The tent flap was thrown aside and Martal came in. She wore her dark travel-stained leathers. Her hair was unkempt and sweaty from her helm. She regarded Ivanr thinly. ‘Your lack of faith is troubling, Grand Champion.’
Again, he could not read the woman’s guarded angular face: was she serious? Or mocking? More than ever he was certain she was from foreign lands. ‘Faith? Faith in what? It’s faith that has brought us all these troubles.’
‘In that at least we are agreed.’ She crossed to a table, pulled off her gloves and began washing her hands in a basin.
‘Ivanr is worried about the morrow,’ Beneth offered.
‘I do not have the time to reassure every jumpy trooper,’ she said into the basin, and splashed her face.
Reassure! Ivanr gaped, absolutely furious. How dare she! ‘I demand-’
She turned on him. ‘You are in no position to demand anything! And your little show of pique has only unnerved everyone further. I am not used to being questioned by my subordinates, Brigade Commander. I suggest that if everyone does their job tomorrow we will have a good chance of victory. More than that, no responsible commander can promise her people.’
‘I can hardly do my job if I do not even know what it is.’
The woman was drying her hands on a cloth. ‘Ivanr… you have been a champion, not a soldier. Whereas I have been a soldier all my life. Your job is now that of the soldier — to follow orders. The simplest, and the hardest, of jobs. If there is secrecy regarding plans and tactics, remember that our camp is rotten with spies. We dare not reveal anything yet.’
A long exhaled breath took much of Ivanr’s tension with it; he found himself agreeing with this demanding woman. Secrecy for secrecy’s sake he scorned. Spies he could understand. So, the best she was willing to offer at this time was the indirect promise that something was in the works. Very well. He inclined his head in assent. ‘I’m only worried for the safety of my people.’
‘I know, Ivanr. Otherwise I would not even be talking to you.’
He snorted at that. ‘Well. Thank you for your condescension.’
Her smile was utterly cold. ‘Of course.’
He bowed to Beneth. ‘Tomorrow, then.’
‘Good luck, Ivanr.’
‘My thanks.’
After the tent flap fell the two within were silent for a time. Beneth inhaled to speak, but Martal forestalled him. ‘I know!’
‘You are too harsh.’
‘If he wilts then he is hardly worthy, is he?’
‘She chose him.’
‘I certainly didn’t,’ she muttered, taking a mouthful of bread.
The old man’s expression softened. ‘You’ve been spoiled, Martal.’
The woman was nodding her agreement as she sat among the piled blankets, sighing her exhaustion. ‘There was only ever one champion worthy of the name.’
‘You must let all that go. This one is no longer a champion, nor will he be required to serve as one again.’
‘Then why is he here?’
The old man was silent for a time in the dark. He brought a wavering hand up to touch the cloth across his eyes. ‘I am tiring, Martal… the pressure she is bringing to bear upon us is almost unsupportable. She knows what might be coming and she is desperate-’
The woman sprang to her feet. ‘No! No more such talk.’
‘Martal…’
‘No.’ She snatched up her gloves and a goatskin of water. ‘You are why we are here.’ She stormed out, leaving the old man alone in the gloom. He winced, pressing his fingertips into his brow.
‘I’m sorry, child. It has all come so late. So damned late.’
*
Ivanr sat on a collapsible camp stool, glowering into the fire. He couldn’t sleep. All that had been said, that could have been said, that wasn’t said, tramped in maddening circles in his mind. Was he a good commander? He thought he was. He believed he had the best interests of his people at heart. What more could be asked? But was he a commander of this army? What had been his own opinion not so long ago? That an army was like a snake — it shouldn’t have two heads. Had he been agitating to become that extra head? Surely not! He hadn’t asked the Priestess to name him her successor! Was it his fault then that many looked to him? No, of course not.
Was Martal threatened? Did she see him as a rival? No. That was not worthy. She’d given him the brigade for the sake of all these opportunistic gods! No, that was not it. It was him. He’d expected the treatment he’d been given as a Grand Champion, but here he was merely a new face. That was it.
He lowered his head and clenched it in his hands. Damn the Lady! He’d behaved like some sort of aristocrat demanding privileges! He groaned. Foreign gods! Just the sort of behaviour that made him sick.
‘Ivanr,’ a woman said nearby. ‘Ivanr?’
Head squeezed in both hands he croaked, ‘Leave me alone.’
‘Poor Grand Champion! Having a pout, are we?’
‘Who the-’ Ivanr peered up to see ragged shapeless skirts rising to the wide midriff and layered shawls of the old woman, Sister Gosh. She held a long-stemmed clay pipe in her blackened teeth, and her hair was a wild mess of grey curls. He lowered his head. ‘What do you want?’
‘Need your help. Gotta run an errand.’
‘Go away.’
‘No. Has to be you. In the blood, you could say.’
He straightened, frowning. All about the camp fire his self-appointed guards lay asleep. He eyed the woman narrowly. ‘What’s going on?’
She drew a slim wooden box from her shawl, shook it. Something rattled within. ‘Martal wants rain. We’re gonna get her some.’ She shook the box again. ‘Skystones to bring it.’
He snorted. ‘You don’t believe those old stories and superstitions. Stones from the sky!’
The woman’s lips drew down, sour. She sucked heavily on the pipe, exhaling twin plumes from her nose. ‘’Struth! Like to like.
Once touching, always so. These are the old truths. Long before anything. Houses or such.’
‘What do you need me for?’
‘They’ll recognize you.’
‘Who-’
A tall shape emerged from the gloom: a pale fellow in ragged black clothes, hands clasped behind his back. ‘Time, Sister,’ he called.
‘Yes, yes!’ She urged Ivanr up. ‘Come.’
Still he did not rise. ‘Who’s this?’
‘A compatriot.’
‘What have you done to my guards?’
Sister Gosh waved a hand impatiently. ‘Nothing. They sleep. If they awoke they would see you gone. Now come.’
He stood, peered around at the darkness. ‘Gone? Where?’
She headed off. ‘The land here sleeps, Ivanr. We have entered its memories. Come.’
He followed, if only to ask more questions. ‘Memories? The past?’
She took the pipe from her mouth, spat. ‘Not the true past, the real past. Only a memory of it. See ahead?’ She pointed the pipe.
It was a shallow bowl in the countryside far to the east of the encampment. There, two figures awaited them, another man and a woman. The woman was petite, perhaps even older than Sister Gosh, her face as dark as ironwood, hair pulled back in a tight bun; the man was a short skinny fellow, his hair and beard a tangled mess. The man was digging at something. He called, ‘Here! Hurry!’
