Fall of Light (36 page)

‘Of course, sir.’

‘And let the soldiers know – no one from the High Priestess’s household can be trusted.’

‘That’s past saying, sir.’

They reached the main floor opposite the front doors. ‘Good,’ said Hunn Raal. ‘Off you go, then.’

‘Yes sir.’

He left her to take care of the maid and set out across the compound towards the barracks. By rota, a company of Hallyd Bahann’s Golds were quartered there, five squads in all. Two guards stood at post outside the barracks entrance, both coming to attention upon seeing Hunn Raal approach.

‘Wake the lieutenant,’ Hunn Raal said to one of them, and then he beckoned the other closer. ‘Saddle up, soldier, and take this word down to the Legion camp. We’re on the hunt for an assassin – someone has just murdered my cousin, Serap. In the town proper. I want two companies to enter Neret Sorr and begin looking for the body. We can pick up the trail from there, if need be. Though,’ he added, ‘I doubt it will be necessary.’ Seeing the questioning look on the man’s face, Hunn Raal said, ‘I doubt she’s the only intended target this night, soldier.’ Pausing, hands on his hips, he faced the gatehouse. ‘Civil wars are dirty, but we need to hold fast to our cause.’

Led by the lieutenant – a young man Hunn Raal did not know – the Golds emerged from the barracks, still buckling on their gear, a few of them swearing at the bitter chill.

‘Lieutenant,’ Hunn Raal said, ‘shape up your soldiers, and be smart about it. One squad remains on station here. The rest of you, we’re marching down into Neret Sorr.’ He gestured at the lieutenant to join him, and then set out, at a brisk pace, towards the gatehouse, and the switchback track that led down into the town.

  *   *   *

Renarr had time to step into a shadow-thick alcove at the gatehouse before the gates swung wide and a rider emerged, pushing his horse into a careless gallop as soon as he was clear of the gate. An instant later a company of soldiers, led by Hunn Raal, appeared, moving at a quick pace. When the last soldiers in the column were past, she waited a few moments longer, and then walked back on to the track, just as the gatehouse guards were pushing at the squealing gate. One cursed upon seeing her, clearly frightened by her sudden appearance. She moved forward.

‘Who’s that, then?’ the other guard asked, holding up a staying hand.

‘Renarr. Summoned by my father.’

She saw, as lanterns were drawn close, both recognition and suspicion. They would have known, after all, if Urusander had dispatched any messenger down into Neret Sorr. But then one grunted and said to the other, ‘Captain Sharenas left earlier.’

This man looked enquiringly at Renarr, who solemnly nodded.

They waved her through. ‘Not a good night,’ the first guard said as she passed. ‘Killings in town below, we heard. Black-skinned assassins, agents of Lord Anomander. Officers of the Legion getting backstabbed. It’s what it’s come to.’

‘Best stay here at the keep tonight,’ called out the other guard.

She continued on.

There were lights in the tower, where Urusander kept his private abode. She thought she saw a dark shape move past a window, but could not be sure. The courtyard was slippery underfoot, slick with frost. She glanced over at the squad mustered up near the barracks, and saw some of them watching her as she crossed to the keep’s main entrance.

She’d probably taken a few of them to her bed, but at this distance, and in the uneven light, there was no way to tell.

Father, I should tell you. I have intimate knowledge of your legion, its soldiers, with their myriad faces, their singular needs. I know them better than you. It’s how certain things blur together, you see. The heat of sex and the heat of battle. Death entwined with love, or something like love, if we are generous enough to gauge the motions, there beneath the furs.

Tents and temples, beds and altars, the propitiations and rituals, all the forms of confession, weakness and desire. The conceits and pride’s fragile temerity. All the appetites, Father, flow together in those times, those places. I could list for you the cowards, and the ones who would stand fast. I could speak to you about conscience and grief, and above all, about what a soldier needs.

Alas, that need no mortal can answer, though I can see you, Father, I can see you trying. When few others would dare.

Shall we give it a name, that need? Dare we venture inward, to face that sorrowful child?

Tent and temple, we raise them to disguise all that haunts our soul. Between lover and priest, I think, it is the lover who can reach closest to that shivering, wide-eyed child. The priest, ah, well, the priest killed his inner child long ago, and now but plays at wonder, dancing joy’s steps with shuffling, self-conscious feet.

Consider this, Father. No whore has ever sexually abused a child. I know this – I watch them, my hard women and men of the stained cloth. Some are harsh bitches and bastards, no doubt about that. Hardened beyond pain. For all that, they know innocence when they see it.

But priests? Most are fine, I’m sure. Honest, diligent, trustworthy. But what of those few others who took on the robes and vestments for unholy reasons? What do they see – the ones so eager to ruin a child?

Best ask the High Priestess, Father, because I have no answer to that question. All I know, and I know this with certainty, is that inside that abusing bastard priest there is the corpse of a child. Wanting company.

She was in the house now, upon the stairs, reaching the landing and making her way towards Urusander’s wing of the keep.

Soldiers stood at guard in the corridor. They eyed her warily as she approached.

‘My father is awake,’ she said. ‘Captain Sharenas summoned me to him, at his request.’

They moved aside.

One spoke as she passed. ‘Taking the night off, Renarr?’

Low laughter, dying away when she opened the door and strode into the first chamber.

A desk buried beneath scrolls and the strange seashell cases the Forulkan used to store their sacred writing. Behind this misshapen monument, her adoptive father. He had half risen at her appearance, and now, upon his weary face, there was the look of a cornered man.

She recognized that expression: she had seen it on occasion in her tent. Indeed, she had seen it this very night.

Renarr unclasped her cloak and folded it carefully against the back of a chair. Then she walked over to a side table. ‘The last wine I had this evening,’ she said, taking up a decanter and sniffing at the mouth, ‘was sour.’ She poured herself a glass. ‘Father,’ she said, turning to face him, ‘I have so many things to say to you.’

He would not meet her gaze, intent instead on a scroll laid out before him. ‘It’s rather late for a conversation,’ he said.

‘If you mean the time of night, then, yes, perhaps.’

‘I did not mean the time of night.’

‘Oh, that bulwark,’ she said, sighing. ‘I know why you threw it up, of course. Your love for my mother, and what did I do? I went into the camps, into the taverns, to learn a trade. Was I punishing you? Perhaps I was simply bored. Or at that age where rebellion seems a good idea, an idea full of … ideals. So many of us, at around my age, will flare bright, with the vague, despondent understanding that it will all fade. Our fire. Our nerve. The belief that it all means something.’

He studied her at last, with the heaped desk between them.

‘Osserc is out there,’ Renarr continued, ‘flaring bright. Somewhere. Me, I didn’t walk that far.’

‘Then, Renarr, is your … rebellion … at an end?’

Was that hope she saw in his eyes? She couldn’t be sure. ‘Father, I can’t give you my reasons. But I know what my choices yielded, beyond this much-used body. My mother was an officer in your company. I was her daughter, held apart from her beloved legion. So, I knew nothing of it, nothing of a soldier’s ways, nothing of my mother’s ways.’ She sipped the wine. ‘What she did to me, and what you did to Osserc … well, of your children, one of us at last understands your reasons.’

She did not think there was enough in her words to make his eyes glisten, and the sudden emotion, so exposed and raw in Urusander, shocked her.

Looking away, Renarr set down the goblet. ‘A young soldier of the Legion came to me tonight. He came, not for my cheap gifts of love, but to confess his crimes. Slaughter of innocents. Terrible rapes. A mother, her young boys. He named the squads and the company. Then he stood before me, and cut his own throat.’

Urusander rose from behind the desk. Then he was directly before her. He moved as if to reach out, to take her into something like an embrace, but something held him back.

‘Father,’ she said, ‘you have troubled children.’

‘I will make amends, Renarr. I promise you. I will make amends!’

She would not yield her heart to him, lest it sting with pity. In any case, such feelings within her had sunk into the depths. She did not think she would see them again. ‘Your High Priestess, Father, needs to understand – her temple, the faith she offers, it needs to be more than it is. Speak to her, Father, speak to her of hope. It’s not all there simply to serve her. She needs to give something back.’

She stepped away, retrieving her goblet. She drained it, and then went to her cloak. ‘My bed is not the place for confessions, especially the bloody kind. As for absolution,’ she turned and offered him a faint smile, ‘well, that will have to wait. There are things remaining, Father, that I still need to learn.’

The man looked wretched, but then he slowly straightened and met her eye, and nodded. ‘I will wait, Renarr.’

She felt that promise like a blow to her chest, and quickly angled away, to struggle with her cloak and fumble at the clasps.

Behind her, Urusander said, ‘Take your old room tonight, Renarr. Just this night. There are dire events in the town below.’

She hesitated, and then nodded. ‘This night, then. Very well.’

‘And Renarr, tomorrow morning, I would hear from you the details of that young soldier.’

‘Of course.’ But he would not. She would be gone with the dawn.

Bedrooms of girls and boys. All the way to tents and temples. Whoever could have imagined the distance possible between them, all in the span of a handful of years?

  *   *   *

Silann walked through the camp, hunched over against the cold. His wife’s new habit of sending him on errands, delivering messages, along with a host of other demeaning tasks, was growing stale. He understood the nature of this punishment, and to begin with he had almost welcomed the escape from her company. Better than weathering the contempt in her eyes, the myriad ways of dismissal she had perfected in his presence.

Command was a talent, and he was not foolish enough to believe that he possessed it in abundance. Mistakes had been made, but thus far there had been no obvious, or direct, repercussions. That was fortunate and Silann had sensed a rebirth of possibilities, the way ahead opening up. He would do better next time. He would show Esthala that she had not married the wrong man.

Still, an angry woman carved deep trenches, and pulling her from them would not be an easy task. But he would make her see him in a new way, no matter what it took.

There had been that boy, that escape. And Gripp Galas. Back then, there was pressure, with choices that needed making, the kind of pressure that could stagger anyone in the same situation. Blood to be spilled, and then quickly buried. Moments of panic could take the surest officer.

Well, they were past that now. She was holding this grudge far too long. No one deserved the disgust she seemed so determined to level upon him, not after all these years of marriage.
Uneventful marriage. No crises, and a son – true, he’s rejected the soldier’s path, but surely we can forgive him that, if only to accept, finally, that his is a weak soul, a soft soul, too tender for most professions, and we well know the harshness of an army’s culture. Its cruelties.

No, it’s all for the better, Esthala, and all this contempt – for me, for our son, for so many others – it offers no useful salve to your life. You must see that.

To reveal tenderness, darling, is not a confession of weakness. And even if it is, then we must all know that weakness, with someone.

You seek to be strong, at all times, in all company. It makes you impatient. It makes you cruel.

Still, he was done with delivering mundane messages. He would face her down, this night. There were different kinds of strength, after all. He would show her his, and name it love.

He started as a figure joined him, matching his stride. A glance across revealed a hooded, cloaked form and little else. ‘What is it you wish with me, soldier?’

‘Ah, forgive me, Silann. It is Captain Sharenas, fighting the cold however I can.’

Though she did not draw back the hood, Silann knew the voice. ‘Welcome back, Sharenas. Have you just returned, then?’

‘Yes. I was on my way to speak to your wife, in fact.’

Ah, then … well, Esthala and I will need to find another night, I suppose. Tomorrow night, to work things through, to make it better again.
‘She is awake,’ Silann said. ‘I too am on my way back to her.’

‘I assumed as much,’ Sharenas said.

The camp was relatively quiet, as the cold bit ever deeper. A few fires were still lit, making lurid islands of orange, yellow and red light. But most tents they passed were dark, tied up, as soldiers slept beneath blankets and, if they were lucky, furs.

‘Have you reported to Lord Urusander?’ Silann asked.

‘I have,’ she replied. ‘It was … extensive. The countryside, Silann, has become a troubled place. Many have died, and few of those were deserving of the violence delivered upon them.’

‘That is always the way, in civil war.’

‘Worse, of course, when the victims knew nothing of any civil war. When, alas, they were the first ones to fall to it. Knowledge and intention, Silann. In these circumstances, we can name them crimes.’