a few minutes, that now, it seemed impossible that he had imagined his half-brother’s humiliation. Desired it. Tasted and savoured it, just two days ago.
‘Then he went into the inn and killed my senior squire,’ Gawin said. He shrugged. ‘I have vowed to kill him.’
The captain had a restless urge to go follow Amicia. He felt the need to extract a vow of silence. Or was that just an excuse? And the pain – raw, like a visible bruise – in Gawin’s voice – he’d only just forced himself to decide in favour of the younger man, and now he was his confessor.
It was like being the captain.
‘Your enemy is my enemy,’ he said simply, and leaned down, and put his arms around his brother’s neck. Amongst the Muriens, a good expression of hate was a way of showing love. Sometimes, the only way.
‘Oh, Gabriel!’ Gawin said, and burst into tears.
‘Gabriel died, Gawin,’ the captain said.
Gawin dried his eyes. ‘You have problems of your own, no doubt.’ He managed a smile.
‘Where would you like me to begin?’ the captain said. ‘I’m engaged in a siege with an enemy who can deploy any kind of creature, who outnumbers me ten or fifteen or twenty to one, and who is led by a ruthless genius.’
Gawin managed another smile. ‘My brother is a ruthless genius.’
The captain grinned.
Gawin nodded. ‘You’re about to try something insane. I can taste it. Remember the chicken coup? Remember your alchemical
The captain looked around, as if he feared an eavesdropper. ‘He’s going to hit us hard, tonight. He has to. Up until now, to all intents and purposes, he’s been losing the siege. The way the Wild works, eventually, some one of his own will see him as weak and take him down.’
Gawin shrugged. ‘They’re the enemy. Who knows what they think?’
The captain returned a grim smile. ‘I do. All too well.’
‘So?’ Gawin asked, after a difficult moment. ‘Why do you know? What they think?’
The captain drew along breath.
‘Maybe sometime I’ll tell you,’ the captain said.
Gawin absorbed that. ‘The man of secrets. Very well. What are you about to do?’
The captain shrugged. ‘I’m going to try for him. Try to drag him down. The old Magus is in on it.’
Gawin sat up. ‘You’re going for Tho-’
‘Don’t speak his name,’ the captain said. ‘Naming calls.’
Gawin bit his lip. ‘I wish I were fit to ride.’
‘You will be, soon enough.’ The captain leaned forward and embraced his half-brother. ‘I’d rather be your friend than your foe. Foe was merely a habit.’
Gawin patted the captain’s back gently. ‘Gabriel! I’m sorry!’
The captain held the young knight until he slept. It didn’t take long.
‘I’m not Gabriel,’ he said to his sleeping half-brother. And then he went to find the woman. But he didn’t have to go far. She was sitting on a chair in the corridor.
Their eyes met. Hers said,
He wasn’t sure what his own said, but he stopped at arm’s length. ‘You heard,’ he said, far more harshly than he intended.
‘Everything,’ she said. ‘Don’t offend me by requiring my silence. I hear the confessions of dying men. I care nothing for the secrets of the mighty.’
In his head, he knew that her anger was a kind of armour to keep him farther away. But it hurt, anyway. ‘Sometimes, secrets are secret for a reason,’ he said.
‘You curse God because your mother was unfaithful to your father and you grew to manhood with the torments of your brothers?’ She spat. ‘I thought you were braver than that.’ She shrugged. ‘Or do you mean that you intend to sortie out into the night and die?’
He took a deep breath. Counted carefully to fifty in High Archaic, and let the breath go. ‘You have been in the Wild,’ he said softly.
She looked away. ‘Begone.’
‘Amicia-’ He almost called her
‘I know, you idiot,’ she spat at him.
He was stunned by her venom. ‘I will protect you!’ he said.
‘I don’t want your protection!’ she said, the anger all but forming frost on her lips. ‘I am not a suffering princess in a tower! I am a woman of God, and my God is the only protection I require, and I do not know why my power does not come from the sun! I have enough weight of sin on my head without you adding to my burdens!’ She got to her feet and gave him a sharp push. ‘I am an Outwaller chit, a slut, a woman lower than a serf. You, it turns out, are some lost prince. You can, I have no doubt, cozen any woman you like, looks, money and
He was not a blushing youth of sixteen. He caught her arm as she pushed him, and pulled. He thought she would fall into his arms.
She almost did. But she caught herself, and his kiss was deflected. His arms pinned her, and she said, with all the ice a woman can muster: ‘Shall I tell Sym you forced me? Captain?’
He let her go. Just in that moment, he hated her.
Just in that moment, the feeling was probably mutual.
She walked away to the main hospital room, and he had nowhere to which he could retreat except the dispensary behind him.
On the other hand, it was empty, and just then what he needed, perhaps more than ever before in his life, was to be alone.
He collapsed into the heavy wooden chair in the darkened room, and before he knew it, he was crying.
Lissen Carak – Sauce
Sauce had the duty. She was fresh enough to her promotion that she still enjoyed the responsibility – made a special effort to be clean, neat, her armour well-polished, her square-topped cap neat as a pin. She knew that a lot of the older men resented taking orders from a woman, and she knew that a perfect turn-out helped.
She set the guards on the main gate, and marched the duty detachment to the posterns, relieving each post in turn – challenge, password, posting by the numbers, and accepting the salutes – she loved the ceremony. And she loved to see the effect on the farmers and their families. Farmers clean and oil their tools, tour their livestock, morning and night. Farmers know a patient craftsman when they see one, even when the craft is war.
She relieved the last post and marched the off-going detachment through the courtyard to the base of the West Tower, where she dismissed them. Two slow-moving archers were detailed to wash the heavy wood piling driven into the ground for sword practice – Low Sym had been tied to it for his punishment, and it had various substances on it that needed cleaning off.
Then she climbed the steps to the tower, listening to the off-going soldiers. She was listening for criticism; she expected it. She wasn’t really good enough to be a corporal. She wanted to be – but there was so much to learn.
And she knew that this was going to be a tough night. All across the garrison tower men were polishing, sharpening, trimming a belt end, checking the stuffing on a gambeson sleeve. A thousand rituals to conjure safety and luck in battle. And they were all tired.
At the head of the stairs stood Bad Tom, her nemesis, with his cronies. She straightened her back, noticed that even though he was supposedly off-duty he was still fully armed, wearing full harness but for the gauntlets and the bassinet, which sat together on the plank table. She noted that his armour was as carefully polished as her own.
He was talking to Bent, and they were smiling.
