It had seemed less of one the next morning when the three armies of Barbadior arrived, emerging out of the smoke of burning to the south. They had two banners, not one: the Empire’s red mountain and golden tiara against their white background, and Alberico’s own crimson boar on a yellow field. The red in both banners seemed to dot the plain like stains of blood, while horse-men and foot-soldiers arrayed themselves in crisp, precisely drilled ranks along the eastern side of the valley. The soldiers of the Barbadian Empire had conquered most of the known world to the east.
Dianora had stood on the hill watching them come. It seemed to take forever. She went away into their tent and then came back, several times. The sun began to set. It was over behind her in the west above the sea before Alberico’s mercenaries had all marched or ridden into the valley.
‘Three to one, perhaps a little better than that,’ Brandin had said, coming up beside her. His short greying hair was uncovered, ruffled by the late afternoon breeze.
‘Are they too many?’ she had asked, quietly so no one else would hear.
He looked at her quickly, then took her hand. He often did that now, as if unable to bear not having touched her for any length of time. Their love-making since the Dive had taken on an urgency that would leave them both shattered and drained afterwards, scarcely able to form thoughts of any kind. Which was at the centre of things for her, Dianora knew: she wanted to numb her mind, to still the voices and the memories. Obliterate the image of that clear, straight path disappearing in the darkness of the sea.
On the hill the day the Barbadians came Brandin laced his fingers through her own and said, ‘They may be too many. It is hard to judge. I am stronger in my power than Alberico in his. I think that on this hill I am worth the difference in the armies.’
Quietly spoken, a careful statement of relevant facts. No arrogance, only the steady, always enduring pride. And why should she doubt his sorcery? She knew exactly what it had done in war some twenty years ago.
That conversation had been yesterday. Afterwards she had turned to watch the sun go down into the sea. The night had been bright and glorious, with Vidomni waxing and Ilarion at her full, blue and mysterious, a moon of fantasy, of magic. She had wondered if they would have time to be alone that night, but in fact Brandin had been down on the plain among the tents of his army through most of the dark hours, and speaking with his captains after that. D’Eymon, she knew, was going to remain up here with him tomorrow, and Rhamanus—more a sailor than a military commander— would be on the hill as well to lead the men of the King’s Guard in defence, if matters came to that. If matters came to that they were probably dead, she knew.
Both moons had set by the time Brandin came back to their tent on that hill above the sea. Awake in bed, waiting, she could see his weariness. He had maps with him, sketches of terrain to study one last time, but she made him put them down.
He came over to the bed still fully clothed and lay down. After a moment he rested his head in her lap. Neither of them spoke for a long time. Then Brandin shifted a little and looked up at her.
‘I hate that man down there,’ he said quietly. ‘I hate everything he stands for. There is no passion in him, no love, no pride. Only ambition. Nothing matters but that. Nothing in the world can move him to pity or grief but his own fate. Everything is a tool, an instrument. He wants the Emperor’s Tiara, everyone knows it, but he doesn’t want it for anything. He only wants. I doubt anything in his life has ever moved him to feel anything for anyone else . . . love, loss, anything.’
He subsided. He was repeating himself in his exhaustion. She pressed her fingers against his temples, looking down at his face as he turned again and his eyes closed and his brow gradually grew smooth under her touch. Eventually his breathing steadied and she knew he was asleep. She stayed awake, her hands moving like a blind woman’s over him, knowing from the light outside that the moons were down, knowing the morning was war and that she loved this man more than the world.
She must have slept, because the sky was grey with the coming of dawn when she opened her eyes again, and Brandin was gone. There was a red anemone on the pillow beside her. She looked at it without moving for a moment, then picked it up and crushed it to her face inhaling the fragile scent. She wondered if he knew the legend of that flower here. Almost certainly not, she thought.
She rose, and a few moments later Scelto came in with a mug of khav in his hand. He was wearing the stiff leather vest of a messenger: lightweight inadequate armour against arrows. He had volunteered to be one of the score of such men running orders and messages up and down the hill. He had come to her first though, as he had every morning in the saishan for a dozen years. Dianora was afraid that thinking about that would make her cry: a brutal omen on such a
