'Yes, but so what?'
'So all that work's not structural,' Ilumene said. 'We can bring it down – and the rest of the tower will still stand.'
'But-' Feilin began before cutting himself off. 'Merciful Gods!'
'Hah, they ain't showing much mercy these days, so I reckon we should return the favour,' Ilumene said with feeling. 'They'll have dozens of priests, all with only weak magic; an Aspect-Guide ain't as good as a mage's daemon. Maybe someone like Mage Peness has the strength and speed to do something about a roof falling in on him, but none of them will.'
'And they'll be confident Peness won't oppose them,' said Feilin softly.
'Aye, before they even walk through those gates they'll know whether we can match that strength or not. When they realise we can't, they'll relax. Priests ain't got a soldier's instincts; their penitents won't be able to stop them in time.'
Natai blinked, suddenly awakening, and looked around. Two anxious faces stared back, the dark-haired Lady Kinna and Jeto, Natai's steward. From the look on their faces she'd been out of it for longer than she'd realised - Jeto could be as fussy as a dowager duchess at times, but Kinna was as ambitious and heartless as any Litse noblewoman.
'Your Grace?' said Lady Kinna cautiously. She'd been the only one of Natai's close circle to come straight to the Ruby Tower when she heard what had happened in Hale. For all her youth, she's a sharp one, Qanas always said-
The thought went no further as a spasm ran through her body. Natai felt her hand begin to tremble and had to clasp it tight with the other. Strange. My body understands my grief when my mind cannot quite accept it.
She looked down at her hand. One of her rings was missing a stone, and a graze three inches long ran from the knuckle beside it down the back of her hand, tracing the path of the missing gem.
It was a ruby, she recalled, a ruby spilled with blood – who will find that? One of their mercenaries? Not a priest, their heads are raised too high now. Perhaps a pilgrim, come to pray- No; not after this. The temples will be closed until the ground is hallowed again. While these murderers live, Hale is not sacred.
She went to the window, unable to bear the sight of the door to her chamber. Catching sight of it out of the corner of her eye was enough to make her hope her husband was about to walk through.
'Kinna, is there-V Her voice wavered and caught, and she stopped, unable to continue. She hugged her arms around her body, ignoring the pain it provoked, the hot* heavy feeling of a badly bruised shoulder and the sharp throb where skin had been cut.
'There… No, your Grace,' came the hesitant reply. 'Nor of Sir Arite. Major Feilin has said he cannot send anyone out for information, not when we're trying to look as if we are beaten.'
Natai didn't speak. That there was a battle coming didn't appear to matter. She was exhausted, her body screaming for sleep, but her mind refused.
Sergeant Kayel seems to thrive on conflict; he looks as alive now as when he was fighting my guards. Do 1 envy or pity him? she wondered.
Perhaps she would seek Ruhen out and lose herself in those bewitching eyes… No, she could not, for Kayel had carried her as if she were dead, up to her rooms high in the tower, careful to let others see the blood leak from her head and drip onto the stairs.
So much blood from such a small wound. A little goes a long way, isn't that what Mother was so fond of saying? A woman who'd been denied little in her life; who'd never known loss…
The window afforded an unparallelled view of Byora. With its back turned on the oppressive bulk of Blackfang's cliffs, the Ruby Tower looked down on the rest of the Land. Before it was spread a carpet of humanity and industry, run through by the thick veins that might soon be rushing with murky, murderous floodwaters. Rain was falling heavily on the city; Natai could not see much of Byora through the slanted slashes of water.
'Your Grace, please let me fetch you a seat,' Lady Kinna urged. 'You're hurt and in shock; your wounds need tending.'
Natai waved the woman's protests away. The sting from her dozen small hurts wrapped her better than any bandage could. The pain took her away from the horrors of the day. Her torn and damp clothes meant nothing; changing them would change nothing.
The view had once thrilled her, as a little girl she'd been content to spend hour after hour staring out of the window at the city
beyond. Now it merely echoed the numb emptiness in her stomach. What she saw was distant and blurred, not quite real.
Again her thoughts turned to Ruhen and the child's calming effect, but then she remembered Kinna, who was continually spoiling Natai's little prince, trying to steal his affections away. During every council meeting held in the Ruby Tower, at every formal court conducted in the Duchess's Chamber, the woman would find some excuse to hold Ruhen and fuss over him, running her fingers through his soft, sooty-brown hair, delighting in his every sound.
'I still cannot believe all of this,' Lady Kinna said suddenly, 'that the clerics would even attempt this. It beggars belief.'
Natai let the woman chatter on; it was preferable to lonely silence. Gripping her hand tight enough to turn her knuckles white, Natai looked down at the open gate where she could make out the solitary figure of Major Feilin, loitering uneasily.
'They cannot believe the city will stand for it; the duke was a beloved and humble man,' she went on. 'The arrogance of the clerics has grown out of all proportion.'
'They do not think,' Natai said dully. 'They have lost all reason. The temples are places of madness now; we must close them until sense returns. We will quarantine them so the people are not infected by this evil.'
'A quarantine?' Lady Kinna asked. 'Yes, of course, I will see it is done. The infection must be purged. The people will be glad; they are unsettled by the fury and hatred being preached.'
'Better they look to Ruhen than seek answers in the temples,' Natai said with sudden vehemence. 'In his eyes you will find peace, in the temples there is only madness.' She stopped suddenly as she saw sudden activity in the street below.
'Look, here they come.'
A column of dark shapes, men huddled against the rain, trotted with surprising speed towards the main gate. A number split off and went in different directions, forming up in neat lines across the alleys and avenues that adjoined the main street.
Lady Kinna gave a tiny gasp, then straightened her shoulders. She would be strong. The duchess focused on the gate. Yes, the penitents had reached it, and knocked Major Feilin down. They hadn't waited but streamed past and over him. She couldn't tell whether he lived or not; all she could do was hope that in their haste the flood of men surging into the courtyard had left him alive. Her servants, wearing the uniform of Ruby Tower Guardsmen, were gathered in a sullen, frightened clump on the right. The penitents did not hesitate but headed straight for the pretend soldiers, knocking many down and stripping their weapons with brutal efficiency. She could imagine the angry shouts and commands. They would be forced to their knees and one or two killed as an example perhaps…
Natai found herself holding her breath, waiting for Sergeant Kayel to appear. The mercenaries continued to stream into the courtyard, scores of men, a hundred, two hundred, all desperate to be off the rain-soaked street for fear of Ushull's savage daughter, Kiyer of the Deluge. Finally knots of robed priests followed. Though she strained to see, the tower was too high for her to make out any of the faces.
'How many of them do I know?' she murmured softly, leaning forward. 'How many have laid blessings on my head?'
'Your Grace, don't stand so close to the window,' Lady Kinna said with alarm. 'They must not be able to recognise you.'
'It is too far, they will see nothing.'
'What if they use magic?'
'They don't have the strength. Peness would be able to do so, but there is not one cleric in Byora who approaches his skill.'
As the soldiers continued to enter, a distant voice in Natai's head told her she should be afraid, that there
