murdered a Vadani soldier in cold blood. Complex issues of jurisdiction no longer mattered. He was a criminal in the eyes of Vadani law, and would pay the penalty if and when he was caught-though that seemed unlikely if, as was generally believed, he'd returned to the safety of his Mezentine friends at Sharra. Meanwhile, the Vadani had other, more pressing concerns, and delaying the march on account of one fugitive renegade was, naturally, out of the question.
Four days after the change of course, he found the courage to talk to her.
They'd stopped for the night in a little combe, not much more than a dent in the hillside. He assumed it had been chosen because of the stand of tall, spindly birch trees, which masked them from sight. It was a dark, cold place; he was sure nothing lived there. She had climbed down from the coach, pleading cramp after a long day. Of course, they couldn't have a fire, for fear that the smoke would give away their position. She was sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, squinting at her embroidery in the thin red light of sunset.
'Are you still doing that?' he asked.
She looked up. 'Of course,' she said. 'It's nearly finished. I've put so much work into it, I couldn't bear the thought of leaving it behind.'
He looked at it: a baldrick, the sort you hang a hunting horn from. A goshawk and a heron; the hawking livery of the Orseoli. She was making it for him, of course.
'It's very good,' he said awkwardly. 'Can I see?'
She held it up. 'You've seen it before,' she said. 'I've been working on it for three months.'
Implication: he should've recognized it. But one piece of cloth with patterns stitched on it looked very much like all the others; apart from their wedding day, he couldn't remember seeing her without some rag or other on her knees. It was, after all, what women did.
'Of course,' he said, 'I remember it now. It's coming on really well.'
She sighed. 'I've run out of green silk,' she said. 'So I can't finish the background-here, look, the patch of reeds the heron's supposed to be flying up out of. I've got some other green, but it's the wrong shade.'
He frowned. 'Couldn't you turn that bit into a bush or something?'
'I suppose so. But then it wouldn't look right.'
'I won't mind.'
She looked up at him, and he realized she wasn't making it for him. He was the pretext, at best; she had to embroider, and decency required that the fruit of her needle should be some useful object for her husband. Now, because of the Mezentines and the war, she couldn't finish the work, and it wouldn't be fitting for her to start something new until the baldrick was completed. Accordingly, here she sat, the workbasket on her knees, the baldrick spread out, but no needle in her hand; like a cow in a crush, waiting patiently because it had nowhere it could go.
'It'd look wrong,' she said. 'I'd have to put something else in the opposite corner to balance it, and that'd mean unpicking what's there already. Besides, I haven't got enough brown left.'
He wanted to say: so fucking what? I'll never go hunting again, so I'll never use it. Put the stupid thing away and talk to me instead. What he said was, 'Perhaps we'll run into one of those merchant women on the road. They sell embroidery silks. I remember, we met one a few days ago.' (No; longer ago than that. But each day seemed to fuse with the others, like a good fire-weld.) 'If I'd known, I could have asked her.'
She shrugged. 'I don't suppose she'd have had the right green,' she said. 'It's not a particularly common one. I got what I've been using from that woman who used to call at the palace, back in Civitas Eremiae. I don't know what the chances are of running into her again.'
Orsea couldn't think of anything safe to say. He knew the merchant she was talking about. She must've been the one who delivered the letters-the letters Valens had written her, and her replies. Presumably the price of her couriership had been substantial sales of overpriced haberdashery. But there wouldn't be any more letters, just as there'd be no more cold, bright autumn days after partridges with the falcons. It occurred to him that everything he'd known all his life was gone forever, apart from her; and the irony was, he didn't know her at all.
In which case, he might as well say it.
'I need to talk to you,' he said.
'Talk away.' She sighed, turned the embroidery over and took a small blue-bladed knife with an ivory handle out of her basket. 'You know, I think I will unpick this corner after all. I've still got plenty of light blue and white. I could do the sky reflected in a pool or something.'
She was nicking the tiny loops of the stitches, like a giant cutting the throats of dwarves.
'I need to ask you…' He stopped. He'd never been particularly good with words anyway. Ideas that were sharp and clear in his mind disintegrated like sodden paper when he tried to express them. The only person he'd ever really been able to talk to was Miel Ducas.
'Sorry,' she said, 'I missed that. What did you want to speak to me about?'
'I need to know, Veatriz,' he said, and stopped again. It sounded too pompous and melodramatic for words. 'You and Valens. The letters.'
She looked at him so blankly that for a moment it crossed his mind that the whole thing was a mistake; he'd completely misunderstood, and there never were any letters. 'What about them?' she asked.
'Are you in love with him?'
'No.' She was concentrating on the tip of the knife; a small, dainty thing, presumably Mezentine.
'Then why did you write to him?'
She shrugged. It wasn't an answer. He waited, but she didn't say anything.
'Can't you see how it looked?' he said. 'You must have realized.'
'I suppose so,' she said, and between them there was a wall of iron, like the defenses bolted to the sides of the carts.
'Then why did you do it?'
'Does it matter anymore?' She lifted her head and looked at him.
'Do you still love me?'
'Yes,' she said. 'Do you still love me?'
'Yes, of course I do.' He said the words like a mother answering a child's annoying question.
'Well, then.' She sighed. 'What do you think's happened to Miel?'
'Don't change the subject,' he said, but he knew she hadn't done any such thing. That Miel Ducas should have taken away their sins, like some sacrificial animal, was somehow inevitable: the Ducas lives only to serve the state, and the state is the Duke. That, at least, had never been more true. Orsea had seen to that. He was all that was left of Eremia now; an irrelevant survival. Once, years ago, someone digging in the palace grounds had unearthed a big, crude-looking gold cup. He'd brought it, quite properly, to the Duke, who'd rewarded him suitably with twice its value by weight. Orsea could remember sitting holding it: an ugly thing, badly made, bent and slightly crumpled, valuable only as a curiosity, and because of the material it was made from. Presumably it was very old, made by someone who'd lived there a long time ago, for a rich patron whose name had been forgotten centuries before. There had been a city, with a ruler who employed craftsmen; probably he had a suitable household, faithful courtiers who lived only to serve, a code of honor. Presumably he'd tried to be a good duke, always do the right thing. Inevitably, he would have made mistakes. Now, all that was left of all that was one awkward, stupid-looking gold thing, precious only because of the universal convention by which gold is valuable. If the duke who commissioned the cup had had a wife who loved him once, that was irrelevant now as well. Orsea had given orders for the cup to be put in a safe place where he wouldn't have to look at it. He imagined the Mezentines had it now, or the fire had melted it.
The cup had survived, but that wasn't enough. So with love; even if it survives, it's not enough, shorn of context.
'I do love you,' she said. An accusation; a reproach. He believed her. If he hadn't; if she'd said she loved Valens, he'd have given her up without a moment's hesitation (because he loved her; it would've been the right thing to do). He'd been prepared for that, even hoping for it, as a condemned man looks forward to execution as a final end to his misery. No such luck. Love still held them in their places, like the traces that bind the donkey to the treadmill. Love is duty. Miel Ducas could have confirmed that, if only he'd still been there.
As it was; she could say that to him, and all it did was brace the iron plate between them, tighter than Daurenja's three-quarter bolts. The fact was that he didn't deserve her. Valens, swooping down with his cavalry
