haunted eyes, her private host of losses.
The missive trembled in her hands. Men such as Anomander deserved to be unchanging, or so she had always believed, and she would hold to that belief as if it could protect the past they had shared. His rumoured transformation within the influence of Mother Dark’s mystical power frightened her. Was there not darkness enough within the body? But it was only the memory that did not change, of the time before the wars, and if these days were spent assailing it, she knew enough to blame none other than herself.
How would she see him this time? What might she say in answering this personal invitation from an old lover, to attend his arm upon the wedding of his brother? His face had hardened, defying even the soft promise of the rain; and now he would appear before her like a man inverted, with no loss of edges, and no yielding of the distance between them.
She feared pity in his gesture and was shamed by her own weakness before it.
Servants were busy downstairs, cleaning the last of the silts and refuse from the flood. The missive she held was days old, and she had not yet responded to it, and this in itself was impolite, and no rising water could excuse her silence. Perhaps, however, he had already forgotten his offer. There had been tumultuous events in the Citadel. As First Son it was likely that he felt besieged by circumstance, sufficient to distract him from even his brother’s wedding. It was not impossible, in fact, to imagine him late upon attendance and seeking naught but forgiveness in Andarist’s eyes. A woman upon Anomander’s arm at such a moment promised embarrassment and little else.
The appointed time was drawing near. She had things to do here in the house. The cellar stores had all been ruined and the sunken room was now a quagmire of bloated, rotting foodstuffs and the small furred bodies of mice that had drowned or died mired in the mud. Furthermore, on the day of the flood her handmaid’s elderly grandmother had died, perhaps of panic, before the rush of the dark waters into her bedchamber, and so there was grief in the damp air of the rooms below, and a distraught maid deserving of consolation.
Instead of attending to all this, however, she sat in her study, dressed not in the habit of the mistress of the house, nor in the regalia of feminine elegance proper to attending a wedding. Instead, she was girded for war. Her armour was clean, the leather supple and burnished lustrous with oil. All bronze rivets were in place and each shone like a polished gem; every buckle and clasp was in working order. The weapon at her side was a fine Iralltan blade, four centuries old and venerated for its honest service. It wore a scabbard of lacquered blackwood banded at the girdle in silver, with a point guard, also of silver, polished on the inside by constant brushing against her calf.
A cloak awaited her on the back of a nearby chair, midnight blue with a high cream-hued collar. The gauntlets on the desk before her were new, black leather banded with iron strips that shifted to scales at the wrists. The cuffs remained stiff but servants had worked the fingers and hands until both were supple.
In the courtyard below, a groom holding the reins of her warhorse awaited her arrival.
There could be insult in this, and she saw once again the hard face of Anomander, and behind it Andarist’s fury. Sighing, she set the invitation down on the desk and then straightened, walking to her cloak. She shrugged it over her shoulders and fixed the clasp at her throat, and then collected the gauntlets and strode into the adjoining room.
The old man standing before her was favouring a leg, but he had refused her offers of a chair. The boy behind him was fast asleep on a divan, still in his rags and wearing filth like a second skin. She contemplated the child for a moment longer, before settling her gaze on Gripp Galas.
‘On occasion,’ she said, ‘I wondered what had happened to you. Anomander gives loyalty as it is given him, and yours was above reproach. You did well to ensure your master and I had privacy in our times together, even unto distracting his father when needed.’
Gripp’s eyes had softened as if in recollection, but the surrender was momentary. ‘Milady, my master found other uses for me, in the wars and thereafter.’
‘Your master risked your life, Gripp, when what you truly deserved was gentle retirement in a fine country house.’
The old man scowled. ‘You’re describing a tomb, milady.’
The boy had not stirred throughout this exchange. She studied him again. ‘You say he bears a note on his person?’
‘He does, milady.’
‘Know you its contents?’
‘He is most protective of it.’
‘I am sure he is, but he sleeps like the dead.’
Gripp seemed to sag before her. ‘We lost the horse in the river. We nearly drowned, the both of us. Milady, he knows it not, but the note he carries in its tin tube is now illegible. The ink has washed and blotted and nothing can be made from it. But the seal impressed upon the parchment has survived, and surely it is from your own estate.’
‘Sukul, I wager,’ mused Hish Tulla. ‘He is of the Korlas bloodline?’
‘So we are to understand, milady.’
‘And is intended for the Citadel?’
‘For the keeping of the Children of Night, milady.’
‘The children,’ said Hish, ‘have all grown up.’
Gripp said nothing to that.
Now and then, as their gazes caught one another, Hish had sensed something odd in Gripp’s regard, appearing in modest flashes, or subtle glints. She wondered at it.
‘Milady, the boy insisted that we find you first.’
‘So I understand.’
‘When I would have gone straight to my master.’
‘Yet you acquiesced.’
‘He is highborn, milady, and it was my service to protect him on the journey. He is brave, this one, and not given to complaint no matter the hardship. But he weeps for dying horses.’
She shot him another searching look, and then smiled. ‘As did a child of Nimander, once, long ago. Your horse, I recall. A broken foreleg, yes?’
‘A jump that child should never have attempted, yes, milady.’
‘At the cost of your mount’s life.’
Gripp glanced away, and then shrugged. ‘He is named Orfantal.’
‘An unwelcome name,’ she replied. Then, catching once more that odd expression on Gripp’s lined face, she frowned. ‘Have you something to say to me?’
‘Milady?’
‘I was never so wrathful as to make you shy. Speak your mind.’
His eyes fell from hers. ‘Forgive me, milady, but it’s good to see you again.’
A tightness took her throat and she almost reached out to him, to show that his affection was not unwelcome and that, indeed, it was reciprocated, but something held her back and instead she said, ‘That leg is likely to collapse under you. I insist we summon a healer.’
‘It’s on the mend, milady.’
‘You’re a stubborn old man.’
‘Our time is short if we are to meet them.’
‘You see me standing ready, do you not? Very well, let us bring your unpleasant news to your master, and weather as best we can Andarist’s outrage at our martial intrusion. The boy will be fine here in the meantime.’
Gripp nodded. ‘It was ill luck, I wager, and not an attempt at assassination. The boy has little value after all, to anyone.’
‘Except in death on the road,’ she replied. ‘The unwanted child as proof of unwanted discord in the realm. I would we had for him another name. Come, we will ride for the Citadel gate.’
Galar Baras was blind, but he sensed Henarald still standing at his side. The darkness within the Chamber of Night was bitter cold and yet strangely thick, almost suffocating. As he stared unseeing, he heard the Lord of Hust draw a sharp breath.
A moment later a woman’s soft voice sounded, almost close enough for Galar to feel its breath upon his face.
