Matter

generally of the opinion we should wait till dawn of Tresker. That would be prudent. Even if we can find a few dry paths sooner, crossing by them concentrates our attack to too pinched and vulnerable a focus. Better to attack broadly.”

“But would we not be well to attack sooner rather than later?” tyl Loesp asked. “If we have all our forces ready, I think we ought.”

“Perhaps. They don’t seem to have a lot of men on the far side, though there are reports of many roads and tracks; they might be there and well dug in.”

“Are not the fortifications on this side crude and shallow?”

“They are. That does not mean those on the far side are the same. They might even have left those on this side in such a poor state to lure us onwards.”

“We could be too cautious here,” tyl Loesp said. “The longer we wait, the more time they have to assemble what forces they have.”

“Our own reinforcements arrive too. And we can see any of theirs on their way. The scouts report none so far, though there is too much mist drifting from the great Falls to see further than thirty kilometres down the road. River mists may obscure matters here later, too, especially in the early morning of Tresker, though we may be able to use that to our own advantage.”

“I feel we should attack now,” tyl Loesp said.

“If the enemy are there in any numbers,” Werreber said, nodding at the far bank, “attacking now might lose us the war this afternoon.”

“You take too much care, Werreber. They are broken. We have the momentum. And even if they are there, even if we are temporarily thrown back, the war would not be lost. We have reached a stage where even on their homelands we can afford greater loss than they.”

“Why hurry? Why suffer such loss at all? By morning we’ll have pounded them all night and be set for a broad attack in overwhelming force that’ll trample them beneath us. The men and vehicles need resting anyway, tyl Loesp. To charge onward would be intemperate and risk severe attenuation. We can repel anything they choose to face us with, but only if our forces remain cohesive.”

“Nevertheless, to keep that momentum, even if we then halt and draw breath on the far side, we shall attack as soon as we have crossing points identified.”

Werreber drew himself up to his full, straight-backed height, staring down his hook of a nose at the other man. “I don’t understand you, tyl Loesp; you introduce delay by insisting on taking this circuitous route, then you drive us faster than a stooping lyge.”

“It is my way of maintaining a balance,” tyl Loesp said.

The field marshal looked frosty. “I advise against this attack, tyl Loesp.”

“And I note that.” Tyl Loesp smiled thinly. “Even so.”

Werreber gazed out across the expanse of shining sand and breeze-ruffled waters to the far bank. He sighed. “As you wish, sir,” he said. He inclined a small bow, turned and left.

“Oh, and Field Marshal?”

Werreber turned, frowning.

“Take no prisoners.” Tyl Loesp shrugged. “Save perhaps a few for interrogation.”

Werreber glared at him for a few moments, then gave the most cursory of nods and turned away again.

* * *

“You had not killed before?” Fanthile asked.

“Of course not!”

“Had you ever drawn blood, or been in a fight?”

Oramen shook his head. “Barely touched a sword, let alone a gun. My father never wanted me to be a warrior. That was Elime’s role. Ferbin was his reserve in that, though unsuited, perhaps through an overconcentration on Elime; my father felt Ferbin went to seed, from ripeness to spoiled almost before he was fully a man. I was too young to figure as a combateer when father was ascribing us our parts and planning his assault on posterity. My role was always to be the studious one, the thinker, the analyser, the futurian.” Oramen snorted.

Fanthile poured a little more of the sweet iced wine into Oramen’s crystal. They sat in the palace secretary’s private apartments. Oramen had not known who to talk to after the attack. Eventually his steps had led him to Fanthile. “Then you did especially well, did you not?” the palace secretary said. “Many a man who thinks himself brave finds he is not when faced with such expeditious assault.”

“Sir, did you not hear? I practically fainted. I had to sit before I fell. And I had the advantage; without my pistol, I’d not be here. Couldn’t even defend myself like a gentleman.”

“Oramen,” Fanthile said gently, “you are still a youth. And besides, you thought to arm yourself. That was wise, was it not?”

“So it proved.” Oramen drank deeply.

“And those who attacked you were not overly concerned with etiquette.”

“Indeed not. I imagine they only used a knife rather than a gun because one is silent and the other reports its use over half the city. Unless they turn out to be strict gentlemen, of course,” Oramen said with a sneer. “Such scorn guns, reckoning blades the honourable recourse, though I believe a rifle in a hunt is lately becoming allowable in even the most regressive shires.”

“And they did kill your best friend.”

“Oh, they killed Tove well; stuck him. He was most surprised,” Oramen said bitterly. A small frown creased his brow. “Most surprised…” he repeated, hesitating.

“Then do not blame yourself,” Fanthile was saying. Then it was his turn to frown. “What?”

Oramen shook his head. “Just the way Tove said ‘Not me’, when…” He wiped his face with one hand. “And before, when we were at the door…” He stared up at the ceiling for a few moments, then shook his head decisively. “No. What am I saying? He was my best friend. He could not.” He shivered. “Great grief, the man dies in my place and I look to blame him.” He drank again.

“Steady, young man,” Fanthile said, smiling, nodding at the glass.

Oramen looked at the glass, appeared to be about to argue, then set it down on the table between them.

“The blame is mine, Fanthile,” he said. “I sent Tove first through that door, and I was stupid enough to finish off the one I’d hit first in the chest. Through him we might have discovered who sent them.”

“You think they were sent, by somebody else?”

“I doubt they were just loitering around the courtyard waiting to rob the first person to come through that door.”

“Then who might have sent them?”

“I don’t know. I have thought, and, on thinking, realised there is a dismayingly large cast of suspects.”

“Who might they be?”

Oramen stared at the other man. “The same people you might think of.”

Fanthile met the prince’s gaze. He nodded. “Indeed. But who?”

Oramen shook his head. “Deldeyn spies, republicans, radical parliamentarians, a family with a personal vendetta against my family, from this generation or one before, an out-of-pocket bookmaker mistaking me for Ferbin. Who knows? Even anarchists, though they seem to exist more in the minds of those who oppose them most fervently than in awkward reality.”

“Who,” Fanthile asked, “would gain most from your death?”

Oramen shrugged. “Well, pursued to the absolute limits of logicality, tyl Loesp, I suppose.” He looked at the palace secretary, who met his gaze with a studiedly blank expression. He shook his head again. “Oh, I thought of him, too, but if I distrust him I distrust everybody. You, Harne, Tove — WorldGod welcome him — everybody.” Oramen made a fist and punched at the nearest cushion. “Why did I kill that wounded one? I should have kept him alive!” He stared at the palace secretary. “I’d have wielded the pliers and the glowing iron myself on that cur.”

Fanthile looked away for a moment. “Your father frowned on such techniques, prince. He used them most rarely.”