‘I am, Hunn Raal. I always listen to what you have to say … until you’re too drunk to say anything worth listening to.’
‘But boy, I ain’t never that drunk.’
Halfway to the abandoned house, he saw her let the polished stone slip from her hand. It vanished in the yellowed grasses.
* * *
They hobbled the horses behind the house, out of sight from the road, and Osserc took Renarr’s hand and led her in through the gaping doorway. The grasses were thick on the floor, lumpy with wooden remnants from the rotted, fallen roof. He spent a short time clearing a space and then laid out his cloak.
She stood watching him as he stripped off his armour and then set aside his sword belt. He was not ashamed of his body, for it was lean and he bore the muscles of a fighter. When he had pulled off his sweat-stained linen shirt he looked over to see that she had slipped out from her tunic. She wore no undergarments, telling him that she had bathed in the stream; perhaps to wash away a night of lovemaking with her beloved, and perhaps she still felt his clumsy, rough hands upon her body, his desperate kisses.
He would sweep away such memories, and in so doing would cause her beloved to begin to pall in her eyes, and she would find herself longing for a more seasoned touch – for in the ways of lovemaking the whores had taught him all he needed to know.
She was not thin, yet wore her weight as if she belonged in it, and no life of idyll or tug of years pulled down upon her. The curves were round and he had a vision of her in the future, swollen with child yet pretty much the same as she was now.
Osserc wondered, as he drew her to him, if she made use of the herbs the whores employed to ensure that a man’s seed took no root. As far as he knew, he’d yet to sire a bastard, though it was known that some whores went away and did not return, suggesting that the herbs were not foolproof. He had no aversion on that count, though his father would be less than pleased. Still, Urusander knew of his son’s trips down to the taverns – no doubt Hunn Raal kept his lord informed, perhaps in detail.
She was tentative at first, until her desire awoke to his measured caress, and much as he wanted to throw her down on the cloak and rut like a boar, he held himself back.
‘There’s an art to torturing women in bed, Osserc. You want to tease … like a lake’s waves rolling on to the shore, with each wave reaching farther, only to slide back and away. You offer the flood, you see? And keep offering it, but not giving it, not until she begs to be drowned – and you’ll know it by how she holds you, her clutching hands, her gasps. Only then do you take her.’
When at last he slid into her, she cried out.
He felt something give inside her and wondered what it was, and only when they were at last done, and he rolled away and saw the blood, did he comprehend. She knew nothing of herbs, and her beloved was a man kept at a distance, and what he longed for Osserc had just stolen. The poor fool was finished.
Lying on his back, staring up at scudding summer clouds, he wondered how he should feel about all of that. ‘Renarr,’ he finally said. ‘If had known …’
‘I am glad, milord, that it was you.’
He heard her hesitation halfway through her confession, and knew that she had almost voiced his name; but in the wake of what they had done a new fragility had arrived, and Osserc knew enough to say as little as possible. He did not want this peasant girl walking up to the keep, belly distended, and shouting out his name.
His father would take her in – if only to spite his son. Things would get complicated. Besides, he had told her as much, hadn’t he? His future, the service and the sacrifices awaiting him? She understood well enough.
‘I will not ride with you into the village,’ she said.
He nodded, knowing she was up on one elbow and studying his face.
‘I need to go back to the stream.’
‘I know.’
‘Alone.’
‘If you think it best,’ he replied, reaching down to find her hand. He squeezed it and then held it up to his lips. ‘I will remember this day,’ he said. ‘When I ride the borderlands and grow old under the sun and stars.’
Her laugh was soft and, he realized after a moment, disbelieving. He looked across and met her eyes. She was smiling, and there was something both tender and sad in it. ‘I think not, milord, although it is kind of you to say so. I was … clumsy. Unknowing. I fear you must be disappointed, although you hide it well.’
He sat up, still holding her hand. ‘Renarr, I do not lie to make you feel better – I will not do that. When I say I will remember this day, I mean it, and above all, it is you that I will remember. Here, upon this cloak. To doubt me is to hurt me.’
Mute, she nodded, and he saw the glisten of tears in her eyes.
Suddenly she looked much younger. He studied her face. ‘Renarr, when was your night of blood?’
‘Almost two months past, milord.’
Abyss take me! No wonder her beloved only yearned! He climbed to his feet, reached for his shirt. ‘Your lips are puffy, Renarr. Use the cold water of the stream to ease them. I fear my beard has scratched your chin.’
‘I will pick berries and make more scratches.’
‘Upon your face? Not too many, I hope.’
‘A few, and on my knees, as if I had stumbled and fallen.’
He pulled on his leggings and reached for his armour. ‘By your wit, Renarr, I had judged you older.’
‘By my wit, milord, I am.’
‘Name your father and mother.’
She blinked. ‘My mother is dead. My father is Gurren.’
‘The old smith? But he was married to Captain – Abyss below, she was your mother? Why did I not know you?’
‘I have been away.’
‘Where?’
‘Yan Monastery, milord. In any case, I doubt you saw my mother much, and she died on the campaign against the Jheleck.’
‘I know she did,’ Osserc replied, buckling on his sword. ‘Renarr, I thought you just a girl – a woman, I mean – from the village.’
‘But I am.’
He stared at her. ‘Your mother saved my father’s life on the day of the assassins. She and Hunn Raal—’
‘I know, milord, and I am thankful for that.’
‘Thankful? She died.’
‘She did her duty,’ Renarr replied.
He looked away, ran both hands through his hair. ‘I need to think,’ he said.
‘There is nothing,’ she said. ‘I too will remember this day. That is all we need, is it not?’
‘And if you take my seed?’
‘I will make no claims upon you, milord.’ She paused and then added, ‘Most of the stories I’ve heard about you, milord, come from my father—’
‘Who hates us, and we do not blame him for that, Renarr – he should know that. He lost the woman he loved. My father still weeps to remember that day.’
‘It is all right, milord. It was my father’s unreasonable opinions of you that made me first curious, enough to see for myself. And, as I suspected, he is wrong about you.’
He thought to say more, but nothing came to him. She drew close and kissed him and then turned away. ‘I will wait here until you are well gone, milord.’
Feeling helpless, Osserc left the ruined house. He collected up both horses and led them on to the rutted track.
He caught sight of the polished pebble in the grasses, hesitated, and then continued on.
Three paces later he turned round and went back. He picked it up and slipped it into the pouch at his belt.
Once back on the road, he mounted the warhorse, and – Neth trailing – they took the hillside at a canter.
* * *
Ahead on the track, just past the village, a flag was being raised at the Tithe Gate at the bottom of the hill, announcing Osserc’s return. Seeing the banner climb skyward and then stream out in the wind pleased Osserc as he rode past the trader carts and the figures edged to one side of the road, standing with heads bowed. The
flag’s field was sky blue studded with gold stars, and so marked one of Vatha blood. A second pole alongside the familial one remained bare, as it had done ever since Urusander ordered his Legion to stand down.
Houseblades – veterans of the Legion one and all – were pushing people from the gateway as Osserc approached. He rode through without slowing, nodding at the salutes from the old soldiers. The way ahead was steep and Kyril was blowing hard by the time they reached the keep’s High Gate.
He rode into the courtyard, hoping to see his father upon the steps – he would have been informed of his son’s return – but only retainers stood there. There had been a temptation, briefly entertained, to rein in at the Tithe Gate and order the Legion flag hoisted; but he had feared a refusal from the Houseblades. He imagined closed expressions looking up at him, and the sergeant telling him that only the Legion commander could order such a thing. Osserc’s authority was fragile enough, a thin shell left untouched out of respect for Urusander. So he had dismissed the idea. But now he wished he had insisted; that second flag would surely have brought his father out to meet him.
It seemed that he ever chose to do the wrong thing, and that each time boldness offered itself up he turned away from it; and to ride past the veterans with stern regard and silent resolve now struck him as diffident, if not pathetic. Self-possession, when nothing more than a pose, bared a prickly hide over a host of failures and all confidence could sink away leaving no trace: to hide weakness behind bluster was to hide nothing at all. He carried himself as if all eyes were upon him, and they gauged with critical judgement that hovered on the edge of mockery; Osserc imagined words muttered behind his back, laughs stifled when faces were turned away. He had earned nothing in his young life, and the airs he held to, he grasped with desperation.
Reining in at the steps, scowling as the grooms rushed in, he dismounted. He saw Castellan Haradegar – a man only a year or two older than Osserc – standing near the doors. Quickly ascending the steps, Osserc met the man’s eyes. ‘Where is my father?’
‘In his study, milord.’
Osserc had not yet eaten this day, but he knew his father forbade any food or drink anywhere near his precious scrolls. He hesitated. If he ate at once, then the import of his words would lose all vigour, but already a headache was building behind his eyes – he did not do well when hungry. Perhaps a quick bite first and then—
‘He awaits you, milord,’ Haradegar said.
‘Yes. Inform the kitchens I will eat following my meeting with my father.’
‘Of course, milord.’
Osserc strode inside. The lower floor was crowded with workers – masons and carpenters and their flit-eyed apprentices – and the air was filled with dust, the stone paving underfoot coated in sawdust and the crumbled plaster that was all that remained of the old friezes that had once adorned every wall. He was forced to step round men and women, their tools and the blocks of marble and beams of rare wood, and these obstacles only darkened his mood. When he reached the study, he thumped heavily on the door and entered without awaiting invitation.
His father was standing over his map table, but this scene lost its martial pretensions in the details, since he leaned over an array of fired clay tablets, and the clothing he wore was ink-stained and spotted with dried droplets of amber wax. Urusander was unshaven and his long hair, streaked with grey, hung down in greasy strands.
Osserc strode forward until he stood opposite his father, the broad table between them.
‘You are in need of a bath,’ Urusander said without looking up.
‘I bring word from Hunn Raal, and Commander Calat Hustain.’
Urusander glanced up. ‘Calat Hustain? You were in the Outer Reach? Why did Hunn Raal take you there?’
‘We were visiting, Father. In the company of Kagamandra Tulas and Ilgast Rend, as well as Sharenas Ankhadu.’
Urusander was studying him. ‘Then where is Raal? I think I need a word with him.’
‘He rides in haste to Kharkanas, Father. There is dire news, which sent him to the Citadel, to audience with Mother Dark, and this same news sent me here, to you.’
Urusander’s expression was severe and it seemed to age him. ‘Out with it, then.’
‘A new threat, Father. Invasion – from the Sea of Vitr.’
‘Nothing comes from the Vitr.’
‘Until now,’ Osserc replied. ‘Father, this was of such importance that Sharenas and Kagamandra both rode out across Glimmer Fate to the very shore of the Vitr to see for themselves. Hunn Raal carried the news to the Citadel. Kurald Galain is under threat. Again.’
Urusander looked down but said nothing.
Osserc stepped closer to the table, until he felt its worn edge against his legs. ‘Mother Dark will have no choice,’ he said. ‘She will need the Legion once more. Sevegg, Risp and Serap have all ridden out, to carry word to the garrisons and to the decommissioned. Father, the flag must be raised—’
Urusander was studying the clay tablets, but at that he shook his head and said, ‘I have no interest in doing so.’
‘Then I will stand in your stead—’
‘I – you are not ready.’
‘In your eyes I will never be ready!’
Instead of replying to that accusation, instead of easing Osserc’s deepest fear, Urusander stepped away from the table and walked to the window behind him.
Osserc glared at his father’s back. He wanted to sweep the tablets from the tabletop, send them on to the floor to shatter into dust. For the briefest of instants, he wanted to drive a knife into his father, deep between the shoulder blades, straight down into the heart. But he did none of these things; he but stood, trembling against all that his father’s silence told him. Yes, son. You will never be ready. ‘What must I do to convince you?’ he asked, hating the weakness in his tone.
Urusander folded his hands behind his back but did not turn from whatever he was looking at through the murky window panes. ‘Give me one thought not made in haste, Osserc. Just one.’ He glanced over a shoulder, momentarily, and there was grief in his eyes. ‘And I will cling to it as if it were the Spar of Andii itself.’
Uncomprehending, Osserc shook his head. ‘Will you keep your only son beneath the respect of everyone? Your own soldiers? Why? Why do that to me?’
‘And if I make you commander of the Legion, you will have all the respect you so need?’
‘Yes!’
Urusander had turned back to the window. He now reached up and rubbed a smudge on the frail glass. ‘By title and the burden of responsibility, you will find all you yearn for? You will find this “respect” you’ve heard so much about, from old veterans and drunk fools; from the poets and what you think you see upon the wood panels so finely brushed into likenesses – from historians and other whores of glory?’
Osserc feared for his father’s mind. He struggled to return Urusander to this world, where matters of import needed to be discussed. ‘Father, listen to me. Mother Dark will summon you.’
‘I imagine that she will.’ But when he faced Osserc once more Urusander’s eyes were grave and wounded. ‘And in you, where there was weakness, there will be strength. And where there was strength, there will now be inflexible certainty. Doubts will drown, humility throat-cut and left face down in the mud, and on all sides they will salute you and hang upon your every word – which they must do, since you will hold their lives in your hands, Osserc. Not just your soldiers, but all of Kurald Galain. Every child, every child – do you comprehend any of this?’
‘You think me afraid? I am not, Father.’
‘I know, but I wish you were. Afraid. Terrified.’
‘You would have me frozen as a hare beneath a hawk’s shadow?’
‘I would have you afraid, Osserc. I would see you afraid – here, before me in this moment. I would see you realize that fear, and yet take its vast weight upon your shoulders, and stand strong. Resolute. I would see command humble you.’
‘Then, Father, I
ask you. How will you ever see any of that if you do not give me command?’
‘Still you do not understand, do you?’
‘Because you offer, only to take away!’
‘Is it only commanders who know fear? What of the crippled widower who can no longer support his family? Or the widow with too many children to feed? What of the lone wanderer who spends a night without shelter when the wolves are hunting? What of the broken man who must rise to face every morning when all love is dead and all hope is lost? Tell me, who does not live with fear?’
‘Father, you give me nothing with these words. What fears have I faced, when you have kept me locked up here instead of riding with you and your soldiers?’
Urusander sighed. ‘You will find a soldier’s fear in your time, Osserc. I never doubted your courage with blade in hand and self-preservation the wager.’
Even a compliment from his father could sting in its utterance. Before he could muster a reply, however, his father continued. ‘Osserc, why did you ever imagine that I would give you the Legion?’
The question struck like a blow against his chest. Osserc felt his knees weaken and he almost reeled. ‘But – Hunn Raal said—’
Urusander’s brows lifted. ‘Hunn Raal? He’s like a lame dog I can’t keep from under my feet. He’s an Issgin – of course he does nothing but sniff my heels for any scrap he can find. The Issgin yearn for a return to the court, and he’s the closest of their brood to that and no doubt he imagines himself almost within reach of it. He rode to bring word to Mother Dark? He seeks an actual audience with her?’ Urusander shook his head. ‘The man is a drunk with a drunk’s bloated self-image – Abyss knows, drunks think themselves clever, and measure the prowess of their wit by the genius of their rationalizations. Of course, the first fool they deceive is themselves. There will be no audience with Mother Dark. Not for Captain Hunn Raal.’
‘But I am your son! Who else should inherit the Legion?’
‘Inherit? Is Kurald Galain’s only standing army a thing to be inherited? Like a keep, or a precious bauble? Is it a mine? A forge? A fine horse? A throne? Have you understood nothing? One cannot inherit the Legion – one must earn the right to the privilege of commanding it.’