He raised his sword towards Alessan, and gestured— though not seriously, Devin realized afterwards—to strike at the Prince. Alessan did not even move to ward the blow. It was Baerd whose blade came up and then swept downward to bite with finality into the neck of the Ygrathen, driving him to the ground.
‘Oh, my King,’ they heard the man say then, thickly, through the blood rising in his mouth. ‘Oh, Brandin, I am so sorry.’
Then he rolled over on his back and lay still, his sightless eyes staring straight at the burning sun.
The sun had been burning hot as well, the morning he had defied the Governor and taken a young serving-girl for tribute down the river from Stevanien, so many years ago.
Dianora saw a man raise his sword on that hill. She turned her head away so she would not see Rhamanus die. There was an ache in her, a growing void; she felt as if all the chasms of her life were opening in the ground before her feet. He had been an enemy, the man who had seized her to be a slave. Sent to claim tribute for Brandin, he had burned villages and homes in Corte and Asoli. He had been an Ygrathen. Had sailed to the Palm in the invading fleet, had fought in the last battle by the Deisa.
He had been her friend.
One of her only friends. Brave and decent and loyal all his life to his King. Kind and direct, ill-at-ease in a subtle court . . .
Dianora realized that she was weeping for him, for the good life cloven like a tree by that stranger’s descending sword.
‘They have failed, my lord.’ It was d’Eymon, his voice actually showing—or was she imagining it?—the faintest hint of emotion. Of sorrow. ‘All of the Guards are down, and Rhamanus. The wizards are still there.’
From his chair under the canopy Brandin opened his eyes. His gaze was fixed on the valley below and he did not turn. Dianora saw that his face was chalk-white now with strain, even in the red heat of the day. She wiped quickly at her tears: he must not see her thus if he should chance to look. He might need her; whatever strength or love she had to give. He must not be distracted with concern for her. He was one man alone, fighting so many.
And more, in fact, than she even knew. For the wizards had reached the Night Walkers in Certando by now. They were linked, and they were all bending the power of their minds to Alberico’s defence.
From the plain below there came a roar, even above the steady noise of battle. Cheering and wild shouts from the Barbadians. Dianora could see their white-clad messengers sprinting forward from the rear where Alberico was. She saw that the men of the Western Palm had been stopped in their advance. They were still outnumbered, terribly so. If Brandin could not help them now then all was done, all over. She looked south towards that hill where the wizards were, where Rhamanus had been cut down. She wanted to curse them all, but she could not.
They were men of the Palm. They were her own people. But her own people were dying in the valley as well, under the heavy blades of the Empire. The sun was a brand overhead. The sky a blank, pitiless dome.
She looked at d’Eymon. Neither of them spoke. They heard quick footsteps on the slope. Scelto stumbled up, fighting for breath.
‘My lord,’ he gasped, dropping to his knees beside Brandin’s chair, ‘we are hard-pressed . . . in the centre and on the right. The left is holding . . . but barely. I am ordered . . . to ask if you want us to fall back.’
And so it had come.
I hate that man, he had said to her last night, before falling asleep in utter weariness. I hate everything he stands for.
There was a silence on the hill. It seemed to Dianora as if she could hear her own heartbeat with some curious faculty of the ear, discerning it even above the sounds from below. The noises in the valley seemed, oddly, to have receded now. To be growing fainter every second.
Brandin stood up.
‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘We do not fall back. There is nowhere to retreat, and not before the Barbadian. Not ever.’ He was gazing bleakly out over Scelto’s kneeling form, as if he would penetrate the distance with his eyes to strike at Alberico’s heart.
But there was something else in him now: something new, beyond rage, beyond the grimness of resolution and the everlasting pride. Dianora sensed it, but she could not understand. Then he turned to her and she saw in the depths of that grey gaze a bottomless well of pain opening up such as she had never seen in him. Never seen in anyone, in all her days. Pity and grief and love, he had said last night. Something was happening; her heart was racing wildly. She felt her hands beginning to shake.
‘My love,’ Brandin said. Mumbled, slurred it. She saw death in his eyes, an abscess of loss that seemed to be leaving him almost blind, stripping his soul. ‘Oh, my love,’ he said again. ‘What have they done? See what they will make me do. Oh, see what they make me do!’
‘Brandin!’ she cried, terrified, not understanding at all. Beginning again to weep, frantically. Grasping only the open sore of hurt he had become. She reached out towards him, but he was blind, and already turning away, east, towards the rim of the hill and the valley below.
‘All right,’ said Rinaldo the Healer, and lifted his hands away. Devin opened his eyes and looked down. His wound had closed; the bleeding had stopped. The sight of it made him feel queasy;
