his head into the room. He wore a fuzzy beard on the point of his chin, just a fluffy patch of dark hair really, in the current fashion among the Academy’s students. The hair hanging past his collar was curled and dyed jet black, in the style of the nobles of Tura d’Madai. Another of today’s fashions.
Luthien felt a surge of anger. The boy’s beard was harmless enough, but not the hair. This youth had never even seen the Madai lords he imitated in battle array, and would probably wet himself if he did. Wearing his hair like that was an insult to the men who fought in that desert, and… and that was not, Luthien told himself, a thought worthy of an Elite.
“Yes?” he asked, keeping his voice level.
“Tutor Luthien,” the lad said, “the Dean asked me to tell you there’s a man at the main office, asking for you.”
He frowned. He’d made sure to keep today free of appointments, so he could make the long-awaited start on his history of the Isthmus War. And it was days since Luthien had gone into Parrien; there was no need, when everything was close to his hand here at the Academy. “Who is he?”
“The Dean says he won’t give his name,” the student replied. “It’s very odd. And he looks a bad sort, if you ask me.”
“I’m sure Heaven trembles at your perception,” Luthien said dryly, which was sarcastic but appropriate enough, under the circumstances. “All right, I’m on my way. You can go about your business.”
In truth, Luthien thought as the youth ducked back out, this was odd. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had visited him at the Academy, apart from Baruch, and his face was known well enough. Even Raigal Tai didn’t come up from the town very often. And the stranger had a disreputable look, if a young student’s opinion could be trusted. Very peculiar. It was a long time since anything this curious had happened.
Luthien looked longingly at his book. He hadn’t even finished the first page, and already he was called away.
He picked up his cloak and left the office, taking care to place his glasses in a clever little oblong box he’d had made for them. He never left them out, not when the nearest makes of spectacles was five hundred miles away in Tura d’Madai. He locked the door behind him too: there had been a distressing rash of thefts over the summer, and though the culprit had been caught and expelled, all the tutors locked their offices now. It was a pity, but with students now coming from all over the continent, he supposed it was inevitable. Men’s spirits might belong to God, but their baser instincts came straight to them from the Adversary.
He walked along a narrow corridor and went down a flight of stairs, then through a side door and out into the May sunshine. Last night’s storm had passed, leaving behind it a day cloudy and chill and sopping wet. There were times when Luthien almost wished he could go back to the desert.
Still, it was only a short walk to the main office, along a gravel path between two new, white stone lecture halls. Over a dozen of them had sprung up during the last three years, spreading up the hillside as ever more students came to the Academy from further and further away. Fifteen hundred students now, learning everything from history to philosophy to literature, and taking it all home with them when they passed their final assessments. They took a metal badge too, shaped in the likeness of an owl. The badges were made of tin, and all but worthless, but in Gallene and Alinaur and far-off Rheven men wore them with pride because of what they represented: I am a scholar of the Parrien Academy. Luthien had even seen nobles wearing them, pinned to their silk shirts and satin coats, as though the tin badge was worth as much as all their lineage.
A generation from now, one of the students would probably write a book that revolutionised the received wisdom about the Isthmus War, after which the name Luthien Bourrel would be a half-forgotten footnote in some bibliography, known only to the learned. That was all right. Education hadn’t been his first calling, after all. If he managed to teach some bright young lad enough that the boy supplanted him, that would satisfy him. And if not, teaching was still better than hacking men to death in the desert. Even if it was sunnier there.
The main office was at the front of the old manor house, donated by the Margrave fifty years ago when the Academy was founded. Built long ago of the same white stone as the lecture halls, the manor had a grey and weary look now, raddled with ivy, and one of the chimneys hung precariously over the eaves. Luthien had meant to climb up there and dismantle it over the summer, before it collapsed on the head of an unfortunate student. He really ought to get around to that. Another storm like last night’s might be one storm too many.
He pushed open the main door and went into the office.
It had been the Entrance Hall, when the manor still received noble visitors to masked balls and intimate dinners where plots were hatched and treacheries began. Desks lined the walls now, with a clerk seated at each one to record attendance and deal with enquiries, while benches were lined up in the middle of the room like swallows waiting for autumn. At the top of the sweeping staircase a large metal owl watched over proceedings with round eyes, its claws wrapped securely around the oak rail. The school’s motto was carved on the wall over its glinting head: Always seek the truth.
The Dean stood near the far end of the hall, almost underneath the owl. He was tall and very thin, with a pinched face that narrowed to a sharp chin, and he looked morosely unhappy. That was usual with Cerain, though in fact he was very rarely glum. Give him two glasses of wine and he was likely to start singing the latest ballads. With him was a young lad, about sixteen years old, in clothes heavy with the dust of travel. Nearby a pair of the Academy’s watchmen loitered, watching him from the tails of their eyes while they pretended to talk. It was a shame that such men were needed, but there was inevitably a call for them. Lately Parrien’s adolescents had decided it was the height of humour to sneak into Academy grounds and throw rotten fruit at the buildings. It was very hard to teach while tomatoes splattered against the windows.
The young man bore a short sword at his hip. If he knew how to use it and intended to harm Luthien, the two watchmen would be of no us
e at all. Luthien smiled to himself and started towards them.
“Good afternoon, Dean,” he said as he came up. “God has blessed us with a wonderful day.”
“Yes, yes,” Cerain said. “I’m sorry to drag you away from your history. Have you started writing yet?”
“I’ve finished almost a whole page,” he said. “Hardly a work to make the titans of literature quail in their shoes. And now I understand this young man wishes to see me.” He smiled at the youth. Now he saw him closer to, Luthien didn’t think he knew how to use that sword at all, or was even used to wearing it. “I begin to think God doesn’t desire me to finish my book.”
“Japh more than wishes to see you,” the Dean grumbled. Apparently he was morose after all. “He insisted. He said he would stand in the courtyard and shout until you spoke with him.”
“It’s important,” the lad put in. “And urgent. I need to speak with you in private, sir, at once.”
Luthien’s eyebrows climbed. Obviously the boy had given his name after all, but that seemed to be the limit of his candour. “I’m sure you can say it here. Whatever it is.”
“In private,” Japh repeated. “Please. It truly is important.”
“You have a sword,” Luthien said mildly. “You might mean to use it, for all I know.”
For answer, the boy unbuckled his belt, nearly dropped it, and laid the scabbard on a desk. The clerk behind it scowled and pushed it away from his ledgers with two careful fingers; and Cerain pursed his lips, not bothering to hide his disapproval.
“I don’t have any hidden knives,” Japh said. “And it wouldn’t matter anyway, if half what I’ve heard about you is true, sir. You could stand me on my head and bounce me off the floor if you wanted to.”
“Once I could have done,” Luthien agreed. “Not now. I took an oath. I can use force in self defence, but no more than that. Who is the message from?”
“That’s private too. I’m sorry.” Japh pushed a hand through his matted hair. “Blood of the god, you’re awkward. I don’t know what to do. Stay here and bicker until we draw attention, or just give you the message and hope the wrong ears don’t overhear it.”
“Come with me,” Luthien said. “We’ll talk in private.”
Surprise gave way to relief on Japh’s face as Luthien led him towards a side door, watched by a scowling Cerain. Whatever the Dean thought, Luthien knew now there was no danger here, for the simplest of reasons.
Blood of the god. There was probably only one man who swore that way in all Sarténe, and he owned a neat little inn by the harbour in Parrien. Japh couldn’t have picked up the oath except from Raigal Tai. And that meant he could be trusted. Luthien led him into a room stacked with old entrance papers and reports, closed the door, and turned to him.
“Very well,” he said. “What’s the message?”
Japh took a parchment from his pocket and handed it over. Luthien pushed his glasses onto his nose again, and as he read, his eyebrows climbed almost into his hair.
The sand scorpion has returned to Sarténe. Need your help. The windmill on the ridge. Vast importance.
Calesh was back. Luthien’s heart was beating very fast. He made himself breathe deeply, fighting to stay calm.
You have always held my trust.
They had always held one another’s trust, all four of them. Always, and without question, but Calesh most of all. Without him they would merely have been three men, good friends, comrades-in-arms who might meet from time to time and share fond memories as they grew older. With him they were brothers. With him, friendship became love. It had never been the same, since the three of them came home and Calesh did not.
“Is he well?” Luthien asked finally.
“As far as I could tell,” Japh said.
“And his… wife?” Saying that felt odd, for some reason. Raigal was the only one of the four to have married before now. Luthien had sworn himself to God, and Baruch was too committed to the Hand of the Lord to have time for a wife, or to want one either. I’m married to the Hand, he sometimes said, rather coarsely. Still, for some men that was best. Wives did not always come between the friendships of men, but often they did, and they always changed them. How would this woman, whoever she was, change Calesh?
That brought on a thought, and his eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “His wife is Madai, isn’t she?”
Japh nodded. “She’s beautiful, too. I mean really gorgeous.” He stopped suddenly, blushing. “Er, not that I… I mean… I wouldn’t –”
“You’d better not,” Luthien said absently. “Calesh really would pick you up and bounce you on your head, and then he’d get nasty.” He read the letter again, trying to pick out a hint of its deeper meaning, but found nothing. Calesh was being extremely careful, as well he might be. It sounded to Luthien as though his friend had deserted his duty in the East.
This would not stay secret for long, however careful Calesh was. The Sarténi were proud of him: everyone knew the story of the death of Cammar a Amalik. He was one of the heroes of the war for Elorium, perhaps the best known soldier the Orders had ever produced. Troubadours sang of his deeds – mostly imagined or exaggerated – and artists painted frescoes of his battles, while children playing soldier games argued over whose turn it was to be Calesh Saissan. Luthien had seen that himself, each time with a faint thrill of shock. Whatever had happened, Calesh would have some explaining to do.
“Wait a moment,” he said. “Wait just a moment. You know Raigal Tai, by the way you swear. Calesh came ashore in Parrien, then?”
Another nod. “Yes. Four days ago now.”
“And he sent a letter to Baruch as well. Baruch Caraman.”
“I know who you mean,” Japh said. “I delivered that message two days ago, in Mayence.”
“And Baruch will have gone,” Luthien realised. He didn’t need Japh’s confirmation. “They’re together again.”
“Yes,” Japh said, smiling now. He looked like a puppy, all wide eyes and wag-tailed eagerness to be off. “We can be well on our way to them before sundown. How soon can you be ready?”
“What?” Luthien came out of his reverie. He had been thinking the same, he realised, falling easily back into the patterns of thought that had become habit during those years in the desert. How quickly he could pack, how long the journey would take, all the necessary details of a life spent on various roads with a sword belted at his side. But that was over. He had sworn as much.
“I’m not going,” he said, with some effort. It has never been the same, since the three of us came home and Calesh did not. He thrust the letter into Japh’s hands. “Take this back. If I read it right, Calesh is tangled up in some sort of trouble, and that part of my life is over.”
The youngster blinked. “But he needs you.”
“To do what?” Luthien asked. “I could hold a service for him, I suppose, but I prefer to do that here. I’m a writer and teacher now, not a soldier any more. I’m sure Raigal told him that.”
“He still needs you,” Japh said stubbornly. “It’s… look, it’s important, Master Luthien. Really important.”
“So you said.” He peered at the lad over the top of his glasses. “What’s he got himself tangled up in, then? It must be something big to bring him home, and in such secrecy, but nothing has happened in Tura d’Madai for –”
He broke off, realising. That wasn’t the point, was it? Nothing that could have happened in Tura d’Madai would be enough to send Calesh scurrying for home… but something in Sarténe would. Luthien felt himself go cold. His hands clenched into fists at his sides.
“Oh, sweet God in Heaven,” he said. “It’s that army by the Rielle, isn’t it? The rumours are true. It’s coming here.”
“We think so,” Japh agreed. “Master Saissan is certain of it.”
“And Calesh brought the whole army,” Luthien said wonderingly. “The Lord Marshal will give him fits about that, and Calesh must realise it. He knows something. He must do.”
The boy’s lips writhed, as though he wanted to say more but knew he shouldn’t. Youthful impulse won out in the end. “Someone inside the Basilica sent him a warning, just after the priest was murdered on the Ferry Road. That’s why he came home.”
Luthien’s mind raced. A killing such as that could easily be used as an excuse for war. And the All-Church had been losing patience with the Dualism for several years, and with the Margrave too, who constantly promised to clamp down on the heretics and never quite did. Probably because he was one himself, though the Basilica didn’t know that, and probably also because Riyand was an idiot. If there was a way to antagonise the All-Church Riyand would find it, sure as flowers in spring and rain in autumn.
At any rate, it was nothing unusual these days to go Crusading against unbelievers in other lands, the Jaidi in Alinaur, and Madai in their own desert homeland. People were used to the idea. Perhaps more importantly, the larger military Orders had no love for the Hand of the Lord, and the Justified hated Calesh personally. Given those two things, it might not be difficult for the All-Church to take the extra step of launching a Crusade against someone in more familiar lands, and persuade people to join it.
“There will be war, then,” Luthien said at last. “Here in Sarténe.”
Japh nodded. “Almost certainly.” He shot a nervous glance towards the door. “Word of this can’t get out, Master Luthien. Calesh doesn’t want the All-Church to know he’s back until the last possible moment. You must realise what they will do if they learn of it.”
“I know exactly what they’ll do.” Assassins first of all, almost certainly Justified highbinders with bones sewn into the backs of their gloves. And if they failed a regiment might be ordered to track Calesh’s in battle and cut him down, ignoring all other considerations until that was done. The All-Church could be unswervingly single-minded, and terrifying in its determination. Nothing less could have launched army after army across the sea to Tura d’Madai, in a steady stream for well over fifty years.
Well. War, then. Luthien remembered what it was like; the problem, usually, was how to forget. He drew a deep breath.
“Tell Calesh I wish him well,” he said.
Japh stared at him in dismay. “You’re not coming?”
“No.” He needed another steadying breath, it seemed, and then a third. “I won’t say I’m not tempted, lad, because I am. But not enough. I lived the life of a soldier, and found friendship and camaraderie there, but the price I paid was too high. It’s too high for any man, if they could only realise it. No, Japh, I won’t go. I will pray every day for God to smile on my friends, but I will not put on my armour again, for any reason at all.”
The youth’s head lifted. “You will not put it on? You still have your armour, don’t you?”
“I have it,” Luthien admitted. “It’s yours if you want it, lad. You’re about the same size as me.”
“I don’t want it,” Japh said. “I want to know why you kept it, if you never plan to wear it again.”
He opened his mouth to reply.
And had no words. There was no answer he could give, except the treacherous voice that sneaked around the back of his mind: because I might need it again, after all. He could not say that. He would not say that, or accept it as true. His days of dealing death were over: he had sworn so, with one hand on a copy of the Unfurling of Spirit and the other on a reliquary, the glory of God shining in his heart. He had never felt so whole as when he spoke those words, bound himself with that oath, and it was an vow he wouldn’t break. He ought to have sold his armour long ago, or had it turned into tools and bracelets. He would not fight again.
“You don’t know why,” Japh said. The puppyish manner was gone, replaced by something harder and more stern. He seemed a good deal older than sixteen now. “And even not knowing, you’ll let your friends face the coming dangers while you turn your face away.”
“Don’t lecture me on friendship, you little bastard,” Luthien snapped, and then stopped in dismay. He hadn’t sworn for three years, not once since he took the Consolation as an Elite, and now this lad had pushed him to it. A muscle in his cheek twitched.
“Why not?” Japh asked prosaically. “You seem to have forgotten what it means. Stay here then, and pray to God the All-Church doesn’t notice you. I’m a weak reed next to Luthien Bourrel, but I’ll stand where you should be and fight the best I can.”
He turned and walked out of the room. Luthien stayed where he was, fingers curled into fists and the muscle in his cheek jumping madly. He tried to offer up a prayer, begging for guidance, but couldn’t remember the words, or bring them to mind. Rage made his temples throb. How dare that young upstart accuse him of abandoning his friends? Japh hadn’t been in Tura d’Madai, with arrows raining down on upraised shields and the Nazir screaming battle cries as they advanced across the burning rock. What did he know about standing by your friends when blood ran hot and every breath was a rasp in your throat?
Luthien remembered how it felt to have blood surge in his veins. To feel as though his skin was afire, every sense preternaturally sharp, as his blade fell and rose and fell again, ending lives. No enemy had ever got close enough to Luthien to wound him. They came, and they died, as quickly as he could say it. He had felt immortal, clothed in glory like God himself: until he took the Consolation, he had never felt so vibrantly alive. But it was an illusion. Where God gave life soldiers dealt only death. It was obscene. The thought of it revolted him.
The door opened again. Cerain came in and closed it behind him, looking at Luthien with shrewd eyes.
“The lad has a point,” he said.
Luthien glowered at him. “I shouldn’t be surprised that you listen at keyholes, Dean, but I am offended. That was a private discussion.”
“It won’t be for long,” Cerain said. “The boy tried to be discreet, but he wasn’t very good at it. If he wanted to keep his message quiet he shouldn’t have walked straight up to the front desk. Half the students are talking about him already, Luthien. When the All-Church realises Calesh has returned, they’ll soon learn that a message came here to you at about the same time.” The thin man frowned. “In fact, I suspect they already know he’s back. They have agents everywhere.”
“I know,” Luthien said. The same thought had occurred to him. Either the All-Church already knew Calesh was back, or else a pigeon was flying right now towards the Basilica with a message taped to its leg. Calesh was an idiot if he thought he could stay hidden for long.
“What do you think they’ll do?”
“I have no idea,” Luthien grated. “I am not a Cardinal.”
“No,” Cerain said, “but I’m beginning to think you’re a fool. And don’t dissemble, Luthien. You know exactly what the Basilica will do when they learn of this.”
That was true, of course. The priests would call on their assassins, perhaps their own oft-denied corps of killers, perhaps Justified with bone gloves and iron hearts. And Calesh would not be the only target. His friends would be at risk too, and Luthien would have the choice of breaking his oath or dying. Very well then; he would die. He would not break that vow.
“There have been rumours for years that the All-Church would come for us,” Cerain said after a moment. “Perhaps this time it will be the same. Lots of rumours, and then nothing happens.”
Luthien doubted it. He thought it very unlikely that nothing would happen now, with a priest dead by the river and the Hand of the Lord home from Tura d’Madai. “Rumours are often wrong.”
“But usually based on truth,” the Dean countered. “Which is why the mere whisper that Calesh Saissan sent you a message will cause the Basilica to act. Do you really want to die here, Luthien?”
“I am ready for what God sends,” he said.
Cerain snorted. “We’re all ready, but that doesn’t mean we go galloping to meet Him before we must.”
“What do you want of me?” he demanded.
“I want you to live as the man you are,” Cerain sa
id placidly, “and that is not a historian, Luthien.”
He turned and left, leaving Luthien to stare at the wall with unseeing eyes.