Ragnor smiled. He had recovered much of his composure, now that his ears were not being so harshly assaulted. “You accuse Orinn oc Wyn-Gyre of seeking to spy upon the Lore Inkall, First?”
Theor gave a consciously nonchalant shrug. “The Thane might have known nothing of it. The boy may be innocent of anything more than thievery. It does not matter. He has been punished. He will either learn from it, or not.”
“I imagine it matters to him,” Ragnor muttered.
“If he has the mettle required of a Lore Inkallim, he will come to understand that fate is blind to his innocence or otherwise, as it is to his suffering. He was whipped. It is in the past now, and of no consequence. He will resume his candidacy, and we will see in due course what fate has in store for him.
Should he fail the creed again, he will die.”
The High Thane belched. Theor grimaced in distaste and looked away. Ragnor had never pretended to graces he had not been born with. Just as he did not, in recent years at least, pretend affection for the Inkallim that he did not feel.
Ragnor drained his tankard of ale, and peered into the empty vessel as if it contained some noisome dregs.
“Your ale matches your food in quality,” the High Thane observed.
“Perhaps you should have visited Nyve,” Theor suggested. “He would have served you narqan there. It might have been more to your taste.”
Ragnor set his tankard down and shrugged. “Narqan’s drinkable. I don’t find it as . . . repellent as some. But I don’t think it’s the Battle I need to be talking to, is it, First?”
“I do not know.”
“Of course you do.” Ragnor let a little of his irritation show: a momentary tightening of his brow, a curl of his lip. He is angry, then, Theor thought. He had suspected as much, but until now the High Thane had concealed it well, by his standards.
“I want to show you something,” Ragnor said. He pushed his chair back and stood, brushing crumbs from his chest. “Come with me, would you?”
Theor frowned. “Where? I thought we were to talk here.”
“Just to your gates.”
“I am an old man, High Thane. I am not given to taking strolls in the snow.”
“Don’t be difficult, First,” sighed Ragnor. “The High Thane of the Gyre Bloods invites you to walk with him a little way, so that he might show you something of interest. You can humour him, can’t you? Or is even that beyond the Lore Inkall these days?”
Theor complied. He followed Ragnor out. Snow was falling on the Lore’s Sanctuary, as it had been now for more than two days. Big, buoyant flakes drifted down in thick flocks. The pine trees amongst which the buildings clustered were heavily burdened with snow; now and again, some branch would spill its white cargo in a soft, tumbling collapse. The paths along which First and High Thane walked had been cleared by candidates, otherwise they would have been almost impassable. This, for Theor, was one of two times of year when the Sanctuary was at its most restful and peaceful. The snow made it a silent, still place. As did, in other ways, the hot, windless days of midsummer, when warm air pooled beneath the pines and all was languid and lethargic.
The two men tramped along the stone path, between dirty banks of snow piled up on either side. The High Thane’s Shield, and Theor’s attendants, came behind them, but not so close as to hear what passed between them. The wooden gates in the encircling wall of the Sanctuary stood open. Ragnor planted himself in the centre of the gateway, facing out. The land fell away beyond him, sweeping down in a long, pine-clad slope to the valley floor and the great sprawl of Kan Dredar. The High Thane’s city was all but obscured by the teeming snowflakes.
“You cannot see as well as I hoped,” Ragnor grunted.
“I can hardly see a thing.” Theor made no effort to disguise his ill humour at being brought out here.
“You can see the one thing that matters, I think. Look. No, there: the road south.”
“A somewhat darker area of the blizzard, perhaps.”
“Close to four thousand of my warriors marching south. That’s what you see, as well you know.”
“I knew they were gathered. I was not aware they had started their march. It hardly seems the weather for it.”
“It’s not.” The High Thane’s patience was thinning out. “It’s not even close to the weather for it. Half a thousand of them might be dead of cold or exhaustion or hunger, or lost, by the time they reach Anduran.
But I have little choice in the matter, do I?”
Theor looked sideways at the High Thane and shrugged. He turned and walked back into the Sanctuary.
A candidate – a young girl he vaguely recognised but could not have named – had appeared from somewhere with a birch broom. She shuffled along backwards in front of him, sweeping the freshly fallen snow from the path.
“Look where you’re going, child. You’ll only fall over if you do it like that.”
He could hear Ragnor stamping after him.
“I could hardly keep my warriors sitting around Kan Dredar idly sharpening their swords,” the Thane of Thanes growled. “Not while half my people march off into the south of their own accord. Did you know one of my iron workings has closed, because there’s not enough workers left?”
“I did not know that, no,” Theor said.
The First led the High Thane back into the little courtyard around which the offices of the Lore were arrayed. Cord shackles still hung from the whipping post in its centre. The snow around it was flecked with red, like dye spilled on linen.
“Nyve has left me little choice but to send my army south. No choice at all, I’d say. Not once the Battle marched.”
“I do not interfere in the doings of the Battle, High Thane. I am not in a position to question his actions.
No one is, unless you can find one of his own captains willing to challenge him for his rank. The Lore’s territory is . . .”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Don’t insult me.”
Theor ignored the High Thane’s anger. Over to one side of the courtyard, beneath a wooden awning, steam was drifting out from a serving hatch in the wall. A couple of young Lore Inkallim were standing there, their hands wrapped around hot cups.
“Look.” Theor pointed. “They’ve got some milk heating there. It’s years since I had hot honeyed milk.
Shall we?”
Ragnor made an indeterminate sound – half-groan, half-growl, not remotely enthusiastic – but followed Theor, crunching across the snow. The two Inkallim shuffled away at a flick of Theor’s hand. A serving woman ladled the thick white liquid into cups and handed them to the First and the High Thane, then sank back into the musty darkness within and disappeared.
Theor watched the fat snowflakes bobbing down as he drank. He really did like honeyed milk. The reality did not quite match the remembered delight of it, but it was good enough. A slab of snow slipped from the roof and rushed down into the courtyard, making a soft thump as it landed. Ragnor oc Gyre was not drinking.
“The Haig Bloods can field twice as many warriors as we can,” he said quietly. “More.”
“Warriors, yes.” Theor nodded. “I’m sure that’s true. But will their commonfolk take the field? Can they match our thousands, with their hot hearts, their faith burning in them, that rush to serve the creed in battle?”
Ragnor sniffed at his steaming cup, and took a hesitant sip of its contents. He grimaced and emptied it out onto the snow at their feet.
“They’re soft. We all know that. But they’re too strong, Theor. You underestimate Gryvan oc Haig. He may be soft and slow, but only like a bear, fresh out of its winter sleep. If you prod him hard enough, he’ll have your arm off. What was the Hunt thinking, to kill a Thane? Gryvan may have been no admirer of Lheanor’s, but he’ll not sit by while we merrily cut down his liegemen like that. If you – if Nyve, and Avenn, and all these thousands of commonfolk you’re so pleased with – force us into unrestrained war with the Haig Bloods, we will end up with his foot on our throats,
sooner or later.”
“You do not know that.”
“No, of course I don’t know it. But I think it. I apply a little sense, a little thought, to the world as I see it, and I find it to be a reasonable expectation.”
“The future is not a matter of reason.” Theor smiled, wearily. He, and his fellow Firsts, had known that Ragnor’s commitment to the rigours of the creed was not all it might be. They had known, ever since Vana oc Horin-Gyre intercepted his messenger, that the High Thane had long ago lapsed into the mistaken view that some kind of accommodation was possible with the Haig Bloods. Now he heard Ragnor condemning himself out of his own mouth.
“What seems reasonable is of no consequence,” the First continued. “You know that. Fate can overturn, disregard, discard reason as it sees fit. The course of the Black Road is not set by reason, or by the judgement of men, or by what we in our narrow way call sense or thought. It is set by the tales inscribed in the Last God’s book. It is set by what he reads there.”
The High Thane, his lips pursed, regarded his fine leather boots. He was, Theor knew, not stupid enough to attempt to debate the elements of the faith. Ragnor had never been stupid. And when he had been young he had been full of energy, hunger. That he had become something else as he grew older was a source of regret rather than resentment or anger. It was as it must be. Fate had decreed that for this little time, the Gyre Blood and the Inkallim would follow paths that diverged a fraction. It did not matter. One day – this year, next, a thousand years from now – everyone, everywhere would be walking in one path, that of the Black Road.
“Call off your ravens, First,” Ragnor said. “That is all I ask. For the good of us all. Temegrin complains that the Battle and the Lore are making themselves masters of the army in his place. Anything that draws Gyre and the Inkallim apart serves the creed ill, does it not?”
“Temegrin’s counsel has been found wanting, I hear. He has tried, at every turn, to curb the ambition of your people, whose hearts cry out not for such timidity but for fate’s cleansing judgement. Perhaps you should have sent another of your captains, one more . . . eager. Unless you approve of his caution, of course.”
“I would put every sword I have in the field to prevent Gryvan coming north across the Vale of Stones, but if you try to force me – to shame me – into fighting a war in the Glas valley, and outside Kolkyre, and beneath the walls of Vaymouth, you will fail. You can have these few thousand to feed into whatever slaughterhouse it is Nyve means to build for our people down there, but I will not see our Bloods throw away every last life in pursuit of the impossible.”
“The impossible?” Theor murmured. “We do not know what is or is not possible, High Thane. We can never know that. It is in the nature of fate to surprise us.”
IV
Every few days, Magrayn bathed Torquentine. Bowls of water, infused with herbs and scents, were carried down into the cellar where he dwelled, then jars of unguents and oils. All those who brought them were sent back up into the complex of ramshackle houses above; only Magrayn remained to kneel beside the great man on his bed of pillows.
She peeled Torquentine’s clothes back to reveal his vast bulk. She was gentle and precise as she washed his blotchy skin. The cloths she used were the softest to be had in Vaymouth. The soothing ointments she worked into the fleshy folds of his torso were the most expensive, the oils she spread over him the rarest. It took a long time, and through it all she and Torquentine exchanged not a word. There was silence there in the cellars beneath Ash Pit in Vaymouth.
Only after it was all done, and he was dressed once more and the cloths and bowls and jars had been cleared away, did Torquentine turn his affectionate, one-eyed gaze on his doorkeeper. His visage was far from perfect – bloated, scarred – but hers was still more imperfect. Her nose was a misshapen stump, her face a mass of purplish blemishes.
“Thank you,” Torquentine said.
Magrayn only smiled: a lopsided gesture, since the King’s Rot had reached the muscles of her cheek and lip before it receded.
“I’ve got a craving for lemon tarts, Magrayn. You know the ones I mean?”
She nodded. “I’ll send someone out for some.” The words were indistinct, as if her tongue had been bloated by a bee sting.
“Sweet Magrayn. I’d be lost without you. Well, not lost precisely.” Torquentine gave a short laugh as he gestured towards the low ceiling with fat fingers. “I am fortunate in always knowing, without fail, where I am, since I am never anywhere else. Let me kiss those gentle hands.”
He laid his lips softly on the back of each of Magrayn’s hands in turn. She slipped out of the chamber. In her absence, Torquentine’s one good eye soon closed. He clasped his hands, resting them on the huge swell of his belly, and hummed a few phrases of a melody. The tune grew softer and softer until it faded away. His jowly head slumped forward, only to jerk upright once more at Magrayn’s return. She carried a bowl, covered with a cloth.
“Jemmin has gone for the lemon tarts,” she reported as she knelt down on a cushion at her master’s side.
“But there’s this in the meantime.”
She drew the cloth away and held the bowl up so that Torquentine could see its contents. He smiled.
“Preserved pears,” he said as he plucked one from the bowl.
“The Calasheen sent them up from Hoke.”
“There’s a man who knows how to please,” Torquentine said. Sticky juice glistened on his lips as he sucked down a sliver of pear. “Did he send any news of note along with them?”
“Gann’s killers are dead, and their killer too. There’s no word of any witness. People talk, of course, and gossip; but there’s none left could track the death back to the Calasheen, or through him to us. None save the Shadowhand himself, of course.”
“Ah, I know you too well, dear Magrayn.” Torquentine wagged a finger at her. “I hear the worry you do not speak. You think me rash, to have accepted this commission?”
Magrayn shrugged. “It’s dangerous, that’s all. People care when someone like Gann nan Dargannan-Haig dies. They become curious.”
“You’re right, of course. Perhaps I should have turned the Shadowhand away this time, but he’s a potent friend to have. And the more he asks of me, the more I can ask of him. He gave me Ochan, didn’t he? Ochan the Cook! What kind of man gives himself childish names like that?” He selected another morsel of pear. “And before you say it, dear lady, I know Ochan’s hardly a fair trade for Gann, but not every exchange need be equal in the scales from the first day. We’ll reap a rich harvest in the years to come, I promise you that. We’re hand in hand with the noble Chancellor now.”
Magrayn looked sceptical but said nothing. She set the bowl of pears down on Torquentine’s broad stomach and went slowly around the chamber, setting out new candles to replace those that had guttered in the last few hours. She lit the wick of an aromatic oil burner. A sweet scent seeped into the air.
Torquentine sucked juice from his finger.
“Have you any other news to fend off boredom with?” he asked.
Magrayn returned to his side.
“Melmon Thyr is complaining. Says all the fighting in the north has ruined his trade. Too risky for his mule men to get in and out of the Vare Wastes, with all the armies marching up and down the road. One of them was already caught by a passing Haig patrol, apparently: got himself flogged and gaoled in Kilvale for smuggling.”
Torquentine grunted. He held a slice of pear up before his eye and subjected it to minute examination.
“Melmon means to soften my sympathies, to ease the blow of a meagre trickle of coin back into my vault, I suppose.”
Magrayn shrugged.
“You are more voluble than ever today, my dear,” Torquentine remarked, smiling. “No matter. I think this is a puzzle that I can solve unaided. We have that lumber merchant in Kilvale. The one whose cousin’s in the Guard.”
“Thune.”
“Have him buy Melmon’s man
out of gaol. Tell him he’ll be reimbursed in due course. And send word to Melmon that I expect him to apply more imagination to his efforts. If his dealings with those bandits in the Vare are going poorly, he must find other outlets for his energies. I will be expecting no less from him by way of share this year than I received last.”
He handed the bowl back to Magrayn. A single lonely piece of preserved pear remained, disconsolate in a pool of sugary liquid.
“Here, take this away before I gorge myself. He’s right, of course. Nothing worse for business than all this strife. Creates too much uncertainty; puts people too much on edge. Makes everyone suspicious, watchful.” He shook his head dolefully. “Erodes trust.”
“Nobody seems to think it’ll last much longer,” Magrayn said as she ran a cloth around the rim of the bowl.
“Maybe, maybe not. Nobody thought the Black Road had it in them to bring down Anduran, but look what happened. Never occurred to anyone they could reach inside the Tower of Thrones and put an end to old Lheanor. Dangerous to make too many assumptions, I think. People have grown soft and lazy, if they think the Black Road’ll be easily undone. Did you ever find out what became of Kennet oc Lannis-Haig’s children, by the way?”
“They turned up in Kolkyre. Rumour has it that they brought half a dozen Kyrinin and na’kyrim with them. The boy – Thane, now – has disappeared again, last I heard. The girl’s still in Kolkyre, as far as anyone seems to know.”
“I see. Nothing of much interest there, then. Really, is there nothing happening for me to ponder on?”
“Cold Crossing’s tomorrow,” Magrayn said.
“Ah, yes.” Torquentine’s expression brightened a little. “Always gain to be had from the day of the Crossing. Do we know who’s going to win?”
“There are three or four who have a chance, I believe. No certainty, this year.”
“Pity. The more certainty there is, the more profit’s to be made from overturning it. Well, no matter.
Always good sport to be had with the crowds, if nothing else. How many of our little rascals will be plying their trade tomorrow?”
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