Air rushed back into his lungs. He pushed on to his hands and knees, trying to get up.
‘Mother Dark isn’t good enough for you?’ the woman asked, advancing on him. She kicked him, up into his gut, hard enough to lift him from the ground. Once more the air was driven from his lungs. He curled up in the grit and dust.
Lady Drukorlat was shrieking now, and Wreneck saw one of the soldiers reappear in the doorway, dragging the old woman out by the back of the neck. He propelled her through the air over the steps and she fell hard on the cobbles. Something broke, a bone, and the Lady screamed in pain.
‘Too old to fuck, this one,’ pronounced the soldier as he came down the steps behind Nerys. ‘And the house is fucking near empty, though Pryll’s still looking. No other staff that we could see either. It’s pathetic.’
The woman standing over Wreneck had not moved. Her hands were fists and those fists rested on her hips and it seemed she was watching what was being done to Jinia. She was breathing fast and her face was red. She smelled of wine.
Jinia’s eyes had closed and her head lolled, and if not for the soldier holding her upright she would have fallen over. Wreneck was sure that she was dead. When the woman pulled her hand out from under the tunic, it was red with blood. The man she had been gripping had spilled out the pee that wasn’t pee, and he backed away, pulling free as she laughed at him.
The woman spoke above Wreneck, her voice loud and commanding. ‘Sort this up, all of you. If the captain sees or hears of this, we’ll all hang.’
The man from the steps said, ‘Only one way to sort this, sergeant.’
‘So get on with it,’ she replied. ‘Maybe nobody comes up here like they was saying, but these servants got families somewhere, I bet. Thing is, we need to clean it all up, leave no sign of anything.’
There was blood on the ground, and Lady Nerys had rolled on to one side but her leg or hip was broken and she moaned and moaned.
‘Fine, only how do we do that?’
The sergeant sighed. ‘You really have no brain, do you, Telra? Bodies into the house and burn the fucker down to the ground. We saw the smoke, didn’t get here in time to save anyone. Tragic mess. Farab, did you kill the girl?’
The woman with the blood-smeared hand and forearm shrugged. ‘Probably. In any case, she won’t be coming round any time soon.’
‘Into the house, then.’ The sergeant looked down at Wreneck. He tried meeting her stare but she wouldn’t let him. She drew her sword, pointed it at him. Wreneck tried to curl tight. She pushed the blade into him anyway.
It sliced through his left shoulder, cutting the muscle down to score along the bone, and from there the sharp but rounded tip slid into his chest. It bumped along his ribs, then down into his lower belly, driving up against his hip. When she yanked the weapon free, the pain exploded in Wreneck.
* * *
He woke up coughing. Each cough was agony. There was blood everywhere. His left arm was senseless, pinned to the floor under him by his own weight. When he pulled back, more blood spurted, then slowed to a dribble through black smears of dried blood. Smoke filled the room. He was in the house. Looking around, eyes burning, he saw flames everywhere. Jinia was lying beside him, motionless, terribly pale. He reached for her. Her skin was cool, but there was life in it.
He was clumsy, but he wasn’t weak. Long ago he used to lift Orfantal with one arm, to make the boy squirm and squeal. Jinia was heavier, though, and there was a new weakness in him that he didn’t quite understand, but he managed to angle her limp form over his uninjured shoulder. When he stood, gasping under her added weight, he was blinded by the smoke. But he thought he had seen a way through, down the main corridor. He staggered in that direction.
The heat tore at him from both sides but he wouldn’t let himself flinch, since she might fall if he did. So he bore the burns, the lashing tongues that flared in his hair and made him scream.
To the right, at the far end: smoke but no flames. He went that way.
A door hanging open. He stumbled through into a room – Sandalath’s room – he could tell by the window’s shutters. There were no furnishings left, not even wall hangings. The bed had been broken up for firewood. There was nothing to burn. Wreneck made his way to the window.
He was putting it all together. They’d left them on the upper floor. Set fire to everything they could on the ground level. He hadn’t seen the Lady’s body, but he knew it was in here somewhere. He knew also that he had no hope of finding it. He couldn’t be a hero this day. All he could do was save himself and Jinia, the maid he loved.
He set her down beneath the window, and lifted the latches and pushed the shutters back. He looked out and down. Orfantal had once jumped from this floor, from a storeroom above the kitchen, landing catlike on the kitchen wastes. He had stained his clothes and Wreneck had been whipped for letting him do it.
Now, with the floor under him burning the soles of his feet – right through the thin leather of the worn work shoes – he leaned out and looked down. Curing dung was stacked there, because this was the window that wasn’t opened any more, and the wall was sunward and that kept everything dry. He turned and, one-armed, picked Jinia up, pushing her limp form over the sill, feet first. He lost his grip on her and she fell before he was ready. He looked down to see that she had landed in the dung. He couldn’t tell if the fall had broken anything – not with all the blood covering her legs.
Wreneck clambered out and leapt. He went a bit too far and landed on the edge of the heap, and the impact was hard enough to throw him forward, and the stabbed side of his hip gave way under him. He landed on his good shoulder, and that hurt as much as the burns and cuts.
Standing, he limped back to Jinia and pulled her clear of the dung. He saw her eyelids flutter and then grow still again, but she was breathing and that was good – that meant that everything was all right.
Lifting her again was harder this time, since now both shoulders were full of pain, but he managed it. Staggering, he made his way towards the ruins of the burnt-down stables. Heat gusted at his back for most of the way across the cobbles. He slipped in through a gap in the stone foundation wall and here the air was cooler and free of smoke. Laying Jinia down, he sat beside her, leaning his back against the wall.
He stared at her pretty face. She had a wandering eye when she got tired but with her eyes closed he couldn’t see it. Even when he did, he thought it was cute, and this made her even prettier. The trouble now was thinking of what to do next. The people in the village would see the smoke and know that the keep was burning down. But they wouldn’t do anything about it. There wasn’t enough of them. The only people that might care was his ma, and Jinia’s lame uncle.
So, he would wait for them.
And when he got better he would make a spear, the way Orfantal showed him from what he’d learned from somewhere. Finding a shaft of stout wood, heating and trueing it and heating it some more to harden the wood, especially at the point. Once he had his spear, he would go out and hunt down the sergeant who had stabbed him, and then the three who had hurt Jinia, and then the ones in the house who had killed Lady Nerys. He would find them because he had three names. Telra, Farab and Pryll.
He stared down at his scraped knees; and the welts of red from the burns and all the body hair that was now white and fell to dust when he brushed his skin, and all the splashed blood where flies now danced. He could see his pain, inside his head, and it was all red, but he decided to stay away from it.
She called me a Denier, but I never denied nothing. I was never even asked anything, so I couldn’t deny anything, could I? I seen that monastery once, the one on the other side of the river, and it looked like a fortress, or a place where they send criminals. It scared me.
He’d wanted to be a hero. Saving everyone. Saving Lady Nerys just like Orfantal would have done. Nothing ever went right in his life.
She should never have stabbed me. That hurt worse than any caning.
One
day I’ll stab her and see how she likes it.
When he heard his ma’s thin voice wafting up, calling his name in helpless anguish, Wreneck shouted wordlessly to bring her to him, and when at last he saw her and she saw him and hurried towards him, he began bawling and could not stop.
* * *
Tutor Sagander leaned hard on the crutch. The padding did nothing to ease the ache in his shoulder, but his one remaining leg hurt even more. He had no idea there could be so much pain in one poor body, and every twinge and spasm rode bitter waves. He imagined everything inside, beneath his skin, to be black as pitch, fouled by the pain and the hatred that seemed locked in a savage embrace, like lovers wanting to devour each other. But this was not torment enough. He could still feel the leg that was no longer there, could feel its outrage, its incessant demands. It haunted him, rushing through sensations of brutal cold and searing heat, maddening itch and deep ache.
He stood now, resting, in the narrow corridor, trying to hear the words being spoken at the front gate. From the window of his small cell he had seen Legion soldiers. Things were happening in the outer world, the marching of unheard footfalls; and the isolation he had willed upon himself, in the name of healing, now constricted him, tight enough to unleash a howl in his mind.
That cry battered him. There were Legion soldiers in Abara Delack. A dozen or more had ridden out to the monastery; he’d seen monks mustering under arms, and now it seemed that there was a confrontation at the gate.
And here he was, almost too weak to make his way outside.
The boy had a lot to answer for. Better he had drowned under the ice years ago. And as for the three daughters, well, he’d witnessed enough to know that their father should have slit their throats at birth. House Dracons was cursed, by its own blood, by all its secret histories the Lord guarded so well. But the tutor felt close to some truths. He had not wasted all his time here in the monastery.
He’d rested enough. The pain wasn’t going anywhere. Lurching into motion, Sagander made his way down the corridor. Cell doors were open on both sides, evidence of haste. Within he saw modest possessions, nothing of worth, little of interest.
The cult was reborn. He knew that much. The well in the compound had overflowed. The fountain in the garden ran red for days. That had been unnerving. Kharkanas was probably in an uproar. The Citadel itself had been built around an ancient temple to the river god. Sagander felt a certain satisfaction when thinking about all of that. When one viewed such matters from a distance, it was clear to see that Mother Dark and her cult were but upstarts, and all the blustering and displays of power hid paucity at the heart. His growing sense of contempt for Mother Dark was new, but he found pleasure in its cultivation.
Gasping, he reached the corridor’s end where it opened out to a high-ceilinged intersection. Off to his left ran the colonnaded transept leading to the assembly hall and beyond that the Vigil Chamber and then the front doors. A year ago and he would have traversed this distance in a few score heartbeats. Now it seemed impossible.
He saw no one about, none upon whom he could call for help – although of late they had been less inclined to give it. Their hearts were hardening to him, as he knew they would. Sympathy surrendered to pity and pity gave way to contempt and disgust. He would have to leave here soon. They might well decide to stop feeding him, or bathing him, or carrying him about. People were the same everywhere, no matter what lofty vows they proclaimed. Help was given only in the hope of its being reciprocated. Expectations of reward lurked behind every act of altruism. But he had nothing to offer them, nothing but more need, more weakness, more misery.
They saw his body and thought his mind crippled. And they were fools to think that way.
He intended to use that in bringing down House Dracons, and then his rival scholars in their rich homes and crowded lecture halls, and then, if he could, Mother Dark herself.
Yes, everything has changed. There is a virtue to imperfection, a place of hidden strength and will. The broken find cunning in the confession. The wounded unveil their wounds and sup well on the pity. See this hitching gait. Follow me down into death.
He reached the front doors and paused. Red blushes filled his head in pulsing waves. He was layered in sweat and its smell was wretched. His remaining leg quivered under him. None to carry me. They will pay for that. He struggled with the latch. Nothing was easy any more. They should have given him a servant.
I’ve fallen through the ice.
The thought made him scowl. He finally managed to open the door. Beyond, in radiating heat, the packed white dust of the compound was blinding, making Sagander flinch. He waited for his eyes to adjust, but it seemed that he could not slow his breathing, which remained fast and tight.
Thirty paces opposite him was the main gate. A small grilled window was at head-height and the mistress stood at it, with armed monks flanking her. More of the brothers lined the wooden walkways near the top of the defensive wall. On the crenellated roofs of the corner towers, the arbalests were loose on their swivels, bolts loaded and the heavy weapons held at the ready by watchful crews. The raw belligerence of the scene shocked him.
He made his way out, angling slightly sideways to take the steps. He saw a brother standing nearby. The young man was rethreading a strap on his left vambrace. Sagander lurched over to him. ‘Are we at war, brother?’
The man glanced up. ‘Tutor. You have made quite a journey to come out here. I commend you, sir.’
Sagander fought back a sneer. ‘Next you’ll be expecting me to join you hoeing the rows.’ The answering smile was simply irritating. ‘You did not answer my question, brother.’
‘Our faith is being tested,’ he replied, shrugging.
‘With whom does the mistress treat?’
‘An officer of the Legion company, I would imagine.’
‘Urusander’s Legion – yes, I know that. But which company? Who commands? Is this one of the disbanded companies or a garrison gone astray?’
The man shrugged a second time. ‘If you will excuse me, sir, we’re to make a showing along the wall.’ He set off at a jog.
Sagander reached up and wiped sweat from his brow. The sun and heat were making him feel ill.
The window’s door thudded shut at the gate and he looked over to see the mistress wheel about and march back towards the abbey. She comes straight to me. I could have stayed in the doorway, in the shade. Watching her approach, he saw fury in her dark visage and almost quailed before it.
Before he could speak, she said, ‘Get under cover, tutor. This could get messy.’ And then she was past him, up the steps and inside.
Sagander glared after her, feeling a fool. He’d thought she was coming to speak to him, but the truth was, he’d simply been in her path. Another slight. One of many. These things add up. Ignoring her command, he set out across the compound, towards the gate.
Horses thundered briefly on the other side, but the sound quickly drew away. The delegation was retreating back to Abara Delack. He cursed under his breath and then reconsidered. No. Better this way.
Only one monk remained at the gate itself and he regarded Sagander curiously. ‘Nothing to see any more, sir,’ he said.
‘I’m leaving.’
‘Sir?’
‘You have all been most gracious to me. Do convey my appreciation to the mistress and to all of your brothers. But I have no desire to be trapped in a siege. This is not my battle and I am needed in Kharkanas.’
‘I see that you have none of your possessions, sir—’
‘Send them on when you next have the opportunity. Is it safe beyond this gate – there is no risk in lifting the bar for me?’
‘None, sir. They have left for the moment. Tutor, I feel I should perhaps speak with the mistress first.’
‘I just did, brother – did you not see? She has given me leave. Now, you must understand, the walk into the town will be arduous enough for me. I would venture it now, while I still have the strength, for I tir
e greatly once dusk arrives.’
‘Then fare you well, sir. I regret we cannot take you down in a wagon.’
‘I fully understand, brother. Do you not all insist I take as much exercise as possible?’
‘But you refused more often than not, sir. I wonder if you are ready.’
‘I eschew exercise for its own sake, brother. Necessity is all I need to become fit.’
The monk lifted the latch and pushed open one of the gate doors.
His smile fixing against all the aches and the misery, Sagander made his way past the man, hobbling through with as much haste as possible. He feared at any moment a shout from the compound, and then hands dragging him back. Instead, he heard the door shut behind him, followed by the heavy settling of the bar.
As easy as that. Mistress, your children are fools.
If servants of Mother Dark were eager to spill Denier blood, they were welcome to it. They could spill all they wanted here, until the blood ran in rivers down this treacherous cobbled road. But the river god was old, appallingly old. It had power and it would understand rage, and vengeance. I have read enough to know. The old cults are blood cults. They thrive on it. They feed on savagery and violence. The god’s river will hold ten thousand bloated corpses on its bosom, and still yearn for more.
Mother Dark, strike your first blows. Kill the brothers and sisters. Slay the mistress here, it’s all she deserves. But this war’s last blow will not be yours.
River god, I will deliver the blood you need. This I promise.
He would find the commander of this company. Crippled though Sagander’s body might be, his mind was not.
There were hidden ways into the monastery, and he knew them all.
A blood bargain, in the name of vengeance. The river god understood. The river god blessed him in this betrayal.