“Hello, Daughter,” said Tekoa. Keturah did not respond. “Glad to see you looking so well.” Keturah spluttered a little, which Roper thought was an attempt at a laugh. “I’m going to speak to your husband for a moment.” He gestured for Roper to come outside with him. Roper followed him out and shut the door, leaving Keturah alone. Tekoa turned on him, jaw set and eyes narrowed.
“Lord Roper Kynortasson.” His voice was very low. “The man who would protect the country but who cannot even protect his wife. Our alliance is finished. Do you hear me, Lord Roper? Finished! I will take my daughter back under my own roof this very night and with her the debts that you owe me.”
Roper retreated slightly from Tekoa’s anger, placing a hand on his shoulder. He could feel the heat coming off the legate and Tekoa knocked his hand away and pushed him hard in the chest.
“Get your hand off me!”
Roper staggered back but did not react. He was the bigger man and he took the blow, once again stepping forward and placing his hand at Tekoa’s shoulder. This time the legate left it there. “You can try collecting your debts,” Roper said. “I can’t pay them now. As for your daughter, I should imagine this confrontation is exactly what Uvoren wanted when he poisoned her. If this shows you anything, it’s that you have chosen the right side.” Tekoa did not look mollified. “We will have revenge and we will have it together. I’m going to break him, Tekoa. Him, and anyone else connected to what happened to your daughter.”
“Yes, you bloody are,” said Tekoa. “Revenge is for now, Lord Roper. Now. Now, this moment. Uvoren must understand stimulus and reaction. He poisons the daughter of the Vidarr, the entire bloody universe comes down on top of him. Him, and whoever did this at his order.”
Roper hesitated, remembering Gray’s warning. “I will summon Vigtyr the Quick.”
Tekoa raised his arms. “Anyone. Just kill that bastard and all who follow him.”
“We will. Uvoren doesn’t want your daughter dead, Tekoa.” The legate bared his teeth, apparently furious that what Uvoren wanted was even being discussed. “Killing her would only gain sympathy for our cause. He wants to make Keturah look weak, so that it looks as though my followers are weak. He wants to divide our alliance and my marriage. He is destroying my image and making me harder to follow. And to achieve a goal as feeble as that, he has poisoned your daughter. We have made him desperate together and now we need to beat him together.”
“I wish to sit with my daughter,” said Tekoa abruptly. Roper stood aside and Tekoa Urielson seemed to steel himself for a moment before he reached for the door handle.
Keturah vomited through the night. Both Roper and Tekoa remained at her side, taking it in turns to empty the pails and feed her water to sustain her. By the time dawn pierced the windows, the retching had stopped, though whether the foxglove distillation had worn off or she simply no longer had the strength to persist, Roper could not tell. They responded by giving her more water and the wood sorrel solution, a diuretic that would help expel the poison she had already absorbed. She was desperately weak and Roper could not help but wonder whether the treatment was killing her.
A few hours after dawn, Harald, the legionary who had spent so much time in Tekoa’s service, appeared hesitantly at Roper’s door with a pot of honey. Tekoa turned to bark at whoever had disturbed them, but seeing Harald so timid, holding the honey, he froze. It was a large earthenware vessel: a week’s pay for a humble legionary. “A gift for Miss Keturah,” Harald said, half dropping the pot clumsily onto Roper’s table. “Sorry for disturbing you, my lord.” He turned to leave, hurrying from the room.
“Harald,” said Tekoa abruptly at the legionary’s back. “I’ll tell her when she wakes up. That’s kind of you. Uncommonly kind.” Harald turned on his way out of the door, offered a smile and then shuffled awkwardly out. “Well, I’ll be damned,” said Tekoa, glancing at Roper with something like his old humour. “The man has a heart.”
Roper had other thoughts. “Can we be sure it hasn’t been poisoned too?”
Tekoa jerked his head dismissively. “He watched her grow up. If we can’t trust him, there’s nobody we can.”
When Keturah awoke, they fed her spoonfuls of honey along with the water and sorrel solution. It seemed to strengthen her somewhat and her moments of consciousness grew longer and more lucid. By the evening, Roper thought she might be strong enough to be moved to Tekoa’s household. He had matters to attend to here and no sooner had she been carried down the spiral staircase by Helmec and into a waiting litter, than Roper summoned Vigtyr the Quick.
Roper knew Vigtyr was tall, but had not realised just how immense the figure who arrived at his quarters would be. When Helmec showed him in, Vigtyr had to stoop beneath the lintel of the door, straightening up just enough to make perceptible the bow he offered Roper. “Lictor,” Roper acknowledged. “Will you drink birch wine with me?”
That would be Vigtyr’s honour.
He was gigantic: perhaps the tallest man Roper had ever seen. He was a full foot taller than Roper himself; taller too than the berserker, Tarben, who had won the wrestling at Roper’s feast (though leaner as well). His hands were massive; each finger as thick as a baby’s arm, with chestnut-knuckles and forearms corded with muscle. Roper watched the way Vigtyr moved as he handed him a full goblet; noting his balance, how he took the goblet with his left hand,
