Blood and Gold

  *

  An escort of twenty soldiers went with them, pushing through the crowd so Calesh and Farajalla could walk along unmolested. That still felt strange to her, as alien as having a servant to wait on her at table or fold her clothes. She had been a servant most of her life, with nothing but dreams of acknowledgement by her father to take her mind from the dourness of her life to come, and as she grew older not even that. Now she felt like an impostor. Sometimes she still half expected someone to jump out and tell her it had all been a mistake, or a joke, and send her back to the kitchens and the laundry in the basement rooms of the castle at Harenc.

  Except there was Calesh, and of him, she never had a moment’s doubt. His men were the same, following him with eagerness and something very close to devotion, whatever he might say about all there is to it. When new recruits came out to Tura d’Madai they didn’t know him at all, but within weeks they almost fell over in their haste to help Calesh with the least little thing. And he hardly seemed to do anything to earn it. He made sure they were paid on time, and that their armour was mended and the horses cared for, and he usually remembered the soldiers’ names. That was all, and it didn’t make sense. She had asked Amand about it once.

  “One of the men took a blade in the chest at Kiderun,” the captain had answered after a moment. “A fellow called Malian, new to Tura d’Madai. Baruch Caraman killed the man who dealt that blow.”

  “One of Calesh’s friends,” Farajalla said. “One of the four.”

  Amand nodded. “The sword point snapped off inside the wound. Every breath Malian took worked the sliver deeper, and if it reached the lung, he would die if he was moved. So Calesh cut it out. Men were fighting all around him, but he just knelt down and cut it out, and his hands never trembled. Malian fainted halfway through, but he survived.”

  She could imagine that, in fact. Amand didn’t say, but Farajalla thought her husband’s three friends might have stood around him while he cut: Baruch, Raigal with his great axe, and Luthien Bourrel dancing like quicksilver amid the carnage. They were always together, back in the days when there were still victories. Before the others had come back home.

  “Malian was killed later, at Iskellar,” Amand said matter-of-factly. The captain had a memory like a taxman’s ledger, and every page was crammed. “Some men just don’t have the luck, I suppose.”

  Farajalla thought that might be part of it. Calesh had the luck, whatever gift it was that kept some men alive while others died, and his soldiers stayed close in the hope that it would rub off on them. Also, of course, he was simply a fine man, this tall outland husband of hers. Others could recognise that as well as she could. One of the keys for the brass-bound chest she had seen unloaded hung around her neck: the other was with Amand, and not Calesh. He could be trusted with it. Many of the soldiers could, but Amand knew Calesh well, and for him the captain would keep the keys of Heaven itself.

  They let Japh lead them along the breakwater to where it joined the main wall of the harbour, then turned left along the quay. Merchant ships were tied up in a forest of masts, though few of the labourers were doing any work. Several men in well-cut wool clothing glowered at Calesh as he went by, traders irritated that their loading had been interrupted, but none of them had the nerve to say anything. On the other side of the wharf was a line of low wooden warehouses, most of them with open doors and a clerk sitting on a stool just inside, a large ledger at each hand. One for stock brought in and one for that taken out, Farajalla supposed.

  More townsfolk were still coming through the double arches that led out of the Port Quarter and into Parrien, and the soldiers slowed in the throng. The citizens saw the escort and realised Calesh must be important, so sometimes questions were shouted to him, but less often than might have been thought. He didn’t look much like a Commander of the Hand, after all, in his peculiar green armour and with a Madai woman at his side. She grinned to herself. He had been Sarténi when he came to Tura d’Madai, and now when he came back to Sarténe he was, perhaps, part Madai in his heart.

  “I’ll fetch Master Tai,” Japh said abruptly. The escort had all but halted in the crush of people now. Japh dived between two of them and wriggled away into the crowd, his progress marked by a wake of suddenly irate townsfolk cursing and clutching at bits of themselves. He was heading for a gap between warehouses, and peering up the slight incline Farajalla saw a brown-timbered building on the left of an alley, with a smoke-dulled sign swinging above the porch.

  That would be Kissing the Moon, then. She glanced at her husband, only to find him looking up the alley with eagerness in his eyes, and almost dancing from foot to foot. He seemed about ready to burst through the ring of soldiers and rush away on his own.

  He’d spoken of Raigal Tai a great deal, of course, along with his other two friends. There was a close bond there, something men might share but which women could never be a part of. Even wives: that was a different tie, with the tangles of love or without them. The friendships of fighting men were forged in taverns as well as battles, and tempered with ale as often as blood. Men were strange. Even the best of them.

  She was going to have to share him now, at least in part, and she didn’t much care for that. She watched him from the corner of her eye, and then the door of the inn was flung open with a bang and the biggest man she’d ever seen rushed out into the evening sunlight with Japh at his heels.

  “Bullfrog!” the giant bellowed, and began to race down the street.

  Calesh started to laugh. There was no need for him to tell her that this was Raigal Tai; he was just as Calesh had described him, a vast mountain of a man with a shock of tousled blond hair. The only change was the loss of his beard. But that took nothing from his bulk, and the good folk of Parrien began to clear hurriedly out of his way. It was either that, or be trampled where they stood. The soldiers half turned to Calesh, but he had no time to respond.

  Raigal burst through them with hardly a pause. He was so huge that the sunlight seemed to lessen when he loomed close. When he reached Calesh he picked him up, completely ignoring the soldiers, and folded him into that great chest like a child cuddling a favourite doll.

  “Hey,” Calesh managed, pounding his friend on the back. “Hey, that hurts! Put me down, you fat oaf!”

  “Fat? Fat?” Raigal set him on his feet hard enough to rattle Calesh’s teeth. “I’m not fat. But by the blood of the god, it’s good to see you! What have you been doing? Idling in the sun while the rest of us work for a living?”

  “Never had the chance to idle,” Calesh said dryly. He probed his ribs with one hand as though he thought one might be cracked, even through his armour. “I was busy with a few things. One of which,” he added as she came up behind him, “was getting married. This is my wife, Farajalla.”

  “Wife?” Raigal repeated. He looked at her. “Blood of the god. How did you catch this beauty?”

  “In part,” Farajalla said pointedly, “by not speaking about me as though I wasn’t here.”

  The giant man stared at her, then roared with laughter and clouted Calesh on the shoulder. “Quite right! My apologies, lady. I’m not normally so rude.”

  “Yes, you are,” Calesh said. He rubbed his shoulder. “To make it up, you can help us with our things.” A second knot of soldiers was coming through the crowd, laden with bags. A canvas sack half-hid the wooden chest. “And a decent meal wouldn’t go amiss, either. We’ve had nothing but ship’s rations for nearly a month.”

  “Of course,” Raigal said. “And then you can meet my wife. And my boy,” he added. Before Calesh could answer the big man seemed to notice the soldiers for the first time. “I don’t know that there’s enough food in the town for all these men, mind. How many are there?”

  “More than five thousand,” Calesh said.

  “All the men in the East?” Raigal Tai began incredulously, and then shut his mouth with a click. Farajalla had caught the quick dart of her husband’s eyes to the listening townsfolk, which evidentl
y the huge man had too, and understood the message. Don’t ask me here. Raigal covered his comment by whirling on the crowd.

  “What are you lot doing?” he demanded. “Waiting for the tide to go out? You don’t need to worry about Bullfrog here. He’s a friend.”

  “I think we gathered that,” someone said.

  “From the East,” another voice shouted. “From the desert!”

  “From Tura d’Madai,” Raigal agreed. He punched Calesh playfully on the arm, making him stagger. “He saved my life, oh, about nine times. Saved a lot of other men too. Best man I ever met.”

  “Maybe not,” Calesh said quietly. “There are two others who might have a claim to that.”

  “And if they were here I’d say the same about them,” Raigal said, not at all abashed. “Oh, go home, everyone. Calesh and I have things to talk about. Where are those bags?”

  Kissing the Moon turned out to be a typical harbour side inn, the flagstone floor scuffed and every worn wooden surface scarred by the rings of tankards. The cloying scent of old beer hung heavily around the walls. But it was clean, as was the bedroom Raigal showed them to, staggering under the weight of the brass-bound chest and three bags piled on top of it in his thick arms. Someone had turned the bed linen down already.

  Once the bags were stored away, and the chests with them, Raigal led his guests to the back parlour of the inn. It was smaller than the front bar, with simple green upholstery on the high-backed chairs and a faint smell of fresh-cut pine in the air. Polish gleamed on the tables. The far wall bulged slightly outward, and was mostly occupied by a long window that looked out over the warehouses and across the harbour, and the sea beyond. The quays were a mass of activity now, soldiers unloading and merchants filling their holds as fast as they could, eager now to make for the open sea. The appearance of an army made a lot of men decide to be somewhere else before the fighting began.

  Farajalla’s eyes went to the fireplace though, and the huge double-headed axe that hung there, its grip slightly worn and a notch on one curving blade. Above it hung a surcoat marked with the emblem of the Hand of the Lord, halved black and white with a circle in the centre where the colours reversed.

  “It can be useful for guests to remember I used to be a soldier,” Raigal said, noticing her gaze. “And there’s not much risk, because only trusted friends and customers are allowed in here. Anyway, by the time a man’s drunk enough to try to attack someone with that axe, he’s too drunk to lift it.”

  Farajalla didn’t think she would be able to lift it at all, drunk or sober. She didn’t think many men would be able to wield it either. Raigal Tai was truly massive, and by the way he moved, most of his weight was muscle. Calesh had described him often enough, but his words hadn’t done justice to the man. In Raigal’s hands that axe would look like a doll’s toy. The thought of what its blades could do to human flesh made her shudder.

  “I can hardly believe you let anyone forget you used to be a soldier,” Calesh said. “Not even for a minute.”

  Raigal pretended to scowl at him. “Sit down while I fetch some ale and a bottle of wine, and then you can tell me everything, Calesh. I want to know where you’ve been, what you’ve been doing, and why by the god’s blood you took so long getting home. Don’t you know we’ve missed you?”

  He squeezed himself through another door, from beyond which Farajalla heard the clink of tankards as their host busied himself behind the bar. She took a pace towards the chairs, but then stopped and turned to her husband, alerted by the sense of him she carried with her wherever she went, whatever she did, to find his eyes resting on her.

  He valued her opinions, something not true of many husbands. Another thing she had been lucky in with the man she loved. And she knew that weighing look he wore. She went back to him and took his hands in hers, rubbing her thumbs over his fingers.

  “What is it?” she asked, but Calesh had no chance to answer.

  “He wanted four copper sesters for a pair of herring, can you believe that? We might as well catch our own fish at that price.” A woman pushed through the door from the front corridor, a bag in each hand and a gurgling baby carried in a sling across her chest. She might have been an inch or two over five feet tall, but no more than that, and she was as slender as a twig. “I’ll tell you, that’s the last time I serve him when he hasn’t got the coins to –”

  She stopped moving and broke off, staring at the two of them. Her eyes widened at the sight of Farajalla’s almond skin. “Who are you?”

  Farajalla stared at her. “Who are you?”

  “My dear,” Raigal said as he edged back into the room, “it’s possible that we might enjoy more custom if we don’t make our guests feel unwelcome.” He put tankards and glasses down on a table, pulling bottles from under his arms to join them, and then turned to the little woman. “My wife, Kendra,” he explained over his shoulder. He reached down to take the baby from the papoose, and his voice swelled. “And this little thing is my son, Segarn. He’s nearly six months old now. He’s already got my hair, see?”

  “And your father’s name,” Calesh said, smiling slightly.

  Raigal nodded. “A little piece of my home here with me. Yes. I still miss the northlands, you know.”

  “You’ve missed the northlands since the day we left for the east,” Calesh sighed, “but I notice you’ve never gone back.”

  “And he’d better not now,” Kendra said sharply. Raigal had his mouth open to speak, but he looked at her and closed it without a word. Farajalla hid a smile; evidently the big man knew when to keep quiet, for all his size. His wife studied the guests with shrewd eyes. “You’re Calesh Saissan, aren’t you?”

  He nodded. “Yes. Home at last.”

  “I owe you a debt,” she said. “You saved my husband’s life, many times.”

  “He saved mine just as often,” Calesh told her. “That’s what you do in the Hand. You owe me nothing, lady.”

  She smiled. “Perhaps a good supper?”

  “That, then,” Calesh laughed, “and we’ll call it settled. Kendra, this is Farajalla, my wife.”

  Farajalla smiled a greeting at the other woman. A flash of surprise crossed Kendra’s expression before she could hide it, which Farajalla pretended not to notice. No doubt it was because Calesh had taken a brown-skinned woman for his wife, something as unusual in this western land as the reverse was in the desert. Raigal was cradling his son in one arm and crooning nonsense words at him, while the child chortled and waved his hands in the air.

  “I haven’t seen the inside of a kitchen for a long time,” Farajalla said. “Would you mind if I helped you cook? We can leave the men to exchange lies while we get to know each other.”

  “I can’t remember the last time I had help cooking supper,” Kendra said. “But no, you sit down and relax, Farajalla. I’ll have a fish stew on the plates in an hour, if you can wait that long.”

  “And a damn good stew it is too,” Raigal put in.

  “It had better be good,” Kendra shot back. “If I couldn’t cook well enough to fill that bulging belly of yours, you’d be gone inside a week.” Raigal grinned and rubbed his stomach.

  “An hour will be fine,” Calesh said. “Thank you, lady.”

  Kendra leaned over to pull a face at her son, then vanished through the door to the bar while Segarn chuckled sleepily. Her husband fetched a woven basket and laid the boy inside, on the stone rim that fronted the fireplace. That done he lowered himself to a wide bench beside it, close enough to reach out and touch his son’s face. He pushed a hand through his tangled blond curls, and looked at Calesh. For a moment neither man spoke.

  “Well, then,” Raigal said at last. “Now you can tell me what you’ve been doing all this time.”

  “Fighting to defend the Kingdom of Heaven against heathens,” Calesh said dryly. He took one of the chairs and swung it to face Raigal, grunting a little at the weight, then went back for a second as Farajalla sat down gratefully. “Remember? That was why we
went.”

  “Don’t be clever,” Raigal chuckled. He reached for a tankard of ale. “Luthien always has enough cleverness for five men, and I don’t need you trying to outdo him, thanks all the same.”

  “You still see Luthien?”

  “Of course I do,” the big northerner said. “And Baruch too, when he can find time away from his duties. He’s still in the Hand, you know. A Commander, like you.”

  “And Luthien?”

  “Luthien took the Consolation,” Raigal said.

  Farajalla blinked. Luthien had been the finest warrior among the four friends, so good that she had heard his name in Harenc, even before Calesh rode through the gates and into her life. The word among Madai servants had been that he was a drinker, a voracious reader of books, and had eyesight so poor that one of the glassmakers in Elorium had crafted wire-rimmed glasses especially for him. Hardly a typical warrior, yet no weapon could harm the man, they said. He walked under the protection of the One God, or even perhaps of the desert gods. Or all of them. He could not be made to bleed, and when his sword sang lives ended, and widows wept for the dead.

  She glanced at her husband, to find him staring at the big man with his mouth open.

  “I’m serious,” Raigal Tai said when Calesh didn’t speak. “It’s obvious something important has happened, to make you bring all the Hand home, but you’ll never persuade Luthien to help you with it. Not if it means breaking his oath. He took the Consolation three summers ago. He’s an Elite, teaching the true word of God at the Academy outside town. He’s forbidden to touch meat or alcohol now, or weapons. Or women,” he added with a snort of disdain. “I don’t know why he did it. No women or meat? No ale? Madness.”

  “That doesn’t seem possible,” Calesh said. He still looked like a poleaxed steer. “Luthien was the best of us.”

  “In battle he was,” Raigal said with a grin. “It always used to make me easier in my mind, just knowing he was there. Do you remember what the Madai used to say about us?”

  “They said men feared you for your size,” Farajalla murmured, “and for that axe, spinning in your hand like a split twig. They trembled when Baruch Caraman strode forward, and shook when Calesh Saissan sounded the charge. But it was Luthien Bourrel they fled from, crying out to their gods for protection and succour as they went.”

  Raigal looked at her, surprise on his own face now, and she shrugged. “I’m from Harenc, not the far side of the world. We heard stories.”

  “I see you did,” he chuckled. Raigal had an easy laugh, she decided. She couldn’t help smiling back.

  “You know,” Calesh said slowly, “this actually makes sense. All I need to do is stop thinking of Luthien as he was in battle, and remember instead the man who always had his nose in a scroll, or who wouldn’t read the Unfurling of Spirit unless he washed his hands first. I should have seen this. Luthien was the best of us in battle; fair enough. But he was the noblest of us too.”

  “I might disagree with that last,” Raigal Tai said quietly.

  The two men exchanged steady looks. For the first time since her marriage Farajalla felt excluded, witness to something personal of which she could never be a part. She bit her lip and glanced down at her lap.

  “Let it be,” Calesh said. His voice was slightly strained. “I don’t want to be made into more than I am.”

  “I wasn’t doing so,” the big man said.

  Calesh blew exasperated air. “Let it be, Raigal.” His voice firmed: Farajalla knew what an effort that would have cost him. “Well, whatever Luthien has sworn, I need a message sent to him, and to Baruch as well. I want them to come with us to the Hidden House. We’re going to see the Lady.”

  Raigal shifted his weight, leaning forward with large forearms resting on his thighs. “You turn up here with all the Hand from Tura d’Madai, and now you want us all to go to the Hidden House?”

  “I’ll tell you why,” Calesh said. “But I’m not going to say anything at all until I know who’s listening outside the door, I’m afraid.”

  Three

  Orders

  Calesh had heard the giveaway creak of floorboards from beyond the door twice now, and he knew Farajalla would normally have been aware of it too. Hardly anything escaped her at the best of times. But she didn’t know what to expect here, cast adrift in a strange land with him as her only guide, while his own senses seemed heightened, sharper than cuts to the soul.

  Raigal stared for a moment, and then twisted around in his chair. The door opened as he did so and a man stepped gracefully through. He didn’t look in the least put out by his discovery. Fair hair curled around his ears and flopped over the nape of his neck. He was ridiculously handsome, if in a slightly soft way that spoke of a life spent on couches and in baths, rather than outdoors. He nodded to Raigal and then turned towards Calesh.

  “Ando!” Raigal burst out angrily. “Blood of the god, what do you think you’re doing? I don’t expect guests in my inn to creep around listening at doors, whoever their friends might be.”

  “And of course I apologise,” the newcomer said, his voice smooth. “But still, you can hardly expect me to avoid this charming parlour all evening, now can you? Especially with Calesh Saissan here.” His eyes were brilliant green, and rested on Calesh unblinkingly. “I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Calesh said. He kept his voice calm, hiding his irritation inside. “Unless it’s on behalf of those friends Raigal mentioned.”

  “Only one friend, really,” Ando said self-deprecatingly. “The Margrave, as it happens. And as for why…”

  He moved to the chairs and reached behind them to draw out a lute, on which he played soft notes with practised fingers and chanted;

  The green banner trodden underfoot,

  Where Cammar lay, his life’s blood

  Spilled in the pale and thirsty sand.

  A day of courage, glory bright

  As the sun. Ride now, ride!

  The battle gained, but not the war

  On to triumph, and the god’s voice singing!

  “I was going to tell you,” Raigal Tai said apologetically. “You’re a hero, Calesh. Everyone knows about you killing Cammar ah Amalik.”

  “Nobody knows about it,” he growled. “And I already told you I don’t want to be made into more than I am.”

  “It’s too late for that,” the big innkeeper told him. “Half a dozen songs have been written about that battle. And the palace in Mayence has a mural of you killing Amalik. It covers nearly one whole wall of the reception hall.”

  “You’ve got to be joking,” Calesh said.

  Raigal shook his head. “Afraid not.”

  He was starting to be angry. “Nobody knows what it was like, Raigal. Not unless they were there. And certainly the idiot who wrote those lyrics doesn’t know. You could improve them with your axe.”

  Ando stiffened, offended. “Those are my lyrics, in actual fact. From The Lay of Gidren Field. It’s been sung all over Sarténe for three years now, and I’m rather proud of it.”

  “Ando Gliss,” Raigal said, “is the favoured singer and composer of Riyand, the Margrave of Mayence.”

  “Good for him,” Calesh said. “That doesn’t explain why he feels the need to listen at doors, though he’s no better at snooping than he is at writing. And what’s he doing here, anyway?” He glared at the troubadour. “Shouldn’t you be in Mayence, writing silly quatrains and couplets for the Margrave?”

  Ando drew himself up even further. “I’ll have you know –”

  “He would rather be in Mayence,” Farajalla broke in. “Wouldn’t you, Master Gliss? Such a famous balladeer has no need to while away days in a harbour side inn. He stays in the cities, and the houses of the great, doesn’t he? But you weren’t given a choice. Tell me, singer, how long ago did you know the Hand of the Lord was coming home?”

  Calesh stood up abruptly. He hadn’t seen that, hadn’t realised what the troubadour’s presence meant,
but he did now. So much for Farajalla not being her usual perceptive self. He should have known better. “Of course. You knew. What else should I be aware of?”

  “You’re aware of it already,” Ando Gliss said. Raigal had risen to his feet as well, a much more imposing sight than Calesh, but the musician faced them both with outward calm. “The All-Church has an army gathering on the far bank of the river Rielle, about seventy miles from here. It was intended to go to Tura d’Madai, but it won’t now. The Basilica plans to divert it to Sarténe.”

  “What?” Raigal Tai exploded. “That silly rumour is true?”

  “It’s true,” Calesh said. “Why else would I bring the Hand home, Raigal? What other reason would do?”

  “But this will leave Elorium almost defenceless,” Raigal said. “The men there need those reinforcements. Otherwise the holy city will be overrun before the end of the year. Next spring at the latest.”

  “I know that. You know that, and I’m certain the All-Church knows it too.” Ando smiled bleakly. “It seems they would prefer to destroy the heresy here, among their own vineyards and orange groves, than save the holy city itself from heathens.”

  “The Dualism is not heresy.”

  “I know that, as well,” Ando said. “But the army will receive new orders any day now. Why are you preaching to me?”

  Calesh controlled himself with an effort. He didn’t like this vain, self-regarding man, but it would do him no good to lose his temper. “But why are you here, in Parrien? How did you know where to come?”

  “I guessed,” Ando said. “It was that simple. I knew from my days as a wandering musician that Raigal owned an inn here. Before I became a famous balladeer,” he added with an ironic bow to Farajalla. “I knew he was your friend. And when the Margrave learned of the Basilica’s plans, it didn’t seem hard to guess that you’d sail for home with as many of the Hand as could follow. How many did you bring, by the way?”

  “All of them,” Calesh said absently. He was thinking hard. “When did you learn about the army?”

  “Two months ago, and from the same source as you. Riyand was told a message had been sent to you in Elorium.” Ando’s lips quirked. “Did you really think you could slip in unseen? That one and a half thousand men of the Hand, and the hero of Gidren Field, would not be looked for?”

  Calesh wanted to hit this man quite badly, but something came together in his mind at those words. It was the way Ando said the Margrave’s name that did it; Riyand, spoken almost like a caress. That explained why an itinerant musician was trusted with a journey to Parrien on a secret mission. Ando Gliss was more than just a troubadour to Riyand: he was a confidante, and probably a lover. Well, that was their business. The All-Church might say it was a sin, and an obscenity against God, but it had never bothered Calesh very much.

  “Wait a moment,” Raigal Tai broke in. His voice was thick with anger. “If Riyand knew this was coming two months ago, then why hasn’t he started to make preparations? The army hasn’t even been called up. Blood of the god!” he burst out suddenly. “We could have been digging fortifications and shoring up city walls, and instead he didn’t even tell us what was about to happen. What does Riyand think he’s doing?”

  Ando, who had faced two fighting men without blinking a moment before, turned slightly pale at those words. A lover, Calesh thought again. “He’s negotiating. Until that army crosses the Rielle, there’s a chance we can get the orders changed. Offer some concessions, or something.”

  “Maybe we could have done,” Calesh said, “if some god-blasted idiot hadn’t murdered that priest by the river.”

  “And mentioned the Margrave,” Raigal added, “and then left a witness alive to tell of it. That killer was a fool, whoever he was.” He fixed his eyes on Calesh. “That finishes things, doesn’t it?”

  “I think so,” Calesh admitted. “The Basilica won’t let the murder of a priest go for the sake of a few concessions.”

  “So you came back. To fight beside us.”

  “I came back,” Calesh said.

  “You’re a hero of the wars against the heathens,” Raigal Tai said. “You could have stayed in Tura d’Madai. Joined one of the other military Orders. The All-Church would have feted you for it.”

  Calesh smiled slightly. “Can you see me serving with the Glorified? Or worse, the Justified? They hate me, after what I did at Gidren Field. The Justified would have broken like untrained farmers if Amalik and his infantry had hit them, and they knew it.”

  “They should have got down on their knees and thanked you,” Raigal Tai grumped.

  “It doesn’t work that way. The Justified can’t forgive me for pulling their coals off the fire. What the Hand did that day embarrassed them, and they resent us for it, Raigal. You know they do.”

  “You could still have stayed away. There are a hundred petty kings and lordlings looking to hire mercenaries, from the Mennos Islands all the way out to the steppe, and Temujin.”

  “That, I could have done,” Calesh conceded. “But it would have meant leaving you to face it alone. You, and Baruch, and Luthien. Not to mention everyone else in Sarténe. When that army comes it will come to burn the ground, Raigal, and it will leave nothing behind it but ashes.”

  “And this is the man,” Farajalla said softly, still in her high-backed chair, “who says he does not want to be made into more than he is. I think,” she added, gazing up at him, “that it would be a very, very hard thing to do.”

  “I think so too,” Raigal said. He was grinning. Faced with the shock of this danger, a threat to everything he knew, he was actually grinning. “It looks as though we’ll draw weapons together again, eh?”

  Calesh looked at them both, the friend of his heart and the wife who had taken it. Both of them were smiling. His chest felt queer inside. No man, he thought, had the right to be so blessed, in this world of matter and sin, as to have two such people love him as these. And neither Baruch nor Luthien was with him yet. They would be; he was sure of that, however the future was shaped. He would see them again before the end, whatever that might be.

  “I doubt,” Ando Gliss said, his quiet voice intruding, “that five thousand men will make a difference, when the All-Church has more than fifteen thousand across the river. Probably more than twenty thousand, with others to come. Riyand had hoped for more men, Commander Saissan.”

  “Blood of the god!” Raigal growled from beside the fireplace. “Doesn’t he know us at all? The Hand of the Lord trains its soldiers only to fight. We have no assassins, as the Justified do, and no sailors like the Glorified. Certainly no tax-gatherers, like the Order of the Basilica.” His lips curled disdainfully. “No distractions, in other words. We’re fighting men and nothing else, and we train for that alone. And we have the finest steel and horses money can buy. That’s why we’re the best. Always have been.”

  “Still are,” Calesh said.

  “Good enough to defeat twenty thousand men alone?” Ando asked sardonically.

  Calesh looked at him. “Alone? There are some three hundred men of the Hand here in Sarténe already, besides those I brought. Recruiters, mostly. In addition the Hand’s estates are worked by retired soldiers and half-trained youths. So the Hand might be able to field seven and a half, perhaps eight thousand men. Then the Margrave employs about three or four thousand – or he did when I was here before. Please tell me he still does.”

  “He still does,” Raigal said.

  “That makes eleven thousand men,” Calesh said, “near as damn it. It’s a decent start. And we’ll find more.” He turned to Ando Gliss. “You go and tell him what you heard here. And let him know I’ll come to Mayence in a few days. I have some business to attend to there.”

  “Very well,” Ando said. “I know Riyand will be delighted.”

  “I’m sure,” Calesh said. He didn’t think the Margrave would be quite so pleased when he learned Calesh had no intention of accepting his command, but that was for another day. First he had to ensure he h
ad command of the Hand, and that might not be easy. “One other thing, singer.”

  “Yes?”

  “The next time you want to hear what I have to say, come to me and ask,” Calesh said. He made sure to keep his voice pleasant. “I don’t take kindly to snooping, especially in times of war. If you do it again, I will break all the fingers of the hand you use to play that lute. Understood?”

  Ando’s lips tightened. “Perfectly.”

  “Off you go,” Calesh said.

  “It might not be wise to antagonise him,” Raigal said when the musician had left the room. “He has Riyand’s ear, and he’s destroyed the careers of scribes and advisors with a word.”

  Calesh listened to Ando’s steps recede along the corridor before he spoke. “I find it’s usually best to start as I mean to go on. It saves trouble later. Though I think Master Gliss has more of Riyand than his ear.”

  “You noticed that too?” Farajalla asked. “Yes, our friend the singer is sleeping with Riyand, I think. It’s hard to trust the judgment of a man in love.” She tilted her head and smiled. “Except you, of course, husband.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t recall saying I was in love.”

  “Ah. I’m desolate,” she said. “Should I have stayed on the ship, and sailed away from here without you?”

  “And leave me desolate?” he asked.

  She merely looked at him, saying nothing in reply to that, and Calesh felt his throat tighten. She could still do that to him, years after he had ridden into the courtyard in Harenc for the first time. Three years since they were married in a small chapel in the same city. Sometimes, when her almond eyes were on him, it was hard to think of anything else.

  He made an effort, clearing his throat, and saw his wife give a sudden secretive smile. “I do need to speak with Riyand, though. For one thing, I want to know if those negotiations Ando mentioned are likely to succeed.”

  “Shouldn’t think so,” Raigal Tai grunted. “What’s keeping Kendra? I’m starving away to a shadow here.”

  “Yes, one more hour and you’ll vanish if you turn sideways,” Calesh told the huge man. “I also have to know how many men Riyand can raise, and what he plans to do if the negotiations fail. Information on the army by the river wouldn’t hurt, either.” He thought about that for a moment. “I wonder who’s in command? It might be someone we know from Tura d’Madai.”

  “Baruch will know,” Raigal said.

  Of course he would. Baruch was a Commander, the same as Calesh, and a very good one too. He would have made it his business to learn all he could about the army poised across the river Rielle. “Then we’ll go to Mayence as soon as we can. The end of the week, perhaps.”

  “Why not now?”

  “Ailiss,” Calesh said, and saw his friend understand at once. “The first thing I have to do, even if that All-Church army is knocking at the door, is go to the Hidden House, and see the Lady.”