Fall of Light (106 page)

Degalla replied, ‘The diminishing of power and influence upon both sides would be ideal, Aegis. Anomander feels free to indulge himself in personal matters – not well suited to the commander of Mother Dark’s armies. We are all agreed on that, yes?’

‘And should he be stripped of such responsibility?’

‘Then a more modest sibling might serve in his place.’

‘But not,’ said Syl, ‘that bloodless brother of theirs. If, among the three, there is one to truly fear, it is Silchas Ruin.’

‘Why?’ demanded Aegis.

Vanut Degalla answered. ‘Silchas Ruin does not understand loyalty.’

Aegis snorted. ‘Meaning, he cannot be bought. But you think Andarist can?’

‘I leave his suborning to your sympathetic hands.’

‘Then we are agreed?’

‘We will attend the battle, and see how it plays out,’ Vanut said.

‘Hish will believe us with her, then?’

‘She can believe what she likes. In this, we are hardly alone in our unwillingness to commit. My sister agrees entirely with this position, and so too House Manaleth.’

Aegis spoke again, her tone suddenly harsher. ‘You know something, Degalla.’

‘Let us say, we are confident in matters, to the extent that anything can be predicted. It is, indeed, more a matter of expectation.’

‘Enlighten me further.’

‘Have faith, Aegis.’

‘Faith?’

‘Just so,’ and Sukul could hear the sly smile in Syl Lebanas’s voice. ‘Faith.’

‘We should return to the dining hall,’ Vanut Degalla said. ‘My sister will not attend, preferring to leave this night to me. I believe I heard the bell announcing the arrival of yet another highborn.’

Aegis grunted. ‘That should be enough to begin things, then.’

‘Hish Tulla will decide.’

Syl laughed softly. ‘Yes, we can be generous on occasion.’

‘When it costs nothing.’

‘It pleases me that we do understand one another, Lady Aegis.’

Sukul listened to them leave, waited a few moments, and then rose from the chest. The game of betrayal was indeed a subtle one, when it came to adults and their ways. And yet, a child’s glee remained, swirling beneath the surface. Recognizing this came to Sukul as something of a shock.
Boys and girls in the end after all. Here I believed politics to be something lofty, clever and sharp with wit. But it is nothing like that.

Desire is venal. Needs give way to hunger, fostering the illusion of starvation – as Gallan has said – and the world becomes a pit of wolves. ‘In the cruel game of politics, we are brought low by the child within each of us, until every howl is deafening in its abject stupidity, and none can hear the wails of the suffering.’

She felt sick to her stomach. In need of another goblet brimming with wine.

Restlessness, let me dull thy sting.

  *   *   *

Rancept’s breathing wheezed noisily in the steamy confines of the kitchen. The cook had driven his cast of helpers into the scullery and from within that side chamber with its vast iron sinks came the clash of pots, plates and cutlery, leaving the castellan and his two informal guests alone at the carving table. Sekarrow wore the livery of a Houseblade of House Drethdenan, although her long fingers and delicate hands were clearly better suited to the four-stringed iltre she idly plucked than to the plain sword at her belt. There was a delicacy about her that most men would find endearing, and her eyes were large and luminous, set within a childlike face. Her brother, Horult Chiv, made for a stark contrast, with his face of sharp angles and his frame robust and stolid, and the hands he rested upon the tabletop were broad, battered and blunt. Horult was captain of the same Houseblades, and also Drethdenan’s long-time lover. Such a union could of course produce no heirs, but in all other manner the two men were indeed married and seen as such.

In his long years of life, Rancept had had occasion to reflect on the wondrous variability of love, as might anyone left standing on its periphery, too bent and battered to draw another’s eye. He was no sceptic in his observation of tenderness, but the longing in his soul did not incline him to bitterness. Some were destined to walk alone through life, others not. Drethdenan’s adoration of Horult Chiv delivered a kind of balm to all who witnessed it.

The nobles were gathering in the dining hall, and while Horult might well have elected to sit beside Lord Drethdenan, as was the right of any spouse, instead he appeared in the company of his sister, joining Rancept where he sat finishing his meal.

Horult Chiv’s demeanour suggested some measure of unease, if not frustration, but as Rancept knew neither of these two people well he remained silent, wiping up the last of the stew’s gravy with a piece of bread, pausing regularly in his chewing to draw a breath or two.

Finally, Sekarrow dropped her fingers from the strings and settled the instrument into her lap as she leaned back in the chair. Eyeing her brother, she said, ‘Caution is not a flaw.’

Horult rapped the tabletop with his knuckles, a sharp sound that made Rancept jump. ‘It has its place, I grant you. But not in this matter.’

‘He fears what he might lose,’ she said.

‘So much that what he fears may well come to pass.’

Her thin brows lifted. ‘He will lose you?’

Horult started, and then glanced away. ‘No. Of course not. We have had disagreements before.’

‘You mistake my meaning, brother.’

‘In what manner?’

Sighing, Sekarrow looked across to Rancept. ‘Castellan, I beg you, indulge my dimwitted sibling with an explanation.’

Grunting, Rancept said, ‘Not for me to intrude, unless invited.’

Leaning forward, Horult gestured. ‘Consider it done. Tell me, what so dims my wits that I comprehend nothing of my sister’s warning?’

‘You command his Houseblades, sir. On a field of battle, soldiers die. Officers die.’

The knuckles rapped again, hard enough to momentarily silence the dishwashers in the other room. ‘That is … selfish. What value this presumption of responsibility when the first threat sees it shy away? I
am
a soldier. That entails risks. We are in a civil war. A pretender seeks to claim a throne.’

‘Not entirely accurate,’ Sekarrow murmured, returning to tuning her iltre. ‘He but seeks a second throne, to stand beside the first, and of the two, at least
his
would be seen. I have heard tell that no vision proves keen enough to pierce the veil of darkness our beloved Mother now wraps about herself. Indeed, some say she is now nothing more than darkness manifest, a thing of absences so profound as to give the illusion of presence.’

‘Poets can play games with such notions all they like,’ Horult retorted. ‘One throne, two thrones, it matters not one whit. I dream of the day when pedantry ceases to be.’

Smiling, Sekarrow said, ‘And I dream of the day it is no longer necessary. Precision of language is to be valued. Don’t you agree, castellan? How many wars and tragedies might we have avoided if meanings were not only clear, but agreed upon? In fact, I would hazard the suggestion that language lies at the root of all conflict. Misapprehension as the prelude to violence.’

Rancept pushed the plate away and settled back, collecting up his tankard of weak ale. ‘The buck dragged down by wolves might disagree.’

‘Hah!’ snorted Horult Chiv.

But Sekarrow shook her head. ‘There is necessity in hunger, of which we do not speak here, castellan. Nothing of hunter or prey, at least not in the simplest sense of their meaning. Instead, we take such natural inclinations and twist them into our more civil state of being. The enemy to our way of thinking becomes the prey, assuming it is too weak to claim any other title, and we the hunter. But such words themselves, “hunter” and “prey”, seek a kind of synonymy with nature, when the reality is in fact one of murder.’ She brushed at her uniform’s leather shoulder-guards. ‘Murder is then obscured behind a cascade of words intended to deflect that brutal truth. War, soldiers, battles – the mere vocabulary of our existence, as commonplace as breathing, or eating and drinking. And, of course, as necessary.’ She twisted a peg and then strummed the strings, making a discordant clash of notes. ‘Uniforms, training, discipline. Honour, duty, courage. Principles, integrity, revenge. To obscure is to empower the lie.’

‘And what lie might that be?’ Horult demanded.

‘Why, that being a soldier excuses us from the murder we commit. Have you ever wondered, dear brother, what lies at the heart of the Legion’s demand for justice?’

‘Avarice.’

Her brows lifted once more. She turned another peg, strummed again, yielding if anything a more jarring sound. ‘Castellan?’

Rancept shrugged. ‘As your brother suggests. Land, wealth.’

‘To compensate their sacrifice, yes?’

Both men nodded.

‘But … what sacrifice do they mean?’

Horult threw up his hands. ‘Why, the one they made, of course!’

‘And that is?’

Her brother scowled.

‘Castellan?’

Rancept scratched at his misshapen nose, felt wetness on his fingers and reached for his handkerchief. ‘The fighting. The killing. The fallen comrades.’

‘Then one must ask at some point, I should think: what compensation should a civil state give to those who murdered in its name?’

‘There was more to it than that,’ Horult objected. ‘They were saving the lives of loved ones, of innocents. They were standing between the helpless and those who wished them harm.’

‘And does this act require compensation? More to the point, is not that act, of defence of the weak and the helpless, something that should be expected of
every
able adult? Indeed, are we not describing something we share with every beast and creature of this world? Will not a mother bear defend her cubs? Will not soldier ants die defending their nest and queen?’

‘Then, by your very words, sister, war is indeed natural!’

‘When was the last time you saw thousands of worker ants line a parade of their victorious soldiers? Or the queen emerge from the bowels of her nest to drape medals and honours upon her brave subjects?’

‘Even there,’ Horult said, stabbing at her with a finger, ‘you trap yourself. Some are born weak and helpless, but others are born to be soldiers. Each finds a place in every society.’

She smiled. ‘Workers and soldiers. Queens and kings. Gods and goddesses, all overseeing their fine and finely ordered creation. The worker enslaved to work, the soldier enslaved to the cause of defending and killing. The helpless doomed to remain helpless. The innocent cursed into a lifetime of naivety—’

‘And children? What of defending them?’

‘Ah yes, the children who must grow up to make more workers and more soldiers.’

‘You find your own arguments dragging you into a quagmire, beloved sister.’

She strummed the strings again, making Rancept wince. ‘Language keeps us in our place. And, when necessary, puts us in our place. Let’s go back to that question of compensation. The poor legion out there, even now marching down upon helpless Kharkanas. Land. Wealth. In answer to the sacrifices made. The castellan speaks of that sacrifice: the killing, the wounds, the friends lost. Name me the number of coins sufficient to compensate for being made into a murderer. How high the stack to match a lopped-off limb, or a lost eye? How broad the stretch of land needed to keep the ghosts of fallen comrades at bay? Show me, I beg you, the coin and the land sufficient to ease a soldier’s anguish and loss.’

Slowly, Horult Chiv leaned back.

Sekarrow’s smile was soft. ‘Brother, the man who loves you fears your wounding. Your death. Against that, land is worthless, coin an insult to the soul. He hesitates, because he sees clearly what he might lose. For love, he will do nothing. And, perhaps, love is the only valid reason for doing nothing.’ She shifted her attention to Rancept. ‘What think you on that, castellan?’

He wiped again at his nose. ‘I would hear you play,’ he said.

Snorting again, Horult Chiv stood. ‘She can’t,’ he said, moving off to collect a new jug of ale, and two tankards.

Sekarrow shrugged apologetically. ‘No talent.’

‘The arguments begin in yonder hall,’ said Horult, sitting back down and pouring ale into all three tankards. ‘Let us drink, and in silence – such as we can manage here – bemoan the cruel misuse of horsehair, wood and glue.’

Rancept squinted at the siblings, and decided he liked them both. He reached down for his tankard.

  *   *   *

Families were sordid things, Lady Hish Tulla reflected as she looked upon the uncle she had not seen in decades. The curse of estrangement burned like a brand when its subject made a game of sudden, unexpected appearances, bearing an expression of amusement and expectation, as if past crimes could settle like sand. In the moment of seeing the tall, thin form of Venes Turayd, however, as he brushed snow from his furs just within the entranceway, the storm within her ignited with all the fury of its shocking birth.

An uneasy truce had been achieved in their protracted dance of avoidance in the managing of family lands and interests. Although, upon belated consideration, Hish Tulla realized that this meeting was inevitable. Venes commanded a considerable element of her Houseblades, and she would need them for the battle to come. Her summons had made no provision against his attending.

Berating herself, she stepped forward. ‘Venes, have you brought the company?’

‘Ensconced nearby, milady. The summer high pasture camp upon the slopes of Istan Rise.’ He paused, and then said, ‘If not for my many spies, I could have hoped to find you with your new husband at your side. Gripp Galas, who once stood upon one flank of the First Son of Darkness, less a sword than a dagger, I gather. But then, the court of the Citadel was always an insipid, venal place. You reached down far, dear niece, to win Anomander’s favour.’

‘Oh, Uncle Venes, how it stings you to find yet another man between us. How fares the old wound in this long winter? Do you greet every morning aching deep beneath that scar? I trust it burns you still.’

‘As does your perennial regret, milady, that your blade missed what it sought.’ He drew off his gauntlets, glancing around. ‘The others?’